Catchup: College Retention Early-Help Router
Catchup helps colleges catch academic confusion before grades collapse with course-aware study plans, tutoring referrals, and advisor escalations.
Most college retention systems wake up after the damage is already visible. A student misses two assignments, bombs a quiz, disappears from the LMS, and only then enters the official support workflow. By that point, the student is not just confused about one topic. They are often embarrassed, behind on deadlines, and already telling themselves a story that they are failing college rather than struggling with one specific week. That lag matters because the first year is still the danger zone. The National Student Clearinghouse reported that of the 2.62 million students who started college in fall 2024, only 77.1 percent were still enrolled anywhere by fall 2025, and only 69.1 percent were still at their starting institution. The gaps are wider for the students colleges most want to protect: second-fall persistence was 74.5 percent for Hispanic students, 70.0 percent for Black students, and 65.7 percent for Native American students.
Built for Solo Founders, Weekend Builders.
Suggested stack: Next.js on Vercel, Supabase Postgres, Canvas and Blackboard integrations, Claude or GPT-class model routing, Inngest or Trigger.dev, Postmark or SendGrid, with optional Twilio. Weekend scope: about 10 hours.
The Problem
Most college retention systems wake up after the damage is already visible. A student misses two assignments, bombs a quiz, disappears from the LMS, and only then enters the…
The Solution
Catchup is an early-help router for colleges. Instead of waiting for faculty flags or midterm grades, it gives students a low-friction place to admit confusion the minute it…
Market Research
The market is attractive because both the pain and the budget are real. Category labels vary, but the direction is consistent. Growth Market Reports estimated the broader student…
Competitive Landscape
EAB Navigate is the category benchmark for large coordinated-care deployments. Vendor pricing is custom, but public contracts show the real scale: Portland Community College…
Business Model
Free lead magnet — A downloadable Student Success Guide for first-gen and commuter students, plus a lightweight “am I falling behind?” quiz for colleges to use in orientation or…
Recommended Tech Stack
Next.js on Vercel for the student chat UI, staff dashboard, and campus-branded landing pages. App Router is plenty for a product with mostly authenticated views and a few public…
AI Prompts to Build This
Copy these build prompts into Claude, Cursor, or your AI coding tool. Create a free account to unlock the full research behind them.
1. Project Setup
Create a Next.js 16 and Supabase project for “Catchup,” a college retention early-help router. Requirements: - multi-tenant architecture by institution - student and staff roles - FERPA-friendly audit logging on every generated recommendation - Canvas and Blackboard connector stubs - TypeScript strict mode Return the SQL schema, API route map, and folder structure first.
2. LMS Ingestion and Deadline Parser
Build the ingestion workflow for Catchup. When a student connects a course: 1. Pull syllabus text, assignment titles, due dates, office hours references, and tutoring links from Canvas or Blackboard. 2. Normalize all deadlines into a single table with timezone handling. 3. Extract likely support triggers such as upcoming quiz, missing prerequisite concept, attendance concern, and tutoring availability. 4. Save a compact course summary the chat assistant can use quickly. Include retry logic, connector health statuses, and a manual override for staff to edit or approve extracted resources.
3. Student Help Flow and Escalation Logic
Design the main Catchup chat flow for a student who says something like “I am lost on derivatives and we have a quiz this week.” The system should: - classify the problem - identify the course and nearest deadline - generate a same-day recovery plan with 3 to 5 actions - suggest the most relevant campus resource - draft a professor email in a supportive tone - ask the student to commit to a next step and a check-in time Then define escalation rules: - escalate if the student ignores two nudges - escalate if there is a new missed deadline - escalate immediately for crisis keywords Output the conversation states, database mutations, and edge cases.