Campus Bellhops
Campus Bellhops is a moving service headquartered in Chattanooga, TN that serves college towns across the United States. Operating in 46 cities, Campus Bellhops exclusively employs college students and offers moving services to the community surrounding their campuses, within a 15 mile radius of the campuses they operate from. Founded in 2011,[1] Campus Bellhops differs from other moving companies in that it only hires student movers, and puts its current 2,500 "Bellhops" through a screening process and training series.[2]
Campus Bellhops plans to expand to 150 cities in all 50 states for the fiscal year of 2014. They will employ 10,000 college students averaging about 67 students per school. The expansion also includes creating a subsidiary called CBH services that will cater to business to business contract furniture installation.
History[edit]
It was started by two college friends, Stephan Vlahos and Cameron Doody. They both had been disenchanted by the corporate world and hoped to get their feet wet in entrepreneurship. They met at a hunting camp in December 2010 with the hopes of leaving with a viable idea to starting a business. Their idea was to solve the problem of student moving. The summer of 2011 they promoted their service at Auburn University's freshmen orientation and a welcome book that went out to all the students. With hopes to get 30-40 moves from it, they managed 250 moves during a three day weekend.
The following January 2012 Stephen quit his day job and started working on Campus Bellhops full-time. They hired 8 Campus Directors at 8 of the biggest Southeastern Conference schools. These directors in turn hired an army of bellhops to help perform moves. During the summer of 2012 they outperformed their goal, proving the viability of the business and the necessity of the service in the market. They had a vision to create a system through technology where people can buy moves and students can claim them without Stephen or Cameron having to lift a finger. Neither with a background in code, they needed financial backing in order to build a working system.
To grow their business, they looked toward venture capital. Through family friends Stephen was connected to a venture capital firm in Chattanooga Tennessee called the Lamp Post Group.[3] After a few hours of talking football and business, a deal was made and Campus Bellhops was headquartered in Chattanooga. Campus Bellhops was in need of an operational manager to help grow the business as quickly as envisioned. The two looked to childhood friend Matt Patterson. Matt eagerly accepted and moved his family to Chattanooga as well. The three set forth to hiring 50 directors in 50 college towns who will then hire 2500 bellhops. They also hired freelance developers to create the online system they envisioned, pushing to get it ready by the an April 1 deadline. In the middle of May, the website is finished and the backend is almost completed. The foundation was in place to complete the jobs in the 46 different cities.
The directors placed daily ads on Craigslist, and promoted it locally in their individual towns. The system, still very basic, worked throughout the summer. The amount of business the online system generated and helped complete only cemented the idea that there was a market for their business. They also started breaking into another industry, furniture installations. Companies who need furniture moved into large apartment complexes or dorms hire Campus Bellhops to perform the labor. After another successful year, Campus Bellhops realized the idea needs to be scaled and scaled quickly. The team of three have grown to a team of 9 to help build the technological system and promote it. Campus Bellhops has goals to grow to 150 cities next year and hiring 10,000 bellhops. The online system they created will help prove that the void between technology and humans is shrinking faster every day.
Media[edit]
Campus Bellhops has been featured in multiple news sources from around the nation. MSN featured Campus Bellhops in an article pertaining to the service they provide during student move-in season.[4] A prominent news source in Alabama, AL.com also featured Campus Bellhops in an article.[5] USA Today College featured CB in an article explaining how college students are willing to pay for convenience.[6] A local Chattanooga news source, nooga.com, wrote an editorial discussing CB's direction and growth.[7] The college town of Tuscaloosa also wrote an editorial[8] concerning Campus Bellhops.
References[edit]
- ↑ Blackerby, Mike. "Knox native grows Campus Bellhops moving service for college students » Knoxville News Sentinel". Knoxnews.com. Retrieved 2013-09-22.
- ↑ "CisternYard.com". Site.cisternyard.com. 2013-04-19. Retrieved 2013-09-22.
- ↑ "Venture Incubator | Lamp Post Group | Chattanooga, TN". Lamp Post Group. Retrieved 2013-09-22.
- ↑ "Would you hire 'bellhops' to move you in to college?". News.msn.com. Retrieved 2013-09-22.
- ↑ "Upstart Campus Bellhops by Birmingham natives guarantees only the nicest young men to heft your student's stuff (updated) | al.com". Blog.al.com. 2013-08-22. Retrieved 2013-09-22.
- ↑ Galin, Evan (2012-08-31). "Buying time: Students put a price on convenience | USA TODAY College". Usatodayeducate.com. Retrieved 2013-09-22.
- ↑ "Campus Bellhops moving company continues to ramp up, grow". Nooga.com. 2013-07-10. Retrieved 2013-09-22.
- ↑ "Company finds niche in moving students". TuscaloosaNews.com. Retrieved 2013-09-22.
External links[edit]
This article "Campus Bellhops" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
