Intern Blog

By: Amanda Dolce

As the fall semester comes to an end and the anticipation of winter vacation grows, the impending spring semester is most likely the furthest thing from your mind. Surely even further from your mind is the dreaded process of purchasing textbooks. As a college student I know one of my least favorite parts about beginning a new semester is having to spend a fortune on textbooks for my classes, not to mention the hours spent searching the web for the lowest prices--not exactly how I prefer to spend my time. Although the daunting task of purchasing textbooks doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon, there is a website that can help ease the pain of the process.

Allow me to introduce you to “effintextbooks.com” (www.effintextbooks.com) a website developed by three college students who felt the pain of buying overpriced textbooks and decided to help their fellow students out. One of the founders, Robert Caucci, a senior at Pace University was able to share some information about the website and how he was able to bring his idea to fruition. When asked how he came up with the idea for Effin' Textbooks Rob replied, “Being a college student I understood that the typical student spends roughly $400 per semester on textbooks ($800 per year). An amount of money that I didn't exactly have to allocate towards textbooks, and a growing trend that you see among college students is renting textbooks, but even with doing that the cost is still substantial. After some brainstorming and looking at kayak.com's business model it dawned on me that the biggest players in the textbook market have affiliate websites. So I decided to use the business models of price comparison websites, that you often see popular with traveling, and applied it to textbooks.” This business model, similar to Expedia and Priceline for traveling, is exactly what you will see when you visit Effin' Textbooks. All you have to do is plug in the Title, Author or ISBN of your books and the website displays the lowest price offering from Amazon, Chegg, Barnes and Noble, BookRenter.com, etc.

Robert also explained that one of the most crucial factors in developing Effin' Textbooks was to understand his own strengths and weaknesses, and by doing so finding partners that would compliment them. “For me, I had to assess my own skill sets and competencies and based off of that I knew what else was needed in order to bring this idea to reality. I needed someone who knew how to design and make a website and then integrate the necessary information. Understanding what you can personally do and understanding that you may need others to work alongside with you is a huge part of turning your idea into a success.” 

Then there's the social networking factor, websites like Facebook and Twitter give college students like Robert and his partners, Alex Quick and Paat Sinsuwan, an incredible advertising opportunity. In fact, there is even a Facebook application for Effin' Textbooks (http://apps.facebook.com/effintextbooks/). By advertising for their website on Facebook the founders of Effin' Textbooks were able to reach out to countless college students who otherwise may have never heard of their site.

So as the excitement and relaxation of winter break begin to dwindle and the spring semester inches closer, you can breathe a sigh of relief about saving a few bucks on textbooks.