the neighbors chihuahua just called me ugly wow wtf dogs can talk
Currently writing this newsletter as I listen to the Star Fox 64 soundtrack on my balcony. There is a crazy lightning storm happening right now as well and it looks like the end of the world with these dark clouds + the constant flashing and booms. Seems like a pretty appropriate metaphor for the current state of the world.
Anyways, going to keep it quick this week because I am super duper sleepy. I had this dream last night where I was President and I signed a bunch of laws and then I took a little break by going out side, putting on my jetpack, and flying to Dunkin Donuts where I think I bought some Blueberry Munchkins. I hope to continue the saga of President Farza tonight. Will keep y’all posted.
It was a good, busy week.
We have a couple 100 people using Zip again daily after I foolishly shut down the service a few weeks back. Most of the first half of this week was setting up feedback loops within the product where I would have a direct channel to users. So I setup:
A voting system where parents can vote on individual activities and review them + tell me why they loved/hated it. This is dope because I can reach out to users directly who vote and arrange a phone call easily because if they’re voting it means they’re decently engaged.
A “message teachers now” box where parents can literally tell me what they want. This has been working super well. Parents literally tell me exactly what they want. I can then email them and arrange a phone call.
Also setup a bunch of auto emails to force me to talk to users. For example, I setup one where 72 hours after you signup it’ll allow you to book a call with a Zip team member to discuss a plan their child can follow for the summer.
The result of this has been…a lot of feedback. It’s been cool :). All this feedback then gets loop backed to the teachers who are making activities for Zip right now and we get improve :).
The second half of the week was focusing on live sessions which have always been cool to me and now just felt like a good time to run the experiment.
The learning goal was: can we can get a bunch of kids in a Zoom call w/ a teacher and have them learn about space? The answer is a strong yes. We had around 70 unique students total on our live sessions this week. We ran 3 of them. I ran basic surveys after the sessions (still need to do follow up phone calls) as well and parents loved it.
When asked how much they would have paid for a similar basic 45 minute session, the answer averaged out at $10. And that # only gets higher as you add more elements to the experience (pre-activities, post activities, 1-1 calls w/ other students, etc). So, we could have done $700 in revenue this week (70 * $10) if I charged. That’s pretty interesting. Suddenly, I’d be a $33,000 annual revenue business by just doing this one class. Average score out of 10 for the sessions based on 14 reviews was 9.1/10.
Anyways, I was blown away by the students the most. Seeing kids on screen get hype, interact, learn, ask questions, laugh it was all amazing to see. I could hardly contain my smile during the sessions. The curiosity of kid’s is infectious.
Earlier this week I was a little down because I felt like I was losing touch with why I’m working on Zip. But, seeing these students reminded me why I’m grinding 14 hours a day 7 days a week on this thing.
There is very much a path where Zip can “fix” education worldwide by affordably putting the power of learning back in the hands of the learner for students in K-12, college, and beyond.
Sure, it’s just a vision. But, this week felt like I just got a tiny bit closer to that goal. Who knows where this thing will be in 10 years! Perhaps it’ll end up dead and forgotten. Or perhaps…just maybe…I’ll figure it out.
Back to work.