This is a First Look: It's the first time any news outlet or blog has covered this startup. You can read more First Looks here. (We do this a lot.)
Recently, I’ve been chatting with so many Northeastern students who participated in this year’s Husky Startup Challenge. I become increasingly amazed by the promising young ventures I’ve talked to, but I know they’re just the latest round of shiny new startups. Others have come before them.
That got me thinking: What the heck ever happened to LivCollege, the venture connecting prospective and current students that dominated last year’s HSC Demo Day? Where are they now?
I spoke with LivCollege's Founder and CEO Elliot Mustoe, and it seems like the startups has been gaining momentum this past year and is getting ready to pivot.
Coming back from a false start
The venture’s whole scope is to let college applicants get a true taste of what a particular campus is all about. Through their site, prospective attendees can be matched with hosts at a given college, browse their list of suggestions and pick one they’d find most helpful. From there, they can then arrange day or overnight visits filled with experiences that would allow them to gauge whether a college were a proper fit.
LivCollege has been working with Northeastern’s venture accelerator IDEA to work out all of the nitty gritty details of their business model, and the venture secured gap funding through the on-campus organization to help build up their business.
Mustoe explained that the platform initially launched its initial beta for Northeastern in October. Despite having so many students sign up to be hosts within the first couple of weeks, LivCollege had to temporarily pump the brakes, after Mustoe spoke with Northeastern administration about the potential risks involved with a third-party platform.
“We decided to hold off for right now until we figure out how to fill in some holes,” Mustoe explained. “We’ve ceased operations on campus, so we can switch to a B2B model. We want to work with schools more closely.”
“The schools are a third stakeholder. These institutions were taking on risks with our original model,” Mustoe said. “We hadn’t considered that before, and they need to be involved. We want to maximize all stakeholders’ interests. Basically, we’re going to try to work as a partnership with schools, being the overlay for connecting students.”
What the second take will look like
Mustoe said LivCollege is reworking its business model to accommodate this pivot by the springtime, at which point it’ll release another beta version. From there, it hopes to partner with other colleges in the area - like UMass, BU, BC, MIT and Harvard - and eventually reach universities across the U.S.
So if university administrations are being incorporated into the LivCollege platform, will these experiences really differ from school-organized visits? According to Mustoe, yes.
“Schools have their sales pitches. Applicants know that whenever information is coming from college."
First of all, the day and overnight visits will be open to all students applying to colleges. At the moment, a lot of schools only offer these experiential stays to certain demographics. But LivCollege will be available to everyone.
Also, LivCollege will be maintaining prospective students’ ability to have a personalized experience when they visit a university they’re interested in. It won’t be the same as an average, generic campus tour.
“Traditional college visits are very guided,” Mustoe told me. “With our idea, it’s fairly planned, but you still get to choose who you’re staying with. You answer questions and the algorithms give you matches, but you’re able to choose based on your results. From there, you can decide what you want to do during your visit.”
Not to mention, the startup is still dedicated to giving high school students a genuine feel of what a certain university is like. By connecting applicants with current students, LivCollege hopes to provide an in-depth and accurate look at campus life.
“We live college. We’re separate from schools,” Mustoe elaborated. “Schools have their sales pitches. Applicants know that whenever information is coming from college. We have our own brand.”
Why bother?
Ultimately, LivCollege wants prospective students to make an educated choice about where they would enjoy going to school. A large portion of students switch colleges because they aren't happy with their original choice. That can be a waste of time and money. And with college tuition costs climbing, going to the right school is becoming an increasingly more significant investment.
“I remember when I was a senior in high school,” Mustoe started. “I’m trying to help them out by letting them stay overnight or have a day visit with someone who’s compatible with them.”
“If you don’t do that, it’s like buying a house without going onsite,” he added.
Image via Elliot Mustoe.
