The Rich Robinson Show - Season 1 - At the Speed of China

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

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Ben Hu is the Co-Founder of Liulishuo, an AI-powered English learning solution for Chinese people to learn English.

In this episode, Ben shares his journey from Shanghai to the US and back to his homeland including Liulishuo’s triumphs, trials, and tribulations along the way. 


Key Takeaways:
• A computer science major in China wasn’t popular in 2002.
• To achieve a higher goal as a computer science major, you must get an advanced degree or Ph.D. from universities outside China.
• Peking University has a 2% acceptance rate around the world compared to other universities around the world.
• San Francisco was the center of innovation in 2010.
• Canva’s company rule during the pandemic was that you had to go to the office eight times a year.
• Shanghai is not China’s representative.
• For the past 30 years, China has experienced rapid growth.
• Reverse culture shock
• Liulishuo is an AI-powered mobile app to help Chinese learn better English.
• Duolingo has the same function as Liulishuo; to help the users learn English.
• IDG, DGV, and Cherubic were the three earliest investors in Liulishuo.
• In July 2016, Liulishuo started to monetize.
• 2018: Liuloshuo got listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
• K–12 online education companies raised 15 billion dollars in 2020.


Best Moments:
- Ben shares that an intern wrote a letter for leaving the company because the company is in tough times.
"And the intern joined us for a week or two in Huangzhou, and one day I woke up, he just disappeared, like, and I opened his computer. And that he wrote the notes, a digital notes on his computer, basically explained to us that, "Hey guys, I thought that there was too much pressure for the past week or so. I didn't think I can take this kind of work pace and sorry about that. I decided to leave this morning, and I just didn't feel like telling you guys. Straight, looking your eyes  and tell you that, sorry about this." [ 00:32:50.8-00:33:24.7


Post-production, transcript, and show notes by XCD Virtual Assistants

Rich Robinson:

Juan guanglin, Ben Hu, ladies and gentlemen. Hu, 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.

Ben Hu:

Yeah. Thanks for having me again. I was just trying to explain to you, Rich, is that, I'm not sure everyone on the audience heard about what's happening in China right now with all the government policy scene. 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 US, the government regulation happens to all sectors from time to time, which affect the business and the entrepreneurs in that sector. So, from my point view, this is part of journey and still going through it.

Rich Robinson:

Yeah. And 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, kinda 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 gonna 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. Like which part of China did you grow up in?

Ben Hu:

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

Rich Robinson:

Were you in the Jiao Olympica?

Ben Hu:

I was in the Math Olympics, but not the international one, just the national one. So wasn't really my last guy, but got into computer after I got into college. And I actually didn't do much programming before college. So when I got into college, we have a period of which you didn't really have major, you can choose the major later during that period. I got into programming 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 the college.

Rich Robinson:

What year was that?

Ben Hu:

I got into college 2002, quite a while ago.

Rich Robinson:

Yeah, so it was kind of like after dot-com bust, and it was kind of like before Web2.0 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.

Ben Hu:

Honestly, around 2002, I think computer major s was picking up steams. 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 in Shanghai. So back in 2002, computer science major was popular, but it 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.

Rich Robinson:

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

Ben Hu:

True. That's true.

Rich Robinson:

Yeah. Yeah. But that's pretty terrific. And tell the listeners about like, Jiao Tong Shanghai, the best university in Shanghai. And the culture there, one of the best in China and in the world. And tell us about like your experience there because the Chinese university experience is really different from the US experience.

Ben Hu:

Yeah. I think I consider myself lucky, and when I choose the computer science major back in 2002 in Jiao Tong University, I was lucky to go into a special class. That class right now is getting quite popular in China. We called "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, all programming background to create a computer science major and focus really a lot on the fundamentals of computer science. It's not just about programming. It start from math because computer science in the end of the day, the major, it is all math. The math, a lot of fundamentals about computer series, computer architecture, stuff that, and then on top of it, of course, there will be a lot programming stuff. So, the ACM class create a totally different learning experience, different atmosphere compared to other classes in computer science, even with the same year in Jiao Tong University, a lot of my classmates at this moment, they're all entrepreneurs as well. And they are also doing quite good.

Rich Robinson:

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

Ben Hu:

Yes. And create a lot of peer pressure. So, from that perspective to answer your question, my experience in Jiao Tong 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 schools actually invited a lot of different lecturers all over the world. And they purposely teach us a lot of classes. Some are math class, some are computer theory classes in English, because...

Rich Robinson:

Wow. I never knew that. That's interesting. Wow. I'm not even sure if BEIDA or Tsinghua does that.

Ben Hu:

They do. 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?

Rich Robinson:

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

Ben Hu:

So that's the experience. And also during our junior and the senior in college that 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 lab in Jiao Tong University. And it basically tried to prepare us for the advanced degree stuff. So as I said, maybe the experience was quite interesting.

Rich Robinson:

It sounds like an even, like, my main point there was, at my Peking University MBA class, I remember which guest lectured at last year and you're gonna 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 US is much more about like, "Woohoo." 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 Jiao Tong, like that's even more level, right?

Ben Hu:

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

Rich Robinson:

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 four to one ratio, right? Four years outside of China is a year inside China. So, 20 years, a generation is a half decade in China and it's a multi-variate. 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 has just turned up to a whole different level, before you've even gone into the business world.

Ben Hu:

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

Rich Robinson:

So you graduate what? In 2004? 2005?

Ben Hu:

I graduated in 2006, and I went to US, University of Arizona for my PhD program. But I didn't finish. So, apparently the ACM class prepare us for advanced degree, and according to my advisor in ACM class in Jiao Tong University, they say "Originally we hope every single view will get a PhD and you will become a scientist in computer science or the majors." But unfortunately, in my class, that year, quite a few PhD students quit and went into the business world.

Rich Robinson:

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.

Ben Hu:

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

Rich Robinson:

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

Ben Hu:

So, I was in the AI lab or in anywhere around then. Actually, I went through the first year of PhD study. I took the PhD qualification exam in the summer, first attempt. And I passed the qualification.

Rich Robinson:

Excellent. Which I rest my case.

Ben Hu:

Yeah, I passed my PhD qualification after year. But interesting, 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 the data mining technology to data mine the credit card data the Bank of America has, and to use the credit card data they have to try to predict the economy. So this kind of experience. And I worked there, there's three interns in my group working on that project. One is from MIT, a PhD from MIT, and the third person is 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 gonna do the PhD? And reading the paper and writing the paper?" I'm just asking myself the question, and turns out maybe, at that time, chose to get into the business world instead of staying in the academia. Basically, after the qualification, it's basically reading paper, writing paper, finding the topic you want to write about, talk to advisor, and to get the thesis going on, and get approved from the advisor about your thesis topic. And then write that paper. So, that's what's gonna happen.

Rich Robinson:

It could take a long time. Like, there's a joke of like, "How many PhDs does it take to change a light bulb?" Only takes one, but it takes them 11 and a half years to do it, right? Because so many people, it takes 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 gonna get a PhD." And then you pass the test and you're like, "Okay, well, alright. 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, I now 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.

Ben Hu:

Yeah. It just that summer got me thinking. And honestly, looking back, I have a peer students who got into the PhD same year as me and that they eventually graduate. Some of them, got into academic, become a professor. Some of them are 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 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, it's better for my future. Not finish the PhD is better for my, which one's better?" I mean, I cannot really tell. It's just at that time, I asked him myself, and I kind of followed my heart that, "Yeah, I made a choice."

Rich Robinson:

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, "Ah, 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 Carolina, and then you went to?

Ben Hu:

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 you could be in New York. So one plus one, is larger than two, right?

Rich Robinson:

One plus one equals eleven.

Ben Hu:

Yes. 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.

Rich Robinson:

Where is he from?

Ben Hu:

Sorry, what do you mean by, "Where is he from?"

Rich Robinson:

Like is he a New York guy? Or was born outside the States?

Ben Hu:

Yeah. I think his family mostly in New York area, the tri-state area.

Rich Robinson:

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

Ben Hu:

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 business question he was asking that time, all over the world was still trying to copy from US. Whenever there was a business model launched in US, 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 will ask 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, maybe so that we don't need to leave this opportunity to those domestic guys. Then as an 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 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 other issues. So the goal was very ambitious. And apparently it was too ambitious. So, that's why the newer company actually had 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 the Maine U-Town, all those kind of East Coast.

Rich Robinson:

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

Ben Hu:

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 a lot of other issues as well. So the goal were too ambitious. So the company was actually not doing that well. Then, after almost two years, the whole team kind of just separated. And then, at that time, I decided that, maybe it is time for me to go to the center of the innovation, the center of the startup, the West Coast. At that time, I decided to move from New York to San Francisco.

Rich Robinson:

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 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 now. So it's funny in some ways. 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 was 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 will launch that will be software-based that will 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? 2011?

Ben Hu:

Yep. I was in Bay Area 2010. I was in Bay Area 2010 to 2011 and joined our startup, which was working on advertisement technology. Basically, using a lot of machine learning and data approach to to help their marketers to do targeting 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 been there last two years. That was also a very interesting experience because, if you remember in 2010, a majority of the startup world, was still in South Spain, 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 head-recording San Francisco, then Dropbox, then AirBNB, and now they were all very famous names, then, AirBNB, Pinterest, Square. Now, San Francisco became the center of the startup, not the Peninsula or the South Korea anymore, right? Before that, there was like Mountainville, San Jose, or this 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 of Market, so my area, so they went to the same bar, and probably I've been friend to friends. So 2010, 2011 was a very interesting in San Francisco. Yeah.

Rich Robinson:

Yeah, I loved it. I had a friend who made t-shirts. It said "Bayjng," B A Y J N G. And then in the back it said"Bei Area," B E I space area. 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? And I really thought about leaving China to move there. But now, San Francisco's kind of a unlivable city, in my opinion, in some ways it's really a pity one of the richest cities in the world.

Ben Hu:

I heard about that.

Rich Robinson:

So tough.

Ben Hu:

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

Rich Robinson:

Yeah. And 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 two 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 gonna be a lot more people that are just gonna 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 eight 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?

Ben Hu:

That's another thing of I follow my heart. I basically made the decision in a month. So within a month, it's beginning from, I have 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. Like, my parents, was kind of shocked when I landed in Pudong. It's like, "Okay, we thought you would stay US for quite a while. Maybe never came back. We didn't expect you to come back."

Rich Robinson:

But it's interesting. I think that's the older, like people who studied in the US in the eighties, nineties, maybe a lot of them didn't come back, right? But then China got so heated up, and there's so much opportunity in dynamism. Like, was there a specific event or set of events that made you to make a move?

Ben Hu:

I mean, looking back, I think, there's a certain several elements triggered that. So first of all, it's definitely the mobile wave, right? So in the 2010, with the introduce of iPhone4, that was the killer iPhone and the killer phone for this mobile wave, right? The iPhone4 was released. So 2010, 2011, the mobile trend that was already very clear. That's, I think, definitely contributed to a lot. And the second is that after I graduate from school and basically two companies I joined as startup, I kind of just enjoy the startup, right? Basically, you are creating something from nothing, and you are product can be used by a lot of users and a lot of consumers. That's kind of interesting, and the third is that, I mean, I'm 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 this job in US. I definitely had trouble to solve my legal status there. So, with all these elements.

Rich Robinson:

But you know what I really like 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 "Try this." And then you just followed your heart along the way.

Ben Hu:

Yeah. Looking back, basically all these three elements I mentioned above made me go back to China because I was born Chinese. I grew up there. I 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. That's a different story.

Rich Robinson:

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?

Ben Hu:

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

Rich Robinson:

It's so advanced. Yeah.

Ben Hu:

Right? Yes. Shanghai is basically right along like New York or Tokyo, but China is very dynamic. Like, China, the East Coast of the China and the West area of the 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 much better compared to the average of China. But Shanghai is not a representative of China. So when you get into the real business world, when you to start to build something for the whole population, build our internet product. Now you understand that this is China. It's not the China I thought I knew. And for me, it's like "I will learn 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.

Rich Robinson:

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

Ben Hu:

Yeah. But why I'm trying to explain that, China has been growing really fast and changed 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 grow like crazy. It's already crazy. We can feel it every year. Like every year, Shanghai is changing a lot.

Rich Robinson:

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

Ben Hu:

No.

Rich Robinson:

'06 to '11?

Ben Hu:

I only went back once.

Rich Robinson:

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?

Ben Hu:

I think that it 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? 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 a bank account for business. Then, I was joking that I will had a reverse culture shock because everything I remember how to open a bank account was experience in US, right? Because I opened my personal account in US, when I was a students and when I started working. So, I think that a lot of the so called"Reverse Culture Shock," or surprise as many because I lived in a bubble. I 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 that I'm a Chinese, I grew up there. I understood the culture to play. So I pick up a fast. 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.

Rich Robinson:

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 he is in China, it's like, it's easy to just be like, "Wow. I really feel off balance and lost." And I always love that because it made it very exciting. It had like an extra level of challenge — like, three 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 decoding 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?

Ben Hu:

Back in 2011, I did my first time with a buddy. We were trying to solve a very challenging problem, and we were trying to build up 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 were not much demand. Apparently, most people don't really need to index or manage their emails or social accounts, and those kind of information come and go, and they don't need to really come back and search for it. Maybe only 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 nine months. And at that time I went around looking for some new ideas, and in summer 2012, I started to work with the two 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 gonna be using 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.

Rich Robinson:

So very early. You just had your ninth anniversary.

Ben Hu:

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

Rich Robinson:

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 of learning on a mobile phone. And but you were using AI that was like, "Wow. Are you guys from the future?" Like, "What's going on?"

Ben Hu:

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. 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 we saw they released that. We were like, "Wow. Someone else in US seemed like they're working their idea, or their mission, or their goal, looks quite similar to us."

Rich Robinson:

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 ideas in the same way that, like electricity, with like Tesla and Edison. And people come from totally different origin stories and all converged 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.

Ben Hu:

Definitely 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 Huangzhou. So at that time, as you said that 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 our 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 Huangzhou, and one day I woke up, he just disappeared, like, and I opened his computer. And that he wrote the notes, a digital notes on his computer, basically explained to us that, "Hey guys, I thought that there was too much pressure for the past week or so. I didn't think I can take this kind of work pace and sorry about that. I decided to leave this morning, and I just didn't feel like telling you guys. Straight, looking your eyes and tell you that, sorry about this."

Rich Robinson:

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 noticed, 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?"

Ben Hu:

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 saw I kinda missed a good opportunity."

Rich Robinson:

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

Ben Hu:

I could 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 saw 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 we cannot imagine as being a very short period of time. We already got 10,000 download, 50,000 download, like a 100,000 download. And after several weeks, we start to get recommended by Apple. Like Apple, has 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 started to make easier for us, right? We successfully secured our fundings. We got funded by the top VCs.

Rich Robinson:

Who are some of your investors?

Ben Hu:

Our early investors IDG, DGV, and the Cherubic. These three were our earliest investors. And the second milestone I remember 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, I just kind of, at least for myself, I stopped counting downloads and the 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 business model. We had a lot of users, but our product 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 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, in July, 2016, was another very important and major milestone for us as in July, 2016, we finally released our paid curriculum. It was a systematic curriculum, designed using AI technology, and the 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.

Rich Robinson:

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

Ben Hu:

Because eventually you need to prove yourself that you can sell and you can make money. And 2017 was another year for growth. And 2018, of course, another very major milestone after two year 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 sixth anniversary we got listed in New York Stocks Exchange in 2018.

Rich Robinson:

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 in a startup, as an employee, and then you're there.

Ben Hu:

It was...

Rich Robinson:

Clang, clang, clang. That's a life milestone. Very few people got to do it. That's pretty amazing.

Ben Hu:

Actually, right now, when you ask me of this, I saw it, it brought me back to that. It was a very special experience, especially in 2018. I was already married, and my wife traveled with me to that bearing 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 one place I spent two 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. 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 listing was in 2018. It's eight years but some things didn't changed. That video is complicated. It is complicated.

Rich Robinson:

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, and 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 explain it, 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 Jonang High running the show in China, right? And you're like, "We need more people because China's gonna get old before it gets rich." So one child policy turns to two child policy, it turns to three child policy. I have three kids. My biggest expense is education, right? So if I'm a Chinese parent, I'm like, "I don't know if I'm gonna 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 gonna stop it and we're gonna force them to be nonprofit, right? And a lot of people are gonna 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?

Ben Hu:

Yeah, that's a last story shot. It is also complicated. So first of all, you are totally correct. Our business is actually mailing for adults. When I say adults, they are mainly college students and young professionals. However, because our target audience are many adults. We were facing a lot of challenges in 2020, because of the pandemic, the K-12 sector, especially the K-12 online education sector, became the investment ceases in China. Last year, all the K12 online education company totally raised 15 billion US dollar.

Rich Robinson:

Wow. I didn't even know that.

Ben Hu:

Yeah, as I said, basically because the K-12 online education company totally raised 15 billion US dollars 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 app time for education or for online education company stock in the US. This caused a lot of issue, right? You as an investor, you probably understand 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 also, the regulation didn't affect a lot for our business, but it did affect us from a capital market perspective. So it was tough. That's why, the beginning of this talk, I said it is also part of the journey. It's still part of the journey.

Rich Robinson:

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, I 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 gonna be maybe 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, Liulishuo since you came back from the States because your English is just super fantastic.

Ben Hu:

Thank you. I saw my English was getting rusty.

Rich Robinson:

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

Ben Hu:

Yeah. Thank you for having me again.

Rich Robinson:

Thank you for sharing your journey. I love it.

Ben Hu:

Yep. Thank you.

Rich Robinson:

All the best.