Consulting engagement · ~18 months, within 2018 to 2024

FindX

Product Management Consultant · Ed-tech: a home-tutoring marketplace

FindX matched parents of school students in grades 6 to 10 with engineering students who tutored them at home. I joined at the concept stage, before any product existed, and worked for ~18 months as a freelance product management consultant, acting as product lead for two non-technical co-founders and their outsourced engineering team.

In brief

FindX matched parents with engineering students as home tutors, and in the MVP only 2% of parents hired a tutor after a demo, because many met tutors at the free demo and then hired them outside the platform.

I designed the interview frameworks the founders ran and an MVP whose onboarding was built around verification and child safety.

To stop platform bypass, an INR 49 reveal fee, two-way ratings and tutor education shipped together.

Demo-to-hire conversion rose from 2% to 18% after those three changes, then to ~25% through funnel and UI/UX fixes, across seven cities.

The problem

The idea came from engineering students who wanted to earn money tutoring during the summer and were looking for that work through local coaching institutes. The founders researched the problem and brought me in before any product existed. The concept was online matching of tutors and students for offline home tutoring, with engineering students as tutors and school students in grades 6 to 10 as learners. Most traction came from grades 6 to 8.

The founders visited five engineering campuses, meeting ~1,500 students per campus and collecting their contacts (~7,500 to 8,000 in total), and visited residential societies near each campus to speak with parents. I designed the interview questions for both sides of the marketplace, and the founders ran the interviews on the ground: 500+ with college students and 100+ with parents and children.

Tutors
Travel range depended on access to a two-wheeler, and most students had only bicycles. Classes ran from 8 AM to 5 PM and hostel dinner required a return by 8 PM, leaving three one-hour slots between 5 PM and 8 PM, so each tutor could serve 2 to 3 students a day. The main subjects were physics, chemistry and mathematics.
Parents and students
Child safety was parents’ first concern, and parents of girls preferred female tutors. Parents needed assurance that tutors were verified and capable. Coaching institutes felt high-pressure for this age group, and large online ed-tech platforms offered no personal attention. Parents and children preferred personal home tutoring. Parents decided; the child’s learning experience decided satisfaction and retention.

What I did, phase by phase

Strategy

Which tutors, and which cities

I shaped two strategic choices. Tutors came from National Institutes of Technology (NITs) over Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), because IIT students had more alternative income and side-project options and were harder to retain. The service went to the tier-2 cities where those institutes are located, and eventually ran in seven of them.

MVP design

Onboarding built around verification and safety

Tutor onboarding
Name, phone number plus OTP, college ID and government ID with permanent address (for verification and child safety), subjects, travel distance, and available slots, up to three one-hour slots between 5 PM and 8 PM.
Parent onboarding
The student’s class, subject and gender; tutor preferences, including gender; and the preferred time slot.
Phase 1First ~4 weeks

MVP launch in the first city

100 engineering students joined as tutors on the first day. Demand took on-ground work: posters near the college, in residential areas and near coaching institutes, small advertisements, and society partnerships. ~150 parents and students joined, and supply capacity (~200 to 300 students) exceeded demand.

  • 100% of parents booked a first demo class, and 100% of tutors received at least one demo booking. Demos were free.
  • 33%+ of parents booked more than one demo.
  • 2% of parents hired a tutor for ongoing tutoring.
  • Parents paid tutors INR 3,000 per subject per month, and tutors paid FindX INR 99 per successful conversion.

The founders found the cause of the 2% through conversations with tutors, who were juniors at the founders’ own college and spoke openly. Parents were meeting tutors at the free demo and then hiring them directly, outside the platform, and had not disclosed this. The free demo was working as a free introduction service.

Phase 2Next ~4 weeks

Fixing platform bypass with three changes shipped together

INR 49 reveal fee on both sides
A tutor saw the student’s details, contact and address only after accepting a request and paying INR 49, and a parent paid INR 49 to book a demo. The amount was low enough not to deter genuine users and high enough to create commitment. The messaging explained the fee through child safety: if a tutor is hired outside the platform and something happens to the child, nobody is accountable.
Two-way ratings
Parents rated tutors on subject knowledge, delivery, punctuality, child safety, behaviour, temperament, teaching style, tolerance and patience. Tutors rated parents on behaviour, payment punctuality, complaints, and freedom to teach.
Tutor education
On ethical conduct with minors, and on how bypassing the platform would hurt tutors’ ratings and future earnings.

With on-ground marketing continuing, after ~4 weeks FindX had ~400 parents and students and 200 tutors. Demo booking held at 100% on both sides, multi-demo booking stayed at ~33%+, and demo-to-hire conversion reached 18%, 9x the MVP’s 2%. The three changes shipped together, so the lift belongs to all three.

Phase 3

Scaling to seven cities

Each new city followed the same playbook: tutors from the local engineering institute, then demand through on-ground marketing nearby. I tracked tutor slot utilisation (slots marked available against slots booked), how soon parents switched tutors, and how long parents kept a tutor. Funnel and UI/UX fixes raised demo-to-hire conversion from 18% to ~25%, 12.5x the MVP baseline.

Over FindX’s lifetime, tutors grew 33%+ a month and parents and students 20%+ a month on average. Compounded from the phase 2 base over about six months, the estimated pre-COVID peak was ~1,000 to 1,100 tutors and ~1,100 to 1,200 parents and students. Both figures are estimates.

Phase 4March to December 2020

COVID-19 and shutdown

From March to June 2020, registrations rose about threefold on both sides, to an estimated ~3,300 tutors and ~3,600 parents and students. The finite pool of engineering students capped the tutor side. Personal offline home tutoring, the core offering, could not run during lockdown. FindX had no content delivery platform, so tutors used Zoom or Google Meet, while funded online ed-tech companies already dominated online tutoring. Demo and class bookings declined from June 2020, and the founders shut FindX down in December 2020.

Results

  • from 2% to 18%

    Demo-to-hire conversion, the share of parents who hired a tutor for ongoing tutoring after a demo, after an INR 49 reveal fee, two-way ratings and tutor education shipped together. 9x the MVP rate.

  • from 18% to about 25%

    Demo-to-hire conversion after funnel and UI/UX fixes during scaling. 12.5x the MVP rate.

  • 100%

    Demo booking in the MVP: every parent booked a first demo and every tutor received at least one booking. It held through phase 2.

  • 33%+

    Parents who booked more than one demo in the MVP.

  • 7

    Cities served, each opened with tutors from the local engineering institute.

  • over 33% and over 20%

    Average monthly growth over FindX’s lifetime: tutors 33%+, parents and students 20%+.

  • over 500 and over 100

    Interviews run by the founders from frameworks I designed: college students, and parents and children.

  • ~1,000 to 1,100

    Estimated tutors at the pre-COVID peak, compounded from growth rates. An estimate.

My role and the team

Product Management Consultant, freelance; acting product lead and liaison with engineering, working remotely. The team was two non-technical co-founders and an outsourced engineering team. The founders made the final decisions; I presented options with my reasoning and evidence.

My work covered product management, MVP design, testing and QA, acceptance criteria for every feature, experiment design and analysis, tooling decisions, the interview frameworks for both sides of the marketplace, and communication between the founders and the engineering team, including timelines and deadline commitments. FindX overlapped with my fromKhet engagement from July to December 2020.