Courtesy Photo
By Linda Nguyen
Staff Writer
Many people try to be environmentally conscious and one Baylor alumnus is striving to help people do just that.
Justin McBride, who graduated in 2009 with a double major in biology and biochemistry, started dasjj.com in April. Dasjj.com is a website that specializes in selling notebooks and pens made from recycled materials.
The store is completely online but the company is based in Waco. The website name dasjj.com stands for Desk Accessories and Simplification. The two “j’s” stand for McBride and McBride’s partner, who does not wish to be named.
“Right now, we are a recent start up,” McBride said. “We only have five different products. For the future, we would like to have more products.”
The five products currently available are a retractable ballpoint pen, mini-sized retractable ballpoint pen, spiral notebook, water bottle pen and a spiral notebook with sticky notes and a retractable ballpoint pen.
McBride said his academic background influenced his decision to start a company that uses recycled materials.
“We started because I wanted to start a company and I’ve always been kind of fascinated about the whole ‘going green’ thing ever since high school,” McBride said. “I took an environmental science class in high school and ever since then, I’ve been fascinated with the whole ‘going green’ thing and alternative energy.”
McBride said he started the company because of his entrepreneurial interest.
“We wanted to do a website instead of a store,” McBride said. “We can basically run it anywhere as long as we have our produce and are able to ship it.”
McBride said they’re currently trying to establish themselves as an online company by utilizing marketing techniques like reaching out to blog sites and using Google Ads.
“We need to do a lot more marketing and advertising,” McBride said. “Being a website, we need to have much more of a web presence.”
McBride said he also hopes to use his website to inform other people about environmental sustainability.
“I’d like to promote the whole ‘go green, waste less, recycle’ thing,” McBride said. “On the website I’m going to offer more information on how we can better recycle and put information to where you can put your recycle goods. I’d like to expand our product line and promote other ways to go green.”
McBride said the products, which are manufactured by a vendor who formerly worked with McBride’s partner, are all made of different percentages of recycled materials.
“Our products have different recycle percentages which are listed on the website in the product description,” McBride said.
Houston senior Tim Kwon is one of dasjj.com’s customers.
“My friend told me about the website because he’s friends with Justin,” Kwon said.
Kwon said he’s been pleased with the products that he has bought from dasjj.com, which include a pen.
“I’ve been using it well and there haven’t been any problems with it,” Kwon said. “I’m also recycling trees so it’s good to buy from the website.”
