In his senior year of high school, third-year Ilan Puterman set out to streamline his school’s club landscape as a part of his campaign for student government.
What began as a simple website for posting club announcements has since grown into ClubHub, a subscription software program that allows high school administrators to centralize data—such as attendance records and announcements—from all student-run clubs. Though Puterman’s first client was his own high school, ClubHub now serves 80 high schools nationwide. Participating schools pay an annual fee for access to the platform’s resources.
The current iteration offers a centralized database where club rosters and events are easily accessible and allows clubs to communicate directly with current and potential members. New features include options for clubs to share data directly with college counselors and parents.
Puterman attributes much of ClubHub’s recent growth to his participation in last year’s College New Venture Challenge (CNVC), a venture capital competition which UChicago undergraduates can participate in for course credit. During the competition, Puterman was able to focus solely on ClubHub’s development and grow its client base from 27 to 80 schools. He placed second and won $95,000 in funding.
“I’ve never worked so much on something,” Puterman said. “CNVC helped me think about the vision [for ClubHub] and just how big it can get. The mentorship is really great and helped me get to that realization.”
After CNVC, Puterman sought to expand his team. Second-year Booth M.B.A. student Sam Buck, who joined ClubHub’s team early last summer, previously worked in a charter school on Chicago’s South Side and hopes the program will expand to reach more public schools.
“I’m excited for the opportunities for ClubHub to expand outside of [the current] market, because I think what we offer could help really get more opportunities,” Buck said.
But ClubHub’s rapid growth during CNVC also created new challenges, as Puterman struggled to balance schoolwork with the demands of running a startup at a larger scale. “I realized that I’d have to either focus my attention to [my] classes and let ClubHub run on the sidelines like it had been the past two years, or I was going to fully focus on it and actually hit the goals we wanted to,” Puterman said.
Since spring quarter last year, Puterman has been on a leave of absence, pursuing the start-up full time.
ClubHub now has three developers working on its website, as well as rotating team members in the summer. “As long as I can set ambitious goals and keep on learning and growing towards them, then I love what I’m doing,” Puterman said. “I’m learning a ton.”
