A private-tutor matching service is growing fast with zero investor funding

There’s a reason why adults still have nightmares about going back to school. All the hours spent burning the midnight oil have left indelible scars on our subconscious. So when Nicolas Vanhove founded Tutoroo, a startup that matches learners to private tutors specializing in language, he wanted the service to be affordable, convenient, and, most of all, a social experience.

If you’ve ever used a home-sharing service like Airbnb, Tutoroo is basically cut from the same cloth. On Tutoroo’s website, you enter the language you want to learn, your preferred time to take lessons, as well as your current location. In turn, Tutoroo will present a list of private tutors nearby who fit the bill.

Once a tutor has been selected, Tutoroo will contact the student via WhatsApp, and private sessions – usually done in public places – will be set up soon after. There’s a wide variety of languages to choose from, with 64,000 available tutors worldwide, offering languages from English, Japanese and French to Urdu, Xhosa, and sign language.

Once you input your preferences, Tutoroo will show you a list of available tutors nearby.

In 2007, Vanhove moved from France to Montreal, Canada, to study at a business school. Just before he graduated in 2010, he was offered a marketing position in a startup. Seeing how a startup machine operated from the inside was an eye-opening experience for the fresh graduate.

Vanhove then began to have ideas of his own, the first of which came to fruition when he moved to Hong Kong in 2013. There, he launched a website called Get the Deal Now, which connected users to cheap, last-minute deals and promotions in the area. To make ends meet in the notoriously expensive city, Vanhove also taught private French-language lessons on the side to eager local students.

Tutoroo founder Nicolas Vanhove

Soon, he found himself pocketing about US$6,390 a month from his side gig. For a 26-year-old living in Hong Kong at the time, it was enough for a decent living. In fact, he continued to tutor Hong Kong-based students in French via Skype even after moving to Singapore in 2014. Working five-hour days wasn’t a bad deal at all, but things soon got out of hand when more Hong Kong students hired him. Vanhove could no longer keep up.

“Then my friend had a brilliant idea. He asked me, ‘Why don’t you match [these students] to native French speakers in Hong Kong, and you take a transaction fee for every match you make?’ So that’s exactly what I have done,” Vanhove explains.

No tests, no homework – just conversations

Tutoroo started in 2016 with only two cities on the map: Hong Kong and Singapore. Within two short years, however, it has expanded to 19 cities, including Dubai, Sydney, Cape Town, Manila, Jakarta, and Tel Aviv. The startup has also generated over US$731,000 in revenue – not bad for a completely bootstrapped company with zero funding.

While Vanhove firmly believes that just about any native language speaker can be a private tutor, Tutoroo still does extensive screenings and interviews beforehand. For students who want professional language tutors, however, Tutoroo will also link them up – at a steeper price, of course.

Start small, go (very) big