Memorytricks.com didn't begin as a business idea. It began in 2002, when a close relative of mine was teaching memory techniques to other students in college. The lessons were simple, practical, and surprisingly powerful — and the response was incredible. Students were excited. They were improving. They were sharing the techniques with others. Watching that enthusiasm and potential firsthand changed something in me.
I saw clearly how much easier learning could be if students had the right tools.
That moment stayed with me.
I believed so strongly in the concept that I paid $3,800 for the Memorytricks.com domain name — a huge investment at the time — because I knew this idea mattered. But in 2002, building a site like this would have required a team of programmers, a project manager, analysts, designers, and a large budget. The technology simply wasn't there yet.
So I waited. And I held onto the domain. And I kept the vision alive.
Over the years, I added Memorytricks.org and Memorytricks.net to complete the set. I watched technology evolve, but I also watched something else: the cost of education rising faster than ever.
I have a son who graduated from college and a daughter currently attending Sacramento State. I've seen the financial strain firsthand — tuition, books, parking, student IDs, housing requirements, and everything else that makes getting an education harder than it should be. Many universities even require freshmen to live on campus, adding thousands more to the burden.
It shouldn't be this hard to learn.
I've looked at other educational sites online, and most of them are run by big businesses with one goal: charge as much as they can get away with. Students are treated as revenue streams, not people.
Then came the new age of artificial intelligence.
I own an employment agency specializing in Oracle professionals — developers, analysts, managers, directors, CIO-level talent. And AI has reshaped that industry overnight. Oracle has laid off about 21,000 employees over the past year as part of a restructuring effort closely tied to its push into AI and cloud infrastructure — roughly a 13% reduction in its workforce. Microsoft and other tech giants followed. The landscape changed dramatically. After 44 years, my employment business has been decimated as a result of artificial intelligence.
But AI also made something possible that wasn't possible in 2002.
It made Memorytricks.com possible.
This site has been built by me — one founder, one analyst — with the help of modern AI tools. Claude for coding. Grok for avatar creation. HeyGen for animated lessons. And a few others. A year ago, I could not have built this site. Today, I can.
And I built it for one reason:
This site is for you.
Memorytricks is not here to teach you mnemonics or acronyms for their own sake. It's here to give you anything that helps you remember names, lists, numbers, equations, processes, vocabulary — whatever you need — so you can walk into your quizzes, tests, and finals and come out on top.
The monetary goal of this site is simple: a maximum of $5.50 per term — still about the price of a cup of coffee. My original intent was $4.50, but secure server-side storage is required for the Flashcard system so students can access their decks from any device. This small adjustment covers those storage costs while keeping MemoryTricks one of the most affordable learning platforms anywhere.
No ads. No auto-renewing subscriptions. No surprise fees. No paywalls on essential tools. No exploitation. When we do end up having to pay for hosting, security, and other expenses, we will use payment systems like Venmo — a system that doesn't put your banking at risk, and doesn't utilize a subscription model that you might forget about!
Just learning. Just support. Just a fair chance.
Memorytricks.com exists because education should be accessible, affordable, and honest. And now, after more than twenty years, the technology finally exists to make that vision real.
— Dan Martin
Founder, Memorytricks.com