The ideal TeachStreet teacher — Seattle’s Ryan “Guitar Man” Casperson

Sheesh, this blog entry is far overdue — I first spoke with Ryan about his guitar teaching business back in January of this year and my to-do list has had his name on it ever since! But, after our conversation, I continued to think about Ryan and his guitar teaching; they were ideal matches with TeachStreet.”

Ryan’s been teaching for four years, primarily at the 4/4 School of Music, here in Seattle (4/4 is probably the best music school in Seattle, by the way — we hope to see them on TeachStreet soon!). When he started teaching, he only had about four students, but he’s a classic case of word-of-mouth excitement.  As of late, he’s now packed with 60-65 students per week, with 30 minute sessions.  Yes, that’s 65! He teaches all skills levels, from beginner to really, really good; and, he’s actually taken students in 2 years from basic to “great” (his words, not mine). Of course, he prefaces that with “they’re high school students — they have a lot of time to practice, and they take advantage of that!”

He’s thought about teaching on the side, but (a) he’s not too savvy with promoting himself online/marketing and (b) he’s really enjoyed working with 4/4 School, in that they’ve grown regularly, and his role’s grown with them. He knows that one of the huge benefits of teaching on his own, even if it’s only a day a week, is the tax benefit of being able to offset his business income with his music gear expenses (the cost of guitars, amps and related gear does add up!). Plus, he’d probably make a slightly higher income, admittedly offset by the administrative burdens.

His early feedback for TeachStreet (which we hope we’ve addressed!):

1) Make it easy to use… easy, easy, easy… while he’s comfortable online, he knows that the core teacher audience isn’t highly web-savvy… they’d love a way to get a professional online presence with minimal effort.

2) Make it free, at first — teachers are willing to pay, but we’ve got to prove that we can generate student volume for them — so, put up first, and then offer ways to monetize later.

3) Solve the repetitive Craigslist posting problem — Craigslist can work, but they make you post every few days, and you have no reputation — it’s a burden on class owners, and not very useful for student.

Finally, he’d love for us to add payments — teachers don’t like having to ask people for money (heck, who does?!?). He’d love to be able to set up students on auto-pay, with cancellation policies — that way he can be very up-front with students, and each side can have an easy-to-use interface (with 24-hour access) to manage the relationship. Point taken, Ryan — we’re on it.

Now, get back to work… student #66 just showed up!