College life may involve many hassles, but probably the biggest one is moving all your stuff in at the beginning of the year and out at the end. In some cases, it is necessary to move out of your dorm room in the middle of the school year as well.
Sam Chason was a freshman at Wake Forest University in 2016, and watched international and out-of-state students stressing about how to pack, transport and store their possessions. He saw many fellow students frantically searching local stores for free packing boxes and struggling down flights of stairs with bulky items, trying to stuff everything into a car. He came up with the idea of a moving and storage company focused on the specific needs of college students.
The first year he gained customers by knocking on dorm room doors, and served 64 customers with highly positive feedback and no customer complaints. The next year he partnered with Matt Gronberg and with the Wake Forest Residence Life and Counseling Team. They reached out to friends in New York and Florida urging them to launch the business on their campuses. However, the difficulties of managing a company over long distances led to the decision to focus initially only on colleges in North Carolina.
Storage Scholars received support and advice from Winston Starts, a non-profit that assists entrepreneurs in growing their businesses. Storage Scholars has grown significantly over the past five years. On October 12, 2022, Chason and Gronberg talked with Richard Craver of the Winston-Salem Journal, reporting that the company now works on 23 college campuses in nine states. They are hoping to grow the business even further in the next few years.
In March of this year, they appeared at the 2022 SEAHO (Southeast Association of Housing Officers) Conference. In July 2022, the company expanded by launching a shipping component. Students can ship belongings from home, or even from a retailer, to Storage Scholars over the summer, and the company delivers them to the dorm at the beginning of the semester.
Chason and Gronberg say that one of their goals is to help current college students earn income that will help them lessen the financial burden of college tuition. They are especially excited about the opportunity to pitch their company on Shark Tank. Gronberg told Richard Carver that just a few years ago they were kids hustling to pay for college. Now they are appearing on one of the world’s largest entrepreneurship platforms. “It’s a childhood dream come true,” he said.
