The Beginning of Roam

It started in our college dorm room.

Four of us. Four different skill sets. One shared frustration.

I'm Giri, the CEO of Roam, and this is our story. We were students living on a student budget. Every week we went to the same cafés, the same restaurants, the same stores around campus, and every week we paid full price. The offers that actually mattered to us, student discounts, cashback, limited-time deals, were scattered across five different apps, six cards and a group chat, and half of them didn't even apply to the places we actually went to.

I couldn't stop thinking about a simple question: What if going out could pay you back?

The answer became Roam. A rewards platform built for students. You open it, see what's live near you right now, claim an offer, walk into the place, and get rewarded. No codes to memorise, no points that never add up, no waiting weeks for money that should already be yours.

Adithya, our Head of Strategy, mapped out how discovering an offer, claiming it and actually visiting could work as one simple loop, and how that loop could stay genuinely rewarding for students instead of turning into one more loyalty card in a drawer.

Drishya, our CMO, shaped how Roam would reach students, turning Drops into something people actually check every day: an excuse to leave the hostel and go somewhere, not another ad to scroll past.

Reuben, our CFO, worked out the other half of it: how businesses pay only for customers who really walked through the door, so Roam grows on results instead of on ads.

What started as conversations between roommates quickly became sketches on whiteboards, notes scattered across our laptops, and countless late nights fueled by ambition.

The idea evolved into Roam.

We built it on a simple belief:

You shouldn't have to choose between going out and saving money.

Roam isn't about collecting points or hoarding coupons. It's about helping students discover the best of their city, try new places without the risk, and get something back every time they show up.

And for the restaurants, cafés and stores we already love, Roam is an honest way to bring new students in, because they only pay when it actually works.

We built this in our college dorm because we believe the money students spend should work for them, not just for the businesses they visit. Roam is redefining what a student budget looks like.

And this is only the beginning.