Case study

K-12 Compare

A free, independent platform for educators to research, compare, and manage the EdTech their schools use.

Role: Founder, Designer, and Engineer
Years: April 2026 to Present
Site: k12compare.com

Overview

K-12 Compare is a project I started in 2026. It's a free, independent platform that helps educators research, compare, and manage the EdTech their schools use. A neutral space where schools and vendors can meet and build trust publicly, so the best products rise to the top.

I built it end-to-end: design, front-end, back-end, database, payments. It's the project where I get to be both the product designer and the engineer with no handoffs in between.

A product profile with overview, tabs, a claim card, and similar tools in the side column.

Why I built it

After seven years inside K-12 EdTech, first as a vendor with Horizon and then through the Progress Learning migration, I'd watched the same procurement problem from both sides. Districts evaluating tools relied on word-of-mouth, sales decks, and outdated review sites. Vendors competed on marketing budget as much as product quality. There was no neutral ground. K-12 Compare is my attempt at that neutral ground.

K-12 Compare software comparison: DreamBox, i-Ready, Derivita side by side — Side-by-side software comparison with categories, an AI blurb for each product, and media in the grid.

K-12 Compare vendor analytics with traffic overview and daily views chart — Vendor analytics: traffic overview, summary metrics, and daily views over time.

Building it solo

I designed and built the entire application in Cursor, working with Anthropic and Google models. The stack is straightforward: a typed full-stack app with a real database, authentication, and payment authorization for the vendor side of the marketplace. Nothing exotic; the interesting work was in product decisions, not infrastructure.

K-12 Compare vendor buyer intent funnel and district activity side panel — Vendor analytics for buyer intent: a funnel, filters, and a district activity drill-down in the side panel.

The design challenge was: how do you bring a lot of structured data (features, pricing, integrations, district reviews) into views that don't overwhelm? The same lesson Horizon kept teaching me applies here. Density isn't the same as usefulness. The most-used screens in K-12 Compare are also the simplest.

K-12 Compare add new school software contract form — Add New Contract. Pick a product, set terms and license counts, and record approval in one place.

K-12 Compare AI Software Advisor with prompt, try-asking ideas, and search — The AI Software Advisor. Ask in your own words, use try-asking chips, or set scope, then run search.

K-12 Compare AI Advisor recommendation report with a product pick and key strengths — A recommendation with a product card, key strengths, and quick actions to save or add to compare.

Status

K-12 Compare launched in 2026 and is in active development. It's a project where I get to make every product decision myself and ship the result the same day.

Next case study

Horizon Education

K-12 assessment platform I helped take from an early product to 250,000 users; acquired by Progress Learning in 2022.

Read the case study