Colorado Daily/Zak Wood

University of Colorado junior and founder of Clicker Sticker, Jess Saba, right, shows the varieties of stickers to Steve Morigi, left.

Jess Saba, a University of Colorado junior, was sitting in class last semester when she had a revelation.

"Our professor asked us to click in," said Saba, referring to the iClicker, an educational tool that allows students to provide their instructors with instant feedback during lectures and quizzes via radio frequency.

That request from a journalism professor, however, offered an insight into a striking business opportunity as Saba watched her classmates respond to the request.

"I noticed 250 identical, plain-white iClickers sitting side-by-side on each desk," she said. "Then I looked to my left and saw that someone had drawn on theirs with a black marker -- and that's when I realized the need."

Six months later, the 20-year-old journalism major has met that need by developing the Clicker Sticker -- a decorative decal designed to help students distinguish their iClickers from those of their classmates.

The stickers sell for $4.99 each.

"I've seen people write on theirs, like their name or their student I.D., but it's not very visually appealing," said Stefan Dorwart, a CU junior who stopped last week to peruse Saba's Clicker Sticker designs at a table she set up in the University Memorial Center.

"For someone who has the desire to customize, these (stickers) offer more design and make it more personal," Dorwart added.

During the initial development phase, Saba worked with Boulder's Anthem Branding to come up with 10 designs. After finding a woman in New Hampshire who could print the stickers on outdoor vinyl -- the same material used to make snowboard stickers -- Saba hired a local artist, Matt Righter, to contribute five more designs based on his own original artwork.

The designs offered in Saba's current Clicker Sticker lineup range from guy-friendly black-and-white skull patterns and silhouetted skyscrapers to polka dots, zebra prints and colorful floral prints.

For Saba, the potential market at CU is huge, considering how many students use iClickers.

"When I was doing market research for this company, I called the campus bookstore, who estimated there were as many as 19,000 students using iClickers at CU last year," Saba said.

And while purchasing a sticker is optional, for an increasing number of students each year, using an iClicker in class is anything but.

"Bring (your iClicker) every day, because we will use it every day," instructor Rebecca Hoenigman explained to a chemistry class in CU's Cristol Chemistry Building one morning last week. "Sometimes, all we'll do is use the clickers for 50 minutes of concept tests."

The growing popularity of iClickers is not exclusive to CU. According to Saba, more than 500 universities throughout the country currently incorporate the iClicker into one or more or their classes, which is why Saba is trying to branch out her sales as well.

"I'm working on carrying it in as many bookstores as possible," said Saba, who currently is selling Clicker Stickers at Brigham Young University, Everett Community College in Washington, CU's Colorado Springs campus and Colorado State University.

Saba said that while business is good, she owes a lot to the friends and professors at CU that she used as resources in creating her company. Saba, who said she has invested about as much in her company as it would cost to take a business class at CU, hopes to motivate other students to start their own campus businesses.

"Starting a business at CU has been amazing," Saba said. "My friends are my demographic, I talked to business professors to get advice on accounting and marketing, and the environment on campus is really open for students wanting to start businesses."