ClusterFlunk
ClusterFlunk is a social media company with offices in Iowa City and Chicago.[1][2]
Company overview
ClusterFlunk is “an online platform where students can connect with classmates and share notes”, where users sign up with their university emails and input their course schedules. The company was founded by AJ Nelson and Joe Dallago, former University of Iowa students who developed the website. The company was founded in 2012 and the website officially launched in 2013 with $100,000 from local Iowan investors,[2][3][4] focusing only on the University of Iowa in the form of a 2011-2012 beta test that resulted in about 750 users by the end of 2012. After launch the site reached ten thousand users. In January 2014 the company expanded to an additional fifteen further universities.[5][6] Nelson is the company’s CEO and Dallago is the company’s CTO.[6]
History
The founders developed the site after Dallago found he was unable to contact his instructors or TAs when it came to close deadlines. In reply they decided to put together an easy method for students to contact each other with questions or to share files, in order to fill the gaps in communication left by traditional social media or student-instructor interactions.[7]
Following the launch of the site, both founders left school in order to work on the company full-time.[8] Initially there were some reservations from the faculty regarding the use of the site, however officials at the initial university stated they were not concerned with how it was used.[6] The company was awarded the Technology Association of Iowa Prometheus Student Start-up of the Year Award, with sixty percent of the student body at the University of Iowa using the website after it went live.[9]
65% of users have claimed increases in grades because of their use of the site.[10] As of October 2014 the site had about 52,000 users,[3] and an iPhone app was released for ClusterFlunk.[11]
Platform
Users upload files to the platform to save and share documents. There is also a chat function for peers to communicate further about class work. Files from other peers can be downloaded and the documents from previous semesters are archived for students new to a course to view.[12]
Investments
In July 2014 the company received a $1 million investment from Lightbank Investments.[4]
References
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