About Us

Why?

The Problem

Marqed was created to address a simple problem: the lack of a straight-forward digital annotation tool.

It's 2009 and in 2009 we're using computers. A lot. Students are being assigned readings with PDFs regularly, and if they aren't (classic, hard-back textbook style) they're online reading journal articles and doing research using digital media. If you've used a computer with internet access for a year, you've probably encountered a PDF document.

Right alongside the changes going on with what technology we use to read (strange but accurate) has come changes in our social conscience about environmental awareness and the (wasteful) use of natural resources. Printing is expensive and students know it can be very wasteful--the thing we really want to print is the finished assignment, not ten journal articles we needed to get there.

In short, some of us want a way to read without printing paper, and if possible, read better.

The Solution

We created Marqed to more help our users read faster and more effectively, saving natural resources and money at the same time.

Our Vision

We see Marqed as the digital research tool for students and professionals, serving a large and diverse audience that uses their computers for its most obvious feature: reading and learning.

We want teachers to assign classwork using Marqed, we want students to work collaboratively on projects with the service, and we want professionals reviewing and revising their work with our software.

We want to partner with major universities across North America and Europe to encourage students to make digital reading and annotation ordinary. And we want Marqed to be the first thing people think of when reading digitally, wherever they are, using whatever device is available.

History

Founded

Denny Chapin began the idea of Marqed (first called PDFg) during his last semester in college. He spent most of the summer of 09 looking for a developer/partner/co-founded to begin the project with. He met up with James Schergen, a highschool friend he had worked with before, and in the middle of August of 2009, Marqed was born.

Alpha Release

The Alpha release of Marqed was launched only 6 weeks after the first day of development, on September 25th, 2009. It was as bare-bones as you can get, missing major features, with a general lacking of sex appeal. But that wasn't the point. Denny and James sought to confirm their assumption that Marqed could be a hit and did, signing up over 1300 users in 5 weeks, and saving over 15,000 pages of paper from being printed (that's a 60-foot tree). They began work on their beta 4 weeks later, dramatically improving document quality, functionality, and speed, along with launching a number of useful and important features.

Beta Release

The Beta release of Marqed was launched on December 1st. Margin notes, bookmarks, search, outlines, printing, and rotate were the major features released.

The Team

We're a small startup of two from Seattle, WA making it happen. We don't think we need to be 40, well-funded, or particularly experienced to offer something valuable to our users. So we're going for it and so far so good :)

Denny

I graduated from Beloit College in 2009 having studied Philosophy, which I loved (and needed Marqed for!). I'm a tech-nerd and film geek and I also love eating good food.

James

I graduated from the University of Washington in 2009 majoring in Electrical Engineering, which is where I honed my mediocre coding skills. Like Denny, I grew up and went to high school at Mercer Island, WA (a suburb of Seattle). I'm also a big film geek too and especially really love both contemporary and classic East Asian cinema.

Media

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