Nerd Upgrades needs great coaches

On March 22 2013 11:49 evilfatsh1t wrote:
How do you know the coaches that apply have the quality needed to actually give someone lessons? Do you test them in anyway?

On March 22 2013 12:13 evilfatsh1t wrote:
tried registering to see what it was like. gave up when i saw the ridiculous password requirement lol

On March 22 2013 13:04 Cel.erity wrote:
If you're looking at expanding your game selection, you might want to ask around in the FGC. I've seen a couple posts in Street Fighter forums about people offering to coach, although I doubt they would charge as much as PC gamers.

Also, no offense, but I think the name is quite terrible. It actually sounds like a makeover show on Bravo, and doesn't immediately identify at all with the service provided.

out of curiosity, how long has this site been up? approximate number of students?

No offense, but seems kind of silly to post this when the coach finder function isn't available? Who is currently coaching? I mean I guess you're looking for coaches here to actually build up the function, but it's not exactly a great first impression for people looking for coaching at the moment.

For coaches, what percentage of profits does your company take for services? I tried looking very briefly and found no information about it.

On March 22 2013 16:12 evilfatsh1t wrote:
im still confused regarding how much coaches are "payed". maybe because im unfamiliar with paypal
i noticed theres an hourly rate option on the page for coaches. if you set it to 10/hr, are you supposed to receive 10/hr or is there something else going on?

When you read the FAQ the website takes 7% and paypal takes about 2.5-3% so in total if you put your hourly rate at 10$ you will end up with a net 9$ ( aprox )

I think the concept is amazing but the % margin that you take to maintain a basically user content and no-update website is very high. Normal profit margins from websites like Amazon or whatever are lower and offer more customer friendly tools.

sixpoolgaming remade!

I tried to register, but wasn't allowed to do so. My browser said it was due to something with the webpage?

On March 23 2013 03:24 flamewheel wrote:
Just a quick note--

http://nerdupgrades.com/p/frequently-asked-questions/

Got a typo in the subtitle.

On March 23 2013 05:09 Mistakes wrote:
Getting this error when trying to sign up for Coaching:

+ Show Spoiler +

Edit: Spoilered

On March 23 2013 05:09 Mistakes wrote:
Getting this error when trying to sign up for Coaching:

+ Show Spoiler +

Edit: Spoilered

On March 23 2013 06:35 DrahtMaul wrote:
load times (especially the images) are pretty damn slow from europe...
awesome concept and interface (at least what I saw in this thread) though!
Keep it going!

On March 23 2013 08:22 thundertoss wrote:
Nice site. I registered as a coach and look forward to seeing the site grow (although I don't think I'll be coaching until summer).

I can imagine a lot of games that it would be really cool to find coaches in. Mainly iracing, so hard to get help from good drivers on there lol.

If you're looking at expanding your game selection, you might want to ask around in the FGC. I've seen a couple posts in Street Fighter forums about people offering to coach, although I doubt they would charge as much as PC gamers.

On March 23 2013 13:49 evilfatsh1t wrote:
how are you advertising this site? besides this thread on tl
just wondering how youre going to find students. word of mouth?

On March 22 2013 12:02 bakedace wrote:


Coaches are reviewed by players who have purchased lessons. Coaching, as in life should be open to anyone with a knack for helping others.

On March 23 2013 18:11 E.L.V.I.S wrote:
just saying but this system sucks hardcore, this is more like a ******* joke come on ... why do you do this kind of ********.
Letting anyone coach is just nonsense and dishonest for your customers, nothing more to add.

Saw a Gold and Diamond ranked coach. No one should pay for coaching from someone of that level, they are doing something wrong which in turn would be taught to others, heck I wouldn't take any coaching advice from the majority of Masters players. Seems like its on the student to find a good coach rather than a service offering a selection of good coaches.

Besides that thou it is a nice set of features you offer to people that want to coach. It looks great for a trusted and well known coach that can link you to his profile to help organize his/her coaching sessions but I'm just not sure it will be so good for the students that are browsing your page looking for a coach.

In general I don't understand why these types of things exist. You should just get better from readying TL.net and other sites (THERE ARE NO OTHERS <3) and from the struggle. If you are in the struggle and don't understand how to get better, there are even parts of TL.net that explain how to get better. This actually has inspired me to do my part and write up something about how I got into Masters League from a crawl out of bronze. From learning and practice. You don't need coaches. Unless you are so lazy that you need a life coach to inspire you to get on TL.net and read about how to get better............

On March 25 2013 00:46 sabas123 wrote:
would be awesome if it also had bw

i would love to coach some free bw^^ (i am around C+)

On March 25 2013 04:12 Shin_Gouki wrote:
woah, pretty cool website you have here. I'll have to keep a close eye on it to see if any reputable coaches decide to promote themselves on it^^

On March 25 2013 19:26 Silvang wrote:
Hey there,

Very nice site and i think it can grow to something very useful.

On to the features i'd like to see:
- Coach finder : desperately needs a sorting feature! By rate/name/gmt/rating. The games column could potentially be gone(since you already choose your game from within the drop-down menu) with a game-specific column (for instance SC2 really needs a race column per coach, so you can immediately see what races they coach and also then sort it that way).
-Maybe the GMT column transformed into zone column (EU/NA etc)? Just an idea for easier "reference".

Nothing else comes to mind for the time being, i'll be sure to add if/when they do.

Good luck with the site

On March 25 2013 21:41 WhiteBratt wrote:
Wow nice! Great idea and platform :D
Gratz!

First wanted to address somethings bit less related in this topic; concerning learning and teaching.
I've started my studies in Psychology many years ago and concerning the topic of learning a lot can be said (and actually has been said ).
1. The most important thing is that a learning experience is different for everyone and even the optimal way to learn stuff is different. (off-topic; do you see what the problem might be with public schooling as we know it ).
So some people benefit the most from reading a lot, trial-and-error, some prefer to think ahead, some find role-models at megahigh level and some find role-models at more moderate levels etc etc. Either solution in itself or a combination of different aspects sums up the perfect learning experience for a certain individual (well, could be, more or less, related to personality types...)
2. It's off course dependent on your own personal goals/capabilities whether or not you need a higher or lower level coach or a certain coaching style. I myself had never ever played RTS before in my life and although I am a real big fan of starcraft2, I find my life to busy to practice a lot. So although offcourse I'd love to be a diamond or masters league I am also very much aware that this would require a shit load of practice for me. But at the same time I think my current level of playing could easily improved in about 1/2/3 hours with a coach even at the platinum level. I mean, since my goal isn't to surpass them but to get a similar level how could it really damage me ;-)


and back to the topic at hand;
I'd like to ask; have you found a reliable way of getting feedback? I mean the one danger I see that could ruin this perfect idea is what I like to call StarcraftFluffyness
I am a huge fan of being nice and treating the rest of the world accordingly, but if you're gonna set-up a system where people have to leave feedback about their coach you will quite easily find yourself in situation where the student has gotten to like his coach and hence be much friendlier about his coaching then might be prudent. (or reversed, a perfectly okay coach getting a shitty review because of some personal dislikes)
The way science handles this troublesome situation is to design questions which, as much as humanly possible, could be measured and reproduced.

I really think you guys are on to something and I wish you luck! :D

On March 27 2013 02:20 rezzan wrote:
if you made this WAY before the new replay system , id probably use it. .

On March 26 2013 17:34 NerdUpgrades wrote:
Thank you guys very much for the feedback and criticisms. I've been working hard to improve the coach finder, and this will be done very soon.

On March 29 2013 10:49 Let it Raine wrote:
Seems like its going to be hard for people to distinguish me from all the of the bad zergs.

On March 29 2013 01:40 sCFade wrote:
The coach finder should show coaches by rating instead of by name.

On April 01 2013 17:13 sCFade wrote:
Two suggestions:

1. an option for coaches to offer bulk-rated pricing
2. to filter coaches by rating and then # of reviews ; )

On April 13 2013 00:28 Tompa974 wrote:
When looking for a coach, you really should be able to have more search options such as a specific name, cost etc. Other than that, I think you have done a good job!