Hey! Justin here, and welcome to Just Go Grind, a newsletter sharing the lessons, tactics, and stories of world-class founders! We’ve got a special interview today with Christopher Gray, Founder of Scholly by Sallie.

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Christopher Gray, Founder of Scholly by Sallie

Christopher Gray is the visionary founder of Scholly, an innovative platform dedicated to helping students find and secure scholarships.

Inspired by his own struggles to fund his education, Gray launched Scholly to simplify the scholarship search process, making higher education more accessible to students from all backgrounds.

His journey from a scholarship recipient to a tech entrepreneur has earned him widespread recognition, including a successful appearance on Shark Tank.

Today, Gray continues to champion educational equity, leveraging technology to break down financial barriers and empower the next generation of learners.

Let’s get to it.

What's your background and why did you start Scholly?

Growing up in Birmingham, Alabama during a national recession in a low-income, single-parent household, my access to higher education was limited without scholarships.

As a high school junior, I spent over seven months searching for opportunities for education financing, relying on the free computers at the library and writing essays from my phone.

My persistence paid off, and I won over $1.3 million in scholarships, enabling me to study finance and entrepreneurship at Drexel University and cover my living expenses for all four years.

This process was far from easy, and I saw my experience as an opportunity to ensure students around the country didn’t have to endure the same struggles that I did.

There is an estimated $100 million of scholarship funding across the United States that goes unclaimed annually, and I created Scholly to bridge the knowledge and accessibility gap for students who, like myself, saw financing as the only barrier to a university education.

How did you find your co-founders and decide to work together?

I met my co-founders Bryson Alef and Nicholas Pirollo while studying as an undergraduate at Drexel University.

We shared a collective drive to address the cost barrier that affects a massive segment of the country’s student population.

What was the initial business model and how did this evolve?

Initially, access to Scholly’s search and match platform cost a fee of 99 cents. However, Scholly’s acquisition by Sallie Mae in June of 2023 enabled us to adopt a cost-free model, expanding access to a broader audience and allowing us to fulfill our mission of making higher education accessible to all.

How did you initially go to market?

At the outset, we launched Scholly on both the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store, pricing it at 99 cents. We manually sourced and inputted scholarship data.

Over time, this evolved into an eight-parameter algorithm, connecting eligible students with scholarships that matched their profiles.

Our aim was simple: provide users with an accessible platform to streamline their scholarship search process and alleviate the intimidation factor.

Operating with a nonexistent marketing budget, I leveraged my personal experience of winning over a million dollars in scholarships to garner attention from major outlets like Forbes and The New York Times. These early publicity efforts helped establish Scholly as a solution for students seeking financial assistance for their education.

We were able to grow to 92,000 paid users in less than a year with this strategy, which quickly demonstrated the demand and viability of our solution.

Our breakthrough moment came in 2015 when I went on Shark Tank and secured $40,000 in funding from Lori Greiner and Daymond John. Beyond the investment, the exposure was invaluable and helped solidify Scholly’s presence in the market. The show was already extremely popular, but on top of that, my pitch went viral due to a heated argument between the Sharks.

How did the Shark Tank experience impact the business?

Appearing on Shark Tank was transformative for our business.

Investors Lori Greiner and Daymond John have been crucial partners for Scholly throughout its entire journey – from Shark Tank to acquisition.

Their operational expertise, strategic introductions, and rigorous support of our mission to promote access to education solutions served as a catalyst to successfully scaling the company.

What fueled growth for Scholly and how did you scale it?

In 2023, only 41% of eligible students in the US applied for scholarships, which clearly demonstrates the access and information barrier students face throughout the process.

There is also an estimated $100 million of scholarship funding across the United States that goes unclaimed annually.

I created Scholly to bridge the knowledge and accessibility gap for students who, like myself, saw financing as the only barrier to a university education. These issues fueled a consistent demand for our product and stimulated the platform’s growth trajectory.

Considering the number of eligible students unaware of available scholarships, I’ve emphasized awareness and advocacy as a tool to accelerate our growth.

One effective method has been leveraging the mass appeal of influential figures. A similar approach was targeted for students struggling with student debt, which impacts over 45 million current and former students and totaling over $1.76 trillion.

I partnered with “Grey’s Anatomy” actor Jesse Williams to launch the “Pay It Off Fund”, which awarded $100,000 to four students at $25,000 each to pay off their student loans. These celebrity partnerships resulted in greater application volume for Scholly’s scholarship services, and more students matched with funding options.

When Scholly was acquired by education solutions company, Sallie Mae, last year, the company’s widespread reach led to a major increase in Scholly’s app downloads and vastly expanded our capacity to serve students from underrepresented communities. As part of the acquisition, Scholly became free for all students and families.

Today, Scholly has served over 5 million users and has helped students win over $100 million in scholarships since its inception.

Why did you sell Scholly?

The decision to sell Scholly was not easy. This platform is my passion – I founded Scholly in college, so it’s all really personal to me.

Ultimately, the decision was driven by the opportunity to accelerate our mission and reach a larger audience.

The acquisition by Sallie Mae provided us with the resources and support to scale our innovations in student financing solutions and make a broader impact in the education space.

The partnership also aligned perfectly with Scholly’s goal to connect more students to scholarships, ultimately helping to make higher education more affordable.

Transitioning from overseeing a team of 34-50 individuals to becoming part of an organization with hundreds of employees definitely presented a learning curve. That being said, managing a rapidly growing entity while staying true to our mission of maximizing social impact has been rewarding.

Throughout this transition, I've remained committed to ensuring that our initiatives align with our core values and focus on making a tangible difference.

Any advice for other entrepreneurs considering selling their business? Anything you would've done differently?

Be certain that your target partner will provide a net benefit to your key stakeholders.

Acquisitions should expand access to your platform and introduce new opportunities for growth.

They should also further your capacity to execute your mission, so ensure that your potential partner shares that vision and applies it throughout their organization.

What were the biggest challenges in getting Scholly to this point?

One challenge I faced as Scholly’s CEO was ensuring broader accessibility to our services, particularly for underserved communities lacking resources for college.

We remained largely bootstrapped since our launch in 2015 and I faced significant barriers fundraising as a Black founder, which continues to be a challenge for other talented peers across the ecosystem.

Black entrepreneurs received a minuscule 0.66% of venture capital funding raised in 2023 and according to a McKinsey study, if existing Black-owned companies reached the same average revenue as their white-owned industry counterparts (excluding publicly held companies), the result would be an additional $200 billion in recurring direct revenues, which could equal about $190 billion in additional GDP.

This lack of equality doesn’t just impact private investors, it also represents a massive gulf in productivity missed in the American economy.

To overcome this obstacle, I led negotiations and discussions that ultimately resulted in the acquisition with Sallie Mae, a milestone that significantly expanded our reach and impact.

Originally applying a small fee for all participating users, the acquisition enabled us to adopt a cost-free model, expanding access to our scholarship search technology to more students around the country.

We transformed a challenge into an opportunity for growth as the partnership with Sallie Mae served as a catalyst to scale our innovations in student financing solutions.

We’ve since expanded the scope of Scholly’s scholarship services to launch targeted grants and partnerships with national universities, and specifically, HBCUs, totaling millions of dollars of scholarship-based financing.

This expansion not only broadened our reach but also aligned perfectly with our commitment to serving diverse student populations and promoting educational equity through targeted support for bridging gaps.

Any other particularly useful insights you've learned by building Scholly?

I’ve learned that education technology is a rapidly growing sector. Capital inflows into EdTech have been booming over the past few years, with $20.8 billion in the edtech sector globally in 2021. That’s more than 40 times the amount they invested in 2010.

We’re also seeing large conglomerates like Walmart, Target, and Google view employee reskilling and upskilling as a necessity, and investing heavily in their workforce education. This has created a surge in demand for education solutions.

And finally, what have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources for you as you've built Scholly?

Venture Deals, The Lean Startup, Growth Hacking, and Zero To One were all excellent resources for me as a young entrepreneur scaling the Scholly business.

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Thanks for reading!

Best,

Justin

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