Most people think that you need a lot of money to start and run your tuition business. The simple answer is you can start with no money at all. What? Really? ‘Yes’. I repeat, you can start with no money at all. The goal is to get started and to look ahead.  

So how do you start with £0? 

The answer is quite simple. Start by tutoring individual students.

Many teachers out there teach individual students to make some extra money on the side. You can do the same.

BUT THERE IS A DIFFERENCE; and that is, a vast majority of these teachers do not THINK BIG. This is where you will be different. I’ll present ways in which you’ll be able to THINK BIG and take steps to take you on that journey.

So, start with tutoring individual students. Start with online tuition lessons. Start with going and teaching them in person. There is no excuse not to get started, especially at a time when a platform such as Zoom is free for 40 minutes. You can easily use Zoom to get started. This doesn’t require any investment, just time and effort. 

So how to go from teaching individuals to starting your tuition business? 

My brother’s friends started their tuition business quite similarly. They were three friends who were tutoring students individually. One day, they realised that they’d been tutoring for a while; they had to go to all these places to tutor, which took time and effort. ‘Why don’t we bring all these students to one place? It’ll help save time and we can still make money.’ That’s exactly what they did.

They reached out to a local school and enquired about classroom hiring. Classroom hiring is not expensive, and they hired out some classrooms on weekends and weekday evenings and started teaching. All three friends were tutors, and that helped them to get started. You have unique skill sets too. Try and find out what they are and start building your tuition business. Like the three friends, all you have to do is start your journey towards starting and running your own tuition business.

They made it into a success by expanding into the local region and are doing pretty well for themselves. This goes on to show that you can start with nothing. All you need is some skill (which we all have), the right mindset, strategy and an understanding of what needs to be done. 

“It’s very interesting. I was worth about over $1 million when I was 23, and over $10 million when I was 24, and over $100 million when I was 25. And it wasn’t that important because I never did it for the money. I think money is a wonderful thing because it enables you to do things. It enables you to invest in ideas that don’t have a short-term payback and things like that. But especially at that point in my life, it was not the most important thing.”

Steve Jobs, Co-founder of Apple, in an interview in 1995

Although I agree with Steve Jobs’ quote, this is not the only way. He started Apple in a garage with no money. If you remember he took the orders to produce computers and worked tirelessly with his friends to deliver on his promise. He started with nothing, you can too. 

There is a misconception that you need tons of money to get started. Not true. Yes, it helps, but it’s not the only way. I have a cousin, who loves money. He’s in university and all he can do is talk about startups; being the next founder; how he has these amazing ideas and how he’s speaking to investors to get seed funding. The reality is you don’t need a million dollars to get started. I didn’t.

I’m amazed that people still don’t see that it’s all about solving problems. If you can solve problems and as a result help people, they will pay you a ton of money for it. This problem-solving mindset is what creates an entrepreneur and opportunity to start and run your tuition business. Unfortunately, it’s the mindset that needs changing for most. Opportunities are everywhere, we just don’t see them. We need to recognise they exist and then work towards them. 

  “The first sort of initial startup capital for amazon.com came primarily from my parents and invested a large fraction of their savings in what became amazon.com and you know that this was a very bold and trusting thing for them to do.”

Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon, in an interview in 2001

Jeff Bezos reached out to his family, who gave him a startup capital of approximately $250k to help him get started with Amazon. No doubt, funding helps. But you don’t need that kind of investment to get started with a tuition business of your own. You don’t need family and friends to give you any money to get started. 

I never had any luxury of money or any financial support from my parents. Hopefully, that doesn’t sound too ungrateful. What I meant to say was that I looked after myself, and managed my bills as I was growing up. I didn’t want to be a burden on my parents. I knew and understood their struggles as immigrants in the UK. It’s not easy. If anything, I supported them financially as best as possible. I worked part-time jobs and then eventually contributed more when I started my office job. 

Financially supporting your family and thinking of starting a venture at the same time is a tough ask. I’m sure you can imagine the difficulty and challenges I faced making this decision. How difficult the decision must have been for me when my brother walked up to my bedroom and said: “You know I’m thinking of starting a tuition business, let’s do something together?”.

We were living under the same roof at the time; with immense pressure to become someone in life where similarly my parents were trying their hardest to make ends meet. We had a lot of financial pressures, so naturally, I didn’t have the luxury that Steve Jobs had (based on his quote above). I had to support my family financially no matter what.

Naturally, a lot of questions were going through my mind: What if we can’t succeed? What if we never make any money? How will I run it with my existing job and studies? I was confronted with a choice, a decision that I had to make. If I don’t take it then I may miss my chance. After weeks of convincing from my brother, I eventually agreed and we went for it. But we had no clue what to do and where to start. This was only the beginning of our journey and I’m glad I started it.    

“It’s important to learn from your mistakes, but it is BETTER to learn from other people’s mistakes, and it is BEST to learn from other people’s successes. It accelerates your own success.”

Jim Rohn, American entrepreneur and author

Why Am I telling you all this?

I hope my personal experiences and stories can help some of you. I know not many will read these stories and my learnings, but whoever does, please benefit from my mistakes and avoid making these yourself. 

If you’re motivated and committed; and you play your cards right, you too can start and run your tuition businesses (plural tense – not one, but many centres).