00:26:15 · Vansh Langer, Michelle Kwok, Michael Nogen
[00:26:15] S5: Like, why why are we doing this? You know? So... [00:26:17] S3: There could be, but then it's like, would the... Is the university gonna go to those lengths to add that line for this business? [00:26:24] S5: If it... If it's a meaningful update... A a meaningful quality of life upgrade for their highest paying students, I don't see why they wouldn't. [00:26:34] S4: So maybe that is what we wanna hear whether or not it's intramacable because that's gonna say, like, if you can get the universities and maybe even one use case or one case study from one college or university that says, you know, because of this platform, our NPS score went up or, you know, it just... It made it so much easier. It was seamless, and we could actually get to, you know, talk to the student before they came on. It just... I think that maybe being able to sell that, like, this is a really big problem and it could... Or deliver a huge 10 x value to to what exist... You know, currently exists. Like, by Yeah. By someone who's actually gonna pay you a a recurring revenue, not just... [00:27:16] S3: But to your point, I do think right now students would individually pay for this. And maybe he should turn that on and test that. And then maybe we'd be having a different conversation. [00:27:26] S4: But those are data from business models. [00:27:28] S3: That's completely different. I... Yeah.
00:27:28 · Michelle Kwok, Vansh Langer, Michael Nogen
[00:27:28] S3: That's completely different. I... Yeah. [00:27:30] S5: They're they're they're... They go hand in hand. If this is university is gonna pay you versus... The university would pay you to be... I would I would assume that you would have them pay you to be the officials... The the official carrier or whatever. And then the student would still pay you the monthly fee for all the actual handling of the work. Right? Like, you would get, like, a a partnership fee from the university. And then unless [00:27:53] S4: I guess it depends if it... Is this... You know, are you buying into a portal? So it's like we will create the NYU portal that's, you know, specific to... For your international students? Yeah. Mean, that seems like the... [00:28:05] S5: I don't know. The way... When I look at it, that seems like [00:28:06] S4: That's sort of business. [00:28:07] S5: Yeah. That seems like the the obvious way to do it. Right? Like, I mean, create a... You can you can you can white label you can white label all of them so that they have the university's colors or whatever. And there's your international portal, and it's all the stuff you need. And either you can charge the university per student that actually... Per student, or you can charge them a partnership fee, a lump sum partnership fee, and then charge the students that access that portal. Either way, it's better than this. Yeah.
00:28:07 · Vansh Langer, Michael Nogen, Vansh Langer, Leon Li
[00:28:07] S5: Yeah. That seems like the the obvious way to do it. Right? Like, I mean, create a... You can you can you can white label you can white label all of them so that they have the university's colors or whatever. And there's your international portal, and it's all the stuff you need. And either you can charge the university per student that actually... Per student, or you can charge them a partnership fee, a lump sum partnership fee, and then charge the students that access that portal. Either way, it's better than this. Yeah. [00:28:35] S4: I I definitely think that the affiliate models are great from a revenue perspective. But if they can take it to the next level, which is more of a curated specific to that student... Because I think part of the heart... It's like, you don't know, you know, bank a versus bank b versus bank c. You just know you need to have a bank account somewhere or you need a SIM card. Don't... You know, if you can make that journey easy and take out any sort of friction, just... It's it's just... Make it super simple. [00:29:04] S1: Alright, judges. Thank you so much for your feedback on Krish and Roam. Now sending it to Leon, who is currently on hold with Krish. [00:29:10] S0: Welcome to the on call room. My name is Leon. I'm here with Krish of Roam. Krish, how do you think you did on the pitch?
00:29:10 · Leon Li, Krish Bajaj
[00:29:10] S0: Welcome to the on call room. My name is Leon. I'm here with Krish of Roam. Krish, how do you think you did on the pitch? [00:29:17] S2: I think it was good. Well articulated. Maybe a bit long winded in certain aspects. That's a takeaway I had before hearing what they have to say, but it's definitely helped with some introspective feedback on how we can improve going forward. [00:29:33] S0: So so Roam was built out of a pain point that you personally experienced. I'm an international student. I experienced it. Can you share a bit more about your experience in terms of being an international student at NYU? [00:29:44] S2: Definitely. So I got here in 2021. We were the first batch right after COVID. Took me and everyone else I knew close to three weeks to get set up with the absolute bare essentials required to live in this country. Bank accounts, SIM card, insurance. All because we had to go in person to get these things set up while domestic students could do everything online. Not having an SSN was a big, big, big issue. And a lot of these service providers aren't built to serve immigrants. And that led to me going on a hunt to find affordable services that were immigrant friendly and could offer high quality service for all these different things that one needs to live in a country. And that's how Roam came to be.
00:29:44 · Krish Bajaj, Leon Li
[00:29:44] S2: Definitely. So I got here in 2021. We were the first batch right after COVID. Took me and everyone else I knew close to three weeks to get set up with the absolute bare essentials required to live in this country. Bank accounts, SIM card, insurance. All because we had to go in person to get these things set up while domestic students could do everything online. Not having an SSN was a big, big, big issue. And a lot of these service providers aren't built to serve immigrants. And that led to me going on a hunt to find affordable services that were immigrant friendly and could offer high quality service for all these different things that one needs to live in a country. And that's how Roam came to be. [00:30:34] S0: If we could touch on the main talking point that was discussed on the pitch was the business model in terms of revenue stream. The judges seem conflicted in terms of... Affiliate marketing is great for the short term in terms of developing revenue stream. But in terms of the judges were conflicted in terms of whether to go straight to direct to consumer because you could turn on that switch and get revenue straight off the bat with your with your supply, or go direct to universities and partner with them. If you could shine some more light in terms of which angle you would see Roam going down down the line.
00:30:34 · Leon Li, Krish Bajaj
[00:30:34] S0: If we could touch on the main talking point that was discussed on the pitch was the business model in terms of revenue stream. The judges seem conflicted in terms of... Affiliate marketing is great for the short term in terms of developing revenue stream. But in terms of the judges were conflicted in terms of whether to go straight to direct to consumer because you could turn on that switch and get revenue straight off the bat with your with your supply, or go direct to universities and partner with them. If you could shine some more light in terms of which angle you would see Roam going down down the line. [00:31:07] S2: I think d to c is great. The only shortfall we've had with that despite half a million students reached every month organically is the lack of trust. When you're in a new country, oftentimes you are scared of being scammed. You wanna be extra careful about who you're going to to get these services. Now while they might trust Roam as a platform, a lot of the providers we list are targeted to international students and hence don't have the same presence as an AT and T or Chase or names they're familiar with. [00:31:46] S0: Right.