Secret Academy Episode - Todd RothmanWhile attending undergrad studies, Todd Rothman had the misfortune of learning his dad had cancer forcing him to leave school briefly to support the family. After a short but successful stint in wall street, Todd realized he was not passionate and went back to school after his fathers passing to pick up where he left off to become a physician. Dealing with the emotional stress of his fathers passing made it hard for Todd to continue that path even though he excelled at medical studies. Todd slowly began to help others in fields like biology and organic chem and eventually caught the attention of another tutor who would later become his then business partner. Together they both turned their tutoring hobby into a legitimate business making well into six figures a year. Initially, Todd partnered with universities and tutored students in packed classrooms, then repackaged his tutoring into DVDs, only to face pushback from schools and college professors. With the internet becoming such a prevalent medium for students and schools alike, Todd created Streaming Tutors, an online learning platform that has tutored over 20,000 students worldwide.
- The life event that made Todd leave school to work on Wall Street for the stock market
- Lessons learned from dealing with people such as rejection, confidence, communication, etc
- Why Todd went back to school to become a physician only to realize it wasn't for him
- The struggles of work, school, life balance that exposed Todd to the world of tutoring
- The difference between being a teacher and being a tutor and why Todd prefers tutoring
- The birth of the tutoring business founded by Todd and his original co-founder
- Why you should always think big picture and scalability to maximize profit and time
- Although no longer business partners, lessons on what makes partnerships fail and work
- How Todd applied the law of averages and psychology to attract new students
- Why it's important to identify where your customers are when marketing to them
- Guerrilla marketing tactics Todd did differently than most tutors on campus
- The transition of taking an offline business with DVDs to online with video streaming
- How Todd leveraged partnerships with universities, even while facing push back from professors
- The passion behind teaching and how Todd plans to take Streaming Tutors to the next level
