Reporter: Hello, Mr. Li! We know that you started your own business after graduating from University of Science and Technology Beijing in September, 20001year. So what kind of opportunity made you choose to start your own business?
Rubin li: Mainly affected by the environment. 1999 From 2000, the birth and popularity of the Internet affected the lifestyle and way of thinking of our generation. At that time, there were many things about internet entrepreneurship, especially in Haidian, Beijing. On average, news of venture financing comes in a few days, and our generation of young people are really excited. Our school is near Zhongguancun, well-informed, and some people's entrepreneurial stories also inspire us.
200 1 Graduated from university and worked as a network architect in Tongfang, Tsinghua. I was assigned the task of making a website called China Medical Network. After the completion of this project, I quickly got 40 million RMB venture capital, which touched me a lot. I feel young and skilled. I must seize such a good opportunity to do something. At that time, there were many ideas, and I wanted to be a website like Sina, a search engine like Google, and an entertainment website. At that time, the Internet was still in its youth, and Sina and Sohu were listed for less than two years. Stone Li Fang Company was changed to Sina.com on 1999 and listed in 2000. At that time, its market value far exceeded Lenovo, the leading Internet company in everyone's mind, but it was an unprecedented opportunity for entrepreneurs. Inspired by entrepreneurial passion, I came up with the idea of combining the Internet with the observed off-campus education market, which I think will definitely create good economic and social values. Our idea was also a blank spot in the market at that time and an opportunity for the market.
Reporter: In my college psychology class, the teacher once made a survey. I remember that there were more than 200 people in our department at that time, and only one person's answer sheet was "self-employment", which was praised and affirmed by the teacher. I want to ask, did you have such a dream when you were in college?
Rubin li: Yes, it was my idea when I was in college, and it was formed in my third year of high school. I 1996 was admitted to University of Science and Technology Beijing from Shandong. After I went from Shandong to Beijing, my horizons widened a lot.
During my college years, like many college students, I earned my living expenses through work-study programs. Work-study program is a common way for college students to be tutors. At that time, there was a great demand, and the tutor work of sophomore and junior gave me great inspiration. Some children have a good family, but their academic performance is not very optimistic.
Students' psychology is different, and the factors affecting children's learning are more diversified. I once taught a junior two student who liked playing guitar very much. He always dreamed of forming his own band, didn't want to study, and even had the idea of dropping out of school. His parents are very anxious. Through my own efforts, I worked for him again and again. While teaching him the correct learning methods, I patiently helped him to go to college and realize his musical dream. Finally, he picked up his studies again and successfully entered high school. It is this one-on-one tutoring that saved a student's future and made me understand the significance of education.
Since then, I have a dream that I can provide this kind of targeted extracurricular guidance for more children, which is not only the guidance in learning, but also the guidance for them to establish a correct attitude and outlook on life.
Through the communication with parents and students, I found that due to some limitations of school education, parents and students have great demand for extracurricular tutoring, but there is no formal system company to operate it. I realized that this was a good opportunity. It should be said that my entrepreneurial motivation was very strong at that time. Coupled with internet entrepreneurship, the power of this example is also the idea of the times.
Reporter: Now you have made the enterprise very big and successful, and gained seven years of glory. Of course, the road to entrepreneurship is not smooth sailing, especially in the initial stage, you will certainly encounter many difficulties, big and small storms. What pushed you forward and achieved this result?
Rubin li: From the beginning, we recognized the power of the Internet and paid more attention to the education market. We firmly believe that the education market is worth doing. There is a big market in the education industry, such as English training. Moreover, there is no well-known brand of off-campus education in primary and secondary schools, and there is no mature off-campus counseling institution in China today. In addition, through tutoring, I feel that education is a sacred profession, especially primary and secondary education bears the future and hope of China. The anxious expression of parents and the helpless eyes of children make me feel that the power of education is so profound. Doing education is a very meaningful thing and a responsibility to society. These values support us to persevere, never back down.
Reporter: We know that an excellent enterprise needs an excellent corporate culture, and Xueda is such a competitive and excellent enterprise. What do you think of this corporate culture and how do you shape it in the company?
Cultural newspaper is the external embodiment of your company's corporate culture. What is its inner soul?
Rubin li: With the development of society and the gradual improvement of market economic order, enterprises must undertake the responsibility and historical mission of establishing corporate culture if they want to be bigger and stronger. Only in this way, enterprises can maintain their sustained competitiveness and remain invincible in the fierce market competition.
As carriers of corporate culture information, Culture News and Ren Xuehai Woxing are internal publications of enterprises, which mainly publish internal news, discuss employees' work experience and exchange experiences, and distribute them to specific public free of charge on a regular basis. Our orientation is: communicating information internally and shaping the image externally; The target audience of the enterprise is mainly internal employees, supplemented by external communication objects.
These two publications are the products of enterprise development and the vane of enterprise culture. As a link of internal unity and a bridge of external communication, cultural newspapers are both externalized forms of corporate culture and play an important role in corporate culture communication. In a sense, as an effective platform for corporate culture construction, internal journals are a tool for increasing corporate cohesion and a direct participant in corporate competition, especially cultural competition.
The development of the company should go through the initial stage, adolescence and maturity. The first five years are the start-up period, and now we are in adolescence, so we should strictly follow the "five modernizations", that is, institutionalization, process, standardization, technology and enterprise culture. Among them, the role of corporate culture is enormous. Corporate culture allows all employees of the company to establish and agree with such values. Learning from the characteristics of big education companies and schools, respecting the system and service consciousness is the embodiment of the company's core values. We offer our customers not only satisfaction, but also surprise. * * * The same values and love inspire students. It is suitable for the training of enterprise personnel and forms the quality of professional consciousness.
Reporter: There is an article on "American management plus Japanese production" in the cultural newspaper. Have you also absorbed some foreign cutting-edge information or educational ideas in your management?
Rubin li: Americanized management is mainly professional management, which depends not on individuals but on systems. It is a kind of system management. We have set up teaching and research centers in each region to study local teaching resources, proposition direction, examination trends and so on. This model also draws lessons from the educational management framework of the United States, establishes school districts and school supervisors, and provides different teaching support for various places. Our teaching and research center actively communicates with educational institutions, educational experts and consultants all over the country to ensure that our teaching can be adjusted at any time and conform to the policy direction.
In addition, Xueda education draws lessons from the performance appraisal system of American teachers. In order to implement the service quality and core teaching concept of Xueda Education, the company has established a set of teacher training and assessment system. The management platform created by Internet system can optimize and control the teaching process and teaching quality. Listening to lectures, feedback, investigation, teacher's information, regular work reports, and all aspects of information are gathered together to become the standard and basis for each teacher's evaluation.
The management mode of Japanese enterprises is basically a mixed mode, and China's Confucianism is the foundation of its corporate culture, an American-style scientific management method. In Japanese enterprises, on the one hand, various advanced technologies and management methods can be widely adopted (such as process design and quality management); On the other hand, we can see the persistence of some management concepts with Japanese characteristics (such as keeping promises, people-oriented, universal humanistic care, widely adopting employees' rationalization suggestions, annual excellent grades and so on). In my opinion, there is no good or bad management mode, only suitable and unsuitable. Learning from Japanese management experience, Xueda shows respect for people, subordinates at all levels, teachers and teachers.
Reporter: In the personalized education of Xueda University, the one-on-one teaching mode of tutors is used for reference, and the service system of teaching scheme is tailored according to children's learning situation and learning problems. Can it be understood that Confucius once advocated "teaching students according to their aptitude"?
Rubin li: It can be understood that "teaching students in accordance with their aptitude" is one of the characteristics of personalized education in Xueda University. Personalization comes from abroad. In 1980s, Gardner, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, put forward the theory of multiple intelligences. Due to the influence of environment and education, different people have different advantages and disadvantages, that is to say, everyone's intelligence type has its own characteristics.
Students are living individuals with different intellectual characteristics, and these potentials can only be fully developed under appropriate circumstances. This requires that education should create conditions according to the characteristics of students' intelligence, make students' intelligence open to each other and turn the possibility of students' development into reality as much as possible.
Its essence is to teach students in accordance with their aptitude, which is exactly the same as Confucius' educational thought. Xueda advocates respecting students' intellectual personality, understanding students' intellectual characteristics, mastering each student's superior intelligence and inferior intelligence, mastering modern education and teaching theory, designing teaching according to intellectual characteristics, and relying on superior intelligence to promote students to better complete their learning tasks, develop other intelligence, and realize all-round development and personality development.
The most suitable education is the best education. The individualized education of Xueda University is an enrichment of Confucius' "teaching students in accordance with their aptitude" and foreign "individualization" under the background of the new century, and it is a deep development combined with the modern educational environment in China.
Reporter: I saw some inspirational experiences or stories on your website and publications. Is "inspirational" also an important part of company education?
Rubin li: Yes. Respecting students' intellectual personality and teaching students in accordance with their aptitude mentioned above is one of the characteristics of personalized education in Xueda University. Other features include: cultivating students' interest in learning according to their individual psychological tendency; Respect students' learning characteristics and help them learn to learn; Respect students' personality characteristics and help students form good qualities. "Inspirational" education means that we advocate model education and elite education. Due to the influence of family and social environment, many students have personality defects such as dependence, willfulness and emotional instability. In education and teaching, we have the obligation to help students overcome their personality defects and weaknesses, promote them to form good personality qualities such as enthusiasm, openness, honesty, courage, decisiveness, tenacity, diligence and self-confidence, and cultivate qualified talents with rich scientific and cultural knowledge, noble moral sentiments and healthy psychological quality for the country of 2 1 century.
Reporter: Xueda education is mainly aimed at primary and secondary school students, and the training goal is to improve their grades. But we know that lifelong education is the development trend of education in the world, and it is also a goal of education development in China. Is Xueda also considering promoting and developing "lifelong education"?
Rubin li: It can be said that students' grades represent their learning ability. High marks are not necessarily high-energy, and people with low energy will definitely not get high marks. In modern society, learning is not only a necessary process for students to master knowledge and form skills, but also an indispensable lifestyle for them in the future. Learning to learn has become a basic skill based on society. In personalized learning, students should be trained to think independently and be good at learning. Based on the "5w" communication theory, let students understand why they should learn (why), who should learn (who), what to learn (what), when to learn (when) and how to learn (how to learn). Teach students to be good at summing up and reflecting, form an effective learning style suitable for their own personality from their own learning experiences, and stick to it and become lifelong learning partners. What we infiltrate into students is the concept of "lifelong learning", and what we teach students is a way of "lifelong learning". However, if there is any plan to develop the "lifelong learning" industry, Xueda does not have it at present and may not have it in the future. We can see that the diversification of Chinese enterprises is not smooth at present, and some large domestic enterprises have suffered setbacks on the road of diversification, some of which are very difficult to operate and some have gone back. Therefore, instead of diversification, it is better to devote 100% energy to our business!
In the operation of educational business, Xueda Education has always followed such a principle, that is, "professionalism and concentration". Being able to create value for the people and the country is our reason for existence and hope for development. The company does not seek profiteering. "Strong, practical and true" is what we have been pursuing.
Reporter: In the final selection of Tencent's "Echo China" 2007 China Education Annual Festival, Xueda Education ranked first among the "Top Ten Brand Institutions for Teaching Counseling" and also one of the "Top Ten Brands of China Education Group". Two big prizes went to college. It can be seen that Xueda has become a leader in the same industry. What efforts does Xueda need to make to maintain this momentum in its future development?
Rubin li: Looking back on the past seven years, Xueda education has made some achievements, occupying two firsts: the first tutor network; The first one advocates individualization and gives priority to one-on-one education. Long research time and rich experience. These are the comprehensive advantages that Xueda can be far ahead in the same field. Xueda is growing rapidly, from more than 80 employees in 20 cities last year to a big family of more than 65,438+000 campuses and nearly 6,000 employees in 28 cities. Its scale is huge and it is developing rapidly, but there may also be some problems, such as training, talent reserve, whether the teaching effect can keep up with the needs of commercial development and so on. In view of this situation, post-management needs to be improved. In the next time, Xueda should do a good job in recent management and teaching, pay attention to customers' evaluation, opinions and feedback, make regular telephone contact every week in stages, ask questions after class, pay attention to the experience and grasp of enterprises and pay attention to details. It takes five years to improve the system, strengthen the service characteristics and teaching management, and ensure that every step is stable and practical.
Xueda has received venture capital from CDH and can also be recognized by CDH. It is also a good affirmation of our unremitting efforts in the past seven years, which shows that we have certain core competitiveness in management team, products, services and customer resources. This choice is also two-way. For Xueda, financing will make our enterprise healthier and more standardized. For example, our management model, financial norms, anti-risk ability, as well as our management framework, technical products being developed for education and teaching, etc. There is enough support.
Venture capital has advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, there is huge financial support, which is conducive to the promotion of brand value; But on the other hand, financing is also a test for enterprises. Enterprises themselves have a sense of crisis, and they will be eliminated if they don't study. Furthermore, founders should have a tolerant attitude, adapt to the requirements of professional management and keep learning.
Generally speaking, the combination of Xueda Education and CDH Venture Capital is for the future growth and sustainable development of personalized education in China. Our cooperation will also pay more attention to our social responsibility and historical mission. The two sides will pay more attention to the added value brought by cooperation, including government resources, capital market, management norms, brand marketing, enterprise development planning, successful experience in operating listed companies, and integration of other resources. We hope that through our efforts and the development of enterprises, we will do our due duty for the country and society.