Josh Feinsilber is a young teen and 2019 high-school who created the learning site Gimkit, which was inspired by the popular quiz-like learning game, Kahoot. Feinsilber experienced Kahoot and decided to make a different and better type of app that is very personalized and oriented on achieving goals, so as to motivate students. At his small high school in the Seattle area, more weight is put on projects and hands-on activities than grades; he actually developed Gimkit originally as an independent study project. Now, Feinsilber is worth around $400,000 and Gimkit is worth around $23,000. The site has received criticism for its similarities to other apps and that it is subscription-based, but it has also received a lot a praise at the same time for its distinctive features and success: test scores from users have improved more than that of users of other similar platforms such as Kahoot and Quizlet. Also, the personalization aspect where teachers make “kits,” giving rewards when students master concepts and providing educators easy access to data telling student progress. Overall, Feinsilber used his entrepreneurial mindset to take an existing idea and improve it to make a better product for users.
This is like a combination of Quizlet and Kahoot! Personalized study help that is interactive and entertaining. Students have each other’s backs! I love hearing startup stories by entrepreneurs who started when they were still in school. It puts in mind really paying attention to you and your friends studying “Pains” and looking for a way to solve them!
It is a super cool idea and an awesome way to think. Kahoot and Quizlet are extremely popular, but neither are perfect for students. By coming up with a cross between the two it allows him to market the perfect app for students to study. It was a huge opportunity that he took advantage of that has a good chance to replace the popular two study sites.
This is really interesting and I had no idea this was a thing. I like this article because it reminds us that we don’t have to complete invent something on our own, we can piggyback off of other people’s ideas.
GimKit was always fun to play in HS! I never knew it was created by a teen. It is such a unique and helpful website to help students learn material. If we hadnt played gimkit in French class, I probably wouldnt have done so well. I wish we played Gimkit in college courses lol.
Amazing to see how his good idea made him a good amount of money.
Great concept! I love the idea of a motivation-based interactive study site. I use quizlet quite a bit – and I have to say, this might surpass my quizlet experiences!