Are there any unmet needs in your community, at college or elsewhere, that could be turned into a business opportunity? In 2003, Golderg and Ting were engineering students at the prestigious Columbia University, New York. Goldberg was president of his class and hearing lots of complaints about lack of community spirit. Over the summer, he designed a social network for his fellow engineers. Unlike other existing social networks such as MySpace and Friendster, this was the first network which overlaid a virtual community on a real community. Mark Zuckerberg would try the same idea at Harvard the next year.

Three quarters of Columbia’s engineering students signed up to the Columbia network over the summer.

Goldberg improved the network and relaunched it as CU Community in January 2004, open to all the University’s students. Most Columbia students signed up within a month. CU Community was sophisticated for its time.

When Facebook launched in February 2004, it only allowed members to ‘friend’ and ‘poke’ each other. CU Community also allowed blogging, sharing and cross-profile commenting.

Goldberg did not worry about Facebook: ‘It was totally different. It had an emphasis on directory functionality, less emphasis on sharing. I didn’t think there was much competition.

We were the Columbia community, they were Harvard.’

Then in March Facebook launched in other elite American universities such as Yale, Stanford and Columbia. Goldberg, now joined by Wayne Ting, transformed CU Community into Campus Network and launched in elite American universities as well. But Facebook outpaced the new Campus Network. By summer 2004, Facebook had already overtaken Goldberg and Ting’s network even at Columbia.

Goldberg and Ting now plunged into the competition full time. They suspended their studies, and moved to Montreal, hiring three other software developers to help them. But resources were tight. Campus Network refused funds from venture capitalists and turned down some large advertisers, including MTV. The two entrepreneurs slept in the office on air mattresses, hiding them away as the three employees turned up for work so they would not know they were homeless.