New startup ideas · Gifted kids, funded by proof · Finding the dedicated kid early
startup concept
Lemma
Open Badges 3.0 issuing API for olympiads, with consent-gated donor matching
An issuing API that turns math olympiad placements, science fair awards and AMC scores into Open Badges 3.0 verifiable credentials the kid owns, built for minors: parental consent at issuance, revocable sharing, nothing public.
- Infrastructure and APIs
- Small business
- Achievements as verifiable credentials
1
similar startups, last 2 years (3 all-time)
yes
4 matching federal grants and programs
Direction supported by government programs and grants
Test it before you build it
$600 · 5 weeks · 25 prospects
For $600 and 5 weeks, prove that volunteer olympiad organizers will commit real results to badge issuance with parental consent, and that scholarship programs will prepay $750 to query them.
Riskiest assumption · Volunteer competition organizers will commit their next event's verified results to badge issuance through a plain spreadsheet handoff - the supply without which no scholarship program will ever pay for matching.
1Focus group: who and where
The volunteer director of a regional science fair, MATHCOUNTS chapter or math olympiad - a teacher or professional-society volunteer with an event on the 2026-27 calendar, whose winners currently get a certificate and a PDF results page that no scholarship program can verify
where to find 25 · The Society for Science affiliated fair network directory, which lists hundreds of regional and state fair directors by name (a directory); MATHCOUNTS chapter and state coordinators reachable through the National Society of Professional Engineers state societies that run the competitions (a community); the Art of Problem Solving community forums, where regional olympiad organizers announce and run their events (a channel); for the paying side, the National Scholarship Providers Association member programs
2Sell first, build later
Founding access to the matching API: query anonymized, source-verified olympiad and science fair credential trajectories from the first ten issuing competitions, with family opt-in reveal only after a funded seat exists, live by November 30, 2026.
the ask · $250 per month per scholarship program, first three months prepaid at $750, founding rate locked for 12 months
a real yes · A real yes is $750 received or a signed order with a payment date within 14 days; a real yes from an organizer is a signed issuance agreement with an event date. 'We would query that' and unpaid trial requests are a no.
3Small experiments
The first one attacks the riskiest assumption; each ends with a number that says whether to run the next.
1. Organizer issuance commitment
$150 · 14 days
Email 25 fair directors and chapter coordinators from the sources above with the script below: free Open Badges 3.0 issuance for their next event, they send the results spreadsheet, Lemma runs parental consent and issuance, zero integration on their side. Ask each to sign a one-page issuance agreement naming the event date. This attacks the stated risk directly: no API is offered, only a spreadsheet, so a no here means even the thinnest version fails.
keep going if · 10 of 25 organizers sign the one-page agreement with a named event date
2. Parental consent rate
$200 · 21 days
For the first two committed events, run the real consent flow on real awardees: a bilingual consent email to parents, badges issued through an existing open-source Open Badges issuer, each kid getting a private verifiable record. Manual issuance is the point - the test is whether parents of minors complete consent, not whether the software exists.
keep going if · 60% or more of parents complete consent within 14 days of the award
3. Scholarship program prepay
$250 · 21 days
Book 10 calls with scholarship program managers found through the National Scholarship Providers Association member list and STEM-focused programs like those run by Society for Science partners. Offer founding access to the matching endpoint - anonymized credential trajectories, family opt-in reveal - at $250 per month, first three months prepaid. Send the invoice on the call.
keep going if · 3 of 10 programs prepay $750 or sign an order with a payment date inside 14 days
4Collect a deposit up front
Tesla took $1,000 refundable reservations for the Model 3 and $100 for the Cybertruck before building either: the deposit is the measurement, not the revenue.
$750
per prospect, refundable
how · A prepaid founding subscription invoiced up front and payable by card or check - small scholarship programs have no procurement cycle, so the program manager who took the call can pay directly against a one-paragraph order the founder countersigns. set up: Stripe Invoicing ↗
what it reserves · Founding access to the matching API before general availability, the $250 per month rate locked for 12 months, and a voice in defining the first matching criteria
refund · Refunded in full if credentials from at least two competitions are not live and queryable by November 30, 2026.
target · 3 prepaid programs ($2,250 total moved) from 10 conversations within 35 days
before taking money · Every credential belongs to a minor, so collect nothing from a child without verifiable parental consent and have counsel check the consent and sharing flow against COPPA before the first real event.
Go: build it if
10 of 25 organizers sign issuance agreements, parental consent completion is at or above 60%, and 3 scholarship programs prepay $750 within 5 weeks - build the real issuing API and consent infrastructure.
Kill: stop if
Fewer than 5 of 25 organizers commit even to a spreadsheet handoff, or consent completion is under 30%, or 0 programs prepay after 10 conversations - the volunteer-adoption risk on the card is fatal and there is no supply to sell.
5 Scripts to run itoutreach message, landing copy, deposit terms · click to open
outreach message
Your winners get a certificate and a handshake, and then the result lives in a PDF nobody can verify. I issue Open Badges 3.0 verifiable credentials for your next event, free: you send me the results spreadsheet, I handle parental consent, and each kid gets a private verified record they own - nothing public, nothing to integrate on your side. Could we take 20 minutes this week to walk through how it would work for your event?
landing page
Verified olympiad records, consent-gated, queryable by your criteria. $250 per month, first three months prepaid: founding access to the matching API, rate locked for a year. Prepay $750 to reserve founding access before the first cohort's badges go live.
deposit terms
You prepay $750, which covers your first three months at the founding rate of $250 per month, locked for 12 months. It reserves founding access to the matching API and a seat in defining the first matching criteria. You receive a full refund if credentials from at least two competitions are not live and queryable by November 30, 2026.
Would you run this test?
One tap. The yes-share feeds the Demand pillar of this idea's score; nobody sees who answered.
Budgets are out-of-pocket estimates for a team of one to three, US market. Size the deposit to the deal, and check the terms before taking money in a regulated line.
Scorecard
Ranked against every idea in the catalog: trend, demand and 100x potential from the corpus, competition relative to the other ideas. A generated concept has no judges or swipes yet, so its pillars use the data signals only.
72
Idea Score, 0-100 · raw 44.8 x 1.61
Warm
competition: more crowded than 32% of ideas · headwind x0.84
+2.3
government priorities, secondary (4 matching grants)
Trend
39
Is the wave forming now? 2025-26 entrants vs 2023-24, rounds since 2025, the sector's live-batch direction, the 2026 trend analyst.
- Entrants 2025-26 vs 2023-24 (similar companies)74
- Rounds announced 2025+ in the sector44
- Sector direction (live batch)0
Demand
43
Does anyone want it? YC's current RFS, companies already paid for something similar, the operator judge, founders' yes-rate in decks, readers who would run the test.
- YC asks for it (current RFS: idea / sector)60
- Someone already pays (similar companies, recent / all-time)25
100x potential
78
Can it return a fund? The venture judge (double weight), market-size and moat axes, neighbours still alive, the technologist judge.
- Neighbours still alive78
Score = 100 x cbrt(Trend x Demand x 100x) x (1 - 0.5 x crowding) + government bonus (max 5), calibrated so the 95th-percentile idea scores 90 (order never changes). A geometric mean: a weak pillar cannot be papered over. Percentiles are among the 382 ideas in the catalog; the terms matched were open, badges, issuing, olympiads, consent-gated, donor, matching, math.
The concept in full
- What
- An issuing API that turns math olympiad placements, science fair awards and AMC scores into Open Badges 3.0 verifiable credentials the kid owns, built for minors: parental consent at issuance, revocable sharing, nothing public. A matching endpoint lets funded scholarship programs query for anonymized credential trajectories that fit a donor's stated interest, and a family opt-in reveals the kid only after a funded seat exists. Competition organizers verify the result at the source; the kid keeps a private wallet of their record.
- Grounded in (2025-2026 signals)
- 1EdTech's 2025 guidance expects mass institutional adoption of Open Badges 3.0 in 2025-26 as Accredible, Canvas Credentials and Credly certify as issuers, and Comprehensive Learner Records tie badges into a K-12 through workforce record. The keyword 'olympiad' shows only 4 companies in the last two years, so the vertical is nearly empty.
- What it rides
- Achievements as verifiable credentials. Lemma is the issuer purpose-built for minors' competition results, the one segment the certified issuers built for institutions do not serve.
- Why now
- 1EdTech expects mass institutional adoption in 2025-26, and from 2026 a 529 plan pays up to $20,000 a year for tutoring, test prep and AP fees, so a verified olympiad record now connects directly to rails that can pay the kid's next program.
- Wedge: first customer and entry point
- Regional math olympiad and science fair organizers, volunteer-run and unserved by enterprise credentialing: free issuance for the first ten competitions, then charge scholarship programs for matching-API access.
- Closest real companies, as the generator saw them
- Sertifier (PnP 2025) issues and verifies credentials for organizations but has no minor-consent model or funder matching; Blerify (PnP 2025) does ID credentials, not achievements; Andamio (techstars TS 2025) is a protocol, not a K-12 issuing product.
- Main risk
- Volunteer-run competitions may never integrate any API, no matter how thin.
Similar startups in the directory
Companies whose pitch matches most of the concept's terms (open, badges, issuing, olympiads, consent-gated, donor, matching, math).
Somethings is a digital platform that connects teenagers with Certified Peer Specialist Mentors to provide personalized mental health support through a combination of texting and video calls. 
LIGHT-RIGHT offers crowdfunding planning, system construction and execution support services.
Public money in this direction
US federal grants and open opportunities matched to the concept's terms.
NIH / NIGMS · SBIR phase I · $350K
National Science Foundation · IUSE · $400K
National Science Foundation · CSCS: Circuits and Systems for · $600K
National Science Foundation · Partnership Donors · $50K
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Fictional concept generated 2026-08-27 by claude-fable-5 from the collection's brief and MarkosWeb data. Treat it as a research prompt, not a plan.