history
the company
After graduating from Wharton in 2003, Robert Einspruch and Egon van der Hoeven agreed to one day start a company in the mold of revolutionary, down-right-awesome companies like Apple, eBay and Google. They were inspired by companies that created real communities, created markets where there were no markets before, and, above all else, lowered barriers to information. So in 2006, they founded ziizoo in their “garage” in Austin, TX, USA with the ambition of creating a truly global, democratic, online tutoring marketplace where students can access help in any subject matter, at any moment in time, from any computer with a broadband connection.
the name
Many people have asked us what “ziizoo” means and how we chose it. Well, it does not mean anything. It is a play on a Dutch phrase “zie zo”, which roughly translates into “all done”. Like the end of a task, you would say “zie zo”. So at the end of a tutoring session, when the light bulb in the head goes off, a student could say “ziizoo!” Or after crushing a difficult homework assignment, the student could yell “ziizoo!” in a moment of triumph.
Why did we choose ziizoo? Because it was the only URL available. Sad but true.