I'll never forget the moment I realized I was completely screwed.
It was junior year at Monte Vista High School in Danville, California. I'd just moved from Ireland six months earlier, and apparently, there was a standardized test that would determine my entire college future.
The SAT.
In Ireland, we didn't have anything like it. No one had prepared me. My counselor certainly hadn't mentioned it when she was enrolling me in classes. I just showed up to school one day and heard classmates casually talking about their SAT prep schedules, their target scores, their college lists.
I went home that night and Googled "what is the SAT." That panicked Google search was the beginning of a journey that would eventually lead my brothers and me to build Lernos.
The $300 Amazon Cart That Taught Me Nothing
Once I understood what the SAT was, and more importantly, how much it mattered, I did what any desperate teenager would do. I opened Amazon and started adding every highly-rated SAT prep book to my cart.
Total damage: over $300 of my summer job savings.
The books arrived in a massive box. I stacked them on my desk and stared at them, feeling both hopeful and overwhelmed. I'd flip through pages of algebra problems, attempting a few, getting some wrong, reading the explanations, nodding along, and moving on. Two weeks later, I'd encounter a similar problem and miss it again.
I wasn't learning. I was just... going through the motions.
Precalculus Without Prerequisites
Here's something I didn't realize until it was too late: I got placed into precalculus without ever taking Algebra 2. No one told me. I just showed up to class and didn't understand what was happening.
I didn't drop the class. I just worked harder. Late nights teaching myself Algebra 2 concepts from YouTube while also trying to keep up with precalculus.
The Idea: What If We Could Build What We Needed?
We are in 2025. We have AI that can write essays and generate images. Why can't we build an AI tutor that actually teaches?
Not an AI that just gives you answers—those already exist, and they're terrible for learning. We wanted an AI that guides you. That asks questions. That makes you think.
That's why we built Lernos with these core pillars:
- The Socratic Method: Instead of giving answers, Lernos asks guiding questions: "What information does the problem give us?" or "What strategies might work here?" This builds genuine understanding.
- Personalized Learning Paths: The AI identifies your specific gaps and spends more time on weak areas.
- Available 24/7: Students don't struggle conveniently during business hours. They struggle at 10 PM on a Sunday. Lernos is there.
- Parent Dashboard: We built this for transparency, so parents can see exactly where their child is struggling without having to hover over their shoulder.
- Cheating Prevention: You can't just paste in your homework and get answers. It will only guide you through solving them yourself.
The Mission: Making Understanding Accessible
Lernos exists because my siblings and I experienced a broken system. We spent hundreds of dollars on books that didn't help and tutors who did the thinking for us.
Our mission is simple: Make true understanding accessible to every student. Not memorization. Not test-cramming. Understanding.
About the Author:
Ella graduated from UC Riverside with a degree in Computer Science and is the co-founder and CEO of Lernos. Alongside her brothers, she's building the AI learning platform she wishes she'd had in high school.