Roam
New York University, Stern School of Business
Khubani Business, Technology and Entrepreneurship (BTE) Program
Industry: Educational Support Services / Marketplace
Founding Student Name(s): Krish Bajaj (NYU Stern BTE ‘25), Ansh Mundra, Adler Weber
Brief Description of Solution: Roam is a platform that simplifies immigration for international students by aggregating all the resources they need to start their lives in the U.S.
We help them get set up with everything, from the basics like a bank account and credit card to the more complex tasks like choosing an insurance plan and procuring an H-1B visa without the lottery – all while saving them thousands of dollars, a ton of stress, and loads of time along the way.
For students, we’re the quickest, most affordable way to start their life abroad. For businesses, we serve as the most effective gateway to reach the student population.
The long-term vision is to use the marketplace as both a launchpad and moat as we vertically integrate to solve the biggest problem students face today: housing.
Funding Dollars: $50,000 from Plug and Play Tech Center
What led you to launch this venture? I’m an international student. When I first moved to the US in 2021, I realized there was a severe lack of support, fragmentation of information, and disaggregation of essential resources tailored towards international students. Two years later, I truly understood the magnitude of the problem when I noticed I was paying close to $600 a year for a cellular plan, a criminal amount for anyone looking to save money.
This realization motivated me to seek out a solution. After some research, I found a bunch of budget-friendly cellular providers like CampusSIMs. These companies offer almost identical cellular services for an average of $240 annually. From there, we progressed by thinking about the other essentials students need to start their lives abroad; logically, banking was next. After identifying problems international students face with banking (inability to open an account online, get a credit card, high incoming wire transfer fees, etc.), we found and partnered with companies like Adro that solve the problems effectively. We continued to do this across every vertical: insurance, taxes, visa services, etc.
Now, we’re a marketplace that aggregates everything students need to start their lives and thrive in the US with ease. We help them get set up with whatever they need while saving them tons of time, stress, and thousands of dollars.
What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with venture? In the last three months, we’ve built a digital community of over 25,000+ international students across the country through our Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Newsletter channels.
In June, we built and launched Sonia, the world’s first AI-powered F-1 visa interview coach. Sonia helped more than 5,000 students prepare for their visa interviews this year!
In August, we launched our marketplace for international student services. To date, we’ve helped students cumulatively save upwards of $100,000+ a year by helping them set up with or switch to services tailored to international students.
How has your business-related major helped you further this startup venture? I study in the Khubani Business, Technology, and Entrepreneurship (BTE) Program in NYU Stern’s Undergraduate College. The curriculum is heavily focused on experiential learning. Very early on, we were taught entrepreneurial concepts like design thinking and effectuation, which I still use daily while building a startup.
My biggest learning occurred during our freshmen year design sprint, where we had to apply design-thinking principles to solve problems for real startups. We interviewed 50+ strangers on the streets of Brooklyn to draw insights and iterate on our product. Having never approached strangers in that manner before, I was extremely nervous. After the fifth or sixth interview, I started to get the hang of it. By the end of the sprint, I learned the most important thing my major could teach me: it’s all about people. If you can understand people well, you can build world-changing businesses.
Today, I follow the same mantra. Whenever we build a new product or sign a new partnership, the only question I ask myself is, “Who is the person behind this, and what can I learn about them that will help me serve them better?”
A fun fact: I am part of the inaugural class of the Khubani BTE program at Stern. We constantly provided the faculty with feedback and openly brainstormed ideas on how we could improve certain aspects of the curriculum. This startup-like atmosphere got me accustomed to the practice of iteration from day one.
Which business class has been most valuable in building your startup and what was the biggest lesson you gained from it? “Entrepreneurship is like driving on a pitch-dark highway without street lights at night. You cannot see anything except the road as far ahead as your headlights shine, but you can make it all the way like that.”
This was how our final-year Khubani BTE capstone class began. It was definitely the most valuable class in helping me build my startup.
Prior to this, I had many classes that taught us about the principles of entrepreneurship in theory, but this was different. This class was all about actually building a venture. It was the culmination of all the entrepreneurial knowledge we were taught and put to use in real life.
Each student had to come up with their own idea for a product, validate it, and finally build it. Every week, each individual would give a 3-5-minute stand-up presentation reflecting on their work, sharing their progress that week, and telling us what they learned and planned to do next.
Unexpectedly, this habit of mapping out the process and constantly reflecting, articulating, and presenting our processes in front of the entire class was my biggest takeaway. This habit greatly diminished the uncertainty a founder experiences when overcoming the inertia of starting to build something new.
This structure worked so well that I implemented it at Roam as well. We host bi-weekly stand-ups every Monday and Thursday where everyone shares what they’re working on that day, what they’re learning, what they need to do for the rest of the week, and what they need help with. This practice helps increase visibility into what every individual is doing, how far we’ve come, and where we’re headed. The inability to see a clear path ahead can be daunting; this practice helps our team reorient ourselves in the present and take baby steps toward the future.
What business professor made a significant contribution to your plans and why? Professor Ashish Bhatia has made the biggest contribution to my plans.
His relentless support and candid insights have propelled me to take action and ask myself difficult questions repeatedly. He taught me the fundamentals of entrepreneurship in an unforgettable manner through challenging experiential learning experiences that forced me to grow as a person. His undying encouragement empowered me to build the courage and self-confidence required to take the leap and attempt to create the future I envision for a better world.
What founder or entrepreneur inspired you to start your own entrepreneurial journey? How did he or she prove motivational to you? Avante Price and Eli Taylor Lemire are my biggest inspirations for starting my entrepreneurial journey. These two NYU dropouts founded POSH in 2020, stemming from a personal problem they faced when throwing in-person events in NYC. Event organizers had to deal with nightmarish logistical hurdles and antiquated ticketing processes to organize events. They decided to fix it. Today, they’re democratizing access to live experiences by allowing individuals to organize and throw their own IRL events in minutes. POSH is now one of the world’s fastest-growing nightlife companies, and I’ve been following Avante and Eli’s journey since 2021.
Witnessing the hustle required to will your vision into existence is my biggest takeaway from the duo. I’ve seen countless iterations of their product as a user and every time I’ve interacted with them, they are always seeking out ways to make it better. Their relentless desire to improve regardless of what their competition is up to, combined with the humility they display when receiving criticism and feedback, sets them far apart from any other 24-year-old entrepreneurs I have ever seen. Avante and Eli, if y’all read this, know that y’all have helped me help hundreds of students make their lives in this country a whole lot easier!
What is your long-term goal with your startup? Our long-term goal is to become the global marketplace for international student services and vertically integrate to build the largest student housing platform in the world. In 5-10 years from now, no matter which country a student is migrating to for education, Roam will help them get set up with everything they need to start their lives there in a matter of minutes, saving them tons of time, loads of stress, and thousands of dollars along the way.
How has your local startup ecosystem contributed to your venture’s development and success? As I mentioned earlier, everything revolves around people. The people in NYC are incredible. The intellectual curiosity, thought capital and diversity of perspectives of people I meet in the city every week are unreal. To be among so many ambitious individuals who set out to change the world is tremendously energizing! The local New York City startup ecosystem is an irrefutable reason for Roam’s initial and continued success.
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