Archway App

There has always been a lack of interconnectedness at large colleges & universities. Somehow, the best way to stay informed of all the things going on was to walk through campus and be bombarded in all directions by flyers and people asking you to join their clubs. Why wasn't there one place where students could find everything happening within their campus network in an organized way?

COVID-19 intensified the problem

Once campuses closed and education become remote, there was hardly any way for college students to find out about what was happening on campus. It was clear that an efficient technological solution was necessary.

The Early Development

Founder Sanjay Malhotra was fortunate to have an existing relationship with TagFi Inc., which he had interned for during his undergraduate years. TagFi Inc. is a successful tech startup that builds community engagement solutions for large organizations. From May to August of 2020, Sanjay worked with TagFi Inc. to customize a platform that was best-suited to solve the inefficiencies at colleges & universities. This platform became known as the Archway App, a place where college students could join & create interest-based channels, network with like-minded students, book upcoming campus events, and even discover special deals & services offerred exclusively to college students.

This was the initial launch video:

The Business Model

Unlike other social networking platforms, Archway already has its business model well-defined. The TagFi software on which Archway was built features a web portal where business can promote their events, services, products, and offers to college students instantly. Archway charges businesses $150/month to gain access to this portal, and they can promote themselves as much as they want, to the college communities of their choice. The types of businesses that are likely to promote themselves on Archway include local businesses surrounding the college campus, tutoring & test prep services, moving & storage companies, and many more businesses with large amounts of college-aged customers. It's much different than traditional pay-per-click advertising models, and the students on the platform are eager to take advantage of anything offered to them simply for being college students.

The Long-Term Goal

Our goal is to become the #1 most popular app in the U.S. for college networking. Within the next 3 years, we plan to serve over 100 college communities throughout the U.S. (over 3 million students), with thousands of businesses on the platform, getting their events, products, offers and services in front of students with ease. Taking into account both local businesses as well as e-commerce businesses and large corporations that will be promoting themselves on the app, we estimate annual revenues of over $30 million by the end of 2022.

Further, we hope to remain largely student-run. Archway is currently promoted and moderated by college students, and we can think of nothing more awesome than college students owning a piece of the platform. For us, that's the major appeal to crowdfunding. While we improve college life for all, we would love for our app users to be invested (literally) in our success.

The Launch

Archway launched in Beta in September of 2020 to UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC San Diego. With a team of brand ambassadors and marketing interns at each school, Archway was able to acquire over 1300 users on the platform by December, plus a network of over 4,000 college students following our Instagram accounts. During the Beta stage, we also brought on a number of businesses on Free Trial membership.

The Road Ahead

For the past couple of months, we have been analyzing the results from the Beta testing and passing feedback onto TagFi Inc., which has been making technological advancements accordingly. As of December 2020, we have made the process of adding channels and events seamless, and we are currently working on two major features: a Wall Feed that compiles curated app content for the user, and the ability to add other users on the platform as connections. We believe that these two features will spark high user engagement, similar to that of Facebook or LinkedIn.

More importantly however, we have solidified a marketing strategy that works best for acquiring new students and keeping them active on the platform. Currently, we are hiring passionate students to manage a community of their choice on the platform. They are compensated based on their ability to spark active discussion and bring on new members. Additionally, we are forming beneficial partnerships with clubs & organizations in order to bring events and engaging content onto the platform. Lastly, we have begun using social media influencers at each school to promote the app, which has had high ROI.

Invest in Archway

If you believe that going to college should entail so much more than taking exams and getting a degree, then you should invest in Archway. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the value that college students receive from attending college has fallen sharply. While the lack of interconnectedness at colleges & universities has always been an issue, it has never been as big an issue as it is now. We are entering the market at the best time, and we hope you will join us in achieving our mission.