Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Student to Launch Social Media Platform

Christy Felix (MSB ’20) is preparing to relaunch UHustle, a social media and marketing platform she designed for students to advertise their entrepreneurial ventures on college campuses.

The platform is set to launch in January 2019 after experiencing technical problems due to faster-than-expected growth following its initial launch Oct. 14.

UHUSTLE Christy Felix (MSB ’20) is set to launch her own social media platformed aimed at aiding student entrepreneurs trying to expand their consumer base.

UHustle primarily aims to help students connect with student entrepreneurs who offer low-cost alternatives to goods and services, according to Felix. The idea of creating a streamlined platform for both consumers and entrepreneurs came from Felix’s own experiences as a student entrepreneur during her freshman year at Cornell University.

“I decided to do it because I had a business doing hair for other people on campus, but it was so hard for them to find me and for me to find them,” Felix said. “It’s very limiting, because it’s constricted by my own social network — so who my friends know — but I needed to reach out to a broader network.”

Due to the involvement of users from five different college campuses — Georgetown University, Cornell University, University of Connecticut, Northeastern University and Rutgers University — in the span of one week, the UHustle website slowed down, causing Felix to put the website on “maintenance” to help accommodate for the platform’s fast growth.

“I just got back from a software developer, and they said that there is another plug-in I can install to make it faster,” Felix said. “The website slowed down because I was using another system, and now I just switched to a new system which will help.”

Felix plans to relaunch UHustle on Jan. 1, 2019, with the updated system and plug-ins.

UHustle intends to reduce the number of forums through which students have to go as consumers to find a product or service and will provide a greater platform and audience for student entrepreneurs to market their own ventures, Felix said. The site gives users the option to register as a student or a business, depending on whether they want to be on the platform as a consumer or a seller.

UHustle is also set to cater to users who register as a club or organization by giving them a marketing platform for uploading flyers and notifying users of events and meetings. According to Georgetown University Women of Color President Shakera Vaughan (COL ’19), UHustle would widen the scope of students who are exposed to the organization’s events.

“Our organization has a focal point of women of color; however we encourage any and every one to come out to our events,” Vaughan wrote in an email to The Hoya. “UHustle will allow us to reach a diverse range of people and not just our typical audience.”

Although UHustle users do not have to register under their university name, users who choose not to register as a university student will not have access to students, clubs or organizations that only to advertise to students from their campus.

Since UHustle’s initial launch Oct. 14, Felix has worked with other students to aid in the development process and to increase UHustle’s outreach on campus. According to Felix, UHustle Content Manager Sinclair Jones (MSB ’21) has helped come up with ideas about the platform’s potential to benefit student communities on college campuses everywhere.

Being heavily involved in the Georgetown entrepreneurial community through Georgetown Aspiring Minority Business Leaders & Entrepreneurs and Georgetown Ventures, UHustle serves the group of student entrepreneurs who struggle to find a platform on which to promote their services with current on-campus offerings.

“What I’ve noticed is that a lot of the businesses that we accept into those programs are more large-scale or aren’t businesses that are like ‘I braid hair’ or ‘I make art,’ but those are still student ventures,” Jones said. “So really, for me, UHustle is a way to call attention to the wide array of entrepreneurship that is present here on campus and uplifting everyone who considers themselves to be an entrepreneur.”

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