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startup concept

Proofmark

Open Badges 3.0 issuing rails for olympiads, math circles and science fairs

Proofmark lets competition organizers and math circle operators issue AMC scores, olympiad placements and science fair results as W3C Verifiable Credentials the kid owns in a wallet.

0

similar startups, last 2 years (3 all-time)

yes

8 matching federal grants and programs

Direction supported by government programs and grants

Test it before you build it

$600 · 4 weeks · 25 prospects

For $600 and 4 weeks, prove competition organizers will prepay $500 a season to issue verifiable credentials, and that funders will accept them in place of PDF result lists.

Riskiest assumption · Organizers who publish free PDF result lists will pay per credential because their families and funders now need a verifiable, privacy-safe record that a PDF cannot provide.

1Focus group: who and where

The volunteer or staff organizer of a regional math olympiad, MATHCOUNTS chapter, math circle or ISEF-affiliated science fair, running a 2026-27 season with 100-800 competitors, who today publishes results as a PDF and is starting to hear from families about 529 tutoring rules and scholarship documentation.

where to find 25 · Society for Science's directory of ISEF-affiliated regional fairs (directory), the Math Circle Network directory at mathcircles.org (list), the Art of Problem Solving community forums where organizers announce results (community), and MATHCOUNTS state coordinators reachable through the national office (channel); for the funder check, program officers at Step Up For Students and the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation.

2Sell first, build later

2026-27 season package: every placement and score issued as a W3C Verifiable Credential the kid owns, a one-time parental consent flow, and a funder verification page that never shows a ranked list of named minors, live before the program's first competition date.

the ask · $500 prepaid per season, covering up to 500 issued credentials

a real yes · A real yes is $500 cleared and a signed season order with a first-competition date; a funder letter counts as acceptance evidence, and 'we love this, issue ours free this year' or an unpaid trial counts as no.

3Small experiments

The first one attacks the riskiest assumption; each ends with a number that says whether to run the next.

  1. 1. Priced season pitch calls

    $300 · 12 days

    Build one sample: a mocked results sheet turned into an Open Badges 3.0 credential and a funder-facing verification page, using an existing issuer sandbox rather than custom code. Book 15 calls with organizers from the fair directory, mathcircles.org and MATHCOUNTS coordinators and pitch the season package at $500, live before their first competition date. Ask for the commitment on the call.

    keep going if · 5 of 15 organizers agree on the call to prepay $500 for the 2026-27 season

  2. 2. Funder acceptance letters

    $0 · 10 days

    Call 6 program officers at SGOs and gifted-scholarship funders, starting with Step Up For Students and the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. Show the verification page and ask one question: would a verifiable credential replace the transcripts and PDFs you collect today, and will you say so in a two-paragraph letter.

    keep going if · 2 of 6 funders state in writing that they would accept the credential as proof of achievement

  3. 3. Parent consent completion

    $150 · 10 days

    With one partner circle from the pitch calls, send its parent list a consent link: one COPPA-style consent plus a wallet claim for their kid's mocked season timeline, no real minor data stored. Measure completion of the full flow across 40 families.

    keep going if · 24 of 40 parents (60%) complete consent and claim the wallet

  4. 4. Collect the season prepay

    $150 · 7 days

    Send the committed organizers a checkout link and a one-page season order naming their first competition date. Chase twice by email and once by phone; count only cleared payments.

    keep going if · 3 of 5 verbal committers actually pay $500

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.

$500

per prospect, refundable

how · A prepaid season license, taken by checkout link or invoice, whichever the organizer's fiscal sponsor requires, with a one-page season order e-signed by the organizer; prepaying the whole $500 season is credible here because it is the size of a single sponsorship line these programs already handle. set up: Stripe Invoicing ↗

what it reserves · A founding-season slot: issuance and the consent flow live before the program's first 2026-27 competition, and the $500 price held for the 2027-28 season

refund · Refunded in full until the program's first batch of credentials is issued.

target · 3 payments of $500 from 15 pitched organizers within 28 days

before taking money · These are minors under COPPA: collect no child data during the test, run every experiment on organizer-held results and parent-initiated consent, and have counsel review the consent flow before any credential names a child.

Go: build it if

3 or more organizers pay $500 ($1,500 collected), at least 2 of 6 funders put acceptance in writing, and 60% or more of parents complete the consent flow.

Kill: stop if

0-1 payments from 15 pitched organizers, or 0 of 6 funders willing to accept the credential in writing, or parent consent completion under 30%; the PDF stays good enough and the idea stops.

5 Scripts to run itoutreach message, landing copy, deposit terms · click to open

outreach message

Your season results go out as a PDF, and this year a PDF cannot unlock the new 529 tutoring rules or an SGO scholarship for your families; a verifiable credential can. I am building Proofmark: every 2026-27 placement issued as a credential the kid owns, one parental consent, and funders verify without seeing a ranked list of minors, flat $500 for the season, live before your first competition. Do you have 20 minutes this week to see a sample credential built from a results sheet?

landing page

Turn your results PDF into credentials funders can verify $500 per season covers up to 500 issued credentials, the parental consent flow, and a funder verification page, live before your first competition. Reserve your 2026-27 season slot; refundable until your first credentials issue.

deposit terms

Your $500 prepays the 2026-27 season: up to 500 issued credentials, the one-time parental consent flow, and a funder verification page, live before your first competition date. It is refunded in full until your first batch of credentials is issued. Founding-season programs keep the $500 price for 2027-28.

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.

68

Idea Score, 0-100 · raw 41.8 x 1.61

Open

competition: more crowded than 12% of ideas · headwind x0.94

+2.9

government priorities, secondary (10 matching grants)

Trend

21

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)21
  • 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, rails, olympiads, math, circles, science.

The concept in full

What
Proofmark lets competition organizers and math circle operators issue AMC scores, olympiad placements and science fair results as W3C Verifiable Credentials the kid owns in a wallet. Parents consent once under COPPA; a donor or SGO verifies a credential without ever seeing a public ranking of a named minor. Programs pay per issued credential.
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. 'Olympiad' appears in 4 company pitches in the last 2 years and 'badge' in zero, so the K-12 competition niche is open.
What it rides
Achievements as verifiable credentials: Open Badges 3.0 makes a competition result tamper-evident and portable, which is exactly the proof layer result-triggered funding needs.
Why now
The 2027 federal credit and 2026 529 expansion both require a verifier-checkable record of achievement; 1EdTech dates mass 3.0 adoption to 2025-26, and nobody in the 2025-2026 cohorts issues competition credentials for minors.
Wedge: first customer and entry point
One regional math olympiad and its feeder circles; issue every 2026-27 season result as a credential and give each kid a private progress timeline they can show a funder.
Closest real companies, as the generator saw them
Sertifier and Blerify issue and verify credentials for organizations broadly; Andamio builds an open credential protocol. None handle minors, parental consent flows or funding triggers, which is the whole product here.
Main risk
Competition organizers keep publishing PDF result lists for free and see no reason to pay for issuance.

Similar startups in the directory

Companies whose pitch matches most of the concept's terms (open, badges, issuing, rails, olympiads, math, circles, science).

  • Evidently AIyc S21 · 2021 · Data for AIalive

    Open-source monitoring for machine learning models

  • Brilliant500global · 2011 · Consumeralive

    Operator of an educational platform intended to aid students in mastering mathematics and physics. The company's platform connects students, educators, professionals, olympiad champions, and enthusiasts from around the world, enabling students to master the concepts of math, science, and engineering by solving challenging problems.

  • Joberatoryc W08 · 2008 · B2B SaaSsite down

Public money in this direction

US federal grants and open opportunities matched to the concept's terms.

Other concepts in this collection

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.