Campus Solutions co-founder Li Jiang

Northwestern students face a dilemma every summer: where to store their belongings for the 3 months spent away from school. For those who live close-by, the solution is easy. For out-of-state or international students, however, the question is a bit more concerning.

Northwestern senior Li Jiang was aware of this nagging problem, and decided to do something about it. Jiang is a co-founder and manager of Campus Solutions, a student run business intended to provide packing and delivery services to students.

“Clearly students need a way to store their stuff, especially in the summer,” Jiang said. “We provide an essential service to the students.”

Along with storage, Campus Solutions provides its costumers with unlimited packing supplies, door-to-door pick up and delivery, and insurance on all items stored. These features make Campus Solutions a very attractive option for students.

In the beginning stages of the company, Jiang and his co-founders faced the same setbacks and concerns any new business would face.

“At first it was all about name recognition,” Jiang said. “People didn’t know what we did. In the beginning, a lot of time was spent educating people about the quality of our services and what we can do for our costumers.”

According to Jiang, one of the largest difficulties in starting this business was to get, and maintain, a solid relationship with the University.

“It was very important for us to get a good relationship with the University in order to be able to expand and provide our services,” Jiang said. “We’ve really been able to do that. We’re now the preferred vendor for storage with the University, and Northwestern doesn’t have many preferred vendors.”

Boxes stacked in the sorority quad

Since its beginning last year, Campus Solutions has flourished. While it started with several people, the company now has nearly 20 employees working in different aspects of the business.

“We’ve really been growing a lot since we started,” Jiang said. “Everyone has a personal skill-set, whether it is negotiating, presenting, operations, marketing, or something different. Everyone has their own jobs and have the abilities to do their work.”

It takes an incredible amount of work to start a business, and there are multiple facets of work that have to be completed. According to Jiang, from forming the idea to starting the actual business, many different pieces, including suppliers, storage area, and advertising had to fall together.

Once all the pieces came together and Campus Solutions was officially a company, the employees found their niche and began working well together as a team.

“People who work for us are detailed, organized, and motivated,” Jiang said. “We don’t have a very strict system. We’re very flexible about how and when we work. Everyone is motivated, and we’ve got a really close culture within the business to get things done.”

Sophomore manager at Campus Solutions Nancy Dong said she feels that motivation is key to the companies’ success.

“We pride ourselves on recruiting the best people for the job,” Dong said. “Passion is a must if we want to continue to grow. We increased our revenue over 90 percent since last year, and the group really needs passion to succeed like that.”

The experience of starting Campus Solutions has taught Jiang many valuable lessons, both in business, and in life.

“I’ve learned a lot about marketing, advertising and operations of a business,” Jiang said. “I’ve basically become a jack of all trades. More importantly, though, it’s taught me a lot about leadership. It was really valuable for me to take on a leadership position and take a group of people to a different place than they would have been without the same leader.”

Jiang said he is extremely proud of the work the Campus Solutions founders and employees have accomplished since last year.

“I think we’re the most successful organization at Northwestern,” he said. “Its hard to have a business like this work because of people graduating and 4-year turnover, but Campus Solutions has grown very fast and has quality services, allowing us to be very successful very quickly.”

Hearing Jiang talk about the process of starting a business, it is very obvious to me the amount of work that went into it. Jiang suggests that starting a business is easier than it sounds, and I hope he’s right, because the work he described would be exhausting.

However, despite exhausting work and long hours, Jiang’s voice has a distinct and infectious ring of pride when talking about his accomplishments.

“Employers value experience,” he said. “In class, you spend your time learning. In a business, you spend your time thinking of new ideas and solving problems when they come up. It has been extremely valuable work.”

In talking to Jiang, I sense an earnest sense of accomplishment. Though I’m an occasionally lazy and unmotivated person, Jiang’s experience with Campus Solutions makes me think that if I decided to set my mind to something, I can probably achieve some pretty impressive feats. And starting a business that is as successful and worthwhile as Campus Solutions is certainly an impressive feat in my mind.

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