Tutorspree (YC W11) Is An Airbnb For Tutoring
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Really? This seems a little stringent. High school teachers are busy teaching high school; PhD's are busy conducting research or teaching their own classes. Of course, some of them are going to pick up tutoring on the side for some extra money, but you're screening out huge portions of the available pool of tutors.
Consider my position; I have a BS in Physics and currently tutor a few students--mostly in calculus and geometry. Of course, I don't have "classroom experience," but I've been tutoring students for a while. I know my stuff, and I know when my students don't. I know how to read their math, catch mistakes, and work through their errors with them. I know how to identify recurring mistakes students make and prescribe problems to remedy those errors. I'm not an educator, but I know the subjects I'm teaching. That's as good as any grad student working as a TA, and they're teaching at the university level.
Why the high requirements? I understand the need for quality, but I sense, more often than not, students are looking for someone who knows the material to correct and guide them. You don't need a PhD to do that.
High requirements are a good way to get started though, that way you can set the bar high, guarantee good reviews and happy customers, then slowly relax the rules. The other way around wouldn't work nearly as well.
I'd say being a college student should allow you to help out high schoolers in the subject of your studies though, likely you are aware of the problems the high schoolers face better than anybody else, likewise high schoolers should be allowed to tutor grade schoolers.
There might be a nice 'certification' gig hidden in here somewhere.
If I see a high schooler with certifications in 58 subjects, those certifications tend to lose their meaning. Likewise, if I have a friend with a Masters in English who taught writing at the college level fail your writing certification, it seems a little funny. That's part of the reason we took a different route.
On a side note, I hope you don't take my questions the wrong way! I'm just curious. And personally, I'd love to enroll myself as a tutor.
That may change over time as our community grows, but our goal here isn't to create a system that is everything to every tutor. We're focused on a specific problem, and are working on a specific solution to that problem. We'll analyze data along the way and modify our assumptions as necessary.
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20100612/articles/6121010
Good luck, guys!
Does the same thing, and it's been around since at least 2007. I'm not in any way affiliated (other than meeting the founder once at a party).
I'm not suggesting that the presences of established competition means that these guys won't succeed, but I think it's good to keep the hyperbole to a minimum -- this is not the only option. Heck...searching for "online tutor" brings up lots of similar sites.
Tech journalism bingo in one sentence!
(Personally, I would really love to have a service that screened potential clients for me. I charge $150-200/hour for GMAT tutoring and I spend way too much time dealing with people bitching about my fees. If I was just given clients who had the ability and willingness to pay with no hassles, I'd be thrilled.)
But, we don't want to restrict our tutors. They decide what they want to offer, and we'll list them for the subjects they want. I'm pretty sure that the community will grow and change over time, but we want to make sure we're hitting a defined problem first to get a full understanding of what works and what doesn't.
Sign up, and we'll definitely be in touch. We love a good tutor.
As for me, I'm in Ann Arbor right now, so I don't think I'd be useful to you yet. :)
We like Ann Arbor. You could be our first tutor out there - that's a nice market share.
Hey, if Ann Arbor can support a $200/hour GMAT tutor, then great. (Boston does have a base of bankers and consultants to whom my services were very attractive.)
And a reaction... I'll be interested to see how well you're able to retain your better tutors. Tutoring clientele grows firstly by word of mouth, and if you're a good tutor, you'll inevitably get referrals. Yet from where I'm sitting there's not a great way to funnel these referrals through TutorSpree (we had a decent way of managing it in our SAT prep world). There's also nothing preventing a tutor from leaving TutorSpree after, say, a few first lessons with an initial cadre of clients. So all those $5 rings of the register are lost.
This, I think, is a distinguishing feature from Airbnb, as Airbnb efficiently connects a seller with a pool of distant buyers. The service itself gets primary credit for the connections rather than the individual venue or venue owners due to the nature of individual travel. Tutoring is a little different. A tutor produces one happy client, and that client serves as a connector (rather than Tutorspree) to a new pool of students.
Nevertheless, the level of support and the quality of the systems you provide to your tutors will play a role in overall retention (client acquisition and payment processing are certainly a start).
Education is ripe for innovation and has a huge market for the brave willing to weather lawsuits from entrenched historical players and slow-moving, bureaucratic administrations.
Interesting.
Some of the best tutors I had in my life had no classroom experience but were exceptional tutors who knew their stuff and knew how to teach it one on one. They were hands down better than the teacher in the classroom--as sometimes the case when students need tutors.
Finding a quality tutor Ratings Weeding out spam Knowing exactly who they are (many french tutors were just french students! I wanted a native or near native speaker).
I wonder though for this business model, what stops people from going around Tutorspree for subsequent lessons to get around the $5 per lesson fee?
One thing that pops into mind is the ratings system. It would be beneficial to continue to do the tutoring through the site in order to build a good profile.
There's also the credit card payment through tutorspree which is nice. (I'm assuming most individual tutors can't process their own credit card payments).
However, there's still a risk that after the first session people will bypass the system.
I really like this though, and can't wait to see this take off. Just sent it out to my tutor.
The "jumping" problem you point out is one of the long term questions for us. You're absolutely right that the ratings system is the biggest carrot to keep tutors in. As you collect feedback, you move up in the rankings. The feedback is not evergreen - so logging lessons over time will help float you up.
On the other side, we believe that the payment and scheduling elements are worth the fee, especially in aggregate to the two sides.
At the end of the day, though, we look at that as a final funnel. We'll tweak and iterate to maximize that final, long term conversion in such a way that unlocks the most value for the folks in the system.
http://thetutorbase.com (used to be dailytutor.com)
I abandoned that project because although tutors were easy to get, the marketing to students didn't scale well, and a paywall didn't work well (you could pay with paypal for up to 3 tutors' names).
I thought up a better business plan, involving an online tutoring service, but at the time no one would invest into anything. Similar idea, I'd say ... that's how I know that raising money and doing joint ventures is about relationships!
PS: Paul Graham where were you in 2006! :)
It even had cool security protection (even by today's standards) like this:
http://www.thetutorbase.com/startover.php?err_desc=You+did+n...!
Okay self-gratification moment is done :)
I couldn't convince anyone to invest into it because I only asked family and friends.
how do you figure?
The one rich guy I talked to did not know much about computers and just said "students have no money, I won't invest" -- this is a guy who wanted a friend of mine to build a botnet for him so he can generate traffic to his lead generation business :P
I tried to explain that when it comes to education, students spend quite a lot, especially when they are in need... but it didn't fly.
The bottom line is, you gotta execute AND have existing relationships with people! Both are important factors in a startup's success.
Just signed up, so if anyone has kids who need math/science/cs help in Boston, look for Alan O'Donnell :)
That led to a full on search for a technical co-founder back in NYC. It took a fair amount of doing (and if you want to know more about finding a great technical co-founder in NYC, happy to discuss some more). After a lot of work, we found Ryan, and it's been great ever since.
I kept meaning to post that to HN, but never actually got around to it. Always happy to answer more questions.
Also do you guys plan on staying in NYC or moving out to California?
We hit a tipping point in early August where we realized we were onto something - no one thing did it, more an aggregation on a lot of signals and a lot of legwork and conversations. We decided the time was ripe to do it for real, and put all of efforts into "finding Ryan."
He handles all the real coding. I pitch in on some of the front end work (taught myself HTML and CSS) - but he's the guy who makes it all come together. Although, I do seem to get stuck with setting up printers and routers.
As for NYC/California: we're out in CA now for YC. We'll do whatever is best for the company when the program ends.
* My picture got stretched vertically when I submitted it. Not a lot, but enough to make me look goofy.
* Can I suggest sorting teaching experience by year? Mine's in a goofy order and I can't see how to fix it.
* It would be nice to have a way to charge a "travel fee" under circumstances determined by the tutor (e.g. to meet at the student's home, or to meet more than 1/2 hour away)
I love the 50% cut once / 5$ thereafter scheme. The 50% cut forever scheme that is prevalent drove me to look for clients on my own, especially since I tend to form lasting relationships with clients.
Small bug: the last two questions in the FAQ under the For Parents And Students section are duplicates.
Thanks for pointing out that bug. We'll fix it.