Laoshi's pitch deck focuses on a specific niche within the edtech market: Mandarin Chinese, which it identifies as the hardest language to learn. By positioning itself as a tool for both teachers and students, the company creates a flywheel for user acquisition. The deck highlights significant early traction, including 13,000 MAU and a 40% teacher retention rate over five months, achieved primarily through word-of-mouth. While the business model relies heavily on future projections—targeting 10,000 tutors to reach $2 million in ARR—the team's deep domain expertise, having previously managed e…
Key takeaways
- The problem slide identifies that only 20% of students achieve HSK2 proficiency after two years of study (Slide 2).
- Laoshi targets a market of 40 million people studying Chinese as a second language and 60,000+ teachers (Slide 3).
- The product uses a B2B2C model, offering tools for tutors to reduce preparation time and find new students (Slide 4).
- A competitive matrix positions Laoshi as the only player offering tools for tutors, community, and a specific focus on Chinese (Slide 5).
- The team has significant domain experience, having previously managed 8 offline schools with 2,000+ students (Slide 7).
- Traction data shows 13,000 MAU and 1,200 DAU, with active paying users spending 6.5 days a week in the app (Slide 10).
- Teacher retention is cited as a primary indicator of product-market fit, holding at >40% after five months (Slide 9).
- The business model forecasts $200 in annual revenue per tutor based on a $40 student subscription (Slide 14).
Executive Summary
Laoshi is a specialized edtech platform focusing exclusively on the Mandarin Chinese market. Their 15-slide deck presents a compelling case for a B2B2C approach, where providing utility to teachers serves as the primary acquisition channel for students. The deck is data-heavy, focusing on engagement metrics and retention rather than just top-of-funnel growth, which is a strong signal for angel investors.
Slide 1: Title Slide
The deck opens with a clean, minimalist title slide featuring the Laoshi logo and the tagline: "Tools for learning and teaching Mandarin Chinese." It includes links to their website and Product Hunt profile, establishing immediate digital presence.
Slide 2: The Problem
Laoshi identifies Mandarin as the "hardest language to learn." The slide lists specific pain points: learning characters is the biggest obstacle, and students frequently fail to prepare for lessons. The most striking metric here is that only 20% of students reach HSK2 (300 words) after two years of study, highlighting a massive efficiency gap in current methods.
Slide 3: Market Opportunity
The market is defined by 40 million Chinese language learners and 60,000+ teachers worldwide. The slide also notes that while individual tutors handle 5-10 students, institutional teachers handle up to 200. To validate the sector's venture potential, they cite a $176 million investment by Sequoia and Tiger Global into LingoAce, a competitor in the space.
Slide 4: The Solution
The solution is presented as a bridge between teachers/tutors and newbies/students. For tutors, the value is time-saving and lead generation. For students, it is vocabulary help and tutor matching. This dual-sided value proposition is the core of their B2B2C strategy.
Slide 5: Competitive Landscape
A standard feature matrix compares Laoshi against Duolingo, Skritter, Quizlet, and LingoAce. Laoshi claims superiority by being the only platform that combines handwriting tools, Spaced Repetition Systems (SRS), community features, and specific tools for tutors within a Chinese-focused environment.
Slide 6: Product Roadmap
The roadmap is charted against "tutors retention" over time. It shows a progression from basic vocabulary tools in 2021 to a community and grammar wiki in 2022, followed by analytics and exercise builders in 2023, culminating in a live teaching marketplace in 2024.
Slide 7: The Team
The team slide is a highlight of the deck. It lists five core members with specific roles and backgrounds. Crucially, it notes their collective track record: creating a Mandarin textbook with 4,000+ copies sold and managing 8 offline schools with over 2,000 students. This proves they are not just builders, but operators who understand the industry's nuances.
Slide 8 & 9: Teacher Growth and Retention
Slide 8 shows a steady upward trend in unique teachers using the platform, growing from approximately 50 in October 2021 to over 250 by September 2022. Slide 9 follows this with a retention curve, showing that after an initial drop-off, teacher retention stabilizes at roughly 40% by month five. The founders explicitly label this as "A sign of product-market fit."
Slide 10: Traction Summary
This slide consolidates their key metrics: 1,200 DAU, 13,000 MAU (all organic), 3,700+ students, and 200+ paying subscribers. The engagement data is particularly strong, showing that paying users use the app 6.5 days a week for an average of 6 hours per week.
Slide 11 & 12: Contact and Appendix
Slide 11 provides direct contact information and social links for the founders. Slide 12 acts as a transition to the appendix, which contains more granular data on growth and the business model.
Slide 13: Viral Effect
The appendix includes a chart of "New users organic spikes," showing daily acquisition peaks. This supports the claim that their growth is driven by word-of-mouth rather than heavy ad spend.
Slide 14: Business Model
The business model is based on a $50 tutor acquisition cost. They project that one tutor brings in at least 5 students, each paying a $40 annual subscription, resulting in $200 revenue per tutor. The long-term goal is 10,000 tutors, which they estimate will yield $2 million in ARR from tools alone, and $10 million total ARR when including commissions from live lessons.
Slide 15: The Ask
The final slide requests $600k. The pie chart shows a heavy focus on Product Development (60%), with smaller allocations for Marketing, Localizations, and SaaS costs. The stated goal is to reach profitability and prepare for scale.
What Works in This Deck
Specific Domain Expertise: The team slide doesn't just list titles; it lists tangible achievements in the specific niche they are targeting. Selling 4,000 textbooks and running 8 schools is better evidence of market understanding than any degree.
Retention Over Growth: By highlighting the 40% teacher retention rate on Slide 9, the founders show they understand that in a B2B2C model, the "middleman" (the teacher) is the most important user to keep happy. This is a sophisticated way to demonstrate product-market fit.
Organic Traction: The fact that they reached 13,000 MAU through word-of-mouth is a powerful signal. It suggests that the product solves a real pain point so effectively that users are willing to promote it themselves, lowering future CAC.
What Is Missing
Current Revenue Figures: While the deck mentions 200+ paying subscribers, it does not state the current Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR). Investors would want to see the actual dollars flowing through the system today, not just the $2M ARR projection.
Unit Economics Detail: The business model slide (Slide 14) is highly speculative. It assumes a $50 tutor acquisition cost and a 1:5 tutor-to-student ratio, but it doesn't provide the current actuals for these metrics. If the current CAC is higher or the ratio is lower, the $2M ARR target becomes much harder to reach.
Churn Data for Students: While teacher retention is shown, student retention is omitted. In edtech, student churn is notoriously high. Showing that students stay on the platform long enough to justify the $40 subscription is a critical missing piece.
Founder Takeaways
Focus on the Flywheel: If your product has a B2B2C component, make the relationship between the two user groups clear. Laoshi does this well by showing how teachers bring students, which in turn makes the platform more valuable for teachers. · Use Appendix for Depth: Putting the detailed business model and viral growth charts in an appendix (Slides 13-14) allows the main deck to remain punchy while still providing the "receipts" for curious investors. · Highlight Engagement: DAU/MAU ratios and "days per week" usage metrics are often more impressive to early-stage investors than total downloads. Laoshi's 6.5 days/week for paying users is a standout stat that every founder should look for in their own data. · Validate the Sector: If you are in a niche market, use your competitors' successful funding rounds (like the LingoAce mention on Slide 3) to prove to investors that the category is "venture-scale."
Frequently asked questions
- What is Laoshi's primary value proposition for teachers?
- According to slide 4, Laoshi provides tutors with tools to reduce lesson preparation and homework time. It also acts as a lead generation tool, helping them find new students and reduce churn rates, which ultimately allows them to earn more money through the platform's ecosystem.
- How does the company plan to reach $10 million in ARR?
- Slide 14 outlines a tiered revenue strategy. The first $2 million in ARR is expected to come from tutors using the platform's basic tools. To reach the $10 million milestone, the company plans to implement commissions from live lessons and specialized courses hosted on their marketplace.
- What evidence of organic growth does the deck provide?
- Slide 10 and slide 13 highlight that the 13,000 MAU were acquired organically through word-of-mouth. Slide 13 specifically shows a 'Viral effect' chart with organic spikes in new user acquisition, reaching over 300 new users per day during peak periods in October.
- Who are the key members of the founding team?
- The team is led by CEO Sergei Kondrashov, described as a domain expert and author, and CTO Zaur Sundukov, who has a background in AI/ML and patents. The team also includes a Business Development Manager, Content Director, and Product Designer, all with relevant experience in school management and design (Slide 7).
- How is the requested $600k investment intended to be used?
- Slide 15 provides a pie chart for the 'Use of funds.' The majority, 60%, is earmarked for Product Development. The remainder is split between Marketing and Sales (20%), Localizations (10%), and SaaS/other operational costs (10%). The goal is to reach profitability and a stable version.
