Today we’d like to introduce you to Matthew Johnson.
Matthew, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
In 2001, I started teaching for Fulton County Schools, both middle and high school. I loved doing it, and I guess did it pretty well, with several teacher of the year nominations in the thirteen years that I taught. But it was tough, and I was hard on myself. Teaching is a very self-conscious experience, and between the expectations one puts on himself and the growing expectations being placed on teachers, I began to wonder if I could keep up the work. Then my daughter was born in 2013. She was my first.
For years, I had been working at writing, mostly fiction, and was deep into that and teaching at the same time when Mj came along. The load of expectations at work, having a new born child, who my wife and I did not want to put into daycare, and then trying to write, prompted Krysta to suggest that I stop teaching, take care of our daughter and write more seriously. It seemed as if there would ever be a time to step back and look at what I was doing and consider other options, this was it.
Becoming a stay-at-home dad is one of the few decisions I know was the right one. We knew that the financial toll of cutting our household income in half would only give us a short time with this experiment. I supplemented my wife’s income with over-the-hump sort of contributions by doing a little childcare work and landscaping for my neighbor’s company on the days when Mj was at her grandparents’ house.
Still, as mortgage rose for our Decatur home over these two years, and my childcare job moved to Oklahoma, we found ourselves priced out of the house we loved so much. I needed another income. And we needed to move.
In March of 2016, I got a call from a family member about someone wanting to sell their tutoring business. It took another month or so before the idea seemed appealing enough to consider seriously. By this point, my son, Lincoln, was born. Owning a tutoring business seemed uniquely suited for being able to spend the first part of my day with my children, while reengaging my skills and knowledge as a teacher. By the end of June I had put money down on Math Masters, a highly respected and long-standing tutoring business operated by Trudie Turner in Buckhead. Since that time we have tripled our number of tutors, expanded the areas of content that we provide, added a college planning division, and opened up a second location in Decatur.
Of course, the ability for this new path to contribute more securely to the household income is still a work in progress.
Has it been a smooth road?
Smooth? No. More so though because being an entrepreneur is so different from being a teacher. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m not always sure exactly of my goals. A recipe for disaster likely. I have tremendously valuable help in Sonja Harrast though, who is our program and college planning coordinator. She helps keep things on track and moving with vision. The tutoring industry is very competitive. Not only are there a lot of other tutoring companies in Atlanta, but tutoring is a highly freelanced job for tutors who are not associated with an actual company. Differentiating yourself from others is tough. That’s where we are trying to explore options. Right now, the credentials of our tutors sets us apart from most I believe.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Tutoring Solutions of Atlanta story. Tell us more about the business.
Tutoring Solutions of Atlanta helps students k-adult in course material and test preparation. We also work with high school students to navigate the college application process. This includes helping students analyze school choices, working with the college essay and interview, developing a calendar of deadlines, and even traveling with students on college visits.
Most of our tutors have their PhD in their course area, or extensive professional experience in their field. Our tutors include former NASA engineers, software developers, former EPA chemists, former editors of city newspapers, and a number of current professors. We offer on-line and in-person tutoring. It’s the good relationships that students make with such highly knowledgeable instructors that we are most proud of. Tutoring is a highly personal experience, and our tutors really seem to understand that it’s the relationship with the student that matters the most. I’m often amazed at what some of our tutors do to help their students, the preparation they go through, and the materials they create and give to students to aid them in the long-run.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I think the video conferencing format will expand as a more comfortable option for people. Most people don’t trust it right now as a reliable format for good instruction, but I see that changing. There also seems to be an increase in tutoring for elementary students.
Contact Info:
- Address: Our Buckhead location is at 1218 West Paces Ferry Rd. Suite 104 Atlanta 30327
Our Decatur location is 112 Church St. Decatur, GA - Website: www.tutoringsolutionsofatlanta.com
- Phone: 404-949-9373
- Email: tutoringsolutionsofatlanta@gmail.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Tutoring-Solutions-of-Atlanta-518023198391522/
Image Credit:
Sonja Harrast
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