Update from TeachStreet (aka “5 Things We Didn’t Know 2 Months Ago!”)

Note — we sent this our via email to our Homepage Subscribers, so some of you may see this twice (if you subscribe to the blog as well)!

It’s probably been awhile since you signed up for our updates at TeachStreet. We wanted to let you know that our lack of communication hasn’t been for lack of activity; rather, we’ve been heads down building the organization, gathering input from students and teachers, and beginning construction of the website.

We know that your burning question is, “When’s TeachStreet going to be available in my hometown?”

Soon enough, my friends! As for exact dates… in the grand tradition of non-disclosure, our lawyers have helped us learn that we should respond with, “for competitive reasons, we can’t comment on that at the present time.”

However, we have learned a few things that we CAN share. Here’s our Top 5 List of Things We Didn’t Know Two Months Ago:

1) Networks are awesome (yes… Networks work!). Our core launch team is now fully staffed up and the entire team came to us via a personal introduction or network recommendation. Setting aside modesty for 5 seconds, the team we’ve assembled is amazing! In fact, the Web 2.0 term would be “rock stars”, and it’s taken mere hours/days for people to begin making a big impact — it reminds us why we’ve chosen the startup route!

2) This is a slippery and exciting market to size. We’re working with a team of students from the University Venture Fund who are conducting additional market research and financial analysis for us. Together, we’re finding that there’s a huge need (and opportunity) for bringing teachers and students of all kinds together. Thanks UVF for your energetic feedback and hard work.

3) Finding teachers is hard work. Our engineering and data collection teams have been conducting tests in the Seattle market to gather information on teachers, classes and learning opportunities. We’ve already identified more than 450 subject areas (yep, there are classes on everything from accordions and aikido to welding and writing). We plan to have teacher/class coverage for each of these “subjects” in each city — meaning that we’re hoping for 1,000’s of teachers in every city!

Pop Quiz: Can you put these classes in order from most-to-least prevalent? (Answers below)

(a) Guitar

(b) Singing

(c) Belly Dancing

(d) Poker

(e) Mandarin Chinese

4) Frugality isn’t always “all that and a bag of chips”. Making our own desks out of Home Depot hollow core doors was cost-efficient, yes, but actually sweat-inducing hard work. Sure, we saved a few dollars, but the splinters were painful and it’s a lot harder to write code with a few fingers missing! However, (investors take note) that’s the kind of sacrifice we’re willing to make to keep our costs at appropriate “start up-y” levels. (Note, you can see a video of our staff at work on door-desk making on our blog).

5) Blogging is fun. Speaking of our blog, we’ve been making more frequent and fun posts detailing things that we’re learning about and including interviews with prospective teachers (interviews with a local Seattle Arabic Teacher and Breakdancing Instructor were posted recently). If you’re interested in more getting the fun updates, I highly recommend signing up for updates on our TeachStreet blog. (see the links on the right side of this page).

Finally, as we near the site launch, we’ll be looking for volunteers to help us with site testing, bug testing, data collection, and more. Let us know if you’d be willing to lend a hand!

Yours in learning,

Team TeachStreet

p.s. Quiz Answers… A, D, B, C, E. Our research shows that the top five most popular classes overall that people are looking for are: 1) Guitar, 2) Spanish, 3) English, 4) Piano, 5) Poker… but we thought we’d mix things up a bit with some classes that are a little off the beaten path.

p.p.s. If you’re a Teacher… here are some questions we’d love your feedback on — feel free to email us your response, or give us a call (206-381-0652) and let’s chat!

1) What categories do you teach?

2) What city do you teach in?

3) Do you teach full-time or as a side business? If you teach as an hourly tutor, do you also teach at a local school or community college?

4) Does TeachStreet sound like something you’d be interested in learning more about/participating in?

5) Do you presently use any other online services that sound similar? If so, what are they?

6) How do you currently find your students? What online tools and services do you use? What offline/real-world methods?