Georama Experimented with 30 Student Employees--and Came out on Top

by Carlin Sack
August 6, 2012

Former Microsoft employee Nihal Advani has been working on the idea for his start-up, a map-based travel site called Georama, since 2010. But things really started kicking into gear this summer when he invited some serious manpower on board: roughly 30 new employees.

These 30 employees were the students in DePaul University’s summer Entrepreneurship Strategy class and they worked for Georama for five weeks as if they were part-time interns. Student John Deorian, a senior in marketing and finance, said his class worked closely with the Georama team on pre-launch tasks. “We would submit a report on Friday about A, B and C and we came in on Wednesday and it was done,” Deorian said.

The site, which was at the time in a private beta limited to 1,000 users, went public July 25. It has already caught the attention of major tech sites because in the fragmented travel world cluttered by ticket-booking sites and entirely separate sightseeing sites, Georama is providing some room to breathe. The site’s home page asks one simple question: “Know where you want to go?”

Most booking sites assume you already know your destination, so it can take over 11 separate sites to put together a trip. Georama has entered this jumbled realm as a site where travelers can plan, book and share their trips all on one interactive map. That’s exactly the kind of thing that puts leisure travelers at ease.

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(Photo courtesy of Nihal Advani)

But even before Georama was a site at all, DePaul University was in the picture. While still a Microsoft employee, Advani presented at one of Dr. Harold Welsch’s entrepreneurship classes. There, he met Neil Feuling, a graduate assistant at DePaul. The two kept in touch, until Feuling came on board in January 2012 to assist with strategy and finance. Soon after, they brought on Corey Anand, a DePaul graduate from one of Feuling's classes, to work on business development. A few months after that, Georama was further fueled by receiving $250,000 from angel investors in New York.                                                               

Apart from the 30 students who temporarily worked with Georama, the company has 17 employees (five in the U.S. and 12 in India) in addition to Feuling and Advani. Although Georama is a relatively large startup, Feuling said teaming with the DePaul students was an exercise of leadership of a large team, and of determining where the company is going next.”

Working with the students propelled Georama to address essential business points like its target market and how it compares with competitors. After these considerations, Georama’s main focus will be marketing and gaining traction from users for the next several months. Advani said he would urge other startups to consider working with college classes because companies will quickly find that it is a win-win.

Data storage company Cleversafe has worked with hundreds of Illinois Institute of Technology students since 2005, one year after President and CEO Chris Gladwin founded the company. For three years, Cleversafe’s office was located on IIT’s campus, at one point directly next to a classroom.

Gladwin said he would recommend that companies work with universities during their first few formative years, for research purposes and for an insightful workforce.

But it’s not only companies that gaim momentum by working with colleges; through such partnerships, students like Deorain are welcomed into the wonderful world of startups. “The general impression in my class was ‘Oh, wow. I never realized you can do this,’” Deorian said. “It made it real that this was something you can do. You can go out and venture out on your own.”

Visit Georamas website, check out their BIC company profile and follow them on Twitter at @GeoramaTravel.

Come see Georama pitch at the Built In Chicago August Launch

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