Tutoring With Gooroo

- July 08, 2016

Gooroo: a service designed to help people find the best tutors in their city.

I recently learned about Gooroo on Facebook & signed up as a gooroo out of curiosity. Little did I know, I'd be contacted by the startup & invited to have coffee with them at their office in New York City! During the meeting, they took a 1 minute video for my Gooroo profile & fed me all the donuts & bananas I could carry. They have kept in touch & also referred several potential clients to me. Honestly, I feel like I'm an actual part of the organisation instead of an outsider & very taken cared of.

In this blog post, I will share about how I became a gooroo. If you're a poor student like me & interested in making a little pocket money on the side, this is the solution for you! It's really easy. The only criterion is you need to be in New York. There are no signup or subscription fees.

Launched just a few months ago, Gooroo is like an Amazon for those looking for a tutor. From foreign languages, math & science, to application writing, test prep & coding, there's a tutor on Gooroo for whatever you want to learn. The gooroos are also reviewed & given up to 5 stars by their clients. The service is accessible via it's website, or apps on iOS & Andriod.

There are hundreds of gooroos available so differentiating between them & selecting the best gooroo to fit your individual needs can be a daunting task! On the website & also the apps, you can describe your needs & request to be matched with a suitable gooroo.
However, gooroos have to sign up & create their profiles on one of the apps.

How You Can Be A Gooroo:

a) Creating Your Profile

As you can see, I've already created my Gooroo profile & that is what yours can look like too.
Besides writing relevant information about yourself, you get to indicate your Preferred Time & Locations on your profile.
Don't worry about it too much, your potential clients can always book outside of your Preferred Time & Locations. It's up to you whether to accept those sessions or discuss an alternative with the client.

You also get to list as many subjects to tutor as you want. You can set different prices for different subjects.
Also, snippets of the reviews written by your past clients will be on display. You cannot respond or edit them.

Your profile is the first impression that your potential clients will get of you. If you're not a 5-star top gooroo with loads of reviews, you'll need to put some thought into your "About Me" section. If you're too lazy to put any effort into it, how can your potential clients have any confidence that you'll put any effort into them?

As you plan your "About Me", consider what a person would look for when they search for gooroos:
-teaching/tutoring experience

-educational background

-your performance on the subjects you wish to tutor

b) Gooroo's Personal Touch

Snapshots of the Gooroo office in New York.

I'm very impressed with the personal touch employed by this startup. They go out of their way to make sure that both you & your clients feel taken cared of: Every gooroo is assigned a personal representative at the organisation.

Within a few days of completing my profile, I was contacted by my representative. She invited me to the Gooroo office for coffee. I went & she verified the information I shared on my profile as well as my qualifications to tutor the subjects I've selected.

Then, they took a 1 minute video of me talking about myself & what I had to offer for my Gooroo profile. They have a team who will edit the video & present the best you. They were also very patient with me: I could do as many takes as I wanted & choose to take my video anywhere I wanted. I chose to take the video outdoors at Columbia's Morningside Campus. But, it turned out to be a poor decision because it was too noisy. So, if you view my video, you can't quite hear what I'm saying. Don't record your video outdoors!

After the meeting, they sent me an email asking me to approve a Background Check typical of any kind of employment. This involves divulging your Name, Birthday, & SSN. If you wish, you can decline to do so. Gooroos who have passed the background check will have it indicated on their profile.

Also, after all your information is verified, they will start referring potential clients to you. They're not pushy & they even negotiate better rates for you.

c) Accepting A Tutoring Session

This is what a session request looks like. The app will notify you whenever one of these come in.
I recommend scheduling a conference call with the client beforehand to find out specifically what they want to work on.

Before you can receive any payments, you'll need to set up your bank account on Gooroo. You'll need a bank account number under your name & its routing number. So far so good: the longest I've had to wait for a payment was 4 working days after the tutoring session. They will handle any grievances with the client.

d) Gooroo's Commission

Basically, Gooroo makes their money by charging commissions on what we charge our clients. Our clients only have to pay the hourly rates we've advertised. Gooroo takes a cut out of what we receive. This is a good thing because they are incentivized to see us succeed and get us as many sessions as possible. However, this means that you'll have to take their commission into consideration when you set your rates.

There are 5 tiers with different commission percentages:
1. Basic: less than 5 hours of tutoring in the past month = 25%
2. Beginner: at least 5 hours or more in the past month = 20%
3. Intermediate: 15 hours or more in the past month = 15%
4. Advanced: 30 hours or more in the past month = 10%
5. Pro: 50 hours or more in the past month = 5%

For the services rendered, a commission is a small price to pay for what could potentially be a fruitful long-term symbiotic relationship.

Now that I've shown you the way, what are you waiting for?
Go fourth & set up your own Gooroo profile right now!
Feel free to contact me or comment if you have any questions!