Caleb Brown

Sqworl was a visual bookmarking platform built for educators who needed a faster, more classroom-friendly way to organize and share online resources. Instead of sending students long URLs or relying on them to search for the right site, teachers could create simple groups of links with visual previews and share them with students, parents, or colleagues. That teacher-first simplicity was the product’s biggest strength, and Sqworl ultimately grew to well over 100,000 registered educators.

Technically, Sqworl was built with PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript, with integrations like ShrinkTheWeb for page previews, FastSpring for payments, and SendinBlue for email. But the more interesting challenge was product design: making bookmarking feel visual, intuitive, and genuinely useful in real classrooms. Features like shareable groups, a bookmarklet for quick saving, and alternate viewing modes helped turn a simple utility into a product teachers actually adopted and kept using.

Tech stack
PHP
MySQL
JavaScript
FastSpring API
ShrinkTheWeb API
SendinBlue API