Before founding First Rate Tutors, Barbara Njau spent three years as a journalist at the Financial Times, covering Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Her journey into education began when she started tutoring students privately.
One student in particular changed the direction of her career. The student was struggling at school and dealing with difficult circumstances at home. After working with Barbara for a year, he went from failing his exams to achieving a B, eventually applying to sixth form and going on to university. Seeing his transformation made Barbara realise that teaching was more than a job — it was something she wanted to build her career around.
Today, First Rate Tutors supports more than 200 students a year. Barbara has grown the business from the ground up into a six-figure company, while also building an audience of more than 158,000 YouTube subscribers.
However, the journey has come with challenges. Barbara describes self-doubt as one of the biggest obstacles she has faced, particularly as she had few examples of Black women who had built businesses at scale without significant funding or support. She has also experienced prejudice around her capabilities as a teacher and the commercial side of being a woman and Black founder.
Support and mentorship have been an important part of her journey. Barbara describes her involvement in BEO’s F100 programme as transformational, particularly receiving funding alongside mentoring and strategic support.
After investing F100 funding into marketing, she says First Rate Tutors doubled its revenue in six weeks. Her ambition is now to build the biggest Black-owned tuition business in the UK.
Her advice to other founders is simple: trust the journey, build relationships, seek out mentors and don’t be afraid to think bigger.
