Hasan is the Founder of Air Tutors, an online tutoring company whose mission is to advance global learning and make tutoring accessible!
Tutoring is the only job that Hasan has ever had. He continued to tutor into his college years via Facetime and was referred by families to work with other families. Hasan graduated with a bio-chem degree and did not have much knowledge in business. But he saw the need for accessible tutoring, so he took advantage of the opportunity and founded Air Tutors.
Using data:
Hasan was facing the question of whether or not online tutoring is better than in-person tutoring. By searching through data, he found that online tutoring is extremely successful and worth pursuing.
On the Newsroom section at www.airtutors.org, there is a link to the Gates Foundation partnership where you can find important data like Hasan’s findings.
Benefits of a quality control and support team:
Having a quality control team has helped Air Tutors make sure that they are taking environmental factors into consideration. For example, if there is an upcoming storm somewhere, it is important to cancel those tutoring sessions in advance.
Having a support team is helpful as well. A support team can help problem-solve with parents and students so that they feel supported and their needs are met.
Word-of-mouth marketing:
To market themselves, word-of-mouth has been the most successful option for Air Tutors. When parents/districts have success with the company, they recommend it to other parents/districts.
Having a fun and relevant community that the student feels comfortable in is important to have in a tutoring company. For example, the use of emojis and memes to foster relatability, creativity, and enjoyment for yourself and your student.
Connect with Hasan on instagram @nasah209
Sean McCormick 0:01 This week on Earn More Tutoring, I talked with the founder of Air Tutors, Hasan Ali, about his mission to provide exceptional tutoring services to students of all demographic backgrounds, how he became known as the FaceTime tutor to his clients, and grew from a one man show to having a global clientele. Hasan Ali 0:19 I grew up in Stockton, California, my middle schools, high schools were all centered, surrounded by barbed wires, metal detectors. And then as I was privately tutoring in Los Angeles, that's where I got to know the other side of this socio economic spectrum with where those private schools and boarding schools have rivers, streams, equestrian clubs, all around their campuses. And then I thought about back to my upbringing, and as a man, this dichotomy of life is so wild. Sean McCormick 0:51 Welcome to Earn More Tutoring. I'm Sean McCormick, the founder of Executive Function Specialists, an online coaching business that helps middle high school and college students feel better organized. My guest today is Hasan Ali, founder of Air Tutors. Welcome to the show, Hasan. Hasan Ali 1:05 Thank you. This is awesome. Thanks for having me fun. Sean McCormick 1:07 Absolutely. So to get started, I'd love for you just to break down what air tutors is what you guys do, how you deliver services give us kind of a broad overview of your business. Hasan Ali 1:18 Online tutoring company basically summarizes that however, we really get into knowing our students knowing that districts that we work with knowing the state agencies charges, whatever organization it is that we're working with are really figured out what their needs are in coming up with the best solution cater to what their students are experiencing. We also do work with individual families. We also work with private schools and boarding schools. And that's actually where we started off with but that was about five years ago. And based on those results, and that enthusiasm we've just continued. been expanding ever since. And thankfully, I've been able to do so. And thank you, Sean, again for featuring us over here. Sean McCormick 2:03 Yeah, absolutely. So that's, that's really great that you can serve such a wide, wide net. And also being online, I'm sure that allows your reach to expand much wider than you could if it was one location. How'd you get your first client? Hasan Ali 2:21 Great question. Here is the story that's not very not told very often. So two things on the job I've ever had. As I started the summer before I attended UC Berkeley at Cal, I continued to teach general chemistry organic chemistry after Cal I tutored both Kim and Kim in the Los Angeles area. And what ended up happening is, families just kept referring me over to different families. But I remember there's this one moment where I realized how interesting this could be when people started sending me text messages. And they're like, Hey, we hear your that FaceTime can tutor is that true? I'm like, I guess so. Who are you? And then from there just really, like started boasting. But this was like, you know, eight years ago or so nine years ago, we're just FaceTiming random folks in like Iowa, Washington, Montana, just to help the kids on getting really good I can. Sean McCormick 3:32 My business is remote as well. And it was kind of a difficult step to to declare myself as a remote business. But it sounds like you were you were doing it before it was even maybe normalized. Like that's why they were like you're the FaceTime tutor. Tell us about that. So were you you were just FaceTiming with people via phone or computer like what tell us like how did that look at the beginning? Hasan Ali 3:59 Oh, it looked horrible. But the kids did great. aesthetics of it was very clunky. It was very caveman barbarian style is definitely like FaceTiming with regular iPhone back then like eight, nine years ago or so. And just taking a piece of paper and pencil and then flipping the camera over and writing it out and sharing with them via FaceTime paper pencil. What we're all about are just helping them understand that those concepts and then like you know as as, as the tech evolves, and as like my own personal experiences evolved. It was more like instead of cobbling together all of these different resources, let's make a really cool experience online that works for all students of all skill sets, meaning like I was I really worked with learning different students at that time. Those that have like, ADHD, dyslexia, processing issues, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, all of that stuff. And then we, from those students success, we really learned what worked for them in creating that multi sensory approach made it a really streamlined experience. And then their tutors came into fruition, but does those early caveman days what I call them? Those are definitely fun and pivotal in helping me like us learn like what really should go into...
Check out the full interview below!
Want to earn more? Get inspired with stories of successful educators all around the world!