What I've Learned From The Quizlet Situation
Hey everyone!
It's been a while, but I wanted to give a little update/reflection in regards to the Quizlet situation.
The first thing I want to do is thank all of you. This was an extremely stressful moment, especially with the release of Gimkit 4.0. Your support, however, was incredible. We read every single email & tweet that came through — each and every one reminded us just how lucky we are to have a community that is so supportive.
The way the situation unfolded wasn't great, but I did learn three valuable lessons:
Lesson 1: Get everything in writing
Based on our relationship with Quizlet and what they told us, I thought our use of their name and logo was okay with them. However, we never asked for written permission from them.
Lesson learned? Get it in writing. We made the mistake of treating our business too casually and the disruption educators faced two weeks ago might've been avoided if we'd worked out a formal agreement with Quizlet.
Lesson 2: Always bet on educators
We second-guessed ourselves during this situation as we tried to communicate with educators as we always have. We were stuck between a rock and a hard place in some ways. We wanted to be open and transparent with our communication, but by doing so, we risked damaging our relationship with Quizlet.
As an example, we knew Quizlet wasn't going to be happy with the video I made the day before the 4.0 launch. There's an argument to be made that staying silent would have been better for us and for Quizlet. But would that have been what was best for educators?
Being vocal and outspoken can be scary. Making the video was scary. Heck, even writing this blog post is a bit scary. But, this experience has proven once again that betting on educators is the right thing to do, even if it's scary or seems like the wrong business decision. At the end of the day, I'm proud of how we handled everything because educators were the center of our actions and communication.
Lesson 3: Cool down and work together
All the communication you saw from us, it was a team effort. My original idea for the video or blog post was much different than the end result. Taking some time to cool down and think was extremely helpful.
Teamwork was also essential. I got a lot of feedback on the best way to communicate from all kinds of people in my life — from Jeff, Kelli, and Fadi, to my family and educators, I received a ton of great advice by opening up and asking for help. None of us individually had the right way to communicate, but our ideas together created the right way.
I'm glad I didn't go with my first instinct and instead took the time to calm down and get feedback from others. It's something good to remember for the future.
So that's where we're at! It wasn't ideal, but hey, we learned something from it. Sometimes failure or a rough time can come out to be a really great learning experience. This certainly was one.
As far as where we leave things with Quizlet for now, they've declined our request for a formal partnership for the time being. We've let them know we're ready if and when they are.
In case you missed it, we added Flashcard Creation & Import into Gimkit and it seems like many of you are loving it. Keep sending us feedback on how we can make it easier for you!
We also added an export feature so you can take what you create inside of Gimkit with you to use on other sites that allow import. When I think about the features we added to Gimkit in just the two weeks since 4.0, it's hard not to get excited. With your help, we're making something special. I love that no matter what we're faced with, we're met with positivity, creativity, and support from our incredible educator community.
Again, thank you all for your support. There's a lot of great stuff going on with Gimkit, which I love sharing — but I need to get better at sharing the struggles too. I hope this is a good first step...
- Josh from Gimkit 💜