SHORT COMMENT: Hey hackernews, I'm a teacher/hustler looking for a technical co-founder. Let's build something together. Apply for this program. And worst case scenario, we don't get in but we have a kick@ss product we can sell to school systems.
EXPANDED COMMENT:I'm a long time reader of hackernews and I have never left a comment. But this was the push over the edge.
I am a math teacher in an urban school. Before that I ran a (very non-tech) business, and before that I was a business analyst (read documentation nerd) for the mobile technology division in a very large bank.
I have been telling everyone that will listen that we can save public education and make a bunch of money through innovation. All of our technology, frankly, sucks when compared to similar wares that are sold directly to consumers.
I am bursting with ideas and some I have already tested. But I can no longer work in a vacuum.
So like dating ads of yesterday here is my pitch-
Me: Undaunted math teacher in an urban school with 2 years of experience. Using data driven instruction my students achieved the highest passing rate in my school system. While I can't hack (YET!) I can sell water to a whale and snow to an Eskimo. More importantly I can take complex systems and teach them to almost anyone. I have rewritten documentation for our 3 most popular programs in my systems and I hold monthly workshops for other teachers where I teach them how to use the technology in their classroom. Plus I understand teachers and I have experience in market research. And did I mention, I am a fearless hustler?
You: A) Want to change the face of education.
B) Build stuff.
So let's do like voltron. Team up. Build something amazing. And if ImagineK12 doesn't want us, lets keep moving forward and kick down our own doors.
Mr. Turner
P.S. You can reach me at BRODERICK dot TURNER at GMAIL dot COM
P.P.S. Last year my school system's revenue was 662 Million Dollars. The money is there.
P.P.P.S. A list of companies whose lunch we could eat with a good enough product and A WHOLE LOT OF HUSTLE=
Of course, it's "Mr Turner" -- what self-respecting teacher goes by their first name or a silly nickname? ;)
Seriously, I love these kinds of pitches, though I personally am so over-extended I can't do much beyond offer hit & run advice.
I don't know what other technical contacts you're making, but my biggest suggestion is not to wait. There's a huge amount of work you can do without being "the technical one" yourself, and the great thing about this work is that it gradually leads you into a better understanding of the technical side yourself -- which you'll need to do at some point, if you want to be centrally involved in a tech business. You don't have to write code, necessarily, but you have to learn a lot about the tech side.
All that really means is "details" -- take the best of your ideas, and start breaking it down all the way into separate pages, separate bits of data ("so we're letting teachers enter assignments here... that needs a name, description, due date -- er, wait, some teachers will have sets of assignments to do in sequence with no specific due date -- and what about extra credit assignments?" etc.); how to enter data, organize it, show it to the users who need to see it (and how to organize them). And so on. What do you do when the user "does it wrong"? Will you handle different time zones, languages, etc.? This is where the important work is; you have to add in solutions to problems, then remove most of your ideas and strip it down to what's most essential & useful & easy to build.
This process is much more difficult than the original brainstorming, but also more rewarding -- your project becomes so much closer to "real".
EXPANDED COMMENT:I'm a long time reader of hackernews and I have never left a comment. But this was the push over the edge.
I am a math teacher in an urban school. Before that I ran a (very non-tech) business, and before that I was a business analyst (read documentation nerd) for the mobile technology division in a very large bank.
I have been telling everyone that will listen that we can save public education and make a bunch of money through innovation. All of our technology, frankly, sucks when compared to similar wares that are sold directly to consumers.
I am bursting with ideas and some I have already tested. But I can no longer work in a vacuum.
So like dating ads of yesterday here is my pitch-
Me: Undaunted math teacher in an urban school with 2 years of experience. Using data driven instruction my students achieved the highest passing rate in my school system. While I can't hack (YET!) I can sell water to a whale and snow to an Eskimo. More importantly I can take complex systems and teach them to almost anyone. I have rewritten documentation for our 3 most popular programs in my systems and I hold monthly workshops for other teachers where I teach them how to use the technology in their classroom. Plus I understand teachers and I have experience in market research. And did I mention, I am a fearless hustler?
You: A) Want to change the face of education. B) Build stuff.
So let's do like voltron. Team up. Build something amazing. And if ImagineK12 doesn't want us, lets keep moving forward and kick down our own doors.
Mr. Turner
P.S. You can reach me at BRODERICK dot TURNER at GMAIL dot COM
P.P.S. Last year my school system's revenue was 662 Million Dollars. The money is there.
P.P.P.S. A list of companies whose lunch we could eat with a good enough product and A WHOLE LOT OF HUSTLE=
CARNEGIE LEARNING
PROMETHEAN
INFINITE CAMPUS
QWIZDOM