TeachStreet, a Yelp-like service for real world classes (cooking, dog obedience, music lessons, ballroom dance, foreign language, golf, yoga, etc.), just opened its doors in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
The site first launched in Seattle, where the company is headquartered, and then expanded to Portland. Their Bay Area expansion adds 65,000 local classes, teachers and schools, and more than doubles their existing 50,000 resources in Seattle and Portland combined.
There are, for example, 442 painting classes, 625 Yoga classes and 567 piano classes in the area. More importantly, TeachStreet tells me there are twelve dog training classes near my home in Atherton.
The company raised $2.25 million in a 2007 financing.
Well done TeachStreet! Great to see expansion in these tough economic times. It appears user generated content (or instruction) is not yet dead. What cities are next?
Laguna, you lucky dog
(actually that’s Zach)
Awesome! I’ve been waiting for you to open TeachStreet in SF since the original cities went live. Congrats on the launch.
Thanks for the awesome shout out! And Casey… keep your eyes peeled for future launches in other web-friendly Westerly cities.
Given our geographic expansion direction, bets would be on Los Angeles or San Diego… but I’ve got a hankering for some ski slopes… anyone want to join us?
Mike/TechCrunch, thanks for the shout-out — we’re appreciative, as ever — one box of glazed donuts is on the way!
Dave
one of the worst ideas ever
Sounds like a good idea because I like using Yelp, but the website layout makes me not want to even use it (and the domain name sounds dumb). There’s too much scrolling down, unnecessary graphics. The website looks like it’s catered to elementary/highschool aged “students” cause of those dumb pictures. They’re great pictures, but I don’t think they’re age-appropriate and appealing to a wide audience.
I’m more inclined to stick to Yelp or craigslist.
My understanding is that Teachstreet scrapes Craigslist for their teacher listings and their business model is to sell B2B tools to their teachers. In their case, I’m not convinced I see where the huge value-add is?
Simple and neat website , i hope they will go a long way.
Nat
http://www.workersinc.com
congrats on the expansion Dave, come to LA next
I agree that it’s nice to see some businesses expanding in tough economic times. TeachStreet seems to understand the value of the arts. Keep up the good work.
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