What School Doesn’t Teach You About Success | Seyam Hamed

In this episode of MarketPulse: Pros & Pioneers, we sit down with Seyam Hamed, a 24-year-old entrepreneur who went from tutoring in local libraries at age 16 to building a global online tutoring brand alongside his sister. Seyam shares his extraordinary journey from the traditional expectations of an academic path in physics at Durham University to dropping out and pursuing a purpose-driven mission in education.

Seyam opens up about how a single chance opportunity tutoring a student in Azerbaijan reshaped his business trajectory, launching him into the world of British expat tutoring across five continents. Discover how this young founder identified a high-demand niche and leveraged it into a thriving enterprise, offering structure and stability to students transitioning between curriculums.

We explore the personal and professional tensions behind his decision to leave university, what it's really like to work closely with family, and how he's maintained quality, consistency, and cultural awareness at scale. Seyam also reflects on expat living, the real lessons COVID taught him, and how the challenges of tutoring across time zones turned into an operational advantage.

If you're interested in entrepreneurship, education, or building a values-led business, this episode is packed with insights, reflections, and sharp advice from someone walking the walk—not just talking it.

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seyam-hamed
Website: https://www.semtuition.io
Email: seyamhamed@semtuition.io

#Entrepreneurship #BusinessPodcast #FounderStories #EducationBusiness #OnlineTutoring #ExpatLife #YoungEntrepreneurs #SuccessWithoutUniversity

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Transcript

Paul: 0:29

From tutoring at 16 to running a global education business, Seyam Hamed breaks down how he carved out a niche ditched journey to go all in, and what small businesses can learn from his journey. Seyam Ahmed is the co-founder of Faeza and Seyam's Tutoring Limited, an online tutoring service that helps British expat and domestic students excel in English and maths and science. and raised in London. Seyam's journey into education began with eight years of tutoring experience before he and his sister launched their business. With firsthand knowledge of the challenges students face when transitioning between curriculums, Seyam has built a tutoring service that goes beyond academics. They provides structure, confidence, and continuity for young learners. though he studied physics at Durham University, he left in his third year to focus on growing the business, which he now serves students across five continents. Seyam. Welcome to the show. How are you?

Seyam: 1:26

I'm doing well. Thank you. You sound like you know me better than me. Based off that intro.

Paul: 1:30

That is the goal. That is the goal because ultimately the journey that people have been on is fantastically inspiring. It's quite humbling that some of the guests that we've had on. And the journeys that we've been on, regardless whether, you know, you like like one of our guests was a rock star in Russia before he became an executive coach in the US We've had, Hollywood producers we've had all sorts of phenomenal people, but they're. Celebrity status isn't as important as the journey that they've been on. And that, that for me is really crucial. And it's fantastic to have a young entrepreneur on the show Probably you're probably the third young entrepreneur we've had on the show and somebody that's really caught my attention as we've been talking. So looking forward to digging in deep into the choices that you made. To Rewind back to the beginning of things, you started tutoring at just 16 and then turned it into a full fledged business with your sister. What was the moment when you realized it could be something more than just a side hustle?

Seyam: 2:26

Yeah, exactly. So, that one's quite a big question. It's really important. And I've spent a bit of time thinking about it a lot lately. But in terms of. The origin, I'd say it's quite humble in terms of beginnings. We initially started off with like the goal of being in person, so working in a local library, hiring like a small little classroom, if you want to call it, you know, nothing global, no experts, nothing like that. And I think the turning point for us was when we were handing out leaflets. So, yep. Very traditional style of marketing. Obviously we didn't know that the internet existed 2023. But yeah, so we handed out some leaflets at some schools. And that process, you know, of speaking to all of those parents was quite quite big, quite intense for us. Very new. Putting ourselves out there. And then a few days after, you know, the weeks after actually we got a couple phone calls and I think that process of, you know, giving an input and then receiving an output you know, we realise okay. We can bend the rules or we can make the rules how we like. So it was a complete independence to control the output in sort of what we wanted to do. That's what I would say.

Paul: 3:36

It is amazing. Like I, I just think back to when I was at university and. Stepping outta university and becoming an entrepreneur wasn't something that most people even considered. And we've all heard stories of the likes of Zuckerberg and co who, you know, kind of, I did a year and then dropped out and, you know, right place, right time. Extremely successful, no doubt. What was the reaction at home when you decided in your third year at physics to drop out and become a tutor? Can't, I can't imagine. That was an easy conversation.

Seyam: 4:05

Yeah, it wasn't, I mean, I have both Asian parents, so you know, they're very strict. Very much focused on the traditional path in terms of career, in terms of education, that sort of thing. But in terms of the reaction, I think it took a quite a fair few conversations with my parents to kind of give them the confidence that actually, you know, we're very much in control of the output and very much in control of like the goals that we have. So yeah, my parents were definitely a bit iffy about it. But you know, very supportive. Nonetheless. It wasn't argumentative, it was more like, are you sure about this? You know, you're quite young. The world out there is very scary, very competitive. So, you know, my parents, they supported both of us.

Paul: 4:47

So third year of physics before you dropped out. Oh. To go and tutor. like I know that science is a big part of what you enjoy tutoring as well. I'm guessing, and correct me if I'm wrong, that you realised that you the professional degree that you were taking took you away from what it was you actually wanted to do as opposed to bringing you closer.

Seyam: 5:08

Funnily enough, a lot of people who complete a degree in physics, they either go into consulting or they go into finance. So those skills that, you know, you gain as a physicist are kind of quite transferrable in those particular. Fields. But for me, I couldn't work in an office. I couldn't travel on the tube into Central London from the suburbs of, you know, east London and whatnot. I just couldn't do that. I think for me personally, I need to enjoy what I'm doing and I think there's very few people who inherently believe that to the point where they just refuse. Going through that, you know, path, they kind of end up sucking it up. They might pick up some bad habits in order to kind of get through those tough times. And for me, you know, I really wanted to prioritise things like health. That was very important to me. I really wanted to focus on my mental wellbeing and also just. Being able to have the time and energy to exercise have a good diet, that sort of thing. And I think those things are really hard to maintain when you have a job that you just, it just kind of sucks your energy and sucks yourself. So, you know, no disrespect to anybody who's in consulting or finance or any of those kinds of fields, but for me personally, I really have to enjoy what it is that I'm doing and, you know, to get into that flow state.

Paul: 6:26

Do you think that. Covid impacted on your viewpoint into starting your own business and made you realise that there was more important things than work perhaps.

Seyam: 6:34

Well, I'd say Covid taught me a lot about, you know, starting an online business and the power of being able to run a business online. So Covid was actually probably the first kind of. Point to which online tutoring became quite big. You know, nobody was going to school, nobody was taking classes. So we were kind of, everybody was figuring out, you know, what is the best way to deliver actual class lessons. So I think everybody was kind of forced to figure this out. And you know, a lot of schools, especially state schools at the time, were really lagging behind. They would have about 60, 70, 80 students on one call. And actually my brother, he was in year eight or year seven, I think, at the time of Covid, and I was actually looking at the class and the work that he was doing. I saw the attendees, it was literally 50, 60 students, no cameras, no face, and a student sorry. The teacher would just kind of go on going over some like very basic math stuff. It was like fractions. And so clearly it wasn't, you know. Adapted for his style of learning or adapted to his level. I think he was way beyond fractions at that time, so a lot of schools lagged. I think tutoring businesses kind of liked the idea of, you know, doing online lessons is very convenient. For both the parents and the tutor. And, you know, it's quite minimal in terms of costs for a business, you know, as opposed to having a brick and mortar classroom kind of thing. So, yeah I'd say it was quite a good opportunity covid that came from it, despite all of the chaos during Covid.

Paul: 8:12

You specialise in British expat students. Why? What's the journey to, why did you specialise in expat students?

Seyam: 8:18

Yeah, so expat students wasn't really our goal. We didn't know any expat. We didn't do any outreach to any expat families. Again, it was kind of one of the lucky things that kind of happened to us and we kind of seized that opportunity. We have a neighbor back home in London, and so they have a family member who. Was somewhere in the Middle East and and they have a son, or they had a son who was moving from Baku to British Boarding School. And so they basically wanted, you know, someone to help him transition. From that curriculum, you know, the as maths curriculum that they were doing to the curriculum, you know, in, in a, in the British schools. So, you know, we, I worked personally with this student for about 8, 7, 8, yeah, seven, eight months myself. And one of the things that I really liked about it was kind of like the aha moment was I got to tutor quite early with him. So I was in the UK. He was four hours ahead of me, and I was able to do lessons quite early as opposed to in the evening, which is when, you know, most students in the UK had their tutoring lessons. So I was like, okay, hang on. It's really convenient for me to do these lessons quite early. And actually there's plenty of students, British students who are living abroad who would like to have a connection with a British tutor. So, you know, adding one-on-one hair it made sense to kind of go towards expat market or the expat student market. It's really convenient if you're a tutor in the UK to tutor somebody further east. So, I think that was my aha moment. And in particular with that student we got lots of referrals, lots and lots of referrals, and then those families referred lots of people and very quickly we expended to all of those different countries across the world. So, it was luck. I really believe it was luck, but also I. You know, with luck you have to kind of take the opportunity, you have to recognise the opportunity and make sense of it. It's not just, you know, luck is what it is. You've got to take action. You've got to do the moves, if that makes sense.

Paul: 10:24

when the door opens, you've gotta walk through it. I agree completely.

Seyam: 10:28

Yeah, absolutely.

Paul: 10:29

And then you took it one step further and became an expat yourself, right?

Seyam: 10:33

I have certain reservations about life in the UK. I won't go into too much detail as to, you know, what, how I feel about it, but for me personally, it was quite important for me to leave the UK and kind of live abroad and, you know, live outside in a foreign country, foreign culture that sort of thing. And my first kind of step into that was when I had an internship in consulting as well in Vietnam. And for me, I loved living there. I absolutely loved living in Vietnam. I think the most important thing for me was the cost of living. You know, when you're earning in pounds and you're living abroad it's really good. It's a really powerful way to kind of leverage your money. But also as well as that, I really liked the culture. That was really important to me. I really loved going outside and leaving my room when I was in London, in the UK. I'll be honest, I didn't really leave my room as much.'cause I think especially in London when you step out you probably have spent a tenor on the tube for a coffee, whatever, for breathing. So, you know, I really love going out in Vietnam and just kind of figuring it out and exploring the pe, the people around me and the area around me. So yeah, I became an expat. And so, you know, I still am an expert. I probably will be for a bit more time. But yeah, that's, yeah.

Paul: 11:51

I think it's, I think it's beautiful because you've. Identified something that many of us just don't, even in even into mid to late age, don't really identifying ourselves in that you can build a life that you want by creating a work that works with that. so a lot of people are anything other than go and get the traditional corporate jobs

Seyam: 12:15

Yeah.

Paul: 12:15

And

Seyam: 12:15

then spend

Paul: 12:15

most of their life complaining that. They don't have time to spend with their kids, or they don't have the opportunity to go out and be with their friends or be flexible or experience foreign cultures and you've created something for yourself that, that is a good, solid income. That'cause let's be honest, regardless of as we said before, the before the call, regardless of what's going on in the world

Seyam: 12:36

The.

Paul: 12:37

you know, people still need to put their kids through school and will sacrifice to put their kids through school. So it's very important.

Seyam: 12:43

Yep.

Paul: 12:43

What's it like running a What's it like, running a business with your family?

Seyam: 12:46

I think it, it has really been a blessing in terms of like the productivity in terms of her giving me like the trust and confidence to kind of lead and make those kind of like difficult decisions for the business. I'd say. She's very supportive and we both support each other. So I'd say it has been a blessing. My sister trusts me and I trust her. We're both actually very good at our job. I will say that for sure. We're both very good tutors. We lead our team and we actually really love what we do, and I think that's the most important thing. And it's a mutual respect that we have for each other because of how much we enjoy what we do.

Paul: 13:24

And you are both in the process of kind of scaling that business up. Now as demand grows, you're bringing other tutors on board, right?

Seyam: 13:30

Yeah, exactly. So we are definitely scaling, actually not as rapidly as some other companies are. But we are looking for more staff, you know, somebody to kind of other people to kind of help us out deal with all of the referrals that we get and kind of, you know, spread us more and our teachings and techniques that we have.

Paul: 13:49

And at the Seyame time you've kind of cut out. I guess you've cut yourselves a space in the tutoring world, right? Like it's not a new business, it's not a new industry, and it's quite a busy, quite a competitive landscape, I'd say in terms of what's out

Seyam: 14:05

Yeah.

Paul: 14:06

So how do you guys differentiate yourselves from some of the bigger businesses that you've mentioned?

Seyam: 14:10

I think it is really competitive. But I also think the market is huge. The market is so huge that right now we've niched down in terms of the customers that we take. We've to the point niched down to just British expats, so I think. In terms of, you know, what a business should do is just niche down in terms of customers and focus on what your ideal customer looks like. In terms of how we differentiate ourselves I'd say we're both just very experienced for IH as soon as we finished our GCSE exams, which we both absolutely smashed. We started tutoring. So we worked with students in probably not so great tutoring companies or tutoring businesses to some really great tutoring businesses. So our experience for our age. Definitely speaks for itself. I'd also say that we have we have quite good personalities. We really bounce off with the students that we work with, and we actually bounce off quite well with the parents that we work with. And the thing is, the parents recognize, you know, when their kids look up to somebody. In a positive way as opposed to some random TikTok style, whoever it is, you know, having somebody that your kid looks up to, that's firstly a real person is, it speaks a lot. So I'd say that's definitely how we differentiate ourselves is us to, in and our teaching styles and abilities.

Paul: 15:33

It's an interesting angle there. Do you find that Found primarily by parents or are you found more by the children who are looking for tutor in themselves, who want to have a tutor and they come across you? What's chicken or the egg?

Seyam: 15:47

I'd say it's a parents I'd say the chicken. The chicken, the parents recognize and see when their kids progress. It takes a few months. It takes a lot of hard work, a lot of concentration, but when the parents start getting these messages from their teachers or go to the parents' evening and they see that their kid is making changes at school, the parents absolutely recognize that. And so, you know, parents are very proactive as well. They have their own circles and so. They'll very much speak about their kids. I mean, I'm sure you speak about your son when you are out with other families and you know, it's a big thing. What parents do, they speak about their kids and how they're kind of getting the best for them. So parents speak to other parents and very quickly, you know, other parents recognise oh, I want to get a bit of that. I want that for my kids. And so that's kind of, you know. The way we'd go about it. I'd say a lot of it is word of mouth and we're really happy with that. In terms of the scaling process for us, I don't think we intend to scale to hundreds and hundreds of students. I'd say that's definitely something a lot of companies. New ones as well, especially young entrepreneurs. They focus too much on scaling and bringing on as much students as possible. Instead of focusing on just a handful of students, a handful of parents, and figuring out, you know, what is their ideal customer in terms of their personality, and just kind of building it up from there as opposed to rushing to find tutors to cover hours, and then those hours not being covered. And it just becomes very chaotic very quickly.

Paul: 17:23

I think it's a fair comment and one of my next questions was gonna be how what mistakes do you see other guys in your spheres doing? So that, that leads in quite nicely. I guess it speaks to. Finding people that you can trust and who align with you properly as opposed to just, you know, the traditional call center approach, for example, of putting bums on seats. it's very much about finding people who can be credible and can help provide that. I guess it boils down to customer experience, right? Like whether the customer's a child or whether they're an adult. It's that Seyame. You want them to come away and have a smile on their face. You want them to smile either from, directly from the interactions they've had with you or the results that they're getting because of their interaction with you. I'd imagine it feels good at the end of the, when you go to bed on a night that you've had that impact on so many young people.

Seyam: 18:10

Yeah, I mean, you know, I live in East Asia, so I'm plus seven, eight hours sometimes ahead of the UK. And so sometimes I'll finish my lessons at four o'clock in the morning, half, four in the morning. And I like doing that. I'm really happy to do that because I really love the work that I do. And you know, I get to sleep quite well. I'm not grouchy in the morning. I'm like, oh, I overslept, or whatever it might have been. So certainly it's a very rewarding job and I'm very fortunate to be able to work on this full time. I'd say.

Paul: 18:42

Looking back now to when you were a kid, do you think that you could tell that you'd end up doing what you are doing now? Do you think the indicators were there?

Seyam: 18:50

I don't know. I honestly don't know. I thought life would kind of figure itself out and I'd be somehow happy working in, you know, some cor some sort of corporate job. I thought, you know, there was gonna be a phase in life where I figured out, okay, I need to start being like an adult and suddenly all my emotions are gonna be, you know, geared towards. It ha having a corporate job. But one thing I will say, and my mom says this to me a lot, and I don't think I ever really understood it, but she used to sometimes tell me like, Seyam, you're quite lucky, like you just, you, I always see different aspects of your life. Like you just, you have certain luck in your life and you know, it maybe it sounds egotistical saying that I absolutely don't mean it to, but I think it is just one of those things like it just worked out, like I made sure to kind of. Have my head screwed on. Firstly, that was very important. Made sure that I figured out how to take care of myself, the basic stuff, being able to present myself correctly to the world, you know, speaking confidently to the world, backing myself to people that are not, you know, giving me the respect that I feel like I deserve. Those definitely carried me to, to where I am right now. I would say.

Paul: 20:02

I love it and it sounds like a fantastic journey, which you're still only, let's be honest, still only just getting started on. So, absolutely

Seyam: 20:08

Yeah.

Paul: 20:08

wish you all the luck for the future as well. What's coming up in 2025 for you guys?

Seyam: 20:13

Yeah. In terms of 2025, so probably our next, my next country actually. So right now Faeza and I were both expats living together in Taiwan. It was kind of her first. Leaving the nest situation, I would say she studied at home in London, so she didn't have to live out the Seyame way I did. So for her, you know, she definitely, I encouraged her to, you know, leave the UK, explore the water. I know my mom's upset that her only daughter left London and the UK, but it really has helped in terms of her growth, in terms of my growth. Absolutely. So in terms of what's next, definitely growing and continuing to grow and build our systems. A more online and social media presence, I would say to kind of just teach new tutors the best way to kind of go about their tutoring lessons and kind of share my hindsight, you know, I've got plenty of experience. Share my hindsight with new tutors so that they can. Avoid the same mistakes that I made, but also know when to recognise those mistakes. Probably, yeah I'd say Dan probably leaving live, living in my next country, which is probably gonna be South Korea or maybe Japan. I haven't decided yet. But in a few months time, I'll let you know.

Paul: 21:31

Well, when this goes out this episode is recorded just after the US tariffs announcement back in April. So anybody who's watching this will

Seyam: 21:39

understand some

Paul: 21:40

of the ideas and thoughts that must be going through Seyam's head, or you've got a lot of

Seyam: 21:44

figuring out to do over

Paul: 21:45

Yeah. the coming months.

Seyam: 21:46

Yeah. Lots of figuring out Absolutely.

Paul: 21:48

Fantastic. Well, it sounds like an extremely exciting journey, Seyam. If people are listening and maybe they know some expats who might be interested to find out more, or they know their parents, like how can they contact you? Where can they find out more? I.

Seyam: 22:01

Yeah find me through LinkedIn. I'm very active on LinkedIn. I post quite regularly. I share lots of experiences with tutoring. I think LinkedIn is a very grounded app. I think that's the word I'd describe. It's very grounded. I'm not a huge fan of some of the other apps like Instagram, Facebook, but LinkedIn is very grounded. You can read my experience, have a look at all of the testimonials and just kind of hear my thoughts and maybe Rantings as well. Maybe sometimes they're rants, but you can see that there through LinkedIn.

Paul: 22:33

Fantastic. Well, I'll absolutely make sure your LinkedIn link is in there along with your email in the show notes. thank you very much for being a fantastic guest and sharing your journey with us, Seyam, it's been a privilege. Thank you.

Seyam: 22:43

My pleasure. Thank you so much, Paul.

Paul: 22:46

And thank you everyone at home for watching or listening along. I. No doubt that you've enjoyed today's episode. We'll have be back next week with another fascinating story from somebody else, and I will see you in the feed. Bye-bye.