Founders learn from aLesson.com

By Chris Young

Daily Bruin Contributor

Calling all budding entrepreneurs and armchair CEOs. Take note
of this group of your peers who had a vision to form a business,
with tangible results ““ an Internet start-up called
aLesson.com.

The three founding members of aLesson.com are fourth-year UCLA
students Tony Yu, President, and David Lam, Chief Operating
Officer, and recent UCLA graduate Sherry Jhawar. They all are
business/economics majors with specializations in accounting, and
Yu also has a double major in communication studies.

Other integral members of aLesson.com are fourth-year students
Mark Fann, Angie Chang, Daniel Huang and Candace Quach, and
fifth-year students Kelly Kim and Jimmy Hwang. All the aLesson.com
members and founders are in UCLA’s business fraternity Delta
Sigma Pi.

Yu, Jhawar and Lam all share similar feelings and experiences on
the start-up company and Web site.

“This is a true start-up story. In the beginning I used my
apartment room, moved the beds into the closet, then we moved
tables in, brought in three computers, and worked out of the
apartment, fifteen hours a day,” Yu said.

ALesson.com is a full-time job for its employees. They balance
working for the company on top of school, job searches,
fraternities and other activities.

“David and Sherry are averaging about 50 hours a week, and
I’m putting in maybe 65 hours a week,” Yu said.

“People ask how we can do this for no money, no other
benefits, the possibility of failing classes, but it’s all
worth it,” Jhawar added.

ALesson.com is a site that allows users to search for a tutor or
private instructor in various areas including sports such as golf
or tennis, musical instruments like the piano, and academics.

“ALesson.com provides instructors and students with
resources to learn sports, music, and academics, in
activity-specific communities. Within each activity community, such
as golf or piano lessons, we have resources that tailor to that
activity,” Yu explained.

Instructors with specialized knowledge in a sport, musical
instrument, or academic subject can advertise their services on the
site.

“The main thing is our search engine, the ability to find
a private lessons instructor, rather than putting an ad in
classifieds or through word-of-mouth,” Jhawar said.

Also, within each activity community, pupils can chat with a
professional in a certain field, bid for equipment, and get
comments on instructors from other pupils through the feedback
forum.

The original concept for the site was born in August of 1999.
Using information from a management class and outside research,
Jhawar, Yu and Lam developed the site themselves. Today,
aLesson.com has nine employees.

Because aLesson.com launched just last Monday, the site is not
completely finished. The feedback forum is not up yet, nor the
auctions. They plan to add other activities such as swimming,
dance, singing, drumming and guitar lessons. They also want to
expand academic subjects to professional school entrance exams like
the LSAT, GRE, MCAT, GMAT, and academic subjects such as calculus,
English and biology.

Through Yu’s experience starting the company, he has
developed some advice for budding entrepreneurs.

“The key thing in starting a company is finding the right
partners. You need people who have loyalty, ethics, and whose roles
complement yours perfectly,” Yu said.

“You really have to have passion for what you do. We care
about the company we created; it’s what makes us go to work
everyday, and that’s what makes us stay till one or two in
the morning,” Yu added. “If you have that passion, you
will do everything you can to make that company successful, and
you’ll forget how many hours you spent over there.”

Other members of the company have also learned some valuable
lessons from the start-up.

“I learned how to lead people and also gain an
understanding of advertising behind the Web, and how much money can
be made in that market,” Jhawar said.

“Now I understand how much work actually goes into a
business. I learned how to take a leadership position and allocate
responsibility to interns. I’ve never been part of something
this big before. you have to think about this every day or else
you’ll fall behind,” Lam said.

Yu, Lam, and Jhawar all agreed that regardless of how successful
or unsuccessful the site will be, the experience they gather from
its creation is the most important thing they take away from
it.

“I learned that every person has different motivations; I
have to apply different strategies to different people in order to
channel all the energies that we have in this office in one
direction,” Yu said. “Leading this company has taught
me a lot, more than any classroom lesson.”

WEB: For more information about the site log onto www.aLesson.com or call
310-664-1048.