Building an online coaching agency for IELTS test prep | Hacker News Reader

Building an online coaching agency for IELTS test prep

productizedstartups.com

46 pointsvinrob9212 comments

Interviewing successful small businesses and solopreneurs has become a cottage industry. This is a good trend, inspires others to attempt it!

These are the sites I could think of, off the top of my head:

https://www.indiehackers.com/

https://www.nocsdegree.com/

https://www.projecthatch.co/

https://www.starterstory.com/

I checked out a preview lesson and was surprised the audio quality was poor: bad mic, sirens in the background, etc

This is not to disparage the course or the business: it seems to work for the OP and her students.

I think this is a case of pure product market fit. Where you make money despite how poor the experience is as long as the product fulfils a need.

There is a problem, you fill that problem and people are willing to pay to have that problem solved.

"Quality of experience" really starts playing a role with competitors.

seems very poorly written. how can she expect to coach IELTS?

i didn’t get that at all. i don’t usually read business/marketing fluff but her answers were clear and to the point.

A random sentence:

'To earn money to support myself and approve “Asians are NOT stupid”, I started to look up information online [....]'

She seems to be mixing up 'approve' and 'prove that'.

Her writing is clear, to the point and gets the message across with a minimum of grammatical errors. I don’t know what the target grade is for her students but it’s below a perfect native level score. If she’s intimately familiar with the grading rubric I can easily believe she can coach people on how to speak, read and write to a level that’s sufficient to get the grades necessary for her client’s purposes.

Is such tax saving by registering in Singapore possible for all online businesses?

I've just relocated to Singapore from Australia, and there has to be a lot more to the story than just "we registered a Singapore company".

If you are resident in Australia (or the company's primary business operations are conducted out of Australia), Australia will tax you - doesn't matter if your company is nominally registered in Singapore.

I assume the founder relocated to Singapore - if she's just running the Singapore company while living in Australia, she's just not complying with the tax law.

> If you are resident in Australia (or the company's primary business operations are conducted out of Australia), Australia will tax you - doesn't matter if your company is nominally registered in Singapore.

Well you'll be taxed on your income, but the company won't be taxed by Australia.

Not true. If your company is deemed to be a tax resident of Australia, it will be subject to Australian tax, even if it's a foreign-registered company.

I can't register a Singaporean company, conduct all business physically from Australia as sole director under the banner of that company, and not pay Australian tax on the company's income (or GST).

Well, of course you can try and do this - but it's illegal, and if the ATO finds out, you're in trouble.

It doesn't matter that you don't pay yourself a salary or declare dividends. If the company's principal operations are conducted physically from Australia, it will be deemed to be an Australian tax resident.

Now, different story if the company has a physical presence in Singapore - say, your cofounder/codirector works there with a few other employees). Then, the company's Singaporean presence might be substantial enough that the company is not deemed to be a Australian tax resident. Then you would only pay Australian tax on your personal income/dividends.

Similar story if you're the only one conducting the company's operations, but you do so physically outside Australia for more than 6 months of the year.

IANAL.

In some jurisdictions (e.g. Hong Kong) companies pay tax only on domestic income. So if all your customers are outside Hong Kong, there's no tax to pay.

However, the owners of the company will usually have to pay income tax on money they receive (as salary or dividends) wherever they are tax resident.

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