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Ask HN: Review my classroom web tool, Eduset

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Re: Ask HN: Review my classroom web tool, Eduset

#51

Post by patio11 »

fuzzmeister wrote: post #14
brandnewlow wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Ask HN: Review my classroom web tool, Eduset

#52

Post by fuzzmeister »

oxygen wrote: post #25

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 cu…

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.

Re: Ask HN: Review my classroom web tool, Eduset

#53

Post by fuzzmeister »

zemote wrote: post #39
sachinag wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously - this is rather interesting. Looks like proof of the whole "there are no new ideas, only execution" maxim.

I agree, silly rants like this is absurd and really doesn't do any good and is not productive. Execution is key. I'm little passionate about my startup and that is why I replied. I never said he stole our idea. I said "almost" exact replica. Facebook borrows from twitter, eduset borrows from pownce, we borrow from twitter, facebook, friendfeed.

That's great to hear. I'm glad we've put this behind us.

Re: Ask HN: Review my classroom web tool, Eduset

#54

Post by tjogin »

fuzzmeister wrote: post #32
zemote wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you want to get into proof, here is proof that I got the inspiration for Eduset exactly a year earlier than I signed up for Edmodo: http://grab.by/5A5 Also, it is painful for me to see you painting me as a villain here. Why are you implying that I'm not "putting my money where my mouth is", that I'm not also trying to make the education community a better place? As I said above, you are planning to launch paid fea…

By charging for your service, you're actually rather protecting your users — a free service is much more likely to suddenly disappear from the face of the web when it's too far into the red. And certainly, that wouldn't be appreciated by those users who have come to rely on the service. Maybe you should even put that into your marketing copy: it not being free is a feature.

Re: Ask HN: Review my classroom web tool, Eduset

#55

Post by zemote »

zemote wrote: post #39
sachinag wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously - this is rather interesting. Looks like proof of the whole "there are no new ideas, only execution" maxim.

I agree, silly rants like this is absurd and really doesn't do any good and is not productive. Execution is key. I'm little passionate about my startup and that is why I replied. I never said he stole our idea. I said "almost" exact replica. Facebook borrows from twitter, eduset borrows from pownce, we borrow from twitter, facebook, friendfeed.

Still doesn't mean we aren't going to compete and rest on our laurels :)

Re: Ask HN: Review my classroom web tool, Eduset

#56

Post by Xichekolas »

markbao wrote: post #29
zemote wrote: post #21

This is almost an exact replica of my startup 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.

Jeff, Will has already explained to you multiple times in both in public and private that Eduset is not a copy of Edmodo and both products were developed independently of each other. Kindly lay the fuck off and quit advertising your startup at every mention of Eduset. Will and I both developed a teacher classroom web interface independently of each other. The difference is that I didn't lay claim to the idea and beco…

Moreover, even if he did copy the idea... who cares? Ideas are a dime a dozen... whoever executes best will win... assuming there is a winner. Seems like a space that several players could comfortably operate for quite a while.

Also, accusing someone of copying your site is rather ballsy considering that both sites look like repurposed Facebook clones. At least the eduset guy changed the color from blue to green. ;)

(Not that there is anything inherently wrong with that, but you don't exactly have a unique style that got ripped off.)

Re: Ask HN: Review my classroom web tool, Eduset

#57

Post by mattiss »

zemote wrote: post #21

This is almost an exact replica of my startup 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.

Did a quick search for Eduset. From the blogs I have read this dude Jeff just spams "Rip off of Edmodo", "Not impressed", etc. everytime somebody posts about this thing.

I have no relationship to either, but pretty scummy practice IMO.

Re: Ask HN: Review my classroom web tool, Eduset

#58

Post by fuzzmeister »

Wilduck wrote: post #20

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 wer…

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.

Re: Ask HN: Review my classroom web tool, Eduset

#59

Post by [deleted] »

zemote wrote: post #39
sachinag wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously - this is rather interesting. Looks like proof of the whole "there are no new ideas, only execution" maxim.

I agree, silly rants like this is absurd and really doesn't do any good and is not productive. Execution is key. I'm little passionate about my startup and that is why I replied. I never said he stole our idea. I said "almost" exact replica. Facebook borrows from twitter, eduset borrows from pownce, we borrow from twitter, facebook, friendfeed.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Review my classroom web tool, Eduset

#60

Post by patio11 »

psyklic wrote: post #16
fuzzmeister wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, studen…

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.

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.

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