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Cindy Mi

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Cindy Mi
Born
Hebei, China
Alma materCheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB)
Occupations
  • Educator
  • entrepreneur

Cindy Mi is the co-founder of a brick-and-mortar English language training institute called ABC English and left to form VIPKid. She is the founder and CEO of VIPKid.[1]

Early life and education

Mi was born in the province of ratio Hebei, China.[2]

Mi grew up with a natural interest in education. As a child, she was curious about the world outside of China and would spend her lunch money on audio cassettes and magazines to teach herself English.[3]

At age 14 Mi moved to Harbin in north-eastern China.[4] The move caused her to become behind half of a semester in school[5] [6] With 60 students in one class, the teacher was not able to pay attention to each student and had little time to help Mi catch up.[7] With the limited amount of time in class, the teacher was unable to personalize lessons. The teacher would often ignore Mi’s requests to additionally explain concepts. Eventually, her teacher would call on Mi to answer questions, however, because Mi wasn’t understanding the concepts, she was unable to answer the questions. This caused her teacher to believe Mi didn’t care about school or was incapable of learning. All of this made Mi not pay attention in class and she began to read science-fiction magazines during class hidden in one of her notebooks instead of paying attention.[8]

She continued to teach herself English, and by age 15 she began to tutor other students in English at an extracurricular school organized by her uncle in Heilongjiang Province in northeastern China.[9] By age 17, she dropped out of high school to co-found ABC English, a tutoring company, with her uncle.[10] ABC English was a small company competing among large brick-and-mortar English language training institute. She did a little of everything to make the business run: sales, buying books, interviewing prospective teachers, teaching classes, grading homework. She worked early in the morning until 10 at night. ABC English went on to bring in tens of millions of dollars in revenue.[11] When she finished her work at ABC English, she continued to work on her own studies until 2 a.m., eventually earning a bachelor's degree in English literature from Beijing Foreign Language University through China’s system of incredibly difficult self-taught exams.[6]

Later she got her MBA from the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business and attended Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management in the US as an exchange student as well.[12][4]

VIPKid

As an English-language teacher in Beijing in 2013, Cindy Mi came to the realization that there was high demand for students there to learn English with no platform to satisfy this demand. She knew there had to be an easier way to satisfy these students with a reliable English education with the top English educators. [13] This caused Cindy Mi to create VIPKid in 2013, a China-based online teaching/educational company. VIPKid is one of the leading online educational services in China, with a growth rate of 40% month over month and attracting investments from Northern Light Venture Capital, Matrix Partners, Innovation Works, Sequoia Capital, YF Capital, Bryant Stibel, and Learn Capital. After its establishment, VIPKid created a curriculum where Chinese students who ranged from 4-12 years old were paired with English-speaking tutors. Over video call, the Chinese students were taught to speak English by their tutor.https://techtycoons.com/cindy-mi/

In 2017, Cindy Mi launched a subsidiary of the wider VIPKid brand called LingoBus that allows tutors to teach Mandarin to young students ranging from 5 to 12 years old. It has gained rapid growth thanks to the well-defined Chinese market for English lessons. The company’s focus on teaching one-on-one lessons has allowed the company to grow so quickly. In 2017, the company reported it had raised $200 million in initial funding. In 2018, it raised an additional $500 million in D+ funding. Together, this amounted to the company’s valuation of $3 billion, which caused VIPKid to gain considerable media coverage, resulting in VIPKid being cited as an example of a rising Chinese company in the global economy. This also makes VIPKid the most valuable Educational technology startup in the world.[14]

The VIPKid continues to grow as a startup connecting English tutors with students and the 35 other countries for live language tutorials, which is helping them to grow even quicker. It includes around 1,000,000 students today and 100,000 teachers.[15] Backers of VIPKid include Chinese tech giant Tencent, storied venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, and late NBA star Kobe Bryant. [16] In 2018, Mi spoke about VIPKid’s announcing the expansion to international markets, new curriculum additions, and product lines that will serve students up to 18 years old. She also announced that the teachers in VIPKid will have the opportunity to teach more students than the previous amount at various different ages; and learning levels, reaching a whole new wave of students across the globe. [17]


Awards

  • Mi has spoken at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, Boao Forum for Asia's Annual Conference 2018, ASU+GSV Summit, OZY Fest, Y Combinator's Startup School at Tsinghua University in Beijing and Y Combinator's Global Founders Summit (both 2018 and 2017) in San Francisco, among many others.[12]
  • Mi was selected to join the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders Class of 2018[18] and was a recipient of the ASU + GSV Summit 2019 Power of Women Award.[19]
  • The SCMP named her as one of the "2018 Who's Who of Women Leaders in China's Tech Industry"[20] and Forbes Asia named her as one of the "2018 Forbes Emergent 25: The Women Making Their Mark in Asia's Enterprises."[21]
  • Mi has been recognized as one of Glassdoor's Top 100 CEOs in 2019.[22]

References

  1. ^ "Cindy Mi". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-08-06.
  2. ^ Berman, Nat (2017-11-01). "10 Things You Didn't Know About Cindy Mi". Money Inc. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
  3. ^ "In China, a CEO's Journey from Teenage Tutor to Edtech Entrepreneur - EdSurge News". EdSurge. 2016-04-05. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
  4. ^ a b Conboye, Janina (2018-01-29). "Entrepreneurship: VIPKid founder Cindy Mi's global online classroom". Financial Times. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
  5. ^ "Cindy Mi".
  6. ^ a b Jacobs, Harrison. "A 35-year-old who dropped out of high school had a vision of a utopian future for China, the US, and the world — and it's led her to the forefront of a tech startup worth $3 billion". Business Insider. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
  7. ^ "A 35-year-old who dropped out of high school had a vision of a utopian future for China, the US, and the world — and it's led her to the forefront of a tech startup worth $3 billion". Business Insider.
  8. ^ "A 35-year-old who dropped out of high school had a vision of a utopian future for China, the US, and the world — and it's led her to the forefront of a tech startup worth $3 billion". Business Insider.
  9. ^ "Cindy Mi". Forbes.
  10. ^ "If the US Won't pay its Teachers China Will". Bloomberg.com. 19 December 2016. Archived from the original on 2016-12-20. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
  11. ^ "Cindy Mi | 2020 40 under 40 in Tech".
  12. ^ a b "Cindy Mi". LinkedIn.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  13. ^ "Cindy Mi". Forbes.
  14. ^ "Cindy Mi".
  15. ^ "Cindy Mi".
  16. ^ "Cindy Mi | 2020 40 under 40 in Tech".
  17. ^ "Cindy Mi".
  18. ^ "The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2018". Fast Company. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
  19. ^ "Cindy Mi". Cartier Women's Initiative. 2019-10-22. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
  20. ^ "A who's who of women leaders in China's technology industry". South China Morning Post. 2018-03-08. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
  21. ^ Scott, M. "Forbes Emergent 25: The Women Making Their Mark In Asia's Enterprises". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2018-05-03.
  22. ^ "Top CEOs". Glassdoor. Retrieved 23 June 2019.
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