

Show HN: Please Review My First Startup. Meritful: LinkedIn for High School - azarias
http://www.meritful.com/

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azarias
Hello everyone! I would really love to hear any and all feedback. As a bit of
context, a few months ago, I made a really difficult decision---turning down a
faculty job at an Ivy League CS school after my phd---to work on a startup
with a few great guys. Meritful is the first iteration, and I will be grateful
for your time and feedback.

~~~
joshhart
"If you are a student, Meritful helps you build a professional network, and an
online resume to impress colleges and employers. If you are a teacher or
mentor, Meritful helps you run projects and engage with students"

I believe LinkedIn works because for one if it's main use cases, there are two
matching parts in the graph: 1\. If you are looking for the next step in your
career, we'll help you find it through search & recommendations 2\. If you are
trying to find the right candidate for your position, we'll help you find it
through search & recommendations

Your use cases for students and teachers aren't like LinkedIn's - they aren't
two sides of the same coin. How do the teachers make the Meritful better for
the students like recruiters do for employees on LinkedIn?

~~~
azarias
University admissions counselors make the Meritful better for students, and we
are talking to those people. But teachers have a lot of face time with
students, and can be a vehicle for students to learn about Meritful. If a
teacher has a class project, it would make a great entry on the portfolio, and
a nice way to share with the rest of the class...so, we were looking at the
distribution channel. Your comment on two sides of the graph spot on.

~~~
joshhart
Take a look at Rypple too, they're a social performance tool Salesforce bought
with a lot of ideas that were neat. You might be able to go pretty far with
badging and achievements here. I'd think trying to "replace" a report card
might work well.

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jackds
This sounds like a niche that is waiting to be filled, and it is kind of
exciting. But you should take this with a grain of salt. The audience on HN is
probably quite skewed in your favor, geeks and hustlers who are predisposed to
using something like this. I remember LinkedIn for a long time was primarily
used in the tech industry.

That said, I like the simple design of the page, and I think it has a fine
balance of seriousness and youth. I am going to look at your internal pages,
and will give you some more feedback.

Meta: I bet a decision like that took a lot of guts. Congrats, you are no
longer at step 0.

~~~
azarias
Thank you very much. That is kind of you. I would love to hear what you think
all around.

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jinpan
I don't see why high school students can't use LinkedIn. I was accepted to a
summer internship during high school via LinkedIn.

~~~
azarias
Thank you for your feedback...I think they can use it...but a lot of the
experiences that high school students are not work experiences...instead
projects and activities...which can be better described using visual ways a la
a portfolio...while building a professional network at the same time...

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_ques
I can see this working out once this goes beyond the "initial critical mass of
users" hump. Some high-level comments:

* There are several organizations, agencies and committees with similar goals _inside_ each institution (university / high school). Given that your goals are aligned, it would be nice to see a way to onboard entire organizations (i.e. groups of students / mentors) -- even if it is not from the general frontpage. That way, you can think of Meritful as a SaaS provider for each of these orgs, and it also solves your critical mass problem.

* Student orgs (High Schools, etc) come in with well-articulated reasons as to _why_ I (a potential mentor) should work with them. This helps me make a decision along the lines of "I am looking for a group of 10 students at grade level 8 who are interested in astronomy and are free on Thursday evenings for all of Fall 2012. Can your group match that?" Note how this is different from scouting talent -- mentors just have more constraints.

~~~
azarias
SaaS is a very good way to go about it, and we have got inquiries for 'mass
signups' from a couple schools we talked to. We were hesitant because we
thought it would result in a bunch of phantom accounts, but like you say, I
think many organizations already try to achieve something similar.

You're spot on the mentor/recruiter difference...and on the road map is
support for groups and orgs. Thank you so much for your feedback.

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mrchess
* Put pictures on the "About" page. It looks unprofessional and awkward without them.

* A network geared toward high schoolers, yet the landing page I just see a bunch of business professionals -- not 1 photo of a person from high school (till I scroll down). Who is your target? The students or the mentors?

~~~
azarias
Thank you...coming soon. An artist friend is making really nice sketches for
us.

The girl in the middle was supposed to be the one. One theory we are testing
is that initial distribution will primarily come from adults/teachers/parents
who learn about it...and trying to optimize for that audience too....do you
have any thoughts?

~~~
mrchess
Unless you have data that suggests otherwise, I wouldn't rely on an additional
layer to get to your target demo (the HS students). Adults/teachers/parents
have lives, and in HS anything they tell their kids to do isn't "cool".

Somehow you need to emphasize more that a Meriftul account is respected and
credible at institutions. Then the kids will be motivated themselves to create
these accounts. They need to discover it themselves.

My suggestions on a presentation perspective:

* You should push the "college logos" to the top of the design and immediately emphasize that selling point. Think the mind of a student. They immediately see ivy colleges and will feel inspired it will give them edge. Currently it is just a wall of text and buzz words.

* You should make TWO separate landing pages. One for students and one for mentors. Make the student page 100% student oriented and designed differently -- more fun. Add a button "Are you a mentor? Click Here". The mentor page will be the more professional one.

* That girl can easily pass as a college student/working professional. HS'ers are very groupy and very fun oriented. You should put a group photo up there or something. Example (www.andover.edu). See how much more fun it immediately feels?

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dougbarrett
I think this is an awesome idea. Just a question though, do you have any
issues with creating an API to link up to LinkedIn, so in the future they can
migrate all of their contacts and some information about what they've done in
high school?

I think this is an awesome idea though, congratulations.

~~~
azarias
Awesome, thank you so much for the kind words! We're definitely thinking about
ways of transitioning students, and that is one great idea.

~~~
dougbarrett
You're welcome. This is seriously an awesome idea. I wish I had something like
this in high school, because I did so much work outside of school with jobs
and collaborations I did with other people, but schools weren't interested in
this information, but employers were.

If there was an easy way for those people writing scholarships were able to
filter through candidates based on their merits and their connections, it
would be an easy way to show the students dedication to their field, and the
fact that they have done so much to move forward their goals.

\----

On another note, I really don't think it's necessary to highlight 'ful' in
your logo. I understand the site is trying to be similar to LinkedIn, but it
almost makes it look like it's part of the LinkedIn family when it's really
not.

Look at the favicon, or app icon for LinkedIn. They only say 'in'
distinctively, I believe that it's the focus is because you're 'in a network,
in a circle, in with people'. On your site, you're highlighting 'ful', but
your favicon is the 'M' for Merit. There is no branding in the 'M', it's very
generic.

I suggest thinking of a simple avatar, or icon to use as a symbol and have
that be highlighted. Some sort of representation of what your site is. That
way, _that_ can be highlighted, and _that_ can be your favicon, app icon, etc.
_That_ will distinctively be your branding.

Just so you know I'm not talking out of my ass, I work in the web development
section for a huge clothing retailer. I've learned more about branding on the
web and how people perceive things than I'd think I would in a front-end web
development gig.

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dohko
I disagree with who says that it is no different than linkedin.

It hits a completely different niche with a different goal. Linkedin exists
mainly to highlight work experience and academic background, with the goal to
connect job seekers to employers (and the opposite). This seeks to connect
high schoolers with mentors.

I think it is a pretty good idea and I also really like the design.

The question I have is: Is part of your goal also to connect college admission
officers with students? Or students to advertise college admissions their
achievements via your website?

~~~
azarias
Thank you for your feedback.

The goal is to eventually give college admissions counselors a very targeted
way to reach out to and recruit high school students. All along, students can
use their Meritful profile as part of the package they present to colleges.
Since students spend so much time on projects and extracurriculars, we hope it
would be nice to have more than a paragraph about it. Thank you so much for
you feedback again.

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stevewilhelm
Interesting Idea. I would suggest focusing on getting university professors to
join your network. Their participation will attract high school students.

Seems like your biggest competition will be students using LinkedIn (network)
+ Tumblr (portfolio information). For example, on LinkedIn, a search of my
Alma Mater professors returned over a thousand results.

And don't forget, LinkedIn also has Groups. For example, a search for
'bioinformatics' returned over 250 groups.

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king_magic
This looks really nice. Excited to see where it goes. I can think of a lot of
uses for something like this. Good luck!

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gailees
Gettig my sister to make one ASAP

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partymon
I have always thought the average US high school student to be pretty dull and
unmotivated.

