How Campus Job raised $9 million in just 9 months

By Dennis Clemente

NEW YORK–JJ Fliegelman is generous with his ideas and insights into his business, Campus Job, an online marketplace for college students to find jobs that he co-founded with ex-Googler Liz Wessel.

Launched only last September, Campus Job has already signed up 2,300 colleges, 3,000 employers, 100,000 students and—music to every startup founder’s ears—funding to the tune of $9 million.

Fliegelman gives Y Combinator a lot of credit for guiding his team in the right direction. An early site had to be scrapped when it didn’t test well. He now says how important it is to test out your ideas first with users and continue to iterate until the site works for your users.

The Campus Job could have started earlier but iterating it nine months ago, made it leap beyond so many people’s expectations, testament to how important following processes can be for any startup.

Campus Job grew through word of mouth, thanks to its campus reps who, Fliegelman said, “make a sizable portion of our growth.”

The campus reps offer a great packet of how-to information and “cool hacks” like giving a T-shirt or Uber cards for those who sign up. “It’s really exciting for a student to sign up,” he said. It sounds simple but it works for them.

“We’re filling a really needed gap,” Fliegelman stressed.

How does it expect to earn from the site? Employers pay to post listings and then it charges employers per qualified applicant.

What is it learning? “We’ve found that most employers prefer someone with work experience,” he said, clarifying how it’s different from internships.com.

“We do have internship jobs but we also have part-time jobs,” he said.

Campus Job presented at the Chinese Entrepreneurs Organization in NY meetup.