Students expand ‘The Swiss List’

Nathan Berning took the semester off to focus as co-CEO and chief marketing officer of “The Swiss List.”

Since the company began on Oct. 1, 2010, the texting service that informs students of local social events based on their interests has expanded its presence to seven campuses in the state, including Purdue University and Ball State University.

“Our long-term goal, and what we are working on right now, is establishing a service that allows you to figure out what’s going on around you based on your interests, based on the people that you know and the place that you live,” Berning said.

Berning said the company plans to launch a new service — an event-based social-networking website set to launch by spring 2014.

“It’s like Facebook or Twitter,” Berning said. “It’s a feed of events going on in your area based off of your interests.”

Berning said business has been successful. Last week the company sent out close to 15,000 text messages.

“We send out about between 50,000 and 60,000 text messages a month right now, mostly at IU,” Berning said.

Berning said the company has been expanding one college at a time, and right now it is focusing on Purdue and Ball State.

“We guess that by the spring we should be operating our texting services at 25 campuses,” Berning said. 

Berning said he hopes to launch additional revenue streams on the social-networking platform.

Berning said it will allow users and businesses to sell tickets to events and see what’s happening before, during and after the events.

Every event on the service is user-generated. Therefore, the company is not liable for anything that happens at the event, Berning said.

Cicero “Swiss” Beemon, founder and co-CEO of the Swiss List, said the company is planning for the future.

“The future of Swiss List is all events all the time — anything that you can possibly imagine,” Beemon said. “But right now the focus is on social events going on around campus during the
weekend.”

Follow reporter Alli Friedman on Twitter @afreedz.