Original Post by Baljeet Gill on May 31, 2016
San Kim – Founder of ShowMe
San Kim, founder of ShowMe is a former teacher and tutor who saw an opportunity for teachers to create and deliver digital content easily for their students. ShowMe is an interactive whiteboard app that allows educators to capture their lessons through a multi-touch device. This idea allows students to watch and rewatch lessons whenever they want. There also appears to be functionality for students to create their own lessons and collaborate and learn with their peers. Finally, the application allows educators to share their lessons publically so students all over the world can learn specific topics, regardless of their location. The funding for the app appears to have gone in three stages. The first stage in April 2010 was for $15,000, the second for $25,000 in May 2010, and finally $1,300,000 in August 2011.
According to CrunchBase, San Kim graduated in 2006 from Columbia University with a BA in music. He went on to teach for a few years before creating ShowMe. The interesting thing to me, and something that I think makes a successful business, is that San Kim recognized a problem or gap in his own practice and decided to create something to solve it.
The ShowMe team is made up of three individuals in addition to Mr. Kim. Karen Bdoyan, MBA, is a co-founder of ShowMe and current CEO. Karen had worked at Lycos Europe where he led multiple teams and also sold his tech startup previous to moving to the United States. Tricina Elliker, Head of Community, is a graduate of Columbia University and also started her career as an educator. Elliker focuses her time trying to reimagine ways to use technology to truly individualize learning. Finally, Mikayel Aghasyan, iOS Developer, has over 10 years of experience in the area of software development including Windows and more recently iOS.
It is inspiring to read about an educator who decided to delve into the world of business and be successful at it. I have yet to come across a problem in my own profession that requires a solution that has not yet been created. Reading about stories such as San’s does encourage me to be more cognizant of the potential opportunities that I would have otherwise dismissed; further, it encourages me to act on these ideas.
I pick this app to review because I am very interested in the flip classroom system. Especially with my AP Calculus class, I want to support my students as much as possible in the class so rather than teaching them, we use the time to solve questions collaboratively and brainstorm ideas. We simply dont have time to learn new lesson and solve questions. Currently, I am using videos made by other teachers in Youtube and I think I will do the same. Simply, Youtube is free and you can support any student in the world not specifically yours. You may also get some small income. The downside with Youtupe is the ads and students get distracted once they are there. Show Me may be safe for elementary and middle students, but it has less effect to senior students. So overall, I may recommend this app but I will not use it personally.
Oh yes, they offers 50% off on the teacher day 🙂
I love stories like this.
It looks like San Kim saw a problem and turned it into an opportunity, and to make that opportunity a reality, he empowered a whole lot of other people to use his idea and in the process adapt it and make it their own. Good for him. That is innovation.