Pitch deck

Editor's Notes

1. Hi, I’m Thomas Hornbeck, one of the co-founders of Tutor Universe.I’m also a PhD student in computer science doing research on college student retention using social network analysis and data mining. I’ve been tutoring college students for more than a decade ago and they keep telling me time and time again, things like, “wow you explained that way better than the professor”.It’s a fact. I am better than your professor. I’m actually better than every professor you’ve ever had.
2. And the research proves it, tutoring is much more effective than the lecture.I turn the C students into A students all the time.Unfortunately most students don’t have access to good tutors and the tutoring market in higher ed is extremely inefficient.
3. The last major innovation was the bulletin board over a century ago.
4. These kids desperately need help, they’re coming to college underprepared and it shows by their high dropout rate.So the question is, how do we provide 150M tutors to serve the 150M college students globally?
5. That’s why we created Tutor Universe!We’re an online social marketplace for tutoring.Don’t drive to meet at the coffee shop or library. We take the commuter out of tutor, so sit back, open your laptop and start tutoring!
6. There’s plenty of tutors to choose from (when you’re not limited to the 6 geeks in your department).
7. Our tutors come from around the world and are vetted with ratings and reviews from the community so there’s no more blind dates.
8. Our matchmaking technology helps you pick the perfect tutor and connect to her online in our virtual study room.And we collect the payments for the tutor from which we take a small cut.
9. I have some amazing Co-Founders working on this with me:Dr. Hung Tran, a fellow tutor and technology expert, who’s built a national scale online open courseware platform in his home country of Vietnam, and Mike Morrison a serial entrepreneur from the E-Learning space who has helped grow and lead several public and private companies with more than 10 exits during his 20 year career.We’re going after a large and rapidly growing market. Worldwide, there are 150MM college students. Online education is growing at a 40% CAGR and tutoring is growing to be a $100B dollar industry.
10. What’s the competition look like?Well, Sylvan is where you take a 3rd grader who can’t read.Tutor Universe is where you go to get live, last minute help on fluid dynamics the night before your final.Instaedu, Wyzant, and Tutorspree are also helping students find tutors online. But Tutor Universe is different, our members are more than just a transaction, we’re NOT an online tutoring center, we’re a community of learners and teachers.
11. We’ve built, commercialized and deployed the technology and since our launch, just 86 days ago, we’ve already delivered over 400 sessions and our community is soon to be 5,000 members strong.Come join us! And let’s sit back, open our laptops and start tutoring! Thank you.