I am also worried about payment disputes, charge backs, and fraud. I know these certainly will happen and I don’t want them to eat my time. I’m hoping to eliminate most of it by having the client manually approve each payment. Then, if tutor doesn’t get paid, provide steps for them to self resolve including accept cash/check if needed which would cut me out.

You’ve got me thinking though…perhaps my simple $10/month is best. Will have to think more about this. Thanks for your comments!

Just a little reminder of your core principle of “Breaking Free”. This business idea is essentially a C2C business model. You are connecting parents to tutors – nothing more!

It is extremely difficult to deal with and manage consumers. No matter how old they get they’re still babies. Unless you are ready to babysit your customers, I would not support the payment system idea. You may never “break free” from this business.

If you want to prove me wrong, try posting a phone number on your site and then see how many useless calls you’ll be getting about questions that could be readily answered on your site or through the FAQ. People don’t like to read. They generally ignore everything except for that thing that interest them.

Again, prove me wrong on this – just put a trackable link on your “terms and conditions” page and see how many people actually read the terms and conditions before they sign up. In my case, only about 4% actually read the T&C before signing up. The rest of them just click the button because they’re forced to click it before registration.

I had a consumer-based educational business before. Knowing that I don’t have the capacity to answer all they calls, I sent the calls to a call center and pay them by the second. All calls are recorded and forwarded to me for analysis. You will not believe the types of calls we got. Customers dont even read FAQ’s. They want to chat with you directly (for hours) …and they won’t even buy anything.

Anyway, the biggest risk (and biggest question) in this payment idea is:
1) Are you ready to personally manage payment disputes between each parent and tutor?
2) Are you ready to put your personal credit at risk for managing these transactions?
3) How will you deal with credit card companies and manage “Credit Card Chargebacks” and “charge disputes” AFTER you have taken your “huge” 10% and the tutor already escaped with 90%? If there’s ever any dispute or chargeback, the bank will take back 100% of the transaction + chargeback fee (usually $25) –> from YOU!
4) How about online fraud? Do you really want to put yourself in the middle of all this?

That is what Tutor.com, Wyzant.com and Brainfuse are all doing. NOT one of them is making any real money today….. Tutor.com basically lives on venture capital!

Anyway, I think I’ve said enough for now. I have been reading your blog for about a month now and I can identify with most of your comments. I just don’t want you to deviate from your or “our” common goal of breaking free – completely!

Having said that, here is a couple of sites and articles that I have been studying for awhile. They detail numerous types of business models that may fit your needs.

1) http://www.startup-review.com/blog/case-study-index/

2) http://digitalenterprise.org/models/models.html

Good Luck…..and keep breaking free!

I think you have made a good point, this site needs to stick to its core business model of “Marketing these small Tutor Business Owners”. What other marketing services can you offer to these tutors. they surely don’t need you to manage there 20 bucks for 1hr of service with one client a week.

Also on your sign up page your registration button is below the fold “not a good idea” decreases conversions. Way to much useless information about your service. Keep it simple.

I also notice that if you picked and area you listing on the left ran of the page. My thought was that I would pick the top one and go down. Could you create a review and rating system that would make them more attractive to pick.

Good luck looks like fun!

http://www.odesk.com/help/help/new_to_odesk/fee