What I Learned From Talking to Students About Startups

For the past few weeks, I've been attracting students to Rally Society through info sessions in lectures. So far, about 20 teams have applied — most of them are just one person.

But I realized something: the info sessions aren't working the way I hoped.

The Problem

Many students couldn't even complete the application form. The form has two types of questions: questions about the team, and questions about the idea. Team questions were easy — just names, phone numbers, IDs. But the idea questions? Students got stuck on things like "What's the name of your startup?" or "What problem are you solving?"

That's when it hit me: most of these students  don't even know what a startup is. I was asking them to run before they could walk.

What I'm Doing Next

I'm shifting from outreach to support. Instead of more info sessions, I want to actually talk to these students and help them.

Here's my plan:

1. Create a WhatsApp group for all Rally Egypt applicants so I can communicate with them directly
2. Create an Arabic guide that explains what a startup is, how to find ideas, and how to answer the form questions — simplified for beginners
3. DM students individually whose applications need improvement and help them think through their ideas

There are great resources out there — Paul Graham's essay on startup ideas, YC's videos — but I don't think most students will understand even 10% of them. So I need to translate and simplify.

Why This Matters to Me

Talking to students and helping them improve is what fuels me. It's like building an app and seeing users love it. That energy is what keeps me going.

Building Egypt’s Best Founder Network

My vision is building Egypt's best network of founders. I'm starting at my college.

What I found

After talking to many students, I realized they fall into three categories:

1. Students who know nothing about startups or technical stuff

2. Students who know only technical

3. Students who know only business

I'm focusing on the second group — technical students who learn fast, can build things, and have the drive to do it. The problem? Most of them don't know how startups actually work or don't even know that "startup" is a word.

What students actually lack

To start a startup, you need three things: information, money, and network.

Money isn't the problem early on — there are enough free tools to get started. What these students lack is information and network.

After researching how Y Combinator, Paul Graham, and Sam Altman think about this, I found that opinions vary — some favor network, some favor information. But I think the answer is both.

I asked myself the question “How can I provide the most value to students?” The answer : help them apply for Rally Egypt it has online and offline sessions on starting a startup with an updated, solid advice similar to YC's approach, plus a final competition.

My Strategy

Phase 1: Information Give students the knowledge they need through Rally Egypt — it will also help build the network part.

Phase 2: Network Gather the top technical students from Phase 1 into a curated, YC-style community. This is where the network gets stronger and founders connect with each other.

First awareness, then exclusivity.