Chapter 01: The Moment
"I had two days to leave campus and a couch I could not take with me."
Founder, CampusMarket
Move-out week is chaos. You have a mattress topper used once, a coffee maker still in the box, textbooks worth $300 that the bookstore buys back for $8. You are broke, stressed, and running out of time.
That was the reality that sparked CampusMarket. As a college student navigating the yearly ritual of moving in and moving out, the founder kept hitting the same wall: there was no good place to buy and sell within campus communities. Facebook groups were messy. Craigslist felt sketchy. Everything else was built for someone else.
So he built it himself. Not to start a company. Just to solve a problem he and every single person around him shared.
What started as a scrappy side project quickly became something more: a community. Students listing, buying, donating. Freshmen furnishing their first dorm. Seniors clearing out years of accumulated life. A marketplace with a heartbeat.