Offer HN: Free startup idea / designs

Clickable:

- http://cl.ly/0N0r0a170k340c2c1i05 (Homepage)

- http://cl.ly/2E2a051A0Y1l223H1w1J (Dashboard)

- http://cl.ly/1L2T3k302r0E3H0H3J3F (Dashboard Teacher)

- http://cl.ly/1X1s342E3i1I0z442J19 (Tutor Teaching View)

- http://cl.ly/0M0g1H1l1C3P0x1f1q3x (Tutor viewing Student Whiteboards)

- http://cl.ly/0I352V3a0F0C2k3f2w1s (Student Whiteboard View)

A friend of mine was visiting his hometown over winter break. While he went to a nice private school, he also grew up in a pretty bad part of town, just about everyone else in his area went to these completely sub-par public schools. He tells me there are many problems (political and financial) with the teachers, and few kids are getting the instruction they need to pursue a higher standard of living than they were born into. The college we both go to has many low-income schools nearby and has put a lot of money into improving them, started some lab schools, and has many programs for students to volunteer at those schools. But like many other towns, there is no rich university nearby to help out with the schools in my friend's area. So when we got back from break, he asked me how feasible it would be to build a site very similar to crowdtutor, where the tutors are volunteering college students and the students are 6-12th graders who are dissatisfied with the education they are receiving. I think it would be awesome if whoever did build this (or something similar) offered options for tutors to teach free classes iff the students for their classes are lower-income students from schools that aren't meeting their needs. If it catches on, it could be great publicity too.

I'd like to suggest that you consider creative commons licensing the designs with right of modification to multiple parties. There are locality-related aspects to tutoring, and success may depend on factors difficult to assess. I mentor startups in Singapore and there are multiple founders looking at this area. Why not let a bunch of people try out the templates and see what happens? Thank you for your very generous offer regardless, John Young alkimie.com

My wife (a physics professor) and I have been considering doing a tutoring service just like this - there's an immense need for it. I'd love to do the development, but we were both at a loss as to how to find an initial set of tutors. Also, how does this differ from other tutoring services out there?

I'd definitely develop it. I just don't know diddly about (the social end of) running it. Anybody interested in that end of it? michael@vivtek.com.

And now I have an interested party willing to work on the social end.

Our company (http://udemy.com) has been pursuing a similar vision for a while. Good luck with your next venture.

Thank you.

Great designs. Was the whiteboard software ever developed or were you thinking of using some third party software for this?

Btw I run http://www.UniversityTutor.com

The whiteboard idea is attractive (Tutor.com has made a pretty large business out of this). I haven't seen it be very effective though, especially for math/science tutoring.

- you can't write equations/diagrams nearly as fast/well with a mouse.

- purchasing a tablet surface for every tutor AND student (similar to what Sal Khan uses) is usually cost prohibitive and a technical hurdle for some.

- also, just simple stuff like looking at their textbook together can't be done well over the internet.

Btw didn't mean for this to come across as critical but was honestly curious what your ideas were around solving some things like that and taking on tutor.com? If you want to chat more I can be reached through the site on my profile.

Brian, your UniversityTutor site is impressive. Do you have any financial incentives for running the site, or what's your motivation? Why do you do it?

I've put a lot of thought into creating a similar site but for mentorships, in particular for the growing population of autodidacts, unsatisfied school students, and in general people unhappy with their education.

+1 Impressive site. Clean design sets this site apart as a great example in this nascent niche.

One constructive criticism: I would add some more space around the "Search" functionality. This area is a little cluttered at present (too close to the preview image on the right and the high level process text/images below) and my eye I think you would improve conversions by emphasising this section a little more (since performing a search should be the "call to action" for visitors).

I'm a college student myself and it would be great to people with tight schedules and also a way to get yourself some specific classes quickly without the burden of signing up for long term academies, whom will charge you even if you don't find the classes useful afterwards!

Trial classes, user clustering to look out for specific classes... There's a lot of very neat stuff to be done.

Excellent designs! I am working on a new start-up (completely unrelated to on-line tutoring) and we are knee deep in the design phase. We want to apply to YC for the summer 2011 session and hope to have a beta ready for the fall. I am a business guy and my friend is a developer...neither of us could do as good a job designing as you have. We don't need the tutorview pages, but your home page and dashboard pages are very nice and we could use them as a template for our site if you are willing to share the them? It would certainly help us save considerable time if we could leverage your photoshop, html and css files. Email me at ted at advsportsmedia dot com if you are willing to share these. If we end up using them, I am certainly open to throwing a few bucks your way in return for helping us get a better looking product out the door faster.

Thank you,

Ted

Great UI / UX Looks like the money ... maybe another start-up who's main pain point is closely related would be interested crowdtutor good domain too ... would be interested in where all your work and effort goes ... flamechill AT gmail DOT com

Nice concept & designs! I run a startup that makes software for other tutoring companies (http://www.tutortrove.com), including a whiteboard with a focus on math tools (inline equations, drag & drop graphing) and homework help (ability to import images and full documents).

I'm super-interested in these designs & maybe the domain and happy to share them with others if you go the CC route. Also just interested in talking with any edu-startups-- that's what gets me up every morning.

Good luck with whatever comes next & thanks! Eli (eli@tutortrove.com)

Really like the UI/UX work. Hope this gets picked up by someone who can develop the site. Looking at the designs I would hazard a guess the designer responsible is the guy who does the dailybooth designs.

Your guess was spot on!

For our startup http://skyara.com, we thought about pivoting in that direction... but we think online video lessons isn't as engaging as real life interactions even though it's easier to gain traction through virtual services.

It's definitely an interesting area though, would love to discuss more to see what went wrong with you guys. Email me if you're interested.

Hey, could you contact alain@smartlyedu.com please? This sounds very interesting :)

We were thinking of pursuing something similar.

I navigated to your smartlyedu site. Looks nice. What in particular is unique about your product though? There are a number of other sites that do the same things mentioned on your landing page ("create lessons, assignments & more").

Hi, my project is a language education portal with an element on social networking (something that resembles livemocha.com). The dashboard design you have is fantastic and we'd like to build on it. If you're willing to share it, contact me at arthur DOT ax AT gmail.com. Also curious to hear what went wrong.

I think you should try to find someone here who has put some work into a tutoring service, and is clearly moving in a positive direction in tutoring like your project. Give it to them and help them get going on their ambition. Great designs and name, and I hope you find a home for it :)

Want to make it viable & non-commercial? I can think of a killer game architecture for a venture like this. Folks interested should email me djon0158@uni.sydney.edu.au Warning: it won't make you money, but it might just address social inequality.

Hi,

I run www.dumeet.com, it supports a whiteboard and 6 live conferencing participants, We were planning to pivot to educational, your designs are real good, i would like to modify some parts and add other stuff, Can you email to wissam@duleaf.com

Hi, I am in the process of building a Ruby on Rails app involving a homework/studying for tests/quizes. It will have some social networky type parts. I would really benefit from these designs. Thanks. Email: JoshiM5@Gmail.com

great design work, who was the designer?

I run http://vidinotes.com - suitable for eLearners and the DIY crowd.

I like the interaction of your site. Its a very helpful function.

Cool. What's your motivation for running this site?

I created the site to solve a problem I had: needing cheatsheets of HOW-TO and exercise videos I found on youtube. I'm growing the site while considering monetization strategies and additional features.

I'm running an eLearning startup and we would LOVE to include this as part of our release/continue to build upon this functionality. Can you contact me at ericsimons@es40.net?

Eric, I'm interested in the eLearning space. Would you mind contacting me (or mind if I contact you) concerning what you guys are envisioning and what your motivation is for getting into the space?

Absolutely! Email me at ericsimons@es40.net :)

These are indeed very good designs, and it looks like a lot of thought has gone into the mockups (hopefully after a proper UX/UI thought phase).

Good luck on finding someone to continue it. I was just thinking that Mozilla's implementation of this same idea was proof that the idea has merit, and with as many "what's a good startup idea" posts as we see around here, there should be someone to pick it up.

Our focus was UI/UX. It took up a huge portion of our time. And yeah, I think this would be a great idea for someone to pursue.

How do I learn to design a website like you?

my friend started a similar site www.educator.com

Wow, best interface I've ever seen for a learning site. It's a great idea to be able to view the teacher in addition to their screen. Very impressive.

A few things bothered me though:

- I just listened to part of a lecture that began with, "...my purpose for this course is for you to do well on homework and exams." Wait a second, I thought the purpose of a teacher was to assist in the learning process of a student? Statements like that inculcated into us are seriously damaging to us as human beings.

- Some of the professors speak very slowly and aren't especially engaging/inspiring.

- The site caters to our very broken system with a focus on AP courses and what not. I could see the financial benefits of such a method but that's about it.