Yuan Wang, of Castle Hill, was looking for a biology tutor for her year 12 son Benjamin Huang. Paul Leone, of Castle Hill, was a science graduate with an above distinction average looking for work. It took her about 30 seconds to find him, and he lived five minutes away. That's the platform economy at work.
The platform in their case was Scooter Tutor, a 10-year old Brisbane company with a bespoke software system which lets clients instantly engage a tutor according to availability, subject, year level and location, and vetted for qualifications, quality and character.
The private tutoring market in Australia is worth an estimated $1.25 billion and is growing at 4.1 per cent a year, according to figures provided by Australian Tutoring Association CEO Mohan Dhall. Worldwide, it is predicted to surpass $102 billion by 2018.
The Australian government's Job Outlook website predicts tutoring jobs will grow "very strongly" in the next three years, adding as many as 50,000 full-time jobs to the Australian Tutoring Association's estimate of 70,000 existing tutors, which includes part-timers and those who moonlight from their day jobs.
Scooter Tutor is just one of many "electronic matching services" to have entered the industry, says Mr Dhall. Its founders claim it is the only one to immediately match clients with tutors on its website. But co-founder and former civil engineer Sam Robertson admits there's "nothing really" to stop its market being Hoovered up by bigger players.
Hundreds of companies, not just in the tutoring business, are using the same business model of connecting buyers with sellers and facilitating their interaction, with embedded systems for payments, quality assurance and other service enhancements.
Amazon, Uber, eBay and Alibaba are among the world's best-known platform companies. The top 15 publicly listed companies in the genre have a combined market capitalisation of $2.6 trillion. They are part of "the most profound change in the global macroeconomic environment since the Industrial Revolution," according to a report by consulting firm Accenture.
They create "ecosystems" of clients, providers and partners that help drive their growth. For example the Australian start-up Kayla supports accommodation management services for AirBNB hosts. The "big data" on clients and markets collected by platform companies informs their growth strategies. And they're branching out.
Demand for tutors by area, based on 5000 inquiries to Scooter Tutor website, Aug 2016-February 2017. Photo: Scooter Tutor
"When some of those big dominant players have the platform and have the customers, they can incorporate a service not too far away from core business. They already have the economies of scale that will give them competitive advantage" says Peter Bradd, innovation consultant and chairman of StartupAUS, Australia's national advocacy body for start-ups.
For example, Amazon's logistics work for groceries as well as books; Uber's drivers can deliver food as well as people.
Diversification by the big players may not be good news for minnows like Scooter Tutor, founded in 2007 and named for the way co-founder and one-time aeronautical engineer Cameron Schmidt used to get around Brisbane to tutoring sessions.
It's relying on its head start and the quality of the software it has created: "We have been around quite a few years and there still isn't anyone who has introduced a level of technology to be able to (provide) tutors as efficiently," he says.
Its growth strategy includes expanding into the high-growth Asian market, but also licensing out its platform technology to other businesses, starting with a Brisbane aged care provider which wants it to manage a large offsite workforce.
With direct competition from global players entering the Australian market such as the Tutor Doctor franchise (17,000 tutors in 15 different countries), the founders are starting to position Scooter Tutor as a technology company with an education focus rather than the other way around, Mr Robertson says.
In the past year it has expanded from 20 tutors to 220, and from Brisbane to Sydney and Melbourne and plans to put on another 800 tutors by the end of the year.
Prices range from $47.25 up to $66, depending on the tutor's qualifications and experience and the number of lessons chosen.
Of that, tutors receive from just under $30 to just under $40 an hour. Mr Leone likes that the website shows his availability on any particular day, so is convenient for clients to book, and that payments are handled electronically.
Ms Wang said the system was "easy to use and very professional".
