TeachStreet™

Used to be, the only celebrity who could claim to be “green” was Kermit the Frog.  Nowadays you can’t pick up a paper (or in my case, your wife’s People magazine) without reading about how everyone in Hollywood is sporting the green life.  But let’s face it, we can’t all be like Leo or Cameron.  I like Mother Earth too, but what’s a common dude to do?

After a quick browse on TeachStreet, I learned there’s no excuse: I can go green today.  For starters, there’s a landscaping course that teaches how to be ‘energy wise.’  I could learn how to make my own Biodiesel — and the class is walking distance from my house (two green thumbs up!)  There’s even a class on Solar Home Design — I’m curious to learn how they can make that work in Seattle (if you’ve taken that class, post a comment and let us in on the secret!!)

Maybe it’s not so hard to be green after all.  Here’s a sampling of what’s out there:

• Energy Wise Landscaping
• Make Your Own Biodiesel
• Solar Home Design
• Master Composting/Soil Builder Trainer
• Think Green!
• Basics of Commuting

TeachStreet Closes Series A Round of $2.25 Million

Madrona Venture Group and Bezos Expeditions Lead First Round of Funding for New Company Dedicated to Connecting Teachers and Students Online

SEATTLE, WA — April 21, 2008 – TeachStreet, a new company dedicated to helping students find great local teachers, today announced that it has closed a $2.25 million Series A round of venture financing. The round was led by Madrona Venture Group, with participation by Bezos Expeditions and several strategic Seattle angel investors, including current and former Amazon.com executives Jeff Blackburn, Michael George, Jason Kilar (currently CEO at Hulu.com), Kim Rachmeler, and Joel Spiegel; former CEO of Expedia, Erik Blachford; founder of ProgrammableWeb, John Musser; and former RealNetworks’ executive and current co-founder of Athena IQ, Dave Richards.

TeachStreet was founded by Dave Schappell, a former Director of Product Development at Amazon.com who most recently served as Vice President of Marketing at JibJab, the viral digital media studio. Proceeds from this first round of funding will be used to launch the company’s service in new markets, enhance product development, support sales and marketing initiatives, and attract new talent. Unveiled today in the Seattle market, TeachStreet features a comprehensive guide to more than 25,000 Seattle-based teachers, classes, instructors, and schools to provide both teachers and students with a better way to find one another.

“TeachStreet has quickly evolved from an idea on a white board to a company and a product that delivers great value to teachers and students,” said Scott Jacobson, a Principal with Madrona Venture Group, a leading investor in early-stage technology companies in the Pacific Northwest. “This is a testament to Dave, his vision for the company, and the strength of the team he has assembled. While the demand for local learning is vast and growing rapidly, the marketplace is highly fragmented, and students often lack the information they need to find the teachers and courses that best meet their needs. TeachStreet solves this problem for students and teachers, and we look forward to helping the company continue to execute against its vision.”

In conjunction with closing its first round of funding, TeachStreet added two high technology business veterans to its Board of Directors, including Scott Jacobson and Dave McClure, a Silicon Valley investor and strategic advisor to numerous start-ups. To further assist the company’s growth, TeachStreet has also formed a Board of Advisors, including Amazon.com executive Jeff Blackburn, and Gregg Spiridellis, co-founder and CEO-Guy of JibJab. The rest of the TeachStreet team includes product development veterans with deep experience in community development, Web 2.0 technologies, affiliate marketing, and search engine optimization from such companies as Amazon.com, Getty Images, JibJab, Jobster, and Zillow.

“Bezos Expeditions is particularly interested in investing in marketplace-oriented communities that bring together distinct audiences in a fun and engaging manner,” said Melinda Lewison, a Senior Investment Associate with Bezos Expeditions, a personal investment company of Jeff Bezos. “This is a hugely underserved market at present, and we think the application of Web 2.0 technologies to a hypertargeted audience of teachers and local experts, who have traditionally relied on coffeehouse posters and Craigslist postings, presents a significant opportunity to build a high-growth online-to-offline community-based business model.”

“TeachStreet was created to address the huge gap that currently exists in the market for students and teachers to not only find one another but also increase the likelihood that they’re a perfect fit,” said Dave Schappell, founder and CEO of TeachStreet. “We believe that having such a strong group of investors from the very start significantly improves our chances of realizing our goals.”

About Madrona Venture Group
Madrona has been investing in early-stage technology companies in the Pacific Northwest since 1995 and has been privileged to play a role in some of the region’s most successful technology ventures. The firm invests predominately in seed and Series A rounds across the information technology spectrum including consumer Internet, commercial software and services, digital media and advertising, networking and infrastructure, and wireless. Madrona currently manages over $425 million and was an early investor in companies such as AdReady, Classmates.com, Farecast, Redfin, and ShareBuilder. To learn more, visit www.madrona.com.

About TeachStreet
Founded in June 2007, TeachStreet is dedicated to helping students find great local teachers, and empowering teachers with robust online tools to manage their teaching business. The free site provides the information that students need to make a good decision about their learning experiences, including student reviews and teacher recommendations, pricing information, location, teacher background and training, and more. TeachStreet is headquartered in Seattle, WA and backed by Madrona Venture Group. For more information, visit www.TeachStreet.com.

TeachStreet Unveils New Website to Help Students of Any Age Find Great Local Teachers and Classes

Launching in Seattle with More Than 25,000 Classes, Teachers, Instructors, Coaches, and Schools, TeachStreet Gives Lifelong Learners A Simple Way to Connect with Local Experts

SEATTLE, WA — April 21, 2008 – For the lifelong learners among us, it’s not always easy to find the right teacher. Whether hoping to brush up on their Spanish, learn how to swing dance, or prepare for the SAT, students have had to search far and wide — and often with little success. TeachStreet, the first website dedicated to helping teachers and students connect with one another in the real world, today took the covers off its beta site at www.teachstreet.com. Representing the largest free directory of learning experiences for students of all ages, TeachStreet features more than 25,000 Seattle-area teachers, trainers, tutors, instructors, coaches, and classes. Students can search for teachers across more than 500 subjects and filter the results according to map-based location, ratings from other students, teacher availability, promotional pricing, and more. For teachers, TeachStreet provides a simple yet powerful way to promote themselves online and manage their learning business.

“We have heard time and again from adult learners, and from parents looking for tutors and coaches for their children, how difficult it is to find relevant and up-to-date information to evaluate teachers. At the same time, teachers are craving easy-to-use tools to help market themselves on the Internet, manage their student rosters, and find more prospective students in their neighborhoods,” said Dave Schappell, founder and CEO of TeachStreet. “One of our goals with TeachStreet is to use the latest online technologies to facilitate real-world connections and provide anyone who wants to either learn or teach a new skill with a rich, geographically targeted website that feature’s a city’s best teaching resources.”

TeachStreet provides teachers and instructors with an array of free online tools to help them grow their business. These include:

• Online Profile Builder: In under three minutes, teachers can create a robust web presence where they can feature photos, sample lesson plans, pricing, and student references;
• Search Engine Optimization: TeachStreet was designed specifically to help teachers’ listings be discovered more easily on major search engines including Google, Yahoo! and MSN, providing teachers with an easy way to be found by students; and
• Scheduling and Management Tools: To help teachers organize their schedules and manage their workload, TeachStreet offers an assortment of calendering and management tools that let teachers focus their energy on what they do best.

With more than 25,000 Seattle-area classes, teachers, instructors, and coaches currently listed on the TeachStreet beta site, there’s a class for every interest. Classes and teachers currently available on TeachStreet include everything from the popular (tennis coaching, piano lessons, and cooking classes) to the esoteric (break dancing, surfing, and Texas Hold ‘em Poker, to name just a few). The site can be searched by keywords or visitors can scroll through TeachStreet’s extensive directory of classes, which are organized by subject. Currently, some of the most popular subjects in Seattle include: 918 yoga classes in 31 neighborhoods, 413 dance classes in 28 neighborhoods, and 131 dog obedience classes in seven neighborhoods. In addition, students are encouraged to submit reviews of teachers, and teachers are invited to enhance their profiles with lesson plans, class photos, and more. While this extensive coverage is currently limited to the Seattle area, TeachStreet plans to expand its service to other US cities in the coming months.

“As a guitar teacher trying to expand my student base, I think TeachStreet will be an invaluable resource. I’ve spent four years teaching guitar to students of all ages and that’s where I want to focus my energy, not trying to keep abreast of new technologies,” said Ryan Casperson, a guitar teacher based in Wallingford and early tester of the site. “In less than three minutes I was able to set up a full-featured online presence on TeachStreet and I now have a permanent address to send my students where they can get a true sense of my teaching style and how I work with students.” Ryan’s TeachStreet profile page can be found here.

About TeachStreet
Founded in June 2007, TeachStreet is dedicated to helping students find great local teachers, and empowering teachers with robust online tools to manage their teaching business. The free site provides the information that students need to make a good decision about their learning experiences, including student reviews and teacher recommendations, pricing information, location, teacher background and training, and more. TeachStreet is headquartered in Seattle, WA and backed by Madrona Venture Group. For more information, visit www.TeachStreet.com.