
TutorSpree (YC W11) shuts down - asanwal
http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/08/tutorspree-shut-down/
======
ritchiea
I worked at a startup that was an alternative to TutorSpree and midway through
our attempt at creating traction as a tutoring marketplace I spoke with a VC
who had previously invested in a online tutoring marketplace. He told me he
found the biggest challenge in the space is the sheer number of people who
want your services but do not wish to pay/do not have money to pay. In his
words "There are a few people that will pay anything to give their children
the upper hand and they trick you into believing there is a market for
something like this."

The other problem is the people who will pay the most for tutoring are not
going to use your platform. With Airbnb people find ways to spend money on
travel because they want to travel and Airbnb makes it more affordable.
Starting a business like this you hope the more affordable access to a tutor,
the worse-but-better alternative to high priced tutoring agencies, is your app
but you're competing with increased self directed learning and schools that
are trying to provide tutoring to their students for free (both my high school
and undergrad institution provided this and my HS was public). You're left
with people who don't have free options, some of whom can't afford any private
tutoring and people who want something nicer than the available free options
but don't quite want to spend the money and it ends up being not much of a
market.

------
mooted1
As someone who worked as a private tutor in a high demand area and knows this
industry very, very well, I think everyone is missing an important dimension
here: the existence of dozens and dozens of competitors, both offline and
online, many of which are a.) much bigger b.) provide IDENTICAL functionality.

The cost to entry of building an online marketplace for tutoring is pretty
negligible, to the point that many have done this already. Consider these
alternatives for parents, many of which come up on top in a google search for
tutoring: wyzant.com, universitytutor.com, revolutionprep.com,
veritasprep.com, preply.com, etc. etc.

~~~
d0m
I'm no expert in this field, but it seems to me that it was very similar with
airbnb. I.e. lots of big competitors with the same functionality.

~~~
mooted1
The room rental industry isn't something I'm familiar with, but it seems to me
like Airbnb was strongly differentiated from other services in the industry,
in a way similar to how Lyft and Uber are different from traditional taxi
services.

By contrast, there are tons of websites that offer _exactly_ what tutorspree
offers, both in terms of customer experience and quality of service provided.
When I say identical competitors, I really meant _identical_.

------
nonchalance
Official link: [http://blog.tutorspree.com/post/60655061386/thank-
you](http://blog.tutorspree.com/post/60655061386/thank-you)

------
aheilbut
I was puzzled when they switched from the marketplace model to an agency
model. From the tutors' perspective, it was much better to have direct control
over interaction with the students, scheduling, and the ability to adjust and
test pricing dynamically. They switched to being an agency, which meant tutors
started getting paid significantly less and now had to deal with a middleman
to work out scheduling and decide whether it made sense to work with a
particular student.

~~~
chimeracoder
When I was in school, I tutored a significant amount for some pocket money
(all freelance). Towards the end, I tried Tutorspree for a bit, just to see
what it was like.

I was disappointed, because I really wanted them to succeed for so many
reasons. But scheduling was a nightmare, because going through a third-party,
by definition, will always be less efficient than speaking directly. Also,
after a while, this pattern emerged:

1) They call me (or send me an email), asking me if I could take on a student
for $SUBJECT (usually Python or Machine Learning).

2) I respond and tell them that I can

3) I never hear back from them

I imagine they were calling multiple tutors and trying to find a combination
of low price and good reviews, and then recommending that tutor to the
student, but this process was incredibly frustrating.

I eventually just stopped responding to their emails and phone calls, because
they had a lower signal-to-noise ratio than unsolicited recruiter emails sent
to group mailing lists!

Also, their payment was handled entirely through Paypal, and I would have to
send them an email to tell them that I had tutored the student (so they could
pay me). I almost never logged into the website. For a tech startup, it was
surprisingly reliant on old technologies. Not that this is necessarily bad,
but for a market of college students and (primarily) young tutors, this is a
poor fit.

Finally, they cut they took was HUGE - 40% at one point! That's more than I
pay in taxes, and I live in one of the most heavily taxed cities in the
country! On the very first day, my first client asked me before leaving if I
would be interested in continuing tutoring outside of Tutorspree if we could
split the difference.

 _That_ is a very bad sign for any agency or marketplace: if the fees are so
high that they actively drive away repeat business, you're walking up a down
escalator.

~~~
revelation
Wait, they would ... call you? It's a startup and this is the internet. Whats
the point with taking VC money if you want to be another agency.

~~~
nayefc
Because starting a startup is not about using the "coolest technologies", but
running a business. In many ways, a typical old-fashioned business. Startups
that revolve around the "coolest technologies" will almost always fail.

------
covi
[http://mystartuphas30daystolive.tumblr.com/](http://mystartuphas30daystolive.tumblr.com/)

this one?

~~~
pg
No.

------
davidwhodge
It's not fair for me to second guess this move without knowing details, but
this is a bit odd to me. Here's what I'm trying to figure out... If it was
actually a business, but just a slow growing one they wanted to get out of,
why didn't they hire someone else to run it? What am I missing here?

Anywho, they sound like smart guys. I'm sure they'll move on to something
bigger.

------
arbuge
It seemed like it was scaling pretty well to me, so I was a bit surprised that
scalability was cited as the problem. What went wrong?

~~~
jmaha
Lots of these marketplaces face the same major challenge of offline commerce
once first contact is made. Basically, there's little to nothing to stop the
seller from taking the relationship offline and make 2x the money as the
relationship continues. Services try to mitigate this with value adds like
scheduling services and providing more leads, but it's so difficult to police
that most just try to continue to fill the funnel.

Airbnb is different because the relationship is long distance and trust,
payments, insurance, etc are a much larger issue. It's also typically a one-
time transaction and there's little need to take the deal offline. I'm sure
they deal with this with people wanting to stay beyond their trip date or
trying to book directly, but Airbnb can easily track this stuff with the
scheduling feature and seeing discrepancies when users try to go offline.

~~~
akharris
That definitely is a problem marketplaces face, but it actually wasn't the
problem that we had. When customers started working with us, they stayed with
us - repeatedly booking new lessons and packages.

As strange as it feels to say it, we had a business that could grow over time,
and that's something we'll always treasure. What we didn't have was something
that we could grow at the rate we wanted, at the economics that we thought
made sense.

~~~
stephen
When you say it that way, it basically sounds like greed.

You assert to have had a good, long-term business going; but screw that when
you can take another spin of the VC wheel, right?

I guess if the yard stick is always "become the AirBNB of <random
industry>..."

~~~
yabbadabbadoo
And this basically sounds like passing judgement. Not everyone has to share
the same goals. Some want to go for the billions, others are happy with a few
million. It's not your place to judge someone else's goals as greed. Just like
it wouldn't be Aaron's place to judge your goals as settling.

~~~
stephen
True.

I suppose I was mostly nit picking on the portrayal of "oh, hey, we had a
_good_ business, but, meh, so what."

When, for a lot of people, myself included, that sounds pretty nice. E.g.
(from another reply) 2-3% _monthly_ growth is meh? I suppose...

But, yes, as you said, different goals and circumstances (I of course know
nothing about the company/VCs/etc.).

So, yeah, akharris, sorry for being an ass--shutting down a company definitely
sucks, and you have to do it in front of your friends/hecklers on HN. Good
luck on the next thing.

------
nedwin
I hope they do a more detailed post-mortem. No doubt there is more to this
story - why didn't the business scale, why did they fall out of love with it
etc?

------
1608angels
Aaron is a dick and after meeting him I immediately wondered why anyone would
view him as a good CEO/invest that much money in his empire of greed.

------
seltzered_
wow. just a year ago I was using this site as a role model for another 'dual
market' project.

although, this isn't the first time a similar startup in this space died -
teachstreet survived for a couple years before shuttering and the founders
joining the amazon local team -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teachstreet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teachstreet)

------
ondiekijunior
i think they would have sold it off. Their idea seems amazing and would have
worked even in Kenya where I live and thats saying something. But it seems
they had passion which may serve them elsewhere.

------
ondiekijunior
how about crowdsourced tutoring, where tutors pay for the app, and students
apply and pay for tutors who teach at most 5 students a session? Could it
feasibly work?

