Teachstreet

TeachStreet launched its web site in Seattle on April 20, 2008,^[2] Portland on August 4, 2008, the San Francisco Bay Area on November 19, 2008 and was launched in 8 US Metros, with new listings being added in cities nationwide on a daily basis.

TeachStreet founder Dave Schappell was previously a VP of Marketing at JibJab and a Director of Product Management at Amazon.com. The company received $2.25 million in early stage funding from Madrona Venture Group, Bezos Expeditions and various individual investors.^[3] Initially, the Teachstreet web site was free to both students and teachers. The site moved to a paying service for teachers' listings in April 2010, with various levels of pricing plans available. However, the site remained free for students.^[4]

In February 2011, the launch of Google Panda (a change to Google's search results ranking algorithm) seriously affected traffic to the company's web site, and it never fully recovered. A year later, Teachstreet was bought by Amazon.com as a "talent acquisition" with its former employees transferring to AmazonLocal. Teachstreet.com closed down on 15 February 2012.^[5]

Press coverage

• Teachstreet lets you find instructors online. VentureBeat.
• Web Site Links you with Learning. King5.
• Ex-Amazonian's TeachStreet.com launching today. Seattle Times
• TeachStreet site provides free way to find instructors. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
• Teachstreet helps you find local classes, instructors. The Industry Standard
• TeachStreet founder applies lessons learned from years at Amazon. TheDeal.com
• Website Rates Thousands of Classes. KGO-TV San Francisco

• TeachStreet web site as of 10 July 2011 via the Wayback Machine internet archive
• TeachStreet blog as of 16 July 2011 via the Wayback Machine internet archive
• 5 Tips To Transition From A Free To A Paid Service by Dave Schappell, Founder and CEO of TeachStreet, on techcrunch.com (13 June 2010)