Hiring a private tutor for academic purposes or upgrading skills has been in trend for several years now. Improvement in technology & remote communication which started the shift of learners & tutors from physical classes to online marketplaces has now powerfully accelerated this uptake.
Offline tuition classes tend to overburden the student after a long day at the school. Also, many times especially in remote areas, students have to travel to learn from the best or nearest available tutors. Whereas, online tutoring allows them to find the tutor of their choice within a few clicks.
As per a report by the World Economic Forum, school closures forced by the COVID-19 outbreak impacted around 1.2 billion children. Although online tutoring was steadily growing before the pandemic, the demand significantly increased after the lockdown was imposed in over 120 countries.
For the United States, Google trends since January 2020 reported a major increase in the online searches for virtual tutoring.
The critical time after the lockdown forced the parents to worry about the well-being of their children and online tutoring became the most relevant option for them. At the same time, it also enabled tutors to deliver classes at their convenience.
Some students took the lockdown situation as an opportunity to gain some extra knowledge and enhance their skills. They opted for online tutoring services to make most of the time available.
The Global Online Tutoring Market is expected to grow from USD 6,561.43 Million in 2019 to USD 18,758.24 Million by the end of 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 19.13%, which also means that it is likely to reward edupreneurs with millions of dollars.
How Online Tutoring Marketplace Works
An online marketplace is just like a farmers’ market which is full of sellers and their goods. The only difference is that it is in cyberspace. The online marketplace has multiple merchants who are selling their goods and services. These marketplaces draw in a lot of digital traffic offering greater exposure to the merchants selling online. This is a win-win situation for everyone as the admin earns a good amount of commission from vendors or advertisers.
The world’s well-known brands today are online marketplaces such as Amazon, Uber, or Walmart.
The concept of an online tutoring marketplace is also similar which relies on building a community of tutors where they can share knowledge and earn money on the platform without time or geographical restrictions.
Here is a graphic that explains how an online tutoring platform works:
Here are some of the popular brands that have made name for themselves in the online tutoring business :
- Preply
- Cambly
- Chegg Tutors
- Tutorme
Although starting an online tutoring business is not a walk in the park but there are certain factors that need to be considered to run a profitable online tutoring business.
Let’s review these factors:
- Research In-demand Subjects For Online Tutoring
An entrepreneur must research the subjects in-demand for which students tend to hire tutors online more often. It’s important that your platform should have teachers available for those subjects.
For E.g. In many reports, mathematics has been suggested as the most requested subject in online tutoring.
- Criteria For Registering Tutors
Quality attracts quality. The success of an online tutoring platform depends upon the qualification and experience of the tutors registered on it.
It is recommended to have proper hiring criteria in place which could include evaluating tutors & their credentials like certifications, teaching experience, etc.
- Decide Your Sources of Revenue
Sources of income in a business is what an entrepreneur should be most focused on. For platform owners, there are different modes of generating income which includes:-
- a) Owners can earn from each learning session.
- b) Owners can have subscription packages for both tutors and students.
- c) Premium/Sponsored listings for Tutors offering them more visibility on the platform.
- d) Display ads on the platform for brands.
For. E.g.
Preply charges 100% of commission for the first lesson payment of every student and commission further varies between 33 to 18% depending on completed lesson hours with students, the more lessons are booked less will be the commission.
- Monitor your competitors & industry
One should be aware of the latest trends in the market, strategies used by competitors, areas where they lack, and how to cash in those opportunities. Market analysis helps you to stay one step ahead of your competitors.
- Marketing and Launch Plan
Marketing is important to reach your potential customers and let them know why they should prefer you over your competitors. You can make use of different digital channels and social platforms to market your platform.
You can plan a few ideas in your launch plan for better exposure such as offering discounts or free lessons.
- Selection of Right Technology Solution To Build Your Platform
In any online business, the effectiveness of your web platform or application plays a critical role & decides the direction your business will head in the future.
Needless to say, the platform should be secure and user friendly.
Gone are the days when you need to hire a development team and build a tutoring platform from scratch. The number of ready-made solutions in the market allows you to launch a fully-featured online tutoring platform within a few days.
For a user-friendly online tutoring platform, it is important to choose the right readymade solution. The next question which arises in an entrepreneur’s mind is how to choose the right solution to build your own tutoring brand.
Factors to consider while selecting a solution to build your platform –
- Does the solution support all the key features?
- Is the solution customizable if there is a need to add extra features & functionalities?
- Does the solution come with Technical Support?
- Experience of the company offering the solution.
- Client reviews and testimonials
- Design and UX of the solution
One such recommended solution is Yo!Coach a product of FATbit Technologies which meets all the above-mentioned selection factors and can be an ideal option to set up an online tutoring marketplace. It is a fully customizable solution with rich features and advanced functionality. The solution is capable enough to ensure an interactive and efficient collaboration between the learners and tutors. The marketplace powered by Yo! Coach notifies both students and teachers for any session booked as per their respective time zones.
Yo! Coach allows complete transparency between the tutors and learners with its ratings and review features. Learners can rate and share their feedback after the session with the tutors which will be reflected in the tutors’ profiles.
Integrated with third party API’s, Yo! Coach supports features like video chat, workspace, whiteboard, textpad, screen sharing, sharing audio/video files, and many more. These features boost the interactive capabilities of the platform & deliver a great learning experience.
Conclusion
Online tutoring business is experiencing high demand and is expected to generate great value for all stakeholders (students, parents, tutors, and platform owners). It’s an ideal time for aspiring entrepreneurs to launch an online tutoring platform. They need to take care of certain factors mentioned above in the post to ensure long term success
