Sometime back (June 23 issue to be precise), The Economist ran a story on Krishnan Ganesh, an entrepreneur who owns TutorVista. The catchline was: If you want to see where Indian outsourcing is going, keep an eye on Krishnan Ganesh.
The Economist story is about the entrepreneurial acumen of Ganesh as he traveled from one online venture of his to another with effortless ease. But here we’ll talk about TutorVista.
I’m sure many readers of this blog who enjoy keeping track of web events would already know about how online tutoring is becoming the next big Indian outsourcing business. Let’s do a little number crunching.
The Economist article quotes a report from research firm Evalueserve (wonder how the alphabet ‘e’ has become conspicuous by its omnipresence!) that says:
Person-to-person offshoring by individuals and small businesses will top $2 billion by 2012, up from some $250 million now. In addition to tuition, other services that are suited to this model include tax planning, interior design, and administrative support.
There are many stories on the web about Indian tutors making it big through TutorVista, such as this one from IBNLive titled – not surprisingly – Want to make fast money? Be a (sic) online tutor.
Though such stories are a perfect foil to pump adrenalin in your body, just be aware of a small caveat. Promising though the possibilities are, exercise caution instead of throwing it to winds. Whatever you do online, it requires hard work. And yes, there are many (I don’t mean TutorVista!) who always wait in the wings to take you for a ride.
There is one another factor to be aware of before you rush in. The American students ready to doll out cash for your tutoring mainly need help in Science subjects – Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and the frightening of them all, Maths.
You an expert on English, History, Geography and suchlike? Well, no hope as yet.
To give credit to TutorVista, it’s not remaining idle with serving the American school/college goers only. As their Indian site reveals, they’re soon coming with customized test prep courses to get you (or your wards) ready for GRE, GMAT, SAT, and TOEFL. Now, how’s that!
Yes, I saw the writeup on Tutor Vista in the Economist (and also blogged about it).
Makes one wonder, where is the peer-to-peer sourcing headed?
How true! Indeed the cyber revolution is sweeping all of us like we never thought possible.
I’d like to compare this against other tutoring sites, such as Vie-Nova, School Trainer, Tutor Easy and Tutor Next. Do you have any comparative data on this?
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