Farewell YourTutor, welcome Studiosity! It's no small feat to change a business name, and for us it carried even more weight knowing that it had repercussions for a million people - students, educators, and our own team. But late last year, we decided to take the leap.
Since the announcement, I've lost count of the number of people who have revealed to me that they double-checked whether Studiosity was really a noun, and really in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Even more frequent have been the comments of intrigue. "It just sounds like something interesting, doesn't it," I heard at the Australian Financial Review Higher Ed Summit this week. One student even said, "Great - it could be a rock band!"
Why change?
Studiosity is better for both students and teaching staff. In short, students in university already have 'tutors' and 'tutorials', so there was a conflict in terminology that we saw as the services grew in demand throughout the higher education sector.
Further, tutoring isn't the crux of what we do, nor has it ever been. We're about connecting the dots, finding that spark, that lightbulb moment, helping students in their moments of need and building their confidence - which has been proven time and time again to impact academic performance, attainment, and retention.
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The road to Studiosity
I'm happy to say that there was a mis-start back in 2016, as we ventured into the world of re-branding. I say 'happy', because like many failures, it provided opportunity for feedback and improvement - which any business owner will tell you is invaluable. Fortunately, we always wanted to involve our education partners, schools and universities, and their feedback drove us to pursue something greater. So now, here we are.
A big shout out to the whole team here, and our partners at Uberbrand who know what they're doing, and helped us tremendously on the journey to finding a new name.
What does the change mean?
The only thing that has changed is our name, driven by a better user experience.
Everything about the Connect Live and Writing Feedback services, everything about our team, and our online subject specialists is still top notch.
As we continue to grow and capture the attention of even more education institutions across Asia Pacific, the UK, and further afield - this universal, exciting moniker will help even more students and their teachers benefit.
Thanks for being part of the journey; there's much more to come.
Mike Larsen is Chief Executive Officer at Studiosity
