Torrey Pines grad takes business to the ’sharks’

Torrey Pines High School graduate Sean Conway is already getting national attention for his first business venture.

On Oct. 6, Conway will appear as a contestant on the new ABC reality show, “Shark Tank,” which puts entrepreneurs face-to-face with five established venture capitalists, or “sharks,” including Daymond John, founder of FUBU, tech entrepreneur Robert Herjavec, and real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran.

If the sharks are impressed with the pitch, they provide capital for the upstart company in return for an equity stake in the business.

Though he could not reveal details about his turn in front of the sharks, Conway, 25, is already on the fast track to success.

On Oct. 17, 2007, Conway, a 2002 Torrey Pines High School graduate, founded Notehall.com, a Web site that allows students across the country to buy and sell classroom notes. Searching by course, Notehall allows its users, which currently number about 17,000, to communicate with other students and form study groups.

The legitimacy of the documents is reviewed before they are posted on the site to ensure what goes online is the students’ class notes, not a reprint of the professor’s actual lecture.

The service runs on a credit-based system; although price points differ, Conway explained that a study guide costs on average about $2.50, while lecture notes go for about 75 cents.

There are currently about 10,000 documents in the site’s database, but Conway expects the number of users, materials, and affiliated colleges to rise dramatically in the near future.
Notehall sprang both from Conway’s business acumen as well as the firsthand knowledge that it could be a great service in the fast-paced academic world.

Conway has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which he said was a hindrance to him fully processing classroom lectures at the University of Arizona, where he graduated in 2005 with a degree in entrepreneurship.

He started Notehall with Justin Miller, a student at University of Arizona and member of the Entrepreneur Club, which Conway also started. Notehall was located in Tucson for about seven months, before moving to Philadelphia in May 2008.

“I feel like I’m bright and have a lot of motivation, but I could never comprehend the lecture while simultaneously understanding what the professor was saying,” he said. “It was frustrating.”

“I knew this would be really helpful to ADHD students,” he added.

The business soon expanded as. DreamIt Ventures, a venture capital firm specializing in small businesses, caught on to what Conway developed and offered to invest in Notehall.

It was through DreamIt that Conway heard about “Shark Tank,” and eventually ended up on the show. Pitching in front of the “Sharks” was intimidating, Conway said, but something he was prepared for.

“These are the top dogs,” he said. “It was nerve-wracking, but once we started talking business, it became second nature.”

Conway plans to expand Notehall, adding more colleges and materials to its database, while maintaining a streamlined operation and “not trying to go too big too fast.”

Though he works on the East Coast, Conway would like to move back to North County.

“I want to buy a house on the beach in Del Mar like everyone else,” he said.

For more information on Notehall, visit www.notehall.com, or email info@notehall.com. “Shark Tank” airs Tuesdays on ABC at 8 p.m.

Tags: ABC's Shark Tank, ADHD, SDNN, Sean Conway, Sean Conway Notehall.com, Sean Conway Shark Tank, Sean Conway Torrey Pines High School

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