This early-stage edtech startup wants to gamify cramming for tests

The concept behind TriviaNote, a Philly-based edtech startup, was born from a lively match of Trivia Crack.

“One day I was just playing against a friend and I got a question that I knew just because I had seen it before,” recounts Paul Santolla, cofounder of the early-stage startup. “And I remember lying there wishing that the questions being asked were about the subjects I was studying.”

So in 2016, he got together with St. Joe’s grad Evan Megill to build a platform that pairs up college students with quizzes and trivia games about the subjects of their choice. So far, the duo has had success in rallying support of legit players like the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education — which admitted the company into its edtech accelerator, EDSi — and Ben Franklin Technology Partners — which is in the process of investing $50,000 from its Technology Acceleration Fund.

Though the initial idea entailed an AI platform that turned students notes directly into games, processing hastily-taken notes proved difficult. The company thus faced its first pivot (more of a tweak, really): Students now only bold terms within their notes and the platform scrapes the web for relevant content which then gets gamified.

Currently, the business model follows a B2C freemium concept, though Santolla — a computer science grad from Villanova University  — says they are considering partnerships with institutions. The platform also features native ads.

Per the founding team, 2017 will see the company test their idea in the market.

“Right now it’s all about proving out the concept,” Megill said.