Coach Terms

Effective October 19, 2026 · updated November 1, 2026 (you may record your own camera; before that, October 19: students are never recorded)

These terms are for coaches who teach on Outpost, the online chess classroom at outpost.coach, run by Andre Gorostiaga, doing business as Chess Coach Andre, on Maui, Hawaii ("Outpost", "we", "us"). They apply in addition to the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy, which cover everyone on the site. By creating a coach account, you agree to all three. If anything here is at odds with the Terms of Use, these terms win for coaches.

1. What Outpost gives you

Outpost is a platform: classrooms with a shared board and video call, lesson recordings, homework, a booking calendar, card payments, a public page and a place in the coach directory, so you can teach your own students online. We aren't part of the lessons themselves. Each lesson is an agreement between you and your student, and you're the one giving it.

2. You run your own business

You teach on Outpost as an independent business. You're not an employee, contractor, partner or agent of Outpost, and nothing here creates a joint venture. That means:

• You decide your prices, your hours, your days off and your time zone, and who you teach.
• You're responsible for your lessons: showing up, teaching them well, and how you treat your students.
• You're responsible for any licence, permit, registration, insurance or background check your business needs where you live.
• You get no wages, benefits or insurance from Outpost, and you can't make promises or sign anything on our behalf.
• You use your own equipment and internet connection.

3. Taxes

What students pay you is your income, and the tax on it is yours to report and pay, under the rules of the country, state and city where you live. Stripe, which pays you out, issues any tax forms the law requires (for example a 1099-K in the United States); we don't. Some places also tax the lessons themselves: in Hawaii, for example, the General Excise Tax applies to what a coach earns from lessons. Please check with your local tax office or a tax advisor about what applies to you. Outpost doesn't collect, hold back or pay any tax for you.

4. How we expect coaches to behave

• Be kind, patient and respectful to students, parents and other coaches, on the board and in the call.
• Give the lessons students pay for, on time. If you can't make one, cancel it on your dashboard as early as you can, with a refund.
• Be honest on your page: your real name or coaching name, a photo of you, and true claims about your rating, titles and experience.
• Treat everyone fairly. No harassment, discrimination or abuse of any kind.
• Keep your password private, and use your account only for yourself.
• Don't try to break, overload or get around the site's security, and don't use it for anything unlawful.

Teaching children

Many students on Outpost are children. When a student is under 18:

• Keep all contact with the student on Outpost (the classroom, homework and its questions and answers) or through their parent or guardian. Don't message, call, meet or befriend a child privately outside the platform (text, email, social media, other apps, in person) unless their parent has agreed to it in writing.
• Follow the parent's instructions about their child's lessons and contact.
• Follow Outpost's recording and privacy rules: a lesson recording holds the board and you only: your voice, and your own camera if you tick "Record my camera too". Students are never recorded, whatever their age, and you must not record, screenshot or keep a student's picture or voice in any other way, as the Privacy Policy describes.
• Ask a child only for what a lesson needs (their first name is enough), and never for their address, school, phone number or photos.
• Follow the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and any child-protection law where you or the student live.
• Tell us straight away if you're worried about a child's safety, and tell the authorities where the law requires it.

5. Your students' information

You see your students' names, email addresses, lesson activity and recordings so you can teach them. Use that information only for their lessons on Outpost. Don't sell it, share it or add it to a mailing list, and delete any copies when a student asks or leaves. Students and parents have the rights set out in the Privacy Policy, and you'll help us honour them.

6. What it costs

• The Outpost coach plan. Teaching on Outpost is free for the first 30 days from the day you join. After that it's a monthly subscription, at the price shown on your dashboard when you subscribe ($10 a month when these terms were written), paid by card through Stripe and renewed every month until you cancel. You can cancel at any time from your dashboard ("Manage plan"); you keep the plan until the end of the month you've paid for, and we don't refund part of a month. While your plan isn't paid up (the trial has ended without a subscription, a payment has failed for more than a week, or you've cancelled), students can't book you and you leave the coach directory. Three days after that (for a failed payment, when its week is up), your classrooms pause until you subscribe: you can't start lessons, give new homework, invite a class or start a tournament, though lessons a student has already booked still go ahead. Nothing you made is deleted, your students keep their homework and replays, and it all comes back the moment you subscribe. We'll remind you by email before your free trial ends. We may waive the plan for a coach.
• No cut of your lessons. Outpost doesn't take a cut of the lessons or gift certificates you're paid for through the site: the whole price goes to your Stripe account. The plan above is all you pay us.
• Stripe's fees. Stripe charges its own fees for card payments and payouts, which come out of your side: its card fee (2.9% + 30¢ on a US card when these terms were written) is taken out of each payment before it reaches your Stripe account. They're set by Stripe, not us, and we pass them on at cost.

If we change the plan price, or start taking a share of lessons, we'll email you at least 30 days before it takes effect. Lessons you booked at the old rate stay at the old rate.

7. Payments, refunds and chargebacks

Getting paid. To be paid for lessons, you connect a Stripe account from your Bookings tab. Stripe is a separate company; by connecting, you agree to the Stripe Connected Account Agreement, which includes the Stripe Terms of Service. Stripe checks your identity and bank details, pays you out, and decides things like payout timing and any holds; those are between you and Stripe. Outpost takes each student's payment on your behalf and passes it to your Stripe account.

Refunds. A student who cancels a lesson 24 hours or more before it starts gets their money back in full, as our Terms of Use promise. When that happens, or when you cancel a lesson with a refund, the refund is pulled back out of your Stripe balance (Stripe calls this a reversed transfer). Stripe doesn't give its card fee back on a refund, so that fee stays on your side. Whether to refund a student who cancels later than that, or misses a lesson, is your call: tell us and we'll send the refund. If you don't give a lesson a student paid for, they get a full refund.

Chargebacks. If a student disputes a card payment with their bank and the dispute is lost, the amount, plus the fee Stripe charges for a dispute, comes out of your Stripe balance. If your balance can't cover a refund or a chargeback, you owe us the difference, and we may take it from your later lesson payments or ask you to pay it.

Lessons you arrange and take payment for outside Outpost are your own business; these terms don't cover them.

8. Your lessons, recordings and page

The lessons, homework, notes, recordings and other materials you make stay yours, as does your page (your photo, bio and headline). You give Outpost permission to store them, make copies for backups, show them to you and your students, send them to your students by email, and show your page and your name in the coach directory and on the site, for as long as you teach here and for as long as your students keep what you gave them. You promise that you have the right to use everything you put on the site, including your photo, and that it doesn't break anyone else's rights. Recordings hold the board, your voice and, if you choose, your camera, never your students.

Your students keep their own homework, scores, recordings and messages. If you leave Outpost, your classrooms, lessons and recordings pass to Outpost's owner, Coach Andre, so your students don't lose them (see section 10). If you'd rather your lesson materials weren't kept, email us before you go and we'll remove what we can while keeping students' own records.

9. Reviews and the directory

Students who have had lessons with you can leave a review (stars and a few words) that shows on your page and in the directory. Reviews are the student's own words. We don't edit them, and we don't remove a review just because it's unfavourable, but we may hide one that is abusive, includes private information, isn't from a real student of yours, or breaks the Terms of Use. You may not write reviews of yourself, offer anything for a review, or pressure a student about theirs. Your place in the directory needs a plan in good standing (section 6) and a page that follows these terms; we can take a coach out of the directory while we look into a complaint.

10. Leaving, suspension and removal

You can stop teaching on Outpost whenever you like: cancel your plan and email us to close your account. We may suspend or remove a coach account if these terms or the Terms of Use are broken, if we get a serious complaint about your conduct (especially around children), if the plan goes unpaid, if we suspect fraud, or if we believe it's needed to protect students or the site. We'll usually talk to you first, but we can act straight away when a child's safety or the law is involved.

When a coach leaves or is removed, whichever way it happens:

• Your plan subscription is cancelled and your booking closes. Lessons already paid for and not yet given are refunded to the students, unless you and the student arrange otherwise with us.
• Your students, classrooms, lessons and recordings pass to Outpost's owner, Coach Andre, so students keep everything on their dashboards. Students are always free to leave or to pick another coach.
• Money you've already earned is still paid out by Stripe, less anything you owe under section 7.

11. The service

We work to keep Outpost running well, but we can't promise it will always be available or free of errors, and video quality depends on everyone's connection and devices. We may change, improve or stop parts of the site. We don't promise you any number of students, bookings or income. Outpost is provided "as is", and to the extent the law allows we disclaim all warranties not stated here.

12. Responsibility and limits

You're responsible for your lessons, your conduct, your content and your taxes. If someone brings a claim against Outpost because of them (for example a student, a parent or a tax authority), you'll cover our reasonable costs and any amount we have to pay. To the extent the law allows, Outpost isn't liable for indirect, incidental or consequential damages, lost income, lost students or lost data arising from teaching on the site, and our total liability to you for any claim is limited to the plan fees you paid us in the three months before the claim. Nothing in these terms limits liability that can't be limited by law.

13. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Hawaii. Any dispute will be handled in the courts for the County of Maui, Hawaii, unless the law where you live says otherwise. We'd always rather talk first: please email us if something isn't right.

14. Changes

If these terms change, we'll update the date at the top and email you. Changes to what it costs take effect no sooner than 30 days after that email. Teaching on Outpost after a change means you accept it; if you don't, you can leave as section 10 describes.

15. Contact

Andre Gorostiaga, Chess Coach Andre, Maui, Hawaii · andre@chesscoachandre.com