The situation couldn't have been more stereotypical: Two college-age guys sit on their porch, with $7 between them, trying to think of a way to get money for beer. The result, however, was hardly cliche: A few hours later, Jeff Huting, a graduate from Collins College with a degree in visual communications, and Kenn Cotterman, a history and political science senior at ASU, had sketched out a plan for a product to make more than enough for beer money.
The idea was "The G Book," a little black book with the names, numbers and addresses of everything the two thought a typical college student could use, from Casey Moore's to the park at South Mountain. The two also launched a Web site, www.thegbook.com, which they say will eventually offer restaurant reviews and an online community. Additionally, some of the restaurants listed offer a 10 percent discount when a card that comes with the book is presented.
The pair has started to distribute 10,000 copies of the book and card, financing everything themselves.
"Everything has been on my personal credit," says Huting, 21, who says he is now $37,000 in debt.
The pair has spent the past three and a half months driving up and down Tempe streets, talking to business owners trying to persuade them to sign up for the discount program, says Cotterman. After finding someone to run the Web site, the majority of the work, including research and design, fell on their shoulders, the two say.
"I hated doing whatever little jobs I had to do to scrape by," says Cotterman. "And the hardest part of this was just waking up every day and being willing to work. That's all there is to it."
Their hard work might soon pay off in large dividends. The two sent their idea to a firm that has created a solid business proposal and shopped it around to potential investors. Though it was expensive, they "had to do it," says Huting, "because we knew what we wanted to say, but we didn't know how to say it in a way so that businessmen wouldn't just laugh in our faces."
Despite having almost no business training, the two 20-somethings are receiving investment offers and say The G Book could soon go national.
Another testament to working hard on your own ideas is found in David Werner, 21, who started University Geeks with his freshman-year roommate Alan Clifford, 20. Both say they were interested in computers, and they sat down over a few dinners and talked business. By April 2004, University Geeks was born.
The group offers consulting services, which come discounted to purchasers of computer package deals sent to incoming freshman through mailings. Freshmen addresses are obtained through the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, says Werner, a finance and economics major.
Rather than placing themselves in debt, Werner and Clifford, now juniors, say they gave about a dozen presentations to friends and family in spring 2004 to get the capital they needed. Since then, Werner says he and Clifford worked almost for free to pay it back. Without receiving any grant money, the pair has almost earned enough to pay back investors. The company has gotten so big that Werner says he and Clifford are hoping to develop a franchising option for their honors thesis so they can step out of their management roles.
In the end, however, both cases may prove the Thomas Edison quote Cotterman says inspired him to venture out on his own: "Success is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration and preservation."
Reach the reporter at ben.horowitz@asu.edu.
