SearchMyCampus.com: The Year that was

I hate to sound cliché, but how time does fly! SearchMyCampus just completed its first year of existence, and it is quite amazing how far we've come in this time. It's been a year of hits and near misses and despite all the grey hairs its added to each of our heads, we've come out of with far more experience and knowledge than we had when it started.

SearchMyCampus.com was launched in December 2007. The basic concept behind the website was that students had some common needs during their 3-5 years at college which could be resolved by other students, service providers (housing providers, tutors, book sellers, etc) and employers. They needed a means of publicizing their needs to people around their campus who could help them. SearchMyCampus allowed them to post online campus classifieds advertisements to list their need for jobs, housing, coaching, books, gadgets, transport and more. The additional value we created was establishing different classified websites for each university, effectively creating a portal for each campus e.g. Delhi University classifieds, Bangalore University classifieds, Osmania University classifieds etc. Therefore, students of each university could find what they need within their own campuses, thus making the solution more targeted towards their needs.

The initial goal was to take the product out to the market and let users tell us what they needed from it. We started with a basic prototype of the product with a vague idea about how it could be implemented. The product was first exposed to the public at a fest in Shri Ram College of Commerce, one of the top colleges in Delhi University. The response was far better than we had expected, and it helped us realize that jobs - part time jobs, internships and graduate jobs, seemed to be the most important need faced by every student, with housing and tutoring being close seconds.

Our goal for the next few months was to study product usage and modify the product based on user response. We used feedback from students to launch version 2 of SearchMyCampus.com in May 2008, only 6 months after its initial launch. This version was far more comprehensive in terms of features, and had a better interface and design. We streamlined categories to eliminate those that students weren't using, added features like discussion forums and basic user accounts, and created better search features than those in the previous version. There was also a complete ugly-duckling-turns-to-swan transformation in terms of website design.

Our initial goal of using feedback from users to enhance value hasn't changed and we are constantly working on modifying the product to better meet user needs. Over the past 6 months, we have added several features including a comprehensive classified ad management system, the option to receive responses via both e-mail and mobile, information blogs among others. The number of campuses we serve has also increased due to popular demand with several tier 2 and 3 cities and colleges being included in the list.

Apart from a strong product, user participation and content generation was also crucial to generate value. Creating awareness about SearchMyCampus in colleges across the country was therefore essential. We experimented with several promotional techniques over the past year. Besides visiting several college fests, we ran a short campaign on popular radio stations Fever 104 and Hit 95 FM. We also advertised on auto rickshaws around Delhi, focusing especially in the campus areas. The period for admissions in July-August was particularly important for us, with several fresher’s waiting to be initiated into our community. We were constantly present at campuses in Delhi during this time to publicize our services to students.

SearchMyCampus also enjoyed its 15 minutes of fame with several newspapers writing about us during the past year including the Hindustan Times, Education Times, Indian Express, and Metro Now. We were also featured on news channels like NDTV 24/7, NDTV Metronation and NewsX. This public validation of our product has encouraged us to continue with our efforts.

Our first big milestone was achieved in August 2008, with over 10,000 listings made on SearchMyCampus. The next 10,000 has been far quicker, and we should be achieving that within the next month.

Our biggest learning out of this year has been that communication is the basic problem that students face, and if we manage to create an efficient communication mechanism that serves students, employers and service providers, we can ideally resolve most basic problems including jobs, housing, and coaching. Our focus over the next year is therefore on encouraging user participation to create 2 way communications. This can be done by creating awareness about our services and making our product accessible to all potential users. We have several new ideas in the pipeline to facilitate the same, and the end of 2009 should hopefully see us in a different position than what we are in now.