Tutorspree

Tutorspree operated an online marketplace that connected students and parents with independent, local private tutors, initially focused on in-person K-12 tutoring. Users could search tutors in their area, review credentials and profiles, book lessons, and rate tutors afterward; the company also used matching algorithms that paired students with tutors based on location, background and stated preferences. It was frequently described in press coverage as the "Airbnb for tutoring." The service launched publicly at the start of 2011 in San Francisco, Washington DC, New York and Los Angeles, and later added other cities such as Philadelphia.

The company graduated from Y Combinator's Winter 2011 batch and was founded by Aaron Harris (CEO), Josh Abrams and Ryan Bednar (product and engineering). Reported scale by early 2013 was over 7,000 tutors across the United States and roughly 10 employees, against total financing of $1.8 million. Facing a crowded tutoring market, difficulty scaling a local marketplace, and slower-than-expected growth, the founders announced in September 2013 that they were shutting the company down and returning remaining capital to investors.

In January 2014, tutoring marketplace Wyzant — which had just raised $21.5 million — acquired Tutorspree's remaining assets, including its customer database, domain and technology, for an undisclosed price in a strictly asset-based purchase, since the founders and employees had already moved on to other projects. The tutorspree.com domain now serves Wyzant's tutoring marketplace, which advertises a network of tens of thousands of tutors across 300+ subjects and a "Good Fit Guarantee" on a customer's first hour with a new tutor.

Founding story

Sources report differing founding dates: contemporaneous press describes the company as founded in 2011, while other write-ups place the founding in 2010 (one aggregator states September 2010 in New York, another lists 2010 as the start year, and a YC-directory-derived page lists 2006). Aaron Harris, Josh Abrams and Ryan Bednar founded the company together; Harris was a former Wall Street/finance worker who served as CEO, while Bednar led product and engineering and had earlier been an early employee and lead developer at SeatGeek. The team entered Y Combinator's Winter 2011 batch and graduated in January 2011, launching publicly in four cities. In their shutdown letter the founders wrote that they had started Tutorspree "close to three years" earlier with a vision for how private education should work.

Business model

Two-sided marketplace intermediating between independent tutors and students/parents, initially for in-person lessons booked through the platform. Coverage indicates the platform originally took a share of the tutor's fees — one retrospective states an initial take rate of 50% of tutor fees — and that the company later shifted from a pure marketplace toward an "Agency" model after finding that parents did not trust online tutor profiles alone.

Commission on tutoring lessons booked through the platform; one retrospective account describes an initial take of 50% of the tutor's fee. No revenue figures are disclosed in the available sources.

Traction

By early 2013 the platform had recruited over 7,000 tutors across the U.S. and had about 10 employees; over its life it facilitated tens of thousands of hours of lessons with thousands of tutors and customers, according to the founders' shutdown letter. The Y Combinator directory lists a team size of 51.

Latest developments

Following the September 2013 shutdown, Wyzant acquired Tutorspree's remaining assets in January 2014. The tutorspree.com domain today hosts Wyzant's marketplace, which markets 65,000 expert tutors across 300+ subjects and more than 4 million five-star reviews.