Marcus Richards
Matutto is a marketplace that lets anyone host and attend online classes, wherever they are in the world, and in whichever topic they wish to. We are simplifying the online class delivery experience and have a vision of bringing 1-on-1 classes to the Metaverse.
Tell us about yourself?
I grew up in Portugal and moved to the UK at the age of 18 to study. During my University years I tutored others both online and face to face – little did I know understanding the friction points of people who deliver and attend 1-on-1 classes was something that would kickstart my entrepreneurial career.
After graduating I joined Amazon, where I spent 4.5 years across several commercial roles, during which time I had the opportunity to work on different projects related to product development.
Putting my personal and professional experience together, I felt confident and capable of building a platform that solved some of the problems I had identified in the past.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
I’d say to myself that there’s always going to be a lot of work to do, but you can either work a lot on something that makes you happy, or on something that doesn’t. So go do what makes you happy, and even if it doesn’t work at the start, you’ll figure things out along the way.
What problem does your business solve?
At Matutto we’re solving a two-fold problem. For the people who are teaching, we call them Hosts, we eliminate the admin and friction points of running online classes, such as collecting payments, issuing refunds, and sharing zoom links.
For people looking to learn, we call them Users, we make it easy to find book, pay and attend a class. At the moment, people don’t know where to go to find certain classes, so they refer to things as Facebook groups and often end up being scammed or having a bad experience.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
When I was a tutor, I realized I didn’t like sharing my bak details with prospective students; I didn’t like wondering when and if I’d be paid for my classes; I didn’t like having to negotiate my rates; I didn’t like having to manage and share multiple videoconference links with every student for every class; I didn’t like issuing refunds, and so on.
Knowing and understanding the problem so well gave me an initial incentive to try to fix it. In today’s age, everyone can monetize at least 1 skill they have, whether it’s a language, business coaching or even providing mental health support to others.
And with the creation of Matutto we have built an infrastructure that anyone can leverage to teach others online and make some extra cash.
What is your magic sauce?
Some teaching platforms out there charge a commission of up to 33% of people’s earnings. We provide a better service and charge less than half.
Some platforms require you to earn 100GBP to be able to withdraw your earnings. We let you withdraw your money whenever you want, and however much you want.
Some platforms require you to submit documentation to verify your qualifications, and can take up to a week to let you Host your first class. We let you sign up and be set up to run your first class within 10 minutes, with no proof needed.
Overall we have taken a look at what the market looks like and said ‘we can do much, much better’ than our competitors. Airbnb wasn’t the first, second, nor third platform where people could put up their rooms/flats up for rental. But it was the first one that put the needs of the customer first and built a solution that tackled all friction points encountered. At Matutto we’re following the same direction.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
Within the next 5 years we aim to become the most common platform for people all around the world looking to learn something new.
We want to be the number 1 marketplace in the world for 1-on-1 classes and enable these interactions in the Metaverse.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
As we’re building the smoothest online class booking flow on the internet, we have realized we can’t instantly cater to the needs of both segments of customers who use our platform – people who teach (Hosts) and people looking to learn (Users).
So we have had to roll out updates as we go along and keep our customers informed and updated on how we’re progressing.
For example at the time of launch we were only processing payments in the UK, right now Matutto is operating in Europe, and hopefully later in the year we will be connecting people worldwide.
So in those lines, we often have to say ‘We don’t yet have the exact solution you want ready, but we’re working towards it’.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
We want support anyone looking to monetize their skills in the format of online classes, so if you can teach anything from a musical instrument to how to cut a Bonsai Tree, reach out to us via www.matutto.com
