Student Edge

Three years into the Student Edge business, the four Perth founders flipped the model upside down. The discount card that students paid twenty dollars a year for became free. Revenue collapsed overnight. Student Edge began in two thousand and three out of a shared university office. Craig Chetty, Damien Langley, Jeremy Chetty and Simon Loader bundled retail discounts into a paid student membership. Twenty dollars a year, payable up front. The model worked. The founders saw a bigger play. By two thousand and six they realised what the discount card actually was. Not a product students would queue to buy. An audience brands would pay to reach. So they pulled the price down to zero. Membership exploded. By the end of two thousand and eleven the free card had five hundred thousand holders, the largest student member benefits organisation in the country.