With no prior experience in business, these friends launched a student mentorship startup amid COVID-19

COVID -19 has surely disrupted many of our activities, but entrepreneurship isn’t one of them. At least not for Arya Diwase and Anushka Desai.

The friends realised that education was one of the hardest-hit industries during the lockdown and that it was a time when mentorship was most required. Cashing in on this opportunity, the duo launched student mentorship Application Ally in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Arya and Anushka who had met through Arya’s not for profit organisation Jazz Hands had personal experience, applying for universities abroad previously and understood the challenges faced by students in this regard. Also, the pandemic is not particularly an easy time for students applying abroad, with a number of things to take into consideration while choosing universities.

Arya, who has been working as an AIF Clinton Fellow, a competitive fellowship for social entrepreneurs, had applied to various top programs and secured admission to competitive universities like Harvard, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Duke, Berkeley, Northwestern, USC, NYU and several more since 2014.

On the other hand, Anushka pursued a master’s in Understanding Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Their own experiences in the application process led them to realise some invaluable insights develop a unique method to help fellow aspirants.

“I realised there is a lot of false information in the process available right now in the consultancy space. And people we have worked with also started asking for advice as they felt a slight disconnect with the existing consultancies,” says Arya.

The founders claim that there is a fundamental lack of integrity, personalisation, and ethics in the country's current education consulting system. A significant reason behind this, they believe, is that consultants aren't students or have no experience of studying or living abroad.

“With consolidated admits to over 18 different international universities including four Ivy League institutions, winning over three crores in scholarships and being acknowledged to three competitive professional fellowships, we capitalised on our diverse academic profiles to assist guide a plethora of students with varied interests,” adds Anushka.

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Starting up

Arya and Anushka had to research extensively to develop a business model. It took over two years for them in identifying a need that exists in the market and in creating a product that doesn't already exist.

Once they had the business strategy in place, they personally made over 100 initial outreach calls to prospective clients, designed the website, and developed a social network marketing strategy to launch the business.

Arya says the startup was launched to provide individualised assistance with the overseas college admission process. It aims to solve the problem of lack of availability of affordable quality education consulting services, while keeping integrity at the core of its work. 

“However, the application season this year is extremely competitive due to deferrals during COVID-19 and a higher number of people applying to college during a recession. Navigating that has been challenging. Additionally, colleges have updated a lot of their application requirements such as standardised testing requirements, essay prompts, etc.” Anushka explains.

Thus, the major task for the startup was to be more aware and stay up-to-date on these changes for its clients.

Personalised approach

Application Ally believes applications are not just about the administrative elements and requires a lot of personalisation as not everyone has the same academic or career trajectory. Thus, the startup’s goal is not only to secure its clients an admission but to also help them attain a college that matches their potential, passion, and goals.

For this, the founders spend time with clients, understanding their client’s past journeys, requirements, financial constraints etc - based on which Application Ally allows applicants to access a pool of resources. It is primarily aimed at students looking to apply for undergraduate and graduate programs.

Providing tailored assistance and verified guidance, along with school resource optimisation, Application Ally also provides counselling to individuals for extracurricular engagement support, alumni network, and interview preps, along with a series of workshops to support self-learning.

“Application Ally does not believe in agency ties. We are not affiliated with colleges or third-party agencies. We believe that with college tie-ups, consultants often push clients towards colleges that may not be the right fit for them. Each client has a unique profile and requires college lists that best fit their financial, program, country and cultural requirements,” says Arya.

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Taste of success

Not having had a standard academic or professional business background, in the beginning, Anushka and Arya continually undermined their potential as entrepreneurs. They re-thought each choice of theirs and every objective set was smaller than it should have been.

However, they surpassed their annual profit goal set for 2020-2021 by 300 percent within a month of launching operations.

The startup’s customer base comprise 60 percent of graduate students and 40 percent undergraduates. It claims to have secured over 50+ clients. Despite launching during the lockdown, the team claims to have had a 57.81 percent net profit margin over six months.

Going ahead, the goal for the startup is to make the college application process more honest and student-centric rather than consultant-centric.