As a student you're writing a lot: from summaries, to lecture notes, essays, cases, to eventually your thesis.

However, many students do not realize that no one other than 'themself' own the copyright on that written work. Of course you write all those documents with the ultimate goal of passing your exam or graduate, but what if you at the same time could also turn those notes into cash?

Soon, questions popped-up like "when we provide a platform as Stuvia, are students willing to sell their study material" or on the other hand, "are students willing to pay for someone else's notes" and "is it possible to maintain a certain quality, without checking the documents manually". The ultimate goal was to keep Stuvia simple and 'most of all' accessible to everyone!

With combining our own skills and gathering knowledge within the network of Startups in Amsterdam, these questions could be tackled and retained Stuvia her power to facilitate the exchange of notes between students.

By providing student writers with a businessmodel (i.e. earning money each time a document is downloaded and achieving an online reputation), we created an environment where content sustain itself and a seeking students always has access to a macca of 'unreachable, valuable, rare and unique' documents.

Since April 2011 Stuvia belongs to the wide range of online student services�

Stuvia distinguishes itself from her competitors by having its core built around an open Marketplace. What that means is that students will never lose ownership of their documents, and they can opt to either share freely or against a self determined amount of money. It's truly a platform where Stuvia mediates between students.

On Stuvia, students manage their own 'knowledge store'. Usually, all your study material goes straight into the bin or a dusty (digital) cabinet. Now, we offer the opportunity to share that knowledge and by doing so, simply make some money out of it and help out other students.

Stuvia does not believe in a utopia where all students study together, share their information for free or make any kind of effort for each other that is not directly rewarded.

However, Stuvia does offer such a reward and creates an online platform were students, besides making money, are able to gain knowledge which was never available in the past. You can sell your documents on a national scale, but also regionally, within your school or even within courses. It all depends on how interesting and/or in demand your document is. For example, when you manage to concisely summarize a scientific paper by 'Porter' (a recurring popular and widely studied economics-related paper in various studies), you hugely increase the odds of students downloading your summary.

On the other hand, we do not wish to discourage you from writing an in-depth analysis about a very obscure corner of science, or a short biography of a poet almost lost to history. Rather, we encourage it! The most often downloaded documents on Stuvia are the ones which summarize specific courses. If not merely the prescribed course book is summarized, but also the sheets, lecture notes and mandatory papers are taken into account, the document becomes highly valuable. Hundreds of downloads for these type of documents are not hard to accomplish. In fact, it's done several times by a various former students.

In addition, the number of downloads result in exactly the same number of deposits, without any additional efforts!

Jaap van Nes
Jaap is the technical brain of Stuvia. Prior to Stuvia, he was mostly busy with studying. Jaap firstly finished his MSc Marketing at the VU University Amsterdam in the Netherlands and after that, he finished his MScBA Cum Laude (specialization Information & Knowledge Management) at the same University December 2010. During Jaap's study his eye felt on the students struggling with their data-analysis while completing their Master thesis. By combining his hobby as an programmer and scientific nerdyness he decided to start a company called DoktorAnders.nl. With this company he accomplished to set-up a successful business, in which he helped students doing their data-analyses. » Stuvia Profile

Martijn Scheen
Martijn is responsible for company operations, PR, finance, and marketing. He is the allround 'business guy' of Stuvia. Prior to Stuvia, he finished his Bachelor degree Industrial Engineering at the University of Applied Sciences Amsterdam in the Netherlands and finished a subsequent MScBA (specialization Information & Knowledge Management) at the VU University Amsterdam after that. During his last study he started DUSB (Digital USB), in which he gave students the possibility to work together more easily by providing an online sharing tool. After the rise of Dropbox and other iCloud services, he abandoned his dream of conquering the world. » Stuvia Profile

If any questions remain, you can always contact us through the familiar paths, such as our contact form, Facebook and Twitter.