

Hickory (YC S15) predicts when you are going to forget something - bt41
http://www.businessinsider.com/hickory-startup-predicts-exactly-when-you-are-going-to-forget-something-and-makes-you-remember-2015-7

======
emerongi
So this is just Anki[1] under an umbrella? E.g. flash cards are provided by
someone higher up who can also look at the data?

[1] [http://ankisrs.net/](http://ankisrs.net/)

~~~
bt41
Hey Emerongi, CEO here and great question.

SRS systems are a good start, however they typically only utilize flashcards
and treat all information the same. Where we are starting is looking at the
type of knowledge that's trying to be retained and building a solution for
each one.

Without giving to much away, a SRS flashcard is quite good at helping you
remember a vocabulary word, or a single fact. These systems break down quickly
if you have a multistep process (like closing a sale) or a tree of conditional
steps. We have solutions for each of these and we're learning a lot of
interesting things from our early customers.

The entire system is built around creating information that is highly
memorable, so from first view to latest review we're optimizing the learning
path.

~~~
emerongi
This should have been in the article. From the title, I was expecting
something completely else; reading the article I thought "nothing new" and
eventually I was left with "there's some dude doing something".

As a daily Anki user, this seems interesting though.

~~~
bt41
I was a daily one for years, then completely moved on once I had Hickory (we
use it for ourselves internally) and trained to get into YC with it.

Happy to talk more about this and talk go over what we're thinking.
brian@hickorytraining.com

------
bluusteel
I wonder if they plan to tackle other educational settings in the future (e.g.
schools, self-studying individuals, etc). Am also curious to know if the card
design happens automatically or maybe the customer selects from different card
types depending on content. The space of tech products that help improve
learning seems more sparse than it should be.

~~~
bt41
Great questions! Thanks bluusteel.

We'll see regarding other educational settings, right now it's very targeted
on these sales / customer service. What we learn here however can be applied
anywhere.

Card types are a bit automagic and templatized based on the course type. I.e.
if it's a sales pitch there are different templates & exercises than if it's
about a product.

"The space of tech products that help improve learning seems more sparse than
it should be." \-- Completely agree.

------
pout
I tried to figure out what this app is doing for a few minutes, my
understanding after reading a title was that it reminds me about e.g. my keys
or wallet before leaving the house :-) It would carry so much more information
if you phrased it in a way that mentions learning.

~~~
bt41
Haha, yeah. I'm happy to text you everyday and tell you where your keys are.
It will most likely be a guess however.

------
darrellsilver
Anyplace and bite-sized learning, even before personalizing it to a commute or
using other data, seems totally green field. Most corporate training is just
videos. Pretty exciting.

------
stevedc3
After seeing early prototypes and having known the founder for years, this has
the potential to be a truly great product and company - congrats!

~~~
bt41
<3 More to come.

------
dc2
This is 100% for me. I am the world's worst forgetful bear. And by my at least
my subjective experience, the number of times I think back to the thing at
spaced intervals determines in a large degree the likelihood that I am going
to remember it longer.

------
gull
Can you imagine any downside to remembering all the material you try to learn?

