150k Facebook users cried out for scholarships. This edtech startup delivered

WeMakeScholars’ team

“It’s always better to validate your idea through some means – a community or something – and build something which people need.”

Arjun R. Krishna gives some solid startup advice, though it comes across as an understatement when he reveals that he and Damini Mahajan got their startup idea from a Facebook community of 150,000 users asking for the same edtech product.

That product is now the Hyderabad-based WeMakeScholars, a website that connects students – high school through post-grad – to scholarships, fellowships, and internships. Students can search by subject, nationality, and country of interest. The site also connects students to shorter-term study abroad programs for users who don’t want to spend a whole year abroad.

Arjun and Damini both got their master’s degrees from the UK at the University of Sheffield. “We didn’t have the option to go to the UK unless we got some scholarships,” Arjun tells Tech in Asia. “We applied to 40 to 45 scholarships and got the last one.”

Both received full scholarships to study, which attracted some attention.“Many of our friends asked, and we started a small Facebook group to help.”

That was in February 2013, and the “small” group ended up growing to 150,000 people by 2015. Arjun and Damini adjusted their plans. “That was the point where we were like, ‘Should we make this a business model or something?’” Arjun recalls.

He and Damini took it to the group, propositioning them with a Facebook poll. Their results showed a whopping 95 percent wanted the website, a centralized location for scholarships. WeMakeScholars launched in April 2015, the result of what Arjun describes as a year and a half of learning from the online Facebook community.

“It’s a global problem. That became clear on day one,” says Arjun. “We would be a global platform, not just for a particular country.”

While three Facebook groups still keep Arjun and Damini’s original roles alive, their site WeMakeScholars now links students to 17,000 scholarships worth US$60 million.

Winning acclaim

Damini receives an award on WeMakeScholars’ behalf from Amitabh Kant, Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Government of India

Winning people over