Starting off as just a tutoring company, as time went on we merged our tutorials together with technology. Together with the 4th industrial revolution, we are the first company in Botswana to work as an “Uber for tutors.” We are basically matching tutors and students across Botswana, South Africa, and soon we will be going to Accra, Ghana. What really sets us apart is our ability to merge technology with our already existing companies.
The way the Lion Tutoring app works is we load tutors onto our platform, and if a client would like to secure a tutor, they simply log into our platform, where the app will find their location. The client then punches in the subjects they want, and from there, the app will show the available, already vetted tutors in their location. That is another thing that sets us apart—our tutors are vetted. This means we have done background checks with our HR partners: PNET and dots360 in South Africa and Career Pool in Botswana.
Ours is a love story about Botswana. We really like to brand Botswana as a technology destination, as a group of young people who are really embracing technology and the 4th industrial revolution.
The company was founded in 2015 by Thobo Khathola to address the issue of our very high failure rate and also high unemployment rate. Lion Tutoring has a 96% pass rate from the last year’s 2018-2019 results. We also employ more than 300 young Batswana and are currently hiring 20 South Africans.
Our company was founded with the mandate of addressing those two problems: high unemployment rates and high failure rates. We provide private tutoring services to students from primary and pre-primary school all the way to university, undergraduate, and postgraduate. We also offer tutorials for different curriculums, including IGCSE, BGCSE, A-Levels, Cambridge Primary Checkpoint, IEB, and IB, and we offer these private tutorial services through the help of our app.
We are the best at what we offer because it takes us a very short period of time—a day—to match a tutor to the right student. We also have tutors who are teachers, so we normally recruit teachers to be our tutors, holding PGDE, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees in education.
Our other strength is our app. We are the first company operating an “Uber for tutors” in Botswana, and what makes us the best at what we do is our credibility: our clients are very comfortable and confident in our services, which is what makes our brand stand out from the rest.
Lion Tutoring won three awards in 2017, 2018, and 2019 and was named the Best Youth-Owned Business in Botswana at The Botswana Youth Awards and The Palapye Business Awards. Our biggest achievement is that we made it into the Forbes 30 under 30 list for 2020. Mr. Thobo was listed on the Forbes 30 under 30 list of 2020 and also appeared on the cover of the April Forbes Africa magazine, thus being the first Batswana to be on the cover of the Forbes 30 under 30 magazine. Mr. Thobo was also listed in the Botswana Stock Exchange’s First Publication as one of the Top Youth Entrepreneurs to Watch and was listed by The Botswana Youth Mag as one of the Top 30 Most Influential Youth in Botswana.
The company is based in Botswana with branches in Gaborone, Phakalane, Palapye, and Francistown. They also operate in South Africa, specifically in Rustenburg and Johannesburg. Lion Tutoring is looking to take advantage of the 4th industrial revolution by engaging a worldwide audience through their e-commerce platform and mobile application. The Lion Tutoring app works like Uber but for tutors and has started gaining traction in international markets. Our biggest project is expanding into Africa; we already have an office in Sandton and students all around South Africa, and we will be branching out to Accra, Ghana.
We have a number of testimonials. For example, we tutored students through the aid of the FNB Foundation at Mogoditshane Primary School, where the students’ pass rate increased by a good 10% over two months. Another testimonial is from the University of Botswana and Botswana Accountancy College (BAC), where we were invited as guest lecturers for their entrepreneurial courses.
The company’s vision for the future is to concentrate on the African market, and by 2025, we aim to be a company present in all the cities of Africa. By 2030, we envision ourselves being available to the whole world; already, we have students who are doing online tutoring as far as Canada and Australia—that is our vision for the future.
