Math Celebrity Intro

[mathceleb]

Hi,

My name is Don. I live in Illinois, 20 minutes outside Chicago, and the business I'm trying to get off the ground is a fully automated math tutoring site that also shows you the line by line homework. The site is called mathcelebrity.com. I've been building it for 6 months now and getting some introductory visits and interest.

I joined the forum to learn about advertising, marketing, and other success stories from folks who have made it work.

[BusinessAdviser]

Sounds like a neat endeavor.

[allysa]

Honestly, I don't like those animated text in the top, the motion is too fast and it hurts in the eye. It really need a lots of improvements. Why not use cms?

btw, welcome to YE!

[jasaunders]

Welcome Don. What suburb you in?

[mathceleb]

I'm in Berkeley right next to Elmhurst.

Thanks for the suggestion on the animation.

I'm looking into any effective ways at getting traffic to my site. I plan on taking this site national, almost like a calculating Google if you will. The idea is that kids can eliminate the cost of tutors as well as the time constraints, and have a 24 hour resource to check math answers and homework. I have 123 lessons built as of today, and I'm now working on polynomial products and simplifying.

Another benefit of this is that teachers won't have to spend hours writing out homework lines for lessons or spending hours checking homework. Parents can use the site to assist their children as well.

[ASJ]

I like the concept for your website. I think that if done properly could have some legs to it.

Although, this isn't a critique thread, I would say that your website lacks some professional elements to it that many people will expect when visiting it.

Good luck and keep at it!

[EliteAudio]

As an Electrical and Computer Engineering Major at Purdue, I think thats a pretty useful idea. I think a major flaw of some math tutoring sites is that they provide examples that show step by step how to solve an equation, but the equation is setup in a way that it would be hard to make a mistake.
On the other hand some sites I used are over done and almost act as a cheating refrence instead of tutor.

For marketing I would make some flyers or posters and post them around campuses of have friends who attend different colleges print flyers and post them for you. That alone is a huge customer base and even though most college courses offer some kind of extra tutoring with personal office hours from teacher, I know many students who cannot attend beacuse they either have class during the deignated office hours or work. Right now I think there is a genral feeling in my campus that online tutoring websites are more for getting answers fast and teachers shun that. So definatly try and get away from that and mabey even find some math teachers who will recommend your website to their students.

Good luck Math is a great subject that I wish I had more expertise on, but thats why I am in school. It is encouraging to see other young entrepreneurs use their knowledge of elite subjects like math to start business/websites that can become very succesful and make some decnt profit. It helps others view us young entrepreneurs as respectable, intelligent people who can organize their recources effectively in pursuit of a real opportunity to add value in the long run.

[mathceleb]

Right now I think there is a genral feeling in my campus that online tutoring websites are more for getting answers fast and teachers shun that. So definatly try and get away from that and mabey even find some math teachers who will recommend your website to their students.

That's funny you mention that, because I've called 10 schools in districts around me as well as pass out flyers, and some of my friends and family think teachers may be intimidated by it or shun my site because it gives you the answer and homework needed to get to that answer on a platter.

Although, I do think that some of it has to do with the site needing a facial upgrade.

I focused for 6 months straight on building the engine and ignored the design. I'm going to hire a designer and change the design I know how to change to make it more streamling, that is the feedback I've gotten on the design side. For the folks that have used it, they gave good praise on the engine.

I think I'll need to focus more on students and parents first as I'm hitting a roadblock with teachers and administrators, and I think it is for the very reasons you mention.

Thanks for the advice!!!!