Ask HN: Review my classroom web tool, Eduset
eduset.com
eduset.com
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.
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.
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 :)
Also, if a school wants to pay the good ol' fashioned way, I'm more than happy to oblige.
But you need an entry point. Cold calling schools is likely ineffective. Try seeing which schools use Blackboard and then see if you can convince someone to try it out Eduset. Administrators are definitely looking to cut costs where they can. If you can provide their current LMS functionality for cheaper, there might be a play there.
Another thing to try is once you have users, suggest that they tell their friends about it. Maybe suggest it on a newsletter? Make it easy for them to share it with their peers and even their administrator.
This is probably a revenue model decision for you. The way I see it, 60 bucks a year is not much. If the teacher cares enough, then they should be willing to spend it. 60 bucks is not painful enough for them to push the school to pay for it. If it were more money, you'd lose teachers because they weren't willing to try it but you may net a whole school. A way you maybe able to solve this is offer some really expensive but cool tool at a higher pricing point. Base is 60 bucks but if you want to be able to track how students/classes/races are doing it's going to be 800 (maybe more?) bucks a class. Okay that idea was from a quick brainstorm, administrators love numbers... especially ones they can show accountability to parents with.
As for Blackboard, Eduset certainly was not designed to directly compete with them. Blackboard is a vast and complex piece of software that teachers often require courses to learn how to use. Our aim with Eduset is to make it as easy as possible for even non-tech-savvy teachers to jump right in. This means that we will never have the range of features a solution like Blackboard provides.
Switch you subscription term from "per month" to "per academic year". Alternatively, characterize the payment as a one-time license or use fee, get a year of positive history with Braintree, then switch to a subscription model and give your existing customers free-for-life accounts on it. (This is equivalent to a lifetime subscription option, but offered by stealth and limited to early adopters.)
On price IMHO it would be a plus to also offer a 'school option'. It maybe easier and can capture a wider audience.
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/ 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.
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.
Read 'The Truth about Relativity' in Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. He explains this problem really well.
A quote from that chapter: most people don't know what they want unless they see it in context. We don't know what kind of racing bike we want—until we see a champ in the Tour de France ratcheting the gears on a particular model. We don't know what kind of speaker system we like—until we hear a set of speakers that sounds better than the previous one.
To present different options would pretty much require a shift from my one-class-free model to an extra-features-for-money model, so that's something I'll have to wrestle with.
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.
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.
Thus, the usual pricing advice: charge more.
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.
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.
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 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.
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?
This is the site they gave her - http://barnes.myteacher.dvusd.com which was created using 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 :)
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-conver...
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.
I'd look to offer something in the $30 range as your first paid tier.
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.
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).
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?
Selling software to educational institutions is largely a matter of playing Enterprise Sales. I don't suggest you make that choice lightly.
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
I'll look into the technical aspect of setting up demo accounts, I am beginning to come around to the idea.
My hunch is that in the real world if it's "signup or die" most people choose the latter.
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-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.
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 features, so please don't try to make it seem like I am doing teachers a disservice by charging a small amount.
I wish both Eduset.com and Edmodo.com the best of luck with their ventures - let the execution begin.
"Is being copied (i mean blatantly ripped off) the sincerest form of flattery?" http://twitter.com/zemote/status/3715106709
If you're willing now to take this back, then I think that we can happily coexist as healthy competitors.
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 become a dick about it.
BTW, your comparison of Eduset and Edmodo is like a comparison between the Zune and the iPod. You might as well accuse Classleaf of similar 'exact replica'-tion.
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.)
I guess being first mover/original isn't the best thing.
Stop spamming your lame little startup every time a superior competitor pops up.
I have no relationship to either, but pretty scummy practice IMO.