StudentBusinesses: Promising Startups Easybib and Thinkgum

StudentBusinesses.com is excited to announce the launch of a new column, in which we will feature some of the most promising startups on our site. This week, we have selected two startups that each target college students and could improve your performance in school - but in completely different ways. Founded by a PhD candidate at Stanford Medical School, Think Gum LLC has created a chewing gum that they believe can improve your energy level and enhance your memory:
Think Gum LLC is a wholesale chewing gum company that supplies its customers with chewing gum designed to boost mental performance. The candy-coated, sugar-free chewing gum is flavored and scented with rosemary, peppermint and other brain-boosting herbs and herbal extracts.
The company has already sold over 150,000 units, and they face a substantial opportunity: if the gum is actually effective, it could take the place of energy drinks and be used by countless high school students studying for their SATs, college students working on problem sets, or professionals preparing for a presentation. Furthermore, the price seems very reasonable (you can buy Think Gum at $0.16 per piece online), making the product within reach for students. Product manufacturing businesses like this one generally don't come from students and are often tough to scale, but with an intriguing product and a smart team, there is a significant opportunity for them to keep growing. As you write your next paper with the help of some Think Gum, you may also want to turn to EasyBib, a startup founded by

two students who were in high school at the time (who subsequently attended Northwestern and Brown):
EasyBib.com was developed in 2001 as a solution to expedite the bibliographic process. Students enter information and EasyBib formats that data into a works cited list ready to print. Today, EasyBib is the number one software in its niche. Searching "bibliography" in Google will return EasyBib as the number one result. EasyBib receives over 20 million page views monthly during the school year, and is used by the majority of students throughout the US.
EasyBib's current popularity and search engine position are great, but their biggest asset is an extremely useful and simple product that caters to a large niche. Monetizing the site will presumably take the form of advertisements, and their substantial traffic has enabled them to be profitable since their launch. However, once they capture the high school and college market, their largest challenge will be to find a new direction to expand; presumably, most of their users only visit for limited amounts of time (as they assemble a bibliography) and return only as they get new assignments. Perhaps they could become more integrated with the entire writing process. For example, one interesting point of expansion would be to create "intelligent" bibliography software, which sees which articles and books you cite and recommends additional potential resources based on those works. For now, though, EasyBib has done an impressive job of building a useful tool and attracting a wide range of students. To see more details about these businesses, you can login at StudentBusinesses.com to view full business plans for these and other top startups around the country.