Felix Ohswald is in his mid-20s and head of Austria’s most successful start-up. His tutoring agency Go Student is worth three billion euros and is expanding halfway around the world. How is it to live with the status “child prodigy”?
“Oh no,” says Felix Ohswald into the zoom camera, “I don’t call myself a child prodigy.” Of course, there were the math lectures at the university in Vienna, which he attended at the age of 14 alongside school. He did his bachelor’s degree parallel to the Matura, the Austrian Abitur. Then studies in Cambridge and a finance master at the ETH Zurich. But child prodigy, as he is so often called? “There are plenty of mathematicians who are a hundred times smarter than me.”
Ohswald has just turned 27 years old. For the video interview, he wears a hoodie, chats a bit about Viennese cosiness and is, of course, on first name terms. But behind this relaxed demeanor lies an entrepreneur in the fast lane.
Felix Ohswald is the founder and CEO of Go Student, Austria’s most valuable start-up and currently probably the hottest education company in Europe. In the last year alone, investors have invested more than 500 million euros in the platform, which provides students with individual tutoring hours online. The company, founded in 2016, is now worth three billion euros on paper – and Ohswald is a multi-millionaire. Because he and his co-founder Gregor Müller still hold 25 percent of the shares in the company.
Tutoring in 23 countries
The idea for Go Student came to Ohswald from his younger brother Moritz. He passed around Felix’ Whatsapp number at school so that the math crack could answer tricky homework questions. It grew into a small and then an exploding business. At the end of 2018 Go Student had 18 employees, today Ohswald is the head of almost 2000 employees. “For me it still feels like we just held the first tutoring sessions yesterday,” admits Ohswald.
He no longer gives private tutoring. Not even the permanent employees, who take care of sales, customer support and recruiting tutors. For the tutoring itself, Go Student relies on an army of more than 19,000 freelancers in 23 countries. Most of them are students who want to earn something on the side without having to worry about acquiring tutors themselves. The company is currently expanding into the mega-market USA.
Go Student provides more than 1.5 million tutoring hours to students between the ages of 6 and 19 every month. In Germany and Austria alone, 8,500 tutors are active on the platform. By far the most popular thing in this country is tutoring in math, says Ohswald. English lessons are in second place, but support in all other common school subjects can also be booked. A tutoring lesson with Go Student lasts 50 minutes and costs between 19.20 and 29.60 euros, depending on the subscription chosen. The tutors at home in front of their screens receive an average of 15 euros.
Complaints from Tutors
The rapid growth also brings challenges for Ohswald and his company. The German Teachers’ Association recently expressed concerns in the Handelsblatt that the expansion at Go Student “is neglecting the needs of the students and the quality of the tutoring”. Tutors also complained that they were no longer paid on time. Some even started an online petition calling for improvements in working conditions and pay. The company says that technical difficulties with a payment provider have occasionally led to delays in paying tutors, which have been resolved. Check the rest of the criticism.
Company boss Ohswald emphasizes that ensuring the quality of tutoring is “one of the core issues that we deal with every day and in which we invest a lot of resources in order to continuously improve”. In practice, it looks like this: If you want to tutor at Go Student, you first have to pass a test to determine whether the person is suitable for the task. “Our offer stands and falls with the performance of the tutor,” says Ohswald. On the Trustpilot rating platform, Go Student still gets 80 percent very good ratings, despite some critical voices.
Go Student has also benefited from the fact that the corona pandemic has given homeschooling via video camera a completely new standard – even in the digitally developing country of Germany. “In 2019, the parents asked us exactly how this video telephony works. Today I can make a zoom call with my grandma myself,” says Ohswald. He not only believes that the digital innovations of private education providers also benefit the schools themselves. As an example, he cites the Anton app, which is now being used by many schools in Germany. In the UK, Go Student has bought the provider of such an app, Seneca Learning itself.
What private things can I do in my home office?
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Now also a TV investor
Ohswald’s vision is not only to build an international tutoring champion with Go Student, but an entire ecosystem of educational offers. “We want to be an integral part of your child’s education in order to help you as a parent to develop your child’s full potential,” says Ohswald, formulating his mission. This also includes the development of new offers and the acquisition of smaller start-ups.
Ohswald recently appeared in the TV show “2 Minutes, 2 Million”, an Austrian version of “Die Höhle der Löwen”. As an investor, of course, not as a candidate. He is interested in any innovation in the field of education – “from preschool to corporate learning,” says Ohswald. Above all, however, when investing in start-ups, he pays attention to the personality of the founding team. At an age when others are just beginning to gain a foothold professionally, Ohswald is already playing the role of mentor.
He was financially secure in his mid-20s. But that’s not how Ohswald looks at the sums on his bank statement and the billion dollar valuation of his company. “The fact that you can afford a new car or a nice apartment is of course nice, one less thing to worry about,” he says. But by no means a reason for early retirement. Somehow things are just really starting for Go Student. And: “Without work, I’d be bored too.”
Which is not to say that he doesn’t appreciate free time as well. In addition to the company, he spends a lot of time with family and friends, says Ohswald. He loves snowboarding and traveling as far away as possible to meet new people and cultures. An absolute highlight for him was the trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway from Beijing to Moscow, which is currently a rather difficult route. On the wish list for the future are heli-skiing in Canada and a tour of South America.
Did the child prodigy actually need tutoring himself? “There were a lot of areas where I wasn’t particularly good,” admits Ohswald. “I’m absolutely untalented musically and also suck at drawing.” Languages were also difficult for him at school. Fortunately, he already had the best tutor at home for Italian lessons. “My mother had to help me,” laughs Ohswald, “she speaks the language fluently.”