DISQUS

Tom · 7 months ago

I love what teachstreet is doing, so while it's sad to see a drop in staff, I rather see them survive.

Anonymous · 7 months ago

This just doesn't seem like a venture-fundable company or even a tech company - it's more like a social network inside Ning. Maybe they should have just bootstrapped until they could prove there was a business model.

Crasher · 7 months ago

Use then throw away - it's disposable!

Cameron Newland · 7 months ago

In response to comment #2, I think you have the right idea (bootstrapping until you've proved you could get traction in the marketplace), but this company needed a little more engineering, a little more design, a little more marketing, to really get off the ground. Traction didn't come easily to them (though I believe they kind of have it now). I think the big VC raise/spend really catapulted to them. Imagine if they'd really bootstrapped...they'd have $2M left in cash, but probably 1/10 of the visitors, and these guys really need the big visitor/user numbers to get the network effect working in their favor (i.e. attracting enough students so that teachers want to be listed on TeachStreet, and attracting enough teachers so that students want to take classes through TeachStreet).

Marc · 7 months ago

These decisions are never easy, but Dave's doing an awesome building Teachstreet. Give him a little time to build his business, these things never happen over night. Keep pressing forward Dave!

pj · 7 months ago

120,000 unique users/month is a very small user base given the amount of money this company has spent. I agree with the commenter that this company is much better off by bootstrapping.

Dave got very lucky at amazon.com -- he joined the company and left the company at the right time. But, this doesn't make him a successful entrepeneur. Looking at their board, which consist of pretty inexperienced vc.

This company is not a winner. The ironic thing is that the people who're let go might end up better off. It's better to leave a sinking ship early rather than late.

Anonymous · 7 months ago

@pj Very well stated. The best entrepreneurs know when to throw in the towel.

Rob N. · 7 months ago

I think Dave and the entire TeachStreet team are doing an amazing job. To think about what they've done in a short period of time is impressive -- they've launched 7 cities in less than a year and each of these launches represents a massive amount of data collection. Being first to market is the name of the game for this type of business. Once they reach a critical mass of teachers and establish their brand, they should be able to monetize their offering quite easily. I know of several teachers in Seattle who are already receiving an increasing number of leads from TeachStreet. Once they begin to offer tools to teachers to manage their business, they'll be in a great position.

Dave Schappell · 7 months ago

John -- thanks for the article -- I thought it was very fair, and considerate of the folks who we had to let go.

And, thanks to everyone for the feedback, support, and criticism. We'll use it to spur us on, and fire our creative energies.

We may err, stumble and possibly ultimately fail, but we're in the arena... dusty, sweaty, bleeding... and we're not going to stop fighting. We think we're building a one-of-a-kind experience for teachers and students, and we have a great team, and supportive investors, dedicated to making our vision a reality.

Onward!

Dave

Costplis · 7 months ago

"120,000 unique users/month is a very small user base given the amount of money this company has spent"

Compare this number with others, for example Sampa, a company which has been around for many years (check quantcast.com for exact numbers). By comparison, and given how new they are, 120K is a pretty decent number!

I hate BS startups, but TeachStreet is likely to succeed. The fact that they are laying off employees demonstrates focus.

Why did they have to fire those employees? Either they got too greedy early on, or they were planning to use-and-throw these employees from the start.

How many employees are left @ TeachStreet and how many @ Sampa?

Dann · 7 months ago

"Who have left"? Makes it sound like they did so voluntarily.

Biz · 7 months ago

You mean the ex-employees @ Sampa?

Chris · 7 months ago

It's pretty sad how critical anonymous commenters are on here, likely without direct knowledge of internal operations. While a lot of people have been fortunate, financially and otherwise, based on when they served at corporations like Amazon, there's nothing that says that experience and knowledge cannot be carried over to the start-up world.

Just because Dave doesn't have experience running a start-up, does not mean he lacks the skill to do so. In this climate, I wish Dave and the rest of the TeachStreet team the best of luck in both continuing to build a strong business that both contributes to local communities and helps keep food on the tables for its employees' families.

Alexander Castro · 7 months ago

@Dave,

Best wishes to Dave and his team, and best wishes to the folks who are unfortunately no longer with them. This is a tough environment. We should celebrate those who have the courage to try.

Alex

Galen @ Estately · 7 months ago

It's sad to see the old faces go, but it was probably the right choice - TeachStreet has a market, but it needs time to build it out.

@pj - where did you get 120k from?

Onward ! · 7 months ago

@ Cameron Newland - you are exactly right, this model is based on "network effects" where you need both sides of the equation, suppliers and consumers, to create the marketplace. And you need to do this city-by-city. You might have bootstrapped a single city or two, but that wouldn't have provided enough data/evidence to convince investors any more than the naked concept.

Teachstreet is capturing a very interesting niche in the market that Yelp, Citysearch and others can't/won't address. It may take awhile for the model to scale but they will eventually dominate the market for teaching, tutors, mentors, coaches and such.

As Dave's email signature reminds us all, Onward !

Darrin Clay · 7 months ago

@PJ,
I am a firm beliver in the value of bootstraping a company. However, some businesses are naturally more capital intensive than others. Just because you can get between San Francisco and New York on a scooter with very little gas, does not mean using 100x more jet fuel and flying there is a worse option. But you say, look how much fuel they wasted on that stop over in Sacramento! Believe it or not even Boeing does not do a test flight that far! They take off and land at the same airport!
Dave may have got lucky at Amazon. However he could be in enjoying the Bahamas right now instead of dealing with the challenges of starting a company. I personally met Dave 3 days a go at the WTIA Tech Showcase Event. He was quick witted, funny and an all around nice guy. I guess the 300+ top investors and entrepreneurs that attended must be drinking the cool aid, because they voted TeachStreet Best of Show and a WINNER out of a very competive set of 23 companies.
As for Madrona, Rob Adams the senior director of M&A at CISCO, as well as several others at the event thought Madrona was a great VC. Oh, never mind that, because Matt at Madrona was just lucky too, when they invested in Amazon! On that note, Bruce D. Milne, the CEO and Founder of Corum must be inexperienced as well. He seemed pretty amazing to me over lunch, but hey, what do I know.
@PJ, sometimes I find Einstin was insightful in other areas of life, as well as his more well known formulas, especially when he said this about his formula for Success on January 15, 1950,
“If A is a success in life,
Then A =X+Y+Z.
Work is X;
Y is Play and
Z is keeping your mouth shut!”

Courage and God Speed Dave!
Darrin

Dave Schappell · 6 months ago

Darrin / others -- thanks for the positive comments -- one of the things you learn early on is to READ all the comments, but not to let the negative ones take you down, or let the overly positive ones take you too high. We're working very hard to build something that creates value for customers, and will evaluate our performance over the long-term.

Thanks!

Dave