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Executive Summary
UniApp is an ed-tech startup from Germany, that helps international students to prepare for their study abroad and helps in the application process, both on their platform. They help students to find the right place to study for undergraduate and graduate programs, as well as online-only programs. Their portfolio includes now universities and colleges in 27 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, Singapore, and Canada. The tool also works as a CRM for universities and colleges to streamline their international applicants.
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“We created a search engine for education that is not manipulated by ads.”Fahed Jaarah, Founder and CEO UniApp
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“We bootstrapped in less than 2 months to more than 20.000 users”Fahed Jaarah, Founder and CEO UniApp
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The Video Interview is set to go live on Tuesday, December 13th, 2022
The Audio Interview
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The Founder
Our guest today, founder and CEO of UniApp Fahed Jaarah (https://www.linkedin.com/in/fahedjo/), brings a wealth of experience in entrepreneurship to the table. Having studied at universities across Europe (Cologne, Paris, Buckinghamshire outside of London), he has worked on various projects with notable organizations such as private rating agencies and investment advisers a small investment boutique. After 3 years working within this sector, he decided to take his newfound knowledge and apply it to the world of ed-tech by founding UniApp (https://uni-app.com/) — creating a modern platform to support students during the process looking for studying abroad by matching students with mentors at universities around the world. With his expertise in launching successful businesses aiding college and university students, Fahed is quickly becoming a prominent figure in the international education community.
The Startup
UniApp (https://uni-app.com/), started out as Udrus.com and was initially designed to enable Arabic-speaking students to study abroad. However, the team soon expanded its vision to provide study-abroad opportunities for international students from all over the world, under the new name of UniApp. Using a unique application process that takes into account 600+ data points for each individual student, UniApp has become a leader in ed-tech by making the complex college application process easier and smoother for its users. With a platform that eliminates language barriers, UniApp is paving the way for study abroad programs around the globe. By focusing on the needs of the study seeker and their future potential, UniApp is playing a huge role in making study abroad accessible to everyone — whether it's internationally or from within their own region. UniApp also can match you with institutions for an undergraduate degree, advanced degree, or even an online degree.
For institutions of higher learning, the application helps them to get matched with better-fitting students and don’t have to click through many ads on search engines. The tool works as a kind of CRM program and communication tool for the institutions.
Venture Capital Funding
UniApp raised 1 mn Euros in Seed Funding in Q2 2022. They are also currently in fundraising mode again.
UniApp is Hiring
You can learn more about them on their website here: https://uni-app.com/about-us/ and reach out via the website.
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The Interviewer
This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder, and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:
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Topics Discussed in this Interview
In this interview we are talking about studying abroad, studying in a foreign country, London, Hongkong, Singapore, new york, college, graduate school, university, online university, education, undergraduate education, graduate education, online education, venture capital, edtech, education startup, study in the us, study in the uk, study in germany
Automated Transcript
[0:00] Music.
[0:19] Hello and welcome everybody this is Joe from startuprad.io bringing you another interview in our Corporationwith invest in hessen the investment promotion agency of the state of Heston here in Germany around Frankfort thisin this recording of course was made possible by invest in Hesston right now I do have a guest to is here with mehate fight how you doing hi Joe how are you thank you for having me on Saturday radio and.
[0:53] Glad to be in here of course,totally my pleasure everybody who’s watching the YouTube video already knows that you are with uniapp because you’re wearing the respective hoodie but let us first go a little bit through your CV I’ve seen you did,Bachelor’s in Cologne and Paris I would assume a dual degree.Exactly so I started my journey in cologne cologne business school nowadays I think they have a rebranding to rebranded to CBS international business school so it was a Bachelors in finance,and I conducted my semester abroad in Paris business school of course yeah.Okay can you give us a secret where’s the best place to for breakfast thing in Paris.Well it depends if you got it depends if you can afford it because back that times I couldn’t afford muchso it was very tricky to find a good place to have a breakfast and yet to be afforded as you know Paris is such an expensive luxury lifestyle.So I was in Paris directly.
[2:02] It was not the easiest way but of course you can just walk around in Paris It’s a Wonderful streets and you can have a croissant and a coffee.Anywhere and you will enjoy it.
[2:14] And I think the bars there are called Rhonda small switch on this moment that you live in but I have been living there you need.Yeah it in which are on this mall which location with it.I think it’s called laddie phone and nearly difference it was the 6th District something like this yeah,yeah it was near Lodi phone so I was watching the I forgot the names.The Shams it has a and yeah from from that place because the lady phones was a little bit on a higher level,so you were watching all parents from that spotvery nice strong recommendation because this is going live shortly before Christmas and before Christmas Paris is always worthtrip because they’ll have beautiful decorated City awesome food andof course great stuff to see and but then you went for an MBA in the UK right exactly.Where did you go there Buckingham a Cheyenne University.So it’s 130 founded I think almost 200 years agoso I decided to have a mix of degrees Germany France and UK I think best degrees in Europe I think.
[3:38] So this was my choice and it was the MBA was was a very generalas you know in Bay is for General administrative skills Etc but I when I started my MBA I started that the samemoment my startup unit have and but itstill see you worked at the same time for 3 years first in a private rating agency than and as an investment advisor so can you take us a little bit along the journey what you did there what you learned and how did you run,in parallel on the.When I started my my career it wasn’t in back in an in Germany let’s say 2015 it was at fairy group very groupies asset manager with 34 billionsa few rows in assets under management.
[4:33] And my role was there and they won student trainee I developed myself II presented new ideas expansion plans to the board and CEO of the company of the group and I was taken seriously and I got the chance to prove that,I can lead such a project and then step by step I got from from the financial accounting department to hedge funds and then to our senior advisor of the group.
[5:05] What I was responsible for our expansion in Middle Eastern Africa pitching triple digitmillion amounts to public funds Sovereign wealth funds the biggest asset managers and family offices in the worldhere and there and everywhere so this was my role there.Afterwards I wanted to develop my career further so I joined a small investment Bank Boutiquewhat I got a success percentage in the company and took over the Amman a senior advisory role forfor real estate transactions big real estate transactions as well with with Sovereign wealth funds I was,handling the Mena region Asia and many other places where I expanded my network building your network and open a lot ofbusiness opportunities in the investment opportunities in Europe for a different parts of the world.Then after a couple of years I even got a an executive role at a big German holding group called Valen vest and then.
[6:24] Suddenly I started uniapp and I thought with with a start-up I will work lessit was a trap it was really a trap so of course I’m working 24/7 it feels like 24/7 really.Like even when I sleep I dream about tasks.
[6:43] Yeah same here same here we may add for everybody who doesn’t know that mean means Middle East and North Africa and.
[6:55] I’m actually surprised now hearing this story okay you’ve been in the real estate business and then you found it at check why didn’t you go for a prop Tech startup that that would have made more sense from this angle.You know coming up with new ideas are based on some most of the time private.
[7:15] Experience that something happened to you in your private life tap into you while experiencing experiencinganything it could be Financial things where youfound like I can do this better it could be run in a smooth away or on any kind of Journeyas a customer as a client as a user of any app of any Services even if it’s tech service or even on a classical approach andfor myself when I started uniapp it was more that my background is an international student,I joined and studied at International Schools so I knew that I can do things better I canis the journey I can issue a lot of services that can can be done in one such as well I had a vision of putting all of that.Everything that an international student can can.Can you need I can put it in one app and solve the whole problem of course it’s easy but the hardest part is executing and this is the key and all of that.Startup brought do you can you execute things can you put things together and show us the outcome or is it just a vision or a nice idea that you can’t execute.
[8:41] Ideas are cheap execution is hard and one question about thenaming uniapp I did totally makes sense here in Germany and in Europe you say you attend University in Germany has a each key to a universitythat makes sense for the Americans it’s a little bit more college but you stuck a first two European ankle,we stablished as you know we stablished in Germany and for us it’s the main focus while the German Market to digitalize the whole educational sector in Germany which we are achieving huge milestones.A lot of universities Colleges and Schools reach out to use the technology.
[9:23] Digital is the the journey for potential student whatever.At the very beginning we even didn’t decide for uniapp it was good rose but Rose was is the an Arabic name called study,so it was a.com study.com and Arabic our main focus was bringing the.Arabic speaking countries or students to Germany when we established we saw the traction going globally likecoming students coming from India Bangladesh Pakistan China Middle East Africa even from North America and South South Europe so we decided that that name doesn’t make sense future-oriented.So we had a lot of ideas Tic Tac ideas so we kept order to calm as a lead management platform it is a technology with a search engine if you go to the sitcom it acts like a search engine you will,immediately from the homepage recognize that I can search for something and it’s schools universities and programs and degrees.
[10:33] Butts.Uniapp was the name which I fought for to get the domain to get the trademark and everything else and the past 12 to 18 months to promote globally.And it’s really did good like uniapp is the easiest and most self explained name in that space.
[10:56] It’s very easy like when you speak about we have a uniapp like I you do something with universities even if you don’t know what is uniapp you immediately know that it’s something about education and.Uni is not just universities you can say you need for Universal and you have a broader reach services and features which will be included in the uniapp will be.
[11:21] Like everything you can charge you can use it for social communication you can check feeds news and open a bank account get your health insurance,so many things so it is a uniapp for.University to use it for universities students attending universities kids planning to attend universities dreaming of graduating from universities so it’s all in one.And,at first we got a little bit impression that is so to say a customer Journey when you want to attend a certain University but can you take us along the Journey For example take a student somewhere in the Middle East who learns about.Moneyapp and what he or she can do there and how the and then at a later stage we talked about what it does for the universities for the colleges for the institutions of higher educationokay with simplify the journey but not speaking about technology on how we do it in terms of Technology but for our students it’s very easy to use,they have a app called uniapp and with that Union up you can create one profile it’s called My uniapp,this profile includes all your data your educational background what you have achieved.
[12:49] Transcripts CVS recommendation letters work experience certificates of fuel prior work experience everything else so all your documents are in your my uniapp.And that profile once it’s completed 100% Lee you can use it to do anything.
[13:10] Offered on uniapp so you can apply for language schools you can apply for online degrees and courses you can apply for your bachelor’s Master’s or pathway you can do everything so it is your keyas a student to access All uniapp Sport no schoolsand and and and and partners generally speaking in terms of accommodation provider Banks health insurance and whatever.I see you said.
[13:39] When we talked before that he but first before we go into that where is the utility for,the institutions of learning the University’s the language schools how do they profit from joining Anya exactly so first of all they have a broad and reach,students are struggling through when they start or deciding first they want to study abroad or study anywhere.What’s the first thing they do first they go to a search engine regardless which one,really exactly so they type bachelor’s or what’s the best school where can I study this what’s the requirements for that,when is the ink takes so they get a lot of manipulated outcomes.The first ten five to ten outcomes are ads and then the best SEO providers so it’s none.It doesn’t make sense for a student just to go his.Best and most important Journey Through the just the suggestion of a search engine.
[14:50] So what we have done here is created a search engine such as not being manipulated by ads.Students can explore all study programs and apply with one single touch or click for University’s first of all you have,digital approach so you have all your data all your information of the student applying to you in a digital way where you can process it use uniapp as a CRM tool,you can communicate with the student you can answer communities of students you can reach out to a broaden,network of students the.Marketing emails sending them direct messages having everything organized as an admission Center in Frankfort and everything else so this is something University’s didn’t have accessthis is what we have organized so we are going as the whole Space.
[15:45] They basically real night on their sale on the marketing to just get people in and get them on their own systems exactly.Haha I see when we talked before you talked about searching for degrees and that you take into account six100 inputsif we talk about every input here this interview will get very very long so we skip this but can you hit some of the highlights some of the data points you are using to match eventually the institution and the student.You’re not had said it before and on and on on German TV is in German,that some if I want to explain it in a very simple way what kind of Technology we are trying to produce you can put an algorithms of a dating app.
[16:39] And uniapp and they will be exact matching,but instead of matching someone who wants to date it’s more matching the Universitythat’s can accept this student with his potential and the student can reach his potential in that school.So this is in short what what the 600 inputs will all about so if you give us.Your full profile and I let’s say you provided that you have a budget of x y and we know that for example in London.You can’t live through with with such a budget we will not recommend some schools in that region so we will exactly match you to schools where you feel free and good and comfortable to study art.
[17:33] Also reach your full potential likesoft skill matching and everything else What’s the culture what’s the first language second language maybe Visa barriers the minimum maximum cost of living of accommodation the minimum maximum cost of Transportation Etc so we take all these aspectsand put it together in a machine learning and then we match you to a school of course this is a very complicated algorithm.
[18:01] And we are still not deploying it at the moment to have let’s say we reached now over 20,000 students are using uniapp,so we are trying to test it on a hundred thousand students and then deployed.How many as I said how many students do you have right now using the only app in less and less than two months over 20,000.Over 20,000 that is pretty impressive and,I was wondering when you talked about the costs of living I’m sure London Paris and New York with the standout in terms of costs but have there been some cities where you’ve been surprised oh my God this is so expensive.Hong Kong Hong Kong yam make sense I would say accommodation tilde.Dubai yeah makes sense because a lot of students are aiming to study in Dubai as well and many many UK institutions and schools are opening a campus in you in Dubai so we see that that kind of transformation as well.I heard the same about Singapore I would assume that also pretty expensive exactly hmm I see.
[19:17] You said you bootstrapped only app.com within a year to 1 million annual recurring revenues is that true and where do you stand right now.When we raised 1 million for uniapp it was the aim was to build the technology.
[19:35] So while beating the our technology we were online,but we were confused we had huge traction we have we had a lot of users signing up we launched I think 10 days ago our app on IOS and Android and we have over 5,000 downloads for uniapp.
[19:53] All of that numbers are too big for just an established establishment so really decided even to raise more funds.At the moment.
[20:05] But we are still a building internally the organization in a professional way where you have a hero she and processing and trying to deliver the most.Quality two users using uniapp because it’s not just clients and students it’s also agencies universities study advisors account manager so there are a lot of.Of parties using the same app and different roles processing all of that together so that means you’re now Beyond 1 million annual recurring Revenue.You know we are currently fundraising so I saw I rather not disclose numbers I’m just because of the sensitivity of big investors and VC’s they don’t want.There the other investors in the ecosystem to exactly know and what they have invested and why so I think at that moment I have to be very confidential about numbers.Can you tell us in terms of users how fast you’re currently growing in terms of percentage are you doubling like each year we double sometimes weekly.
[21:18] Who so like I yeah we had for example and when when we found that uniapp we had four students.And then a whole next year we had 100 students and and now and last three months we got.
[21:38] 20K.
[21:40] And daily even when I refresh the page I want to give you an idea about that do you remember when Facebook first announced their first 1 million user.There are counting down like 99 99.95 998 999 1 millionand then they celebrated for an hour and they came back it was already 2 millionso I treated the yeah so it’s really doubles very fast you are scaling very fast you can’t followhow many users and things of course we have a professional dashboards and but of course every time when I go out and come back I see hundreds of students using the app.
[22:23] What would you say are your biggest competitors in terms of.Globally doing things our competitors were which I assume they are competitor they are focused on niches they are focused only on,B2B they are not providing CRM admission tool for schools for example that there is a lot of luck there is no super app for international studentsI think we are the first mover at the moment in terms of similar.
[22:58] Similar companies who are we competing with I think there is a lot to plenty of them I think there is sleep Adventists apply abroadapply a board apply everywhere like there is a lot of similar similar thing in the names even uniapp there is uniapp Li uni apply now uni apply then so the names are all focused around uniappapply things like that but you have to imagine one thing Joe,do you know that more than 100 billion u.s. dollars are paid in tuition yearly.All right I could imagine I went to college in Texas and it can be pricey exactly so imagine that out of 100 billions usually paid intuition there is still no market leader having,even close to one percent of that market so imagine that I have a huge Market with so much potential.But still there is room for not like uniapp only or our competitors or our current competitors that even if they’re like hundreds of similar ideas like uniapp coming into the market there will be room and space for them to make.
[24:13] A huge institution of out of it it’s a huge Market.It’s a very huge Market I was wondering just talking about your Market is yourbusiness seasonal because in Germany you usually start in haps semester which is around starting around October in the US you start college sometime in Septemberand I could see the business being a little bit seasonal there.
[24:44] Is that true not actually the outcome is seasonal of course.But the business it’s on going nonstop why there is no students saying.Tomorrow is the intake I submit my application today.It’s a preparation it’s a planning its sometimes six months before the intake before the starting sometimes a year before so you have ongoing operations ongoing tasks a lot of intakes are different.There are private schools having takes in Jan February or March and then there are schools in April and then the summer in whatever.
[25:23] So you don’t have a seasonal business but you have more an operational ongoing goal to make the.Let’s say the the application and the student enrollment as smooth as possible but even when the student enrolls you have thousands of other students preparing for the next intake so it’s ongoing it’s not seasonal the outcome is seasonal,like in terms of a business revenue and a business outcome maybe you have a two shots yearly with with the University where you get your.Your outcome or your let’s say the revenues but you still have a lot of different schools different systems different intakes here and thereyou talked about up to 6 month prior,I assume if you do that if you need some standardized tests like sat or GMAT.There should even be a longer Runway how long before.You actually start your University would you recommend the students really to go on to uniapp and get started to prepare,that’s why we prepared a i and some students don’t need even as operation because if you are jamming student you meet all the requirements you don’t need a Visa or any language tests.You can just apply days before.
[26:48] And sometimes I-5 it’s called will process your application they have space for you and that’s it and sometimes it takes you like 8 to 12 months,because there are Visa barriers the embassy is closed in your countries there are political aspects to be taking like we had students from Afghanistan,they had to travel from Afghanistan to Mumbai and then apply in the the Consular to have a Visaas an Afghani applying through India to travel from India to Germany so that is a there’s a lot of complications but there is no specific.
[27:24] Formula to say this is the exact time this is the best time no it’s just depending on what’s your inputs and what’s your profile and where you coming from and what kind of passport you have.Rule of thumb is the longer you have Runway the better it is I was wondering where you guys are available right now you talked about app I would assume you’re on Android and iOS.We are Android iOS everywhere globally we have users from over 80 countries globallywe have an operational team in India Bangladesh Pakistan Jordan Egypt to buy Kenya Senegal.
[28:04] Germany yes.We are expanding we are expanding we are doing we having daily Prince Charming on doing things better and faster and and scalehmm I see I’m we are talking today because you raised 1 million seat funding in Q2 this year.
[28:31] Given the current situation do you have a by the way congratulations to that given the current situation do you have any recommendation for how to prepare and Pitch investors.First of all try try to find a proof,for your for your concept nowadays this is big with these big investors tend to invest in founders,not in ideas because it was proven wrong that not the best ideas succeed but sometimes the best executor succeed.
[29:13] And if you have an idea and you can’t execute it at least find someone who has the experience and can execute such a vision or such an idea especially if it’s a business oriented,startup that’s it.Hmm and you’re already set you currently fundraising so I assume you’re open to talk to new investors definitely.Of course you’re looking for money also to hire people are you currently hiring what world what roles are you looking for.We have a lot of open positions like in different countries recruitment key account managersBusiness Development managers Junior analysts data scientists we have a lot of openings in IT department I need an executive assistant for example to make my life easiernow hundreds of meetings scheduled weekly and I don’t attend most of them.
[30:18] So there is a lot a lot we are really scaling and growing very fast like hmm Do you have a.Careers website that he could send me we can link down here in the show notes,we have not made that happen on our website we usually use third parties for that like indeed linked step storm whatever but very soon we our HR department will start.Having a portal on our website for openings exactly.
[30:49] Hmm okay so that means we link down here to show notes as approximately a little bit over a month until this is published so maybe there are the first hints already here and we’re running now a little bitlonger than the usual interview already a year great guessthank you for that and this interview is sponsored by investing Heston so I was wondering,y-you said shop at shop in Essen and what do you feel the advantages are Frankfort is home for me,so I’ve been offered a lot of opportunities in the GCC countries in the US as a career even in Germany in different but invited back to to move to some someother regions but.Hanson Frankfort is home and this is how I how I was raised and I like to stay home.
[31:50] I see you now have the unique opportunity to address the decision-makers here in the state what Would You Wish For What our concerns what what is the question.Ask a favor to address them what could they do to improve the climate for entrepreneurs here.I think we have.I don’t say bad but compared to a lot of ecosystem startup ecosystem we have the worst to be honest I’m from Frankfurt I’m from hessen/germany.
[32:25] And I know that we are way behind decision-makers don’t understand what technology is they support.
[32:34] Startups in terms of an established business venture but don’t really get who’s the next big thing what is technology.Etc and I think that is very limited support unreasonable support.And I think they have to do all do a lot to support this especially to attract more investors.To hasten to attract more startups to encourage.Young talented people to join startups and establish their own startups so I think there is a lot missing like I’ve been to many countries I visited a lot of money startups globally,if it’s in the arabic speaking countries like Dubai Saudi Arabia and.
[33:25] They are the one with Innovations they are the one with the right ecosystem for startups.But it should be the other way around to be honest we have the capacity in Germany we have the budget.
[33:40] We have a lot of things that a lot of other countries don’t have we have institutions and we have.
[33:48] Many many other things I don’t want to mention and go deep in the topic but I mean I think there is a lot of missing things and I wish that decision makers will focus on how to support startups because startups can solve.Any economical problem like if you see in the US the whole country is based on startups.
[34:12] And a lot of other countries currently raising and having.Companies in value of billions they are all startups they are not long time established companies and that’s what we are missing we are really relying on manufacturer that are.Years.Old decades and sometimes essentially old and this is not the future this is a part of the economy but this is not the future.
[34:43] I see well I thank you very much that gives I hope I will not talk.
[34:53] It’s an open question and you also can address wishes short for us and I do believe for the political decision-makers there will be something tofake about I do believe they aren’t already understood that in Germany all across the country there there’sof course a lot of for improvement there.
[35:17] Political decision-makers understand that across Germany there’s a lot of room for improvement and I do believe you just picked a one aspect out of thatand of course I would be more than happy if they do more for startups regionally here fight it was a pleasure talking to you.Thank you very much and of course let us know when you raised the another funding round and a we be at very happy to share the news.
[35:45] Thank you Jorge was really great talking to you I hope the last part of the interview didn’t destroy a lot but I think sometimes we have to criticize criticize at the the decision makers because it’s not about myself.I succeeded in raising on we are going straight forward and scaling but there are a lot of entrepreneurs struggling through the process and need a lot of support and attention and I wish they will get all the attention support needed.From decision-makers and from the ecosystem and everyone around them great thank you very much have a great day bye bye.
[36:28] Music.
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