Two City College alumni’s are helping Santa Barbara eat with their creation of SBMenus.com.
Bryan Brand and Dusty Stutsman attended City College in 2004 and 2005 before they transferred to Wagner College and Colorado State University, respectively. The two met while on the football team. Both shared an interest in business before getting their bachelor’s degrees.
“I took a couple of business classes with Bonnie Chavez,” Brand said. “Professor Brown’s marketing class was really good, too.”
It was Stutsman who had the idea for SBMenus.com, after visiting an Ohio State University football game against Michigan State.
“I thought about (the site) on the plane ride back to Colorado State,” Stutsman said. “I called Bryan to think about doing something like this in Santa Barbara. We loved it in Santa Barbara when we went to school and thought there was a huge need for something like this.”
What SBMenus.com hopes to heavily promote are discounts and other offers marketed heavily towards college students seeking sit-in or take-out dining in Santa Barbara, Goleta and Isla Vista.
“We’re talking with businesses to get specials for students,” Brand said. “We have to work with them to determine what works for both of us. Our bread and butter is the college community.”
“They want to bring people into the door and we’re looking at the best ways of getting them there,” Stutsman said. “We’re definitely focusing on the whole community. With the abundance of restaurants here, we see an opportunity.”
Brand has a bachelor’s in Business like Stutsman, but has an emphasis in marketing. So when the two began work on SBMenus.com before its launch in November 2008, they knew social networking would be what gets their name out.
“Social marketing has been a big thing,” Stutsman said.
SBMenus.com is also using college students who are deeply connected through sites like Facebook and Twitter. Brand and Stutsman believe social networking will attract more visitors to the site and prompt more deals from local vendors.
“We’re working on setting up teams of college interns to find out where students are hanging out,” Stutsman said.
Brand said he and Stutsman are planning on having a presence at SBCC by setting up a table by the Campus Center and handing out promotional material later this year.