When people hear the word “craigslist” they might have a doubtful look on their faces. Craigslist.com is know for being an advertising website where people can post items and services for sale around the world. It sounds like a well rounded website, but it also has a reputation for being sketchy. (Haven’t you seen “The Craigslist Killer“?)
Have no fear, Raiderlist is here. Joey Penate, a junior marketing major from Houston, Katy Morris, an electronic media junior from Connecticut, and Derrick Franco, a senior computer science major from El Paso, have created a site that is similar to Craigslist — minus the creepy-factor.
From left to right: Penate, Franco, and Morris — the team behind Raiderlist.
“You have to have a Texas Tech email to even register for an account,” Morris said. “It automatically makes it safer, especially if you meet on campus with students. It’s a lot easier than, ‘Hey let’s go meet this creepy dude at some random place in Lubbock.’”
Penate said he was the one who originally came up with the idea when he realized how many groups he had on his Facebook account. He said he wanted to put everything together in one place. For example, Penate said if he wanted to sell a textbook to his friends online he would have to do it through every form of social media to make sure he covered every medium his friends used. With Raiderlist, you can do it all on one website.
After Penate knew he wanted to go through with the idea, Franco said he and the team had already been coming up with their own ideas.
Morris said last June they attended a “Hackathon” in New York. She said it’s a 24-hour event where contestants have to create an app. She said they created “Easy Launch.” Morris said the idea behind the app is to help people that are new to the smartphone world (mom, dad, grandma, grandpa) in a way that is not overwhelming.
Morris said her team ended up getting first place for Amazon and second place overall. She said the top 40 teams out of 2,000 worldwide got to go to California for the accelerator program. Morris said for three weeks they got to network studios and venture capitalist and then participated in another hackathon.
Morris said the trip was a great experience because they did a lot of networking. Franco said when they returned from their trip they started working on creating raiderlist.com. He said the site was technically finished in January, but they held off on going live with it until last week to fine-tune everything.
“The security took about two months to build. Just the backbone security alone before we could even touch the site,” Franco said. “We wanted to make sure students could use it and know they were safe. I mean, we can’t even see their passwords. If I wanted to give you a list of what we see as passwords to the smartest professors here they probably wouldn’t be able to figure it out.”
Once students sign up for Raiderlist, there are four categories they can choose from: For Sale, Events, Services, and Housing. Franco said students can not add categories and may only contribute to the sections Penate, Morris and he have already created. Franco said the website also has an option where a student can buy a featured item spot.
He said if students posts their items on Raiderlist as featured, their items are shown on every single page, and when someone views the account section, other items will be a cetain size and the featured items will have bigger font and be a different color so they stand out. Franco said this helps if someone is trying to get rid of an item quickly, such as a textbook or apartment space.
Penate said he sees the website as useful for organizations to spread the word around campus. For example, Penate said if someone wants to promote their fundraiser or an event on campus, not everyone is Lubbock has to know about it. He said essentially, it’s for Tech students exclusively. Morris said when she and the team approached Texas Tech with the idea of Raiderlist they got permission from the university right away.
But what if a Tech student tries to make the website more craigslist-like? Penate said if inappropriate things are posted, and to keep people from spamming, they have a flag system. Penate said if a person is constantly being flagged, his account for Raidelist will be deleted. He said that users will not be allowed to get back on the site at all because it requires a TTU email.
Franco said even with the website only being up for about a week, the team has received more than 5,000 page requests and a more than several hundred registered students on the site. He said they haven’t been marketing the website very much either and they’ve promoted it more through word of mouth.
“I just remember looking at the first notification saying ‘Thank you God,’” he said. “It’s a great way to do it. It promotes student businesses and helps promote organizations.”
About Lauren Estlinbaum
