Website

Students select their city and search for tutors, filtering by desired subject, and the tutors are sorted by experience (total minutes) or quality, based on tutor evaluations. Each tutor has an info page, including the subjects they teach, along with experience level and quality level for each subject. The info page also includes major intersection (closest to where they live) and availability times (days of week, mornings, afternoons, and/or evenings). When contacting a prospective tutor, the student selects the desired subject(s), enters an optional message, and clicks on Contact. The tutor then receives an automatic email, and logs on to the website and responds, if desired. Every lesson is delivered to the student in a form which is easily displayed on a smartphone.

Revenue and Expenses

All revenue comes from the 7 percent cut of the paid tutors' earnings. Fixed expenses include web hosting fees and Google AdWords advertising. All partners (the highest ranking of the 6 classes of users) as well as the senior developer (the founder) receive an equal share of the profits. For the first 6 months only volunteer tutors in Toronto will be recruited.

TutorML Curriculum

All curricula exists in the form of Wiki-style documents, similar to Wikipedia articles. My own Wiki-style markup language (called Tutor Markup Language, or TutorML) is used to both read and write the lessons. Content-creators use the Windows Writer App, and students use the Android/iOS Reader Apps to display the lessons. Content is encrypted to prevent plagiarism. TutorML adds support for tables, grids, and multiple columns. Grids are used for entering mathematical expressions, and adjacent grid cells may be merged to accommodate oversized characters (superscripts/subscripts are handled by adding a vertical offset of half a character).

Mentors

AppaTeach has 6 classes of users: developers like me who maintain the website, partners who decide which tutors can become mentors, mentors who are tutors which supervise content creators and other tutors, content creators who write the lessons used by the tutors, tutors who are supervised by mentors, and students. Every tutor who is not a mentor is assigned a mentor. Those tutors who have logged the most hours (in the top 20 percent) and with superior ratings as given by their students (in the top 40 percent) are eligible to become mentors. When tutors are assigned to mentors, preference is given to those mentors who have the fewest tutors assigned to them. Mentors don't have to pay 7 percent of their earnings to AppaTeach. Those mentors who have logged the most hours (in the top 20 percent) and with superior ratings as given by their students (in the top 40 percent) automatically become partners.

Competition

AppaTeach faces at least 3 competitors: KhanAcademy.org, UniversityTutor.com, and Tutoring-Beyond-Borders.com. Khan Academy has thousands of online courses, but little or no face-to-face instruction. University Tutor has over 60,000 tutors in over 7000 cities, but no curriculum library (the tutors, paid only, are on their own). Tutoring Beyond Borders is free but only operates in the Kitchener area.

Business Plan: Steps

1. AppaTeach Mandate:
   1. Link paid and volunteer tutors with those needing instruction
2. Learn Django
3. Develop much of website
4. Approach West Neighbourhood House as partner organization
5. If successful, go to Step 8
6. Approach 3 contacts who are educators (Ellen Davis, Eric Davis, Carla Silver)
7. Curriculum development done in-house
8. Hire Core Curriculum Developer (CCD)
9. CCD writes literacy curriculum at the rate of $20/hour
10. Mike or CCD writes math curriculum
11. If work done in-house, Mike pays CCD
12. Otherwise partner organization pays CCD, Mike reimburses partner organization
13. Curriculum written using Word, then converted to PDF
14. Continue developing website
15. Partner organization assists in writing funding proposal to be submitted to Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities
16. Hire Co-Founder using Charity Village (full-time or part-time)
17. Funding proposal is submitted after website is completed and ready to launch in Step 20
18. Convert curriculum to TutorML
19. Develop TutorML Reader, an Android app (eventually develop iOS version)
20. Launch website
21. Develop TutorML Writer, a Windows app
22. If funding doesn't come through then Co-Founder position becomes part-time
23. Funding to pay salary of Co-Founder for one year
24. Funding to be renewed annually at discretion of funder
25. Co-Founder position, upon failure of annual funding to be renewed, becomes part-time
26. Mike is responsible for covering all operating expenses (except salary of Co-Founder) during the first 2 years after launch of website
27. After 2 years additional funding to pay operating expenses will be requested from the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities
28. Revenue Sources:
    1. Government funding (see Step 17)
    2. Mike pays operating expenses (see Step 26)
    3. Royalties: paid tutors pay royalties to AppaTeach consisting of 7 percent of the amount they charge to their students
29. Operating Expenses:
    1. Salary of Co-Founder
    2. Web hosting: $2000/year (dedicated server) rising to $7500/year and up (cloud hosting) after 5 years
    3. Google AdWords advertising: $5000/year?
    4. Remuneration of partners (see Step 30): total profits (revenue minus expenses) divided by no. of partners
    5. Calculation of partner remuneration (based on p = 100):
       1. Let k = 52 weeks/year x 7 percent = 3.64
       2. Let t = no. of paid tutors = 1000
       3. Let x1 = no. of tutors/mentor = 10
       4. Let x2 = no. of mentors/partner = 10
       5. Let p = no. of tutors/partner = (x1)(x2) = 100
       6. Let n = no. of partners = t / p = 10
       7. Let h = hrs/week = 5
       8. Let r = rate/hr = 25
       9. Let c = salary of co-founder = 50,000
       10. Let f = fixed costs = web + adv = 7500 + 5000 = 12,500
       11. Gross revenue = 5 hours/week/tutor x $25/hour x 52 weeks/year x 0.07 = $455/year/tutor
       12. Gross annual revenue/partner = $455/tutor x 10 tutors/mentor x 10 mentors/partner = $45,500
       13. Assume that 1000 paid tutors exist
       14. Gross revenue = $455/year/tutor x 1000 tutors = $455,000/year
       15. Operating expenses = salary of Co-Founder + web hosting + AdWords advertising = $50,000 + 7500 + 5000 = $62,500/year
       16. Profit = $455,000/year - $62,500/year = $392,500/year
       17. No. of partners = 1000 tutors x 0.1 mentors/tutor x 0.1 partners/mentor = 10
       18. Adjusted no. of partners = 10 + 2 = 12 (Mike and the partner organization count as 2 partners)
       19. R = Net annual revenue/partner = profit divided by 12 = $392,500 / 12 = $32,700
       20. R = khrp(n / (n + 2)) - (c + f) / (n + 2)
    6. Calculation of partner remuneration (based on p = 60):
       1. Let f = fixed costs = web + adv = 2000 + 5000 = 7000 (for n = 1 up to 5)
       2. And f = 7500 + 5000 = 12,500 (for n > 5)
       3. Let x1 = no. of tutors/mentor = 10
       4. Let x2 = no. of mentors/partner = 6
       5. Let p = no. of tutors/partner = (x1)(x2) = 60
       6. Let t = no. of paid tutors
       7. Let n = no. of partners
       8. Then t = pn = 60n
       9. n = (1,2,3,4,5,10)
       10. n' = n + 1 = adjusted value of n (partner org. counts as a partner)
       11. R = khrp(n / n') - (c + f) / n'
       12. R = khrp(n / (n + 1)) - (c + f) / (n + 1)
       13. khrp = 27,300
       14. R1 = (27,300 x (1/2)) - (57,000 / 2) = -14,850
       15. R2 = (27,300 x (2/3)) - (57,000 / 3) = -800
       16. R3 = (27,300 x (3/4)) - (57,000 / 4) = 6225
       17. R4 = (27,300 x (4/5)) - (57,000 / 5) = 10,440
       18. R5 = (27,300 x (5/6)) - (57,000 / 6) = 13,250
       19. R10 = (27,300 x (10/11)) - (62,500 / 11) = 19,136
       20. R1000 = (27,300 x (1000/1001)) - (62,500 / 1001) = 27,210 < 27,300 for all n
    7. Calculation of part-time Co-Founder remuneration = partner remuneration:
       1. Profit = $455,000/year - (7500/year + 5000/year) = $442,500/year
       2. No. of partners = 10 + 3 = 13 (Mike, Co-Founder and partner organization count as 3 partners)
       3. R = Net annual revenue/partner = profit divided by 13 = $442,500 / 13 = $34,038
       4. R = khrp(n / (n + 3)) - (f / (n + 3))
    8. Calculation of part-time Co-Founder remuneration (based on p = 60):
       1. n = (1,2,3,4,5,10)
       2. n' = n + 3 = adjusted value of n
       3. R = khrp(n / n') - (f / n')
       4. R = khrp(n / (n + 3)) - (f / (n + 3))
       5. R1 = (27,300 x (1/4)) - (7000 / 4) = 5075
       6. R2 = (27,300 x (2/5)) - (7000 / 5) = 9520
       7. R3 = (27,300 x (3/6)) - (7000 / 6) = 12,483
       8. R4 = (27,300 x (4/7)) - (7000 / 7) = 14,600
       9. R5 = (27,300 x (5/8)) - (7000 / 8) = 16,188
       10. R10 = (27,300 x (10/13)) - (12,500 / 13) = 20,038
       11. R1000 = (27,300 x (1000/1003)) - (12,500 / 1003) = 27,206 < 27,300 for all n
30. Partner Definition:
    1. Mentors are tutors who supervise content creators and other tutors
    2. Content creators write the lessons used by the tutors
    3. Partners decide which tutors can become mentors
    4. Those tutors who are in the top 20 percent of hours logged, and in the top 40 percent of the ratings given by students, are eligible to become mentors
    5. Those mentors who are in the top 20 percent of hours logged, and in the top 40 percent of the ratings given by students, automatically become partners

Business Plan Background

Mike is currently a volunteer computer tutor at West Neighbourhood House, and was a volunteer tutor at Fred Victor for 5 years, teaching math, computers, and literacy. West Neighbourhood House also employs volunteer tutors who teach math and literacy.

Mike's contacts who are educators are: his cousin Ellen Davis, a retired ESL teacher; his cousin Eric Davis, a senior administrator at the University of the Fraser Valley; and Carla Silver, a high school music teacher.

Roles of West Neighbourhood House

The 1st role is to assist Mike in hiring the Core Curriculum Developer (CCD), giving that temporary employee access to your math and literacy curricula. The CCD writes literacy lessons (and optionally math lessons) based on your curricula, but does not plagiarize that curricula. In other words, the lessons are similar to your curricula but not identical to it. The CCD is paid approximately $20/hour. Mike reimburses West Neighbourhood House for the wages of the CCD plus 10 percent to compensate WNH for its overhead expenses.

The 2nd role of WNH is to assist Mike in applying for funding to the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. The 3rd role of WNH is to give their tutors the option of becoming AppaTeach tutors, and recruiting those AppaTeach tutors who live in Toronto and wish to become WNH tutors.

Benefits to West Neighbourhood House

1. West Neighbourhood House receives the same amount of money that each partner receives. Please see Business Plan: Steps (Steps 29.5 thru 29.8) for approximate values.
2. When tutors and students log in to the AppaTeach website, a link to the Learning Programs web page at westnh.org is displayed, assuming that the person logging in lives in Toronto. All users can click on "Donate to Partner", which displays info about West Neighbourhood House and a link to its donation web page.
3. All WNH tutors have the option of becoming AppaTeach tutors/content-creators, and all AppaTeach tutors/content-creators who live in Toronto have the option of becoming WNH tutors.

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Implementation Steps

1. User Authentication
2. Classes of Users
3. Subject Tree
4. Skills Table
5. Lesson Table
6. Scheduling
7. Tutor Search
8. Tutor-Student Messaging
9. Tutor Evaluation/Timekeeping
10. Misc. Tables:
    1. Cities
    2. Prerequisites
    3. Grade Scores
    4. Table Edits
11. Tutor Royalties
12. Partner Remuneration
13. User Hierarchy
14. TutorML Reader App
15. TutorML Encryption
16. TutorML Writer App
17. Convert Reader to iOS

About Me

I am Mike Hahn, the founder of AppaTeach. On August 9, 2014 I began working on AppaTeach, and then I started a different project called Lyvathon on January 4, 2015. On January 24, 2015 I resumed working on AppaTeach. I was previously employed at Brooklyn Computer Systems as a Delphi Programmer and a Technical Writer (I worked there between 1996 and 2013). Just prior to starting Lyvathon I quit my job as a volunteer tutor at Fred Victor on Tuesday afternoons, where for 5 years I taught math, computers, and literacy. I'm now a volunteer computer tutor at West Neighbourhood House. My hobbies are reading the news at cbc.ca and going for walks in my neighbourhood. About twice a year I get together with my sister who lives in Victoria. She comes here or I go out there usually in the summer. At those times I'm much more active, but most of the year I tend to lie on the couch a lot, and not be very active. I do, however, visit my brother once a month or so and listen to or visit my disabled friend (she has schizophrenia and talks to me on the phone).

Contact Info

Mike Hahn
Founder
AppaTeach
2495 Dundas St. West
Ste. 515
Toronto, ON  M6P 1X4
Canada

Phone: 416-533-4417
Email: hahnbytes (AT) gmail (DOT) com