From Telegram group to a profitable startup: Student turns admission queries into ₹10 lakh business

Hemkesh was just navigating his first year at the Scaler School of Technology when his phone began blowing up with queries from anxious applicants. Questions about entrance tests, interviews, and course selections kept pouring in, prompting him and a few friends to start a Telegram group.

That modest community of 200 students quickly mushroomed into a 700-strong hub, laying the groundwork for a business idea.

By February 2024, Hemkesh had turned those daily discussions into Delta Education, a bootstrapped, profitable startup designed to crack the code of new-age college admissions.

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Unlike traditional entrance exams, modern institutions rely heavily on non-standardised test formats and personal interviews. Recognising that applicants were largely unprepared for this shift, Hemkesh and his team developed tailored test series and prep programmes.

First-year revenue crossed ₹2 lakh

The strategy paid off immediately. Launching its first preparation programme during the 2024 admission cycle, Delta Education converted its Telegram audience into over 50 paying customers, generating over ₹2 lakh in its initial year. The startup expanded its model by integrating recorded lectures with live interactive classes to meet rising demand.

Growth accelerated further when co-founder Srimai Somani brought his digital audience into the fold, leveraging a YouTube channel with over 10,000 subscribers focused on competitive exam prep.

“The members in Telegram community, we were able to convert them,” Hemkesh said, noting that organic community building served as their primary growth engine.

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Startup built alongside college

Hemkesh built Delta Education without putting his education on hold. While scaling the business, he served as the first general secretary of Scaler’s student council and helped organise onboarding activities for incoming batches.

He credits the college’s innovation lab with providing crucial guidance through weekly strategy meetings, pitch opportunities, and institutional networking.

Today, Delta Education operates entirely without external funding and recorded a revenue of ₹10 lakh in the last financial year. Beyond driving its own growth, the enterprise has begun giving back to the campus ecosystem by hiring three to four Scaler students as paid interns across growth, teaching, and problem-setting roles.