Emmanuel Azih is the co-founder of CollegeMedium and a recent graduate of Georgia Tech. Visit the company blog here.

How large is your team, and what is the background behind the project?

The idea behind CollegeMedium is quiet simple: to connect college students in a specific university with each other, with businesses within their community, and with students from other schools within close proximity.

Most colleges already have classifieds sites serving their students, however these sites restrict participation to students who attend that institution. We feel that by opening the individual markets to businesses and students from other schools, we can increase the value students gain from the classifieds market without compromising the distinct and unique identities of the individual schools.

CollegeMedium has a full time staff of 4 individuals, with differing backgrounds in design, programming, project management and business development. However, as is consistent with most startups, everyone wears multiple hats at one point or another. One minute you could be testing the development site, and the next you are answering customer service requests or fielding questions from journalists.

How long has the development process taken so far, and what have you learned along the way?

The site took about over 6 months to develop from the prototype to the fully functional model. We keep adding new features to the website, averaging about 5 unique features per month. These features range from brand new sections—for instance, the upcoming “let’s ride” section which gives students an easy way to carpool—to functional modifications barely noticeable visually, but which greatly enhance the overall user experience.

Building the website taught us some valuable lessons. In addition to learning how to live on 4 hours of sleep each night, we learned that having a great idea from concept to development means absolutely nothing if you cannot execute an efficient marketing strategy. As such, we selected a school, initiated multiple marketing campaigns, and established a blue print of successful strategies that we used to promote the site in other schools.

What are some unique aspects of CollegeMedium?

The reason CollegeMedium is unique boils down to one simple word: Access.

We encourage participation of businesses and non-students in the classifieds arena. While the website grants access to businesses and other students from multiple schools, the levels of access are based on the type of user. Businesses and other non-students never have to register to use the website. However, they can still post jobs, post available housing, post rides for students or buy items on sale. Now in order to maintain the site’s integrity and dedication to students, college students have to register on CollegeMedium. However, returning to the easy access theme, students can register on CollegeMedium via Facebook, the popular student-networking site. What this means is that any student who has a Facebook account (approximately 86 per-cent of all students) also has a CollegeMedium account awaiting them. No new user names, no new password.

Simply easy Access.

Where do you get your knowledge and inspiration from?

Well believe it or not, my knowledge comes from one source, and my inspiration comes from another. Most of my knowledge comes from reading. I read everything, from reputable magazines and online journals to obscure personalized license plates. And no matter what I read, I try to relate it to CollegeMedium. There are tons of good (and pretty bad) reading materials out there, but having a passion for reading certainly helps.

I get my inspiration by remembering that for every good idea out there, someone thought it was stupid. I recall reading somewhere that when the idea about making cheaper cars was being tossed around, someone said, “I already have a horse, why would I ever need to go 40 miles per hour?” Now I am certainly not comparing CollegeMedium to the automobile, but I bet you that there is a student somewhere saying “My school already has its own classifieds system, why do I need a national one that’s open to everyone?” To that student, I say this: All things considered, an open market is the best market. All things not considered, an open market is still the best market. Economics teaches us that time and time again.