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Tutorspree (YC W11) Is An Airbnb For Tutoring

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Re: Tutorspree (YC W11) Is An Airbnb For Tutoring

#41

Post by akharris »

milkshakes wrote: post #40
akharris wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure: Josh and I have known each other for years through mutual friends. We started working on the idea that would become Tutorspree at the beginning of the summer, and as we realized we were onto something, started figuring out how to round out our team. 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…

i'd like to know more about finding a tech co-founder in nyc, how can i reach you?

feel free to drop me a line: aaron at tutorspree dot com

Re: Tutorspree (YC W11) Is An Airbnb For Tutoring

#42

Post by timr »

rottencupcakes wrote: post #6

A truly brilliant idea. The alternatives are essentially an unverified tutor off of craigslist or an agency that takes 50% of the tutor's money. With a good feedback system in place, I would be surprised if this doesn't become the standard way to find a tutor. Good luck, guys!

"The alternatives are essentially an unverified tutor off of craigslist or an agency that takes 50% of the tutor's money."

http://www.teachstreet.com/

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.

Re: Tutorspree (YC W11) Is An Airbnb For Tutoring

#43

Post by genieyclo »

sachinag wrote: post #8

I'm curious why you're doing actual subjects and not doing test prep. Did your customer development say that people prefer Kaplan et al for SAT, SSAT, PSAT, ACT, etc.? (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 abilit…

Lots in the test prep online space already; Brightstorm, Knewton, Grockit,PrepMe, etc. Very lucrative still.

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.

Re: Tutorspree (YC W11) Is An Airbnb For Tutoring

#44

Post by ImperatorLunae »

From the FAQ: "...only experienced educators - PhD's, high school teachers, special education instructors, and professors with real classroom experience - can list themselves on Tutorspree."

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.

Re: Tutorspree (YC W11) Is An Airbnb For Tutoring

#45

Post by jmm »

akharris wrote: post #12
sachinag wrote: post #8

I'm curious why you're doing actual subjects and not doing test prep. Did your customer development say that people prefer Kaplan et al for SAT, SSAT, PSAT, ACT, etc.? (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 abilit…

It's a question we keep playing around with. Our customer dev work said that the subject matter market was, far and away, the most underserved/archaic - so that's where we decided to focus. 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 hitt…

I co-managed a SF/LA test prep company up until recently, so if you any questions specific to test prep, hit me up.

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).

Re: Tutorspree (YC W11) Is An Airbnb For Tutoring

#46

Post by makmanalp »

ImperatorLunae wrote: post #44

From the FAQ: "...only experienced educators - PhD's, high school teachers, special education instructors, and professors with real classroom experience - can list themselves on Tutorspree." 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 so…

Yeah, reviews and ratings should be indicative of quality. The best and largest tutoring market imho is middle / highschool students and is mostly satisfied by college students.

Re: Tutorspree (YC W11) Is An Airbnb For Tutoring

#47

Post by rottencupcakes »

ImperatorLunae wrote: post #44

From the FAQ: "...only experienced educators - PhD's, high school teachers, special education instructors, and professors with real classroom experience - can list themselves on Tutorspree." 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 so…

You gotta start somewhere. High education is probably a decent signal of quality, and thus a good, cheap way to verify quality early on. They could then increase the size of the tutor pool after they have enough highly rating, vouched for tutors to guarantee a quality experience.

Re: Tutorspree (YC W11) Is An Airbnb For Tutoring

#48

Post by EGreg »

Funny, I had this idea back in 2006 when I discovered web development. This was before AJAX, I was pretty proud of having invented dynamic checking myself. Hopefully the site still works -- it was one of my first attempts at PHP

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! :)

Re: Tutorspree (YC W11) Is An Airbnb For Tutoring

#49

Post by EGreg »

EGreg wrote: post #48

Funny, I had this idea back in 2006 when I discovered web development. This was before AJAX, I was pretty proud of having invented dynamic checking myself. Hopefully the site still works -- it was one of my first attempts at PHP 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 w…

Wow, this might seem arrogant to say -- but I haven't seen this site in a long time, and I have to say I am pretty impressed ... by my past self, considering that this was my first website made with PHP ... I didn't know much back then. All the ajax was done with iframes. Try signing up as "Greg" (the username's taken).

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 :)

Re: Tutorspree (YC W11) Is An Airbnb For Tutoring

#50

Post by bvi »

EGreg wrote: post #48

Funny, I had this idea back in 2006 when I discovered web development. This was before AJAX, I was pretty proud of having invented dynamic checking myself. Hopefully the site still works -- it was one of my first attempts at PHP 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 w…

Sorry to break it to you, sport, but nobody cares about your "ideas" if you don't execute.
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