NaAtMaD – News and Articles that Make a Difference

When Biju Mathew moved to the United States in 2000 to work as a software engineer in a Silicon Valley start-up, he hit an unexpected roadblock in his personal life: finding tutors for his school-age children. His kids had been used to tutoring in India and wanted to continue with it in their new environment. Mathew, however, found tutoring in the United States, both traditional and online, very expensive. At anywhere between $40 and $100 per hour, the kind of daily tutoring that his children were used to was unaffordable.

Mathew looked for some way to connect his children to their tutors back in India. He also realized that, like him, many other parents in the United States would want high-quality tutoring for their children at affordable prices. Spotting a business opportunity, Mathew found a seed investor, Saji Philip. He then hired three software engineers in his hometown in Kochi in southern India to work on the software required for e-tutoring. In January 2004, with the technology in place and three tutors on board, he set up Growing Stars and offered math tutoring at $25 per hour.

Over the last few years, online tutoring from India for students across the globe has taken on the contours of an industry. Along with other services in the burgeoning person-to-person offshoring (PPO) space, it has tremendous growth potential: In the U.S. market alone, revenues for Indian tutoring companies are estimated by some to be at $20 million today, and industry players expect the total to reach $2 billion in three to five years. — according to India Knowledge@Wharton