Today we’d like to introduce you to Lourdes and Matias Aviñó.
Lourdes and Matias, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
The story of YTeach is probably not the norm for a tech startup. I am co-founder along with my 12-year-old son, Matias. The idea behind YTeach started a little over a year ago. Since the time that my children started school, the very first question I would always ask them when I picked them up was, “What did you do today to help someone?” So if you could imagine, they were in Pre-K 3 and I would ask and receive answers like, how they lent someone a crayon or held the door. As they got older, the answers would become a little more elaborate such as they may be defended a schoolmate or included someone in their lunch table. This same discourse continued every day until one day in 5th grade, I pick up Matias and before I could even get the question out, Matias looks at me and says, “Don’t ask. I thought of something today. And the question is not what did I do to help someone today but how we can help a lot of people every day.” A few months after that, he picked up a legal pad and pencil and wrote out a business plan. He pitched it to us, and we really could see what a wonderful idea it was. Shortly thereafter, YTeach was born. We recently launched on iOS and are currently beta testing at Belen Jesuit.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I don’t think working on any business is ever as one expects. For one, working with family always has it’s special intricacies, never mind the fact that Matias is still in middle school. It is important to be flexible and know when you may need to pivot. We are also constantly reminding ourselves that sometimes progress is more important than perfection. However, we consider ourselves to have been extremely fortunate to have surrounded ourselves with people who have helped make YTeach a reality. We worked closely with a great company, Branger_Briz, to develop the idea. In addition, we have the incredible support of family and friends who have believed in it as much as we do.
Please tell us about your business.
YTeach is a peer-to-peer tutoring and scheduling app. Working together with schools, YTeach connects students to one another to build positive relationships and foster a network for learning. In return, the peer tutor receives community service hours, in addition to becoming a stronger communicator and making a meaningful impact. The idea is to create a network with respect to academics as well as other areas. So if a student needs help in Math, they can find a student within their school who excels in that subject; however, maybe a student excels in the arts and is a musician, they can share their knowledge with another student who, in that case, is interested in learning an instrument. Essentially, everyone has a skill – everyone has something to offer. Furthermore, students are natural collaborators. We are finding that YTeach is becoming more than just a tool to connect in order to learn, but that students are making connections for mentorship and support. The idea is to remove any stigma there is by asking for help. We are trying to encourage a growth mindset where students want to hopefully push themselves outside of their comfort zones and strengthen characteristics such as perseverance, grit, and empathy. We are focused on not just the general understanding of academic intelligence but also emotional intelligence.
We believe that there are other tutoring apps out there, but nothing quite like this. Also, our customer is schools, so essentially the schools are providing this resource for the students within that school to connect without a cost to the student. After speaking with a number of students, teachers and administrators there seemed to be a disconnect. Often students are only asking for help once they are behind. We hope that students will want to connect right away. If the student did not understand the material that day, they can reach out to someone who can explain it to them in a way they can understand. From the parent’s perspective, the feedback has also been extremely positive. Unlike other tutoring apps, the students are meeting with other students within their school – not necessarily a stranger. Furthermore, it is a service provided by the school so it also does not place that financial burden on families. We are spending so much money and time on supplemental learning for our kids, between tutoring, music lessons, sports, that it can be a major strain on families. Most importantly, YTeach uses technology but the result is face to face interaction. The best feedback has been the camaraderie amongst the students and the desire to help each other out.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
For Matias, his favorite childhood memory (so far) is taking a trip to Cuba a little over a year ago. We arrived to meet family, whom he had only heard about. Upon arriving the very first night, with the little they had, they prepared an incredible meal and helped celebrate his 11th birthday. Since our family is from Cuba, it only seemed like a story read in books. However, going to the places where our family lived and played put things in perspective for him. Furthermore, understanding the sacrifices they made in order to provide a better life for their family becomes very apparent. We have been fortunate enough to travel to many incredible places, but it is important to remember where you come from in order to know where you are going. As a parent, I think we try to create all these memories and you convince yourself that they include fancy hotels or elaborate getaways. However, this trip helped us quickly realize that children are capable of understanding so much more. Exposing them to these kinds of experiences at the end is what leaves a mark. We believe that some of the very things that YTeach stands for – innovation, perseverance, empathy – come from experiences like this.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.yteach.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @yteach.app
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/yteachapp/
Image Credit:
ra-haus fotografié
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