Starting a tutoring business... crazy or crazy amazing?

March 2, 2016 2:56 PM

I am an English teacher, and have been for 13 years. My husband and I are in the process of moving to a location that is an hour away from my current school. I am well paid and moderately content there. So my options are: spend two hours a day in a car to teach; find a new teaching job (which causes me to break into hives); start my own tutoring business.

If I am going to teach, I figure that I might as well stay in my current position. We are a school in transition and it's been a tough year, but overall I've enjoyed working there. However, my current commute is 20 minutes. I cannot imagine driving an hour for this job.

Someone recently planted the seed of starting a tutoring business in my new location, which is in New Hampshire, in a town with a prep school and a public high school. There is a community college nearby too, but no Universities. So there are plenty of students who want to do well in the area.

Taking this leap would mean taking a leave of absence from my current teaching job (to have something to come back to if tutoring doesn't pan out) and making things complicated in staying certified (my certification expires in 2017). I am excited and nervous and overwhelmed by this possibility.

Is this a crazy idea? How does one go about this? I have tutored for years, charging $50 an hour. If I were to tutor 20 hours a week, that would be great. Is this a realistic expectation? Do I have to pay taxes as a "business"? Do I need insurance? I have a poor relationship with technology, and have never even Skyped. Is this a huge hinderance? I see things like Wyzant online that helps people find you as a tutor then takes a hefty chunk of your earning. Is this a place to start, or not worth the hefty chunk?

My mom is a bookkeeper, so she can help with the pesky financial tracking stuff.

Thank you for all feedback!

posted by hippychick to Work & Money (16 answers total)

I sometimes work as an ESL tutor. I hate Wyzant; getting started with them is a massive pain and they take a huge cut. I put an ad on Craigslist and have found work that way--then I imagine word of mouth would help a lot.

You will have to pay self-employment taxes, so assume that at least 1/3 of that $50 would be going to the government. But your mom sounds like an amazing resource for that!
posted by chaiminda at 3:02 PM on March 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

I do wyzant too but they take a big cut unless you put in a lot of hours. They have pretty good search engine optimization and I don't mind receiving random leads without a lot of effort. If your mom is a bookkeeper it shouldn't be too hard to manage tracking mileage and income. If you're in a competitive area you could probably swing 20 hours a week. You don't have to pursue anything online most of the students seem to prefer face to face.
posted by andendau at 3:09 PM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've tutored privately, and yes, after a certain yearly $ you're considered a business and may have to do quarterly taxes, get a business license/pay a business tax in your home, etc. But you can also deduct a dedicated home office, which helps. It was still a real shock the first time I had to pay taxes, though; it was a big chunk. I also found that my pay was unpredictable from month to month. If your household budget is tight, this may cause problems.

Nolo Press has some useful books on deductions, being a sole proprietor, etc. I recommend looking into those. For my first year, I hired an enrolled agent to help me understand the details of taxes etc. It was definitely worth the money I paid her.

It's better to get hired directly by clients. Make a contract and make clear agreements about what happens if/when you cancel and they cancel. Make sure their goals are clear and attainable.

If you make a website and/or Craigslist post, emphasize your qualifications, training, degrees, and experience. You will be competing with high school students and retirees who are charging $10/hr. But don't try to match that; if anything, charge more than you think, which demonstrates your value. (I did have clients who found me through my website after they googled tutoring + subject name + name of city!)

The only tutors I know who are making the equivalent of a full-time job are the ones who offer something unusual and specific (e.g. accent reduction) or who have negotiated contracts with businesses.
posted by wintersweet at 3:09 PM on March 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

wyzant gets lots of complaints about their operation
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/wyzantcom-c427210.html
posted by Postroad at 3:24 PM on March 2, 2016

Have you researched the market yet? How does that look? Are there other tutors in your subject nearby? How much are they charging? How could you stand out?

You didn't say much about your household finances, and that matters too? How much do you need to earn? Can your husband support the two of you if times get tough? Do you have savings to fall back on? Credit?

You can worry about the logistics later. They're not important yet. The important thing is to figure out if it's feasible to earn your desired income in this particular market. If the market won't support it, there's no reason to worry about insurance or lack of technical skills. And once you determine that the market will support it, there are tons of resources out there. State university extension offices are often a good place to start.

Good luck!
posted by kevinbelt at 3:49 PM on March 2, 2016

Check if your city has a homeschool community/committee. A lot of cities have a website and newsletter for homeschoolers to find resources like tutors and study programs. In my relatively small hometown tutors were always in demand for homeschoolers.
posted by InkDrinker at 4:22 PM on March 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

P. S. There are a lot of good things about tutoring. It can be so nice to have flexibility, whether that means taking off for a family wedding or staying home when you have a headache but wouldn't usually try to get a sub. And it's nice to be able to "fire" students if needed (just knowing that you can is great!).
posted by wintersweet at 5:00 PM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

I would caution you against using 20 hours as a benchmark. Most people won't want tutoring over Spring Break, winter vacation and perhaps even parts of the summer. You will likely want to take vacations during those times. Also, unless you can tap into home schooling, you will need to work into the early evening if you want 20 hours a week.
posted by Chaussette and the Pussy Cats at 5:20 PM on March 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

You might also look into "homebound instruction" at the high schools in your new town. Where I live (NJ), students who must take extended leaves due to serious illness or injury are often in need of certified teachers to come to their homes. For example, I just had a student who missed 10 weeks of school after a car accident, and she had tutors that whole time. I believe it pays $35/hour here. It could be a good gig to supplement your income while you find clients to tutor.
posted by katie at 5:28 PM on March 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

My concern would be the finite size of your market (unless I'm missing something). I was able to make a decent living as a tutor in NYC, but that's with a nearly infinite pool of potential customers. It was really hard to get 20h, though possible.

I would keep your job another year while trying hard to build contacts and tutor on the side. (Local references!) Then reassess.
posted by 8603 at 6:01 PM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

It sounds like your pool of students is going to be relatively small, which may be your biggest problem. To maximize your chances, in addition to posting to Craigslist, you may want to go to the local schools (or maybe email them). Bring along some sort of flyer with your teaching experience and details of tutoring that you offer. They may be willing to refer students to you.

If you want to give this a go, you may need to expand your repertoire a bit. Unless you're in a community with a lot of ESL students, I think there's going to be a much higher demand for tutoring in STEM fields compared to English. However, if you are good enough at math and standardized tests to tutor the SAT (and if you're current or can make yourself current on the newest iteration), this could be very helpful. You might also have success if you offer services to help students with college application essays. These are the kinds of areas where students who excel in school may still want to have outside help. (I know a couple teachers in my high school did SAT tutoring on the side.)

FWIW, I've done a lot of tutoring both privately and for various tutoring companies, including one of the national big name SAT prep companies. Private tutoring is definitely the best bet in terms of maximizing take home pay, but at the same time, because of scheduling constraints, even getting 20 hours a week may be an issue. Also, as mentioned above, students generally won't want tutoring during school breaks or over the summer.
posted by litera scripta manet at 8:03 PM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

1) Few, if any, community college students can afford $25 an hour, much less $50. They're not kids from privileged backgrounds. They're kids still living at home to save money, and working 30 hours a week at a low-paying job to pay their car insurance.

2) There are 15 prep schools in New Hampshire. With one exception, their enrollments, ranging from 50 to 360 students, are far too small for any one of them to provide much in the way of a client base.

The one exception is Exeter, with 1100 students. On the off chance it's the school you live near, bear in mind that Exeter is arguably the best prep school in the country. It's full of very smart, Ivy-League bound, hard-working kids. They don't need tutoring.

Keep your teaching job.
posted by BadgerDoctor at 10:11 PM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I went into business for myself doing tutoring about 3 years ago, and while I don't regret it a bit, there are definitely some big hurdles. Some thoughts in no particular order:

1) It takes time to build up a full-ish roster of students, because it takes time for word of mouth to work. Almost all of my long-term students are referrals from other families I work with. Are you okay with a pretty low income for a year or two, or alternatively, working an extra part time job while you ramp up?

2) I agree that 20 hours per week is probably unrealistic. I'm currently at around 15 hrs per week, roughly 10 months of the year, and I do math in the Bay Area, so the odds are pretty stacked in my favor. To be fair, I basically don't do advertising any more, so I probably could be a bit higher. The main reason hours are low is that there are only so many hours of the day that students are out of school. Almost all HS/MS students will want to meet in the 3-4 hours right after school, Mon-Thurs, and you'll want to give yourself a bit of buffer time between meetings. (To run to the restroom, grab a drink, just deal with the fact that sometimes people are 5min late but they'll still be happier if they get the full time they are paying for, etc.)

3) Where will you meet students? Your house, libraries, cafes, an office? All have pros and cons.

4) Yes, you'll have self-employment taxes. It's not especially hard, but you'll need to keep very good records.

5) Personally, I wouldn't dream of letting a company like Wyzant take a huge cut of my earnings, but I'm good at networking, and now my referrals are at a self-sustaining level, so I don't need to.

6) You will be fine ignoring online tutoring. Things tend to go better in person anyway. Though if you were able to manage online tutoring somehow, it would increase your pool of working hours, since you could work with people in different time zones.

7) There will be times students take off (e.g. spring break, summer, winter break, etc.), so you want to budget for a certain amount of this. Furthermore -- and this is a big thing that is still sinking in with me -- it's pretty hard to take vacation yourself, except during the slow months in the summer. In theory, you can, of course, but if you are not working, you're not making money. It's psychologically pretty hard to take the financial hit, especially if money is tight.

8) Relatedly, when I started, I would agree to meet pretty much any day of the week, because I desperately needed the money so I could stop dipping into my savings. This was awful, and one of the first things I did when I reached a livable income was declare myself a weekend. Granted, my weekend is Friday-Saturday, because nobody wants tutoring on Fridays and lots of people want tutoring on actual weekends. But now those days are mine, and I found setting those boundaries made life much better for me.
posted by ktkt at 2:14 AM on March 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Try commuting for a year. Listen to awesome podcasts while driving. Start researching your tutoring market. Renew your certification. Then make the career change.
posted by girlpublisher at 4:21 AM on March 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

Just want to point out that if you keep the job while trying to build tutoring clients in your new location, you will be missing out on the prime hour of "right after school" because you will be driving during that time.
posted by CathyG at 1:26 PM on March 3, 2016

Oh, and to add. I have tutored online a little and it's actually not that bad. When one factors in the commute time to various IRL gigs, it's only about half of my IRL take, not a tenth of IRL or something crazy. I don't know how it would work in the humanities...perhaps working over a paper would even be easier online, though. I did HS chemistry and math. It was kind of fun for sitting in one's nightgown, and your adrenaline stays up because you never know what crazy question will come down the pike.

THAT SAID, here, too, are many evening and weekend hours. It depends on what the rest of your household is up to.
posted by 8603 at 6:07 PM on March 3, 2016