It started with a sigh. One of those deep, mid-lesson, “tech-is-failing-me” sighs.
I was standing in front of a group of teachers, trying to share a single, simple link to a website which was way too long to share in its entirety. So in came the URL shortener. I won’t name the company I used, but let’s just agree it’s an established name which has been around for a long time.
I put the shortened link on the board, and a minute later, a hand went up. “Uhm, why is it asking me for my credit card details?” Turns out it was simply a weird ad. But still the link was closed and no longer trusted.
My stomach dropped. In that moment, I wasn’t a teacher or trainer; I was an unpaid, unwilling ad-filter. And I had failed.
That frustration was the seed for Yupse. It began as a personal project, a quick website(turned out it took much longer than I though it would as it grew bigger an bigger) to fix my own problem. But the more I built it, the more I realised this wasn’t just my problem. The “free” tools we use in education aren’t free. We pay for them with our students’ attention, our data, and our own professional peace of mind.
The digital tools we use are built for boardrooms, not classrooms. They are designed to track, to monetise, to “growth-hack.”
Yupse became my answer. Its purpose became crystal clear: a safe, ad-free link tool created specifically for educators. No trackers, no ads, no clutter. Just a clean, simple, reliable tool that does what we need it to do.
Oh and let’s sprinkle in some EDU specific features… but more on that later.
Designing for What Teachers Actually Need
When I started designing Yupse, I threw out the typical tech playbook. I didn’t start with a spreadsheet of competitor features.
I started with a different, quieter question:
“What does a teacher, with five minutes before the bell, standing in front of 30 students, actually need?”
The answer, it turns out, was “less, but better.”
The Power of “Less” (On Purpose)
First, let’s talk about the “less.” Most platforms encourage digital hoarding. They give you unlimited links, creating an endless scroll of digital clutter.
Teachers don’t need that. We need clarity. We need to find the link for this period, not the link from three Octobers ago.
With Yupse, the free plan gives you 10 active links. That’s not a bug; it’s the main feature. It’s an intentional design choice. It forces you to be mindful. When you’re done with a resource, you delete it and free up the space. It keeps your dashboard fresh and stops you from ever having to scroll through months of irrelevant links. It’s digital minimalism for the busy teacher.
And if you do need more? The premium plan gives you 100. We’ve found that’s the sweet spot; enough for even the most complex schedules, but not so many that it becomes another digital dumping ground. We pair this with smart ‘tagging’ and filtering, so you can find “Period 3 English” in a single click.
The Tools That Speak “Teacher”
The “better” part came from building features I genuinely needed in my own lessons. These weren’t afterthoughts; they were the entire point. It’s the difference between a tool that’s usable in a school and a tool that’s built for one.
- Custom slugs: So you can say “yupse.com/phonics1” out loud, and even the youngest students can type it.
- Live polls and surveys: For instant exit tickets or checking prior knowledge, without sending students to another third-party site.
- Password protection: For sharing sensitive resources (like an answer key for a sub), or just to gamify a breakout room activity.
- Activation & Expiration dates: To automatically “turn on” a link precisely when the lesson starts, and “turn it off” when the work is done. No more students working ahead or turning in late work.
- QR code generation: Because sometimes the easiest way to share a link is to print it on a worksheet or tape it to a learning station.
- Tags and filtering: The simple “digital file folders” to group your links by class, topic, or unit.
These are the practical, classroom-focused features missing from everything else on the market because, frankly, they don’t help a company “scale”, they just help a teacher teach.
Private and Ad-Free, By Default.
This part is, and will always be, non-negotiable.
You shouldn’t have to hold your breath every time a student clicks a link. You shouldn’t have to worry about what ads are popping up, what data is being tracked, or if some “brand-safe” filter failed and is now showing questionable content.
Yupse is built with schools and young learners in mind from the very first line of code. It’s a walled garden in the best sense of the word. What you share is what they get. Period. No distractions. No ulterior motives.
The Surprise: It’s Not Just for Teachers
As I began sharing Yupse with colleagues and school teams, a pattern emerged. Yes, teachers loved it for their lessons.
But so did:
- Lecturers, who needed a dead-simple way to run audience polls in a 300-person hall.
- School marketing teams, who just wanted clean, brand-safe links for their social media.
- Administrators, who were using our QR codes for everything from event check-ins to parent-teacher night communications.
- Professional trainers, who loved organising all their workshop resources with tags.
It turns out that the simplicity demanded by a chaotic classroom is exactly what professionals in other fields were craving, too.
Why Build Something New When “Options AlreadyExist”?
This is the question I get the most. Because sometimes, the best tools don’t exist yet, at least, not for your specific needs.
And in education, our needs are unique. We have a duty of care that a corporate marketer doesn’t. We need tools that are:
- Safe and student-friendly.
- Easy to explain in 30 seconds.
- Quick to use during a lesson, not just when planning.
- Completely reliable under pressure.
- Respectful of privacy.
- …and 100% free of distractions.
Most link shorteners are built for a different world entirely. Yupse is built for ours.
I’m continuing to refine it, but the mission is set. Every update starts with the same two questions:
- Would this genuinely help in a classroom or school setting?
- Does it make things simpler, not more complicated?
If the answer isn’t a clear “yes,” it doesn’t make the cut.
Sometimes you build something because the world needs it. Sometimes you build something because you need it. Yupse started as the second; a simple tool to fix my own frustration. I’m humbled to see it’s becoming the first.
I hope you enjoy using it as well not its out of BETA: https://yupse.com/
Many have asked so here it is: “yupse” is an informal greeting in my local Flemish dialect, its meant to be quick, no bells or whistles. In other words, perfect for what I’m trying to build here.
