The teenager who rebuilt tutoring.

Michael Fayez Bassili Black grew up in Western Sydney, and school didn’t come easily to him. He struggled with maths, and his mother took him to more than ten tutoring centres across Sydney. Nothing clicked. That experience planted the idea that would shape his life: tutoring could, and should, be done completely differently.

At just 17, with no funding, no roadmap and no prior experience, he turned a spare room in his parents’ home in Bossley Park into the first Success Tutoring centre. Originally called HSC Success Tutoring, it began with a handful of students taught one-to-one in English and maths, and a teaching philosophy built on using experience and motivation to achieve results. He showed up every day, whether he had one student or none.

Michael’s breakthrough was bringing a gym-style membership model to tutoring: students walk in, feel motivated and learn at their own pace with personal coaching, on a flexible, curriculum-aligned membership parents can manage from an app. Once the experience was repeatable and results-driven, he franchised it, and became Australia’s youngest franchisor.

Today Success Tutoring is one of the fastest-growing education franchises in the world, with more than 100 territories sold and operations across Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada and India. Franchise partners are trained through the Success Academy, and most come from outside teaching. They need passion and people skills, not a teaching degree.

In 2025, at 26, he published his debut book, Millionaire Tutor.

His mission hasn’t changed since that spare room: to motivate, inspire and uplift millions of students around the world, and to build the world’s largest and most influential education brand. When he isn’t doing that, he flies stunt planes.

The five books that shaped Michael Michael Black quotes