DC Startup Quad2Quad Goes Free Just In Time For Spring Break

Susan Jones (68) and Elizabeth Van Sant (54) co-founders of Quad2 Quad in their booth at everywhereelse.co (photo: Allie Fox for NMI)

Two amazing ladies from Washington DC are working on their startup Quad2Quad at warp speed. You would think that these were two twenty something entrepreneurs, young, hungry and ready to work 100 hours per week. Well they’re hungry and working 100 hours per week, but Susan Jones is 68 and co-founder Elizabeth Van Sant is 54.

These two mothers, business women and now startup founders in Washington DC are old enough to be Mark Zuckerberg’s moms. Their startup, Quad 2 Quad, was actually created because Van Sant and Jones have become somewhat pro’s at getting their kids off to college. They know the ins, the outs and “the ropes”.

We’ve interviewed and profiled quite a few college bound startups at nibletz.com. We interviewed Cleveland startup CollegeSkinny who’s platform helps high school students transition from high school to college. We featured CiteLighter which is a highlighting bookmarklet app that allows users to easily make citations in their research. Exceleratr, a New York startup, connects high school students to much needed extra-curricular activities outside of the high school campus. We also interviewed Swedish startup Studemia, which is a collaboration tool for students as well as CampusShift, a Youngstown startup looking to take a bite out of college debt.

Jones and Van Sant’s startup aims to help parents of perspective college students, simplify the college visit planning process. Quad2Quad essentially becomes the college visitor’s personal assistant.

Quad2Quad took part in the AppNation conference in San Francisco earlier this year and everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. Despite having post college aged children Jones and Van Sant mix it up, network and mingle with the best of the college aged entrepreneurs.

Currently they are looking for avenues to raise money, continuing to iterate on their app and developing as much traction as they can.

Quad2Quad just announced that they are going “free” in the app store, just in time for college spring break. The app currently offers 74 colleges and 12 itineraries. They add more and more colleges all the time. They plan on adding another 35 schools in the month of April.

You can find out more about Quad2Quad here and download the iOS app here.

Check out these other Washington DC Startup stories here.

DC Startup Quad 2 Quad Offering Halloween Treat To College Bound Teens

Last month we brought you the story of two DC area women who are old enough to be Mark Zuckerberg’s mom, and have launched a startup based on the pains they faced as parents during the college bound process. If you’ve been to college, or have a student planning on attending college than you know how rigorous planning a bunch of college visits can be.

You’re probably already juggling soccer practice, drama club, glee club, the student newspaper, karate and 16 other extra curricular activities. Add to that needing to go out of town to a strange city full of college students and you’ve got a recipe for a huge headache. Pushing through the visit process, you know that the ultimate goal is for your kid to make you proud at whatever college they select.

Well Susan Jones (68) and Elizabeth Van Sant, feel your pain. That’s why they’ve created Quad 2 Quad a mobile app for parents and students taking college visits. The app serves as your own virtual tour guide in your pocket with a directory of services, hours of operation, local food spots and other things you need to know, but don’t often think about ahead of time.

When you think of entrepreneurs launching startups you don’t typically of women Van Sant and Jones’ age, you think of their fresh out of college age children (and for the record we joke about their age all the time via email in fact Jones is typically the one who starts the joking).

Between the two of them they’ve got some serious college visit experience. Their two families have visited over 30 different campuses as they put their kids through high school and then college.

Quad 2 Quad is now available for sale and if you’ve been down this road before you know all too well that Halloween is almost a time marker for when the visits start. With that and mind, and to spread some halloween loving, Quad 2 Quad is on sale in the iTunes store for just $2.99 from October 30th-31st (next Tuesday and Wednesday)

Linkage:

Check out Quad 2 Quad here

Download it from the app store here

Come see Jones and Van Sant at “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference” click here

DC Women Startup Founders Are Old Enough To Be Zuck’s Mom; See What They’re Doing

We’ve had a lot of fun getting to know 68 year old Susan Jones and 54 year old Elizabeth Van Sant. These two mothers, business women and now startup founders in Washington DC are old enough to be Mark Zuckerberg’s moms. Their startup, Quad 2 Quad, was actually created because Van Sant and Jones have become somewhat pro’s at getting their kids off to college. They know the ins, the outs and “the ropes”.

We’ve interviewed and profiled quite a few college bound startups lately. Earlier this week we interviewed Cleveland startup CollegeSkinny who’s platform helps high school students transition from high school to college. We featured CiteLighter which is a highlighting bookmarklet app that allows users to easily make citations in their research. Exceleratr, a New York startup, connects high school students to much needed extra-curricular activities outside of the high school campus. We also recently interviewed Swedish startup Studemia, which is a collaboration tool for students as well as CampusShift, a Youngstown startup looking to take a bite out of college debt.

Jones and Van Sant’s startup aims to help parents of perspective college students, simpli

fy the college visit planning process. Quad2Quad essentially becomes the college visitor’s personal assistant.

Between Van Sant and Jones they have six children, all of whom have either graduated from college or are enrolled in college now. Jones told us in an interview that between her and Liz they visited over 30 college campuses between 1997 and 2011. Things were quite different, even back in the late 90’s. In 1997 it was unheard of to have to go throw hoops and bounds to schedule a visit. Now you need to schedule a tour, but even that’s not the hard part.

Navigating through the college’s rules and even temporary hinderances like for instance an assembly on an off Saturday night may close the important sections of campus off to students. Or some colleges require special access to even eat lunch at the student union.

Quad2Quad consolidates information from hundreds of sources about colleges, when to visit, how to visit, what you can do on the visit and where to go and who to call during the visit.

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Quad2Quad provides important information like admission office hours, admission office closures, interview and reservation policies and much more. They currently have 74 of the most sought after colleges in the Quad2Quad system and plan to add 300 more shortly.

In the interview below Jones highlights the community nature of the Washington DC tech community. Both ladies were shocked at how receptive founders half their age were to the Quad2Quad idea and to helping “two geriatric ladies” with their startup.

The fact is Jones and Van Sant are far from geriatric. They’ve both had great careers and are doing something that a lot of people their age would never dream of. I’ve personally been an entrepreneur and startup founder since 2003 and my mother, who is 64 I think (sorry mom), to this day still asks when I’m going to get a job. Both women have found the age barrier to be virtually non-existant in Washington DC and have big plans for their startup. Check out our interview with the golden girls of Washington DC’s tech scene below: