When most students consider their classes a little easy, they take it as a blessing.

Business senior Ben Schaechter took it as an excuse to start his own business.

Gopollgo.com is a Web site and business created entirely by Schaechter starting the fall of his junior year at Creighton. It has now grown into a Web site that has received over 50,000 hits and received seed funding from a local software investment company.

“It originally started off as a project in my dorm room because the programming classes I was taking weren’t challenging enough,” said Schaechter.

The Sunnydale, Calif., native has been programming since he was 10 years old. The inspiration for gopollgo.com came out of his working on a different Web site.

“They had polling software and it was just terrible, and I looked out there and saw that there weren’t many great alternatives,” said Schaechter. “Polls are really important because as a tool for businesses it can let you learn about your demographic and communicate to them directly.”

The Web site, built from the ground up by Schaechter who wrote the code himself, functions as a hub for people to meet and vote on and create various polls. People can create user profiles if they want to make their own polls but a profile is not required to vote.

Schaechter said he is looking into offering a premium paid service with benefits such as being able to create private polls and other things. The site is also undergoing an overhaul in October to allow for Facebook and Twitter integration, plus other additions.

Schaechter took his Web site and idea to a pitch contest put on by Prairie Silicon News and the Creighton University Entrepreneurial Club, where he met Dusty Davidson, owner of LLC Brightmix, a local Web development business. Davidson was impressed with Schaechter and gave him the necessary funds to get the ball rolling.

“You don’t see students starting businesses that often, but it’s really the optimal time to start a business,” said Anne York, associate professor in the College of Business. “I’m really impressed with Ben. He’s very motivated.”

“It’s great to see somebody really doing it as opposed to just sitting in a classroom learning about it,” said Laura Mizaur, head of the entrepreneurial club, of which Schaechter is the president. Schaechter said the entire experience has been a learning process for him.

“I’ve always wanted to start my own business and see what’s it all about,” he said. “The biggest thing I’ve taken away from it is time management. Juggling both school and the company has been difficult. It’s been my biggest hurdle.”

For students contemplating starting their own businesses or Web sites, Schaechter says to just go for it.

“There’s never really a good time, if you’re gonna try to make time and give yourself more time than you’ll think you’ll need. Because it’s a lot of work.”