I just got off a call with a 20-year-old founder who's about to launch a campus marketplace app called Gropad.
No funding. No co-founder who codes. Just him, a laptop, and a problem he kept seeing: students had no central place to find housing, buy textbooks, discover student businesses, or get party tickets.
Instagram doesn't work because nobody opens it to search for a haircut. Facebook Marketplace is cluttered with non-students. Eventbrite charges fees students hate paying.
So he built something different.
But here's what caught my attention; it wasn't the app itself. It was how he's planning to get his first 1,000 users before most people even know it exists.
The Free Food Playbook
Most founders would launch, post on Reddit, maybe run some Instagram ads, and hope for downloads.
He did this instead:
He identified five student-run businesses on campus that already had strong reputations. A hair stylist. A food vendor making jollof rice. People students knew and trusted.
He gave each business $300 cash.
The deal: Offer $250 worth of free services, but only redeemable through the app. The businesses keep the extra $50 as profit for participating.
Students see their favorite food vendor posting "free jollof rice on Gropad." They download the app to claim it. The vendor gets new customers and $50. He gets verified, hungry users who are now in his ecosystem.
Why this works:
He's not asking students to trust a random new app. He's leveraging businesses they already trust.
He's not paying for ads that get ignored. He's paying for guaranteed installs from people who take action.
The businesses aren't just partners, they're motivated to promote it because they profit too.
It's a built-in referral loop disguised as a giveaway.
The Party Ticket Wedge
But giving away free food only gets you installs. It doesn't guarantee retention.
So he added a second layer: party tickets.
Here's the problem he noticed: students who throw parties have to build entire websites just to sell tickets and generate QR codes. It's expensive, time-consuming, and most party organizers aren't developers.
His pitch to them: "Post your event on Gropad. We handle ticketing, payment processing, QR code generation; everything. For free."
Party organizers get professional infrastructure without paying for a website or a developer. He gets students opening the app every weekend to buy tickets, check event details, and see what else is happening on campus.
He's not creating demand for parties. Parties already happen. He's just making it 10x easier for organizers to monetize them and students to access them.
The result?
Students download the app for free food. They stay because their friends are buying party tickets there. Then they start browsing businesses, posting textbooks for sale, looking for housing.
Suddenly, it's not just a marketplace. It's the hub for campus life.
The Monetization Play (This Part Is Clever)
The app is free. But here's how he plans to make money:
Gopad Credits : a pay-to-promote system.
Let's say you're selling a couch or promoting a party. You buy 100 Gopad Credits. The app sends a push notification about your listing to 100 random students on campus.
Or, you use those credits to pin your listing to the top of the feed, expand it visually on the grid, or duplicate it across multiple screens so more people see it.
But here's the twist: students can earn credits by watching ads instead of paying.
Most students are broke. So instead of excluding them from promotion tools, he's letting them trade attention (watching a 30-second ad) for currency (credits to promote their own stuff).
It's genius because:
Students with money can pay and skip the ads.
Students without money can still compete for visibility.
He makes revenue either way from credit purchases or ad impressions.
Once the app hits scale, he's planning brand partnerships with companies that target students (think Uber Eats, Apple Music, local restaurants). They'll pay to promote directly to a captive, verified student audience.
Now here's the reality nobody talks about.
He's building this entire app alone.
His co-founder is a software engineer, but she doesn't know the language he's coding in. So she can't help with development. It's just him, every night, debugging, building features, hitting walls.
He told me: "There were nights I'd stay up until 1am, completely stuck. ChatGPT couldn't help. There was no one to call. It didn't just feel tiring; it got depressing."
He's using a programming language most people aren't familiar with, so finding help is nearly impossible. Even when he wants to bring someone on, they're reluctant because they'd have to learn a whole new stack.
But here's what he said that stuck with me:
"I made stopping not an option. No matter what roadblock I hit, I sleep on it and try again the next day."
That's not motivational BS. That's survival strategy.
He didn't romanticize the grind. He didn't pretend community or AI tools solved everything. He just decided quitting wasn't in the equation; and kept executing.
The One Insight That Matters
Most founders focus on building in isolation, then try to figure out distribution later.
This founder did the opposite.
He identified where students already spend attention (businesses they trust, parties they attend), and made his app the easiest way to access those things.
He didn't convince students they needed a new marketplace. He gave them free food and party tickets, then let the marketplace grow around them.
The pattern:
Don't create demand. Find where it already exists.
Don't ask people to trust you. Leverage people they already trust.
Don't pay for ads. Pay for guaranteed actions.
If you're stuck on growth, ask yourself: What do my users already pay for, show up to, or actively search for?
Then ask: Can I make that 10x easier?
That's your wedge.