Unigo.com, not your average New York City boy story

ERNST-JAN PFAUTH

8 October '08,05:38pm

Follow

Every once in a whileEvery once in a while we publish an interview with a start-up. We we publish an interview with a start-up. Weask five questions, hoping the answers will give you inspirationask five questions, hoping the answers will give you inspirationand new views.and new views.

Unigo.com, not your average New York City boystory

0SHARES

0COMMENT

http://tnw.to/1Cbf4 Save to ▾↪

Sign up for the Growth MBA: GROW FAST or DIE SLOW.

THE

NEXT

WEB

▾ ℹ Search…BLOG

Easily create high-quality PDFs from your web pages - get a business license!

This time I’m interviewing Jordan Goldman, founder and CEO ofUnigo.com – a student-generated guide to North-American colleges.When I read an article about him in the New York Times magazine afew weeks ago, I was struck by his inspiring story. Jonathan Dee wrotethe stunning piece like only a reporter from Eight Avenue can. It’sstarts like this:

Born and raised in Staten Island, he graduated from Wesleyan in 2004,spent two post-grad years in England and, upon his return to his nativecity, lived in 16 different sublets in the next two years. His own parentsreferred to him as the Wandering Jew. “I was ordering Chinese lunchspecials and dividing them into three,” he remembered recently, “and thatwas my food for days. My mom thought I was nuts. She kept saying, ‘Geta job,’ and I’d say, ‘No, Ma, I have this idea.’ ”

Let’s hear the rest of the story from the Wesleyan graduate himself. It’skind of long, but I promise, you’ll be entertained.

How did you come up with the idea of Unigo?How did you come up with the idea of Unigo?“When I was

Easily create high-quality PDFs from your web pages - get a business license!

“When I was18, I created aseries of 100% student-written college guidebooks, called Students’Guide to Colleges’, that was published in a couple editions fromPenguin Books. About a year after I stopped doing Students’ Guide, Istarted thinking about the limitations of print guidebooks – eachcollege only got a small number of pages, with no photos, no videos,no interactivity …

For a four-year, $50,000 to $200,000 decision, one of the five moststressful decisions of people’s lives … I realized high school studentsand parents needed more accurate, authentic, honest information.And college students needed a place where they could really representtheir college lives – if they loved their school, if they had issues with it,if they were someplace in-between. The internet provided theopportunity to create an enormous, comprehensive and totally freeresource that could help everyone.

But it was really important that we create something that was actuallyrepresentative. That we didn’t just sit back, open a review platform,and hope people came.

So what we did was, we hired an 18 person editorial team, and decidedUnigo would initially cover 250 colleges. We spent about 3 months

Easily create high-quality PDFs from your web pages - get a business license!

Unigo would initially cover 250 colleges. We spent about 3 monthsresearching every one of those colleges. Then we hired interns on theground, who really believed in what we were trying to accomplish andwho helped corroborate our research. For the next 5 months, wereached out to current students one by one, telling them we wanted tocreate this giant and honest resource and asking them to be a part of it.We put in extra effort to ensure we received reviews from studentsfrom every major, extracurricular, gender, race, religion, politicalaffiliation, sexual orientation and more … students who love theirschool, who have issues with it, or have mixed feelings.

In the end, at 250 colleges, more than 15,000 students contributedmore than 35,000 pieces of content. In some cases, a full 10% of thestudent body took part. And the value of having that volume of reviewsis, if we have 150 reviews of a college, you can search by a variety ofcriteria. You can say, only show me reviews by English majors, orAfrican American students, or politically right-wing students at a left-wing institution … so you can see a school from the eyes of someonewho’s just like you.

Unigo launched on September 17th, and now that we’re live we’re aslightly different site for high school students and college students. Ifyou’re a high school student, Unigo gives you access to an enormousamount of free and honest information about each college – editorial

Easily create high-quality PDFs from your web pages - get a business license!

amount of free and honest information about each college – editorialoverviews, reviews, photos, videos, documents and more. Very soon,we’ll be adding blogs and forums to the mix.

And if you’re a college student, Unigo gives you all the tools you needto create content about your college life. Anyone with the right .eduemail address can create content about their school. They can createreviews, videos, photos, upload class notes, academic writing, creativewriting, campus journalism … write blogs, interact in forums, createprofiles and message their classmates and other prospective students.It’s pretty exciting so far!

What was your biggest challenge during theWhat was your biggest challenge during thedevelopment process?development process?“I think thebiggestchallenge was being able – and willing – to let the idea evolve as you goalong. When the idea for Unigo first came about, I reached out to someof the smartest people I could find, and asked them if I could buy themlunch and run the idea past them. And, in the beginning, the idea hadplenty of flaws. People would listen, and nod their head, then go on torip it apart – “you didn’t think of this, what would you do in thisscenario, this part doesn’t make sense.” Sometimes that can be hard to

Easily create high-quality PDFs from your web pages - get a business license!

scenario, this part doesn’t make sense.” Sometimes that can be hard tohear (especially if, like I was, you’re living only on your rapidlydepleting savings, sleeping on couches and staying in strange sublets,with everyone telling you to get a real job – but you’re trying to keep atit, stick to it, doing whatever you can to get the idea off the ground.)

But in the end, it’s actually the best thing in the world, the people whopick your idea apart. You have to kind of put yourself aside, and listento what they’re saying, then go home and take out your pen and try tosay okay, they identified a hole, how do I fill that hole now? Onceyou’ve done that, ask them to sit down with you a month later and testout your patch, see if it holds. If it doesn’t, try again.

I’d say I probably had 50 or 100 of those lunches with smart peoplebefore we raised any money to create Unigo – trying out ideas, testingthem, getting shot down and building them up. But you really do learnfrom that process. And your idea gets immeasurably stronger. Notbeing defensive, and letting myself learn from them, was one of thehardest – and most worthwhile – things that got done.

Also, last thing, you shouldn’t be afraid to share your idea because youthink someone might steal it, because then it will never get better. Findas many really smart people as you can, tell them about it, and reallylisten to their feedback.

Easily create high-quality PDFs from your web pages - get a business license!

And who knows, maybe those conversations will even lead to your ideabeing funded and taken off the ground.

Can you describe NYC’s start-up culture comparedCan you describe NYC’s start-up culture comparedto Silicon Valley?to Silicon Valley?”I’ve actuallynever been toSilicon Valley, so can’t speak to what that experience is like. But NewYork City has a really great and amazingly supportive community.Right in proximity of the Flatiron building, where are office is located,there are hundreds of startups and online companies all within 20blocks of one another. And in the center of the 20 blocks there’s thishamburger place called Shake Shack, that has amazing food, and allthe different people from all the startups – this whole online ecosystem,everything from coders to designers to CEO’s to angel investors to VC’s– they all eat at Shake Shack all the time, and meet one another andhang out. I’ve just found it really helpful and welcoming. There’s alsosome great NYC startup blogs like Center Networks, and onlinecommunities like nextNY (founded by Charlie O’ Donnell, who’s thegreatest), and angel networks like Angelsoft with David Rose and NateWestheimer …

Easily create high-quality PDFs from your web pages - get a business license!

I’m babbling a bit, but I’ve really found the proximity and communityand general good-naturedness, the real mentality of “how can we shareknowledge and help one another out to create stuff that’s new andexciting and cool” … I think it’s pretty great.

What will be the influence of your start-up on theWhat will be the influence of your start-up on thenext web?next web?“I think Unigois a site thathelps college students really represent themselves, create stuff abouttheir college lives and share it …

And lets high school students and parents take this huge, expensive,terrifying decision … and turn it into something that’s fun and real andhonest, and catered to who they … so they can make the best possiblechoice. It takes an old media product, these guidebooks that have beenaround for the past 50 years, and turns it into an expansive andevolving free resource that’s exponentially better than any book couldbe.

We also – there are a lot of review sites where anyone and everyonethrows their two cents in. They’re not necessarily experts on theproduct, but there’s wisdom in the collective intelligence of all these

Easily create high-quality PDFs from your web pages - get a business license!

product, but there’s wisdom in the collective intelligence of all thesepeople contributing.

Unigo’s in an interesting position, though. Because all the peoplecreating our reviews really are experts – there’s no-one better suited tospeak to what it’s like to live and learn at these institutions than currentstudents. So it’s this enormous bank of true expert opinions andperspectives. We also have our editors, who have done months ofresearch on every college and have that corroborated by our interns,read every review and create an overview of all our review content foreach college (using quotes from student reviews, which hyperlink backto the full student review so words are never taken out of context.)

I think, as far as “user generated content” goes, there are a couplethings we do at Unigo that hopefully add to that conversation.

You can make up this question yourself!You can make up this question yourself!What’s theWhat’s thebest part ofbest part ofhaving an office full of twenty-somethings?having an office full of twenty-somethings?

Watching everyone face off against one another in Rock Band.

Easily create high-quality PDFs from your web pages - get a business license!

SHOW 1 COMMENT

Related stories

Facebook video is on course tosteal YouTube’s video sharingcrown

The best money saving travelapps

Super-durable ‘Liquidmorphium’Turing Phone promises ultra-secure communications

What startups REALLY mean Edjing Pro brings new effects andmore control for your mixes

Easily create high-quality PDFs from your web pages - get a business license!

About Team Contact Advertise Terms of Service Privacy Policy Jobs Internships Goodies

Copyright 2001 - 2015 The Next Web, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Easily create high-quality PDFs from your web pages - get a business license!