This platform helps you find baby DJ classes (and so much more!) for your kids

There are tons of math and music and swimming classes you can sign your kids up for. But consider this — did you actually like those when you were a kid?
That’s the central question behind a new marketplace for classes called Nory. Created by Peter Seo and Matt Trainor, Nory links up teachers with unique expertise and parents who want their kids to have a unique learning experience. How does Baby DJ School sound? Or Yoga and Dance in French for Toddlers? Or if you have a young innovator, how about a Friday-after-Thanksgiving STEM Adventure?
“As we were raising our children it was hard to find meaningful classes,” Seo explained in an interview. “That’s when we thought, ‘If we can talk to individual educators and let them create classes, we could bring more unique classes.'”

He even has a trendy haircut. (Photo via Nory)

And so they created Nory. It functions, as many online marketplaces do, as a sort of Airbnb for classes. Teachers who have been vetted may post classes on the site, and parents looking for interesting things for their progeny can click and sign up for them.

The demand for Nory has been such that last month Seo and Trainor decided to expand the classes to Brooklyn, where many of the parents (and even more of the teachers) reside.

Teachers are a big part of the service. After all, the classes are only as good as those teaching them. For four years after college, Trainor was himself a teacher, teaching middle school English in Tarrytown, N.Y.

“The other premise that we had was that it’s no mystery that teachers are underpaid, and through our marketplace platform we make [their skills] more profitable for them,” he said in an interview.

As it stands, Nory has been totally bootstrapped, with all revenue having come from the service. The cofounders even built the site themselves, with the help of a few friends in the development and design trade. Both Trainor and Seo work on it full-time and have two other part-time employees. The pair said that they’d like to grow the site, but with the model they have, growth will be restrained. One struggle many marketplaces run into is how to keep the services offered on the platform from being bad.

“Yes, quality is our major concern,” Seo said. “When it comes to early childhood education, parents are very protective. Just one bad class and it could turn them away.”

So each new teacher is vetted with a demo class with one of the founders sitting in on it. Demo classes are only $5 and, in exchange, parents are asked to fill out a thorough questionnaire afterwards.

“So far, the class feedback has been outstanding,” Seo said. “We have an average of 4.9 out of 5 rating for our classes, we think due to the class screening process.”

Seo noted that once they’ve approved a teacher, that one is in the system and they can go on to new ones. More than 100 teachers have taught over 1,000 classes so far, he said.

As you might learn in Entrepreneurship for 5-8 Year Olds, that structure means growth will be gradual, not exponential. But that’s okay, the founders say. Their priorities right now are expanding the number of classes, working with schools on after-school programs and getting more people who are not licensed teachers, but have expertise that would make for a good class, on the roster.

Okay brb, gonna try to pass for a 3-year-old to get into this Get the Wiggles Out class.