About Us

Hi. I'm Ronnie.

Picmonic started when my co-founder Adeel and I were in med school as a way to survive the overwhelming pressure and study load of tough exams. We sketched silly pictures and came up with hilarious stories to help us remember all the crazy bugs, drugs, and diseases. Truth be told, though, I can't even draw a decent stick figure, so we reached out to friends for help!

Jonny & Ozzie Join

A childhood friend Jonny (who is an incredible tattoo artist) joined in and brought along his creative mate, Ozzie. Together, they infused our ideas, sketches, and stories with a new level of creativity that brought everything to life.

Memory Science Meets Tattoo Art

The very first topic and sketch we gave them was Niemann-Pick disease, and the masterpiece they created permanently ingrained the facts into our memory. For every topic that we struggled to remember, we'd create a new picture mnemonic. We started sharing them with our colleagues, and soon, everyone wanted in on our secret weapon.

Idea Turns Into a Company

The problem was, it took a manual process to explain how the text information translated into characters, and how it all wrapped into an elaborate story. We needed an app to facilitate the process so we could share these creations with our friends along with students at other schools and around the world.

So, we created Picmonic, an online learning system, where anyone, anywhere could create, share, and learn with picture mnemonics.

My incredibly supportive, brilliant big brother, Kenny, quit his cushy corporate job to join us and let us start the company out of his garage (eventually taking over the entire house, even giving up his own room!) to help make our idea a reality. If it wasn't for him taking that first leap, we never would have gotten off the ground in the first place.

We launched our first product for 2nd year medical students in 2013. Thanks to students referring other students, it grew faster than we ever expected. In order to make all this possible, we had to hire a team and raise money, and I had to make the difficult and life-changing decision to drop out of medical school. Even though I was just one year shy of getting that MD, I had felt the power and results firsthand. I knew Picmonic had the potential to empower others and make the difference between failing and passing not just in exams, but in life aspirations. None of us could turn away from that.

I chose to stay with Picmonic and learn how to run a company (despite being a nerdy biochem student who, to this day, hasn't taken a business class). It was a tall order, but it's been the most rewarding decision of my life.