Our Story
We connect college students with certified peer tutors on demand — any Sunday through Thursday night, when office hours are closed and a deadline is looming.
The Problem
Office hours? Closed. Textbook? You’ve already read it three times. YouTube? The video is either too advanced or too basic. ChatGPT? It hands you the answer, but you still don’t understand why.
Math is hard, and the gap between “I tried my best alone” and “I talked to someone who explained it” is enormous. We built Octopi Tutors to close that gap, on demand, for the exact moments when students need help most.
Office hours are closed at night
AI gives answers, not understanding
Textbooks don't answer follow-up questions
Our Solution
We recruit math TAs and graders from top universities — people who already know the material cold and teach it informally every day. We vet them, certify them, and put them on the platform for students to reach instantly.
Every tutor passes a subject-specific assessment before teaching. No self-reporting.
No booking in advance. See who's online now and start a session in seconds.
Shared Excalidraw whiteboard — tutor and student can both draw, work problems together.
After each session, AI generates structured notes and practice problems automatically.
The Team
Octopi Tutors was founded by Thiago Kuhn and Nathan at the University of Michigan. We built this because we lived the problem — stuck on a problem set at midnight with nowhere to go.
Co-founder
University of Michigan
Co-founder
University of Michigan
Where We Are
We’re starting with two campuses where we have strong networks of qualified math TAs. We’re not everywhere yet — we’re building the right way, with real tutors and real quality, before we scale.
Duke University
Launching now
University of Michigan
Launching now
Whether you’re a student who needs help or a TA who wants to teach on your own schedule, we’d love to have you.
Questions? Email us at founders@octopitutors.com