Timothy Yu is the founder and CEO of the educational app Snapask, which provides near-instantaneous expert answers to questions posed by students. He launched the ed-tech start-up straight out of university in 2015; while still a student, he had worked as a private tutor, moving between different clients, when he realised that the whole business could be done much more efficiently online.

Yu started by uploading videos of himself teaching, started to get questions from students, and decided to turn that into a company. These days, Snapask and its team members (“Snapees”) work with more than four million students in nine markets around the Asia-Pacific region, connecting them with about 350,000 tutors, who are sourced from universities and assigned to students local to them.

Questions are generally answered within about five seconds, with tutors paid per answer, and students paying a flat rate. The company also uses the plentiful data it gathers to constantly refine and improve its services.

Snapask has so far raised a total of US$85 million in funding, including a US$35 million Series B round in 2020.