Jan 30, 2017
Clark co-founders Megan O’Connor and Sam Gimbel were recently invited to appear as guests on “Smart People Should Build Things,” a Venture for America podcast, to share their experience and discuss the many ideas that came to fruition with the development of Clark.
On this episode of “Smart People Should Build Things,” Megan and Sam discuss how they came up with the idea for Clark, a virtual assistant for tutors, and why they decided to turn their passion for education and smart technology into a personal assistant for freelance tutors.
Megan, who has a background in education, was first inspired for the idea by her mom, who’s a public school teacher and freelance tutor on the side. Conversely, through his work in the tech industry, Sam became enamored with the gig economy worker and developed an app for 1099 workers that allowed them to do their jobs sustainably and earn a living wage. Megan had the market; Sam had the tech. Together, they started to iterate on a project that would become Clark.
We are narrow-focused on: How do you scale and build a tutoring business?
— Megan O’Connor
While there are many products that tutors currently use, such as Quickbooks, Square, and PayPal, they don’t work seamlessly together. The goal of Clark is to bring a real tech solution to tutors that allows them to effectively manage their business and make a living with one simple tool.
We’re watching these tutors come in and say “I just need to get paid on time.” Seems reasonable.
— Sam Gimbel
Through preliminary research, the duo found that roughly 75% of tutors are being paid late for their services. Clark has found a way to mitigate for that while still upholding the relationship between tutors, parents, and students. Clark’s long-term goal is to bring efficiency to the tutoring world in order to educate more children, faster.
Want to hear the full story? We know you do. Listen to the full-length podcast here.
