LessonsGoWhere takes off, brings e-commerce to offline learning

• Over 700 lessons across categories, such as baking, cooking, arts, fitness and dance
• To market to corporations as part of team-building events, employee incentive schemes

 
SINGAPORE startup LessonsGoWhere has officially launched its online marketplace that allows users to discover, list and book real-world lessons, replacing a beta site that was set up last December.
 
The beta site processed almost S$40,000 (US$32,000) in transactions and in May alone registered over 10,000 unique visitors, the company said in a statement.
 
One such user was Sebastian Yeo (pic above), who had always wanted to try sky diving. “I’ve always wanted to try skydiving, but never had the opportunity.
 
“When I found out through LessonsGoWhere that there were indoor skydiving lessons in Singapore, I jumped at the chance and booked it immediately.
 
“The experience was absolutely fantastic and I would love to do it again,” the 54-year-old said in the statement issued by LessonsGoWhere.
 
Since the beta site launch, LessonsGoWhere has seen a 10-20% monthly growth rate in both revenue and visitors, and believes believe this is just the tip of the iceberg. It plans to open up more types of lessons, and will start marketing its listed lessons to corporations as part of team-building events and employee incentive schemes.
 
LessonsGoWhere’s updated online marketplace was officially launched in June, marketing over 700 lessons across a variety of categories, such as baking, cooking, arts, fitness and dance. These lessons range from private Indian cuisine coaching taught within the convenience of your own kitchen to weekly Capoeira martial arts lessons, or even group sake appreciation classes, the company said.
 
It is similar in some aspects to Kuala Lumpur-based CultureRun, set up by two sisters in September 2011 to connect people with skills to share with those looking to learn new things.
 
LessonsGoWhere itself was set up by three cofounders who had been friends for the past decade: Ng E Fei, Ethan Yeo and Jackie Yong. They came together in mid-2013 to set up the portal, investing some S$30,000 (US$24,000) of their savings.

 
“The idea for LessonsGoWhere started when my girlfriend wanted to sign up for baking lessons, but could not find a place to go,” said Ng.
 
“After chatting to baking lessons providers – many of which are single-person operations – we found their challenges included getting sufficient students, setting up a convenient e-commerce platform, as well as getting payment before the lesson, as classes require pre-bought consumables.
 
“This turned out to be the case for the bulk of the other verticals we’re targeting as well and we decided to set up LessonsGoWhere to solve these issues and allow lifelong learning to continue in a fun and hassle-free manner,” he added.
 
At the end of 2013, LessonsGoWhere received the Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE) Startups grant, with support from NUS Enterprise. The startup is now based at the NUS Prince George’s Park incubator, where it gets mentorship support, legal assistance and accounting consultancy.
 
Although LessonsGoWhere currently only lists, markets and books lessons based in Singapore, it plans to expand regionally soon.
 
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