Startup Coursicle gives students an edge while scheduling college courses

Joe Puccio, Cofounder of Coursicle, was just a freshman in college when he came up with the initial script for his startup. Puccio had trouble enrolling in the classes he needed for graduation, and university administrators didn’t have a great solution. “Their solution was ‘oh go take an easy class you can get an A in.’ So Joe wrote a script that texted him when a class had an available seat,” said Tara Aida, CEO and Cofounder of Coursicle.
 
Today, Coursicle has evolved into software that supports more than 100 schools, with a little over 19,000 users nationwide. Coursicle allows students to create schedules and backup schedules at their university, see what their Facebook friends are planning on taking, and receive text message alerts when a desired class has an open seat. Because class data is publicly available and relatively standardized, Coursicle does not require participation from universities. “We collect information from hundreds of schools, we just have to put in the right links. And we can do that without the university’s help,” Puccio said.
 
Both cofounders graduated in May 2016, Puccio from University of North Carolina and Aida from Harvard University. The two have been friends since high school, where they met at a science and math summer camp at UNC Wilmington. Puccio and Aida were looking for accelerators online when they found StartCo’s Upstart, a summer accelerator for women-led companies. “Upstart stood out because we think getting more female founders and women in tech is important. And after we talked to Mara Lewis, our director, she was so great that we really didn’t have much of a choice,” Puccio said.
 
Most recently, Coursicle added a textbook comparison feature, simplifying the process of buying textbooks. Aida believes this will be the best path towards monetizing Coursicle’s services. “We don’t want to charge students for this – being able to do something they should already be able to do. When students buy the books through our links, we’ll get some percentage of the money,” she said.
 
Coursicle is gaining momentum at an opportune time - - their main competitor, MyEdu, is shutting down in September. Luckily, Coursicle is the perfect alternative. You can learn more about Coursicle at their website.