Lessons from creating a digital agenda app for students...and why it's time to auction.
How TimeTek Started
My co-founder and I met during our sophomore year in high school and ended up tackling a problem we knew well: a lack of effective time management. As high school students, we saw how badly procrastination and poor time management skills hurt us and the people around us.
One of the main ways people in our demographic solve this problem is by using paper agendas. Don't get me wrong, paper agendas are nice and all, but now that students use their phones to optimize nearly every area of their life (socializing, online study tools, health apps, calculator apps, etc.), physical agendas seemed really outdated and easily cluttered...
Of course, there are digital time management tools and agendas, but when we looked at the options, most of them acted like to-do lists and weren't much of a step up from paper. In other words, we wanted to create a tool that could actually help students get things done and make it as easy as possible to stay on track instead of relying on them to take the lead with everything.
So, What Is TimeTek?
Simply put, TimeTek creates an easy-to-follow daily schedule based on the user's assignments and deadlines. Imagine, instead of planning your schedule, a personal assistant told you exactly when and how long you had to spend on each of your tasks. That's the idea behind TimeTek; taking the uncertainty out of your schedule, so you don't have to waste time planning, and ultimately, procrastinating.
How it works is when you first set up the app, you add how much time you're willing to spend on homework each day. Then when you get an assignment, you input it in the app, add the deadline, and roughly how long it'll take to complete. Based on this, TimeTek will create a daily pie chart showing how long to spend on what assignment, splitting up seemingly daunting tasks into manageable chunks.
Users can easily update progress on their assignments, and the app will adjust the time portions accordingly. Some screenshots from the beta:
We'll touch on other features below, but that's the core feature that makes TimeTek unique.
What We've Accomplished So Far
Shortly after launching on the IOS App Store, we had a few hundred users, which we acquired organically. The main purpose of our version one launch was really to gain feedback, but we were happy to see how much people loved it - even some adults said that they hope we'll create a similar product geared towards corporates one day.
Also, since launching, we've grown our Instagram following to around 500 people fully organically. This will benefit whoever acquires TimeTek since they'll have a prebuilt audience for marketing once they relaunch.
Along with that, TimeTek has gone on to win and place at national competitions such as The Diamond Challenge, IncubatorEDU, TechnovationGirls, Girls Computing League, and Cintrifuse. We received some great feedback and displayed it on our site to help build our reputation.
Why We're Selling
TimeTek stemmed from our vision of creating a tool that could help students everywhere. Right now, being high school students ourselves, we believe we’ve taken TimeTek as far as we can. Beyond version one, we don't feel we have the skills, resources, or time to improve TimeTek and market it to gain a larger user base.
Through our research, beta testing, and market validation, we truly believe TimeTek can reach a massive audience and become profitable. I can definitely envision students using a tool that plans their day, so they don't have to think about how long to spend on everything. We’re hoping to attract someone that can take TimeTek to the next level.
Note: TimeTek isn't live on the app store anymore since we weren't sure if we'd be able to continue and didn't want to pay the maintenance fee.
Business Plan
I already talked about the main information above, but if you're interested in some details and ideas for future expansion, generating revenue, and unique value propositions, here it is:
Problem
Effective time management is a big problem for students, leading to more stress and a lower performance level. Currently, students try to keep track of everything with cluttered online planners, outdated paper agendas, or they try to remember everything themselves.
Solution and What Differentiates TimeTek
Introducing TimeTek: the app that acts as a digital personal assistant and smart agenda combined.
Let’s walk through how our beta looks so you can get a brief overview of the app’s basic functionalities. As you can see, students can add their assignments, edit availability, and track progress after being given a schedule, as shown by the beta adviser.
Unique Value Adds:
While there are other time management apps on the market, most of them act like to-do lists and don’t customize for the user. We saw this as a huge opportunity to create a much better tool that’s active vs. passive and assists the user instead of fully relying on them to figure everything out.
Our biggest differentiator is the time chunking feature. I’m sure we’ve all been in a position where we have lots to get done, and maybe the tasks aren’t even that bad, but we end up having a hard time planning ahead and procrastinate the execution. Schedules are like puzzles, and knowing where to fit all of the pieces or tasks is challenging - but with the time chunking feature, TimeTek essentially tells you where all the pieces go, so you have to focus on the action.
So you’d basically give the app information about the assignment’s due date and approximately how long it’ll take to complete. Based on this information, the app will split up your time into manageable portions and plan out your schedule for you, telling you when and for how long you have to work on that assignment. This is really helpful because it takes the uncertainty out of planning your schedule.
The second feature that differentiates us is the procrastination score report. Based on user input, we’ll be able to see how often students actually stick to their goals and when they save things until the last minute. Each week, TimeTek will give the user a score and suggestions for what areas to improve, pointing out if it’s one subject they consistently procrastinate so they can build better habits.
Lastly, TimeTek will have a chatbot that’ll be like the user’s personal assistant. It’ll send reminders to get tasks done and suggestions from the procrastination report. Also, users will be able to engage with it for preset actions like rating how well the week went for them so they can log and view progress over time.
Note: the procrastination score report, pie chart, and chatbot are not implemented in version one, but we recommend the future owner adds them.
Revenue Model
1. Ad Revenue and Partnerships - When TimeTek gains approximately its first 1,000 users, the future owner can implement ads (for example, using AdMob) to generate revenue. Since TimeTek is targeted at the student demographic, ad placement should be easier since it’s specifically directed to a particular age range. Aside from AdMob, the future owner can partner with companies looking to target students, such as tutoring companies and college prep centers.
2- Data Monetization - While we hope the future owner will handle user data with caution, especially since it relates to a younger audience, monetizing data will likely become one of the largest revenue streams as the user base grows. Companies are eager to learn more about the habits and general schedules of Gen Z, creating a large opportunity going forward.
3 - Subscriptions - Subscription plans could also be implemented (we recommend charging $1-2 per month) for users who don’t want ads or unlock premium features.
4 - School Partnerships - A more long-term revenue stream is forming partnerships with school counties and private schools, resulting in massive user acquisitions and profit for the future owner.
Let’s take a look at an example school district, Loudoun County, VA. In 2019, Loudoun County spent an average of $14k per student, including the price for productivity apps. In 2018, the county purchased a physical agenda for every student; although the agendas were widely used, a repurchase did not take place due to environmental concerns. TimeTek is a more environmentally sustainable option and provides an easier way for students to consistently track their assignments while giving unique insights.
Currently, many school counties spend thousands of dollars on outdated paper agendas for every student; the future owner could pitch how TimeTek is more environmentally friendly, provides better insights over time, and is a tool that students love using. This is a huge opportunity to grow exponentially - we hope the future owner will leverage it!
What Experts, Judges, and Other People Have Said:
"I think this is a great idea and compelling value proposition to address a pain point not only for students but also for parents. I could see where the ability for a student to share their schedules with others i.e. parents/family would also be beneficial. I like that you include motivational aspects and feedback in the app to keep the interest and further develop the time managements skills. These are skills that go beyond high school. I could see where college students could also benefit from the app"
"Strong solution to a very significant problem for many students. Application could extend beyond education marketplace."
"An easy way to chunk large projects is a must. I haven't seen any good products that do this."
"This is EXACTLY what I need. The killer feature is to chunk my projects across multiple days. Successful time management app, if widely adopted by students or schools has enormous potential."
Final Thoughts
We spent a lot of time fleshing out a solution to a problem almost everyone faces. Even though our journey with TimeTek is coming to an end, we've learned a lot along the way and hope the future owner can fulfill the vision we initiated.
TimeTek's auction is still live; the future owner will gain an app along with a prebuilt audience and brand. If you know anyone who might be interested, they can join the bidding.
I’m Sarah, a 17-year old neurotech and AI enthusiast always looking to build and learn. Feel free to connect on Linkedin and Twitter. I also have a monthly newsletter where I send updates on my projects, learnings, and useful insights. Thank you for reading!