Weava Research Tool
Making research more efficient
Weava banner

ABOUT THE STARTUP

I founded Weava, a research tool for students to highlight, organize, and create their research documents all in one place. Together with our team, we designed, monetized, and scaled the productivity tool to half a million registered users from 200+ educational institutions in 50+ countries, and gained thousands of happy paying schools, teachers, and students. I later exited the company to one of my investors who is currently running the company with his team to further accelerate user adoption in schools.

Weava was featured in Lifehacker.jp, Australian technology magazine TechLife, TekCrispy, and in schools from Alibama's Madison City Schools' website to Harvard University Cabot Science Library. It was also selected as #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt and in the top featured banner of Google's Chrome App Store.

Stats

Users & Featured Stories

I paid a visit to schools using Weava from school districts in Alabama to Harvard University, and had video chats with hundred of users to learn more about how they use our product. Students and researchers from around the world use Weava for research. Here are some of the educational institutions using us:

Weava universities Weava user photos

User Retention

One of the things that we achieved is maintaining a 24% weekly retention and 20% daily retention that plateaus pretty early along the user journey. This means that if the user signs up for our app and creates their 1st highlight in user onboarding, on average 24% will come back weekly and 20% will come back daily. This excludes times during summer or winter when students do not have to go to school. The screenshots below are taken from Amplitude, a daily analytics tool we used back then.

Weava universities Weava user photos

User Problem

When it comes to research for writing papers, it is often a messy and painful process. You have to:

1. Open a lot of browser tabs to find what you want

2. Manually copy and paste relevant information into a long research document

3. Filter through the research document for insights and take notes

4. Copy the author, url, and date for citations

Weava user problem

The Solution

Therefore, I founded Weava (www.weavatools.com), a research tool for students to highlight, organize, and create their research documents all in one place.

Weava solution user flow

Product Design

The product consists of:

1. A Chrome extension highlighter where you can highlight any online article, organize them into different colors, and folders

2. A web application where you can review your highlights, create citations, and export your research to write your essay.

3. A mobile app for users to highlight on their mobile and review their highlights on the go.

Weava solution user flow
Weava solution user flow

Youtube video that summarizes our product and the problem we're solving:

User Testimonials

Weava user photo matthew
Matthew Lerebours
Sophomore at Fairfield University, CT International Relations and Communications Major

"This is my first time upgrading to pay for the product. I use Weava for all sorts of school projects -- English papers, research projects, reading assignments etc. I usually look through a lot of online articles so its really nice that I able to read through and highlight the important information that I need. It greatly sped up my writing processs."
Weava user photo kayla
Kayla Evans
Junior at Harvard College Psychology Major

"Before Weava, I would take notes and then copy over important points into the piece I was writing. Weava eliminates that entire first step . After reading/highlighting all of the sources, I'm able to easily see all of the information. Even more, if I go back to the same source later with highlights."
Weava user photo mollie
Mollie Bounds
Instructional Specialist for Innovations and Initiatives Madison City Schools, Alabama

"It's a one stop shop for researching, synthesizing your research into a structure, and doing citations all in one place. That is Weava is in a nutshell. You don't need to reach out to three of four different places."