Our Mission
We started CoStudy because group projects are broken, and not by accident. The structure of most group assignments practically guarantees that some students coast, some carry, and nobody learns to actually work together. We wanted to fix that.
Our Story
CoStudy started at Boston University in 2019 with a simple question: why do group projects, one of the most common teaching methods in higher education, fail so reliably?
The research was damning. Group work produces 2:1 negative-to-positive experiences. It reinforces existing inequities. It teaches dysfunction that students carry into their careers. Professors assign it hoping to build collaboration skills, but without structure, they're more likely to build resentment.
We found the answer in the research on balanced reciprocity, psychological safety, and brave spaces. Peer evaluation is the one place in group work where accountability, feedback, and growth can actually be built in. CoStudy makes it simple.
Six years later, CoStudy is profitable, bootstrapped, and used by professors at universities across the country. We've never taken external capital. We've never charged students. And we're just getting started.
Peer evaluation is the one place in group work where accountability, feedback, and growth can actually be built into the process.
The Founders
Brock Nelson
Co-founder & CEO
Brock co-founded CoStudy at Boston University after getting fed up with how little instruction students got around collaboration in group projects. He brings the educator perspective to everything we build.
Boston University, Mechanical Engineering · San Francisco State University, M.A. Special Education (Fall 2026)
Henry Kaufman
Co-founder & CTO
Henry is a design engineer who builds the product. He handles everything from the interface design to the code that runs it.
Boston University, Computer Science
What We Believe
Peer evaluation isn't just a grading tool. Done right, it's how students learn to give feedback, receive it, and grow from it.
Every student deserves a group experience that's fair. That means accountability without surveillance.
Individual professors should be able to try CoStudy without a procurement cycle or a budget line. We'll never charge students to use a tool their professor assigned.
We're building brave spaces, not safe ones. The goal is growth, not comfort.
We listen to the research. CoStudy's design is grounded in peer-reviewed work on team dynamics, educational equity, and psychological safety.
Research Foundation
CoStudy isn't built on hunches. Our platform design is grounded in peer-reviewed research from Amy Edmondson on psychological safety in teams, Arao & Clemens on the distinction between safe spaces and brave spaces, and Cook-Sather on student-faculty partnership in pedagogical design. Every question template, every anonymization decision, and every feedback framing choice traces back to published work on what actually makes collaboration productive and equitable.
See the full research foundation →Trusted by professors at
IU Kelley School of Business · Boston University · Cornell · Carnegie Mellon · NYU · USF · Boston College · Fordham
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