What exactly is Studentenstal?
Diks: ‘It’s essentially an online platform for student houses. Right now it has basic functions necessary for every student house: it allows you to track your expenses, make eating lists and overview of tasks. We are working on adding more dynamic options, such as tracking your expenses on beer.’
How does it work?
‘It is web based at the moment, but we are working hard on getting it into the App Store and Google Play store. You can go to the website and easily download it into your computer or phone. One person registers the house and shares the link with roommates, who can all upload their expenses and so on. It is all completely free.’
What gave you the idea to develop such an app?
‘I also live in a student house and we were always struggling with who pays what and whose turn it is for certain tasks. We were using an old website eetlijst.nl. It has the same functionality as our app, but it doesn’t work very well. It is outdated. So together with my house we decided to make something new and better. I also run my own company focused on developing websites and apps, so I took the lead and I made everything on the technical side of things.’
The app was launched two weeks ago. How many users do you have so far?
‘Last time I checked we had 244 users throughout the entire Netherlands. Most of our users are actually in Utrecht, in Rotterdam and Eindhoven. We don’t have that many in Enschede yet, which is a shame. We made the app for people at the UT, so we hope more will start using it here.’
It was created for student houses, but couldn’t others use it as well? What is the ambition?
‘Yes, this is only the first step to creating a bigger platform. We are working with some study associations to deploy it among them. We are also working on using the platform for finding rooms, because that is always a struggle and it can be pricy. Essentially, we’d like it to become a platform for student life. Our main goal is to reduce costs for students, so the app is completely free. There is no way for us to make money with it and we are not searching for one, because that would defeat the purpose. We mainly want to make students’ lives easier.’
