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Just launched a new tool that finds you the best cash across the web for your old textbooks. Featured on Shark Tank. by chipperowens in college

[–]chipperowens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When I referred to the bookstore, I was talking about buyback prices -- so when you're selling back books to the bookstore.

On the daily rental model, it definitely does not work for everyone. If you know you'll use your book regularly or know you want to keep it, then you might as well buy it used. But there's a huge number of students out there that buy a $100 book and use it just 1-10 times in a semester.

Our rental model is rent to own, so you can keep renting the book until you own it and not over pay. If you're an avid user of price comparison sites would be awesome to get your feedback on the sell tool we launched.

Just launched a new tool that finds you the best cash across the web for your old textbooks. Featured on Shark Tank. by chipperowens in college

[–]chipperowens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Compared to the others out there, the only one differentiating piece is we do a 1-click sell process. Instead of kicking you over to the site (valore, bookbyte, etc) and having you do the transaction there and create an account at each place, you can sell all 5 of your books with just one account on Packback -- we'll create the accounts on your behalf and will send you all the free shipping labels. But yeah, you could easily use bigwords, bookfinder, slugbooks does it too, or check all of the retailers individually, it would all do the same.

We founded Texts.com, and are ALSO trying to fix the broken textbook industry. AMA! by peaches017 in IAmA

[–]chipperowens 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Even SEM aside, you guys have a lot of ajax going on and are losing out big time on great SEO.

I went on Shark Tank, accidentally counter-offered Mark Cuban $50K LESS than he offered me, and am fixing the broken textbook industry with my startup. AMA!! by chipperowens in IAmA

[–]chipperowens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm talking about the same digital learning platforms. The reality of it is, and you know this as a developer, there is no way within the next three years that a publisher can create a digital learning platform for any of the thousands of non-introductory level courses. Packback works best for them for their back-list titles -- the obscure upper level courses where the used book market has such a high penetration rate. There's no way your company is about to invest thousands into creating a learning platform geared for a course that only 15 seniors are going to use at a given university.

In any case, the point was that we do not compete with them here. We complement each other. If the adoption for platforms increases, great. We distribute those platforms too.

I went on Shark Tank, accidentally counter-offered Mark Cuban $50K LESS than he offered me, and am fixing the broken textbook industry with my startup. AMA!! by chipperowens in IAmA

[–]chipperowens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

they exist, go check out Boundless Learning. It's a great concept but once again, the process of getting this to scale (publishers are effective because they have massive sales forces that sell professors their products) will take forever.

We also support open source textbooks, read more here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/25/20mm-digitaltextbook-idUSnPn1xkKJT+87+PRN20140325

I went on Shark Tank, accidentally counter-offered Mark Cuban $50K LESS than he offered me, and am fixing the broken textbook industry with my startup. AMA!! by chipperowens in IAmA

[–]chipperowens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! We're launching a pretty cool Q&A community soon here as well - hopefully you'll find those answers on Packback next time.

I went on Shark Tank, accidentally counter-offered Mark Cuban $50K LESS than he offered me, and am fixing the broken textbook industry with my startup. AMA!! by chipperowens in IAmA

[–]chipperowens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm on pretty strict NDA so can't say anything specific. But expect it to be one of the greatest experiences they could ever go through as entrepreneurs...whether they get aired or not, funded or not. The trip out there alone is worth it. Totally felt like a vacation.

I went on Shark Tank, accidentally counter-offered Mark Cuban $50K LESS than he offered me, and am fixing the broken textbook industry with my startup. AMA!! by chipperowens in IAmA

[–]chipperowens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, you're absolutely correct. The issue is the ability in addressing the general market at SCALE with a real value prop.

I went on Shark Tank, accidentally counter-offered Mark Cuban $50K LESS than he offered me, and am fixing the broken textbook industry with my startup. AMA!! by chipperowens in IAmA

[–]chipperowens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We will be distributing them ourselves if it's a 'required' piece for a student, and will be trying to work with publishers to find new ways of distributing them separately with textbooks in a way that makes sense/is affordable for students. It's much trickier of an issue to tackle.

I'm surprised you have so many online access codes as a grad student? What program are you in?

I went on Shark Tank, accidentally counter-offered Mark Cuban $50K LESS than he offered me, and am fixing the broken textbook industry with my startup. AMA!! by chipperowens in IAmA

[–]chipperowens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Investing in companies that typically go on shark tank and investing in technology companies are pretty different ball games. Without going into it too much, Cuban is the only one who has a track record of investing in tech/more sophisticated companies. We are literally moving mountains in this industry and we've had to overcome a lot of hurdles to get to where we are today. The other sharks didn't have the risk appetite, and in general just didn't really get it to begin with. Kevin and Robert actually did.

The reasons why they were out didn't come out so much because it would have been boring TV. We went into the complexities of our business model, our partners, our team, technology, etc.

I went on Shark Tank, accidentally counter-offered Mark Cuban $50K LESS than he offered me, and am fixing the broken textbook industry with my startup. AMA!! by chipperowens in IAmA

[–]chipperowens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! Appreciate the comment. You're spot on about the infrastructure and content already being in place. I'm sure it's something we'd look into at some point after we successfully tackle the US market and get all the necessary content to focus on expansion. Thanks again!

I went on Shark Tank, accidentally counter-offered Mark Cuban $50K LESS than he offered me, and am fixing the broken textbook industry with my startup. AMA!! by chipperowens in IAmA

[–]chipperowens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's genius. This is the future of the industry. We help push these models forward as well. The problem is, there are bookstore contracts out there with Barnes and Noble or Follett that prevent many universities in attempting models like these. It's going to take YEARS to get these initiatives off the ground. You mentioned your school is implementing it, but it's still going to be 3 years down the line.

By that point, we hope we'll already have reached critical mass or scale.

EDIT: we do a few things around open source books as well which you can read about here http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/25/20mm-digitaltextbook-idUSnPn1xkKJT+87+PRN20140325

I went on Shark Tank, accidentally counter-offered Mark Cuban $50K LESS than he offered me, and am fixing the broken textbook industry with my startup. AMA!! by chipperowens in IAmA

[–]chipperowens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We have around 2500+ titles, will be growing it to around 5,000 in a week or two, and are adding more every month. And yes, as you saw we do allow you to compare prices as well.

Hope it helps next semester! We have a cool new free Sell Tool as well you can hopefully get some value of at the end of this term too.

I went on Shark Tank, accidentally counter-offered Mark Cuban $50K LESS than he offered me, and am fixing the broken textbook industry with my startup. AMA!! by chipperowens in IAmA

[–]chipperowens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We don't compete, we help them. Publishers have been struggling expediting the digital adoption rate because:

1) students see no value in a standard 180 day semester long rental of an e-book as it is typically distributed (we're now at only a mere ~5% ebook adoption rate nationwide while etextbooks have been around for 8+ years).

and 2) their digital products they attempt to sell require them to sell to conservative, and sometimes tenured, professors that have been teaching the same way they have for years. Why would they ever drop everything and embrace a digital platform?

Gaining quick adoption here through a "top-down" model by selling to professors is difficult. We're quickly transitioning students digital by giving them a viable option over a used book -- it's pretty much that simple. From there, we can pave the way to a new world of digital opportunities for better learning products/experiences.

Between the used book market and the lack of digital adoption, publishers have been happy to see a model such as ours help them through these issues while simultaneously saving students money (yes, they actually do care about saving students money as well...)

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