Like many Singaporean kids, Jerry sought tuition services as a student but encountered some struggles.
He found it difficult to find tutors on apps such as Carousell or Facebook with experience and qualifications he could trust. He felt frustrated when he went through middlemen as he could not communicate with his tutor directly.
“The most memorable was one occasion when a tutor came to my house expecting to find a primary school student! I was almost 18 at the time!” Jerry shared with a laugh.
His sister, Cherry Goh, also had a similar experience. A tutor assigned to her could not teach at her subject level, and she was eventually referred to her own tutor. On the other hand, her fiance, Edmen Tam, found it challenging to source students as a former tutor and tennis coach.
So, when Jerry pitched the idea of a “tutor marketplace app” in 2022, Cherry and Edmen instantly jumped in and invested their life savings into the venture.
With the additional financial support from family and friends, Scholarly finally launched in December 2023.
Sure, there were platforms like Carousell and Facebook, but they were not truly made for advertising services. Due to our shared frustration with how outdated, inaccessible and opaque the private tuition industry was, we decided to do something about it. That’s how the idea of Scholarly was born.
Edmen Tam, CMO and co-founder of Scholarly
Is it that big of a deal?
While the trio clarified that they did not consciously choose to enter the edutech sector, they were driven to resolve present issues in Singapore’s private tuition industry.
To Jerry, tuition is an age-old practice that remains integral to the education of the current generation of students today—one that would potentially remain for the foreseeable future. “I just saw the dying need for it in Singapore,” added Cherry.
Edmen, who worked in tech for over a decade, felt he could use his expertise to build a modern solution to help other learners, parents, and tutors in Singapore.
Through their app, it allows different stakeholders to “seamlessly” connect. However, to do that, they needed to have enough tutors and parents to generate traffic on the app, which was something that the founders struggled with at the beginning.
That was until the team introduced tuition jobs to the platform, leading to a significant uptick in engagement. Jerry explained that tutors enjoyed having the avenue to apply to jobs, while agencies and parents could post jobs to which tutors could apply.
Edmen added that he also scoured the Internet for tutors to connect and spread the word about the platform. He even spoke to “every single private tutor” on Carousell to get them on board, allowing them to achieve 60 tutor signups at launch.
“[It’s] not great, but we knew that we had to run a tight ship and listen to our users’ feedback to shape the app into what it is today,” he stated.
However, with any tech platform offering services, fact-checks are necessary to ensure the safety of tutors and seeking students. To get verified on the app, tutors must submit proof of their qualifications to be “manually verified” by the team, though they did not elaborate further on the process.
But the app is free. How do they earn money from it?
The team is working on a monetisation model similar to marketplaces and connection platforms like LinkedIn, Property Guru, and Carousell.
Jerry explained that the app’s core features will remain free, but there will be advertisement opportunities, such as boosting, for people seeking more exposure, allowing the company to earn from advertising fees.
The team also plans to introduce a premium version of the app to give users access to advanced features like improved management solutions, analytics, and other functionalities.
While the founders remained tight-lipped about their figures, Jerry expressed his confidence that their current strategy is sustainable in the long run.
In addition, tuition services are paid outside of the app, which raised concerns about whether the company has clear records of the transactions and ensures the safety of tutors and tutees.
Cherry clarified that while lessons booked via Scholarly are retained, they cannot track transactions outside the app. She added that the team plans to integrate payments directly into the app, allowing users to pay securely without leaving the platform.
She also pointed out that most users often leave the platform to continue communication on WhatsApp or Telegram. To boost in-app interactions, the company has introduced a revamped lessons feature that aims to improve the user experience with booking and managing lessons.
In the coming months, they will introduce more incentives to retain interactions in the platform, like an achievements feature and a redeemable points system for users who complete specific actions in the app.
How do they plan to stand out?
While some edutech startups use their tech solutions as their unique selling point, Scholarly believes in “humanising the connection” between their users and technology.
Edmen shared that the team consistently interacts with its users through surveys, assisting them with any issues they encounter and personally having profiles on the app that they can be reached out to at any time.
At the end of the day, Scholarly will always maintain a human touch because our ultimate goal is to connect two human beings together. All our technical features, like our AI-powered tuition jobs and our integrated chat features ultimately exist to improve and facilitate the connection between a student and a tutor.
Cherry Goh, CEO, CPO and co-founder of Scholarly
Maintaining connections with their users allowed the trio to establish trust and grow their database. Scholarly has 1,600 users, almost 1,000 tutors, and five to 10 agencies that post on the app regularly or semi-regularly to date.
The team relies on users’ feedback to ensure that the app continues to meet their evolving needs through new features. One such feature is Scholarly’s Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered tuition jobs function.
According to Edmen, this feature aims to increase the efficiency in matching parents, students, and agencies and prevent information overload.
“Rather than sifting through the hundreds of tuition jobs posted across different Telegram channels or Facebook groups, a tutor can use Scholarly to easily find jobs across the country on a single platform,” he explained.
As the year ends, Scholarly will continue to work towards becoming a one-stop shop for all tuition-related services. “There is no other widespread app in the country with that same goal,” Cherry said.
Currently, the Scholarly team is working on a series of upgrades that will be launched soon, including a web version of the app and a tailored profile specifically for tuition centres on the app.
Featured Image Credit: Scholarly