Founder Profile: Brett Kopf, Co-founder of remind101

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Brett Kopf, Co-founder of remind101

Name:
Brett Kopf

Member Cohort:
May Cohort ’12

Location:
San Francisco, CA

Education:
BS in Agricultural Economics, Michigan State University

Prior Experience:

• Founder and owner of Social Bonfire, a social media consulting company.
• Community Manager at FYIndOut, a social business sharing platform.
• Social Media Coordinator at Michigan State University.

Current Startup:
remind101: Solves the fundamental problem of communication between teachers, students and parents through a simple and efficient text messaging service.

Mission:
To create a safe way for teachers to text message students and stay in touch with parents.

Milestones:

• Surpassed 200.000 users
• Just launched an iPhone app
• Graduated from imaginek12 (Incubator)
• Reached about 1000 messages per week

Lessons Learned:
“I don’t really have just one thing. It’s more three really simple and connected things and its what I tell everyone who asks. Build something simple, that solves someones problem and talk to your users. So you solve someones problem by talking to your users and you always have to make it simple because it will get you way further and the product will grow faster. And there is just way too many complex products that don’t get traction because they are so complex. It all comes down to that. Solve someones problem and not everybody’s problem. This is what we have learnt from experience and which is why we now focus on teachers.”

Staying Motivated:
“Ups and downs are inevitable but people should always be motivated to get up in the morning. Of course sometimes you may not feel like it. Dealing with the ups and downs is probably more a matter of knowing that they are simply inevitable and then surround yourself with really good people who have done a startup before and can help guide you. That way they can pad you on the back and say; Look its fine, just chill and we will get through it.”

Biggest Mentor:
“That would be Maneesh Arora. He is extremely transparent and experienced and we just seem to get along well. He has awesome energy and tells it how it is. I think that chemistry and transparency is always a very important component in finding a great mentor or advisor. The other thing is that everything has to be backed up with data. He will always ask us why we are doing so for every decision we take and we will have to back it up with our data.”