December 27, 2019

Meet Kim Rohr of Tutor Doctor Gateway in Mesa and Queen Creek, AZ

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kim Rohr.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Kim. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My husband and I have always dreamed of owning our own business but had not found the right kind of business that resonated with us and that felt like the right business.

To tell our story and how we found Tutor Doctor, I need to start out by telling our daughter’s story. Our daughter, Amelia, has struggled with academics since she was in Kindergarten. Amelia is our second child so this was not the first time we had placed a child in Kindergarten. Our son, who was 4 years older than her, had already been through Kindergarten so we had a fairly clear picture of what was expected of a Kindergartner. To our surprise, we found out towards the end of the school year that our daughter was severely behind. We learned that the academic landscape had changed dramatically between our son and daughter attending Kindergarten and that Amelia had not mastered enough concepts to be adequately prepared for 1st Grade. We made the extremely tough decision to hold Amelia back and wait until 2nd Grade to see if she would level out to her peers or if there was something else at play that was causing her to struggle in school. Unfortunately by the time she reached 2nd Grade it was identified that she was still severely behind her peers and we began the process to determine why. The process took awhile to get her evaluated and by the time we reached the end of 2nd Grade we finally had a learning disability diagnosis and plan on how the school would help her catch up. However, we knew this was not going to be enough to help her. We knew she was two years behind, struggling with memory processing and we had a long road ahead of us to help her succeed. We were both busy, working parents, with 3 children, and not a lot of time. We looked into tutoring centers, but their process and set up did not feel like the right solution for our child. We looked into finding a private tutor, but without knowing what to look for and how to evaluate their credentials, we were concerned we would not know how to pick the right tutor. We knew our daughter needed something that was individual, customizable to her needs and learning style and something that we knew we could trust.

About one year later, my husband was introduced to a business coach and began exploring business opportunities. We knew we were at the point in our life where we were ready to try something outside of the standard corporate lifestyle and felt ready to take this leap to becoming business owners. One of the opportunities that was brought to us was Tutor Doctor, a business that specialized in one-to-one, in-home, tutoring customized to the student. As soon as we were presented with the business model and mission of Tutor Doctor we knew this was the right fit for us! We would be able to bring a solution to families in our community that we wished we would have known about a few years earlier ourselves!

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Choosing to start any business is a very scary leap! However, we had some comfort in the fact that we were going to have support from the franchiser to help us grow our business. They have taught about marketing, sales, and how to analyze your business to ensure you are on a trajectory of success. It has been a huge learning curve for my husband and I but the experiences we gained from corporate employment coupled with the support of the franchise has helped us to grow faster in our business. You have to work harder, live outside your comfort zone, and independently find ways to grow your business which can be tough at times. However, when you pursue a business that you are truly passionate about you are willing to do whatever it takes to be able to stay in business and pursue your passion.

Please tell us about Tutor Doctor Gateway.
We are an in-home, one-to-one, tutoring company that specializes in creating customizable tutoring plans to meet the needs of any student who seeks our support. The families who come to us, are looking for a solution that is specifically designed around their child’s learning style, academic needs, interests. and personality. Our tutors work closely with each student’s teacher(s) to ensure the tutoring they are delivering is complimenting the learning and expectations that are occuring in the classroom.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
It is hard starting a business to know where to best spend your funds. It tooks us a few months to determine what were worthwhile expenses versus those we could hold off on. In addition, running a company with your spouse can take time to work out and clearly define each of your roles in the company. I wish we could have spent a little bit more time defining and clearly understanding those roles.

Pricing: