Please Steal This Idea

The following is data gathered from research conducted by the FinalsClub Foundation.  Please steal any and all ideas you find within!

The following information is based on quantitative survey data gathered by the FinalsClub Foundation in 2014.  Each study included more than 200 responses from student at a range of two-year and four-year US colleges.  On average these were high-achieving students with more than 75% self-reporting a GPA between 3.1 and 4.0.  The most common academic descriptors respondents chose for themselves included  “studious” (21%), “inquisitive” (20%), and “relaxed” (24%).  It’s also worth noting that our survey population was 59% female.

Video-based learning (December, 2013)

Hypothesis: We ran our first survey to discover whether students desired technology to create a condensed version of college lecture videos to help them study.

Results: Of students polled, 69% reported that none of their courses that semester had lecture videos available.  In addition 88% of student respondents reported attending more than three quarters of their lectures each semester.  When students did miss lecture, the most common reason was illness (35%) followed by scheduling conflicts (23%).  When students did attend lecture, 79% reported that they took lecture notes "often" or "always."  Shockingly, 74% of respondents "never watched lecture videos," inclusive of instances where they were unavailable.

With respect to video-based lectures, 52% of respondents reported they had never watched a lecture video online, while only 6% reported watching lecture videos often.  The most common reason for watching lecture video was "absence due to illness" and when "enrolled in an online course."

The tools and resources students wish they had available included "more affordable textbooks" (80%), "a website of high quality notes" (54%), "a mobile app for displaying flashcards" (45%), and "more lecture videos for my courses" (37%). In response to a query of whether they wished they had "a video highlight reel of my lectures," only 29% indicated interest (note: this question was multiple answer format).  

Conclusion: Instead of building tools around lecture videos, we decided to investigate how students study together.

Study Groups & Learning Resources (January, 2014)

Hypothesis: Study groups are optimal environments for students to learn together.  We wanted to determine demand for tools to help students organize study groups more effectively.

Results: When asked about the frequency of their participation in study groups, the majority of responded “never” (25%) and “only once or twice” (41%).  Only 11% of respondents reported frequent participation in study groups.  Although 54% admitted that they “learn more when studying with their peers,” most claimed not to participate in study groups, because “scheduling is difficult” (58%).  However, 39% also reported that they simply “prefer to study alone.”

When asked about “the most useful tools for studying when in a group or alone,” respondents answered “flashcards” (36%) and “mock quizzes and questions” (31%).  We also asked about the top resources “you most often WISHED you had access to.”  Again the most common answers were “mock quizzes and questions” (54%) and “old exam questions” (48%).

Conclusion: Although students indicated an interest in tools to help them study together, the frequency that top-performing students indicated a preference for studying alone, suggested we ought to focus our development energy on the desire for quiz content.

Quiz and Flashcard Usage (February 2014)

Hypothesis: The majority of students in our previous studies indicated a desire for more formative quiz content to aid self-study.  We wanted to determine the precise features they desired to facilitate self-study with quiz materials.

Results: When asked how often they created flashcards, mock quizzes, or outlines for their college courses, most respondents indicated they do so “occasionally” (42%) with a significant portion reporting they do so “frequently” (26%).

When asked whether they “ask their peers to share” flashcards, quizzes, and outlines in anticipation of an exam, 62% reported that they had never asked a friend for study aids, while 32% reported that they had asked occasionally.  Although students are reluctant to ask their friends for resources, 70% reported that they “would be willing to share if someone asked them.”

When we asked how useful they might find a website that automatically created flashcards and quizzes from student notes, nearly every student thought this would be a useful site, specifically 45% reported it would be “very useful” and 44% said “somewhat useful.”  Moreover, 36% of students said they would “definitely” upload their notes to a website that automatically converted them to flashcards and quizzes.  That number increased to 79% participation in the hypothetical situation if “a professor offered the opportunity to earn extra credit for sharing resources.”

A new idea straight from our community:

The idea is to split combo offers that are offered in restaurants and other retailers among strangers looking to get the best deal possible.

Let’s say a restaurant offers “a free drink with an order of fries,” but you only want fries.  Now, we can use technology to find someone else interested in buying a coke to help you both get the best deal possible.  

An app could enable consumers to group-buy products at a discount and bring new customers to businesses.  This could work for so many other business types: sneaker deals, clothing, glasses, you name it.

The stores could post their combo offers on the website or consumers could do so for them.  When customers want to buy something they just go on the app, pick an item, and find a purchasing partner.

The app could manage payments or use a third party, like Venmo, to transact.  It could also afford the opportunity to meet new people with similar commercial interests.

We've got Grinder, a location-based app to help gay men find sex partners nearby.  We've got Tinder, a location-based app to help straight people - after some SMS foreplay - find sex partners nearby.  Next up... Toker.

New YC company, TheDatingRing, does the following:

With The Dating Ring, you apply to join. Pass the first bar and you’ll meet in-person with a Dating Ring matchmaker for five minutes. Users pay $25 for the initial matchmaker meeting and $20 per date. 

 There is a line among the fragments of the Greek poet Archilochus which says: 'The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing'.

Scholars have differed about the correct interpretation of these dark words, which may mean no more than that the fox, for all his cunning, is defeated by the hedgehog's one defense. But, taken figuratively, the words can be made to yield a sense in which they mark one of the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers, and, it may be, human beings in general.

For there exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision, one system less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel-a single, universal, organizing principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance-and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way, for some psychological or physiological cause, related by no moral or aesthetic principle; these last lead lives, perform acts, and entertain ideas that are centrifugal rather than centripetal, their thought is scattered or diffused, moving on many levels, seizing upon the essence of a vast variety of experiences and objects for what they are in themselves, without consciously or unconsciously, seeking to fit them into, or exclude them from, any one unchanging, all-embracing, sometimes self-contradictory and incomplete, at times fanatical, unitary inner vision.

The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes; and without insisting on a rigid classification, we may, without too much fear of contradiction, say that, in this sense, Dante belongs to the first category, Shakespeare to the second; Plato, Lucretius, Pascal, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Ibsen, Proust are, in varying degrees, hedgehogs; Herodotus, Aristotle, Montaigne, Erasmus, Molière, Goethe, Pushkin, Balzak, Joyce are foxes.

“Building a startup hurts.”

“You can be surprisingly stupid if you’re sufficiently determined.”

“Start with a small, intense fire.”

If at first you don't succeed... quit?  See this Quora post on entrepreneurial opportunity cost:

I am shocked that no one has attempted to make the "Forbid" app from season 2 of HBO's Girls.  It's incredibly simple: you select your ex boyfriend or girlfriend's phone number and you are charged a penalty every time you text or call it.  Genius!

It's probably not possible to make this app on iOS (unless it's a jailbroken phone with extra api calls), but I think it's doable on Android.

[I just sent this email to Bill Simmons of Grantland]

On January 25th, Bill Barnwell reflected on Tom Brady's career in reverse chronological order: "He’s the guy who beats up on weak links and never shows up when his team really needs him. He’s got various maladies, he chokes when his team is a huge favorite at home, he can’t produce a drive to kill off a game."

Barnwell notes that many critics had similar remarks about Peyton Manning earlier in his career, but that all changed in 2007 when Peyton won the Super Bowl. Now, the question is whether the tides area again shifting for these two quarterbacks.

While Peyton is breaking passing records with Wes Welker's help, the Patriots are winning old school. The inverse relationship of Tom and Peyton's careers is so surreal it brings to mind pop culture Disney classic "Freaky Friday." Like Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis in the recent version (or Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster in the original), it's as if Tom and Peyton have swapped pigskin personalities.

If you take for granted this zero-sum game of football karma, the obvious question is "when exactly did these two exchange quarterback qualities?"

It would appear the first shift occurred at halftime of the 2006 AFC Championship game in Indianapolis. After a thumping in the first half, Peyton turned the tables in miraculous fashion in the second half on the way to winning the '07 Super Bowl. Meanwhile, Brady and Belichick went home vowing never to play another road playoff game and assembled the world's most outrageous offense, powered by Wes Welker and Randy Moss.

Brady's injury and losses to the "other" Manning are trials too painful to recount. Was this change in karma penance for spying, offensive hubris, or bagging a supermodel wife? We don't know, but it does appear circumstances are turning once again.

Peyton has the record-setting offense, made possible by Brady's erstwhile Jonah at wide receiver, and the Patriots have rushed their way to the AFC Championship against injurious odds. This latest denouement, you may be wondering, appears to have been halftime of this season's matchup in Foxboro.

My Situation: When I was a student at HackReactor, pair programming - i.e. two people, two keyboards and one monitor - was our primary method for learning to code together.  Over three intense months, I grew to really like the practice of pairing and the value of apprenticeship.  Even when I wasn't the one typing, I was still learning.  Imagine what I could have picked up working alongside a much more experienced developer.

  The Idea: Learn it.  Do it.  Teach it.  Coding requires intelligence, creativity, and experience. Like the trade of blacksmith or art of kung fu, it helps to have some instruction, lots of practice, and an opportunity to share what you've learned.  StackOverflow is an amazing site for coding Q&A, but we don't yet have easy access to personalized coding mentorship.

  The Product: A website that connects aspiring web developers with more experienced coders for remote pair programming for an hourly instructor's fee.  After completing a short survey about languages and knowledge, you would connect with someone online.  The experienced coder would determine the project (ideally an open source one) and her understudy would pay to watch and help.  Imagine having an apprentice pay you to help you with your work!  If it's a bad match of skills, no worries.  There is another potential pair just a few clicks away.