Startup: Speakshop.com
By Amy Hsuan, Oregonian
December 30, 2008, 1:46PM
The company: Speakshop.com, Northeast Portland
The product: A Web site that connects foreign-language students with Spanish tutors in Guatemala and Nicaragua via webcam.
Created: August 2004
Suggested retail price: Tutors charge $7 to $10 an hour. Speakshop.com collects a membership fee from users ranging from $9.99 to $39.99 a month, depending on the number of lessons received.m
What stage: Up and running
Employees: Two in Portland, with 10 contracted tutors worldwide
Where they work: Out of their homes
The founders: Clay Cooper, 41, and wife Cindy Cooper, 35, met while studying for their master’s degrees in international management at the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona. Clay, a Montana native, worked in the financial services industry for 15 years. Cindy, a graduate of Beaverton High School, worked in marketing and corporate social responsibility.
The idea source: In 1998, Clay traveled to Antigua, Guatemala, hoping to immerse himself in Spanish as part of his master’s program. There, he hired and befriended several tutors. “It was the first time where I knew someone who was well-educated and worked hard and was still struggling economically,” Cooper said. “I felt like I had to do something.” When Cooper returned to the U.S., he hatched a plan to start a business that would benefit people in poverty while also providing a useful service.
Speakshop.com aims to help tutors build their own businesses by allowing them to set their own rates and earn higher wages than they would in their home countries. Tutors hold lessons through Web conferencing with students, who schedule appointments online. Last year, Speakshop.com tutors taught 3,700 lessons, some of them working more than 100 hours in a month.
The money: The Coopers launched Speakshop.com using their personal savings, spending what they had when they needed to develop different aspects of the business. Now, they’d like to build the business more quickly, hoping to spend money on marketing and advertising. ” “We are open to investors, but it would take someone who understands that part of the return is you’re helping people work their way out of poverty,” Clay Cooper said.
The dream: Think the eBay of language learning. Within five years, the Coopers hope to have 1,000 online tutors. This year, close to 6,000 lessons will be conducted through Speakshop.com. Cooper would like to see people rethink language-learning as something that doesn’t necessarily have to be done through audiotapes or a community college. “The technology we have now is much better than it used to be,” Cooper said.
The fear: “I don’t think we’re growing fast enough,” Cooper said. “There are a number of tutors out there, and we should help them find more students.”
The forecast: The Coopers are profitable now, but as Clay said, “It’s only profitable if you don’t pay yourself.” In five years, he hopes to have annual revenues of $1 million.
