Company History
Textbookninja.com was founded in the summer of 2004 by a team of college students who were fed up with the current options for selling used textbooks after each semester. Our idea was first conceived by Scott Crook, a student at Purdue University, in May of 2004 after a certain campus bookstore offered him less than ten percent of what he paid for the book to buy it back. Instead of buying a small pizza with the seven dollars he was offered for this book, Scott decided to create a new option for college students everywhere.
As the concept entered the development cycle, the search was on for talented people to make the dream happen.
The first additions to the team were Robert Abeyta and Brian Smith, both talented computer science majors from Devry University, Chicago. Aside from being in charge of the technical aspects of textbookninja.com, they have also written software for the Ford Motor Company.
Next, the company needed an artist to create our advertisements and logo. For a time, Darren, a talented art student at the Art Institute of Chicago was working with us. Then one day, he disappeared. Some say he was swallowed up by the earth, others say he was abducted by aliens from the planet Zandor, and still others claim to have made random sightings of him in much the same way as Elvis is sighted. To this day, his whereabouts remain unknown.
After Darren's disapearance, The website was in dire need of graphics. Unfortunately, none of us could draw our way out of a paper bag. We needed someone talented. Luckily for us, Brian's friend, Alexis Moulds, stepped in to draw many of the graphics for the site including our ninja mascot.
After covering those two bases, the search was on to find a few reliable people to help out with miscellaneous tasks and also advertise our happening new site on campuses across the land. They are Chris Handley, Robin Dunn, and Jim Abeyta.
Now that the team was assembled, Dark Nova Advertising, LLC was formed to operate textbookninja.com.
It was around this time that Bob's mad programming skills landed him a job a few hundred miles away from the rest of the team, and Brian also had less time to work on the site. The site was still very incomplete at this point, but Robin and Scott stepped up to the challenge. Working feverishly over the course of three months, they learned how to build the rest of the site as well as improve what was already in place. Brian occasionally checked up on the progress and took care of whatever he could when he had the time. Very little of Brian and Bob's prototype remains in the finished version, although they did provide advice and guidance along the way.
The site went live in fall of 2005 and we hope to help students get a better deal in both the buying and selling of used textbooks for many years to come.
Textbookninja.com… Because getting $7 back on your book just won't do.
