John Shin
John Shin

Remind Tutoring

Remind had millions of teachers, students, and parents connected through its network. After witnessing firsthand the positive impact communication had on students through the platform, we made efforts to bring that relationship closer and on-demand. It was our biggest bet since the company was founded—connecting students with teachers through Remind Tutoring.

Research suggested that the primary hurdle students face in succeeding in class isn't a lack of subject matter expertise, but a lack of executive function skills and accountability. Students often struggle with planning, time management, and consistent practice—essential components of academic success.

Remind Tutoring was conceived to address this gap. By connecting students with vetted teachers within the existing Remind network, we aimed to provide not only subject-matter support but also the crucial element of regular accountability, fostering a habit of dedicated learning and practice outside the classroom.

The introduction to Remind Tutoring lived where most students would see—in the feed.

Building this new service was a multifaceted challenge. We assembled a team of teacher advisors and an operations lead, and carefully rolled out the service to a select group of schools and grades prioritizing math.

Finding the right price point while minimizing time-to-tutor was the challenge to get right.

On the product side, our focus was on creating a streamlined user experience to minimize our leading metric: time-to-tutor. We dissected real-world tutoring sessions, identifying the core elements that could be effectively translated into a remote environment.

Math was the most in-demand subject for tutoring. It's also the most taught, straightforward to evaluate, and well-known subjects to begin with. We used Zoom and Scribble, a collaborative whiteboarding tool, to facilitate the sessions.

As we developed the MVP, we invited tutors and students to participate in simulated remote tutoring sessions, gathering rapid feedback to refine the experience. With positive validation, we initiated a slow rollout to a small test group, advertising within the app and hiring our first tutors.

Examining the end-to-end experience helped us capture and design for every part of the process.
A brief interaction of how a student would experience Remind tutoring.

Supply quickly became the bottleneck. While applications flowed in, we had to build a robust system to hire, evaluate, and manage our tutors, ensuring we could meet the demands of on-demand tutoring.

Apart from the customer-facing product experience we built the backend operations service to manage tutor matching and scheduling.

As the pilot expanded, we began to witness success stories. One student, initially failing her calculus course, used the service consistently and ended the school year with the top AP Calc exam score among her peers.

Remind Tutoring was more than just a new product or business venture. It was an effort to capture the essence of a genuine tutoring session, providing students with the structure and support needed to cultivate the executive function skills vital for lifelong learning.