what i know now
Christopher Gray
age: 22
hometown: Birmingham, Alabama
education: Graduated from Ramsay High School. Earned a
degree in Business Administration from Drexel University.
occupation: CEO and co-founder of Scholly
Earning any amount of scholarship money is a cause for
celebration, but what if you earned multiple scholarships? What
would you do? Christopher Gray, who earned more than $13
million in scholarships, decided to share his secrets with others,
starting a business to help other students and their families find
and get education funds for themselves. He’s the co-founder of
Scholly (myscholly.com), a mobile app that matches students with
scholarships they qualify for. The app has been featured in
USA Today, Forbes, Tech Crunch, Bloomberg and even chosen
as one of Inc. Magazine’s Coolest College Start Ups. According
to Gray, the coolest thing about starting and running his own
business is helping a lot of people pay for college. He shared more
of his wisdom with Potential.
christopher
gray the million dollar
scholar
parental guidance: One of the most valuable principles
my parents taught me was to not make excuses.
advice for parents: Start early. Start looking for
scholarships once your child enters their junior year. College is
expensive, so it’s best to plan ahead. In terms of career choices, try
to allow your children to do what comes naturally to them. The
kinds of things that they are inherently drawn to will help you
find out what career would be a good fit for them.
rookie mistake: In high school, I always tried to strike
can’t live
without
)
v
1. My siblings
2. Scholly
3. iPhone
a pleasant surprise: My first internship in college was
at Fannie Mae, one of the biggest banks in the world. I was really
taken aback by the politics in corporate organizations and how
you have to adapt to that environment in order to move up in the
company.
future focus: My plans are either to continue to grow
Scholly App!
Scholly is a
Scholarship
Search app that
is an easy way
for students to
find money for
college. $.99
8
a balance between academics and extracurricular. However, my
time tended to be spent more on extracurricular activities as I
found things like running my own non-profit and company more
interesting. Although I still did well in school, I think I would
have done better if I had struck a balance in how my time was
spent. [Also] I spent too much money and had to learn how to
manage my money at an earlier age.
Scholly or make an exit and work on another venture. I’m really
interested in the energy and artificial intelligence space, so we will
see what happens there.
worst advice: “Know who you are in high school because
once you turn 18 years old, you are who you are.” The person
could not have been more wrong. We are always growing and
changing.
www.potentialmagazine.com