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Blackboard-killer Instructure.com Closes Initial Funding Round

8 points by adammichaelc 18y ago

pchristensen 18y ago
#1 - I'm a BYU alum and retired Blackboard-hater, so I'm proud that BYU students are tackling this. #2 - My first thought was "Blackboard's strengths aren't technical, they're in enterprise sales. These guys are going to have to sell, sell, sell if they want to win." Then I read it and they first did a nationwide selling tour before they began developing. That's a team to bet on! Other HN threads about Blackboard: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=109984 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=109984 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=56229 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=56229 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=247955 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=247955 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=315281 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=315281
- adammichaelc 18y ago
  It's pretty exciting. The founders are sharp and know what it's going to take to break into this market. It'll be interesting to see how it all turns out.
- dmix 18y ago
  Do you have any background on the founding team and their "nationwide selling tour"? I couldn't find much about Mike Chasen or the team. I'm interested in how they built the business (definitely not the software).
tptacek 18y ago
What's wrong with Blackboard? (I wouldn't know, never used it).
- cstejerean 18y ago
  Their UI is terrible. Simple operations take far too many clicks. Every single thing you do refreshes the page which can make the system incredibly slow, especially if you use it while everyone else is using it (during class sign-up times for example).
  - jaydub 18y ago
    I would just like echo the same sentiments. Poor UI, particularly with respect to menu navigation.
  - LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
    From a technical administration standpoint, the system is extremely fragile and absolutely crumbles under load.
- jcromartie 18y ago
  It is a big frustrating pile of enterprise (noun 1. excrement) that doesn't leverage any modern or widespread technology to make students' or instructors' lives easier. It is slow, confusing to get access to, easy to hack anyway, unnecessarily complex, and ends up being a parody of whatever web communication paradigm it tries to mimic (forums, etc.).
nihilocrat 18y ago
It seems we can't get any glimpse into what their product looks like, so I can't answer my question: How would this be any better than Moodle? The most I can presume is that Instructure would be more purposely anti-Blackboard and would probably charge to develop features on a per-client basis, which would be very helpful for small institutions that just don't have the staff to implement their own functions in Moodle.
- adammichaelc 18y ago
  I don't know much about Moodle, but from what I can tell they aren't playing the enterprise sales game... at least not yet. With universities and other large, corporate organizations, salesmanship (not necessarily technical polish) is what wins.
  - nihilocrat 18y ago
    Moodle is definitely targetted for smaller shops, like private colleges, schools, etc.. There's nothing restricting it from being used in large organizations, though, and it has a bunch of automation (automatic enrollment in Moodle courses based on enrollment status in another database, integrate logins with existing LDAP or other directory, etc.), but like most open source projects it's very much a community product and not the product of a for-profit entity trying to sell service to customers (that's available through third parties, though).
dmix 18y ago
I'd donate money and beer to the startup that can kill Blackboard. Its the Windows ME of enterprise software.
- LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
  The founders being from BYU, the beer would go undrunk. But I'm sure the money would be appreciated ;)
zandorg 18y ago
At University, I liked Blackboard, except it was a little complex.
neovive 18y ago
Major universities are already contributing to the Sakai project, which will become the de facto learning management system over time. It's built by universities for universities and is open source. The project is sponsored by the same organization that sponsors uPortal, which is becoming the standard web portal framework for universities. http://sakaiproject.org/portal http://sakaiproject.org/portal
- teej 18y ago
  Is there another instance of a "by universities for universities" project really being successful? Just saying, a product's market doesn't always know what they really need or want.

8 points by adammichaelc 18y ago

#1 - I'm a BYU alum and retired Blackboard-hater, so I'm proud that BYU students are tackling this. #2 - My first thought was "Blackboard's strengths aren't technical, they're in enterprise sales. These guys are going to have to sell, sell, sell if they want to win." Then I read it and they first did a nationwide selling tour before they began developing. That's a team to bet on! Other HN threads about Blackboard: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=109984 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=109984 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=56229 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=56229 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=247955 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=247955 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=315281 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=315281

adammichaelc 18y ago
It's pretty exciting. The founders are sharp and know what it's going to take to break into this market. It'll be interesting to see how it all turns out.
dmix 18y ago
Do you have any background on the founding team and their "nationwide selling tour"? I couldn't find much about Mike Chasen or the team. I'm interested in how they built the business (definitely not the software).

tptacek 18y ago

What's wrong with Blackboard? (I wouldn't know, never used it).

cstejerean 18y ago
Their UI is terrible. Simple operations take far too many clicks. Every single thing you do refreshes the page which can make the system incredibly slow, especially if you use it while everyone else is using it (during class sign-up times for example).
- jaydub 18y ago
  I would just like echo the same sentiments. Poor UI, particularly with respect to menu navigation.
- LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
  From a technical administration standpoint, the system is extremely fragile and absolutely crumbles under load.
jcromartie 18y ago
It is a big frustrating pile of enterprise (noun 1. excrement) that doesn't leverage any modern or widespread technology to make students' or instructors' lives easier. It is slow, confusing to get access to, easy to hack anyway, unnecessarily complex, and ends up being a parody of whatever web communication paradigm it tries to mimic (forums, etc.).

nihilocrat 18y ago

It seems we can't get any glimpse into what their product looks like, so I can't answer my question: How would this be any better than Moodle? The most I can presume is that Instructure would be more purposely anti-Blackboard and would probably charge to develop features on a per-client basis, which would be very helpful for small institutions that just don't have the staff to implement their own functions in Moodle.

adammichaelc 18y ago
I don't know much about Moodle, but from what I can tell they aren't playing the enterprise sales game... at least not yet. With universities and other large, corporate organizations, salesmanship (not necessarily technical polish) is what wins.
- nihilocrat 18y ago
  Moodle is definitely targetted for smaller shops, like private colleges, schools, etc.. There's nothing restricting it from being used in large organizations, though, and it has a bunch of automation (automatic enrollment in Moodle courses based on enrollment status in another database, integrate logins with existing LDAP or other directory, etc.), but like most open source projects it's very much a community product and not the product of a for-profit entity trying to sell service to customers (that's available through third parties, though).

dmix 18y ago

I'd donate money and beer to the startup that can kill Blackboard. Its the Windows ME of enterprise software.

LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
The founders being from BYU, the beer would go undrunk. But I'm sure the money would be appreciated ;)

zandorg 18y ago

At University, I liked Blackboard, except it was a little complex.

neovive 18y ago

Major universities are already contributing to the Sakai project, which will become the de facto learning management system over time. It's built by universities for universities and is open source. The project is sponsored by the same organization that sponsors uPortal, which is becoming the standard web portal framework for universities. http://sakaiproject.org/portal http://sakaiproject.org/portal

teej 18y ago
Is there another instance of a "by universities for universities" project really being successful? Just saying, a product's market doesn't always know what they really need or want.