Chistopher Surdi is a typical college sophomore – he devours pizza at midnight and smokes cigarettes for breakfast. And to finance his extracurricular pastimes, the Bryant College student is the occasional subject of a clinical experiment.
So the idea struck Surdi one day after a scientist wearing a lab coat handed him $50 and a couple of movie tickets for smoking a cigarette and then answering a bunch of questions – this gig has business potential.
Surdi and a few buddies at Bryant were inspired: How about a business that recruits subjects for clinical studies, and charges the researchers a finder’s fee in exchange?
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And PhastCash.com was born – an online business that provides an Internet service for clinical studies to gather subjects. PhastCash.com is a free service to individuals seeking monetary compensation for taking part in clinical studies, but the business charges researchers to advertise their studies on its Web site. When new clinical studies are posted on the Web site, PhastCash blasts an e-mail notice to its database of possible participants.
And the potential for finding participants is great – thousands of college students across the country become subjects in clinical studies every day. After forgoing a night’s sleep or smoking a cigarette (no great stretch for most college students), they are asked to sit for an hour to have measurements taken on their memory or mood, by building blocks or pressing one button for yes and another for no.
The studies run the gamut: alcohol and addiction studies, neurological and psychological studies, allergy and asthma studies, TB and HIV research studies. And that’s not to mention another cottage industry that the founders of PhastCash hope to spawn: egg and sperm donations, and plasma donations. Their target market is male and females between the ages of 18-24 years old, predominantly college students.
Surdi and his partners – Bryant seniors Alex Petrow and Michael Haggerty and sophomore Denis Ferriera – drafted a business plan last spring as part of a class project, and spent the summer raising money to start the venture.
The splashy, exciting name of their fledgling business, and its ‘Gen X’ spelling, are all part of a strategic game plan, said Surdi.
“The name, that’s kind of a hip thing. The spelling’s kind of directed for college students, like ‘phat’ or ‘Phish.’ We think it might make the right people more prone to look at us,” said Surdi.
Call them guinea pig purveyors and you’ve got it all wrong. Their literature sent to a member of the media explains, “Our principal goal is to make a service that will not only benefit scientific research studies and further human evolution, but … may even lead the way for easing the pain and suffering of millions of people worldwide.”
But altruistic ideals aside, Surdi and his business-school buddies hope to make a buck, and they are approaching their work with the fervor of true believers in the capitalist ideal.
Short on money, the guys have nevertheless launched an ingenious ad campaign – they’re marketing their business on the pizza boxes of Harborside Grill, a North Kingstown pizza parlor.
“I’ve know the owner for a long time. Me and Joey are good friends,” explained Surdi.
Surdi is negotiating a similar deal with Junction Pizza House, which delivers about 400 pizzas a week to students at Brown University and Johnson & Wales University and the Rhode Island School of Design, according to Surdi’s research.
“Next, we’re gonna go hit Ronzios and Jay’s Deli. We want to capitalize on all the pizza loving college students,” he said.
Surdi and his team are also plastering fliers at college campuses across the state –on a recent weekend they hit Thayer Street in Providence and Brown’s psychology buildings.
PhastCash began operation in early October with a database of potential subjects and two clinical studies at Miriam Hospital, a Brown University teaching institution, as clients. One is a study of memory and multiple sclerosis; the other is a cigarette study.
Next, the founders of PhastCash want to expand into the blood trade, said Surdi – he’s heard that hospitals pay $50 for a plasma donation, but are chronically short on the bodily fluid extract.
But Surdi won’t make a lot of money now. PhastCash charges hospitals and universities only $40 a month to list on its Web site – a below-market rate made possible because the business is currently operating rent-free at Bryant College, within the guidelines of school policy.
But the money making potential is great, Surdi maintains – just think about it. Beer drinking, cigarette smoking, non-sleeping college students are out there, just doing what comes naturally. Naturally, science can’t wait to get its collective hands on them.
How many college kids are willing to act as guinea pigs for a nominal fee? Surdi and company intend to find out.
“Our goal right now is to see it through senior year, see that it works here in Rhode Island, and if it does well and shows a profit, expand to Boston and New England and eventually throughout the country, Canada, Europe,” said Surdi. “Wherever clinical studies are done, PhastCash is needed.”
