Clever (YC S12) Lands $3M, Now In 2000 Schools

Re:Clever (YC S12) Lands $3M, Now In 2000 Schools by btipling on Monday October 22, 2012 @01:10PM (#4684167)

It's probably not important to them, as I'm not their target audience but I looked at their home page and their about page and that techcrunch article and still have no idea what they do.

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Re:Clever (YC S12) Lands $3M, Now In 2000 Schools by slammdunc23 on Monday October 22, 2012 @01:18PM (#4684210)

Sounds to me like they provide an API for "5-minute SIS Integration for Educational Applications" (from their home page) and that an SIS is an "information system [that] capture[s] and store[s] data on students — from class lists and attendance to grades" (from the TC article).

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Re:Clever (YC S12) Lands $3M, Now In 2000 Schools by pflats on Monday October 22, 2012 @01:28PM (#4684248)

One of the major pains in the butt for a teacher is getting students set up on a learning web app. Either you spend a bunch of your own time making an account for each student (which is time you could spend doing something more important) or you spend a bunch of class time having students sign up for the accounts during your teaching period (which is time you and they could spend doing something more important).

If a web app had a secure API to include all of my class lists automatically, I'd be much more likely to use it.

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Re:Clever (YC S12) Lands $3M, Now In 2000 Schools by trhtrsh on Tuesday October 23, 2012 @12:47AM (#4686707)

The killer app for SIS is "support for 200-row CSV upload" ?!

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Re:Clever (YC S12) Lands $3M, Now In 2000 Schools by btipling on Monday October 22, 2012 @01:24PM (#4684232)

Yeah I guess their target audience would know what those things are. That's why I hedged my comment. I'm glad they're doing well, obviously doesn't seem to be a problem for them.

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Re:Clever (YC S12) Lands $3M, Now In 2000 Schools by numbsafari on Monday October 22, 2012 @01:24PM (#4684234)

They provided a "vertical network" for K-12 Education data (your kids' test and homework scores), similar to what companies like Ariba and CommerceOne provided for manufacturers and what Facebook and Twitter provide for Advertisers.

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Re:Clever (YC S12) Lands $3M, Now In 2000 Schools by pflats on Monday October 22, 2012 @01:26PM (#4684244)

Clever is an SIS: student information system. The SIS we use at my school is a web app that integrates all the database functions you might associate with schools: scheduling, grading, attendance, discipline, etc.

Ours is ugly but functional.

edit: Apparently I misunderstood what I read. Sorry.

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Re:Clever (YC S12) Lands $3M, Now In 2000 Schools by rgarcia on Monday October 22, 2012 @01:47PM (#4684314)

Thanks for the comment, pflats. We've seen our fair share of ugly SISes!

Clever actually isn't an SIS, though--we provide an API/integration layer that sits on top of the SIS.

We think SISes are great at a lot of things (state reporting, for example). Providing a nice interface for developers is not one of those things.

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Re:Clever (YC S12) Lands $3M, Now In 2000 Schools by pflats on Monday October 22, 2012 @02:22PM (#4684563)

I definitely see the appeal here. Do you have any plans to give schools an on-site solution, rather than use your servers? Do you do this? Your site is rather light on details.

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Re:Clever (YC S12) Lands $3M, Now In 2000 Schools by christiangenco on Tuesday October 23, 2012 @02:22AM (#4686875)

My thoughts exactly. I can't find a single place on their site where they define what an SIS is.

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