New Personal Statement Tool Coming Soon Forum

[TBizi]

[Pre-Clearance required for advertising other sites, particularly when you require people to register for access.]

[Pankun]

wait you wrote your own LOR?

[TBizi]

wait you wrote your own LOR?

My bad, meant Personal Statement...

[Anonymous Loser]

I'd rate your chances of success much higher if you could demonstrate either (1) knowledge of the difference between a Letter of Recommendation and a Personal Statement Essay, or (2) sufficient editing skills to realize that your thread title and the body of your post have nothing to do with one another.

[TBizi]

I'd rate your chances of success much higher if you could demonstrate either (1) knowledge of the difference between a Letter of Recommendation and a Personal Statement Essay, or (2) sufficient editing skills to realize that your thread title and the body of your post have nothing to do with one another.

Thanks bud, realized that and edited it. My apologies as my head is in a million places right now. Regardless, it'll be a great tool.

[Anonymous Loser]

I probably shouldn't give you a hard time--I screw up my posts pretty often.

Best of luck, sounds like an interesting project.

[TBizi]

I probably shouldn't give you a hard time--I screw up my posts pretty often.

Best of luck, sounds like an interesting project.

Thanks man, I appreciate the support. Me and my team have been working a ton of hours to get this together and even created a new technology for it for which we're filing a provisional patent as we speak. It's pretty fun and exciting.

[capitalacq]

what is it

[TBizi]

what is it

It's two things really:

a tool to conduct the peer review and editing process in a much more efficient way via an online web application

and a marketplace, community or clearinghouse if you will so you can easily upload your paper and have someone, anyone, anywhere find it and review it.

hope that helps.

[j.wellington]

If you're looking for a model, here's a similar site a friend of mine founded a few years ago: http://www.razume.com/ It's specifically for resumes, but the same idea.

Good luck!

[TBizi]

If you're looking for a model, here's a similar site a friend of mine founded a few years ago: http://www.razume.com/ It's specifically for resumes, but the same idea.

Good luck!

Yep, came across this during our research but our concept is much different. Thanks for sharing though.

[fonzerelli]

Isn't this blatant explotation of LS forum to sell stuff trolling? Also, it seems disingenuous. Personal statements, in my opinion, should be a purely organic affair. This seems like yet another superfluous "might-have-worked-in-the-dot-com-hysteria" type enterprise but is now irrelevant from inception.

PLUS - there are already enough privacy concerns. Why would anyone trust a start up that would be invariably designed to hoard multitudes of personal statements from law school applicants. Who would have access to this private information? Anyone who wants to "review" them? What if that information is "stolen" due to a hack? Will it be sold? Can it "be used against you" at some later time? Too many "what ifs" if you asked me.

I hope TLS doesn't become a marketing site... I sort of like the natural sometimes credited/sometimes uncredited banter/advice/law school chat type dynamic.

[TBizi]

Isn't this blatant explotation of LS forum to sell stuff trolling? Also, it seems disingenuous. Personal statements, in my opinion, should be a purely organic affair. This seems like yet another superfluous "might-have-worked-in-the-dot-com-hysteria" type enterprise but is now irrelevant from inception.

PLUS - there are already enough privacy concerns. Why would anyone trust a start up that would be invariably designed to hoard multitudes of personal statements from law school applicants. Who would have access to this private information? Anyone who wants to "review" them? What if that information is "stolen" due to a hack? Will it be sold? Can it "be used against you" at some later time? Too many "what ifs" if you asked me.

I hope TLS doesn't become a marketing site... I sort of like the natural sometimes credited/sometimes uncredited banter/advice/law school chat type dynamic.

It's a tool, it's free, and it provides a solution to an issue I see on TLS and many other forums all over the internet. In my opinion, privacy issues are much less with a tool like this than copy and pasting your PS on a forum and asking for someone to review it. This is something I see done constantly.

There will always be naysayers like yourself, but the fact is the majority of people do not share your concerns. Companies like mint.com struggled to get funding because the reasons you cite and they are now a flourishing and trusted company. And that's not dealing with simple written works... it's people's financial history, transactions and bank accounts.

The point is this will be an awesome service much like the law school admission calculator that was developed on TLS. I'm hoping that Ken will get behind this and promote it so the community here takes an active roll in participating in our beta test.

[fonzerelli]

I dig the enthusiasm and wish you luck! There's always going to be critics/concerns that you'll have to address and I think you did a reasonably good job of that above.

If you did the forecasting and think this would generate enough traffic to the point you could sustain a business out of it.....(sell to advertisers, etc) then that's great.

[TBizi]

I dig the enthusiasm and wish you luck! There's always going to be critics/concerns that you'll have to address and I think you did a reasonably good job of that above.

If you did the forecasting and think this would generate enough traffic to the point you could sustain a business out of it.....(sell to advertisers, etc) then that's great.

Thank you, I appreciate it. And yes, we've ton a lot of analysis. There will be a bigger focus on the implication of the technology and how it can be used in an "enterprise" sense that we will roll out 6 months or so after our main service (the peer editing/review). I'm even more excited about that aspect as it has the potential to change online publishing as we know it.

Also, regarding your earlier comment about the organic writing experience of a PS... I agree writing should come from the individual. But a large part of the writing is the idea flow or getting your message across to your audience. We're not about changing someone's writing, but more so streamlining the message. Third party, unbiased advice is hard to come by and we hope to provide that missing link. I'm sure you had someone read over your personal statement, essays you wrote in college, cover letters or resumes to potential employers, etc. The fact is it's important to communicate well and we want to put our best foot forward, having someone critique doesn't have to mean taking away our personal voice.

[fonzerelli]

I dig the enthusiasm and wish you luck! There's always going to be critics/concerns that you'll have to address and I think you did a reasonably good job of that above.

If you did the forecasting and think this would generate enough traffic to the point you could sustain a business out of it.....(sell to advertisers, etc) then that's great.

Thank you, I appreciate it. And yes, we've ton a lot of analysis. There will be a bigger focus on the implication of the technology and how it can be used in an "enterprise" sense that we will roll out 6 months or so after our main service (the peer editing/review). I'm even more excited about that aspect as it has the potential to change online publishing as we know it.

Also, regarding your earlier comment about the organic writing experience of a PS... I agree writing should come from the individual. But a large part of the writing is the idea flow or getting your message across to your audience. We're not about changing someone's writing, but more so streamlining the message. Third party, unbiased advice is hard to come by and we hope to provide that missing link. I'm sure you had someone read over your personal statement, essays you wrote in college, cover letters or resumes to potential employers, etc. The fact is it's important to communicate well and we want to put our best foot forward, having someone critique doesn't have to mean taking away our personal voice.

Well, you know, it's actually starting to sound pretty good now.... it's a tough economy to be starting a business but it sounds like you have the tenacity and vision to make it happen. Good stuff.

[TBizi]

I dig the enthusiasm and wish you luck! There's always going to be critics/concerns that you'll have to address and I think you did a reasonably good job of that above.

If you did the forecasting and think this would generate enough traffic to the point you could sustain a business out of it.....(sell to advertisers, etc) then that's great.

Thank you, I appreciate it. And yes, we've ton a lot of analysis. There will be a bigger focus on the implication of the technology and how it can be used in an "enterprise" sense that we will roll out 6 months or so after our main service (the peer editing/review). I'm even more excited about that aspect as it has the potential to change online publishing as we know it.

Also, regarding your earlier comment about the organic writing experience of a PS... I agree writing should come from the individual. But a large part of the writing is the idea flow or getting your message across to your audience. We're not about changing someone's writing, but more so streamlining the message. Third party, unbiased advice is hard to come by and we hope to provide that missing link. I'm sure you had someone read over your personal statement, essays you wrote in college, cover letters or resumes to potential employers, etc. The fact is it's important to communicate well and we want to put our best foot forward, having someone critique doesn't have to mean taking away our personal voice.

Well, you know, it's actually starting to sound pretty good now.... it's a tough economy to be starting a business but it sounds like you have the tenacity and vision to make it happen. Good stuff.

I agree, it's very difficult. Fortunately I happen to have a way to inspire and motivate people. My company and team of four is completely bootstrapping. All of my employees have agreed to take equity stakes in the company without a real paycheck until we get our first round of funding which we'll be looking for shortly. I'm amazed at the talent I've been able to attract and the dedication they've shown. I feel lucky for that. Fortunately, we are well connected with the venture capital community here in the SF bay area and should be able to obtain funding in the next month or two. That will be something to celebrate.

In the meantime we appreciate the support.

[fonzerelli]

There must be something in the air up in the SF bay area.... I mean how many epic businesses and movements were started up there? I've never been but there must be something invigorating about the place. My city planner friend says San Fran is the best designed city in the U.S. If that's true... even the city design is a win. Anways.... good luck again and keep the TLS community (term used loosely sometimes) updated.

[TBizi]

There must be something in the air up in the SF bay area.... I mean how many epic businesses and movements were started up there? I've never been but there must be something invigorating about the place. My city planner friend says San Fran is the best designed city in the U.S. If that's true... even the city design is a win. Anways.... good luck again and keep the TLS community (term used loosely sometimes) updated.

Will do. And yes, the start-up atmosphere and community are all around. There are start-up "incubators" for companies to go and work around other like minded individuals and social events for entrepreneurs and VCs on a daily basis. There's no better place to be if you're looking to start a company especially in the tech industry.

Thanks again for your support, I'll be sure to keep everyone abreast of our progress.

[TBizi]

Bump.

[TBizi]

Hi everyone, I just wanted to update here in case anyone is still interested. We're still hammering out our website and application design and it's coming along nicely. We're also working on finalizing our logo.

A lot is happening, however, we've decided to push our launch out until September instead of launching during summer when schools are on break. We will be beta testing months before September though and will be emailing those of you who signed up for the beta test when we're getting closer.

Thanks to all those who showed interest and signed up!