When Ayushee Agarwal , an alumnus of India's top legal institute, couldn't find her kind of match on general matrimonial sites, she tried her luck on a lesser-known site -- iitiimshaadi.com.Without informing her parents, Agarwal created her profile in early December 2014, got connected to her would-be hubby on December 31, spoke for the first time with the XLRI Jamshedpur alumnus on January 3, met Kumar Ankit for the first time after a week, and got married with the social entrepreneur in June that year.“Our minds matched first, and then our hearts," grins Agarwal, who happens to be the first customer of the Delhi-based matrimonial site. Started in 2014, iitiimshaadi.com has recently tied up with Café Coffee Day to give itself a big marketing push and spread awareness.So, does match-making based on educational qualification have a better chance of survival?Taksh Gupta, founder of iitiimshaadi.com, reckons it does. “Mental compatibility is equally or even more significant than the ones based on caste, religion or any other factor," he says. He contends, marriages break when there are differences in opinions and behaviors. People with similar educational backgrounds under stand each other's work and living styles, thus making the couple less prone to vast differences.“In marriages, minds come first," he says, adding that the portal will soon hit 10,000 active members mark, is open to top institutions from all fields and is not confined to IIT and IIM, and cross-checks the academic qualification and mark sheets of all applicants to weed out fakes. Using the IIT and IIM tag, Gupta points out, was meant to grab attention and keep the portal differentiated in a cluttered matrimonial market.A bootstrapped venture, Gupta claims the startup is profitable as marketing costs have been minimal so far. However, the entrepreneur plans to step on the marketing pedal. “Low marketing could be devastating in the long-run,“ he avers, adding that the portal has started advertising on radio, YouTube and other digital platforms. Apart from tying up with CCD, it plans to roll out in-cinema advertising.Marketers reckon that there is a market for exclusive matrimonial sites for elite educational institutions. “Education to an extent is a new caste system in place,“ says brand strategist Harish Bijoor. The more educated you are, with premier pedigree institutions as your alma mater, the more of Brahmana you become, he adds. On a lighter note, placement season can have two meanings in the future. One in the marriage market, and the other in the corporate business market, he quips.But is Gupta not limiting the appeal of the site by catering to a niche? He doesn't think so. “Would you say a Ferrari or a Louis Vuitton has limited appeal,“ he asks.Targeting niches, Gupta lets on, is best for both the demand and supply side. “It is better to do less but do it right,“ he says.And what about business? How does he plan to keep the show running with such low numbers? Gupta is aware of the tough task. “While we are catering to people who are themselves a brand, survival will be difficult unless we too become one,“ he says.Another aspect that he might have skipped while shaping his business model is the fact education alone does not make a persona.There will come a time when habits and attitude will count more, reckons Bijoor. Maybe a matrimonial site that has people segmented by their attitude to each other. Till then, Gupta can try matchmaking using mark sheets and degrees instead of kundalis.