It all started with a trip to Tanzania.

When I was at university, I worked different jobs to make some extra money while studying: waiting tables, delivering pizzas and, eventually, tutoring school students. Tutoring quickly became my favourite. I enjoyed teaching, but it also gave me something that was extremely valuable as a student: flexibility. I could choose my schedule, work around university and still have time for studying and sport.

One year, I was saving money to travel to Tanzania, but I realised I wasn’t going to reach my goal with the number of hours I was working. My first reaction was the obvious one: get more students and teach more classes. So I did.

Eventually, though, I reached a point where there simply weren’t any more hours in the day. Between university, studying, tutoring and sport, my schedule was full. The problem was that the demand wasn’t. I kept receiving requests from students who wanted me to teach them, but I couldn’t take them on.

That’s when I realised I didn’t need more students. I needed to find a way to make more money without adding more hours.

The first thing I tried was simple: I gave one of my students to another tutor.

Instead of teaching the student myself, I found another university student who could do it and agreed to take a small commission from each class. It was a very simple experiment, but the result surprised me. I was earning good money from the student while investing very little of my own time.

That was the moment I realised there might be something bigger behind the idea. I didn’t necessarily need to be the person delivering the service. I could create value by connecting students who needed a tutor with university students who wanted to teach.

So I started doing it with the students who were already asking me for classes.  I just found another tutor who could give them the classes.

At first, it was just a way of freeing up some time while still making money. But gradually, more students came in and I started building a small network of university tutors. Students got the teachers they needed, tutors found flexible work that fitted around their studies, and I earned a commission for making the connection.

What had started as a solution to my own problem was becoming a business.

And, most importantly, it worked. I was able to increase my income while dedicating fewer hours to teaching. By the end of the year, I had made enough to achieve the original goal that had started the whole thing

I went to Tanzania.

That small experiment became Time 2, my first business, which I started in 2020.

Time 2 is still alive today.

Over the last six years, more than 500 students have passed through the initiative and more than 100 university tutors have been part of it. Perhaps what makes me most proud is that it has grown entirely organically, through word of mouth between students, families and tutors.

Looking back, I never set out to become an entrepreneur. I was simply a university student who wanted to make enough money to go on a trip, and I had run out of hours.

But that experience taught me something that has stayed with me ever since: when you reach the limit of what you can achieve by working harder, the answer isn’t always to find more time. Sometimes, you need to find a different way of creating value.

That was the first time I learned to stop selling my time.