In Conversation with Weichang: Online Tuition Business – ManyTutors.com

Weichang, among the three founders, has always been busy with his businesses as a young and pragmatic entrepreneur, other than spending his precious time to help us maintain the site and make things happen in the background. We are glad that he will be sharing his experience in bootstrapping the different startups and creating profit and value for his customers. To start off this series, he will tell us about his online business, ManyTutors.com

SGE: Hi Weichang, good to have you here. Let’s start with your interview. What made you start a tuition business?
Weichang: Actually I had been juggling the idea of forming Manytutors.com more than 8 years ago in my Poly days with my good friend. We were interested in entrepreneurship way before the current drive by the government. All I wanted to do then was to start a business and we decided to choose something that has low overhead but with huge returns. As I was a tutor myself, I understood how this market works and how I could improve the system.

ManyTutors.com was born as an idea then. However, it took me more than 5 years to get down to actually register the company.

SGE: What is the nature of your tuition business?
Weichang: Simple. We match students to home tutors.

SGE: That’s an easy startup. So, in the process, what are the problems you encounter during a tuition business?
Weichang: This is no blue ocean market. We face lots of competition and contrary to common belief, lots of hard work have to be put in to match a tutor to a student. Sometimes, my agents could work for days on finding a quality match only to find out that some other agency has matched our assignment just because they were quicker and less stringent about quality control. Furthermore, tutor quality control is always a problem, and we try to validate them as much as possible.

Another problem is the high turnover rates for tuition agents. Over the pass one and a half year, we must have employed more than 50 agents.

A snap shot of the ManyTutors.com

SGE: What is the starting capital for you to start up a tuition agency?
Weichang: Well, for a one person business being ran at home, not much. In fact, we currently help newbies start out at only $65 per month. Check out ManyTutors Tuition Database for more information. They even get a free website thrown in.

Now, if you are talking about a full fledged registered tuition agency like ManyTutors.com that employs several agents, be prepared to spend at least $10 000.

SGE: Is it very difficult to maintain tuition business in Singapore?
Weichang: As I said, this is a cut-throat business but if you are willing to put in hard work, and maintain your quality at all times, this can be a fully rewarding experience.

SGE: Now, tell us about your success so far with your company.
Weichang: After a few years, we are finally starting to see real profits coming in due to our system and repeated customers. In fact ManyTutors.com is one of the biggest and most organized tuition agencies out there.

SGE: Thank you for the interview, and we will discuss your other businesses the next time round.