Over the years, I subconsciously collected stories of successful business models with a view to writing and publishing an e-book to share with like-minded individuals. Here’s the story of my late grandfather who built a successful English school in Taiwan.
What I mean by “success” is that grandpa didn’t spend any time or effort on advertising to get students for his English school and yet he managed to keep it going until he died some 35 years later. He left a booming business and a four-storey building in the heart of Hsinchu, which had become a vibrant city in Taiwan.
Grandpa merely announced “Ku Ping teaches English” in the local newspaper. Thereafter, the students did all the promotion and recruitment through word of mouth.
After leaving the air force in the southern part of Taiwan, he and grandma moved up north and stayed in my dad’s apartment for a brief period. My dad had just gotten a teaching job which included accommodation in Hsinchu.
Though self-taught, grandpa had gained enough experience translating English in Shanghai to believe that the two most difficult things about learning English were pronunciation and grammar.
Grandpa started teaching English from dad’s apartment. He focussed on getting his students to repeat after him, “This is a book. This is a dog.” He used the same textbook, with no new editions. His method worked for one, ten, and 100 students in the same room. They simply had to listen and copy his pronunciation verbatim. Over time, he hired his best students to teach these beginning classes.
Grandpa was skilled at diagramming sentences. He analysed the English language and explained it through logical diagrams so it made sense to a non-English speaker. I’m sure he and my dad, his eldest son, discussed English grammar on a regular basis.
“What function is the word ‘please’ ?” My dad once tested my understanding of English grammar. “Sit down please. Is it a verb? Is it an adverb?”
For native speakers, it might be guess work. For non-native speakers who analysed the English language the way scientists researched unknown phenomenon, it was an entirely different matter.
“The word please is a verb, but there is already a verb in the sentence. So what function does it serve?” My father explained, as he probably would have discussed with his own father at some stage.
“Please sit. ‘Please’ is not a helping verb, nor is it an adverb. ‘Please’ is actually short for ‘if you please’ as in the French, s’il vous plaît.”
Was my grandfather’s success based on the first mover advantage? If grandpa was the first to start an English school, how did he maintain his position over time? Although English was taught in junior and high school, it was not sufficient to turn students into fluent English speakers. Private teachers began giving supplementary classes after school. These supplementary schools became an industry in itself.
How did grandpa’s English school survive? Grandpa focussed on British English pronunciation and spelling. Everyone else taught American English, as was seen and heard on TV and radio. His English was considered the Queen’s English. BBC English. The original English.
The students learned from the same Dickensian textbooks. There was no need to revise or innovate. As far as the curriculum was concerned, the English language never changed.
Grandpa waived tuition fees for those students who returned on weekends to clean the classrooms and sweep the courtyards. His school and his home were one and the same — always clean and tidy. The rooms emptied after the evening classes.
If my grandpa and my dad were alive today, I’d ask them about this business model. What would grandpa have done differently? He never travelled. He saw the world through television, newspapers, and radio. His world was his school, his employees, his students, and his family.
Lessons learned:
- Find your niche (your strengths, competitive advantage) and use it. No one else taught British English. No one else was as good with diagramming sentences as he was.
- Start with low or no costs. Grandpa operated out of my dad’s apartment at first. He never needed to commute as he worked from home.
- Automate marketing. Word of mouth is powerful.
- Create re-usable content. Grandpa did not innovate. He used the same text book. He employed his best students to teach.
- Make it scaleable, replicable. His style of teaching worked for any number of students in the same room.
- Simplify and automate hiring. No need to advertise and hire outsiders. His students knew the content and teaching method.
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