While the majority of college students keep their Facebook activity to posting pictures of their latest vacations, meals, and beer pong tables, junior John Lizzadro had a different idea in mind. That’s not to say Lizzadro’s beer pong table isn’t worthy of a Facebook status, but with all games aside, Facebook gave Lizzadro what he hopes to be a million dollar idea.
Lizzadro has already launched his own website that was inspired by DePaul University Class of 2014 group on Facebook.
“After being apart of the DePaul Facebook page, I started to noticed a majority of the posts were not about what was going on around campus, but rather it was all students trying to buy or sell stuff,” said Lizzadro.
With this observation, the Oak Brook, Ill., native made the decision to start his own website that provided students from universities all over the country a space to buy and sell things to other students. And thus Norkel was born.
“Basically, Norkel is like Craigslist for college kids,” said Lisa Bent, DePaul University junior and Norkel supporter.
Craigslist and Facebook combine into Norkel to provide students from more than 150 schools the opportunity to buy, sell and trade to other people on campus. Since the website launched July 6, it has more than 330 likes on Facebook and is getting traffic by students as the word of Norkel spreads. As of now, social media and word of mouth are the only advertising the company has done; with the exception of an event that was held at Fuze Sept. 27 where patrons of the bar could sign up for Norkel and take souvenirs such as sunglasses, bottle openers, koozies, stickers and shirts; all equipped with the Norkel logo.
“The event was really fun. There was a lot of free merchandise that everyone really took advantage of and it was a cool way to promote the website,” said Jack O’Donnell, a DePaul junior.
The logo and name of the company is something that came together without much effort.
“The goal for the site was to have a really short but catchy word that I could try and brand, and eventually I decided on Norkel,” said Lizzadro. As for the branding aspect, the Norkel logo resembles a snorkel mask with water running underneath the mouth piece, playing into the catchy, ‘dive into your campus’ slogan.
Catchy it really is. Looking at Lizzadro’s forms of social media including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, it’s clear his friends and fellow DePaul students support the sites name. Suddenly, “