by Rachel Roubein | Photo: Matthew Creger | Printed in the University of Maryland Diamondback

Just a few short years ago, Amanda Nachman was the typical college student, frantically juggling schoolwork with sorority life, club field hockey practices, internships and more. But as of Friday afternoon, she is $15,000 richer.

The recent university graduate is the founder and publisher of College Media Group and is the first-place winner of the Cupid’s Cup Business Competition, an event organized by the business school. About 300 people gathered in Frank Auditorium and in designated overflow rooms in Van Munching Hall to watch the competition unfold.

The competition, a “battle of the entrepreneurs,” featured five different start-up companies that fought – in the form of a well-organized 10-minute presentation – for the ultimate prize: money. The prize money is used to further the winner’s business endeavors, bestowing them with the gift of financial leeway.

College Media Group, which produces a tri-weekly e-newsletter, a quarterly College magazine and maintains an interactive website, provides insight into the life of a college student, from resumé building to living with a roommate who’s a drug dealer, Nachman said.

“I love the college experience, and wanted to help students further their journalism experience,” she said.

College Media Group was also the winner of an additional $2,500 from the People’s Choice Award, an online poll where people could vote for their favorite company.
Other winners include the 2nd place Student Sherpas, a company that provides college students with affordable storage and shipping for their belongings during the summer, and the 3rd place Healthy Happy Snacks, which produces nutritious snacks containing 50 calories per serving. These companies won $7,500 and $2,500, respectively.

Other competitors included Tees and Tats, a T-shirt company with designs by distinguished tattoo artist Marco Serio, and Maryland Youth Football, a company that provides year-round football camps and skills training at a statewide level.

At the second Cupid’s Cup in 2007, Goozex, an online video game trading website, won first place and has since experienced a 300 percent growth from 2007 into 2008. It is now the “leading online game trading service in North America,” according to a flier handed out at the event.

Mark Nebesky, the co-founder and CMO of Goozex, said that winning first place in the competition was great for his company.

“It gave us, at the time, breathing room and an opportunity,” Nebesky said.  Cupid’s Cup Business Competition is now in its 4th year, thanks to the generous support of university alumnus Kevin Plank, the founder and CEO of Under Armour.

“Kevin Plank is doing amazing things by promoting entrepreneurship the way he does,” sophomore Adam Van Wagner said. Van Wagner is an entrepreneur himself as the CEO of Fairview Enterprises, a company that rents televisions to nursing homes.

To enter the competition, contestants must be enrolled at the university or graduated between May 2005 and December 2008. Each must have started a company that has produced between $5,000 and $500,000 in revenue.

Plank encourages students to never doubt their abilities nor cite the economy for their lack of pursuing their ideas, referring to this as “loser talk.”

“There is no better time to start a business than right now. This thing is going to end,” Plank said, referring to the current economic recession.

I am really happy for our fledgling publication and our publisher Amanda. Just figured I would share with everyone.

When we work with our clients, we always strive to continue to market and network for brands beyond any print or Web design
that we may create and deliver.

One example was helping to deliver Dr. Wizard to College Magazine. Joe Webb created a blog called “Dr. Wizard” geared to college students who were seeking advice online on all topics. We think it’s a great niche and love Joe’s writing style. The partnership for College Magazine includes inclusion of exclusive articles posted on www.collegemagazine.com. In return, College Magazine is mentioned on the Dr. Wizard blog which is currently receiving about 1500 unique visitors daily. We feel it is a great match for College Magazine as Dr. Wizard has signed a book deal which will surely increase his exposure, as well as our clients.

University News in St. Louis, Missouri recently published an article about the blog and I was interviewed for the piece.

College Magazine is a print publication on the East coast with currently a small distribution of 40,000 magazines to Universities and Colleges in Maryland, DC, and Virginia.

By Les Kollegian, Creative Director

While traveling to visit my East Coast clients in early 2008, I was staying with my ex-brother-in-law (yeah, we still hang out) who mentioned a start-up called College Magazine that may need some design help. My first response was… “College Magazine? There HAS to be a publication already out there of the over 3,000 current magazines named College!” Well, I was wrong. There wasn’t. I was in shock at the thought of such a great idea that hadn’t already been in the works. I mean…I was sure there were publications geared toward College students, but with such a strong market and being the most sought after (18-24 year olds), I was surprised that a name that simple wasn’t already taken.

Intrigued, I asked to be introduced to the founder to see how I could potentially help the fledgling publication. I called Amanda Nachman, the 23 year old, fresh out-of-school graduate who dedicated herself to making her dream of creating this magazine a reality. We met at a local coffee shop, A.K.A. her office, in Arlington, VA where she sat with her designer as they worked on the second issue. The first issue, released about a month earlier had a distribution of 5,000 copies at the University of Maryland, my Alma mater. The publication looked really good, especially under the circumstances… basically students creating it from scratch. As well, she was under $1,000 in the red for her first issue. Amanda got national and local advertisers, volunteer designers, copywriters and editors, and created a team of people that she engaged and enlisted to her cause… very impressive for someone with minimal business experience. Even more impressive, Amanda was creating the magazine in her spare time. She had a full-time job and worked on the book after hours. Amanda convinced me that she was on a mission to create the best College based content magazine on the market and expand nationally. I loved it!

I asked what kind of help she needed with the magazine. The response I got was usual from what I hear for most start-ups that I personally speak to. Design, marketing, and most importantly money! As a business owner, one of the biggest challenges is hiring good people, particularly with a strong work ethic. Amanda’s “gung ho” attitude and commitment to developing the magazine and building a company was refreshing. We immediately began discussing how I could help take over the creative direction of the magazine and Web site. As well, we discussed a potential partnership to fund the magazine development and decrease the time to expand distribution, both in the quantity of printed books, as well as location and additional schools.
Well…to make a blog story short (maybe too late), it was a match made in heaven. Our 3rd issue was just released to 5 schools in Maryland and DC… a total of 20,000 magazines. We have launched the beta version of the Web site and expect a full launch within the next 30 days. We are moving as quickly as possible to expand on the East coast and hopefully to the West coast soon thereafter. This is an exciting time and needless to say, I am thrilled to be a part owner in this venture.

For those of you reading this who are college students and for those who know college students, please spread the word and check out the site. We are always looking for contributors for articles, photography, editing, and more. For all information, check out the site at http://www.collegemagazine.com. You can also download a PDF copy of the 1st three issues of the magazine there.

Lastly, let me know what you think. The more feedback we get, the better. We are striving to make the site a great guide and community for college students.