ypg

I've just launched a course publishing platform called Pensieve, and I was looking for feedback / criticisms, as well as tips on how to get some traction.

The platform makes it so that anybody can put together a course with videos, embedded documents, assignments, quizzes, and all sorts of interactive widgets. When they publish the course, anybody else can start studying it in a systematic way. I love the Khan Academy, but there is no reason its as unique as it is - the idea of the company is to truly democratize education by giving individuals the tools for publication.

Specifically, one of the neat thing on the site is a screencasting tool, which lets people talk and draw on a canvas in their web browser (wacom compatible), and records that as a video that they can embed into their courses. There are also browser drawing and audio recording tools as well.

Feedback? Suggestions? Right now, the the biggest work is solving the chicken and egg content generation problem, and getting some initial traction.

From a personal standpoint, I think the web design is quite attractive, but I would be looking for something simpler and more functional. The only reason that I would approach the site is for gift ideas, (I would use Amazon for buying, actually storing a wishlist of hopeful transactions). My train of though it to start with the person who I'm buying a present for, and brainstorm what I should buy them based on what I know about them. It seems that the site is organized in a way that assumes you already know what you're looking for.

In my experience, the best way would be to get a list of startups that have / are planning to participate in one of the top startup incubators. This would include (and probably be limited to) Y Combinator, TechStars, and DreamIt ventures (unless you're looking at a specific startup niche). The application process will filter out people who aren't serious. The downside is that they might not be willing to give up as much equity if there already is a decently large team.

Grad programs at the top CS / Engineering schools (Stanford, CMU, MIT, Berkeley, U of Illinois) are also filled with people who are looking to start companies, and most have mailing lists / message boards for opportiunities.

There is a real talent in business, but it seems to be more of a personality disposition as opposed to a tangible skillset. At least for undergraduate programs, business tends to be less rigorous than their technical equivalents. Most of the "build my crappy idea" people are purely non-technical, because they have less insight into what is feasible, and because by their nature they are completely reliant on others to build it. My disposition is to go for somebody who is technical, is socially "with it", and has the drive to hustle and learn whatever else they need to know.

By the way, I graduated CS from CMU undergrad a couple of years ago, and I'm working on a startup of my own. The startup is called Pensieve, and it is a publishing platform for interactive courses. I've been flying solo for a couple of months, and now I'm looking for some late-cofounders and build a real team. If you're interested, send me a message at yush [at] pensieve [NOSPAM] [dot] net.

This site is pretty similar to Reddit, so I'm guessing that they would have very similar monetization strategies:

http://profy.com/2009/01/03/reddit-figured-out-how-to-moneti...

Incidentally, Reddit isn't as profitable as you might imagine, given its immense traffic and highly specific demographics.

I've been in the same situation. Fortunately for me, the project wasn't very serious and I had no expectation that it was any more than a dry-run. If they're not pulling their weight, and there's no chance that they will in the future, it's worth being direct - being "nice" isn't always the nicest thing to do.