Evolving Vox, a year-old student-run furniture and electronics rental business, has changed hands from its founders Russell D'Souza '07 and Jack Groetzinger '07, to a group of sophomores. Benjamin Beisswenger '09, Zachary Cable '09, Jeffrey Kolovson '09 and Tyler Young '09 purchased the company from the two graduating seniors for an undisclosed amount.
The four sophomores beat out seven other groups for the rights to Evolving Vox. D'Souza and Groetzinger narrowed down the contenders through a process in which they personally met with each group. The two graduating seniors were looking for a group of four to six sophomores or juniors to take over the company.
"We really debated between the two or three groups that were left," D'Souza said.
Although D'Souza and Groetzinger initially considered running Evolving Vox as alumni, they ultimately decided to pass the company onto other students.
"Me and Jack decided that it was a great company but it was something best managed by actual students because they understand what products they need," D'Souza said.
D'Souza and Groetzinger, both of whom recently graduated from the COllege, are providing support and assistance to the new group of owners.
"Jack sat down with us for two or three hours to go over minor things like how to link PayPal to the bank and the website. They also gave us a lot of ideas about marketing and deliveries," Cable said.
The new owners plan to expand on Evolving Vox's previous advertising, which consisted of campus fliers, banner ads on Facebook.com and mass e-mails, and have already incorporated new ideas into their business plan.
Evolving Vox formerly required seniors to return their furniture at the end of Spring term, but the current group decided to move the rental deadline until the end of senior week.
"Extending the deadlines shows that they have a real dedication to students at Dartmouth" D'Souza said.
The new owners also plan on adding new products such as two-inch-thick memory foam pads for beds.
Although the group's takeover has been relatively smooth, its owners acknowledged that they have faced difficulties as well.
They agreed that picking up and delivering the furniture has been the most challenging aspect of operating Evolving Vox. The group rented a U-Haul truck and spent three days picking up rentals at the end of Spring term.
"People really like to have it delivered and picked up -- that's a huge draw I'd say. We're happy to provide the service even if the days are long," Beisswenger said.
Kolovson noted that operating a company differs from other, more individual responsibilities.
"Motivating everyone to get stuff done is hard because our actions have implications for other people," he said.
The outgoing owners expressed overall satisfaction with the job the new group has done so far.
"We really felt that Evolving Vox was one of the best things we've done in college and these students have really exceeded our expectations," D'Souza said.
While the group has made some changes, they intend to maintain the former owners' core purposeof providing a rental service within the Dartmouth student community, instead of forcing students to go through a "less personable" company.
"I think we can do it a lot better than the companies that are far away in West Leb," Cable said.
Looking towards the future, the current owners plan to expand the company to reach more students, both at Dartmouth and at other college campuses.
"When I'm a senior, I'd like to see it much more widely used. I think that will probably happen. I'd also like to franchise it to a bunch more schools," Cable said.
Like D'Souza and Groetzinger, the group plans on passing Evolving Vox on to younger Dartmouth students once they graduate.
