As entrepreneurship becomes more prevalent in today’s society, one University student has developed two projects which will be useful to University students and assist the Baton Rouge community.
Joe McFerrin, an ISDS senior, created the idea of placing scantron machines around campus in his Marketing 3401 class and has continued to make his idea become a reality.
He already has tested various machines, and discovered the machine that works best is a customized snack machine.
McFerrin is awaiting approval from Facility Services to place a trial scantron machine in CEBA. He will be meeting with representatives from Facility Services today to determine when the trial machine will be put in place.
McFerrin said he hopes to have the machine in place for the spring 2005 semester.
The machine will not only hold scantron packs, but also will hold other school supplies, including note cards, pencils and highlighters, McFerrin said.
McFerrin said if more than 75 percent of the machine’s revenue comes from the purchase of scantrons, other scantron machines will be placed around campus that will only sell scantrons.
McFerrin said the reason the trial machine will hold entire scantron packs as opposed to single scantrons is because the packs stay in place better than single scantrons. McFerrin said the machines that will dispense only scantrons will dispense one scantron at a time and are the size of an ATM machine.
He said the first machine will be on trial for one year. If that machine proves profitable, machines that dispense single scantrons then will be placed in Middleton Library, Coates Hall, the Cox Communications building and the Life Sciences building.
McFerrin is not only working on placing scantron machines on campus, he also has developed a Web site similar to E-Bay that will sell furniture, tickets, cars, computers, books and even pets.
The site, www.UbidBR.com, is an auction site for the Baton Rouge area. He said this will benefit people living in and around Baton Rouge who purchase items from his site because they will be able to save money on shipping costs.
Currently, McFerrin is giving away a $10 posting credit to those who post items or pets on his site. However, once the site attracts more users, he plans on charging $1 for users to post items.
McFerrin will be graduating in December and plans to continue working on these projects after graduation in addition to doing more Web designing.
As far as advice for other entrepreneurs, McFerrin said, “You have to be steady. If you have a goal and things get in the way, keep going with it.”