Advice for Entrepreneurs Building Global Companies

Mi grew up in Zhangjiakou and moved to Harbin at 14, where a difficult experience in school weakened her confidence in learning. She began tutoring English as a teenager and came to see teaching and lifelong learning as closely connected. Those experiences shaped her goal of helping children learn through strong teachers, content, and engaging experiences.

Mi says VIPKID began in 2013 in a competitive market, but parents still faced a shortage of good English teachers, limited content, and the burden of weekend classes. The company connected students in China with teachers in North America and focused on frequent, shorter lessons. Mi says the product aimed to make learning more convenient and engaging for children and parents.

Mi says it took about a year and a half to find product-market fit. The team tracked learning outcomes, time and progress on the platform, student and parent feedback, repeat classes, referrals, and NPS. Starting with four students, the company grew to nearly 200 by March 2015 while iterating through three content versions and two platform versions; it also worked to make the experience effective for teachers.

Mi describes a global classroom as the theme tying VIPKID’s products together, with personalized content and cultural connection. To build globally from day one, she recruited teachers across North America and developed local teams and teacher communities in the U.S. She says the company accommodated different time zones and tried to build a culture that was not centered only on its Beijing headquarters.

Mi’s vision is to use data and AI tools to personalize learning and help teachers do their work more effectively. She says education technology should focus on how children learn, including examples such as understanding how a sixth grader learns fractions. Her advice to founders is to keep customer success central in daily priorities, using student outcomes and customer feedback to guide the team.