Necessity is the mother of all Inventions. When Marina Tognetti, CEO of mYngle, was searching for opportunities in China, she found the biggest obstacle in her road, learning Chinese. On top of this, searching for an on-demand solution to learn the language during her hectic manager life was even tougher. She shares, “I tried everything: an evening school, CDs/DVDs, a Dutch teacher trying to teach Chinese, a Chinese student that could not teach… I got quite frustrated. If I were living in China- I thought- I could easily find a good teacher! That was when the idea hit me: there are thousands of teachers all over the world, I just need to use the power of the internet to connect teachers with students. This is how mYngle was born.”
Forming Rock-Solid Foundation of mYngle
Marina’s idea was simple and there seemed to be no hurdles in the beginning, however, as things progressed further, she had to change her business plan completely. mYngle was launched as a marketplace, just as eBay. She says, “We thought we got it all: funding, lots of Awards and PR, a very motivated team. But something in the business model was not functioning as we expected. We listened to our customers and they gave us the new direction, from an open marketplace to a quality global online school, from B2C to B2B.”
The team kept evolving, fully focused on nurturing customers in the best way. This helped in building mYngle, offering customized language training programs via video conferencing. The best part is that the service is available in 45 different languages and is fully on-demand, at any time and place. It is the ultimate solution that caters for the busy professionals, with one-on-one lessons from highly qualified native teachers who are present to give classes 24/7. Moreover, Companies that want great learning results and a transparent learning process can use it to make their investment a success.
Handling COVID with ease
When COVID hit the world, the acceptance of remote learning accelerated and many traditional offline players shifted to move their existing solutions online. Marina says, “Good remote training, however, is not just a matter of adding a tech solution for the virtual classroom and moving a teacher from a physical classroom to a computer, but it requires a whole new set of expertise and capabilities different from those of offline education. The way the training is delivered, the teaching, the content, the interaction etc., all need to change in order to provide a good user experience.”
mYngle became a one-stop solution that has gained years of experience to deliver world-class online training. The company achieved its utmost benefit when they converted their model from B2C to B2B by reaching the right target market for highest quality virtual lessons.
Since the entire team has a valuable role to play, Marina has set a crystal-clear vision for achieving all goals together. She adds, “We stimulate a culture of experimentation and allowing mistakes. Innovation cannot exist in a culture of fear of consequences. We try to develop people who think and not only do ‘’jobs’’. In our staff we look for entrepreneurs, people who do not keep the status quo, but push themselves beyond their comfort zone. If you try ten new things, some will fail, some will be OK, and one will make a difference. We are looking for that ‘’special one’’.”
The Key to Success of mYngle
Like every business, striving for best customer satisfaction became their obsession. Further, she says, “Three of our key core values are around customers: Customer Centric, Commitment and Excellence. We look to continuously improve our service. We do so by constantly listening to users’ feedback and improving accordingly, as well as leveraging new technologies at our advantage.”
Using adapted versions of NPS (Net Promoter Score), accurate analysis is done to aim for customer’s retainership. She also adds, “Our average lessons’ scores are 4.9/5.0. And our first corporate customer is still with us, 10 years later… Results speak for themselves!”
As they have developed sustainable capabilities and invested the necessary resources to design high quality online solutions, they always get recognized for excellent user experience. She shares, “The key to our success is not constantly comparing with competitors, but aligning with what customers want. That allows us to differentiate from the many new players that still have to prove their value. We built on many years of experience and know that migrating existing classroom training programs to digital is not just the mere application of existing technology solutions.”
As the famous adage says, “One size does not fit all.” Their team evaluate every learner’s unique requirement and try to diversify in terms of teacher- content- frequency to cater their goals. She adds, “When we started, we were pioneering, amongst the first to provide one-to-one teaching of most languages over the internet. That meant that we had to bypass all sorts of resistance – those of a still immature market- especially the stereotypes that consumers had in their minds about education.”
Marina’s Life before and After mYngle
Before stepping into tech- entrepreneurship route, she worked for many prestigious brand names. She says, “When I graduated from University it was an era when entrepreneurship was not very common for academics. First, I built a successful career in large multinationals, Procter & Gamble, Philips, Sara Lee, The Boston Consulting Group and eBay; living and working in different Countries, and got an MBA from INSEAD (France).” Then she worked as a consultant on an internet strategy project, where she understood the potential of the internet and how it is transforming lives.
Once she started working in mYngle, she embraced every challenge and understood that “Great things never come from comfort zones.”
Being a visionary CEO, she shares, “My role is primarily to develop the long-term vision and drive the company towards it, foster the company culture and values, guide and align the team, represent mYngle in front of the outside world, our investors and all stakeholders, and with the education industry in general.” She is flexible and ready to adapt new changes following the lean start-up approach.
mYngle’s Future Roadmap
Since the global revolution in online education has already taken place, mYngle will continue to remain an indispensable part of the online learning paradigm.
Marina is happy that not even COVID could shatter the existence of mYngle owing to its enriching experience and proven capabilities to deliver successful online training. She adds, “That is where mYngle can make an impact, keeping ahead in this digital transformation by constantly innovating and pursuing the best possible quality and results, educating the market on the difference between improvised solutions and years of expertise.”
