Tutoring, part 1 of 3
Teaching math before building a business
It didn't start as a business. It started as one student's exam, and then the next one's.
Context
Somewhere in my three years at school in the UK, I became the person other students came to before maths and physics exams. Not for full courses. For short sessions on exam technique: how to read a paper, where marks get lost, how to manage the time. Word got around.
The problem
Near the end of school I decided to go to college in the US instead of staying in the UK. Most of the industries I cared about were bigger there, and so were the opportunities. US tuition and living costs are also much higher, and I wanted to pay for as much of it as I could myself.
So after I graduated in 2022, I took a gap year and turned the tutoring into a business.
What I did
Starting with one student
There wasn’t a business plan. There was one student with one exam, then a referral, then another. Each lesson was a specific problem: this student, this paper, this deadline.
What I taught
Over the next two years the range grew:
| Area | What I taught |
|---|---|
| AP, A Level and IB | Math, Physics and Computer Science |
| Admissions tests | The SAT, the MAT and the TMUA |
| Interviews | Oxbridge interview preparation |
| Applications | Admissions consulting for US and UK universities |
The MAT and TMUA are math admissions tests used by Oxford, Cambridge and a few other UK universities. I also wrote my own mock exams, so practice looked like what students would actually face.
Selling the path I had just walked
I had sat most of these exams within the previous year or two. I remembered which questions eat time, which mistakes repeat, and what the interview room feels like. That memory was the product.
Pricing below the market on purpose
I had worked at a study-abroad consultancy, and I had seen what families paid for admissions help. I set my prices well below that. Partly that was strategy: a new tutor with no track record has to give people a reason to try. But it was also a decision about who would be able to learn from me.
What I learned
I didn’t learn something new and sell it. I packaged a road I had just walked, while the details were still sharp. A lot of what I’ve done since started the same way: someone wanted to get somewhere I had only just reached, and I knew where the potholes were.
It also set up the next problem. Teaching one student well is a skill. Running thirty students’ worth of lessons is a different job.