York U Magazine - April 2006 (Cover Story)

Young Bucks
Working hard for the money: how three Yorkies started businesses while still going to school
By Michael Todd

There's nothing like forward-thinking young entrepreneurs to get investor's blood racing, capital flowing and an economy booming - because sometimes what starts as an idea born in the family garage becomes the next big thing. While no one can predict whether the young entrepreneurs featured here - two of whom are current York Students and one a recent grad - will become the Steve Jobs of the future, their stories give us a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the world of start-ups where you live or die by your creativity, street smarts and good old-fashioned hard work. All the while, you hope, trying to get some studying done...

Urban Lee
Co-founder of PriceNetwork.ca
BBA '05 Schulich

Barely out of high school, Urban Lee was already busy researching ideas for his own start-up while in the process of enrolling in the Schulich bachelor program. Now he's a proud founder of PriceNetwork.ca (PN), a Web site that allows consumers to (ideally) save money by comparing prices on various kinds of merchandise among hundreds of stores online.

It's not a novel idea. Other sites like it exist in the US, but not in Canada, says Lee, whose business partners include fellow Schulich grad and friend Jimmy Yin (BBA '05), along with Terrence Ho.

Lee doesn't known where he got the business gene exactly. "Certainly not from my parents," he says. "My mother is a hairdresser and my dad teaches high school. I'm not sure where it came from but I can tell you when it came."

PN was born of need and aggravation. Lee and some high school buddies were busy building their own customized computers when they ran into a few glitches. "I'm cheap and I'm a good shopper, so of course I didn't have much money for all the electronics I needed to build my custom machine," he says. "I remember my friends and I were running all over town, store to store, comparing prices and looking for the best deals. And prices would change daily so it was frustrating. I thought, 'there must be a better way of doing this'".

"That's when I got the idea to start some kind of online business so people could comparison shop in an easy way," says Lee. "The idea I came up with was the PriceNetwork. It's a win-win situation for vendors and consumers. Vendors get more exposure, but also compete more so consumers get better pricing and better service."

In terms of start-up funding Lee didn't have a lot of money for staff or space. "We were students. So having a business that was Web-based made a lot of sense and it capitalized on our computer skills."

"My family wanted to follow the traditional route. You know, study hard in math and science - maybe become an engineer. But I had been interested in business ever since high school. PN started out as a hobby really, and we hoped it might develop into a business. We made it!"