Why buy the whole book, when all you need is one chapter? Remember the days when you would have to buy a whole CD (album, 8-track, tape?) just to own one great song that we heard on the radio? Then came iTunes and everything changed. Soon, we were able to just buy the song we wanted without the commitment, financial and otherwise, to buying the whole CD.
If you are as “commitment averse” to text books as you are to music, then three Alpha Kappa Psi brothers have a great deal for you. Nick Currier, Kasey Gandham, and Mike Shannon, are the founders of Packback, a service that allows for 24-hour rentals of textbooks that can be read, highlighted, and bookmarked on a tablet. They have already secured hundreds of thousands in funding and now they are preparing their best pitch for the Shark Tank, which will be aired on Friday, March 21, on ABC.
The trio has a history of “founding” things, including the Xi Psi AKPsi chapter at Illinois State University. While helping build the AKPsi colony into a chapter, they worked together on a presentation for the AKPsi Case Competition, where students are asked to analyze a business case and then present their recommendations to a panel of judges. They competed in Chicago at the AKPsi Principled Business Leadership Institute in 2011 and finished in 2nd place out of 25 teams. The Case Competition experience brought the team together and forged their business and personal friendships.
“Before we founded our company, we founded our chapter of AKPsi our freshman/sophomore years, built it from the ground up, and grew it to be one of the most prominent organizations on campus. AKPsi set the tone for our work ethic in and out of school, and most importantly did something special in bringing us together as a team. As a result of what we learned, we thrived in our internships, started winning business case competitions, and ultimately started Packback in our junior and senior years.” – Kasey Gandham
Currier, Gandham, and Shannon are looking forward to showcasing Packback in front of a national audience and believe that they can provide a service that works for everyone, from the student to the big publisher. Of AKPsi bringing the trio together, Gandham states, “This is a big milestone for our startup; but most importantly for the fraternity, it is a great testament to the capability and success the brotherhood of AKPsi can bring to its members.
Tune in to see Brothers Currier, Gandham, and Shannon on Shark Tank, 8:00pm ET on ABC.
