Rising Stars: Meet Jay Mitsch of Westside and South Bay

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jay Mitsch.

Hi Jay, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
How it started…. I graduated college with a Mathematics degree and was dual certified in both Elem and Secondary Edication. I knew I wanted to coach soccer so I took the high school route. I got the job. at a summer job fair in Orlando in 2000. I was a classroom math teacher back in 2000-2005 in Boca Raton, FL and taught Geometry and Algebra 1. Kids were fine. Being new, I had very little experience with classroom management but had a great time trying my best to impart the wisdom I thought I knew…. At 22, I had a much life wisdom as a loaf of bread. In the end, I was basically putting on 6 shows a day teaching a subject that was not very popular to a bunch of teenagers who wanted what most teenagers want in high school, movie day! As a little exercise, I figured out that I was making $0.66 per student per hour per day. And At the time, if I tutored 3 hours a day, I’d basically make as much as my usual 13 hours day. So, I started focusing on tutoring. For most of my tenure as a teacher, I would teacher during the day then coach soccer and tutor at night.

Then in 2004, I sort of randomly took an acting workshop. It changed my life. I fell in love and figured, if I can handle a bunch of 16 yr old rejection, I could handle Hollywood rejection. Fast forward to 2005, I packed up my stuff in a year and moved to LA. Once I landed, I needed to make money and instead of working a dead end job, I started building my education company. Originally, I called it JB Learning (JB for Jaybird – an homage to one of my favorite teacher, Mr Lee who called me Jaybird). A few years, I teamed up with a business partner and changed the name to Achieve Tutorials South Bay. That lasted until most recently when inspiration came for a new chapter and Gravity Assist was born.

Ultimately, I’ve been at thousands of kitchen tables all across the LA metro area working with every level of rich to poor, old to young, basic to college level, public to private. I even sprinkled a few celebrity children in there. We are now a WorldClass Education Company who have worked with schools in LAUSD, the Southbay, and online. We are academic support specialist that help bring out the best of students. Whether on the path to college or just need to get past a class, we really do help students rise to their potential. My team of tutors can handle everything from English to Math to Science to SAT and ACT Test prep.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Along the way, it has not been easy. Because I’m an owner and operator, I end up in the trenches with the students and never gave myself a chance to actually grow the business. I always wanted to be the CEO, but I end up being everything else – janitor, secretary and marketing. I’ve had successful programs never get off the ground. School programs come and go faster then ever. Tutors that were good on paper really not work out.

It’s been a lonely road at times… with tons of driving! I know almost every street in this city. But I do still believe that face-to-face interaction is the best way to affect student’s.

Building a business where your the one man show doing a 3 act play every hour with some student/family doesn’t leave much room for scaling.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Since an early age, I always felt like I was unique. Later on I found out that I’m a right brained creative who lives in a left brain technical world. I learned math and science very traditionally but my brain works like an artist. I see math as colors shapes and pictures. Because of this superpower, I can work with the left brained nerds who love math and science and I can also help the creatives and humanities brained human piece together some understanding of math and science. This all made me realize none of this learning is really about the math or the science. Learning at this stage is about figuring out who you are, how you’re connected and how the information is connected to you. Creating new viewpoints and positive feelings about how all this fits together like one big messy puzzle is what I get the most out of it.

Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
Really visualize and plan the process to success. Stage 1, Stage 2…. Once the plan is in place, you’re going to change it 3,000 times over. But it’s never about the plan and always about the planning process. It is extremely hard to build the plane while you’re flying it. But if you can get the plane built on the ground then take off, changing your trajectory a few degrees or doing a complete 180 will be so much better.

Surround yourself with people that can help you get what you believe in. Make sure they think differently and care about you enough to be honest. Doing it alone is very hard.

Get other people to sell you. Referrals in the tutoring space is where it’s at! Parents love helping other parents navigate when they find a good thing. But be ready, because when the word gets out, you need to know your limits and have a team in place.

Sell the company. It’s impossible to scale you! If you want to really be great, you’re going to need other people to help you.

Being in this for so long, I’ve got a ton of analogies and metaphors 😉

Pricing:

• It’s very individual to the client, need and circumstance
• My rate is $250/hr but I will never but out a student because of price.
• My team’s rate is $125-150/hr and that is sliding because of venue (online vs in-person) and topic (Calc vs. counting)
• We can work with $75/hr but again, we’ll need to understand the variables.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Www.gravityassist.us
• Instagram: https://Www.instagram.com/gravityassistus
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gravityassistus
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@gravityassistus
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@gravityassistus