If you thought online profiles have reached their limit, Marriott School grad Sid Krommenhoek shows the rave is just beginning. His bright new web site gives high school students worldwide the chance to put a face—and in some cases, a video—with a name on their college admissions applications.
In October 2006, Krommenhoek, Brad Hagen, and Mick Hagen founded zinch.com, giving students the chance to show who they really are to college admission officers by using vibrant online profiles. With already 325,000 high school students involved and more than five hundred colleges affiliated with Zinch, the company has expanded to students and colleges in all fifty states and more than 160 countries.
Krommenhoek, a 2005 business management graduate, and his friend and former mission companion Brad Hagen, a byu communications major, joined with Princeton sophomore Mick Hagen after Mick suggested the business when he faced challenges getting into Princeton.
The team spent about nine months contacting colleges throughout the country and working with high school students to find what would meet their needs.
Zinch offers high school students the chance to create detailed profiles outlining academic achievements, extracurricular activities, and personal and family backgrounds. Students can also post media, such as videos of themselves playing an instrument or a sport. There is even a section where students can list books, movies, music, and quotes they like.
Krommenhoek explains, “Zinch allows students to share with colleges a more complete picture of themselves; our mantra is ‘I am more than a test score.’”
College profiles also exist on Zinch so admissions officers can log on to search profiles of possible students.
Krommenhoek and Brad Hagen entered the business in the Marriott School Business Plan Competition when Krommenhoek was still attending college and won first place in the e-business category. The business also won the Utah Entrepreneur Challenge and a business competition at Princeton.
The two had started various businesses together during the years leading up to Zinch, the first just shortly after Krommenhoek married Rian Rane, a byu lingustics graduate. The three of them moved to Detroit, Michigan, to get their first business off the ground. Krommenhoek remembers those early years saying, “We were all hungry for opportunity and adventure and had little to fall back on.”
Now, however, those beginning years seem to be paying off with the success of their business and happy family lives. Krommenhoek and his wife now live in Provo with their two small children, taking pleasure in spending time together doing what their kids enjoy. Krommenhoek says, “Our greatest challenges and joys rest solely with our family.”
