There were 2 things that precipitated the creation of Campus On Fire. First, there was a clear gap in the market between off-the-self platform solutions and putting together a development team from scratch. One comes with great restrictions and the other with great costs and risks. We knew how to take the best of both without the downsides.
The second was putting together the dream team—an Oceans 11 of sorts. Having worked with one another over the course of 15 years in various capacities and on various projects, we knew that if we started our own company we could embrace common key values and build a work environment that we (and hopefully others) would want to spend most of our waking hours in.
So we actually did what so many people, who appreciate working with each other, say they'd like to do—we formed our company, Campus On Fire.
Our shared values included
Transparency
We are real no BS kind of guys. Our contracts are written in plain English because the point of the contract is clarity—not cya. We also encourage our clients to check out the progress on their marketplace and participate in it.
No Hostages
We believe in our work, so we don't feel the need to coerce you into staying. So no vendor lock, we give you all the passwords, etc. We want our relationship to be more like lovers —not a bad marriage you cannot afford to get out of. Life's too short for that.
Cool projects
We like building things. We like doing good work. We like a challenge. And we love efficiency.
Domain expertise
Someone might be the top dermatologist in the country and while he will, no doubt, know more than the average Joe about heart attacks, if you're having a heart attack you'll want a cardiologist... not a dermatologist. There are many good developers but it's the "you don't know what you don't know" that is the problem. More often than not, as the problems unique to marketplaces arise, they have to be figured out then and there—on your dime and on your time. This puts upward pressure on the budget and timeline one or both will eventually have to give. We've already been down that road of discovery. We know, for example, how people scam marketplaces and how to avoid it. We have first hand experience and it informs how we build our marketplaces. In short, you benefit from all those who have been burned by those situations before you.
So we saw a need, we put together our dream team, we developed a solution and now we are out to enable other’s visions to come to fruition—and in doing so, change the world.