Nao Now (CEO Rachel Mullen) introduced an English online mentoring program at the COMEUP 2022 that they participated in, held for three days at the Seoul Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) from November 9th (Wed.) to the 11th (Fri.)
Nao Now builds self-developed SaaS products and self-learning gamification options. Rachel, the CEO of this company, was the president of student council at Yale University, and dropped out of medical school to release Nao Now. Co-founder Gale worked for 20 years as a lawyer after graduating University of Pennsylvania. Now Now is a program connects students with mentors from Ivy Leagues and the best universities in the US, not only achieving educational attainments, but also inspiring the students to realize their dreams and have mentors walk alongside them.
The mentors of Nao Now provide curriculum based on appealing themes that focus on what the parents truly want as well as the child’s overall and long-term success.
For example, they personally make the curriculum, which includes the physics of Stephen Curry’s basketball shot, artists like Jackson Pollock, and US tourist attractions such as the Golden Gate Bridge and uses them in class.
A company’s official explained, “Our curriculum has six levels that are set to the TOEFL English standards, and it includes reading, writing, and speaking practice to help the students speak English like a native. Furthermore, it provides Passion Projects where students can give various ideas from the start to finish of the class under the guidance of the mentor. The projects include making a rocket or writing a creative story of their own.”
Nao Now achieved an ARR of $650,000 as of 2022 and is under operation without any investments. The YoY growth of average number of students is 75%. After the launch 30,000 classes were completed, and an average of 1,500 classes are taught each month.
Currently they are in partnership with B2B clients such as boarding schools in the US, Academies in Korea, on-offline education platforms, SaaS startups etc., and Deus Education, one of the partners, operates around 300 academies all over Korea. Other partnerships include My Real Trip, Jacaranda, and Letitu. It is currently the final candidate for the K-Startup Grand Challenge supported by the NIPA and the Gyeonggi Center for Creative Innovation.
Having its 4th iteration this year, ‘COMEUP 2022’ was hosted by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Young Lee) and organized by the Korea Startup Forum (Chairman Jaewook Park). Startups, investors, and people related to startups from over 15 countries attended, and this year in particular was the start of COMEUP’s rebranding from the previous government-private collaboration to the private-led event that it is now, as it aims to become a global Top 5 startup event. With the slogan of ‘WE MOVE THE WORLD’, the event was conducted both on and offline, and had various programs like Academic Conferences (Conference), Open Innovation Strategy of Global Companies (Open Innovation), COMEUP Stars Company Introduction (IR) and Booth Exhibitions, and Business Matching (Biz Matching).