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Delaware College Students Place Ads on 450,000 Cars
Today's featured case study believes that we're living in a time now where if you own a car, you can own your own company. This started as a side hustle with low startup costs and no venture capital.
When University of Delaware student Greg Star signed up for an entrepreneurship class, he wasn't expecting to walk away with a business idea. But when he heard a fellow student, Mac Nagaswami, bring up an idea for mobile advertising, Greg jumped. This was an opportunity he thought was too good to be missed.
The idea was simple and can be explained in four words: put ads on cars. Greg and Mac were inspired by how U-Haul had managed to build up such great brand recognition even though they did no advertising, except on those trucks that they owned. To them, cars were an overlooked medium of advertising. They were able to get into areas that buses and billboards just couldn't.
They started by printing and distributing flyers on campus to see if there were people who were interested in putting ads on their cars for money. The reaction was mixed at first. Cars, like clothing, are usually seen as a reflection of the individual's style and personality. But Greg and Mac soldiered on and started to get community institutions such as schools and hospitals on board as advertisers.
Their break came when they received a reply after emailing the Head of Economic Development in Delaware. Greg had made a list of "people to know" by looking at the boards of universities, non-profit organisations, and government officials and sent them notes. This yielded results when the cabinet secretary for economic development put them in touch with the local Shoprite CEO.
They named their company Carvertise. Revenue progression: 2013: $12k, 2014: $90k, 2015: $200k, 2016: $750k, 2017: $900k, 2018: $2.6M, 2019: on pace for $5M.
Quote: "We're living in a time now where if you own a car, you can own your company."
Fun fact: Greg and Mac named their first company PenguinAds. As you can imagine, nobody could tell what the company was about from the name—so they eventually rebranded to Carvertise.
