Grad’s second startup seeks to connect prospies, hosts

Last fall, 2014 graduate and current University of Chicago freshman Jason Li attended a conference at the school called 3DS, short for 3 Day Startup with classmate Raymond Han and Columbia freshman Matthew Pregasen. While taking hands-on courses about entrepreneurial skills such as Ideation, Team Formation and Customer Discovery, the three met and immediately began a valuable partnership.

There, the three realized the potential of putting a college-oriented spin on Airbnb, a popular online startup that links travellers with local hosts who offer their homes for rent.

Li and his partners imagined a service for  prospective college students (prospies) to connect with undergraduate student hosts, giving them valuable information in the college decision process.

Thus, the three founded UProspie. Li and his partners launched early access for the new startup on March 14.

The services of the startup allow prospies and undergraduate hosts to schedule meetings with each other at a local coffee shop, sit in on a college class or even meet over video chat. Through personal interactions with an undergraduate with similar interests, prospies gain a more accurate representation of the school’s culture and lifestyle.

Early-access applicants will be the first to “test the waters” and experience the full-service launch in April. UProspie is currently offering services at 10 campuses across the nation including UChicago, Harvard and UC Berkeley to students and hosts who sign up on its website.

In comparison to UProspie’s online competitors such as College Confidential and Niche, Li believes none “provide real insight to college life and culture” or “specific tailored information” that UProspie offers. Li said UProspie makes sure that “college decisions [aren’t]  based on guesses, but rather genuine interaction.”

“College isn’t all about the prestige,” Li said. “It's about the dining hall food, fourth meal, study breaks, bar night on Wednesday, icings; the real inside stuff. It's about what you make of it and what opportunities are there for you — academics and extracurriculars.”

Although Li said he is equipped with much more knowledge from working on the electronics-recycling company Iretron, a startup he began in high school and for which he received funding on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” creating UProspie has been a completely different experience for him.

Li said he has been kept accountable through the openness of the group. Despite the partners’ rigorous academics, separate extracurriculars and differences in location, the three maintain constant communication through a Facebook chat called “WeProspie” and a shared accessible storage for code.
“There are no politics between us three, and no sugarcoating,” Li said. “People say you can’t mix business with friends, but I think the two people I'm working on this project with right now are some of the best friends I've had.”

Unlike his experience working primarily on his own for Iretron, Li said working with Han and Pregasen allows them to “play to each others’ strengths.”

Through working on UProspie’s website design with Han who drafted “mockups,” Li was forced out of his comfort zone when he took a web development course online. After learning the basics, however, Li is grateful for the time he spent on the subject, because of the new skills he learned to fix errors and edit content on the website.

Although Li’s exposure to coding has allowed him to “speak more confidently about [UProspie’s] technical side of development,” Pregasen is in charge of revamping the website.  Li oversees the marketing, outreach and funding side of business, applying his previous experience from Iretron.

According to Li, many of the site’s features, including its minimalistic design and layout, were inspired by the team’s “simple affinity to try new things.” Upon opening UProspie’s website, uprospie.com, a user comes across a sign up survey backed by a video collage, featuring several college students showing prospies around.

“The video background and gradient on the landing page were just fun things we tried,” Li said. “It's part of why I love entrepreneurship and startups. You have nothing to lose, and no one will tell you whether or not you can do what you want.”

In the future, Li and his partners aspire to expand UProspie and make it “the most accessible and most widely used application” for college applicants. Despite the team’s constantly growing variety of ideas, Li said they will always ensure that “student benefit comes before [their] own profits.”

The company’s main source of revenue has come from a 12 percent operation fee from each transaction. As UProspie expands,  the partners want to coordinate a hub of parents and students, in order to build marketing channels through the social network side of business.

As Li and his partners anticipate the launch of their full service, they will continue to add new features to their website and plan for the future of UProspie.

“This is no more than a sneak peek,” Li said. “The real fun comes later when we launch full service.”