CourseLoads

CourseLoads seeks to act as a last-mile delivery layer within college campuses. It connects 3rd party companies that don’t have access to deliver on campus, with students who do.

While most delivery services such as Seamless, UPS or local pizza shops are prevented from entering dorms due to the required security clearance, CourseLoads hires ambitious students who already have the necessary clearance to deliver the things their peers need.

For companies, CourseLoads provides direct access to a valuable demographic -- a demo that, traditionally, has been hard to reach. These companies save substantial operational costs by being able to batch multiple orders to one location (a campus or dorm building). They also get to serve a customer base that CourseLoads has already acquired, and therefore save on the cost of acquiring these customers.

For students seeking work, CourseLoads provides a flexible income opportunity on campus. Students can set their own work schedule and generate supplementary income without leaving their dorm. For the rest of the students on campus, the CourseLoads app creates a contextual experience around the things they might need and when they might need them, providing them with convenient service or product options that have been previously missing on campus.

College students have incredible spending power: over $80 billion per year and growing. On-campus, U.S. students spend almost $2 billion per year on dorm laundry (which is CourseLoads’ first offering), $11 billion on snacks and beverages, and over $60 billion on discretionary goods and services (going to the movies, leisure shopping, etc).

College students are a unique market in that so much is known about them (their age, lifestyle and location), yet they are inaccessible.

CourseLoads ran a limited pilot that saw its users spending $38/month and averaging 2 sessions/month. All of the pilot users referred each other until the pilot cap was met, which led to a waiting list of a few hundred more students wanting to use the service. The initial offering is to be either a pay-per-use of $15/laundry bag (unlimited weight) or subscription of $25/month for twice/month service of an unlimited weight laundry bag. The post-pilot survey showed a Net Promotor Score of 88, which ranks higher than the NPS scores that Apple, Amazon and Zappos receive on their quarterly NPS surveys.

CourseLoads is currently set for launch on 7 campuses for the fall semester, with all reps, managers and drivers already hired, as well as a waiting list of 1,300 people across the 7 New York City campuses.

CourseLoads is an AngelPad 2015 Company.

Team Background

Ryan Worl - Co-Founder & CTO

Ryan graduated from Purdue University with a BS in Management.

While at Purdue, he built an on-demand delivery app that saw more than 600 deliveries made within the first 4 weeks of launching. Ryan also built a time tracking app for fraternities/sororities that grew to be one of the most popular across the country (fraternities/sororities have policies for tracking a minimum amount of time allocated to studies).

In total, Ryan has developed over 10 iOS apps.

Ryan Haigh - Co-Founder & Director of Product Design

Prior to founding CourseLoads, Ryan was a Director of Product Design (Automative, Home Entertainment, Partner Integrations) at iHeartRadio, where he oversaw all brand integrations, product UI/UX, animation and prototyping for various platforms. While at iHeartRadio, Ryan moonlighted as the lead designer at MakeSpace.

Previously, Ryan was a Designer for Complex Media Network, where he worked on web creative for Complex.com, editorial design for Complex Magazine and art direction for Complex Magazine's "The Guide." Ryan also served as an Associate Art Director at Partners + Napier, a marketing and advertising agency based in Rochester.

Ryan holds a BS in Graphic Design from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Zev Lapin - Co-Founder & CEO

Prior to founding CourseLoads, Zev was the first hire at MakeSpace where he helped launch and grow the company from less than 50 customers, to a dominant storage provider in New York City.

Previously, Zev co-founded Storage Bucket, a summer storage company for college students.

Zev holds a BS in Marketing from Yeshiva University's Sy Syms School of Business and served as the President of the Student Council.

Co-Investors