Portrait of Derek CowanScotland-born · building from Vietnam

Derek Cowan

Founder·Builder·Teacher

I taught 7,000+ English lessons online and I've been writing code since 2008. Now I'm building Tuton, the platform that gives independent tutors their own classroom.

Connect on
7,000+
online lessons taught
2008
writing code since
30
employees at my first company
5
products live in production

About

I've been building things my whole life: ships and submarines in Scottish shipyards, a cleaning company that grew to thirty people, homes in Nepal after the earthquake, a pizza restaurant in Vietnam. I wrote my first code back in 2008, and along the way I taught more than seven thousand English lessons online, seeing every single day what independent tutors are up against. So I built the fix myself. I believe the best products come from doing the work, not just thinking about it.

Now building

Tuton

The all-in-one platform for independent English tutors.

Video classroom, AI lesson generation, student CRM, scheduling, invoicing: everything a tutor needs to run an independent teaching business without stitching together six subscriptions. It exists because I spent years living the problem. Tuton is the tool I wished I had at lesson one, and I still teach on it every week.

600+
lessons taught on Tuton
100%
of earnings kept by tutors
tuton.io
The Tuton classroom: an infinite canvas with live video, lesson slides, and vocabulary cardsTeach: the classroom
A student profile in the Tuton student CRM showing level, goal, frequency, and lessons completedManage: student CRM
A public tutor profile on Tuton with lesson pricing, trial lesson, and available booking timesGrow: profile & bookings
The classroom is one piece. Tuton runs the whole tutoring business: lessons, students, bookings, and the public profile that wins new students.Visit tuton.io
Also live

Everything else I've shipped

Each of these is in production with real users. Designed, built, deployed, and operated end to end.

The WordViva homepage

WordViva

Every word you meet, yours for life

Turns the words you stumble across into vocabulary you actually keep. AI builds the flashcard in seconds, and spaced repetition makes it stick. iPhone app on the way.

2025·Next.jsAISpaced Repetition
The GramViva grammar reference homepage

GramViva

English grammar, taught properly

A free grammar reference built around real classroom teaching: 218 rules, 1,569 practice questions, and a quiz on every page.

2025·Next.jsELTFree forever
The Pizza Lagi online ordering homepage

Pizza Lagi

A real business, and the app that runs it

A pizza delivery business in Vietnam, running since 2022, plus the bilingual ordering platform I built to power it. Shipping isn't just for software.

2022–now·Next.jsConvexReal-world ops

Plus the plumbing underneath: a dictionary API, a realtime collaboration server, and self-hosted video infrastructure across two regions, all built and run solo.

The story

An unconventional route here

No CS degree, no accelerator. Just a lifetime of making things and finishing them.

  1. 1981

    Born in Scotland

    The journey starts on the west coast of Scotland.

  2. 1999

    Fabricator: ships & submarines

    First job out of school, building ships and submarines in Scotland's shipyards. Real deadlines, real steel.

  3. 2005

    Three years in sales

    Learned to listen, pitch, and close. Skills that turned out to matter more than any of the steel.

  4. 2008

    Founded my first company

    Started a cleaning business from nothing and grew it to over 30 employees.

  5. 2008

    Wrote my first code

    Self-taught from day one. The habit stuck, long before it became the job.

  6. 2015

    Left Scotland for Southeast Asia

    Volunteered in Vietnam, rode a motorbike from the north of the country to the south, and kept going.

  7. 2015

    Nepal earthquake relief

    Raised funds and coordinated international volunteers to rebuild eight homes in a Nepali village.

  8. 2016

    Spoke in New York & San Francisco

    Invited to share the travel and volunteer work at speaking events in NYC and SF.

  9. 2016

    Became a teacher

    TEFL/TESOL certified, then five years teaching in Vietnamese schools and a Japanese international school.

  10. 2020

    Went online: 7,000+ lessons

    Built an independent online tutoring practice, taught thousands of lessons to students around the world, and met the problem I'd end up solving.

  11. 2022

    Opened a pizza restaurant

    Pizza Lagi, a delivery business in Vietnam that's still running today.

  12. 2024

    Founded Tuton

    Turned 7,000 lessons of firsthand frustration, and sixteen years of writing code, into the platform I wished I'd had at lesson one.

  13. 2025

    Shipped WordViva & GramViva. Got married.

    Two more products live for language learners, and the best decision of the lot.

  14. Now

    All-in on Tuton

    Building, teaching, and operating everything myself, from the product to the infrastructure it runs on.

Let's talk.

Investor, fellow builder, tutor, or just curious. Email is the fastest way to reach me, and I answer everything myself.