Scholarply.

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www.scholarply.com

2023

The Problem.

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Students in higher education face significant challenges when it comes to securing funding.

• 40% of student’s choose to not apply for scholarships because:
• Lack of Guidance: they struggle to find relevant scholarships.
• Time-Consuming: the application process is time-intensive with uncertain outcomes.
• Self-Doubt: many students believe they aren’t competitive enough.
• For those who do apply:
• They spend an average of 4 days per application (searching, preparing, submitting).
• Submitting up to 4 applications per semester.

This time investment deters students from applying.

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Our Solution.

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Scholarply tackles the problem in 3 straightforward stages:

1. Streamlined Funding Discovery

• Our LLM Agent scours the web, finding scholarships tailored to each student.
• Result: All the scholarships you qualify for, in one place.

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2. Accelerated Application Process

• Scholarply AI prepares the application material, generates personalized essay responses.
• Result: Minimum effort for maximum chances of success.

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3. Real-time Feedback and Scoring

• Instant AI feedback and scoring to show students where they stand among applicants.
• Result: Continued improvement and prioritization for application submission.

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How do we know people want it?

Impressive Sign-Up Rate

• Launched in September, our landing page garnered over 1,000 sign-ups within a single month, achieving an exceptional 33% conversion rate from site visitors around the world.

In-Depth User Insights

• Conducted more than 250 one-on-one interviews with students to identify their pain points, and the overwhelming sentiment is that Scholarply is a highly anticipated and needed tool.

Expert Endorsements

• Financial counselors, student advisors and faculty members have enthusiastically endorsed our service, further enhancing user engagement.

University Recognition

• We've captured the attention of the official university newsletter, which advocates for the benefits of such a tool.

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Our Progress.

Speedy Development

• Built an MVP in 2 weeks, and begun testing it with users.
• Our MVP currently enables our users to submit 15 applications in 15 minutes, which is 400% the output in 1% of the time they typically spend.

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User-Centric Improvements

• We've gathered invaluable feedback from over 30 MVP users and continue to receive input as we aggressively iterate.

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Commitment to the Vision

• We recently dropped out of our PhD program, to work on Scholarply full-time, reinforcing our commitment to addressing this critical issue.

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Target User Persona.

Demographics

• Age Group: Primarily 18-35 years old.
• Education Level: High school seniors, current undergraduate and graduate students
• Economic Background: Low-to-mid income families, often reliant on financial aid/loans.

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Psychographics

• Motivations: Driven to pursue higher education but faced with financial constraints.
• Challenges: Overwhelmed by the complexity and time-consuming nature of the scholarship application process. Often unaware of or unable to access a broad range of available scholarships.
• Aspirations: Eager to maximize their educational opportunities without being hindered by financial limitations.

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Behavioral Traits

• Tech-Savvy
• Time-Constrained
• Feedback-Oriented

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Scholarply MVP 1.0 Demo.

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Our Competitors.

Limited Search and Matching Capabilities

• Competitors often provide basic scholarship search tools with minimal personalization, resulting in outdated or irrelevant scholarship matches.

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Manual Application Processes

• Lack of automation in application preparation, requiring significant manual effort from students for each application.

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Absence of Real-Time Feedback and Support

• Competitors typically do not offer real-time feedback or scoring, crucial for enhancing application competitiveness and guidance throughout the application process.

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Competitor Examples

• ScholarshipOwl, Scholarship Canada, Student Awards

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Market Opportunity.

Pricing Strategy

• Our offerings can be priced at $199 per semester based on extensive user analysis.

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U.S. Higher Education Landscape

• In the US, there are approx. 20 million students enrolled in higher education programs.
• Assuming a 2.5% conversion rate, this translates to 500,000 potential subscribers.
• With a subscription fee of $199 per student for each of the three semesters in a year, our projected revenue amounts to $99.5 M/semester or $298.5M annually.

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Total Addressable Market (TAM)

• Let's consider capturing 100% of the low-to-mid-income student market (50% of students).
• This goal would result in an estimated TAM of approximately $5.97B annually.

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The A+ Team behind Scholarply.

Why are we building Scholarply?

• We are driven by our firsthand experience with financial struggles as Ph.D. candidates during a time of high inflation and stagnant student stipends.

Why is this a winning team?

• AI/Robotics PhD Candidates at the University of Toronto (global top 6 in AI research).
• Several research publications in prestigious venues.
• Secured over $250k in scholarships, including a rare Apple AI PhD Scholar nomination.
• We worked together for 4 years across multi-disciplinary projects (healthcare research, Grammy Award collaborations, AI ventures).

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Aaron Tan, BEng, MASc, CEO (Left)

Angus Fung, BASc, CTO (Right)

What are we looking for?

Seeking Pre-Seed Investment

• Looking for an initial investment of $500,000 to fuel our early-stage growth.

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Development and Scaling

• The investment will be pivotal in further developing Scholarply's capabilities and scaling our operations.

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Market Positioning and Mission Advancement

• Aiming to solidify our market presence and advance our mission of streamlining the scholarship application process for students, making it more efficient and accessible.

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Founder Introduction.

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