Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
351 lines (264 loc) · 13.7 KB

README.md

File metadata and controls

351 lines (264 loc) · 13.7 KB
Raw

homeschool

An app for homeschool planning

Setup

Python

uv is required.

JavaScript

Node.js is required.

brew install nodejs

Install JS packages to get Tailwind CSS.

npm --prefix frontend i

Development

Bootstrap the local database.

$ uv run manage.py migrate

Create a superuser account.

$ uv run manage.py createsuperuser

Start the local web server.

$ make

Docker Compose

Analyzing image contents:

alias dive="docker run -ti --rm  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock wagoodman/dive"
dive klakegg/hugo:0.101.0

uv

If for some reason I need to work with uv inside the container, there are some settings needed to get around the fact that image doesn't install packages in a place writeable by the app user.

Here's an example:

UV_PROJECT_ENVIRONMENT=/tmp/uv-venv uv add -n --dev 'types-toml==0.10.8.20240310'

Server config

  1. Add ssh keys.
  2. Turn off passworth auth
/etc/ssh/sshd_config
PasswordAuthentication no
systemctl restart ssh
  1. Firewall stuff.
ufw allow OpenSSH
ufw default deny incoming
ufw enable

Market Research

This is my analysis of the market to assess the features and positioning of what is available.

Research plan: Sign up for a service trial to test out the account. Share findings on forums to solicit feedback.

Measurement criteria:

  • Price
  • Features
  • Quality

Well Trained Mind reference analysis

Product Matrix

Product Business Model Price Reviewed
CM Organizer Freemium $7.95 / month 2/1/21
Google Classroom Free $0 3/12/21
Homeschool Manager Subscription $5.99 / month 3/13/21
Homeschool Minder Subscription $4.99 / month 5/3/21
Homeschool Planet Subscription $7.95 / month 5/20/21

Homeschool Planet

https://homeschoolplanet.com/

"Synchronize your home, school, and work into a single place"

  • Landing page
    • Email list capture
  • Pricing
    • 30 day trial
    • $69.95 / year
    • $7.95 / month
  • Social Media
    • Heavy activity on Facebook (at least daily)
    • Pinterest
    • YouTube to host help docs
    • Instagram
    • Blog (infrequent posts - handful per year, guest posts)
  • Marketplace
    • Other vendors provide lesson plans
  • Features
    • Daily digest email
    • Text messaging
    • Widgets with the calendar
    • Assignment == School Desk Task
    • Grades have different types and calculations
    • Tracks attendance
    • Tracks resources
    • Profiles (pictures, emails for sending digests, phone number for text messages)
    • Lookup widget (embedded search of other services)
  • Testimonials
    • User reviews (but they are old! 2017!)
    • Featured reviews (appear "fresh" from 2019, but are recycled old reviews), seems shady
    • Lots of undated testimonials (current user reviews?)

Forum topics:

Homeschool Reporting Online

https://homeschoolreporting.com/

Forum topics:

Nothing found.

Homeschool Skedtrack

http://www.homeschoolskedtrack.com/HomeSchool/displayLogin.do

Forum topics:

Homeschool Tracker

https://www.homeschooltracker.com/

Forum topics:

Homeschooling Records

https://homeschoolingrecords.com/default.aspx

Forum topics:

Nothing found.

Lessontrek

https://lessontrek.com/

Forum topics:

My School Year

https://www.myschoolyear.com/

Forum topics:

Nothing found.

Scholaric

https://www.scholaric.com/marketing

Forum topics:

Well Planned Gal

https://shop.wellplannedgal.com/index.php/shop/well-planned-day-online.html

Audience

Things to try:

  • Google Adwords keyword planner
  • followerwonk.com
  • Topsy Analytics to check social mentions?
  • Ahrefs Site Explorer to see referral traffic for other sites
  • BuzzSumo for Twitter analysis
  • Homeschool magazines? Is that a thing?
  • Amazon reviews of homeschool stuff
  • Reddit has a homeschool subreddit
  • Popular homeschool blogs to contact?
  • Homeschool podcasts?
  • Monthly webinars?

Future

  • Dunning - Don't make customer sign in to update card info
  • Dunning - Don't email until the card has actually failed (wait until 3rd reattempt or 5 days)
  • Dunning - Email multiple times. It's ok. People miss stuff.
  • Churn Buster if crazy popular by some remote chance
  • Make Annual <-> Monthly up/downgrade not hard

Persona

This is an exercise to build a reasonable persona of the ideal customer for School Desk as suggested in SaaS Marketing Essentials.

Hannah Homeschooler:

  • Hannah is a 30 - 45 year old woman.
  • She is educated and a self-starter (fiercely independent).
  • Hannah has two children.
  • Hannah lives in a suburban area or small to mid-size city.
  • Her time is constrained while balancing home obligations with child education.
  • Hannah has a fondness for paper for keeping records. Before finding School Desk, she was starting to hit the limits of her process and was looking for a way to save time.
  • Hannah wants full control of what she teaches her children, but would like some tools that can take out the drudgery of building weekly schedules for school.
  • After using School Desk, Hannah benefits from the automatically generated schedules that show her material in a timeframe that fits the constraints that she specified to School Desk.
  • School Desk makes it painless to stay on top of homeschool so that she focus her attention on other parts of her life.

Product Position

What's the point? Why would Hannah want to use School Desk? Is it control? Is it time saving?

What is the benefit?

  • "Take Control of Your Homeschool Plan"
  • "Save Time Building Your Homeschool Plan"
  • "Focus on Your School, Let Us Handle the Schedule"
  • Stop swimming in spreadsheets
  • Not an airplane cockpit

Customer answer: The key benefit is simplicity.