When college students move out every semester, countless piles of dorm furniture, mini-fridges and lamps flood landfills across the country. Though schools like NYU donate used dorm items, graduate students David Cui and Christian Herren see this as “money left on the table” — a missed opportunity for students to retain value in purchases once thought to be lost.
In April, Cui founded Agora, a student-only online marketplace that sells everything from textbooks and electronics to services like dog walking and website development.
Agora’s estimates show over a billion dollars’ worth of goods being discarded each year by students in the United States.
“We saw that and thought, ‘Why are people doing this? Students could use that money,’” Herren said.
Agora started at Washington University in St. Louis, where Cui first tested the idea before recently beginning its launch at NYU. When Cui arrived in New York, he met Herren just a week before classes began, who happened to be a user interface/user experience designer.
“It turns out he needed exactly that for his startup,” Herren said. “So we decided to work together.”
Soon after, graduate student Millie Haugnes met Cui and Herren at a networking event and joined the team as chief marketing officer.
Agora’s main goal is to create a trusted student ecosystem for exchanging goods and services. Unlike Facebook Marketplace or Depop, users must verify their student status with a university email before using the platform.
“A student-focused platform allows for way better safety on campus,” Haugnes said. “Especially for kids who are 18 or 19, moving to the city from a smaller phase, or internationally.”
When surveying students across NYU, the team found that the main reason students weren’t selling items online is the added step of uploading photos and listing items.
“People are too lazy to post all of the things they have, especially after finals when they’re super stressed,” Herren said. “Posting 10 items, getting the measurements down — it’s a lot of effort. We’re trying to solve that problem through our application. Not only is it a student-centered marketplace, but we have features to automate your listings.”
Moving forward, Agora hopes to encourage students to monetize their skills on the platform — for instance, photographers can offer photoshoots and marketing students can provide social media expertise.
While website traffic has yet to pick up, the startup has participated in the Leslie eLab Startup Bootcamp, a part of the Startup Accelerator Program, which provides mentorship and funding to student founders at NYU. For now, Agora doesn’t take commissions or charge fees, and hopes to expand to other universities.
“We’re not looking to take any money from you,” Herren said. “We’re trying to help out students that want to sell their goods and make a little bit of money off of it.”
Contact Daphne Zhu at [email protected].