RESCUECOM Speaks to Daniel Marashlian about How Portfolium Helps Students
Recently, RESCUECOM highlighted new startup Portfolium in an article. Portfolium is a company that provides a special service to college students where they can build detailed digital portfolios to supplement their resumes when applying to jobs. Since the posting of the initial article, RESCUECOM has had the opportunity to speak to cool person in technology Daniel Marashlian, the current CTO of the company, about Portfolium’s current product and its future.
Marashlian informed RESCUECOM that Portfolium’s original founder, company CEO Adam Markowitz, first came up with the idea after graduating from college for engineering in 2008. Markowitz created a scrapbook of his past projects, homework and other materials. He hoped this portfolio would encourage potential employer Rocketdyne to see him as more than just another resume. “It worked,” Marashlian told RESCUECOM, “and Rocketdyne hired him. Eventually, he met his cofounder Neal Bloom, who had also been hired using a similar scrapbook style portfolio.” Marashlian told RESCUECOM that the two believed there was something more to their method and that they could build on the concept.
Marashlian himself was not originally part of the company. Markowitz and Bloom brought him on after meeting him while they were all working in the same startup incubator, EvoNexus. “I had consulted with them about different technology concerns,” Marashlian explained, “and eventually they gave me an offer to join and I accepted.”
When asked about the types of files students generally upload to Portfolium, Marashlian mentioned that images are most common, while PDFs and YouTube videos also appear frequently. The file types that Portfolium supports are generally visual and particularly helpful for engineers. “The founders were engineers and the platform was originally designed with engineering students in mind,” Marashlian told us, “but we have students from many other disciplines such as writing and art using the site now and it will change to accommodate more disciplines over time.” Any students who have trouble uploading files to their digital portfolios on the site may have problems with their hard drives and should contact a computer repair provider.
The Portfolium CTO also informed RESCUECOM that the company was working on an app to supplement its web platform. “With the app,” he said, “students can take pictures with their phone while working on projects. They can document their experiences for their portfolios in real-time.” The app will be available exclusively for iPhone at first. However, Marashlian said that after collecting data on how students make use of the app, Portfolium plans to release an Android version as well. When Portfolium initially releases the app, people who have trouble trying to download it from the Apple App Store may have a broken iPhone. If this the case, they will require help from an iPhone tech support company.
According to Marashlian, Portfolium is currently collecting data on how their users engage with the platform in order to improve the product in the future. “We gather data on what categories people place their portfolios under on the site, as well as what unique tags they give their projects.” Marashlian also said that the company collects data about the students using the site, such as what university they go to, their ages and their majors. The CTO explained that all this data will help the company understand the needs and tendencies of their user base so they can make the service better for them in the future.
Portfolium is currently part of the EvoNexus, a tech startup incubator located in San Diego (http://www.commnexus.org/evonexus). To learn more about both the company and David Marashlian, visit www.portfolium.com.
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