At the end of 2021, an international investment team led by Rodney Miles and Samuel Yang acquired TutorABC. In this exclusive interview, we sit down with TutorABC’s new Co-Chairman and CEO, Samuel Yang, to discuss his vision for the future of online education and expansion into live-streaming e-commerce.
The New TutorABC
Question: At the end of 2021, you successfully acquired TutorABC and in a lot of your press releases you refer to the company as the “New TutorABC” or as “One TutorABC.” What do you mean, and what is your vision for the New TutorABC?
Photo: TutorABC
We refer to ourselves externally as the “New” TutorABC to highlight that we have a new leadership team, a new way of doing business, and a new culture. Internally, we refer to ourselves as “One” TutorABC to represent that we are super-focused on working together as one-team, and with one-vision.
Previously when I was a young investment banker at Morgan Stanley, we were constantly reminded that the bank’s motto was to “deliver a first class business, in a first class way.” Inspired by this, we created a similar new mission statement for TutorABC,
“To deliver a first class education, in a first class way, with first class people.”
Photo: TutorABC
This short mission statement beautifully encapsulates, everything that we focus on every day.
Question: How do you plan to build upon TutorABC’s rich history of providing online education and to drive the company’s future growth?
TutorABC has been a pioneer and leader in online education for over 20 years, serving more than 100 million students, in over 100 countries, with a network of over 35,000 teachers. Building upon this success, our primary goal remains simple: to help our students learn English or Chinese effectively, quickly, and in an enjoyable way.
Photo: TutorABC
One fundamental strategy we have implemented is shifting away from a short-term sales-driven model to a long-term, relationship-driven approach. This transformation has been pivotal in reshaping our business model and company culture, resulting in impressive growth and maintaining our competitive advantage.
This means we are committed to being “lifelong learning” partners for our students, providing guidance, resources, and advice for their ongoing development. Whether they are 5 years old, or our oldest student who is an impressive 106 years old, we understand that learning is a lifelong journey, which may span over 10 years with us.
Our aim is to be each student’s trusted education partner throughout their lives, supporting their educational needs for school, exams, studying abroad, work, or for personal travel.
Question: How does TutorABC differentiate itself from its competitors in online education? What unique features do you have?
We have 10 key features that differentiate us. I will highlight just a few here.
First and foremost we are very effective at teaching English or Chinese to our students. They actually learn the language easily and in a more enjoyable way. We achieve this by having the very best teachers, the best teaching materials, the best lifelong learning service model, and the best technology platform that is also kidSafe certified. All this combined has enable us to achieve and maintain a premium Google Rating of 4.8 out of 5.
Our teachers are all internationally qualified and undergo our comprehensive training program that follows the Cambridge English Teaching Framework. We have an impressive range of global partnerships with the world’s most famous brands including Disney English, Oxford, Cambridge, Barron’s and Kaplan. They provide us with the best teaching materials, curriculums and learning methodologies.
Furthermore, TutorABC has a special partnership with Barron’s, the world’s leading education company since 1939, to provide a full range of exam preparation courses. We have already launched our IELTS and TOEIC course, with our TOEFL and AP Chinese exam preparation courses to follow. Later in the year we will be providing courses focused on: Taiwan’s national exams (like GEPT, high school, and university entrance exams), and global professional qualifications (like the ACCA, CPA, CFA, FRM, CFP, and CAIA).
Question: Education companies in China have successfully added new lines of businesses to their organizations. For example, New Oriental Education has added Live Streaming E-Commerce. Does TutorABC have any plans to do something similar?
As we continue to grow our online education business, we’re also excited to introduce TutorABCshop.com. This new venture extends our classroom experience into e-commerce. We’re using our advanced AI technology platform, which has 19 patents, to create a unique and new online shopping experience.
We’ve spent the past year developing an innovative new platform that blends classroom engagement with e-commerce, featuring Key Opinion Leaders (KOL), celebrities, and easy one-click shopping. It’s like shopping with your favorite celebrity.
Our initial focus is on consumer products and experiences, and we’ve already secured contracts with major brands. We’re finalizing the details and plan to make an official press announcement soon.
Question: What are your plans for growing TutorABC’s business and expanding into new markets?
There are huge opportunities to expand our business globally. We have ambitious plans to offer our English, and Chinese to learners all around the world. We plan to launch Japanese language courses very soon too.
To achieve this, we’ve already formed 45 partnerships across the globe, spanning the USA, Canada, Europe, Middle East, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.
Background and Experience
Question: There is not much information about you on google and social media. Can you share with us some information about your background and your previous work experiences?
My parents are originally from Taiwan, but I was born in the Los Angeles, California. At the age of 8, I went to a very old boarding school in England, like Harry Potter. In my younger days, I thought I was going to become a professional rugby and cricket player. I captained all my school teams and played to a very high level before I got injured and instead went to the University of London to study finance.
After I graduated, I trained as an investment banker and worked for Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong covering the Asia Pacific region. I previously managed over USD 3 billion (NTD 90 billion) and specialized in venture capital, pre-IPO, and IPO investments.
At the same time my family has always been heavily involved in education where we helped to establish Kaplan’s business in China, and for the past 23 years, we still represent Kaplan in Taiwan. We focused on financial training and I was previously an instructor for all 3 levels of the CFA program for Kaplan and Schweser.
For the past 12 years, I have also managed our family’s non-profit foundation that is focused on promoting sport, education, and international exchange. We work with over 160 schools, in over 30 different countries to help encourage and provide opportunities for students to study abroad in the UK, USA, and Canada. Our foundation has provided over USD 500,000 in scholarships a year and organized academic summer camps at Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, St. Andrews, UC Berkley, and Amherst universities.
I have always had a huge passion for education and enjoy sharing my experiences with students from all over the world.
TutorABC, The World's Leading Online Learning Platform
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