We choose an era, not an opportunity.

This is a good time because online education is at the forefront; it is also a bad time because the capital market is cold and Chinese concept stocks are undervalued.

And we, 51Talk, chose to go public at a bad time. The stock price and financing amount will be limited, but this is not important. The most important thing is to be the first to be in the forefront of the online education era.

On June 10 last year, our company successfully listed on the New York Stock Exchange, marking the true entry of China’s online education into its first year.

A new era has arrived? From the perspective of technology development trends, there are at least three forces driving the transformation of the education industry, namely the Internet, cloud computing and big data, and VR and AR.

These three major technological trends will redefine time, space, the relationship between the physical world and the real world, and the interaction between people. As far as online education is concerned, the distance between teachers and students is no longer important, time matching is more flexible, interaction is freer, teaching resources in the past are distributed according to the physical world, and the physical world will no longer be important in the future.

In my opinion, the future of online education in China cannot be underestimated. The scale of China's online education market has exploded, and the market has entered a large-scale stage. It is expected that the market size of the entire online education industry will reach 665 billion yuan by 2020.

Judging from the growth of 51Talk in the past few years, users in the online education industry have already possessed several characteristics: With higher frequency (an average of 116 times per year) and high-quality user experience, online learning has become as effective as online Below; users have developed a habit of paying for online education (the proportion willing to pay 5,000 yuan/year exceeds 57%); first-tier cities still account for half of the country, but second-tier and third-tier cities are increasingly accepting online education year by year.

Currently, 75% of China’s online children’s English learners are between the ages of 5 and 8, and about half come from first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Too many of them choose to study online after school or on weekends. To learn English during the day, 65% of children’s online English learners choose to take classes on PC.

Under this current situation, online English education has ushered in the K12 era. From various aspects such as market dividends, policy environment, trends and user characteristics, it is reflected that the K12 market has become the main battlefield for online English education, and the development of this market segment has entered a period of acceleration.

Faced with the rise of the K12 online English education market, we will focus on continuously improving user experience, service levels and learning effects for students from the perspectives of teachers, courses, platforms and services.

Listing is not a goal, listing is just a milestone for us. Before going public, we were still a 5-year-old startup. Even after the IPO, we just changed from a "startup" to a "listed startup". We still have too many dreams waiting to be realized.

Looking forward to the next five years, we must adhere to our values ??of "achieving customers". It is meaningless to talk about any business model without customer value. We must firmly maintain and strengthen our focus on teacher recruitment and training. , management, and assessment systems, and firmly promote the continuous research and development of high-quality course content;

Looking forward to the next five years, we must firmly move towards a "platform strategy" and based on the different needs of users of different age groups Based on learning needs, we combine high-quality teachers and high-quality educational content from around the world to design solutions that best ensure online learning effects. The North American primary school courses and famous teacher open class series we have launched are just the beginning;

Looking forward to the next five years, we must firmly be a product technology-driven online education company. We will continue to increase R&D investment in basic technology platforms, mobile platforms, big data, voice technology and other fields. We firmly believe that technology can The changes brought to online education will surprise us in the future.

We deeply know that 51Talk’s future success depends on our talents and our team. We will provide more opportunities for employee training and development and create a broader career development platform for employees.

We will continue to use multiple compensation incentive plans, including equity incentive plans, to allow more "entrepreneurial business partners" to share the benefits of the company's growth. We firmly believe that the future of online education is bright and bright, and our long march has just begun.

I would like to remind everyone here that short-term stock prices are meaningless to everyone. 51Talk’s long-term growth and success are the cornerstone of the company’s long-term value and the long-term personal value improvement. Therefore, students who are interested in 51Talk are welcome to come to our HR self-recommendation. While we look up to the stars, we must also be down-to-earth.

Every industry and era needs milestone events. The listing of 51Talk allows capital to see the market capacity and industry prospects of the online education industry, allowing more talents to enter this industry. Therefore, the impact of 51Talk's listing on the industry is far greater than the company's listing itself. China's online education industry will enter a new era of vigorous development. As a phenomenal company, 51Talk's listing is a small step, but it is a big step forward for the entire online education industry.