Sofia Babool BS’22 only just launched her tutoring service in the fall and already she’s hit positive cash flow. Her company, Bright Owl is a virtual tutoring company that focuses on providing children with subject-specific homework help, test preparation, and college advising. Sofia, who is earning her undergraduate degree in neuroscience, has been participating in university startup programming like the GalXc Accelerator and the UTD Big Idea Competition, as well as national offerings like EO GSEA and Hello Alice Small Business Growth Fund where she has been awarded over $10K in prize earnings.
How does your tutoring service work?
We first begin with a free diagnostic assessment that analyzes the current academic strengths/gaps of each student. We then conduct a student profile test that assesses the personality traits, hobbies, and interests of each student so we can find a tutor that overlaps, not just academic gaps, but other important qualities that make up a foundational teacher-student relationship. After 6 months, we reassess the student to ensure that progress is being made through a second academic assessment.
What’s your “why?”
Our work stems from the desire to change the negative stigma that surrounds tutoring as a crutch for struggling academic students, to one that focuses on celebrating the want for a student to unlock their full academic potential. Tutoring has often carried the aura of “weak students needing help.” We believe tutoring is for the brave and bold who want to further educate themselves to bring out their full potential
As a student who always needed extra tutoring, I was often quiet about publicizing my need for academic support; today, I believe that those who engage in extra tutoring should be proud of their strengths and the self-recognition that they have much to improve on. The social impact we are creating through this mindset switch will, hopefully, encourage thousands of students to celebrate their strengths and improvement areas, unafraid of what others may say.
Gives us an update on your company, what’s in the works?
Currently, we are a cash-flow positive business with 60+ students and hope to scale within other regions of the USA/Canada within the next 2 years (they already have clients in Texas, California, Canada, Oklahoma, and Florida). With additional funding, we also hope to make our diagnostic assessment and tutor/student profile matching service completely AI-driven. By involving machine learning, we’d be able to enhance our relationship with each customer by providing data-driven tutoring that monitors our students’ progress.
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