UPDATE: Journey in the last 4 months for ScholFin – Scholarship Search Engine!

I’m really thankful to TheRodinhoods as it provided me a platform wherein I could get connected with a number of people who motivated and really appreciated the concept of my startup ScholFin – Scholarship Search Engine, not only that, they helped me get an insight about education sector and challenges faced by ed-tech startups.

Here is the link of my previous post

I was really honored when Mr. Alok Kejriwal himself being such a renowned entrepreneur shared my previous post on his personal LinkedIn account. It acted as a morale booster for me and encouraged me to perform with a better zeal and have a positive vision. It also helped me validate my idea from a different set of users altogether who are scholarship providers.

Our journey so far-

If I describe my journey in single word, I will call it really mellow as with every step we have learnt and grown. We have on boarded 7 scholarship providers, one of them being the renowned J.N. Tata Trust, our user-base has increased by 250% in last 6 months, we have been covered by the local newspapers like The Times Of India and Lokmat, we also have been approached by multiple investors but we do not have any plans to raise money for now.  

We participated in TiE International Startup Competition (TISC), 25 teams from Nagpur and about 186 teams from all over Asia participated in the competition, after 3 rounds of TISC we were declared as the 1^st runner up and 2^nd in Asia. During our presentation in the final round the judges asked us really tough questions regarding financials and our plans for the next five years plan, our misstep of not having concentrated on financials in our presentation made us have a hard time, we ended up feeling demotivated and lost all the hope. But it feels like the day wasn’t as bad for us, we had the time of our life when we were announced as the 1^st runner up!

Here is a pic of Co-founder Jenil Savla, recieving the award for winning Second position in the competition.

Lessons learnt-

1. Be confident with your numbers and financials, it is not something that you can miss up on, it shows your sense of clarity and the ground work done by you.

1. Never lose hope, you never know what is waiting for you.

1. Critics are the people you should lean onto first than the people who always have something good to tell you. That’s how you learn and grow.

ScholFin team: We are a strong team of final year engineering students from the National Institute of Technology, Nagpur (VNIT, Nagpur).

How can you help us –

We are facing a problem of user engagement, scholarship being a one-time game we are unable to ensure that the users revisit our website. What should we do in order to enrich the user experience and be more inviting?

How can ScholFin help you –

The purpose of creating ScholFin is not solely helping people out with availing and providing scholarships for educational purposes, you can also start your own scholarship in your or your firm’s name, not only in terms of educational funding but also in terms of the products or services that your company is willing to offer. Which will help you to promote your brand amidst the most active endorsing agents these days i.e. the STUDENTS!