1 Million Cups: Live Music Tutor

The 1 Million Cups video presentation that I chose to write about is Live Music Tutor, which can be found here. The company itself is an online music tutor interface that acts as a sort of hub for tutors and students alike. The service is free, although students do have to pay for lessons/classes. The main draw is that it has superior quality to other platforms in terms of its audio/video feeds and allows for potential students to take classes at their leisure. It contains a social media component that brings everybody together, so that one can find tutors that specialize in a certain instrument or genre and read their profile to determine if it would be a good fit. One can also apply to be a tutor, with the application going through a background check and other processes to determine eligibility.

The presentation was mostly done well, although there were a few facets that could be improved upon. The video that was played before the speaker came on was effective and professionally done, and while it didn’t get into any specifics in a monetary sense, it laid the groundwork for the presentation. The presenter did mostly fine in terms of his manner of speaking. It’s clear he’s not a charismatic public speaker, and despite an over-reliance of “ums”, he managed to get his points across clearly. My main problem is that they didn’t reveal the exact prices – or at least a range – of how much a normal tutor would cost, which makes me think that it could be expensive. I feel like they needed a more in-depth breakdown of their revenue streams, and in terms of the “celebrity” lessons that they touted, a brief list of which celebrities they featured or will feature would have been nice. Still, I like the idea of Live Music Tutor, as I feel it has the potential to be something more with a little refinement. One of the audience members who asked a question alluded to something like this, but I think that if they staged some events, such as an online “concert” performed by students who have successfully used the program, they would have strong marketing tools to use and show people how effective Live Music Tutor can be. Also, the potential of the technology that they utilize, supposedly superior to Skype and similar platforms, could allow for the company to either expand into other avenues or sell the technology itself, which might be an effective swaying point to entice investors. Overall, I was impressed with the ideas and ambitions of Live Music Tutor, and I’m interested to see how well they fare in the future.