What if there was an app that encompasses savings for local businesses that college students were able to access and find with ease? That’s exactly what Payom Niazmandi, a San Jose State economics senior, had in mind before creating Unibui.
Niazmandi struggled financially and needed a reliable way to save money while he was attending West Valley College between 2013-16.
Niazmandi is the CEO of Unibui, an app designed to find deals and offers at local businesses for students, who have to navigate paying myriad dues while studying for their degrees.
“I was inspired because I was broke and I didn’t have much money. What I wanted to do was make something that me and my friends can use to essentially save money from all these local businesses that were around us,” Niazmandi said.
The 27 year old came up with the idea in 2017 and finished building the app when he transferred to SJSU.
“I started by making an Excel spreadsheet and then going onto campus and pulling papers from bulletin boards and putting it on the spreadsheet so everyone can easily see it,” Niazmandi said. “From there, we started getting more and more [local] businesses on board.”
He said he loves the opportunity to help students like himself capitalize on money-saving opportunities.
Niazmandi said running the app while being an SJSU student goes hand in hand.
“A lot of the things I started learning with the app itself allowed me to take advantage of the knowledge of my school. It became a lot easier to look at examples in class and be like, ‘Wow, that makes sense. I actually see that in practice,’ ” he said.
According to the app’s website, Unibui’s iOS app officially launched in 2021 and currently has more than 20,000 student users.
Users on the app save an average of $2,500 a year, according to its website.
Niazmandi said there’s no other app out there for students that allows them to look at a map and view all the deals around their locations.
The app has 31 deals and/or offers within a mile radius of SJSU as of Tuesday, which vary from restaurants, eateries and cafes to surrounding theaters, clubs and gaming stores.
SJSU marketing senior Vivian Phan said the app has helped her save a lot of money because she has been unemployed for seven months.
Phan said she appreciates that Unibui provides more than just food offers and deals.
“I think most reward apps are mainly targeted toward food and that’s fine, but [Unibui] has deals from literally everywhere,” she said. “I like knowing that I can run to the app if I need to save money on basically anything.”
Niazmandi said as opposed to other student couponing apps including Student Beans and UNiDAYS that are targeted for online shopping, his app is more generalized.
“We’re so general and we meet so many of the students’ needs . . . We go after the harder things like the local deals that students actually will go to,” Niazmandi said. “We're selectively local, which means everything that we build is for things that are actually useful for you.”
He said those other apps are great when you want to buy something like an Adidas product, but they don’t focus on supporting students’ basic needs.
SJSU public relations senior David Guerrero said the app’s map feature makes it easier for him to choose which restaurant to eat at when he has a gap between classes.
Guerrero said he uses Unibui on a daily basis and it becomes even more essential when he’s in between paychecks or budgeting.
As of Tuesday, the Unibui map shows 109 deals and/or offers in the Bay Area and eight in Downtown San Luis Obispo, near California Polytechnic State or Cal Poly.
“The app is super simple to navigate and it even categorizes the deals for you,” Guerrero said.
The categories of deals include food, clothing, electronics, education, health, pet services, entertainment, automotive, travel, home decor and jobs, though the jobs filter was recently added.
Niazmandi released the “jobs” category on Unibui on Sept. 15 and said he hopes the app can help students find work in the future.
As of Tuesday, local businesses that are hiring on the app include Red Rover, Pet Resort and Total Success Inc.
Meanwhile, Niazmandi said the app is onboarding more roles every week.
“A lot of these local businesses want to hire students and a lot of students want to know where they can work,” he said.
Niazmandi said in recent years, he has traveled to the U.K., France and Portugal to speak about his app with government officials and organizations.
He said in every country, he discovered that most businesses wanted to work with college students.
Niazmandi said resumes are not required for students to apply through Unibui as it only requires basic information that would be sent to the employer.
“It’s going to be pretty big for the students to be able to make money, not just save money,” he said.
