PostsMore, a new website launched last month by three undergraduates, aims to better connect Stanford students by consolidating a number of student-facing services that are currently spread across a disparate set of popular social platforms, or cease to exist at all. The site, created by Curtis Staples ’20, Akshay Kalose ’20 and Ethan Aldrich ’21, includes features to help students meet new people across campus, organize rideshares and offer academic advice to their peers, among others.

Though the website was initially created to help students sell textbooks, it has since expanded to include platforms for buying and selling personal items, finding affordable summer housing and dating. According to the site’s creators, there are also plans to add a jobs section to help match students with potential employers.

“Companies want talent, [and] Stanford students want internships and jobs,” Staples said. “So why not connect them, since we have the students and the talent they want?”

The website’s functions mimic those observed across several other widely-used student services, including the Handshake job search website, the Tinder dating app and the Facebook groups titled “Free & For Sale” and “Housing.”

Aldrich, who worked mostly on the site’s user experience aspect, said that the most challenging part of the development process was choosing what to focus on, given that the site attempts to address needs across many different sectors of student life. Long-term, he said he hopes to see the site increase its user base and expand beyond Stanford’s boundaries.

“It can definitely grow to other [college] campuses, and that’s something we’re certainly looking for once it matures here,” Aldrich said.

Staples estimates that the site has attracted about 1,300 users since launching in early January. However, the team’s work remains far from complete. He added that they are currently working to address problems raised by users, and that they hope to test new features before launching a campaign to grow the website’s reach.

PostsMore’s creators have high ambitions for the nascent website, and plan to eventually expand their idea from a website into a mobile app.

“My hope,” Staples said, “is that it can eventually become a platform where anyone can basically do anything with people that they know or people that are within their own community.”

 

Contact Jordan Payne at jpayne1 ‘at’ stanford.edu.