HALF HOLLOW HILLS
A Hometown Dotcom Phenomenon
By Luann Dallojacono / ldallojacono@longislandernews.com

Most college students start applying the knowledge they gain from class after they graduate. Matt Ackerson, of Dix Hills, however, couldn’t wait that long. At the ripe old age of 21, Ackerson, a junior at Cornell University, has already built a successful business that is taking off in the Ithaca area.

Ackerson’s brainchild is Scrimple.com, a lime-green accented coupon Web site geared towards offering savings for college students while driving traffic for local businesses. The company’s name is a clever combination of the words scrimp and simple, and the basic business idea is “scrimple” enough. Local merchants advertise their coupons on Ackerson’s Web site, and each time a visitor prints a coupon or texts one to their phone Scrimple pockets between 20 cents and $1 for the sale.

The site is free for consumers and provides them with endless offers, from discounts off spring break sunglasses and laundry services to a free drink and cookies from the Subway sandwich chain. Since launching the web site, over 11,000 people have visited it and over 5,400 coupons have been printed and texted, Ackerson said.

The budding business student, who spends 30-plus hours a week working on Scrimple, deemed the Internet phenomenon part of a new wave of “next generation advertising” that allows businesses to track statistics and see how well coupons are performing by comparing the amount printed with the amount redeemed. Businesses can also customize their coupons at any time by logging into the Web site, an advantage compared with print media, where ads are static, Ackerson said.

“The nut that we’re really trying to crack is convert online purchase intent to offline purchases for local businesses,” said Ackerson, a sharp, well spoken 2005 Half Hollow Hills West graduate. “Coupons aren’t anything new, but the way in which we’ve built our system and Web site, it is the beginning of something new. It’s great for businesses because it helps to drive sales for them in a way that’s quantifiable and measurable.”

Ackerson was using savvy, real world business skills right from the get-go. When the business began as part of a class Ackerson was in as a sophomore, he gained momentum and potential future clients by allowing a few businesses to put coupons on his site free of charge. Within a month and with very little advertising, other than some emails that were sent out, nearly 400 coupons were printed.

He incorporated the business that summer and the business has been growing ever since. It even earned Ackerson a $2,500 prize as the first-place winner of Cornell’s “Big Idea” business competition where Scrimple surpassed nearly 150 student submissions.
“My mouth kind of dropped open when they said that Scrimple had won. I was trying to convince myself that we hadn’t won in case we didn’t,” said Ackerson. “It was validation of the idea of the business concept.”

As the semester draws to a close, Ackerson and the five other members of his Scrimple team are focusing on raising money and preparing for a big push in the summer to bring the company – and its benefits – to other locations upstate. But don’t fret yet, Long Island college students; Ackerson said he plans to make his way down here as well.

“It’s all been quite a ride to say the least, but I think we’re only at the beginning of our journey,” said Ackerson. “We really want to bring this to as many local business as we can.”

When he’s not in class or working on Scrimple, Ackerson is a member of a literary club on campus. He also serves as a mentor for other student entrepreneurs and shares with them the lessons he has taken away from his entrepreneurial journey, the most important of which is the idea that there are no barriers in life.

“We kind of put up these walls. We see this big, giant Fortune 500 company and say, ‘How did that come to be?’ The reality is someone actually built that company,” said Ackerson. “If you’re willing to learn and acquire knowledge you can accomplish whatever you want. Scrimple only existed in my mind a year ago. It was all on paper, all in my mind, but later because there was a will, because I have the right people, because I was willing to make mistakes and take risks the vision is something tangible; it’s now something real, and we’re moving forward.”