Teacher Finder

Andrew Davison dropped out of a computer science degree and found himself in Budapest working odd jobs. After trying his hand at teaching English, he realized he wasn't a natural instructor—but he had a gift for connecting people. When language learners started asking if he knew other teachers, he saw an opportunity. "I would refer the leads on and I would get a small referral fee. I built the website out a bit, and I put profiles on there. I started thinking about other cities in Europe like Berlin, Madrid, Barcelona, where people would be looking for teachers."

Teacher Finder launched in March 2016 with scrappy simplicity. Andrew started with WordPress, a Gravity form, and a massive Google Sheet running the entire operation. Zapier automated the matching process, pulling updates from teachers and handling payments. As demand grew, he migrated to a custom backend built on Bubble. The infrastructure was lean and purposeful—no unnecessary complexity.

Growth came primarily through organic search. "Someone searching German teacher in Berlin would probably find us in the top listings," Andrew recalls. Students naturally found the platform through Google. On the supply side, Andrew and his partner hustled aggressively across expat forums, existing teacher listing sites, and anywhere language teachers congregated online. They messaged prospects directly, asking about availability and convincing them to sign up.

By the end of 2015, Teacher Finder had expanded internationally and performed well for the first two years. It peaked in early 2018, then plateaued and declined. The core problem was the marketplace's fundamental physics: "We were constantly battling in some cities. There were loads of teachers, but not too many people looking for teachers, or at least not looking online for them. The reverse happened in some cities."

Andrew discovered supply-demand imbalances were nearly impossible to solve. In Hamburg and Munich, only two or three full-time teachers existed, yet they had more students than they could handle. Meanwhile, other cities had surplus teachers but insufficient demand. "There was no way we could create new German, French, or English teachers. There was only a limited amount of demand for finding teachers." The pricing model—charging teachers a flat fee after four successful lessons—also became labor-intensive to manage and automate as the platform scaled.

Google's algorithm shifts hurt too. Teacher Finder's search rankings, which had been their primary traffic driver, started dropping from position one to positions two and three. This translated directly into fewer inquiries.

At peak, Teacher Finder operated in 60-70 cities but discovered only 20 were actually generating matches. Andrew stripped operations back to 10 European cities focusing on core languages: English, German, and French. The business now runs on just a few hours per month, powered by Zapier automation. It generates $500-$1,000/month with running costs below $100/month—highly profitable in percentage terms, though modest in absolute dollars. Total lifetime revenue reached £67,000 (approximately $84,000-$89,000 USD). "I still enjoy the fact that we're helping a select number of teachers find work in their cities," Andrew reflects.