Powerhouse Co-Founders of UniScoops Shaping the Future of Campus News

University—the next chapter in your educational prowess. 

Full of excitement, challenges, and possibilities, transitioning from high school to academia can be a daunting and challenging experience for many students. 

The academic landscape is often characterized by specialized disciplines, rigorous methodologies, and dense terminologies that can seem unapproachable. 

Moreover, with the high volume of scholarly articles and research published daily, staying updated and finding reliable, pertinent information can be time-consuming. These complexities highlight the importance of platforms that can simplify and democratize access to academic knowledge. 

Step in, Holly and Gabriel, spearheading the charge with UniScoops!

UniScoops aims to bridge the gap between intellectual discourse and everyday understanding.

The Genesis of UniScoops

UniScoops is a unique newsletter that aims to make academia more approachable, fun, and digestible for everyone. Founded by Holly Cobb and Gabriel Pang, two passionate advocates for higher education, UniScoops aims to spark critical thinking and inspire its readers. 

Passionate about charity, social policy, and education, Holly Cobb is a third-year undergraduate at the University of Oxford, studying French and Linguistics. Gabriel Pang is a third-year undergraduate at the University of Oxford, studying Philosophy and French, and is passionate about leveling the playing field of education and making universities accessible to everyone, regardless of their background or identity.

During a late-night FaceTime, Gabriel and Holly realized their shared passion for simplifying academic knowledge and making it available to a larger audience. This led to the creation of UniScoops, a platform that delivers regular university-level “scoops” to your inbox, catering to students, educators, and anyone interested in academia.

We had a chance to speak with Holly and Gabriel about their journey and the growth of UniScoops through email newsletters.

Holly said the focus of UniScoops “is to break down these barriers and provide students, particularly state school students who may not necessarily have as much input when applying to competitive universities [with tools and an introduction to critical thinking]”.

Why beehiiv?

Creating and providing captivating and educational content is one part of the equation for email newsletters. The other is finding the right platform to distribute the content to your target audience.

Gabriel and Holly sought a platform to simplify their content-crafting process. Since neither of them had any experience in coding or technology, they required a straightforward and easy-to-manage platform that would enable them to create and publish their content effortlessly.

“Finding beehiiv was a bit of a fluke. A very lucky fluke because we knew right away beehiiv was definitely the best platform for us,” stated Gabriel.

They started their research by paying attention to what their favorite newsletters and content creators were doing. “I was reading the Ziplaw newsletter, and they used beehiiv to distribute. I loved how they formatted their newsletter. I loved the aesthetic of it and the website,” continued Gabriel.

After seeing the “hive” icon at the end of the email, it was fate! 🐝

Gabriel and Holly clicked the icon that directed them to the beehiiv website. After going through the website's tabs and learning more about beehiiv's unique features, they were impressed by what they saw. The user-friendly interface and innovative tools convinced them that beehiiv was the perfect platform to bring their project to life. It was official, UniScoops would be launched with beehiiv.

When creating a product or starting a business, you have a strategic plan that typically incorporates a forecast of finances. Since students and volunteers solely run the newsletter, UniScoops didn’t have the finances to invest in expensive tools and platforms. 

“beehiiv was willing to work with us to help us get on our feet. Their customer service rep was responsive and quickly offered us a solution that helped us have better breathing space.”

The transparency, fast response rate, and willingness to work with students were the deciding factors for Gabriel and Holly to choose beehiiv as their go-to platform.

Growing on beehiiv

UniScoops is a new player in the email newsletter industry, unlike some of the other creators on beehiiv. Holly and Gabriel needed a platform to handle design, segmenting, scheduling, and emailing to their target audience.

Since choosing beehiiv in July, UniScoops has an active subscriber list of 388.

So, how did UniScoops build a subscriber list so quickly?

The Power of Strategic Planning

Gabriel mentioned, “We got many subscribers even before we launched a single issue of what we were doing.”

Holly and Gabriel had to do a lot of research on who their target audience was (mainly 16-18-year-old students), “In our case, in the UK system, students mainly applying to university who were keen and motivated, even those who had a gap in terms of knowledge or confidence,” said Holly.

Additionally, having a budget was ideal for a newsletter run by students and volunteers. Holly and Gabriel didn't have the funds to dedicate to advertising, so getting creative was necessary…