Kasey Gandham and Mike Shannon pitched investors on ABC’s Shark Tank. A startup that appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank in March, Packback Inc., has raised $900,000 in seed funding to grow its e-textbook rentals business, Venture Capital Dispatch has learned. Inc. and publishers like Hachette Book Group. As The Wall Street Journal reported this week, Hachette says Amazon is seeking more profits and market-share in the e-book business at the expense of authors, publishers and brick-and-mortar bookstores. Mr. Cuban said that the recent e-book pricing war is actually “great for Packback,” as he believes it will drive publishers to “look for unique sources of revenue,” including what he called Packback’s “pay-per-view, 24-hour rental[s].”Read all about it. Semester after semester we scramble from Free & For Sale to the Cal Book Store to score the last used copy of the UGBA 10 textbook. We bargain and haggle tirelessly to snag the best deal. At the Clog, we aren’t textbook wizards, but we do have an idea up our sleeve.

Packback, a new “movement” funded by Mark Cuban and created by four students from Illinois State University “aims to help college students save hundreds of dollars in textbooks each year, whether they are buying or selling,” states Michael Kim, the UC Berkeley Packback brand ambassador. With an “on-demand” approach, the ISU students created the “one-day e-textbook rental model,” recalls Jessica Tenuta, the co-founder and head of design at Packback.  Not only would the company’s one-day e-rentals be $5 or less per day, they would also be “rent-to-own” so that no student could ever spend more on one-day e-rentals than the semester purchase price of the e-textbook, asserts Tenuta. After founding the Alpha Kappa Psi business fraternity chapter at ISU with her three friends, Kasey Gandham, Mike Shannon and Nick Currier, Tenuta soon found that the “expensive ‘required’ textbooks were often used only a few times in a semester in many classes, while in a few they were used every day.”

She, along with her friends, figured that with the growing popularity of “micro transactional purchases” and the fact that “up to 60% of the $8 billion higher education textbook market is dominated by the used book market,” they could directly license content from textbook publishers, ultimately helping both students and the publishers themselves.orkio backpack Not only does Packback offer the $5 textbook rentals, but it also offers the real-time price comparison tool that “instantly compares prices from major book retailers from across the web” as well as the sell tool, helping students find the most “safe and reliable retailer” that offers the “highest buy back price” for old textbooks. prada backpack iofferDon’t worry about the shipping costs, either, as Packback will either find a way to ship your books for free, or you can “look forward to receiving a check in the mail,” Kim says.bsa backpacking checklist

So far, nearly 95,000 students have “joined the affordable textbook movement,” purchasing $5 e-textbook rentals from PackBack. mcm backpack price sgdFor your first free e-textbook rental fee, use this link to receive a unique promo code. Already have all of your textbooks for this semester, but you’re still looking for a job? You can also become a PackBack brand ambassador.Read our Packback Brand Ambassador Program Culture Book to learn even MORE details about this opportunity! Are you a self-motivated student that’s hungry to learn and eager to see your work actually make an impact? Packback is looking for innovative student leaders who are looking to make a difference and join our student movement to make education more affordable!An interest in Marketing or Entrepreneurship helps, but is not required. Our Brand Ambassador Program will give you the training and skills necessary to succeed in helping grow as both a student and an Entrepreneur!  

As college students, we all spend too much money on textbooks, often on books that we rarely use in class. We started Packback because we believed that there had to be a better way: so the $5 daily digital textbook rental was born! With Packback, you only pay for textbooks when you actually need them.Our mission is to make expensive textbooks affordable so that you can focus on your education instead of textbook prices. Check out this video and the rest of this page for more details about Packback and our Brand Ambassador program. The link to apply is near the bottom of the page.  Packback is one of the fastest growing start-ups in Chicago, run and founded by college students. We reached over 8.1 million viewers on ABC’s most watched episode of Shark Tank in history, where Mark Cuban signed on as an investor. Since then, Packback has grown to help thousands of students just like you across the country!  As a Brand Ambassador you will become a student leader on your campus, representing Packback to help other students save thousands of dollars on textbooks!

Work as a Packback Brand Ambassador includes:Do you have other ideas about how to spread the word? We want to hear from you!As a member of the Packback family, you’ll have the opportunity to support the growth of a student movement and become a hero on campus by helping your friends save thousands on textbooks. You’ll learn the ins and outs of our quickly growing startup and what it takes to be an entrepreneur. The main perk of this internship is your experience, however there are also opportunities to be paid. Perks also include:Packback provides the first ever digital textbook rental for $5 per day, which means you only pay for books when you actually need them.  A mash-up between Redbox and Netflix, Packback’s daily rentals allow students to get their textbooks as needed before tests or homework assignments. You can rent it for the semester and we’ll credit any money you spent on daily rentals to the price towards a semester rentals; no more overpaying on textbooks!If you prefer physical textbooks, Packback's Buy Tool helps you get the best price to buy or rent your textbooks by comparing prices from top online retailers.