New Venture Lab: Equipping Christian Entrepreneurs

There was a news story today about a web-based tutoring business that offers a very attractive method and pricing for tutoring:

Companies such as TutorVista have assembled an army of foreign teachers, most of them classroom veterans with graduate degrees, to help American students learn everything from ABC to E=mc2.

Only a few thousand customers have signed up so far, but with prices that can undercut traditional alternatives by 90 percent, transglobal tutoring may transform private instruction from a rich kid's luxury to almost any student's lifeline.

My point is not that we should all sign up our children for tutoring, but rather that we can draw a lesson from this.  The lesson is this: with the combination of Internet technology and low-cost intellectual capital from across the globe, any information-based business - yes, even tutoring - can be completely disrupted and changed.  Any time threats of disruption are on the horizon, there are usually big losers - such as the entrenched players that deny the new threat - and there are usually big winners - visionary entrepreneurs that took risks and created new business paradigms.

May we as Christians be as creative as possible in developing businesses that leverage the best of technology and creativity to provide for our families while having our heart turned toward home.

Read the full story here: Indian tutors explain foreign concepts