Today we’d like to introduce you to Josh Woratyla.
Hi Josh, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2018 with a degree in Philosophy and Psychology and began working for a variety of test prep companies. I started out after graduating working in Psychology labs, but realized I had a love for tutoring and helping students, and it worked with my schedule as I was also working as a musician at the time. When covid happened, I began tutoring exclusively with virtual companies across the country from the Bay Area to New England. The advancement of virtual meeting tools like zoom really took off during that time, and when the SAT switched to a digital format in 2024, it made sense to tutor exclusively remotely as people became much more open to it and aware of its effectiveness. I amassed my own network of clients through a select number of strategic referrals. and the network grew through word of mouth. By 2023 I found my schedule completely filled with my own students, and so I began my company Vertical Prep in 2024 using proprietary test prep and tutoring materials and methods that I developed over the years of working in the industry. Since then, my workload reached capacity and so we’ve brought on 3 more tutors to the team. We specialize in SAT prep and AP subject tutoring, as well as ACT prep, HSPT, GRE, Math through calculus, English and essay writing, and a variety of other subjects and tests.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It definitely hasn’t been easy figuring things out. It took hours and hours of time and research to learn what I needed to structure the business for legal and tax purposes in a way that worked for me as a solopreneur of sorts. I’ve made a number of corrections that resulted in headaches along the way, like having to change my business’s name and file corrective paperwork with the government. Honestly, I love tutoring, building curriculum, networking, everything that comes with the actual job. The worst part is things like managing how payments are collected, how expenses are recorded, how taxes are reported, all the systems and paperwork behind the scenes. People don’t understand how much more running a business is than just doing the tutoring. Also, team building has been challenging. I take complete pride and ownership of the business, and when a referral comes to be based on my reputation, I’ve had a hard time letting go of some of the control to hand students off to my team. I trust my team completely, but it’s been a challenge finding those people. Lots of time sorting through resumes and conducting interviews. That part isn’t as fun, but when I find someone Im excited about, it makes it worth it. I’m also motivated to build my team bigger because honestly, it can be lonely running a virtual business on your own. My coworkers also make me feel a sense of responsibility for the business that makes me work harder, whereas when its just you there’s a lot of self-motivating required.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Vertical Prep is different in that we understand deeply how important the coaching and mentorship component of test prep and tutoring is. A student must trust their educator completely in order to gain the most benefit from the service. Additionally, it is my life’s work to have optimized the process of preparing students to take the SAT college entrance exam. From proprietary interactive lesson materials, to student motivation, to gamified assignments and checkpoints along the way, our service is entirely personalized to what the student needs. We make lessons fun and meaningful by connecting with students on a deeper level and providing a service that goes beyond lecturing on material. In the age of AI, students can look up all the answers to their questions, we know this. Our service is valuable in that it actually motivates students to do the work. To have a mentor that you trust in your corner, you don’t want to let them down. Many students’ instinct is to quit right before their biggest success. Having someone there to coach you through the emotions and motivate you to believe you can do it, taking the stress away, is invaluable. This is what we do best. Additionally, our team is made up of highly experienced educators, the best in the country, some with PhDs, all with a deep understanding of subject matter. We take coaching/mentorship approach and apply it to AP subject tutoring, math and English tutoring, and a variety of entrance tests. The goal is to eliminate stress, build genuine curiosity and interest, and create a space where students feel comfortable making mistakes and knowing that it’s part of the process of improving. We will never become so big that we lose the humanity of the service we provide, as that is the part which makes our service so effective and valuable.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
Just go for it. Get started today, right now. There will never be a perfect time. Part of the process is doing things wrong so that you can learn how to actually do them right. I wasted a lot of time trying to get things perfect on the first go, and they never were. They still aren’t, and that’s part of it. The only way I could actually get to a spot I felt better about was to do it wrong the first time. Looking up a mountain, the top seems incomprehensibly far away. But recognizing that, logically, the only way to get there is to just take a step in front of you, you realize that you can do that. You can take that one step. All you need to decide is, “do I want to climb the mountain or not?” If yes, then you take one step. And then you take another, and another. Keep your head down and just keep taking steps. When you finally look up, you’ll realize how far you’ve gone and it will feel like magic. But you know deep down that it was just from doing a little at a time each day. This is true for anything hard in life that’s worth doing.
Pricing:
- 20-min Consultation Call with Josh (Free)
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.verticalprep.com
- Other: https://share.google/kMCpLGurPpdurdqgP
