Please review my startup. Safe text messaging for teachers

by kabuks • 15 years ago

76 76 15 years ago

afdssfda2• 15 years ago

Good idea, but this on its own may not be that successful. Modern private schools use a combination of Saas apps and email to get info to students and parents. What you need to do is to find out what those major Saas solutions are, and get in bed with them. Also, there is a potential problem if the student replies to a text and replies to everyone that was texted to, which can happen easily on some devices, so it would seem that you'd want to ensure each text is separately sent.

kabuks17• 15 years ago

Each text is sent separately. And replies go back only to the teacher, who can the reply directly to the student. Good point about the Saas apps out there.

cpeterso• 15 years ago

School Loop is one such edu SaaS.

atlbeer2• 15 years ago

I actually worry about startup's that don't generate revenue, especially tools that people can grow dependent on. I know a few teachers but, I'm weary of sharing this with them if you disappear in 6 months due to lack of funding.

Text message's, although cheap, are not free.

What are your plans for revenue and why not charge $2.99/month?

weaksauce• 15 years ago

It's because they are charging $9.99 instead. If you look at the FAQ you will see the pricing breakdown. It's only free to use for a limited number of texts. There should be some text on the page that says something like, "free to use for small classrooms and affordable plans for large ones."

atlbeer2• 15 years ago

Missed the FAQ completely. Thanks

kabuks17• 15 years ago

Thanks for the tip. Changed it on the front page and linked to the FAQ

aspir4• 15 years ago

Just wondering, but have you talked with many teachers about this? Being married to one, and having a lot in my extended family, I know how real the legal risks are for something like this. I know these risks ultimately comes down to how the teachers use the tool, but districts and other organizations are liable if, say, a teacher says something "controversial." As a result, using something like this could get a teacher fired.

If teacher/student ends up as an unattractive market for whatever reason, I'd consider teacher/parent - regular parent outreach a huge pain for teachers, and its also their number one "contact" after other teachers and district employees. I know my wife runs into a lot of headaches from the "fog of communication lag" or whatever you'd want to call it.

Alternatively, this could be used as a small business tool for managers and shift workers. No more need to go about finding a replacement by calling down a list. Of this could just be a generic communication tool with employees who may not have regular access to email (things like trades, etc.)

TL;DR: I think it's a cool tool, but teacher/student communication may be a little risky to start with.

EDIT: You do deserve a huge credit for developing a tool that helps teachers, rather than attempts to remove them from the process. I've seen too many tools developed as "teaching aids" that seem to be rooted in the belief that teachers are somehow lacking and that a massed produced video game or application could replace them. These ultimately assume that the teachers are lazy or ignorant and would hand their students over to an outsider; which is why they never succeed. Congrats for not holding those assumptions.

leeHS• 15 years ago

I'm also married to a teacher, and I mostly agree with aspir, especially wrt teacher to parent communication. However, I don't see this as controversial. Yes, teachers have to watch what they say, but this is true of verbal communication as well. I'll be curious to see if this is "cool" enough for students, and desirable enough for teachers who will most likely be using this during their off-hours as well.

Love the design btw. Simple and clear.

kabuks17• 15 years ago

Thanks. Btrax.com did our design (they gave away 10 hours of free design to the winner). I highly recommend them.

yummyfajitas• 15 years ago

I've seen too many tools developed as "teaching aids" that seem to be rooted in the belief that teachers are somehow lacking and that a massed produced video game or application could replace them.

This is an attitude I've observed before, but don't understand. A large number of startups are developed as "X aids" rooted in the belief that an application could replace X (examples include wufoo, craigslist, wikipedia, etc).

Why do people dislike such startups when X == teaching?

You are correct, however, that your competitors (teachers, in this case) will not promote your product and your startup is likely to fail if it is based on the assumption that they will do so. Similarly, wikipedia would have failed if it required Encyclopedia Brittania to promote it.

aspir4• 15 years ago

EDIT: Sorry for the length :) This 1 minute video with Matt Damon glosses over my points well enough http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFHJkvEwyhk

The short of it is that there hasn't been a good "X aid" that's been proposed yet that solve the classroom issues. For me, the "I've seen..." etc. opinion comes from seeing a majority of education startups claiming to be "disruptive" without doing enough due diligence in the industry. I can often tell that the bulk of the research done by the entrepreneur is thinking back to their own school days or that of their kids.

The reality is that, most likely, if you are a technology entrepreneur, you were at the top of your class your entire academic career, whether it be via GPA or through raw intelligence or through hard work. When you were in school you needed something "more" to augment your education, and the current system held you back. The entrepreneur now uses this experience to create a tool that would have sped his own learning along as a kid. It's not a "bad" assumption -- heck this was me for a while. I used to wholeheartedly believe that well-made learning games would change education forever and usher the US into a new knowledge renaissance.

However, the reality of a classroom is far different than what one would assume. The process of education is different for each student, and is so dramatically different that modern software, videos, or digital tools cannot replace a teacher. Lets go back to the "future entrepreneur in the grade school class" example. For every first grader that's light years ahead of his peers, there's another who is light years behind. A first grader who doesn't know 75% of their letters of 50% of their digits. In the same class. To assume a tailored, yet mass produced lesson will teach this class better than a trained individual is ill-fated. To tell a teacher that one could is condescending. Each class and student deserves unique, custom education, and that's what the current system provides.

Then there's the reality of a teacher's life. It's no picnic. Countless hours are spent grading, making lesson plans for the bulk of the class, coming up with extra projects for the gifted kids, and coming up with remedial training for the behind ones. On top of it all, teachers are forced to pay for the overwhelming majority of their office supplies. Need construction paper? Fork it up. Need extra copies? Fork it up. Need lamination? Fork it up. Need reading books that aren't falling apart? Fork it up. Want to get extra training to better teach your students and get a tiny pay raise? Oh, you'll definitely fork that up. The list goes on. Those expenditures make up the XYZ thousand a year that teachers spend on their classes that you see in market research reports. There's little room, if any, for software, especially if that software will ultimately do a poor job at reaching students. Bringing software in is high risk without the payment. Its the same as handing the class off to another teacher that they haven't met yet.

And there's no summer break -- just a few months without students. They're working during that time period.

Finally, the US is getting destroyed in science/math education by other nations. Those other nations are not using software to leapfrog us. They're using more interactive discussion, reasoning, and practical application of these concepts. Socratic learning, where the students lead the conceptual discussion with the teacher as a guide, not a lecture.

Things like software and videos are great for teaching small groups. I plan on buying them myself when I have kids, and I plan to have the Kahn Academy site as my homepage.

But the classroom ecosystem and supplemental learning scenarios are very different, and products developed for them should be targeted for the needs of that environment. I support innovation in the classroom wholeheartedly, but without the right level of research in developing products, you might as well be bringing a football to a basketball game :)

Roedou• 15 years ago

I'm not involved with this startup, but I did hear a bit about it from someone who was at the StartupWeekend in Seattle where it was realized.

From what I remember, they did have a teacher on the team - and were recognized as one of the stronger groups for this reason.

Also, I don't see any information about it on the site, but I think that one feature of the site may be that the teacher's bosses (department heads? headteachers?) can review all the communications. Hopefully that mitigates the legal risks a little - even if only because teachers would be more careful about what they text.

kabuks17• 15 years ago

We came out of the MEGA startup weekend that was in mountain view last month. And we had a great teacher on our team who was part of Teach for America.

You are also correct, our school plans give admins and other teachers read-only access to all communication. The idea is that the transparency will protect teachers from any appearance of impropriety.

afdssfda2• 15 years ago

"As a result, using something like this could get a teacher fired."

This is not a concern in modern private schools. In addition to the Saas apps they use that display grades, homework (e.g. which book or worksheet and which problems), etc. they have blogs incorporated in them. In addition, teachers frequently send emails. Texting would be just another form of electronic distribution. There is not reason to focus on it specifically as a way that a teacher could get fired. They now have a myriad of ways to say something stupid, but that is the way things are.

aspir4• 15 years ago

I understand your point, but the concept of personal contact with a student on their personal phone is a very fine line that could be viewed very negatively by a very small, but vocal subset of parents.

Also, the software that you're referring to, in my experience, is targeted for the parent, rather than the student. Its twofold better in that there's less ethical liability in parent communication as opposed to student communication, and these tools include the parent in the education process. They know about grades, attendance, and other things and can then take a more targeted role in their child's education.

west17372• 15 years ago

I definitely agree with the risks, but I also have a couple friends (mid 20s) that are high school teachers that have many of their students numbers stored in their phones cause they encourage the kids to text them if they have a question or a problem. This has rarely led to some inappropriate texts from students- which could certainly be a risk.

Having an intermediary certainly won't eliminate risk, but it might mitigate some of it. I don't think it's a tool that all teachers will use- it's going to depend a lot of teaching style. My gut instinct says enough will use it to make it an interesting tool, and anything that adds to a teacher's box of tools sounds good to me.

kabuks17• 15 years ago

Exactly. The main point it to mitigate the risk. How can we make this clearer?

kabuks17• 15 years ago

We surveyed 50 teachers before launching (inspired by the customer discovery/validation processes). 100% of them agreed that texting students puts their job at risk. 50% of them text students anyway to remind them of stuff, and co-ordinate with them.

Our main value add, is to eliminate this 'creepy factor' and give teachers a way to communicate with students that doesn't risk their jobs.

aspir4• 15 years ago

Well, numbers don't lie :) It looks like you stumbled onto something pretty awesome.

davidw• 15 years ago

> a massed produced video game or application could replace them.

From my tired evening neurons idly percolating over that thought, some of the video game type things from my youth, and the business book/self help category...

"All I really needed to know, I learned in Oregon Trail"

geoffc• 15 years ago

Nice focused implementation of group broadcast texting.

You might want to tweak the Perfectly free message on the home page to sync up with the freemium model described in the FAQ. It will probably help with your target market to explain you do actually have a business model.

Good luck with the venture!

kabuks17• 15 years ago

Thanks for the feedback. Just tweaked it. Let me know what you think.

hsparikh• 15 years ago

I believe there is a startup from this semester's Imagine K-12 batch that is working on a similar product, albeit its more twitter like. Here it is: http://www.remind101.com/

Teacher/parent is definitely a more viable place to start this kind of a tool. Good luck!

colinsidoti• 15 years ago

I considered joining this industry for a little bit, it's fun technology. My research pointed me towards athletic departments instead of teachers for budget purposes, as well as a stronger desire for a coach to be connected to his/her team than a teacher to be connected to his/her students.

Please note that this was determined off a very small sample size

scottm01• 15 years ago

My wife is a teacher and completely agreed with your research. She'd never use it (fear of losing protections using anything outside school-required communications; desire to not increase coddling students with constant reminders; etc), but suggested that coaches would probably love it.

badmash69• 15 years ago

Congratulations! Your website design is incredibly well polished and the site is put together really well and you message is communicated really well. Did you design the site by yourself ? Please share your design tips/resources.

troels2• 15 years ago

The design is pretty good - well above the norm. It could still be improved though.

I like the "Perfectly Safe, Perfectly Simple, Perfectly Free", but stylistically it's quite different from the infographic on top. The logo is also a bit off from the rest in style. And the call-to-action button is a bit washed out. The main menu has horrendous choice of colours.

The sign-up form has a lot of empty space that makes the page look only half done. And there is some lack of consistency on how you style forms in general. (Grey background for the whole form or just the submit-button panel?)

All minor things, but going over them a few times could really improve the finish a lot.

kabuks17• 15 years ago

Great feedback. Thanks! Can you help? shereef@classparrot.com

Tobu• 15 years ago

Another point that seems to have escaped notice: I can't middle click the uservoice badge on the right, or the contact link at the bottom.

ETA: The Upgrade plan > Hide link manages to replace the page with "[object Object]"; the password field is mandatory but lacks the asterisk.

xeno56• 15 years ago

http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/

dougbarrett• 15 years ago

This comment doesn't even reply to the original question, and the site doesn't even use Twitter Bootstrap.

kabuks17• 15 years ago

thanks.

btrax.com gave us 10 hours of free design for winning startup weekend. I highly recommend them.

copywriting was by joanna (she's a real pro see this thread for background: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1836538)

bloggergirl• 15 years ago

thanks, shereef! a product with a clear value proposition - and real problem solved - is always easy to write about. :)

DanBC• 15 years ago

I like the clear, easy to understand language.

To satisfy school regulatory bodies you might want to have something labled "privacy policy" which lists relevant laws and your compliance.

I'd stick the pricing somewhere more prominent. You're not sleazy or spammy, so let people know how you're funded so they don't have to think whether you're going to be selling ads. (I did have that thought until I found your pricing.)

kabuks17• 15 years ago

Ok, so our little privacy link needs to be bigger clearly. Thanks.

I just changed the wording on the "Perfectly Free" area and linked to our costs. Do you think that's prominent enough?

SoftwareMaven• 15 years ago

I had the police show up at my house last week because a teacher called the police about a text that originated from my son's cell phone (a case of wrong phone numbers and practical jokes). I can appreciate the need teachers have to protect themselves. I can also appreciate students wanting to communicate the way they communicate.

I think there is a market there. My kids would like it.

raymondh• 15 years ago

You already have a website up and running -- the market will review the idea for you.

ebaysucks• 15 years ago

What's your plan for generating revenue?

icebraining• 15 years ago

From the FAQ:

How much does it cost?

We want ClassParrot to always remain useful to you at the free level. The first 500 credits (messages) are free. Every month we'll add another 200 free credits to your account.

You can also get more by inviting your peers to use ClassParrot. We'll give you 200 credits for each person you invite who starts using ClassParrot. We'll also start them off with an extra 200 credits when they accept your invitation.

If you need unlimited credits, our unlimited plan for teachers is: $9/month (or $90/year) for unlimited texts and unlimited classes.

For schools (or other groups of teachers) we offer a bundled plan: $100/month (or $1000/year) for unlimited use up to 20 teachers $200/month (or $2000/year) for unlimited use and unlimited teachers

redjuggler20122• 15 years ago

Signed up for an account. Easy, simple, and fast, but when I tried to send a message, my test phone didn't receive the text message. So great design, but the basic functionality doesn't work!

kabuks17• 15 years ago

Could you ping me with the email address you used. I would love to clear this up. shereef@classparrot.com

lwhi• 15 years ago

What happens if a kid doesn't have a phone?

sambeau2• 15 years ago

They will use it as a valid excuse to finally badger their folks into getting them one.

redjuggler20122• 15 years ago

Seriously, the texting feature didn't work!

kabuks17• 15 years ago

seriously, I would love to fix your problem. ping me.

wesleyzhao• 15 years ago

I think this is a great idea. As a student right now, I know I would love to use this. But I would love it even more if teachers would use something like this to keep us updated (as opposed to the crappy school-district run sites they barely know how to use..)

rednaught3• 15 years ago

How does something like this work where not all kids have phones? Are some school districts now distributing mobile phones and access plans?

sambeau2• 15 years ago

Have you considered sponsorship deals with a phone company? I could see this being a way for phone companies to get their first customers:

"But, Mom, I have to get a phone now!"

rednaught3• 15 years ago

So for the parents who are already struggling to keep their own phone(or perhaps unable to afford one) they now have to purchase one for their child(ren)?

It would seem we're into some kind of transition phase where digital education for K-12 will have to be completely furnished by school districts or this is another class divide. Many can't afford phones or laptops for their children. Where will the responsibility lie for this?

Fliko• 15 years ago

It is simply another tool to help increase communication between teachers and students, I can't dream up of a situation where phones would be required to be used in a classroom.

With that in mind it might be worth it to enable a feature that will allow teachers to also send an email to students who desire it, as to allow students who don't have phones to be included as they can access the internet at school (if they don't have the internet or a computer at home).

wijnglas• 15 years ago

@hsparikh is right. This looks an awful lot like Imagine K12-backed Remind101 (http://www.remind101).

hospadam• 15 years ago

My wife is an Elementary-grade teacher. While it wouldn't really work for her (her students don't have phones - yet), I can easily see the use case for others. However - you really need to think about this issue: the reason teachers aren't texting students (or shouldn't be texting students) isn't simply because they don't want to share their personal numbers. They're not texting students because they're not supposed to have that kind of direct access/contact with students outside of school. You might be offering it already- but you might want to think about some auditing tool. Or - make sure you keep all the records of all texts sent. As long as you make it clear to the teachers, I think you'll be fine.

JimmyL• 15 years ago

Definitely agree on the auditing tool - but I'd take it further, and make it a a full-blown feature. Provide the teacher's higher-ups with it (so they can inspect, if needed) and provide it to parents as well, so they can see what the messages are.

Maybe event take it one step further and encourage parents to sign up with it as well, so they know what type of messages their kids are getting that their child's teacher considers important enough to send using this medium (perhaps include an email-delivery option for these ones).

The basic product is one-to-many double-blind logged communication; don't make it about the exact mechanics of how the conversation is delivered, make it about the logged/safety aspect of it. SMS, email, voice-drop, robo-call, AIM-bot, etc. are all communication media that could benefit from this approach.

kabuks17• 15 years ago

Great feedback. Thanks.

We do have an auditing tool, and keep records of all texts back and forth. We should definitely highlight this more.

Also working on a way for parents to register their kids' phone numbers and get cced on all communication.

chromedude2• 15 years ago

I have no idea how long this has been around, but there is another one that is exactly the same: remind101.com

kabuks17• 15 years ago

remind101 launched during the imaginek12 demo day. which was exactly the same day startup weekend started (when we started). They have a 3-4 month lead on us, and about 3 times our users. I haven't met with them yet, but they seem like a solid team and worth competitors.

chromedude2• 15 years ago

Great. I personally know one of the founders. I think it's a great idea, but I definitely think they need competitors. Your design is definitely starting off in the right direction.

kabuks17• 15 years ago

Folks, thanks for the great feedback. I'm especially curious what you think of our business model:

The first 500 credits are free. Every month we'll add another 200 free credits. (each credit is one text message to one person)

Users can also get more credits by inviting others to use ClassParrot. Inviteer and invitee both get an extra 200 credits.

Paid plans offer unlimited credits:

For a single teacher $9/month (or $90/year) For schools up to 20 teachers $100/month (or $1000/year) For schools with more than 20 teachers $200/month (or $2000/year)

Thoughts?

leftnode• 15 years ago

I wish you the best, but getting a school to pony up for this is going to be difficult. Their budgets are extremely tight (at least in Texas). My wife is a teacher and she frequently finds her spending her personal money on classroom supplies.

kabuks17• 15 years ago

She's not alone. On average teachers spend $430 out of pocket per school year on school supplies.

We don't want to add to that burden, and would really really like to find a way to have the schools pay.

inuhj• 15 years ago

Your annual pricing doesn't offer any discount.

If I was a teacher I would simply purchase a month-to-month subscription and not pay for your service during June/July or July/August(depending on your school system) when there are no school days.

From a personal standpoint I would consider offering some kind of "account parking" so that teachers can suspend their account for a 2 week period during christmas break. It never 'feels right' to pay for a service when you're not able to use it.

americandesi333• 15 years ago

Some thoughts- Instead of teachers and school plans, have you thought about having a parent/student plan? Every time to sign up to receive messages, you get X free and then you have to pay to receive the rest. This way you are pushing the burden to purchase on the parents's shoulders and this will also ensure that there is a parent 'by-in' for ClassParrot. Did you survey parents and students about this?

Also, if 1 credit = 1 message, then why not just call it a 'message' to keep things simple. So you get 500 free 'messages' and you pay for 500+ 'messages'.

To emphasize your value prop and highlight the safety, landing page message could again say 'secure' instead of 'hassle free'. My rule is that repetition is good.

jyothidhar• 15 years ago

cool idea but many schools have policies where the teacher /ta cannot reach students on personal emails/phone other than school email

isnotchicago• 15 years ago

The site focuses on after-school usage; have you thought about in-classroom texting? For instance, in classes where 100% of kids have cell phones, this could be used as a cheap, more usable alternative for response systems.

(Definitely a version 2.0 feature, though. You would get into the whole dangerous world of visualizing feedback, integrating with interactive whiteboards, audience polling competitors, etc.)

dantiberian• 15 years ago

I think the love heart under perfectly free might be sending the wrong message to parents. The number one issue I think of when I think of teachers texting students is inappropriate student teacher relationships.

ryan-allen• 15 years ago

I think the idea is great. A simple tech solution to a legitimate problem.

I don't know if you have this feature, but I would suggest logging of IPs/everything else when sending a broadcast (the number of teachers whom I saw have their password guessed or captured with keyloggers in high school was out of control, I would not put it past a student to get access to the tool and broadcast things for shits and giggles), and additionally maybe set up time windows that cannot be used for broadcast. I.e. if teacher is out with mates drinking one might think it funny to send a broadcast at 2am to all the kids, that'd be bad news.

Oh, and automated reminders maybe! Set up to send a message at 7pm 'remember to bring your permission slips for the field trip!'.

I imagine that parents might want in on the broadcast system as well, so they can also receive messages that have been sent to their kids.

Anyway, brilliant simple idea with a real use. Exactly what tech is for!

mmxio• 15 years ago

When I was in high school back in China, my school offered a ~$1/month subscription to receive SMS notices from school & teachers. From what I know, I didn't see any parents that refused this subscription. This is a proven business.

libraryatnight• 15 years ago

The design is simple (in a good way) and attractive, I like it. The idea is fantastic. Glossing over the comments I understand the concern that it's 'risky,' but this seems less risky than direct contact via their phone number which I'm sure some teachers already do.

Giving teachers more ways to communicate with their students is something I'll always be a fan of, and I'm sure even some parents wouldn't mind being on the list for some texts (assignment reminders?).

Congrats on a cool idea and a neat startup.

smayfield• 15 years ago

Avoiding the "will it solve the perceived problem" aspect that many of these reviews focused on, it doesn't really scream "good business model" to me. It's not particularly novel (it's an anonymous re-mailer with phone numbers instead of email addresses). It's not solving a problem that can't be solved many other ways already (internal school district systems, email lists, teacher blogs, written notes on the whiteboard). One of its primary sales points (protects teachers by restricting direct contact info) is only a tiny aspect of a more general problem (inappropriate communication/contact between students/teachers). Its primary sales point offers protection from a legal liability (possessing information that could be abused) but doesn't secure that information effectively (phone numbers aren't treated by most people as "strictly private information" and therefore are easily obtained from many sources). I don't see how it will be monetized effectively as neither students nor teachers are likely to pay for it (my opinion only) and it would be difficult to offer ads given that the user interface that both parties interact with is basically a text message. Technologically, it's not exactly a hard concept to duplicate now that you've presented the idea, and therefore you have a risk of competitors without the benefit of a significant "first to market" advantage. Texting is popular because it's simple. I'm not sure how much you can enhance the service beyond hiding the number. That leaves me wondering where your growth and customer loyalty will come from.

If you're still reading :) It's an interesting idea, it's a nice design, it's focused on a single problem, and congrats on shipping it! I'm not saying these things to discourage you, but I think you should be sure that you have considered issues like these.

Good luck!

oquidave• 15 years ago

Hi, i like the simplicity of the app. It's great and i think you should not limit the scope to only teachers since there are many instances where message broadcasting is required. Doctors need to communicate with patients, church leaders with their congregation, companies and utility services with their customers. i think you are limiting the scope of the app.

Please review my startup. Safe text messaging for teachers

Related Stories