At 24, Jake Cacciapaglia is the successful owner of a company that started with little money and a lot of planning
By Felicitas Baruch
In this most critical of financial moments, Jake Cacciapaglia is a 24-year old who manages a thriving new company of his own. His enterprise allows him to work from almost anywhere; all it takes is a laptop and an Internet connection.
Cacciapaglia is the co-founder of goswoop.com , a site that connects prospective international students with American universities and foreign students already in the United States. Started in January 2008, this company started by five friends has, they say, already proven to be profitable. It is also convenient: no physical space to rent, pesky workday schedules, nor big financial investment.
The good idea was conceived three years ago during summer time, when Cacciapaglia was far away from his home in Massachusetts.
"I wanted to spend the summer in Spain," Cacciapaglia said, "and I wanted to find a place to stay, a job, and it came to: who could I talk to that has done this before? And I found the people and they helped.
Once in Spain, Cacciapaglia and one of his business partners, Cort Johnson, met international students from all over the world who have faced the same problem when planning their time abroad. Cacciapaglia and Johnson found that it would have been helpful to know how to make the most of their lives as students in a foreign country, or at least, to have someone to ask about places to stay, study or work. And that is how the idea of goswoop.com was born.
Goswoop.com works as an educational network to help would-be foreign students to contact universities and students already in the U.S. This site guides international students by helping to get in touch with the right university, advisors and programs. And it also helps them to plan their living in the U.S. by connecting them with peers who have already been there, done that.
Cacciaplaglia seems to have found his dream business. He had been attracted by the world of international education since completing his last year of college in Vienna, Austria.
The dream of a business is born
A good idea -one that identifies a need to be satisfied-- is more important than money when initiating a start up business, said Abu Jalal, a finance professor at Suffolk University.
"Small businesses, when times are tough, succeed because they are based on innovation and good ideas," Jalal said. "By offering clients something that they don't have is how small businesses start defying a bad economy."
And a bad economy is precisely the right time for a starter business, Jalal said. "An economy in trouble," he explained, "means that the big companies are in trouble. They are trying to survive by any means such as closing plants and reducing personnel. But small businesses don't have to worry about that and they might even come to a better position, since the competition is becoming weaker."
In-depth market research followed Cacciapaglia's idea. He and Johnson found out about the large budgets that universities spend attracting international students and the big amount of money that international students bring to the U.S., since most of them come sponsored by their governments.
Capacciapaglia and Johnson concluded that the business was lucrative. The service mostly focused on students, so they decided to offer their services for free. But at the same time make their money by charging universities by helping them find and recruit international students. Finally Cacciapaglia and Johnson, who both graduated in business and finance from Bentley College, decided to focus on recruiting just students from South Asia, since most of the international students come from that region.
The small company started to take shape when the two entrepreneurs reached how about Fayaz-Taher, a Bangladeshi graduate student at Clark University, and two friends from Bangladesh, whom they had met in to Spain help recruit potential students in India.
After the research and design of their project came the third step: networking. Cacciapaglia and Johnson started introducing and talking to universities and international students, but also, talking to experts in the international business. Talking to people who already know your market it is vital to plan better and avoid future failures.
One of those experienced people that Cacciapaglia and Johnson found along the way was Wassan Humadi, manager of US Educational Group, a private international student recruiting company based in Cambridge that works with 300 universities in the U.S.
"It is a profitable business," Humadi said. "It does not require a lot of investment, but it requires time, because you need to develop relationships with your clients. And attracting a new university might take over a year."
Humadi's company is a family enterprise that belongs to her brother-in-law and it is operated by the two of them. They deal with over 3, 000 students from the Middle East each year and print their own magazine, Al-Jamiat.
She says the bad economy hasn't affected their market. Humadi said the enrollment of international students coming to the U.S. has increased each year since 2003.
Turning the idea into a real business
To thrive you have to survive first, and Cacciapaglia knew it was time to take the risk. It came what he calls the "survival" time. Trusting they had a good enterprise on their hands, Cacciapaglia quit his job in 2007 and moved to Bangladesh for six months to start his business from his savings: $50,000 that he regards as his initial investment.
"You have to study your business and fully commit to it," said Capacciapaglia, "because there's a lot of uncertainty and risk at starting a business. You don't have the consistent paycheck and you don't know what is going to happen next."
Even with a good idea, a defined market goal and in-depth research the risk is always high for starter businesses. "Small businesses have a pretty high failure rate," said Jalal, who is an expert in international and empirical corporate finance. "When you open a business you are fully responsible for any gain and loss."
One of the more common reasons for failure, Jalal explained, is going into the business being "too emotional", without analyzing the market well enough. Another reason to fail: spending too much and not adhering strictly to a budget.
The lack of personal savings, the primary source of funding to start up a new enterprise, can be solved through different ways such as partnership loans from banks and credit unions, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).
If you have decided to be an entrepreneur, it is important to know that there will be ups and downs. Cacciapaglia and Johnson have experienced both. That's why they consider that being successful in a business also requires the fortitude to overcome getting depressed or unmotivated.
When bad times means a good moment
These young entrepreneurs are convinced that the faltering economy is a good time to start a business.
"It takes creativity," Johnson said. "If somebody says I don't have the money so I can't do this, that's not the quality of an entrepreneur that is going to be successful."
Cacciapaglia and Johnson think being a young adult is the right moment to invest in their own company because they don't have families yet. And every day, they said, technological improvements make it easier and cheaper for entrepreneurs to create a thriving business.
"The best part is that you don't need an office anymore," said Cacciapaglia. "I can come into a coffee shop and work! It just goes to how you get it done. It's all about creativity."
