April 13, 2000

Babson students use the Internet to create new businesses

Photo caption: Seth Ginsberg, a Babson College freshman, has started a Web site for people with arthritis.

Photo credit: CHRISTINE JUNGE

For Seth Ginsberg, Kevin Colleran and Thomas Knobel, three of the many Babson students who take on the roles of student and business person, one of the attributes that they find most useful about Babson is its flexibility and support for students who run their own business, or in some cases, businesses.

Creakyjoints.com

Ginsberg, who is a freshman, started his business, Creakyjoints.com, for a very personal reason.

"At 3 a.m. one night this fall, I was here at school and I couldn't sleep. I was in too much pain, my hips and back hurt," said Ginsberg, who at age 18 suffers from arthritis. That night, he decided to surf the Web and tried to find sites on arthritis and couldn't find any that he liked.

The next day, he called Lou Tharp, the president of Clay Marketing, a firm in Upper Nyack, N.Y., where Ginsberg interned last summer.

"I said. 'Lou, we have to do something about this,'" he said. Two weeks later they had registered their domain name on the Internet and they were on their way to creating a forum for people with arthritis to discuss their disease. He describes the site as "irreverent," naming elements such as Creek the Dog, a mascot that "says all the things that humans want to say, but can't. And he gets away with it because he is a dog. He bitches about how he has to bend down so far to get to his bowl and the strain that puts on his neck," he said, smiling.

"If there's a promise to the Internet, it's bringing people with a common bond together," Ginsberg said. The site plans to offer things such as a chat room for people to discuss problems and ideas.

As president and co-founder of Creakyjoints.com, Ginsberg spends 20-25 hours a week during the school year and 60 hours a week during vacations working on the site.

Tharp takes care of the aspects that would bog Ginsberg down, such as legal and financial matters. Designers from Tharp's firm work on the programming of the site, and users provide the content.

"We don't have any staff writers," Ginsberg said. Ginsberg writes a column for the site, "Creaky Chronicle," which deals with his feelings about having arthritis at such a young age.

He has had arthritis since he was 13, and at 16, he became the poster boy for the National Arthritis Foundation. A portion of the proceeds from the Web site will go to the foundation.

"Dot-coms go into business to make a hundred billion dollars and then sell their companies. We hope to throw a going-out-of-business party when the cure is found," he said.

About finding time to run a company and still attend classes, Ginsberg said with a smirk, "I'm a professional juggler." He then went on to explain that when he was about 11, he learned to juggle to entertain kids at a hospital in his home town of Wesley Hills, N.Y. Sometimes, he goes down to Harvard Square to juggle and collect money from people passing by.

More seriously, he said, "I was put on this planet for something so much better than an assignment. The big picture has to do with life, not with grades," he said.