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Optimising STEM education by personalising teaching and solving student motivation

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Tutero is a young and exciting team out of Melbourne, Australia taking on the way children learn and optimising every second of STEM teaching and learning.

Tutero has developed a ‘knowledge graph’ that helps children navigate the STEM curriculum by understanding their personal knowledge of a subject. The software shows parents and teachers optimal STEM pathways so a student can accelerate learning or the most efficient way to catch up.

Ultimately, the Tutero team is driven by a mission to help all children grow in confidence and improve their grades, setting them up for a much higher level of success in life.

The team’s Startmate mentor squad includes Natalie Collins, Lauren Capelin, Bill Kerr and me (Chris Quirk, squad partner).

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💜 What we love about the founders

There is a lot to love about Tutero — but there were four specific things about the founding team that captured the Startmate Mentors’ attention.

The founders work well together, and they should, because two of them are brothers. This connection may be too close for some, but when a team works together as well as Joey, Sonny and Richard do, we love it!

It doesn’t take long talking to the team to sense that they love STEM education and improving the outcome for all students. This big passion about the problem (not just the solution) is another reason we couldn’t stay away.

It may seem simple, but the team has a great understanding of the problem and can articulate its size and complexity, while also countering it with a simple explanation of the solution with an elegance that is rare.

Finally, Joey, Sonny and Richard ask the hard questions and stare into the uncomfortable, which they did during the selection process and have continued to do throughout the Accelerator. We think this determination will serve them well as they build the next generation of education software.

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🔮 What's the magic?

Joey, Sonny and Richard  are looking at the STEM curriculum in a unique way. Their structure has allowed them to build a personalised, rapid, targeted learning system for students far from the standard time-based teaching generally used today.

The Mentors also couldn’t overlook the traction of the first market wedge that the team is pursuing: online tutoring. The growth since launching in December 2021 is impressive — 90 tutors (of 2,500 applications), 350 hours per week, and monthly revenue of over $75k as at July when applications closed. We don’t want to spoil Demo Day, but it hasn't stopped there!

Tutero can also execute on a highly capital efficient go to market using schools as a scalable acquisition channel matched with a product-led growth mechanism to grow within schools. There’s a lot to be excited about. 

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🚀 Why now?

STEM education is failing throughout Australia, with less than 54% of students achieving national proficiency in STEM subjects and 92% of teachers saying there is inadequate time for lesson planning and reviewing students’ work. This is because students learn according to their age, not their ability, which can lead to a vicious cycle of compounding underperformance if a student falls behind.

COVID catalysed a shift towards ‘online everything’ and a greater acceptance of digital technologies among teachers and parents. Now is the perfect time to revolutionise the way students learn STEM subjects in a personalised, targeted way based on a student’s own knowledge of a subject, with a synchronised system at school and in the home.