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 ability and willingness to pay with no hassles, I'd be thrilled.)
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 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.
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).
That's cool - you may be onto something. I'd wager there's some overlap between subjects and SAT IIs, AP exams, and name-your-state equivalents of New York State's Regents exams, as well. I'd do some thinking and planning on your expansion vectors around those things.
As for me, I'm in Ann Arbor right now, so I don't think I'd be useful to you yet. :)
Well, TechCrunch had an ad for WyzAnt next to your article, so I just signed up for them. :) No, seriously, happy to help however I can.
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.)
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.
(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.)