Do I Need To Be Talked Out Of This?

A friend has suggested that we might start a tutoring business together. She's got the math and science chops, and an almost-finished dissertation in an Ed.D. program, so we could be full-service shop. With the right office space in, say, Highland Park, I wouldn't have to drive all over the place to make house calls. Highland Park is full of grad students who are used be being paid starvation wages to tutor at the university, and the university budget cuts are leaving some of those folks with no way to pay the rent at all, so it would be easy to cherry pick experienced hourly employees at a significantly better wage than they're used to getting. Highland Park is also full of prosperous parents who are ambitious for their children, parents who are falling all over themselves trying to find a way to fill the gap between what the schools can do and what their kids need.

Could it possibly take more time to run a tutoring business in one spot than I'm currently spending driving from client household to client household? Am I delusional to think this could be a good plan?

Anyhow, S and I aren't going to do anything rash about this. She's waiting to find out if the university will reappoint her on a budget line with health insurance, which she should know around April, and I'm still neck-deep in the March Writer's Weekend event. Oh, and I expect to be significantly under the weather for at least another week. Meanwhile there are plenty of brass tacks questions to investigate. How much does a square foot of non-storefront office space a block off the main drag in Highland Park cost per month? What kind of insurance do you need for a business that involves having other people's minor children on premises without their parents? That kind of thing.