(INSTITUTION NAME)
Introduction
Scholly is a mobile application created by three people – Christopher Gray, Bryson Alef and Nick Pirollo. The application is available on both iOS and Android platforms and is designed to help college students search for relevant scholarships they can apply to. The app costs 99 cents and has helped the company generate over $50,000 in revenues till date (Ransom, 2014). The application covers several hundred scholarships available to students across the United States and provides them with an opportunity to reduce the financial burden of their education, arising from education loans or dipping into parents’ savings.
The application is the brainchild of Christopher Gray, in his senior year at Drexel University, who became famous in 2010 when he won over $1.3 million in scholarships (Craven, 2013). He had applied for hundreds of scholarship when he needed to find a way to fund his education. This was just after the recession of 2009 hit, in which his mother lost her job, and he had no means to support his education costs. He went through months of searching and applying for scholarships and ultimately won over $1.3 million. Not having access to a computer, he used to search for suitable scholarships through the internet connection on his smartphone. The scholarship money funded his college education and beyond up through his future doctorate. The additional money could be used for investments and was put into this business, which was derived from Christopher Gray’s own experiences (Sweet, 2014).
Core Idea
The app is designed to help students find suitable scholarships that they can apply for. It uses eight criteria for classification – gender, race, grades, location, and subjects among others – to provide students with a list of scholarships they can be eligible for (Phillip, 2014). The co-founders research these scholarships manually to make sure every one of them is genuine. Many of them are the ones the founders have themselves applied to in the past. The app also provides students with help such as sample essays for applying to these scholarships. This makes the task of applying to these scholarships easier. The app even gives the last submission date and details required etc. since the information on the app servers is remotely updated by the founders every day. The founders even verify the credentials of the scholarship funds to ensure that only genuine scholarships are recommended to students.
The business is truly an admirable one, as it caters to one of the biggest pain points that students face – paying for college. Since the recession of 2009, economic conditions have been difficult and parents face severe constraints in helping their kids pay for college education. Taking loans offers an alternative, but stepping out into the job market with low demand for fresh college graduates and huge student loans to repay can be scary. This is where the app creates the maximum impact, by providing students with relevant options in scholarships to which the student can apply with a reasonable chance of success. Many students are not aware of the various kinds of scholarships available, as well as the fact that they can apply for scholarships even after taking admission to college.
Purpose behind Setting up the Business
According to Christopher Gray, the key reason he launched the business was to help other students like him. “There is not a lot of awareness about what’s available. I knew that there should be a faster and easier way to search for and find scholarships” says Gray (DrexelNOW, 2013). Alef joined the business for the same reason. The two met in 2010 in Atlanta, when both were awarded the Coca-Cola scholarship and became friends. Gray got in touch with Alef, who was in Amherst, in 2013 and along with Pirollo, a fellow Drexel University graduate they set up Scholly.
The biggest advantage of the application is that it runs on the mobile platform, and allows users to export a list of suitable scholarships to their email for processing their applications. Since it does not require the social security number and other details, it is much faster and more user-friendly than similar web-based tools like Fastweb (Velazco, 2013).
Funding Sources
The app development was initially self-funded by Christopher Gray through his scholarship money. The app launched in May 2013 and was made available on iOS as well as Android platforms for 99 cents. Downloads have brought in over $50,000 in annual revenues. The team has also made the app available for bulk purchases to universities, and Drexel University has been the first to buy it for their students.
The team also has plans to sell the app to banks and other organizations, as well as white-label it for others to use under their own brand name. The company has also made an appearance on start-up funding platforms and the entrepreneurial funding based reality show Shark Tank.
Future for the Company
The application is currently a success among students, and the team hopes to expand its usability so that students can apply for scholarships directly through the platform as well. This feature would make the platform an ideal one for students to directly search, apply and track the status of their applications online. For a minimal investment of 99 cents, students can earn 5,000 to 6,000 in scholarship money which is a huge value for every student. According to the founders, there is about $3.4 billion in scholarship money available to students through 1.5 million scholarships every year (Phillip, 2014). The potential number of users for the app number in millions, and the company stands to generate potentially millions of dollars in subscription every year.
On the technology side, the founders are now trying to create a technology that will allow the process of verification of scholarship data to be automated. Automating the verification process will reduce the present level of dependence on manual reviewing and updating of information. This allows them to feature new scholarships on their student lists faster, giving more students access to these scholarships.
While the application currently covers scholarships in the US for studies in the US, it can scale up to cover international universities as well, such as those in the UK, Europe, Australia and Asia. In addition, another area that Scholly can help is in athletic scholarship programs, helping student athletes get access to the right scholarships and universities, as well as future job prospects. This would scale up the business to a point several times its current size. Therefore, the company has the potential to scale up the business to cover an increasing number of education options for students not only in the US but also internationally.
References
Craven, J (2013) Student creates app to help peers find scholarships, retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/personal/2013/08/09/app-for-finding-college-scholarships/2636505/
DrexelNow (2013) Student-Designed App Simplifies Scholarship Search, available online at http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2013/June/Scholly-App/
Phillip, N (2014) Scholly App Helps Ease the Scholarship Search, available online at http://www.bet.com/news/national/2014/07/22/scholly-app-helps-ease-the-scholarship-search.html
Ransom, D (2014) America's Coolest College Startups 2014, available online at http://www.inc.com/diana-ransom/coolest-college-startups-2014.html
Sweet, W (2014) Soda Pop Money and Smart Phones: Improving Access with Scholly, available online at https://www.amherst.edu/aboutamherst/news/student_achievements/node/501122
Velazco, C (2013) Scholly Helps Students Find Their Ideal Scholarships On Their Smartphones, available online at http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/06/scholly-helps-students-find-their-ideal-scholarships-on-their-smartphones/
