seedWatcher

Planter: Education and Learning

Planter: Education and Learning

I break this planter down into several sub-groups, which will no doubt evolve a bit. But basically, I have:

1. Expert-Student Matching (TutorVista, PrepMe, Tutor.com, Career Launcher, Smarthinking)
2. Self-guided Study Tools
3. Lesson/Class Broadcasting Tools (TeacherTube, Sketchcast, Omnisio)
4. Collaborative Learning Platforms (Grockit, Teach The People)
5. Research Tools (Wikipedia, Fleck, NoteMesh)

The next few posts we'll take a close look at each of these groups and the crop of startups in each one.

Terminology: Planters

planter - "an implement or machine for planting seeds in the ground."

A little terminology here to get things started. I've been organizing seed-stage startups into what I call "planters," which are essentially containers for each space in which those firms exist. In my own angel investing, I've spent a lot of time focused on the educational and learning tools space. I usually write it as this:

Planter: Education and Learning

So the first few posts will focus on that Planter and we'll go from there.

Seed Planted

seedWatcher begins. It's basically an open notebook on seed-stage tech startups that I had been keeping offline. I came to realize that this would be much more useful if I opened up my startup tracking. And so I'm planting it into the blogosphere.

seedWatcher groundwork:

- to find and follow seed-stage and early VC-funded tech startups
- organize startups into respective "planters"
- engage the entrepreneurial and VC community in collaborative tracking