Alex and Kevin’s Learning Card: Tutor Use Case for Khan Academy
We believed that tutors would be willing to pay for a platform that saves them time and boosts their tutoring quality by providing assignable content, tracking tools, and analytics.
We observed that the interviewer liked Khan Academy’s clarity and visuals but found it too student-focused. She wanted ways to assign specific problems, track progress, and organize content by student. She said she’d pay around $10/month if those features existed.
From that, we learned that tutors value workflow tools—tracking, assignments, and analytics—more than content itself. Their willingness to pay depends on time saved and visibility into student progress.
Therefore, we will prototype a Tutor Dashboard that allows assigning content, tracking completion, and auto-generating practice sets, then test it with 3–5 tutors.
Maria and Sarah’s Learning Card: Planning Efficiency
We believed that tutors are looking for help with creating content, managing content and their students outside of their existing methods of preparation and organization.
We observed that tutors plan beforehand by refreshing their memory on a subject and recording example problems to use. They made use of our quiz feature for themselves during a prepping session.
From that, we learned that text based content are more helpful for tutors since they just want a quick refresher and have already learned the content before, while videos may be more applicable for students. Finding and generating good practice problems is valuable for certain subjects. Each subject has unique needs (e.g. organic chemistry needs quality practice problems).
Therefore, we will prioritize text content and quiz questions in addition to our video content as well as differentiate modes of learning for tutors and students. We should also prioritize short-form summaries that help tutors prepare. We could also consider creating stretch goal/nice to have tutor specific quiz questions separate from student quiz questions.
Kristine and Varsha’s Learning Card: Demand for Tutors
We believed that students would start with self-paced videos/tools but still want a human tutor when they get stuck. Offering tutor help would raise understanding, confidence, and quiz performance versus self teaching via resources alone.
We observed that without a tutor, learners rewound videos, Googled/used ChatGPT for formulas, and showed uncertainty. With a tutor, they asked clarifying questions and verified approaches, indicating better grasp of concepts.
From that, we learned that tutors excel at spotting mistakes, explaining the “why,” and giving strategy, which are things students don’t fully trust tools to do. Students prefer a mix where they have tools for getting basic understanding, then quick human help or targeted hints when stuck.
Therefore, we will curate video resources with quizzes and explanations for students, while validating demand for live and asynchronous tutor support.
Post-Interview Team Discussion
Pivot
- We will pivot our marketing strategy from focusing on our video content to high-level tutor-aimed tools like at-a-glance summaries, organization tools, and tracking student progress.
Validation
- Willingness to Pay (WTP) Confirmed: We validated that tutors are willing to pay (~$10/tutor/mo) for a tool that saves them time and gives them control.
- Competitor Gap Confirmed: We validated that current platforms do not support workflow tools that tutors are seeking for.
Iteration
- Tutor-targeted Content: We will iterate on our current content through diversifying the content format addressing more tutor-centric needs (efficiency, confirmation, on the fly information retrieval).
- Per-student folders
- Assignable content (video/quiz playlists)
- Simple progress tracking
Next Steps
- Revisit MVP scope and key tutor features (folders, progress tracking, summaries).
- Populate PRD with user stories, flows, and success metrics.
- Review and finalize with the team if stretch goals are feasible.
For all transcripts: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10-QhgVjWXtwyp6veHPP_rMdgJzDgvHRAxE_DPMlfbZ0/edit?usp=sharing
