Share the Light needed more than a simple tutoring website. They needed a structured platform where students could find the right tutor, tutors could be onboarded and certified properly, and admins could manage the full operation from one place.

The MVP was planned as a responsive web platform with three core sides: Student, Tutor, and Admin/Tutor Ops, built using React/Next.js on the frontend and Node.js/Nest.js on the backend.

Share the Light’s tutoring flow had multiple moving parts that needed to work together cleanly:

Students needed to browse tutors, request sessions, message tutors, view history, and give feedback. Tutors needed to manage availability, accept or decline sessions, join calls, submit post-session logs, and access learning resources. Admins needed to review applications, certify tutors, moderate resources, manage announcements, and keep the platform safe and organized.

The real challenge was not just building features. It was making sure every role only saw what they were allowed to see, every session followed a clear lifecycle, and every tutor moved through a controlled onboarding and certification pipeline.

We designed and scoped a web-based MVP that connects the full tutoring journey in one system.

The platform includes:

Public landing page with student and tutor entry points

Secure role-based authentication

Tutor application and onboarding flow

Admin-controlled tutor certification pipeline

Student-to-tutor matching logic

Session scheduling and rescheduling

Post-session tutor logs

Messaging and PDF-only file sharing

Tutor resources and community events

Admin dashboard for pipeline, resources, announcements, and sessions

The system uses server-side permissions as the source of truth, with role-gated UI across Admin, Tutor Ops, Tutor, and Student views.

We broke the MVP into clear development milestones instead of treating it as one large build.

The first phase focused on the public landing page, login, signup, and basic onboarding. From there, we moved into the tutor onboarding and certification pipeline, then the core tutoring flow: matching, sessions, logs, and scheduling. The final phase covered messaging, tutor resources, help center, admin dashboard, QA, deployment, and post-launch support.

A major focus was reducing operational confusion for admins. Tutor onboarding was structured into clear states: Applicant → In Training → Certified. Applicants are only visible to admins, tutors in training can access learning materials but cannot be booked, and certified tutors become visible to students for matching and scheduling.

Frontend: React.js / Next.js Backend: Node.js / Nest.js Platform type: Responsive web MVP Roles: Admin, Tutor Ops, Tutor, Student Session length: Standardized 60 minutes Timezone handling: UTC storage with local-time display Attachments: PDF-only for MVP Access control: Role-based permissions and server-side status validation

The matching logic was designed around subject, grade, availability, gender preference where required, language preference, tutor rating, response time, reliability, and field-of-interest alignment. The system returns top tutor matches while also supporting a “See All Tutors” directory with filters.

The session lifecycle follows a strict flow: Draft → Requested → Confirmed → In Progress → Ended → Logged → Archived. Join buttons only appear close to session time, and tutors are blocked from creating new sessions until required post-session logs are submitted.

The result was a clear MVP blueprint for a tutoring platform that handles both the student experience and the behind-the-scenes operations.

For students, the platform creates a simple path to find, book, and communicate with tutors. For tutors, it creates a guided journey from application to certification, with tools for availability, sessions, resources, and logs. For admins, it creates visibility and control across tutor approvals, session activity, resources, announcements, and platform rules.

Most importantly, Share the Light gets a foundation that is structured enough for real operations, but still lean enough to launch as an MVP.