Mike Michalec: Đầu tư Edtech trị giá hơn 1 tỷ đô la, Thất bại trong thẩm định thị trường và Khoảng cách giáo dục thực tế - E543

“I think there are different ways to educate people, and different interests play a role. Yes, education obviously emanates from the parent—whatever they feel is important for their child, they will lean towards. But these other aspects of education, like travel, experiential learning, and nature, are also important. Even though we primarily focus on edtech, I find this aspect increasingly interesting, especially as we become more integrated with technology. Anything that emphasizes the human part of learning—connection, communication, and interaction—is going to fare well moving forward.” - Mike Michalec, Founder and Managing Director at EdTech Asia

“We say “cradle to career” or “K to gray,” and that’s my first way of dividing the education sector into segments. Education is an odd sector because it’s so encompassing. When you look at fintech or logistics, it’s much clearer what you’re referring to. Education, however, is so vast that you really have to focus on a specific area just to communicate effectively with others.” - Mike Michalec, Founder and Managing Director at EdTech Asia

“K-12 programs like Teach for All and Teach for America have a high number of alumni who have gone on to start and successfully exit decent-sized companies. These programs include workshops, cohorts, or similar structures that help build the capacity for participants to become solution providers within the education sector. I would love to see this model replicated in other countries, as these individuals are often better suited for the space—partly because they truly understand the educational aspect.” - Mike Michalec, Founder and Managing Director at EdTech Asia

Mike Michalec shares his journey from molecular research to outdoor adventure guiding and eventually into education consulting in Southeast Asia. He discusses the region’s diverse education landscape, the challenges of scaling edtech businesses, and the impact of China’s regulatory crackdown on the sector. He explains why many education startups fail, how funding and business models shape the industry, and why Chinese companies are now expanding into Southeast Asia. He also shares his thoughts on technology and children, emphasizing the importance of balancing screen time with real-world learning experiences.

1. Mike’s career pivots: Mike started in molecular research but left the lab for outdoor adventure guiding before becoming a science teacher and later moving into international development and education consulting.

2. Why he moved to Southeast Asia and stayed: He first came to Bangkok in 2007 for a short-term UNESCO assignment, initially expecting to be in Paris, but decided to stay in 2009 due to the region’s diversity and opportunities in education.

3. Education in Southeast Asia: A fragmented but dynamic market: The region has vastly different education systems, from strong public education in Singapore to accessibility issues in rural Indonesia, with a mix of public, private, and international models.

4. Why Edtech startups struggle to scale: Many Edtech founders enter the market without realizing similar solutions already exist, and education’s highly localized nature makes scaling across countries far more difficult than in other sectors.

5. How China’s crackdown changed its edtech sector: In 2021, China’s Double Reduction Policy forced major tutoring firms like TAL Education and New Oriental to go nonprofit, leading some Chinese edtech companies to expand into Southeast Asia.

6. The impact of AI and technology in education: Mike believes edtech is already "solution-saturated" and that the industry should focus on improving existing products rather than creating new ones, citing research he contributed to from the World Bank and Omidyar.

7. Technology and kids: He supports limiting screen time for young children, noting that many Silicon Valley tech founders do the same, emphasizing the importance of real-world learning and human connection.

(00:54) Jeremy Au: Hey, Mike. Really excited to have you. You've always been such a tremendous convener and organizer (01:00) and expert on education across Asia. And I've been on, the panel of your conferences that you organize. And now I finally get to hear your story. Thanks.

(01:09) Mike Michalec: Thanks for having me.

(01:10) Jeremy Au: Yeah. So Mike, could you introduce yourself?

(01:13) Mike Michalec: Sure. Mike Michalec US citizen been living in Asia since 2009 full time. Came here in 2007 to work in the UNESCO office regional headquarters in Bangkok, in the ICT and Education Unit. That's how I originally came. Had a short assignment, went back to Europe. Was living in Europe.

(01:32) Working in Europe, prior to that and then, ended up 2009 have been here ever since.

(01:38) Jeremy Au: And what's interesting is that you obviously started out, you studied all the sciences. What was your early career like?

(01:45) Mike Michalec: Yeah. So I've had a couple of different we all pivot. I think some people pivot every seven years, 10 years or not, but initially I worked in a research lab.

(01:54) I was considering doing, a PhD at one point but I was doing (02:00) molecular research, for a couple of years and then got tired of being in a lab. I'd hardly see the outside. I'd go in when it's dark, come out when it's dark. And so I just had this need to experience the outdoors.

(02:13) Again I'm in my early twenties at this point. Ended up taking a job as a guide leading outdoor adventure. So just randomly, cause I was living in Colorado at the time, but that ended up taking me all around the world. So I spent about. Five and a half years working all around the world, just doing a lot of trekking leading people on treks and camping excursions and things like that.

(02:33) Then so that was, let's say the first phase, the next phase I've always had an interest in education. And the sciences. So then I went and did a graduate degree and was a science teacher for a while and did that also in, around the world. And then the next pivot was into international development.

(02:52) Jeremy Au: And what's interesting is that, you were doing all of this and I think there were two major components to where I think you've made the decision (03:00) to focus on education on one side and the second part is obviously on Southeast Asia.

(03:04) So I was curious which one came first and how did it happen?

(03:07) Mike Michalec: Yeah. So again, my first, the whole reason I came here, I applied for a position with UNESCO and UNESCO has two, main offices globally there's the HQ in Paris and then their office second largest offices in Bangkok.

(03:21) So I thought I was going to Paris and then ended up in Bangkok which to be honest, I wasn't too excited about at the time, but had a short assignment there and, I just thought the region was interesting. There's so much diversity, One of the things I liked about Europe is you've got all these vast cultural differences, you just drive for an hour, you're in a different country, different language.

(03:42) And it was interesting to experience that in Southeast Asia. So that's initially how I had a liking to the region. And there's just a lot of interesting work to do. In the education space in this part of the world you've got poor countries, you've got wealthy countries, you've got, just this vast, (04:00) spectrum of needs and things to do.

(04:02) Jeremy Au: And, let's talk a little bit about, kind of education in two pieces. I think one is obviously your work and the second part is like what we think about education, right?

(04:09) And I'm just curious, what do you do in education and in Southeast Asia? How would you describe that today?

(04:15) Mike Michalec: What do I do now? Yeah. So for the most part it's, we can call it consulting and research. Again, originally I was more in the public sphere, right? So international development, government, type of work.

(04:27) And over the last, eight to 10 years, I've focused more on the commercial or maybe transactional element. And so I toggle back and forth between public and private. I still occasionally do some work in the public sphere. There was a report two years ago, World Bank overview of Edtech in Southeast Asia that I contributed to and, maybe four or five years ago there was a Edtech ecosystem evaluation metric from Omidyar, which was again, more focused on the public sphere that I helped put together.

(04:56) For now, I would say a majority of my work is on the (05:00) commercial side. Example could be a large company or a foundation looking to deploy capital into the sector and they want to target specific companies. So there's elements of due diligence. There's elements of market landscaping, understanding, et cetera.

(05:14) Jeremy Au: So let's talk about the education space in Southeast Asia. I think there's a lot of different models in play, a lot of needs.

(05:21) So how would you think about it? For me, when I think about it, I tend to think about it in terms of the public side or the country by country situation. I think about the education systems, whether it's public or private. And then after that, not only think about the education tech layer, right? So how do you normally think about the education space?

(05:37) How do you explain it to folks?

(05:39) Mike Michalec: Very similar. We say cradle to career, K to gray, so I think, that's maybe my first way of dividing phone is which segment education is. it's an odd sector because it's so encompassing, when you look at FinTech or logistics or anything else it's a little bit more clear what it is you're (06:00) talking about.

(06:00) Education is so vast that you really do have to focus in on what it is just so you can communicate with whoever. So that first line is okay, what are we talking about? Is it adult learning skills development or is it early childhood education? Very different. So that's first. Second is, where are you on this continuum of, let's say impact versus transactional and you'll find very different discussions and interest along that continuum.

(06:27) There's a lot of people that work in the sector that literally have no interest in the outcome aspect of education, whereas, on the impact side, it's full of it. That's only what they're concerned with. And not so much the sustainability or transactional.

(06:41) So sizing up, where people are or where organizations are on that continuum, I think is very helpful. But then, as you've already said, what kind of market are we dealing with? What phase of development is at tech or education innovation within that particular market.

(06:57) That's where I start.

(06:59) Jeremy Au: actually there's a really (07:00) fair point, which is that there's actually a widespread, right? Obviously that's the, I guess you call it pre K like, but before the formal school system, the official government system is like zero to say. Then obviously there's a, a K 12 system or the primary school to middle slash secondary school to high school dynamic, which is normally government subsidized.

(07:19) Then there's university level and then there's a lifelong learning side as well. So there's another totally different angle of it as well. What do you think? People tend to get wrong about the space because, like a lot of folks who want to build in this company space, any myths or misconceptions about the space?

(07:37) Mike Michalec: That's a really good question. I wouldn't what people get wrong. I look at it more like into the approach. I'm really amazed over time, just as the nature of my work, I tend to have a macro lens of some of the solutions that are out there and not just within Southeast Asia, but let's say Asia as a whole or the region.

(07:56) And, quite frequently we'll have somebody come in (08:00) wanting to address a particular issue, come up with a solution that is totally unaware that there's something exactly similar to what they're trying to build. with no knowledge of that. So I think one thing I repeatedly, observe is the lack of kind of market landscaping and existing market understanding for let's say new entrepreneurs coming in, I've seen it actually with some existing larger companies as well that decided.

(08:28) And then I'll say, Hey there's a company in Poland that does exactly what, you just buy them or something. And I'm sure that happens to some extent in every industry and sector, but I think in Edtech specifically, we've reached this kind of, I'll call it solution saturation.

(08:44) AI is a little different. Everybody's trying to integrate and understand how that's affecting and impacting and whatnot. But in terms of Edtech solutions, I don't know if we need more at this point, to be honest, there's a lot of work to optimize and (09:00) help, the existing companies maybe have more efficacy or understanding of what their solution is doing within the realm of education.

(09:08) But yeah, so I don't know if that answers specifically, but that's one thing. That I've noticed repeatedly

(09:13) Jeremy Au: what's interesting is that there's always a lot of education tech startups. Why do you think there's so many education tech startups? For me, my guess is like there's a big passion subsidy, like a lot of people want to be idealists and help out.

(09:26) But I'm just curious from your perspective,

(09:28) Mike Michalec: a hundred percent. I agree with you. Yeah. Even within that. I've noticed over the years there's different types of personalities that kind of show up. So you'll have, and again, not to stereotype or generalize that this could be misinterpreted for whoever's watching, but you'll have younger idealistic people that are very passionate and they want to change things.

(09:47) Maybe they don't understand the whole. Theory of change model and how, to go about that. And that's good because they usually have a lot of energy. On the other end of the spectrum, you'll have maybe older people, maybe more my age range. Maybe (10:00) they've exited a company they're well resourced they have no experience in the sector, but they also want to make a change and they feel if they put a lot of money and resources behind it.

(10:10) Jeremy Au: Yeah. And, so there's a lot of folks are doing that. And I think another cluster obviously is those who are former teachers or formerly from, the education system.

(10:19) Mike Michalec: Yeah some there are, I wish there were more. IAL here in Singapore, the Institute of Adult Learning, they have a couple of initiatives, spur, lab, I think where they support. And these aren't K 12, practitioners.

(10:32) These are poly practitioners or university lecturers or whatnot. But they encourage and help them to. Build something. And obviously there's incentives and support to do. I wish there were more programs like that because it's, these people have the closest, like on the ground experience of understanding what's needed, at least on the learning side, probably, they, they'll have less understanding of maybe backend and admin and what solutions could (11:00) help, optimize that realm, but, K 12 teach for all group, teach for America.

(11:06) There's a high, number of alumni from that program that have gone on and started and exited some pretty decent sized companies. And they have programs within workshops or cohorts or however it's arranged, but that have helped build the capacity for people to be solution providers within that.

(11:26) So I would love for that to be replicated within other countries, but those are, those people are much better suited partly because they just understand the educational aspect. Do you know, I think that if we look at most of the, Edtech companies, let's say in Singapore or in Southeast Asia, I think there will be more on the side that the background of the founders is they were a tech, they, maybe they're an engineer or something, but less so that somebody was an educator.

(11:57) Yeah.

(11:57) Jeremy Au: I think one thing that you reminded (12:00) me of is that a lot of startups fail in education. I'm just curious what the clusters of patterns of failure, I think you mentioned one of them effectively, right? Which is they don't really understand the education system and how it works.

(12:12) Mike Michalec: Yeah. I think, as and this a lot better than I do, but just in terms of monetizing solutions when the user and the payer are two different people, at least in the K 12 room.

(12:23) . it gets a bit convoluted and, how do you manage that? scaling is another issue. Education is inherently a highly localized experience. there's historically there's been larger Edtech companies coming into Southeast Asia and trying to scale and it doesn't work.

(12:40) Now there's maybe one Chinese company that's doing it better than anyone I've noticed in the last decade, that has a good presence in Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand. But. It's hard to scale across countries that are so vastly different in terms of how they perceive the cultural perception of (13:00) education people haven't worked out an efficient business model. Around their solution and you can only get so far before you run out of money

(13:07) Jeremy Au: Yeah, I like what you said, which is that I think there is a difference between the buy and use already use as a child was learning most of the time and a bias, either school or parents or some other stakeholder.

(13:19) So I think that's, I would say there's something that's often underappreciated. And I think another thing I often think about is I've met so many parents who are like, children need to be taught better to. I don't know. Whatever specifications, which is a little bit idiosyncratic or a little bit like personalized for that person, but it may not necessarily generalize to everybody, not maybe not everybody needs to learn.

(13:39) Just an example, wilderness survival skills could be something a parent could be very passionate about and they want to bring that solution out to people, but often they feel like they meet the broader population and it doesn't gel, it doesn't click.

(13:51) Mike Michalec: Yeah. Okay. This might go off on a tangent, but it's interesting you mentioned that.

(13:56) I think, there's different ways to educate people and there's (14:00) different interests. Yes, obviously it emanates from the parent and they, whatever they feel is important for their child, they're going to, lean towards, but these other aspects of educate where it's travel, experiential nature I think moving forward, even though we're essentially, I do ed tech, but I think moving forward, I think this aspect I find very interesting, especially as we've become more, integrated with technology.

(14:23) And anything that's focused on the human part of learning the connection and communicating and whatnot is going to fare well moving forward. So yeah we'll see where that goes, but

(14:34) Jeremy Au: what do you think about the bell curve in terms of early adoption technology, right?

(14:38) So obviously there's some interaction with household income as well, but this kind of curious because I feel like in the kind of one stack of let's say technology early adopters and even education, there's also a big push to be against screen time, for example. Yes. And then I think if you look at, I'll say the middle bell of the bell curve.

(14:58) Obviously you see a trip and kids (15:00) with the iPads and there's a ton of iPads and they're all like popping bubbles and pop and games. And then obviously technology, this is very old school because there's a traditional approach. You don't even have electronic devices.

(15:13) So I think there's a big set, but that's what I see when I go to the mall. I see that range of behaviors, right? I'm curious, what do you think of all of that?

(15:21) Mike Michalec: Yeah okay, so maybe let's take a step back, just talk about technology in general. When I started at TechAsia, the term technology for me was never, like a device.

(15:31) Technology to me is just a more efficient way or a tool of doing something better. Marriage is a technology, or maybe Kaizen is a more appropriate word, but how do you continually improve upon something?

(15:43) So when I started at TechAsia, That's how I was thinking of the word technology. Now technology is just synonymous with devices, computer, laptop, or whatever. And, how does that help us to learn more efficiently and give us access and whatnot. But to your question, (16:00) now we're at a point where we have enough research and we know at certain age groups.

(16:04) How much is too much? We know from zero to five or five to seven. There's a ton of research out there that's letting us know at what point is it detrimental to have your kid utilizing a device. But there's always a disconnect. like in pharmacy, it takes five to seven years before the research is publicly available.

(16:20) I think we're in that period now with education and one of the areas that there could be more done is building the capacity of tech solution providers to help them understand what the current research, is telling. So that research to practice element, I think is critical.

(16:37) And Once we embrace that more and that knowledge is integrated into the development of education products, I think we'll get to the next level, but it's a long process. It's education. It's slow. But that's quite interesting.

(16:51) Jeremy Au: Yeah. So where do you stand on technology and children?

(16:55) What, you work with so many founders, you work so many school (17:00) educators. So What do you think is your stand on this?

(17:02) Mike Michalec: Yeah, that's a really good question. How much is too much? And so I think it's different for different age groups for kids, younger kids specifically. coming from someone that, spent a fair amount of time in his early twenties in kind of the outdoor world and stuff.

(17:17) I think there's a lot of lessons to be learned. There's a lot of. Connection to make with the natural world that's best done at the earlier part of your life. my preference, if I had kids would be to excessively limit the amount of time on the device. as you get older you can self manage yourself and your time a bit better and obviously, it is what it is, but, it's interesting, and again, I don't know the numbers of the data on this, but I've heard and seen it as you as well, but like in Silicon Valley, for example, a lot of the, successful founders don't even let their kids have, phones until they're 12 years old or whatnot.

(17:56) So it's not that they're limiting time. It's, there's no (18:00) time and but obviously there's a lot of data out there. There's a lot of research that, people can refer to that, give more specific details, but I think just inherently given my background, I would probably be limiting.

(18:13) I think the counter side to that is obviously we're, we're technology integrated world and it can't be totally foreign. Maybe for whatever they're using in school, maybe that's enough to familiarize them with it so they can use it as a learning tool, as a communication tool, or whatnot, but, I think it's differentiating this like learning in school and learning out of school, and I think any learning out of school, probably just minimize as much as possible.

(18:41) That, but again, that opens up, it depends where and who, if you're in an area with no access, if you're in rural Indonesia and you want to have quality, Mandarin instruction, that's your best option is to, do it through technology. So it depends on so many different factors, but again, inherently, I (19:00) think it probably to have less than what.

(19:03) Is currently being used.

(19:04) Jeremy Au: Yeah, I think it's so true because, obviously there's a good use of the devices and bad use, right? I wouldn't give my kid a casino on the iPad. That'd be a horrible idea. But there are good parts like some of the education tech tools and helping them learn math, etc.

(19:19) So I think then, of course, I think it's interesting where it's I feel like I probably am on that camp where I'm like, I'm trying to minimize screen time for the kids because I feel like they're going to use. Lots of screens when they get older. I don't feel like they're ever going to fall behind on screens.

(19:33) But I think it's important for them to have that connection between their mind and their body. And a social community. And I think if they're not present for this moment and, there's a beautiful life that's an iPad. That, we'll just take up

(19:46) Mike Michalec: all of it. it might not even be screens.

(19:47) Who knows if it could be something that's in their glasses or.

(19:50) Jeremy Au: Yeah. Or voice assistants as well. And so I'm just curious because there's also certain other dimensions. But one thing you just mentioned is that you don't have (20:00) kids. So what's it like to be working on education and you don't have kids?

(20:04) Mike Michalec: I was an educator, a long time ago, decades and decades ago. And that was fine, but I don't work with kids, it's a continuum. So a lot of the work that I do is maybe more focused on the latter end of the continuum. Depending on whatever the projects are, but, higher education skills like what I do now. There's a lot of skills development and focus around competency based skills assessments and things like this, so I'm not really working with children that often

(20:35) Jeremy Au: so what's interesting is that you mentioned that there are Chinese companies that are Starting to deploy in Asia and Southeast Asia just now, I'm curious because, obviously China had that big crackdown on education tech. So that's one thing that happened in our space. I think in India, I think Baiju, which was the tech education unicorn imploded due to mismanagement and so forth.

(20:56) So I'm just curious, like what trends that you see, in (21:00) education.

(21:00) Mike Michalec: Yeah, so China, it's interesting, China and India, obviously the two big bohemians in the region have a huge impact on a lot of the other countries and activities, funding and whatnot. China, it was the double alleviation reduction policy.

(21:14) Overnight basically said all, profitable education companies in the K 12 realm that are offering a core curriculum are now nonprofit. You can't make money, you can't go public, you can't advertise. And there's a whole list. Those are just some of the main issues. So that changed a lot for Chinese companies.

(21:33) They went into Or Chinese Edtech companies. So they went into, let's say a withdrawal, for a few years to figure out what is it the government wants, what can they now do and whatnot. So a lot of the main drivers of the education or commercial education sector in China, which was tutoring, went underground and that became a whole other issue.

(21:53) But now, okay. Things are changing. Some of the companies that were backlogged or were (22:00) going to IPO that have just been not doing much the last few years, they've resumed their original intent. So I think this year later this year, 2025, we'll see several Chinese education companies IPO and IPO in the States, likely, which is interesting.

(22:16) And then part of that, as you internationalize your company outside of China Southeast Asia is of interest. There's always been a lot of interest from large Chinese companies in the region, but I don't know if it was fully intentional or sincere.

(22:32) I think now it is, like I said, there's a couple of companies now that are doing quite well in the region. Yeah, I think it's promising. I think the other thing what's in, I lived in Beijing prior to the pandemic was there for several years working with a lot of these companies and in terms of just the ecosystem, China's much more advanced.

(22:51) If you look at, let's say a large education company in the US or Europe, they did not have the firepower, the (23:00) research the engineers and whatnot that were developing products, at the rate that the Chinese were.

(23:05) They put a lot of money and effort into that. some of the larger companies like Tao and New Oriental, every year they would go and they would visit MIT and Stanford and try to get new engineers and pay them more than those engineers would have been paid in the U.S.

(23:20) There's a lot of people that have taken. Companies to scale that understand the economics and the business behind the education sector on a level that nobody else has done globally. So let's see what happens with that. I'm more optimistic about it. Like the world has a lot to learn from Chinese education companies.

(23:38) Jeremy Au: So wrapping things up here, when was the time that you were brave?

(23:43) Mike Michalec: Yeah, good question. Bravery has a bunch of different definitions. There was a woman when I was 18, I did a cross country bus trip. And my uncle's neighbor was this a hundred year old lady. Amazing. Like her husband was 102.

(23:59) At the time they (24:00) made me lunch and she had this interesting story where She was a victim of the Armenian genocide in the 1920s. And she told me her life story and what was really interesting is how she was brave through the horrendous ordeal. She lost her whole family, she survived, and she moved around to different countries.

(24:22) And just navigated these extreme hardships through her life, but she was literally to this day, probably the most optimistic, positive, happy person that I've ever met. And to me, I found that as I exemplarize bravery, maybe it's more internal bravery. So I've, in all of the places where I've moved, whenever I have hardships.

(24:46) You don't want to compare, obviously, but I just, her mindset and the way that she goes about engaging different parts of her life in an optimistic way and when she's trying to learn and become better and help other (25:00) people I find that exceptionally brave because she, in this particular lady's case, she had every excuse not to be.

(25:07) And so I, I've tried to maybe replicate some of that into, my own version of bravery when I'm in situations where it might be uncomfortable when I'm in new scenarios, new situations, how can I also be? Optimistic and, get the best out of this situation. And there's other, I've met other people, as we all do, that we take little bits and pieces of and try to integrate into our own persona.

(25:31) But that particular woman was very influential on me at a young age.

(25:36) Jeremy Au: Thank you so much. So I'd love to summarize the three big takeaways. First of all, thanks for sharing about your own early career and when you moved to Southeast Asia. And what you like as a student. Secondly, thanks so much for sharing about, your perspective on education sector in Asia in terms of how you think about the Chinese expanding in Southeast Asia, about some of the aspects about the education vertical.

(25:58) And lastly, thanks so much for sharing (26:00) about your views on technology and parents about how they should be thinking about, technology usage for their own families. On that note, thank you so much for sharing your experience.

(26:08) Mike Michalec: Thank you for having me. And yeah, I hope to interview you someday.