5 ms·

Ask HN: Review my classroom web tool, Eduset

56 points by fuzzmeister 17y ago

byoung2 17y ago
Definitely a good start. Lots of teachers don't want do deal with mastering a learning management system like Moodle or Blackboard. What I don't see is a compelling reason to pay $5/mo for something I could accomplish with a class blog or facebook page. Are there plans to allow interaction between students? Grade management? Online quizzes? These would be great value-adds to justify different pricing tiers.
- fuzzmeister 17y ago
  The goal was certainly to target teachers who aren't willing or able to put in the time and effort to learn a full-fledged LMS. I agree that $5/month is a slightly hard sell right now, although there are certain parts of Eduset (such as assignments) that cannot be easily accomplished with a blog. In order to fix this, we are actually in the process of implementing every one of the features you described. Soon, students will be able to post content to their classes (if the teacher allows it), making classes more collaborative. Students will also be able to turn in homework and take quizzes on Eduset, and teachers will be able to grade that work. As for pricing tiers, does anyone have thoughts on which of these two options would be better? 1) The current model, where all features are provided free for one class, while $5/month is charged to create an unlimited number of classes. 2) The model the commenter above describes, where certain features are made pay-only.
  - brandnewlow 17y ago
    Isn't $5 so low as to undermine the value you're offering? I paid $5 for a cheeseburger today at lunch. I'd look to offer something in the $30 range as your first paid tier.
    - fuzzmeister 17y ago
      That logic usually works, but I've found that teachers are a stingy group when it comes to paying for classroom services. I think that the risk of making the product seem too cheap is outweighed by the risk of teachers being reluctant to spend a significant amount on their classes. Wikispaces, another product partially targeted at teachers, has a $5/month option as well.
      - patio11 17y ago
        I've found that teachers are a stingy group when it comes to paying for classroom services. What data do you have which supports this contention? Is it more of a "gut feeling"? I had that gut feeling once myself, and you know what? It is a lie. A myth. Totally contrary to empirically observable fact. The average teacher in the United States spends $200 to $400 of her own money per year (varies with level and geography, and I've seen a few numbers quoted from different studies) on instructional supplies. The average customer for Bingo Card Creator spends $32.50 on a program which most use once or twice per year. (Which is still cheaper than the laminated set of bingo cards they were about to buy at the teaching store. Those cards are on the shelves because they sell.) I have a trial-to-purchase conversion of about 2.3% for my online version, which is considered fairly good. Some teachers do complain about the price. That is a good sign -- if no one is complaining that it is too expensive, you've priced it too low.
        fuzzmeister 17y ago
        You're right - it was a gut feeling. Thanks for the data.
      - jbyers 17y ago
        While we have a $5/month option, Wikispaces has offered a free service (no ads, same features as paid service, no strings) for K-12 teachers since early 2006. We've given away around 225K wikis under this plan. http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers
  - joez 17y ago
    Free for one class seems interesting but how would you distinguish between their classes? What happens if a teacher just put all their students on the one. I think you don't mind getting it to some people for free.
  - byoung2 17y ago
    Another possible model is X number of students free, and per-student pricing after that.
  - psyklic 17y ago
    I would vote for an institutional subscription model. It might be a hard sell for individual teachers (often likely out of their own pockets), but I bet you could sell the value to institutions which employ teachers.
    - yjsoon 17y ago
      I agree with the above - in its current form, I think you'd attract early adopters who, even if they love your product, might have trouble convincing others to sign up and fork out for it. With an institutional model, said early adopters (presumably those in charge of educational technology spending) can try and push it out to teachers in their school. Along these lines, perhaps consider some way to allow those who use and love your product to bring others in with minimal friction - let them try out the product in an administrative and student role, without having to sign up and learn on their own. Most teachers I know won't try something out until they really see the value in it (i.e. students engaged, fulfills some kind of need).
      - fuzzmeister 17y ago
        We're working on adding institutional accounts. There are some complexities involved, mainly involving legal issues and various whitepapers that need to be written, but I wholeheartedly agree with your idea: early adopters are a great way to get institutions to adopt a product. As for your second suggestion, do you think a way for current users to send potential users an invitation to try a demo account (a sandbox) would do the job?
    - patio11 17y ago
      This is the opposite of the truth for small businesses: you can sell to any teacher, all you have to do is convince her to get out her credit card. To sell it to a district, you're going to have to go through a sales cycle measured in months to years. You will have to collect rubber stamps from upwards of four different decisionmakers, three of whom have no interest in using your software, at least one of whom has incentives to kill the purchase. Selling software to educational institutions is largely a matter of playing Enterprise Sales. I don't suggest you make that choice lightly.
  - vyrotek 17y ago
    With each semester a teacher would have a new class right? Would it be possible to perhaps charge a one time fee for each class that is created instead of a monthly fee?
teuobk 17y ago
Haven't tried the actual product, but the site design and execution looks professional and trustworthy.
raptrex 17y ago
1. Slideshow view or whatever you call it where you can press "next" or the right side of the image to go to the next screenshot. I hate clicking to "minimize the screenshot" then clicking again to zoom to the next screenshot 2. Maybe zoom in on that email message since it may give the impression you have to use a gmail account. 3. Page of features and screenshots 4. DEMO ACCOUNT WITHOUT SIGNING UP. No one likes signing up for anything unless they have to. Just have a static version or give them a demo account with full access and every hour or so, have the database be restored to normal
- zaatar 17y ago
  Yes, the demo account is crucial; a lazy effort would be a screencast (flash-based?). I certainly want to give this a whirl, even though it would not directly help me, but rather, friends of mine who are professors or teaching assistants. But I'm not about to register, activate an account, and then populate it with bogus info and bogus students burning an hour of my time ... the entry barrier is too high :/
  - fuzzmeister 17y ago
    I currently have a video walkthrough posted on the left side of the page (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ-WCIKVbRc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ-WCIKVbRc). Is that the kind of thing you're thinking of, or something more in-depth? I'll look into the technical aspect of setting up demo accounts, I am beginning to come around to the idea.
- fuzzmeister 17y ago
  I'll definitely put #1-3 on my ToDo list, thanks. As for #4, my current strategy is to provide one option and one option only to the user on the home page: signing up. I believe I got the idea for this strategy from 37signals. Does anyone have any insights as to whether this works in the real world?
  - jlees 17y ago
    Another option is 'lazy signup', as demonstrated with some YC startups like posterous. Get the user starting to use the site and only then ask for an email address, username, password etc. My hunch is that in the real world if it's "signup or die" most people choose the latter.
joez 17y ago
Why the monthly plan? I know subscription is the holy grail because people set it and forget it. But are you implying teachers should cancel it during the three summer months if they aren't teaching? And do teachers really pay for two months and then go oh... sorry kids but I realize this isn't going to work and cancel it? I assume once your on one LMS your stuck for at least the duration of the semester. Maybe a 30 day free trial is better, even sixty. If Eduset is really amazing, which it could be, then it'll become such a critical tool that they can't just switch off midway of a semester. I'd also want to see it in action. If it is a LMS, what better way to demo your LMS than to create a Eduset page on how to use Eduset. Have quizzes, videos, homework assignments... etc.
- deleted 17y ago
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- fuzzmeister 17y ago
  That's a very helpful observation, thanks. The problem I actually ran into there is a liability one. My payments provider, Braintree, informed me that allowing yearly payments for a web-based service presents liability concerns, as if Eduset was to close, Braintree could be on the line for any refunds demanded by customers. Thus, they say they advise against new companies charging yearly. Does anyone have any experiences with overcoming this hurdle? Also, given the feedback I've gotten from some other commenters, I'm going to add a demo account feature.
  - callmeed 17y ago
    "Does anyone have any experiences with overcoming this hurdle?" Ask them if they can hold some of the money in escrow ... or go with a different underwriter that will allow yearly subscription (but at a higher rate). You could also just do one-time payment for the year and require them to re-purchase. Might even look into accepting POs from schools. If you're into cashing checks :)
    - fuzzmeister 17y ago
      I'll talk to them further about the possibility of escrow - that sounds like a potentially reasonable solution. I asked previously about one-time payments, and they said that doing so does not negate the issue, which is interesting. Also, if a school wants to pay the good ol' fashioned way, I'm more than happy to oblige.
vyrotek 17y ago
Looks clean and simple. I definitely see the Facebook/Twitter design influences. I have a sister who who teaches High School Biology who might use such a thing. But, I worry that she wont be interested in the price. As byoung already mentioned, there are a lot of other (free) services out there that facilitate basic communication already. My sister is someone who lives on Facebook and would probably look to use that first if she could. Extra features that byoung mentioned could be the key. Some local college grads here just launched http://www.instructure.com http://www.instructure.com I haven't played with their product but it looks similar. Its never a bad idea to check out any potential competitors to see how they are addressing the market.
- fuzzmeister 17y ago
  Instructure looks like a very good product. Slightly more college-focused and LMS-like than Eduset, but certainly similar. I'm definitely working on more features to differentiate from generic platforms that could be used (Facebook, Wordpress, etc). As for the price, do you think that it would become justifiable to someone like your sister once more features are added, or do you think that she and other teachers like her are unwilling to pay for any sort of classroom web tool?
  - vyrotek 17y ago
    I sent her the link just now and we talked a bit. Turns out the school district currently offers a very basic website for teachers to interact with students online. This is the site they gave her - http://barnes.myteacher.dvusd.com http://barnes.myteacher.dvusd.com which was created using http://manila.userland.com http://manila.userland.com. As you can tell, its nothing fancy really. She mentioned that students can create accounts and interact on her page but that its too confusing and so she just uses the basic features. To quote her: "I can have the students create accounts on there so they can post stuff too but I haven't played around with any of that stuff. Its really confusing so if he could market it to school districts instead of making us use this stuff then that'd be great. Its really dumb, a lot of teachers just use google sites instead cause its easier. To make my site look like that I had to go through and edit the html code" It seems like she is definitely looking for something different but expects the school district to purchase it. Otherwise she'd rather use Google or Ning. I hope the feedback helps :)
sachinag 17y ago
While I applaud your initiative, I cannot believe that teachers would feel comfortable using something made by a single person who just graduated/will graduate? high school this year. You can keep your name, but I'd recommend taking out your relative youth. Also, I'm always a big fan of competitive analysis charts, especially if you're competing on price. Here's ours: http://www.dawdle.com/selling/index.php/fees/ http://www.dawdle.com/selling/index.php/fees/ I will say that I'm with Brad and $4.99 a month feels like you're selling yourself short, but that is $60/year. Perhaps make a couple more tiers right off the bat to try to nudge people higher? Lastly, I wouldn't say "if your students can use Facebook, they can use this" with a screenshot of Gmail. That shows a lack of attention to detail.
- fuzzmeister 17y ago
  I'll give some more thought to revealing my age on the about page (I'm now a college freshman, by the way). Any specific reasons you say teachers would be uncomfortable with it? I'm hesitant to add more plans at the risk of creating too many options for users, but I am looking into the possibility of institutional accounts. Also, I hadn't fully realized the disconnect between that screenshot and subtitle, thanks.
  - sachinag 17y ago
    My sister is getting her PhD in learning and memory research, and specializes in how kids learn (and she has her teaching cert), and her experience matches mine: teachers hate being told there's something new, young, and better. If they discover it for themselves, great. But positioning yourself as the new young buck on the scene is shooting yourself in the foot. Frankly, I'd try to get an advisory board chock-full of NEA and AFT reps.
    - fuzzmeister 17y ago
      That's fascinating to hear. It seems I've occasionally failed to consider both early adopters and regular teachers in my marketing materials. Thanks.
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Wilduck 17y ago
I do like how professional the site looks, however, it took me a while to find out what it would look like to use eduset. What I did find to be very helpful was the video showing linked from "click here to take a tour of eduset". The content of that video was informative, but not at all what I expected. I would place it more prominently on the page, not right above a screenshot (I was surprised those two elements were unrelated) and maybe give it a new name ("See eduset in action"?). Props on the highly visible "Try it for free" buttons. No props for the opening line of your faq "Eduset is an online classroom communication tool designed to make teachers' lives easier." Try something that says a little about what eduset actually DOES. While the product certainly does look easier than maintaining a personal webpage, it would be better to state how it makes a teacher's life easier, rather than just saying it will. Similarly, in your about page, I would suggest moving your first sentence to the end of the paragraph (or at least to right before you talk about contact information.
- fuzzmeister 17y ago
  Thanks, I'll make the video more prominent and make it clearer what it contains. You're right about the FAQ, that line is pretty much marketing-speak. I'll work on re-writing both that and the about page. I have to say, you have 37signals to thank for the green button idea.
zemote 17y ago
This is almost an exact replica of my startup http://edmodo.com http://edmodo.com which is completely free for multiple groups (eduset charges for more than 1 group), and already has decent traction with 87,000 registered users.
- fuzzmeister 17y ago
  Jeff, I have to say, I'm kind of disappointed you chose to say that it is an "exact replica" publicly. As I said in my email to you some time ago, I had the idea for Eduset having never even heard of Edmodo, and only discovered Edmodo about halfway through the process of building Eduset. While I was certainly stunned at how similar the ideas were, I decided that the classroom microblogging space was big enough for more than one player, so I continued work. Further, for the record, the inspiration for Eduset came from Pownce. When I first tried the Pownce closed beta, I realized that its model would apply perfectly to the classroom setting. Edit: Also, note that Edmodo is planning to add paid features this year (http://www.edmodo.com/blog/2009/06/07/thank-you-for-a-successful-year/ http://www.edmodo.com/blog/2009/06/07/thank-you-for-a-succes...) Edit 2: I'd like to emphasize again that I sent Jeff a long and detailed email about this exactly 3 weeks ago, containing everything I've said here and more. He confirmed to me that he received the email, but has yet to reply. For him to then take the debate public here, without bothering to talk to me personally, is unnecessary and absurd.
  - zemote 17y ago
    I actually have proof you signed up for Edmodo in October or November of last year, so you new about Edmodo almost a year ago. The classroom micro-blogging space may be big enough for two but we are more motivated than ever to own the educational micro-blogging space which we are already doing a very good job at it. I'm just letting the Hacker News users the similarities between your service and ours and ours is free unlike yours and we have a business model too :) We put our money where our mouth is and making the Education community a better place by offering the best free micro-blogging we can for individual teachers.
    - fuzzmeister 17y ago
oxygen 17y ago
I like the design and the core concept. My suggestions: 1) The video was helpful and I would out it right under the "Try it for free" tab 2) In terms or pricing strategy, I like the idea of giving away one class for free and then adopt a per class pricing at around $30. I am sure there would be some teachers out there who would just use their one class slot for all classes but then you will always find 10% of your customers getting more than what they paid for. Lets worry about the remaining 90% 3) Make sure you keep track of what school are these teachers from. As soon as you see >5 teachers from a school registering, you might want to solicit an institutional model 4) I, as a teacher-customer, am not sure how will it work for students. What would they see and how? A video will help.
- fuzzmeister 17y ago
  1) That's good to hear, I'll try to make the video more prominent. 2) What's your reasoning for the $30 price point, as opposed to something lower? Also, having more than one class in a slot would cause some confusing overlaps in homework due dates and such, but you're right, there will always be some people trying to do it. 3) That's a good point, I'll look into a database of schools that I can put behind an AJAX picker. 4) I worried about that when I made the tour. I'll work on tacking on short segments from a student's viewpoint at various points in the video.
  - oxygen 17y ago
    I would check if teachers think about their job in terms of workload per class or per month and work backwards from there. The real question is: how do I get to $X/teacher?
patio11 17y ago
Your core customers will happily pay $35 for a bingo activity which they'll use once. You're offering an application which revolutionizes the way they work, and charging $5 a month. Thus, the usual pricing advice: charge more.
NoBSWebDesign 17y ago
"Eduset completely changed the way I interact with my students." - High School English Teacher Would be much more effective with a name (and even a picture). My first impression was that you made that quote up. Here's a good tutorial on using testimonials: http://www.marketingexperiments.com/improving-website-conversion/using-testimonials-effectively.html http://www.marketingexperiments.com/improving-website-conver...
- fuzzmeister 17y ago
  Working on it.

56 points by fuzzmeister 17y ago

Definitely a good start. Lots of teachers don't want do deal with mastering a learning management system like Moodle or Blackboard. What I don't see is a compelling reason to pay $5/mo for something I could accomplish with a class blog or facebook page. Are there plans to allow interaction between students? Grade management? Online quizzes? These would be great value-adds to justify different pricing tiers.

fuzzmeister 17y ago
The goal was certainly to target teachers who aren't willing or able to put in the time and effort to learn a full-fledged LMS. I agree that $5/month is a slightly hard sell right now, although there are certain parts of Eduset (such as assignments) that cannot be easily accomplished with a blog. In order to fix this, we are actually in the process of implementing every one of the features you described. Soon, students will be able to post content to their classes (if the teacher allows it), making classes more collaborative. Students will also be able to turn in homework and take quizzes on Eduset, and teachers will be able to grade that work. As for pricing tiers, does anyone have thoughts on which of these two options would be better? 1) The current model, where all features are provided free for one class, while $5/month is charged to create an unlimited number of classes. 2) The model the commenter above describes, where certain features are made pay-only.
- brandnewlow 17y ago
  Isn't $5 so low as to undermine the value you're offering? I paid $5 for a cheeseburger today at lunch. I'd look to offer something in the $30 range as your first paid tier.
  - fuzzmeister 17y ago
    That logic usually works, but I've found that teachers are a stingy group when it comes to paying for classroom services. I think that the risk of making the product seem too cheap is outweighed by the risk of teachers being reluctant to spend a significant amount on their classes. Wikispaces, another product partially targeted at teachers, has a $5/month option as well.
    - patio11 17y ago
      I've found that teachers are a stingy group when it comes to paying for classroom services. What data do you have which supports this contention? Is it more of a "gut feeling"? I had that gut feeling once myself, and you know what? It is a lie. A myth. Totally contrary to empirically observable fact. The average teacher in the United States spends $200 to $400 of her own money per year (varies with level and geography, and I've seen a few numbers quoted from different studies) on instructional supplies. The average customer for Bingo Card Creator spends $32.50 on a program which most use once or twice per year. (Which is still cheaper than the laminated set of bingo cards they were about to buy at the teaching store. Those cards are on the shelves because they sell.) I have a trial-to-purchase conversion of about 2.3% for my online version, which is considered fairly good. Some teachers do complain about the price. That is a good sign -- if no one is complaining that it is too expensive, you've priced it too low.
      - fuzzmeister 17y ago
        You're right - it was a gut feeling. Thanks for the data.
    - jbyers 17y ago
      While we have a $5/month option, Wikispaces has offered a free service (no ads, same features as paid service, no strings) for K-12 teachers since early 2006. We've given away around 225K wikis under this plan. http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers
- joez 17y ago
  Free for one class seems interesting but how would you distinguish between their classes? What happens if a teacher just put all their students on the one. I think you don't mind getting it to some people for free.
- byoung2 17y ago
  Another possible model is X number of students free, and per-student pricing after that.
- psyklic 17y ago
  I would vote for an institutional subscription model. It might be a hard sell for individual teachers (often likely out of their own pockets), but I bet you could sell the value to institutions which employ teachers.
  - yjsoon 17y ago
    I agree with the above - in its current form, I think you'd attract early adopters who, even if they love your product, might have trouble convincing others to sign up and fork out for it. With an institutional model, said early adopters (presumably those in charge of educational technology spending) can try and push it out to teachers in their school. Along these lines, perhaps consider some way to allow those who use and love your product to bring others in with minimal friction - let them try out the product in an administrative and student role, without having to sign up and learn on their own. Most teachers I know won't try something out until they really see the value in it (i.e. students engaged, fulfills some kind of need).
    - fuzzmeister 17y ago
      We're working on adding institutional accounts. There are some complexities involved, mainly involving legal issues and various whitepapers that need to be written, but I wholeheartedly agree with your idea: early adopters are a great way to get institutions to adopt a product. As for your second suggestion, do you think a way for current users to send potential users an invitation to try a demo account (a sandbox) would do the job?
  - patio11 17y ago
    This is the opposite of the truth for small businesses: you can sell to any teacher, all you have to do is convince her to get out her credit card. To sell it to a district, you're going to have to go through a sales cycle measured in months to years. You will have to collect rubber stamps from upwards of four different decisionmakers, three of whom have no interest in using your software, at least one of whom has incentives to kill the purchase. Selling software to educational institutions is largely a matter of playing Enterprise Sales. I don't suggest you make that choice lightly.
- vyrotek 17y ago
  With each semester a teacher would have a new class right? Would it be possible to perhaps charge a one time fee for each class that is created instead of a monthly fee?

teuobk 17y ago

Haven't tried the actual product, but the site design and execution looks professional and trustworthy.

raptrex 17y ago

1. Slideshow view or whatever you call it where you can press "next" or the right side of the image to go to the next screenshot. I hate clicking to "minimize the screenshot" then clicking again to zoom to the next screenshot 2. Maybe zoom in on that email message since it may give the impression you have to use a gmail account. 3. Page of features and screenshots 4. DEMO ACCOUNT WITHOUT SIGNING UP. No one likes signing up for anything unless they have to. Just have a static version or give them a demo account with full access and every hour or so, have the database be restored to normal

zaatar 17y ago
Yes, the demo account is crucial; a lazy effort would be a screencast (flash-based?). I certainly want to give this a whirl, even though it would not directly help me, but rather, friends of mine who are professors or teaching assistants. But I'm not about to register, activate an account, and then populate it with bogus info and bogus students burning an hour of my time ... the entry barrier is too high :/
- fuzzmeister 17y ago
  I currently have a video walkthrough posted on the left side of the page (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ-WCIKVbRc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ-WCIKVbRc). Is that the kind of thing you're thinking of, or something more in-depth? I'll look into the technical aspect of setting up demo accounts, I am beginning to come around to the idea.
fuzzmeister 17y ago
I'll definitely put #1-3 on my ToDo list, thanks. As for #4, my current strategy is to provide one option and one option only to the user on the home page: signing up. I believe I got the idea for this strategy from 37signals. Does anyone have any insights as to whether this works in the real world?
- jlees 17y ago
  Another option is 'lazy signup', as demonstrated with some YC startups like posterous. Get the user starting to use the site and only then ask for an email address, username, password etc. My hunch is that in the real world if it's "signup or die" most people choose the latter.

joez 17y ago

Why the monthly plan? I know subscription is the holy grail because people set it and forget it. But are you implying teachers should cancel it during the three summer months if they aren't teaching? And do teachers really pay for two months and then go oh... sorry kids but I realize this isn't going to work and cancel it? I assume once your on one LMS your stuck for at least the duration of the semester. Maybe a 30 day free trial is better, even sixty. If Eduset is really amazing, which it could be, then it'll become such a critical tool that they can't just switch off midway of a semester. I'd also want to see it in action. If it is a LMS, what better way to demo your LMS than to create a Eduset page on how to use Eduset. Have quizzes, videos, homework assignments... etc.

deleted 17y ago
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fuzzmeister 17y ago
That's a very helpful observation, thanks. The problem I actually ran into there is a liability one. My payments provider, Braintree, informed me that allowing yearly payments for a web-based service presents liability concerns, as if Eduset was to close, Braintree could be on the line for any refunds demanded by customers. Thus, they say they advise against new companies charging yearly. Does anyone have any experiences with overcoming this hurdle? Also, given the feedback I've gotten from some other commenters, I'm going to add a demo account feature.
- callmeed 17y ago
  "Does anyone have any experiences with overcoming this hurdle?" Ask them if they can hold some of the money in escrow ... or go with a different underwriter that will allow yearly subscription (but at a higher rate). You could also just do one-time payment for the year and require them to re-purchase. Might even look into accepting POs from schools. If you're into cashing checks :)
  - fuzzmeister 17y ago
    I'll talk to them further about the possibility of escrow - that sounds like a potentially reasonable solution. I asked previously about one-time payments, and they said that doing so does not negate the issue, which is interesting. Also, if a school wants to pay the good ol' fashioned way, I'm more than happy to oblige.

vyrotek 17y ago

Looks clean and simple. I definitely see the Facebook/Twitter design influences. I have a sister who who teaches High School Biology who might use such a thing. But, I worry that she wont be interested in the price. As byoung already mentioned, there are a lot of other (free) services out there that facilitate basic communication already. My sister is someone who lives on Facebook and would probably look to use that first if she could. Extra features that byoung mentioned could be the key. Some local college grads here just launched http://www.instructure.com http://www.instructure.com I haven't played with their product but it looks similar. Its never a bad idea to check out any potential competitors to see how they are addressing the market.

fuzzmeister 17y ago
Instructure looks like a very good product. Slightly more college-focused and LMS-like than Eduset, but certainly similar. I'm definitely working on more features to differentiate from generic platforms that could be used (Facebook, Wordpress, etc). As for the price, do you think that it would become justifiable to someone like your sister once more features are added, or do you think that she and other teachers like her are unwilling to pay for any sort of classroom web tool?
- vyrotek 17y ago
  I sent her the link just now and we talked a bit. Turns out the school district currently offers a very basic website for teachers to interact with students online. This is the site they gave her - http://barnes.myteacher.dvusd.com http://barnes.myteacher.dvusd.com which was created using http://manila.userland.com http://manila.userland.com. As you can tell, its nothing fancy really. She mentioned that students can create accounts and interact on her page but that its too confusing and so she just uses the basic features. To quote her: "I can have the students create accounts on there so they can post stuff too but I haven't played around with any of that stuff. Its really confusing so if he could market it to school districts instead of making us use this stuff then that'd be great. Its really dumb, a lot of teachers just use google sites instead cause its easier. To make my site look like that I had to go through and edit the html code" It seems like she is definitely looking for something different but expects the school district to purchase it. Otherwise she'd rather use Google or Ning. I hope the feedback helps :)

sachinag 17y ago

While I applaud your initiative, I cannot believe that teachers would feel comfortable using something made by a single person who just graduated/will graduate? high school this year. You can keep your name, but I'd recommend taking out your relative youth. Also, I'm always a big fan of competitive analysis charts, especially if you're competing on price. Here's ours: http://www.dawdle.com/selling/index.php/fees/ http://www.dawdle.com/selling/index.php/fees/ I will say that I'm with Brad and $4.99 a month feels like you're selling yourself short, but that is $60/year. Perhaps make a couple more tiers right off the bat to try to nudge people higher? Lastly, I wouldn't say "if your students can use Facebook, they can use this" with a screenshot of Gmail. That shows a lack of attention to detail.

fuzzmeister 17y ago
I'll give some more thought to revealing my age on the about page (I'm now a college freshman, by the way). Any specific reasons you say teachers would be uncomfortable with it? I'm hesitant to add more plans at the risk of creating too many options for users, but I am looking into the possibility of institutional accounts. Also, I hadn't fully realized the disconnect between that screenshot and subtitle, thanks.
- sachinag 17y ago
  My sister is getting her PhD in learning and memory research, and specializes in how kids learn (and she has her teaching cert), and her experience matches mine: teachers hate being told there's something new, young, and better. If they discover it for themselves, great. But positioning yourself as the new young buck on the scene is shooting yourself in the foot. Frankly, I'd try to get an advisory board chock-full of NEA and AFT reps.
  - fuzzmeister 17y ago
    That's fascinating to hear. It seems I've occasionally failed to consider both early adopters and regular teachers in my marketing materials. Thanks.
- 17y ago

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Wilduck 17y ago

I do like how professional the site looks, however, it took me a while to find out what it would look like to use eduset. What I did find to be very helpful was the video showing linked from "click here to take a tour of eduset". The content of that video was informative, but not at all what I expected. I would place it more prominently on the page, not right above a screenshot (I was surprised those two elements were unrelated) and maybe give it a new name ("See eduset in action"?). Props on the highly visible "Try it for free" buttons. No props for the opening line of your faq "Eduset is an online classroom communication tool designed to make teachers' lives easier." Try something that says a little about what eduset actually DOES. While the product certainly does look easier than maintaining a personal webpage, it would be better to state how it makes a teacher's life easier, rather than just saying it will. Similarly, in your about page, I would suggest moving your first sentence to the end of the paragraph (or at least to right before you talk about contact information.

fuzzmeister 17y ago
Thanks, I'll make the video more prominent and make it clearer what it contains. You're right about the FAQ, that line is pretty much marketing-speak. I'll work on re-writing both that and the about page. I have to say, you have 37signals to thank for the green button idea.

zemote 17y ago

This is almost an exact replica of my startup http://edmodo.com http://edmodo.com which is completely free for multiple groups (eduset charges for more than 1 group), and already has decent traction with 87,000 registered users.

fuzzmeister 17y ago
Jeff, I have to say, I'm kind of disappointed you chose to say that it is an "exact replica" publicly. As I said in my email to you some time ago, I had the idea for Eduset having never even heard of Edmodo, and only discovered Edmodo about halfway through the process of building Eduset. While I was certainly stunned at how similar the ideas were, I decided that the classroom microblogging space was big enough for more than one player, so I continued work. Further, for the record, the inspiration for Eduset came from Pownce. When I first tried the Pownce closed beta, I realized that its model would apply perfectly to the classroom setting. Edit: Also, note that Edmodo is planning to add paid features this year (http://www.edmodo.com/blog/2009/06/07/thank-you-for-a-successful-year/ http://www.edmodo.com/blog/2009/06/07/thank-you-for-a-succes...) Edit 2: I'd like to emphasize again that I sent Jeff a long and detailed email about this exactly 3 weeks ago, containing everything I've said here and more. He confirmed to me that he received the email, but has yet to reply. For him to then take the debate public here, without bothering to talk to me personally, is unnecessary and absurd.
- zemote 17y ago
  I actually have proof you signed up for Edmodo in October or November of last year, so you new about Edmodo almost a year ago. The classroom micro-blogging space may be big enough for two but we are more motivated than ever to own the educational micro-blogging space which we are already doing a very good job at it. I'm just letting the Hacker News users the similarities between your service and ours and ours is free unlike yours and we have a business model too :) We put our money where our mouth is and making the Education community a better place by offering the best free micro-blogging we can for individual teachers.
  - fuzzmeister 17y ago

oxygen 17y ago

I like the design and the core concept. My suggestions: 1) The video was helpful and I would out it right under the "Try it for free" tab 2) In terms or pricing strategy, I like the idea of giving away one class for free and then adopt a per class pricing at around $30. I am sure there would be some teachers out there who would just use their one class slot for all classes but then you will always find 10% of your customers getting more than what they paid for. Lets worry about the remaining 90% 3) Make sure you keep track of what school are these teachers from. As soon as you see >5 teachers from a school registering, you might want to solicit an institutional model 4) I, as a teacher-customer, am not sure how will it work for students. What would they see and how? A video will help.

fuzzmeister 17y ago
1) That's good to hear, I'll try to make the video more prominent. 2) What's your reasoning for the $30 price point, as opposed to something lower? Also, having more than one class in a slot would cause some confusing overlaps in homework due dates and such, but you're right, there will always be some people trying to do it. 3) That's a good point, I'll look into a database of schools that I can put behind an AJAX picker. 4) I worried about that when I made the tour. I'll work on tacking on short segments from a student's viewpoint at various points in the video.
- oxygen 17y ago
  I would check if teachers think about their job in terms of workload per class or per month and work backwards from there. The real question is: how do I get to $X/teacher?

patio11 17y ago

Your core customers will happily pay $35 for a bingo activity which they'll use once. You're offering an application which revolutionizes the way they work, and charging $5 a month. Thus, the usual pricing advice: charge more.

NoBSWebDesign 17y ago

"Eduset completely changed the way I interact with my students." - High School English Teacher Would be much more effective with a name (and even a picture). My first impression was that you made that quote up. Here's a good tutorial on using testimonials: http://www.marketingexperiments.com/improving-website-conversion/using-testimonials-effectively.html http://www.marketingexperiments.com/improving-website-conver...

fuzzmeister 17y ago
Working on it.