Remember when you diligently trudged to your college bookstore to acquire the multiple hardback textbooks and softcover workbooks for your classes at the beginning of the semester?  Remember the migrane when you realized how much of your precious student aid would have to go towards paying for the textbooks?  It is no overstatement to say that the cost is astronomical.  I took an accounting class at a local community college a couple of years ago and was stunned to learn that the cost of the textbooks for the class was almost $200.00.  Come on!  These publishers think we’re rich or something?  I had to laugh when I overheard the head honcho of my department complaining about his college freshman son spending over $500.00 on textbooks.  He thought his son had inflated the bill to nab some extra spending money.  Several co-workers, more recent college grads, piped in that the huge cost was no joke - indeed that is what it costs to buy books these days.  Oh yeah, forget about recouping any of the costs of your textbooks.  If you tried to see it back to your college bookstore, you were likely to only net pennies on the dollar. 

While the rest of us were complaining, a business student at Santa Clara University spied an opportunity here and started the textbook version of Netflix.  Colin Barceloux’s business, which was profiled in www.entrepreneur.com, is called www.bookrenter.com and rents textbooks for up to 75 percent off the retail price for a specified period.  Students return the books by printing out a free UPS label.  They can also request an extension or even buy the books outright, with the initial rental fee going towards the price of the book.  Taking advantage of the fact that his business reuses books and thus saves trees, Barceloux also had it certified as a “green business.”  This is a pretty ingenious idea.  For those geeks out there, there is a downside.  You can’t write in or highlight text.  But I view that restriction as a small inconvenience when compared to the vast savings achieved.  Moreover, you don’t need to deal with the hassle of hauling a growing collection of textbooks from dorm to dorm as you ascend the college ladder.

This business is just one example of how business ideas pop up frequently in our everyday lives.  Barceloux is only 26 years old, but he clearly has the guts and the wherewithall to act on his business idea.