Company

Name: ClassBug

Legal Name: ClassBug.com LLC

Location: Chicago, IL

Founded: 2012

Founder(s): Matthew Conway

Website: https://classbug.com/

Social Media: 2,090 followers on Twitter, 283 followers on Instagram, 15 followers on LinkedIn, and 652 likes on Facebook as on 7th April 2019

Industry

ClassBug is operating in a very niche segment of the education software market. Globally, this market was valued at $6.2Bn in 2017.

Introduction

Many people today provide classes and tuition to learners in various fields, including dance schools, yoga studios, karate centres, among others. Managing the classes – venue, students, instructors, employees, and the payments – can become a daunting task for most of them. Not only are these cumbersome, but they also take away focus from the main value proposition: enriching the learning experience.

This is where ClassBug steps in. ClassBug, an online platform that enables users to manage their classes and accept payments, was started in 2012 by Matthew Conway “to accommodate the needs of the modern-day business manager: powerful enough to do everything you really need, but simple enough for anyone to learn.”

The Product

ClassBug is an online tool that offers multiple services: listing and sales of classes, online registrations, managing sales promotions and financials, and student management. The platform also provides the ability to generate reports and run other administrative functions. ClassBug also provides online payment options that make it easy for the service providers to accept payments from students. The pricing structure is a simplified $79 per month (as of publishing) and ClassBug also has special pricing options for non-profits and service providers spread across multiple locations.

Origin and Founding Team

Classbug was started by Matthew Conway, a techie who is also a musician by trade. He taught and performed jazz in Chicago for over a decade. The spark for the idea came because the founder’s wife herself was a studio owner. Exposed to the complexities of running a studio, he decided to “take the mystery out of management software and even make it easy to sell classes online.” Having a tech background and having been a part of Aisle50, a startup in the grocery space, Matt started ClassBug. It was initially a class management software to take care of studio owner’s administrative and other general needs. His team today also consists of Jeff Johnson, Development Lead, and Josh Eads, Marketing relations.

Performance and Trends

According to Zoominfo, the company’s annual revenue is $3.4Mn over an employee base of 17. Although no other data is available in public domain as far as we were able to find, CrunchBase reports that they have raised $12k in 2012 through debt financing. There have been no reports of any funds being raised since. Their website has about 25,000 visitors every month.