Desire for a discount leads to a career

As a student at the University of Cape Town working three jobs to get by, Dino Talotti would ask for discounts at different stores to ensure his salary went a long way. Today he is the founder of the student discount app, Varsity Vibe, which has gained traction across the country.

The Cape Town-born entrepreneur started Varsity Vibe in 2011, after realising that students loved the idea of student deals but were too shy to ask.

Understanding the financial struggles they faced, Talotti said he sought to make discounts available to them in a convenient format. 

“This was a similar struggle for many students, and I found that there was a clear gap to explore.”

Varsity Vibe is an online discount website for students or people aged between 18 and 25. University students can get free membership by verifying which institution they are registered with, while others can pay R200 for a premium membership.

From food to flights, books, clothes and furniture, students can get deals at more than 90 merchants, including Mr Price, the Cotton On group, Takealot and food franchises including Nandos, Rocco Mamas and Panarottis.

Talotti said while the idea was born during his student days, he had to put it on the back burner to focus on his studies.

“I was studying to become an accountant and one day I went home to tell my father I wanted to quit studying to go work as a barman in London. He did not agree to this, encouraging me to complete my studies and go to London “to work as an accountant instead”.

Determined to accumulate the funds he needed to kick-start this project, Talotti followed his father’s advice and worked six months as an accountant overseas after completing his articles in 2010. Returning to South Africa, he started Ikeys Vibe at UCT, a membership that granted students access to Varsity Cup rugby games and student deals in 2011.

“It was initially a card-based membership for students at UCT and had managed to get 35 partner stores on board before the launch. The membership was R350, and it was great, we did well in the first year,” he said.

Patience and effort were important aspects in growing the business for Talotti. He said he would approach different businesses with a clipboard and an idea, hoping they would agree to be part of the business.

After successfully signing up hundreds of students within three months, Talotti experienced a setback. He found out that the rugby club had not filed the necessary paperwork correctly, leading to the business forfeiting the funds it had made in that period.

“Everyone got paid, but I went back to London and needed to work for six more months. This was one of the obstacles we had to deal with in the very beginning.”

It was the first of many challenges Varsity Vibe has faced over the years. Being affiliated with the rugby club at the university, he learnt that they were not making any profit on the memberships despite the club charging students more for it. However, Talotti said, they continued to sell memberships on campus as it gave them the exposure they needed.

I decided to have a card that students could buy online, and we could have it delivered to them. However, we had another major setback because the Post Office went on a three-month strike

—  Dino Talotti, Varsity Vibe founder

In 2015 the membership had grown from Cape Town to inland institutions such as Wits University and the University of Pretoria.

“This is when I decided to have a card that students could buy online, and we could have it delivered to them. However, we had another major setback because the Post Office went on a three-month strike.”

To mitigate this, Varsity Vibe launched a website to make its product more accessible to students across the country.

Talotti said 2015 was a particularly difficult year for the business as it was the same year the Fees Must Fall protests began.

“We were starting to gain momentum, and we went from doing 5,000 sign-raises a year to barely managing a thousand.”

Despite the Fees Must Fall protests and a global pandemic, Varsity Vibe now employs six people permanently, with about 200 students working part-time and earning a commission.

The company now has more than 900,000 active members across the country, with the number expected to grow by over 20,000 this year. It has partnered with Standard Bank to offer its Student Achiever account holders a free premium membership.

Looking at the future of Varsity Vibe, Talotti said he wanted to have a similar membership in Europe to expand the company’s footprint and assist students who may need the discounts while travelling.

“I would also like to have a different app for people over the age of 25 where they can get deals on things such as car insurance and medical aid,” he said.