Students breed innovation: from Mark Zuckerberg’s early days developing Facebook to the invention of non-toxic fire extinguishers, student entrepreneurship is a mainstay of the university experience.
Carleton University students are no exception. They’re thriving to fill gaps in users’ day-to-day lives, and the fruit of their labour is making its way to your cellphones.
Derek Patterson, a Carleton University public policy PhD student, developed Rent Referee, a tenant-led review app, after hearing about his friends’ negative experiences with their landlords.
“You can review your professors on Rate My Prof, you can rate your employer on Glass Door. Why is there no culture for people to rate their landlords?” Patterson said.
Rent Referee is not the only student-led Ottawa housing app on the horizon.
Aidan Fitzmaurice, a University of Ottawa student developer, is preparing to launch Next Room, an app aimed at simplifying housing search for students.
The app will show users nearby rental listings and pair them with suitable roommates based on answered prompts, Fitzmaurice said.
Both apps aim to address the ongoing Ottawa housing crisis, but Fitzmaurice said he created Next Room to address issues associated with finding housing for post-secondary students.
“I had a negative roommate experience — it was quite hostile,” Fitzmaurice said. “I was navigating Facebook Marketplace and I was like, ‘This isn’t so good.’”
Next Room will feature virtual tours of units, which Fitzmaurice says will help verify properties before students commit. The app also allows users to verify properties using AI to provide walk-throughs of the properties, prompting landlords to show property features like fire alarms and windows.
The app will add a layer of “transparency that people need and are expecting,” he said.
A good time for self-employment?
Ian Lee, a professor at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business, said it’s an optimistic time for new entrepreneurs despite a changing business landscape.
“The barriers to entry are fewer and you have greater opportunities, with more choices and more chances,” Lee said.
Between 2006 and 2020, average entry rate into self-employment was 33 per cent for young people aged 15 to 34 (compared with 14 per cent for those aged 55 years and older), according to Statistics Canada data.
In 2024, youth employment trickled down by 2.5 percentage points despite an overall increase in employment that year.
Divine Eyo, a third-year software engineering student at Carleton has been working on an AI-powered fashion app since November 2024. The app, which is currently available through his website, is called Spequlo.
The app suggests clothing size adjustments for users looking to virtually try on clothes. Eyo said the model allows users to upload full-body images of themselves which the platform can use to help users shop.
Eyo says the idea came from a disconnect he found while online shopping.
“I’m looking at a model who probably hasn’t been to McDonald’s in a while, and he’s wearing the clothes, and they look nice.”
“It may not look as nice as it looks online, on me,” Eyo said.
Where does the money come from?
The international student from Nigeria said he funded the project himself aside from an $8,000 grant provided by Carleton’s Innovation Hub.
“When you’re starting something, you don’t necessarily have the funds to pay people,” he said. “There’s a lot of grants that I can’t apply for because [you] have to be a citizen.”
Fitzmaurice, who is a Canadian citizen, said that his biggest challenge has also been securing funding.
“Lots of government grants exclude students because they’re concerned we’re not going to be able to devote as much time as we should to our projects,” he said.
While the Ontario government does provide grants to start “summer companies,” they max out $3,000 and come with an expectation of less than 12 hours of other work or school during the program.
Fitzmaurice said that for Next Room, that provincial grant wouldn’t work.
“I’m a student, I have to pay tuition, and this isn’t currently generating any revenue for me or the team, so that’s not possible … I still need to sustain myself,” he said.
In the same vein, Lee added that a major hurdle for emerging businesses, including student ventures, is raising capital.
“In theory, you can do it on a shoestring with a couple of hundreds of dollars, but that’s more of a Hollywood dream than reality.”
He said that many startups rely on what he calls “love capital” — money borrowed from friends and family.
Both Next Room and Rent Referee plan to monetize through advertisements rather than locking certain features behind paywalls.
“The reviews will always be free,” Patterson said. “[Rent Referee is] trying to provide a service to people, and this is not something that we think people should be paying for.”
Fitzmaurice said that on top of selective advertising partners, Next Room will look to mainly monetize by taking a commission from those listing units.
Both Fitzmaurice and Patterson spoke at the Carleton University Students’ Association’s Housing Symposium last semester, which Lee said is an important step for breaking into the industry.
Eyo said that community plays a valuable role for student entrepreneurs.
“If you can get people that love your product and are willing to tell anyone to buy, it’s worthwhile.”
Patterson said that the biggest challenge for student entrepreneurs isn’t just funding, but self-doubt.
“You need to be able to validate the idea […] that you could still be successful and not have a lot of money at the beginning.”
Featured graphic by Alisha Velji
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