Ben Hu on the secret behind Liulishuo's triumph in helping Chinese learn English

Hello and welcome to the Rich Robinson Show.

I'm your host, Rich Robinson. Over the past 25 years, I've been an entrepreneur, investor, advisor, and professor here in Asia. After nearly a quarter of a century in China, I'm now based here in Bali, Indonesia, the island of the gods.

Asia is my home now.

60% of the world's population also lives here, but I would contend 80% of the world's dynamism and opportunity is right here in the region. On the show, you'll hear candid and fun conversations with some of my friends and colleagues, people I've met along my journey, entrepreneurs, operators, experts that will help you unlock actionable insights around the Asia region and the entrepreneurial agility That actually defines it. This first season, season 1 of The Rich Robinson Show, is titled At the Speed of China. Like, wait for it, at the speed of light. Things happen fast in China, and in this season 1, we're gonna take a deeper look at that. The rapid economic development over the past few decades, as well as the speed and cycles of innovation taking Place all day, every day, right now.

Let's go, Jiao! 欢迎光临，Ben Hu, ladies and gentlemen.

Who?

Ben Hu. It's awesome to have you on the podcast. I am a big fan of your story. I've had you come and lecture at my Peking University Entrepreneurship in China class. So welcome. Thank you.

Yeah, thanks for having me again. I was just trying to explain to Rich is that, um, not sure everyone or the audience heard about what's happening in China right now with all the government policy. See, actually the online education sector, which my company is in right now, is going through some tough time. But this is also part of the story, right? Part of the journey. I mean, ups and downs. And I think it's the same thing when I was in the U.S. The government regulation happens to all sectors from time to time, which affect the business and entrepreneurs in that sector. So from my point of view, this is part of the journey and still going through it.

Yeah. Well, we can maybe talk a little bit more about that later, but I'd love to hear more about the Ben Hu story from the beginning, your origin story, kind of like Spider-Man getting bitten by a radioactive spider all the way back in the day. What made you a superhero entrepreneur? And I know you're not going to Accept that, but I actually believe that you are a superhero entrepreneur because the Chinese market is so amazing, but so competitive. And I really like your journey. So take us back to the beginning. Which part of China did you grow up in?

I grew up in Shanghai and I went to school in Shanghai till my college. So I graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, majored in computer science. That's how I got into the computer thing. So I was actually a math guy. Before college, I was really into math.

Were you in the Geolympics?

I was in the Math Olympics, but not the international one, just the national one. So I was really a math guy, but got into computer after I got into college. I actually didn't do much programming before college. So when I got into college, we have a period which you didn't really have a major. You can choose your major later. During that period, I got into programming in college. And I feel like it's amazing. You can basically create something from nothing, right? You can just program certain things and create a program. It's running on the computer and does something from input and output. That amazed me. So I eventually picked computer science as my major for college.

What year was that?

I got into college in 2002, quite a while ago.

Yeah. So it was kind of like after the dot-com bust and it was kind of like before Web 2.0 really got going. So there wasn't this. Entrepreneur culture and startup culture and computer science was still, you know, maybe a little bit more like larger companies.

Honestly, around 2002, I think computer major was picking up steam. It was getting popular, but definitely not as popular as right now. What I heard right now in 2020, computer science major is the most popular major, probably in China, definitely Shanghai. So back in 2002, computer science major was popular, but was not that popular at that time. Finance major was still very popular. Finance, general management, even biology at that time was very popular. There was a period like biology seemed like the future. I think some person said the 21st century is the century for biology. That definitely made a lot of students choose biology major.

I think that what that person said, that's probably right, but maybe not yet, right? I think it's still going to happen, right?

Um, that's true. Yeah.

So, yeah, but that's pretty terrific. And all the listeners about like Jiao Tong Shanghai, the best university in Shanghai and the culture there, one of the best in China, in the world. And tell us about like your experience there, because the Chinese university experience is really different from the U.S. experience.

I think I consider myself lucky. And when I chose the computer science major back in 2002 in China University, I was lucky to go into a special class. That class right now is getting Kind of popular in China. We call it ACM class. This is a specialized class created in 2002 in Shanghai Jiao Tong University to basically get students with all kinds of background, from math, physics, chemistry, or programming background, to create a computer science major. And the focus really a lot on the fundamentals of computer science. It's not just about programming. It starts from math because computer science in the other day, the major, it's all math. math, a lot of fundamentals about computer series, computer architecture and stuff like that. And then on top of it, of course, there will be a lot of programming stuff. So the ACM class creates a totally different learning experience, different atmosphere compared to other classes in computer science, even with the same year you go to university. A lot of my classmates at this moment, they are all entrepreneurs as well, and they are also doing quite good.

Yeah, I bet there's a really good mafia from those original classes. Yeah. And the startups.

And create a lot of peer pressure. So from From that perspective, to answer your question, my experience in Zhaojun University was quite different. At that time, we already have a lot of the lessons are taught in English. So although majority of our lessons are in Chinese, but we do get a lot of lessons taught in English. The school actually invited a lot of different lecturers all over the world and purposely teach us a lot of classes, some math class, some computer theory classes in English because Wow.

I never knew that. That's interesting.

Wow.

I'm not even sure if Beida or Tsinghua does that.

Not probably all classes, but for some of the special classes they do. And the main purpose why they do that at that time was that they understand in order to achieve a higher goal as a computer science major students, you probably need to get an advanced degree, either master's degree or PhD degree from Universities outside China, probably US or UK or Europe. That's why they were trying to prepare you for that. Because if you went abroad, you need to take lessons in English, right?

And even a lot of computer language has English like baked into it as well too, right?

So that's the experience. And also during our junior and senior year in college, the whole curriculum emphasized a lot on research. As a junior student, the school basically already sent us to a lot of the labs. We were working with some of the PhD advisors and the graduate students in the M. LAC, Peking Jiao Tong University. Um, it's basically tried to prepare us for the advanced degree stuff. So other than that, I mean, the experience was quite interesting.

It sounds like an even, like my main point there was at my Peking University MBA class, I remember, which you guest lectured at last year and you're going to graciously do again this year. I remember talking to one of the Chinese students and she was like, I spoke to one of the international students and They said they came to Peking University to have fun. And she was like, what? I can't believe that. You don't come to Peking University to have fun. You come to Peking University because the acceptance rate is less than 2% and it's the most intense place in the world.

Right.

And I think especially undergrad in the U.S. is much more about like, woo-hoo, like not for all students. Right. But I don't think that culture even exists at all in China. And then for the elite universities, it's even more intense. And then your program, ASM and Jialutong, like that's even more level, right?

So it's very intense. Honestly speaking, it is very intense. Like every year, the bottom 10% of the students will get kicked out. That's how intense it was.

It's like McKinsey or something. Yeah. So my book, At the Speed of China, talks about this ratio. It's like things are happening at a 4 to 1 ratio, right? 4 years outside of China is a year inside China. So 20 years, a generation is a half decade in China. It's a multivariate, there's a lot of reasons for that, but I think one of the reasons is from the education side from the get-go is so intense. There's so many STEM graduates and the intensity and the level of study and doing classes in English, like everything is just turned up to a whole different level before you've even gotten into the business world.

Yeah, it is. You are definitely correct in that, especially for elite college in China, it's quite intense. Yeah. Especially for science and engineering major, the math, the physics, all these fundamental classes are quite intense.

So you graduate what, in 2004, 2005?

I graduated in 2006. And I went to the US, University of Arizona for my PhD program, but I didn't finish. So actually the ACM class prepares us for advanced degree. And according to my advisor in ACM class in Georgia University, they say, originally we hope every single of you will get a PhD and that you will become a scientist in computer science or other majors. But unfortunately, in my class that year, Quite a few PhD students quit and went into the business world.

Excellent. But that's good company. There's lots of entrepreneurs who just quit programs, right? It's almost like a good, it's almost like a badge of honor.

So I quit my PhD pretty much 2007, like at the end of 2007. So I joined a startup in New York.

But can you peel that back a little bit? Like what was your thesis going to be and why did you make that decision?

So I was in the AI lab or in the deep learning lab. Actually, I went through the first year of PhD studying. I took the PhD qualification exam in the summer, first summer, and then I passed the qualification.

Excellent. Which, I rest my case.

Yeah, I passed my PhD qualification after a year. But interesting that that summer I took an internship in Charlotte. So I worked for Bank of America as an intern, which I did that I worked in their credit card department. We are trying to use machine learning and data mining technology To data mine the credit card data that Bank of America has, and then to use the credit card data they had to try to predict the economy. So this kind of experience, and I worked with 3 interns in my group working on that project. One is from MIT, a PhD from MIT, and the third person is a master's from CMU. So the experience working with these people in the real business world kind of gave me Thinking that, am I really going to do the PhD and reading the paper and writing the paper and just asking myself the question. It turns out maybe at that time I chose to get into the world instead of staying in the academy. Basically after the qualification, it's basically reading paper, writing paper, finding the topic you want to write about, talk to your advisor and get the thesis going on and get approval from the advisor about your thesis topic. And then write that paper. So that's what's going to happen.

It can take a long time. Like there's a joke of like, how many PhDs does it take to change a light bulb? It only takes one, but it takes them 11 and a half years to do it. Right. Because so many people take so long time to do their PhD. Right. So I asked you to peel that back because people listening to this, it's like a startup where you had a thesis, I'm going to get a PhD. And then you pass the test and you're like, okay, well, all right, I feel like validated, I qualified myself. And then you work with other peers from like MIT and top universities. You're like, oh, I can play with these people. I'm on their level. And then you go into the business world and then it's like playing cards and you turn over a new card, turn over a new card. And you're like, okay, now I have more information. This was actually valuable for me. It's not a waste of time. It's not a dropout. It was actually a necessary part of your evolution, I think, right? To be able to figure out. What's next, it seems.

Yeah, it's just that summer got me thinking. And honestly, looking back, I have peer students who got into the PhD same year as me, and then they eventually graduate. Some of them got into academia, become a professor. Some of them joined company, also big ones like Salesforce. I think in the end of the day, everyone is doing okay. I just feel like oftentimes it's like doing a startup. You kind of have to follow your heart, right? You cannot really predict the future, especially at that time. I definitely would not be able to predict that, oh, finish the PhD is better for my future. Not finishing the PhD is better for my future. Which one is better? I mean, I cannot really tell. It's just at that time I asked myself and I kind of followed my heart is that, yeah, I made a choice. Yeah.

And I think oftentimes what's best for your future is what's really best for your heart. Because if you're not following your heart, then sometimes you wake up 5, 10, 20 years later and you're like, I'm on a path. That I stuck with that I probably shouldn't have. So thanks for sharing. Thanks for sharing. So after that, 2007, 2008, you're in North Carolina and then you went to—

So I did my internship in 2007 summer. And after the summer, I decided to quit my PhD. So basically the beginning of 2008, I was already in New York. So I joined a startup in New York and New York was fun, right? So you could do both. You could Join a startup, which was fun, and then you could be in New York. So 1 plus 1 is larger than 2, right?

1 plus 1 equals 11.

Yeah. So I joined a startup in New York. That was a very fun experience. And because the founder of the company was a second timer, he already did a startup and he sold the company in 2006, I think, 2005, 2006.

Where is he from?

Sorry, what do you mean by where is he from?

Like, is he like a New York guy? Was he outside the States?

He's a New York guy. Yeah, I think his family mostly in New York area, the tri-state area.

And what was the second startup that you were with? What was that called? What were you doing?

So the New York startup, I mean, the founder was actually trying to solve a very tough problem, which even today, I'm not sure it's fully solved. So the biggest question he was asking at that time, all over the world was still trying to copy from the U.S. Whenever there was a business model launched in U.S., and then there will be companies in other world, maybe in Europe or in China or in some Asian countries, will copy the model, right? So then he was asked a question, can we solve this issue from a technical perspective? Are we able to launch a product or launch a service globally at the same time? So that we can solve the issue of copy from US, right? So he is an American guy. He loves the country. He wants the US to have everything, right? Maybe so that we don't need to leave this opportunity to those domestic guys. Then as a US company, we can launch the service globally so that we can capitalize all the opportunities global-wise. So with that business goal, the whole engineering team and the technical people is basically trying to work on a lot of the internationalization and localization issues. How to make the engineering or the infrastructure horizontally expandable to different countries and is able to accommodate customers from different countries and can solve a lot of issues. So the goal was very ambitious and apparently it was too ambitious. So that's why the New York company actually has a lot of talents from the East Coast. I remember most of my colleagues were from like NYU, Columbia. MIT, Harvard, like the Boston universities, and then UPenn, all those kind of East Coast.

Yeah, I think the startup scene in New York was really starting to get traction just then. Like there was some good talent available.

But looking back, the goal was too ambitious. So it turns out it's not just an engineering issue. There's a legal issue. There are a lot of other issues as well. So the goal was too ambitious. So the company was actually not doing that well. Then after almost 2 years, the whole team kind of just separated. And then at that time, I decided that maybe it's It's time for me to go to the center of the innovation, the center of the startup, the West Coast. By that time, I decided to move from New York to San Francisco.

Oh, great. Interesting.

Yeah.

So I was talking to somebody from ByteDance on the podcast, and it's really interesting how TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance, is probably really the first very successful product from China that's been dominant globally. And I even read that this month or last month, TikTok was the most downloaded app. In, in the App Store. And it's really because of the machine learning expertise. A bunch of engineers in Beijing know about what's happening in the US or France or Brazil, and they don't, but the algorithms know. So it's funny in some ways, like, and then they put a lot of people on the ground to like deal with the legal and the marketing and the sort of sales side. And it seems like that works, right? It's a little tough to replicate, but it's a really— and there's some models that would never work. I met Travis from Uber when he first came. into China, like looking around. And if you look at it, that was just so difficult to really launch in multiple markets because there were so many moving parts, right? So now there's Grab and Didi and players in Brazil, but Uber doesn't necessarily dominate that, right? So I guess it would definitely have to be with Web 3.0, with on-chain, something around that'll launch that will be software-based. It'll just go around the world and maybe even into China. That'll be fun to watch. So now you go into the Bay Area in what, 2010 or so?

Yeah.

2011?

Yeah, I think Bay Area 2010. I was in Bay Area 2010 to 2011, um, joined a startup which was working on advertisement technology, basically using a lot of machine learning and data approach to, to help the marketers to do targeted ads on the internet. So it's basically, it's called AdTech, advertisement technology. It's a big data company called Comcast. So I joined Comcast for, I believe, less than 2 years. That was also a very interesting experience because if you remember in 2010, a majority of the startup world was still in South Bay, but there were a lot of new companies starting to headquarter in San Francisco. The most famous one at that time was Twitter. Twitter was headquartered in San Francisco, then Dropbox. Then Airbnb, and now they were all married famous names. You get Airbnb, Pinterest, Square. Now San Francisco became the center of the startup, not the peninsula or the South Bay anymore, right? Before that, it was like Mountain View, San Jose, or Disney area, or Palo Alto. So 2010, 2011 was a very interesting time. I met a lot of the early folks in Dropbox and Airbnb. At that time, because everybody was in the South Side Market, SoMa area. So they went to the same bar and everybody's friends of friends. So 2010, 2011 was a very interesting San Francisco.

Yeah. I loved it. I had a friend who made t-shirts. It said Beijing, B-A-Y-J-A-N-G. And then in the back it said Bay Area, B-E-I space area, right? Because every time I'd go back there and I loved going back there, I would go to Twitch or Airbnb or Facebook or Google. And meet my friends there for lunch. And I would hear so much Mandarin, but I would also be like, oh my God, this is so dynamic. And the homeless situation wasn't as bad. And there was just like this really like new wave, not quite as bad as now. Right. I really thought about leaving China to move there, but now San Francisco is kind of an unlivable city, in my opinion, in some ways, it's really a pity. One of the richest cities in the world.

I heard about that.

So tough.

I heard about that, about the crime rate and things like that. It's bad.

Yeah, it's interesting to see now, like with remote work, whether that's really going to truly continue to be this. I think right now Beijing and San Francisco in terms of like the 2 epicenters, but then there's a lot of other places like Shanghai, like Shenzhen, like Boston historically and Berlin and Singapore and you name it. But now I think there's going to be a lot more people that are just going to optimize. I read that Canva, C-A-N-V-A, the company in Australia, very successful startup that's doing online design. Their new rule is 8 times a year you have to go to the office. But other than that, just so there's some physical interaction. So I think COVID's really accelerated that change dramatically. So then after your time in the Bay Area, you came back to Shanghai. Is that right?

That's another thing of follow my heart. I basically made the decision in a month. So within a month, it's beginning from I had some ideas that I want to go back to China to do startup. And from that moment, I actually physically back in China. It's only like a month or two. It's another follow my heart decision. I think my parents were kind of shocked when I landed in Pudong. It's like, okay, we thought you would stay in the U.S. for quite a while. Maybe never came back. We didn't expect you to come back.

But it's interesting. I think that's the older, like people who studied in the U.S. in the '80s, '90s, maybe a lot of them didn't come back. Right. But Then China got so heated up and there's so much opportunity and dynamism. Like, is there a specific event or set of events that made you want to make the move?

I mean, looking back, I think there's a certain, several elements trigger that. So first of all, it's definitely the mobile wave, right? So in the 2010, with the introduction of iPhone 4, that was the killer iPhone and the killer phone. For this mobile wave, right? The iPhone 4 was released. So 2010, 2011, the mobile trend was already very clear. That's, I think, definitely contributed to a lot. And the second is that after I graduated from school, basically 2 companies I joined are startups. I kind of just enjoyed the startup, right? Basically you are creating something from nothing and your product can be used by a lot of users and a lot of consumers. That kind of interested me. And the third is that, I mean, I have to say it's the immigration issue, right? So for me, as an immigrant, it was definitely at that time, I'm not sure about the policy right now, but at that time it was kind of difficult for me to do the startup in the US. I definitely had trouble to solve my legal status there. So with all these elements.

But you know what I really liked what you said there was that in college you were like, I like computer science because I'm creating something out of nothing. And then that little clue, like you go into college and it exposes you to new opportunities. You're like, well, I like startups because they can create something out of nothing. And then you go from an employee to a founder, right? So I think there's the universe in some ways is giving you clues here to try this. And then you just follow your heart along the way.

Yeah. Looking back, you can say all the 3 elements I mentioned above made me go back to China because I was born Chinese. I grew up there. Thought I knew China quite well, but of course, after going back to China, I understood that actually I didn't know China that well. It's a different, different story.

Is it because it had changed so much, or is it because you left when you were still a student and you weren't working, or is it—

There are 2 things, 2 major reasons. First of all, you are correct. I left as a student. I never really worked in a business environment in China. I left after I graduated from college, although I did some internship in China, but my internship is still mainly in R&D. I did an internship in Microsoft Research, which was also like a research environment, not really business oriented. So that's the one thing. The second thing is that I grew up in Shanghai. You probably know Shanghai is not representative. It's so advanced.

Yeah.

Right? Yes. Shanghai is basically right now like New York or Tokyo, but China is very dynamic. Like China, the east coast of China and the west area of China is very different. China have 1.4 billion populations. I grew up in Shanghai. I thought I knew China very well, but actually China I knew is basically Shanghai. In Shanghai, we have subways, we have high rises, everything. And relatively speaking, people and the quality of life in Shanghai is Shanghai is much better compared to the average of China, but Shanghai is not representative of China. So when you get into the real business world, when you start to build something for the whole population, build an internet product, now you understand that this is China. It's not the China I thought of. For me, it's like I relearn China myself as a Chinese, try to understand China again. This is China. It's very interesting. So that's why I purposely said at that time when I decided to go back to China, I thought I knew China very well. Yeah.

And the third thing there that I mentioned that was of course part of it is that things are also changing so much, right? It's like on top of all that, right? So it's easy to just feel like, but then you're back in steep learning curve.

Yeah. But what I'm trying to explain that China has been growing really fast. And change really fast for 20, 30 years. Because I left China in 2006 and came back in 2011. So within that period, the speed of China didn't change that much. So I already knew China was fast, right? You understand me? If I left in 1980s, then it would be a shock. Because after WTO in 2001, China already grew like crazy. It's already crazy. We can feel it every year. Like every year Shanghai is changing a lot.

And were you going back and forth much during those 5 years or were you mostly staying in the States?

No.

'06 to '11.

I only went back once.

So what was it? Do you remember something when you came back in 2011? You're like, wow, that's different. Like, even though you knew things were changing fast, did it feel much different?

I think I came back to my first point that the first 22 years I spent in China, I was mostly a student. So when you were a student, you were kind of out of touch with society. Like the business world issue, a lot of issues you were protected from your parents. Like for example, when I was a student, I don't need to worry about to open a bank account, right?

Mm-hmm.

I mean, I didn't really have a bank account, but after you came back, you have to open a business. You have to your own bank account. You have to open bank account for business. Then I was joking that I will have a reverse culture shock because everything I remember how to open a bank account was the experience in US. Right? Because I opened my personal account in the US when I was a student and when I started working. So I think that a lot of the so-called reverse culture shock or surprise is mainly because I lived in a bubble, went to US right after my graduation. I was a student all along, so I didn't really get into the real world. But still, like, the good thing is I'm a Chinese. I grew up there. I understand the culture deeply. So I pick up fast.

Sure, sure.

Because fundamentally I'm a Chinese and I understand a lot of fundamental culture and the fundamental thinking behind all those. I pick up fast.

Sure.

Yeah.

And that's certainly, I think, even bigger than linguistic challenge for somebody who's not Chinese is trying to figure out all of those signals. Right. And it's so different and you don't get exposed to it in the West. Right. You might be able to watch Friends or watch some other stuff and go, oh, okay. That guy's saying that, but he really means this.

Right.

He's like joking. Right. But in China, it's like, it's easy to just be like, wow, I really feel off balance and lost. And I always loved that because it made it very exciting. It had like an extra level of challenge, like 3 levels of chess in some ways, right? I mean, you have to love it, right? That's why I stayed 24 years in China, right? It's like, I'm into coding and figuring things out. I still do. So now it's been 10 years. And what do you do when you land back in the hometown?

Back in 2011, I did my first startup with a buddy. We were trying to solve a very challenging problem. We were trying to build a personal search engine. For every single person. And that personal search engine can index all your online feed. For example, all your social accounts, all your social account feeds, your emails, your personal notes, stuff like that. It was a very challenging idea, although also it was a very geeky idea. Unfortunately, there was not much demand. Apparently, most people really need to index or manage their Emails, all of our social accounts. And those kinds of information come and they go, and they don't need to really come back and search for it. Maybe only a small percentage of the business people kind of have that habit or need for this kind of product. So it didn't go very well. So we did my first startup in 2011, and we decided to shut down maybe after 9 months. And at that time I went around. Or look for some new ideas. And in summer 2012, I started to work with the 2 co-founders I have right now, and we decided to start to work on something for English learning. So that's how we started this company. So since 2012, in summer, we pretty much decided we are going to use some AI technology to work on a mobile app which can help Chinese to learn better English. So we decided in summer and then we started working in September 2012.

So very early. So you just had your 9th anniversary.

Yeah. We started coding on September 3rd, 2012. That's the day we write down the first line of code.

Wow.

Wow.

Amazing.

Yeah.

And like back then too, it was like, it's pretty, I think it's almost even like it's very mainstream now, but back then you had to do a lot of education, learning. On a mobile phone and, but using AI, like that was like, wow, are you guys from the future? Like what's going on?

Honestly, we were very early because outside China, there was a very popular app like called Duolingo, also went public just recently, right? If looking back, Duolingo pretty much started working on mobile learning the same year as we did. Like basically Duolingo and we didn't know each other when we both started working on mobile learning.

Fascinating.

And I remember clearly Duolingo released their app in November or maybe December 2012. And at that time, we already finished our beta version internally. And then we saw they released that. We were like, wow, someone else in the US seems like their idea or their mission or their goal looks quite similar to us.

Yeah, it's fascinating how all of these new platforms and technology and devices just enable New possibilities and then people converge on the same, same ideas in the same way that like electricity with like Tesla and Edison and people come from totally different origin stories and all converge at the same time. Right. Wow. Interesting. So tell us about some of the early days around that, some of the triumphs and tribulations and there's always drama, but there's always some interesting wins along the way. Since you've been around, you've been doing a lot right too.

Definitely. I would love to. It's been a while, so I didn't remember all the stories, but I do remember some. Very interesting stories. I can share very early stories. I remember very late that we started a company in Hangzhou. So at that time, as you said, it was very early. The idea was very early. Like nobody really believed, like you guys want to do something like learning English on the phone. I mean, for us, it was very difficult to hire people. So I remember we tried very hard. We hired an intern because I did most of the coding, so we would love to hire an intern to help us, to help me on the coding side. And the intern joined us for a week or two in Guangzhou. And one day I woke up, he just disappeared. Like, and I opened his computer and he wrote notes, digital notes on his computer, basically explained to us that, hey guys, I thought that it was too much pressure for the past week or so. I didn't think I could take this kind of work. I was sorry about that. I decided to leave. This morning, and I just didn't feel like telling you guys straight, looking in your eyes and telling you that. Sorry about this.

Oh, that's excellent. I've had something similar happen to me as well too, right? And some people just don't want to be confrontational, but that's funny.

Yeah.

And then you're like, oh man, like in the early days that hurts, right? Maybe now you might not even notice, but back then you're like, we can't even keep an intern. Shit. Are we on the right path? Are we doing the right thing?

I remember that clearly. It was a good story, but I still get in touch with this guy. I think last year I was talking to him. He was like, yeah, looking back, I thought I kind of missed out on a good opportunity.

He's right. Take us through some of the milestones along the last 9 years.

I can quickly summarize this. So the first milestone is basically when we released the product. So it was also a very memorable date. We released the product in 2013, Valentine's Day, February 14th. 2013, it was also during the Chinese New Year. It was also during the Chinese New Year holiday for that year. And we sort of kind of get instant popular because the concept, the idea was so refreshing for the consumer. And also with the rapid adoption of mobile phone in China. So right away we got instant success. It's like you cannot imagine it's in the In a very short period of time, we already got 10,000 downloads, 50,000 downloads, like 100,000 downloads. And after several weeks, we start to get recommended by Apple. Like Apple is basically featured us in several app stores in China mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and even Japan. They kind of featured us in several Asian countries and the regions. So we got instant success. And then. Things start to make it easier for us, right? We successfully secure our funding. We got funding from top VCs.

Who are some of your investors?

Our early backers, IDG, GGV, and Cherubic. These 3 were our early backers. And the second milestone I remember is in August 2013, we released our Android version in August of 2013. And then right after I think within a week after we released the Android version, we reached 1 million registered users. So that's the first major milestone. We reached 1 million registered users in the summer of 2013. And the third milestone I remember is that in 2014, we reached 10 million downloads, 10 million registered users. And after that, just kind of, at least for myself, I stopped counting downloads and registrations and it was just history. And 2015 was actually a quite tough year for us. We were struggling in 2015 because we had difficulty figuring out a business model. We had a lot of users, but our products were free. We were free tools for people to learn English, and we were really very popular. Like a lot of college students, a lot of the young professionals knew us. They, they love us and they use us to practice their English, but we had trouble to monetize on that. So 2015, we were struggling on that. And eventually, July 2016 was another very important and a major milestone for us. As in July 2016, we finally released our paid curriculum. It was a systematic curriculum designed using AI technology and designed for English learners. And we charged for money. And after we released that curriculum, Became instant success. So I remember in the upcoming quarters after that release, our revenue doubled every quarter for quite a few quarters. So July 2016 was another major milestone for us.

That's great. Sales, sales cures everything. As long as you're growing and selling.

Because eventually you need to prove yourself you can sell and you can make money. And 2017 was another year for growth. And then 2018, of course, that's a very major milestone. After 2 years and a half growth, we achieved a major milestone and we successfully got listed in New York Stock Exchange. So in September 2018, basically right after our 6th anniversary, we got listed in New York Stock Exchange in 2018.

Amazing. Were you there when they rang the bell? How fun was that for you to be back in your old city that you had lived a startup as an employee, and then you're there.

It was.

Clang, clang, clang. That's a life milestone very few people get to do. That's pretty amazing.

Actually, right now, when you asked me about this, I saw it brought me back to that. It was a very special experience, especially 2018. I was already married. My wife traveled with me to that bell ring ceremony. So I took my wife to the company I used to work, to the building. That building is still there. It was in Midtown, very Korean, very close to K-Town. Koreatown. So I was like, yeah, this was the place I spent 2 years working as a junior programmer day in, day out. And because it was very close to K-Town, so basically I ate a lot of Korean food back then. You probably understand, like, New York didn't change that much. Although for the past several years, there were a lot of new constructions in New York City, but in general, New York didn't change that much.

Yes.

So it's very common for me to walk on the street and then you see the same building, maybe you see the same restaurant. Same store and things and brought back all these memories, but you were already very different because I left New York in 2010 and the next thing was in 2018. That's 8 years, but something just changed. That feeling is complicated. It's complicated.

Complicated. Wow. Thanks for sharing. That's beautiful. I love it. And the journey continues, right? Because then the appetite for language learning, of course, always growing. China's still growing in so many ways. Competition also growing in China in so many ways as well too, right? And then the government regulations in the last few months changed a lot of things in China. But for you, I explained to a lot of people as I understand it, right? Because some people ask me to like channel China. And if you're one of say 300 people in Zhongnanhai running the show in China, right? And you're like, we need more people because China's going to get old before it gets rich. So. One-child policy turns to two-child policy, turns to three-child policy. I have 3 kids. My biggest expense is education, right? So if I'm a Chinese parent, I'm like, I don't know if I'm going to have a second kid or a third kid. I can't afford it. And then they're like, okay, you know what? All of these afterschool tutoring things, we said that they shouldn't do that, but they did it anyway. And we're going to stop it and we're going to force them to be nonprofit. Right. And a lot of people are going to get hurt, but it's the right thing for Chinese families and Chinese societies. And as I understand, your service is really more for like older students and young professionals, right? But you're still kind of caught up in that. Is there like, how does it affect you guys?

Yeah, that's a long story short. It's also complicated. So first of all, you are totally correct. Our business is actually mainly for adults. When I say adults, they are mainly college students and the young professionals. However, because our target audience are many adults, we were facing a lot of challenge in 2020. Because of the pandemic, the K-12 sector, especially the K-12 online education sector, became the investment thesis in China. Last year, All the K-12 online education companies totally raised $15 billion. Wow.

I didn't even know that.

Yeah. As I said, basically, uh, because the K-12 online education companies totally raised $15 billion last year, probably more than that. They spend a lot of the money they raised into the marketing, which causes a lot of issues and challenges for us. So last year it was actually pretty challenging for us. But you are right, the regulation of this year actually didn't affect us that much. But in general, I think because we as a public company in New York, in the US, the regulation definitely caused one issue for us. It caused a lot of the investors basically losing the uptime for education or for online education company stock in US. This caused a lot of issue, right? You, as an investor, you probably understand that in order for your company share value to go up, you need to attract a lot of interest from the investor, right? If the investor are losing the interest, they are pulling the money out of that sector. It is not doing okay for everyone in that sector. So from that perspective, although the regulation didn't affect And not for our business, but it did affect us from a capital market perspective. So it was tough. That's why at the beginning of this talk, I said it's also part of the journey. It's still part of the journey.

Excellent, excellent attitude, right? That's all you can do, right? You can only enjoy the ride while it lasts, right? I mean, the fact is that people are still going to be learning English for a long time to come, right? And I think. You look at like Meituan, their results recently were amazing. Right. And so it's like, never underestimate a Chinese entrepreneur. That's what I know. Right. And I think things will come roaring back. Right. It's a little bit of a reset, but yeah.

Wow.

Thanks for sharing your journey. I really love that sort of hero's journey of you coming full circle. It's all part of the journey. I think that's what's going to be maybe a part of the title of what I put in the podcast. But Ben, I love your energy. I love your Storytelling ability. You've obviously been using Liu Li Shuo since you came back from the States because your English is just super fantastic.

Thank you. I thought my English was getting rusty. No, smooth.

I wish after 5 years in China, my Chinese was nearly as good as your English. Right. So even though I spent 5 times as much time there. Hey, thanks again. I really appreciate it.

Yeah. Thank you for having me again.

Thank you for sharing your journey. I love it.

Yeah. Thank you.

All the best. That's a wrap. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Rich Robinson Show, season one at the speed of China. Visit therichrobinson.com/show to smash that subscribe button. Please also go to iTunes or whatever platform of choice. Rate and comment, and until next time, thank you very much. Zaijian. Cheers, y'all.