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."<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
Not YC-backed and no TechCrunch article, but WyzAnt (<a href="http://www.wyzant.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.wyzant.com</a>) is a similar service that's been around for 6 years already. Another recent one is Teachoo (<a href="http://www.teachoo.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.teachoo.com</a>). Tutorspree isn't the first and probably won't be the last start up in this space.
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.<p>Good luck, guys!
"Founded by ... the startup is disruptive in the sense that the tutoring space up until now has been monopolized by..."<p>Tech journalism bingo in one sentence!
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.?<p>(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.)
<i>the screening process favors people who have experience teaching kids in front of a classroom</i><p>Interesting.<p>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.
This is great! I had to trove through craigslist for a while before finding a quality French tutor. This solves the issues of:<p>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).<p>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?<p>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.<p>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).<p>However, there's still a risk that after the first session people will bypass the system.<p>I really like this though, and can't wait to see this take off. Just sent it out to my tutor.
Wonderful idea. This could go way beyond grade school stuff. There are many topics I'd love to learn more about, if there were a good way to find an expert looking to give lessons. Piano, Surfing, Horseback Riding, etc etc.
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<p><a href="http://thetutorbase.com" rel="nofollow">http://thetutorbase.com</a> (used to be dailytutor.com)<p>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).<p>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!<p>PS: Paul Graham where were you in 2006! :)
Awesome! I've been thinking about how much I miss tutoring, and was grumbling just the other day about how annoying it is to advertise your skills in any reasonable way.<p>Just signed up, so if anyone has kids who need math/science/cs help in Boston, look for Alan O'Donnell :)
Some feedback:<p>* My picture got stretched vertically when I submitted it. Not a lot, but enough to make me look goofy.<p>* Can I suggest sorting teaching experience by year? Mine's in a goofy order and I can't see how to fix it.<p>* 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)<p>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.
Very cool. I'm torn on the strict requirements to be listed as a tutor. On the one hand I totally understand the need to filter for quality, and if you still have enough tutors, you've probably set the bar at the right place. On the other hand I am a graduate student and a Teaching Assistant and enjoy helping people learn, although it's not something I'm pursuing professionally.<p>Small bug: the last two questions in the FAQ under the For Parents And Students section are duplicates.
Some feedback. I teach mathematics at a community college. Using a Tablet PC and services like Adobe Connect I could tutor anyone in the world who speaks English well enough. Your service appears to be location based. With the rise of online education it seems to me that limiting yourself to location based tutoring is too limiting. Online tutoring can be done well (it can also be done poorly).
We homeschool our children. I want to find top quality tutors for languages like, French, Greek or Hebrew. Also grammar, math, and comp-sci. I'll keep an eye on Tutorspace. We're in Durham, NC.
This is a good idea. However, I think applying the same concept to babysitters would have much better potential. It's a much bigger market and problem in my opinion.