

Startup 3.0: How to Build a Better Web Startup - malbiniak
http://www.socrated.com/courses/4?home=1

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thegoleffect
I've only played around with the website/webapp for about 30 minutes but it is
very well executed. Very high quality content organized in an easy to grok
fashion. Woulda liked more content on release/announcement but making an MVP
worked out for them. +1 validation.

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apsurd
Very friendly design - I'm really liking the feel, simplicity, clarity, and
welcoming vibe to the entire site, well done.

the concept is good and has value in my opinion (I signed up). I will have to
give the content a go and see if the curriculum lives up to what I'd
need/want.

Thoughts on monetization? I ask because I'd hate to see my learning
environment become littered with distracting ads.

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alilja
Freemium.

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apsurd
Education may be a tricky thing don't you think?

If you charge the lesson creators they will want to charge the students to
recoup costs/make money. This is fine but it changes the entire dynamic of the
website. The "web 3.0" example lesson plan becomes a moot example. All this
information is free and the target audience _most certainly_ is not going to
be compelled to pay for this type of content. So your new target market
becomes people looking for and creating "marketable skills" type of content.
Content like lynda.com etc. Content that makes it clear students will get a
return on their money.

I can see you building for traction and a lot of people setting up free lesson
plans. Are these free lesson plan creators necessarily going to be the same
market that would have a need for creating paid lesson plans?

I think the concept is solid, just doing some off the cuff thought exploration
- good luck.

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leemhoffman
Your analysis is spot on, and our hypothesis is that if we can deliver a
framework that makes online education much better, that there will be a
variety of uses for it - everything from paid courses on SEO (in demand hi-
tech skills), to free courses on fun things like "MacBeth in an hour"
(launching later this week). Our plan right now is to implement an app store
like model where educators can create courses for free, but if they want to
charge for them, we get a % of the revenue.

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robfitz
This is unrelated to the larger educational app, but I hope "Startup 3.0"
doesn't take off as a name. It's a more fad-based, ephemeral phrase that is
being used to mean the same thing as "Lean Startup" (ie the intersection of
Customer Development and agile product development)

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leemhoffman
Yeah we pretty much just put that up there last minute because we couldn't use
the term "Lean Startup" (which is a Registered Trademark of Eric Ries). We're
talking to Eric about fixing that.

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vog
This site makes a good impression, but what's the point of forcing people to
sign up?

Okay, they just ask for name and email, but that information is totally
useless unless they want to spam people afterwards, which would quickly
destroy their reputation.

So the signup reduces their audience without any benefit.

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leemhoffman
We completely agree, and will probably change that in the future. We force
signup now for 2 reasons: 1) Right now the most important thing for us is to
establish product market fit. And the way we do that is by sending a survey
after you take a course, and by seeing where you drop off - both require
signup. 2) It lets us keep track of your state (so you can stop, start, come
back), and allows you to participate in the exercise / notes, both key pieces
of functionality in taking the course.

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yosho
i like the product, signed up for the first lesson.

One thing that annoyed me was the popup that comes up before each section...
if I wanted to go back to a different section or skip sections, the popup just
slowed me down and didn't offer any real value. You should just add the popup
text to the actual page itself. just my two cents.

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pibefision
Nice product. Add Facebook Connect to increase signup ratio.

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eam
Wow, this definitely has great value and will potentially do very well. I
currently work part-time as a developer for an online school that launched
last year. We have a niche market to which we offer specific courses which are
needed for certification in their field. We did very well in terms of revenue
the first year.

I’m assuming they will make their money by allowing teachers to charge for
certain courses in return they’ll get a percentage. In other words, they’ll be
a middleman.

SocratED certainly has a great advantage since their audience will not just
pertain to a type of student, but rather anyone who wants to teach or learn.
For example where I work now our flow chart is service->student, but with
SocratED it’s service->teacher->student where (->) represents cash flow.

I also must add, love the UI, very clean and simple.

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paraschopra
Beautifully executed - I can see this thing getting traction. A big congrats
to the team! Though a reminder will be good, just in case I forget to check
back. I know I want to go through the lessons but I am afraid it might just
fall off my radar.

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pedalpete
a nice product, though I think all the 'steve blank' stuff could really be
provided in a single context of just watching the one full video.

A few notes. 1) on your home page, in chrome, the 'sign-up' button is showing
up behind your footer 2) the 'read more' logo leads to the same videos as the
page they are sourced from. If you don't have more information, don't put a
'read more' button.

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thegoleffect
I actually prefer the videos piecemeal. That allows me to go through the
course in small chunks overtime rather than all at once. It also focuses on
the content relevant to the lesson and simplifies.

I do agree that there should be biblographical info and the option to view the
video in entirety. I put that in as feature request on the site.

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SteD
Nicely done!

One small bug, the footer is floating in the middle when you submit an empty
form at 1-step sign up ;)

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leemhoffman
SteD, I think this is now fixed. Let me know.

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grk
Would be nice to have a button to run the articles through readability.

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trusko
Nice product. Started with Lesson 1. Thanks

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coryl
I like this product, very interesting

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jaekwon
this thing is working for me.

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iworkforthem
This app is amazing! I love how simple it is to use!

