InstaEnglish

Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management

Industry: EdTech

MBA Founding Student Name(s): Yutaro Nishiyama

Brief Description of Solution: InstaEnglish is a personal English-speaking coach in your pocket that empowers English learners to achieve conversational fluency in just 10 months using a proprietary, science-backed methodology.

Funding Dollars: $120,000 (non-dilutive). We are currently bootstrapped, fueling our growth by reinvesting profits. To date, we have not taken any equity funding.

What led you to launch this venture? InstaEnglish was born from a personal paradox: in high school, I ranked 16th on a national English exam in Japan, yet I could barely speak. I followed the common advice —”speak, speak, speak”— dedicating over 2,000 hours to conversation practice. But when I arrived in the U.S., I couldn’t even hold a simple conversation with my classmates.

That failure taught me a critical lesson: more speaking doesn’t automatically lead to fluency. My frustration drove me deep into linguistics, where I discovered what actually works. I launched InstaEnglish to build the solution I wish I’d had, creating our methodology with the support of Dr. Tamra Wysocki and Mark Temenak, linguists at Northwestern University.

What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with venture? Within a single year of our 2024 launch, InstaEnglish broke into the top 10 English-learning apps on Japan’s highly competitive App Store. This rapid market validation has been our greatest accomplishment, directly enabling our recent expansion into South Korea and setting the stage for future global growth.

What has been the most significant challenge you’ve faced in creating your company and how did you solve it? Our most significant challenge has been bridging the experiential gap between our users (non-native English speakers) and our primary audiences in the U.S. (investors, pitch judges). It’s difficult to convey the deep-seated pain points of learning English to native speakers. This became clear when our strong early traction in Japan wasn’t enough to secure seed funding; the market felt too distant to U.S. investors.

To prove our global potential, we made a strategic decision to expand. We launched in South Korea, and our initial success there was the breakthrough we needed. This multi-market traction was key to winning second place and $50,000 at VentureCat, Northwestern University’s annual startup competition.

In hindsight, failing to raise funds early was a blessing in disguise. It forced us to become profitable and self-sustaining, allowing us to grow the business by reinvesting our own profits without diluting ownership.

How has your MBA program helped you further this startup venture? My Kellogg MBA was the launchpad for InstaEnglish, providing comprehensive support across three critical areas: incubation, mentorship, and funding.

First, Northwestern’s incubation ecosystem was invaluable. We received two years of dedicated support from The Garage, the university-wide incubator, which provided essential space and resources. A highlight was the JumpStart summer accelerator, where our team of four worked full-time to accelerate our growth alongside a community of other founders.

Second, the Zell Fellows Program shaped my entire second year. It operated as an intensive, hands-on incubator with weekly sessions from seasoned founders and investors. Through Zell, I was assigned a personal advisory board — Jon Wettersten, Davide Agnelli, and Shuntaro Kanai — who provided expert guidance on everything from our core value proposition to UX design.

Finally, the university provided direct financial fuel. Through various startup competitions, programs, and classes, we secured over $100,000 in non-dilutive funding, which was critical for accelerating our growth without diluting equity.

Which MBA class has been most valuable in building your startup and what was the biggest lesson you gained from it? The entrepreneurial sequence at Kellogg, particularly New Venture Development with Rick Desai and New Venture Launch with Troy Henikoff and Mert Iseri, has been instrumental. These classes create a real-world accelerator environment, providing balanced feedback from both venture capitalists and seasoned entrepreneurs.

The biggest lesson was the power of relentless, weekly execution, personified by Troy, who I personally called the “KPI demon hunter.” Every week, he pushed every team to answer, “What will you do this week to move the needle?” There was no hiding behind long-term roadmaps. This intense focus on immediate, measurable progress forced us to prioritize what truly matters and was fundamental to getting our business moving so quickly.

What professor made a significant contribution to your plans and why? I am incredibly grateful to the directors of the Zell Fellows program: David Schonthal, Tasha Seitz, and Rebecca Kahnweiler. We spent every Wednesday with them in group lectures, one-on-one discussions, and visits to local startups. They held me accountable for my progress and provided constant, expert guidance to navigate the challenges of building a business.

However, their most significant contribution was the purity of their mentorship. In the startup world, advice is rarely free from underlying incentives. With them, I received completely unbiased guidance from seasoned experts who were invested only in my success. This created a uniquely safe and supportive environment where I could be vulnerable and grow, trusting their advice completely. That kind of unbiased support is exceptionally rare and was invaluable to me.

How has your local startup ecosystem contributed to your venture’s development and success? Chicago’s vibrant startup ecosystem provided a crucial community and opportunities for us beyond the university.

1871, Chicago’s largest startup hub, has been a key supporter throughout my MBA journey. Participating in programs like their AI Innovation Lab in 2024 and the Emerging Tech Summit in 2025 gave us invaluable mentorship and public pitch showcases. Most importantly, it allowed us to build a strong network of founders and advisors from across the city, extending our community far beyond the Kellogg campus.

We also actively competed in the local landscape to validate our model, securing wins at regional pitch competitions like UIUC’s annual Forge competition and Startup Spring at Drive Capital. This engagement with the broader ecosystem was vital to our development.

What is your long-term goal with your startup? Our long-term goal is to empower the world’s two-billion English learners to achieve true conversational fluency.

For too long, learners have wasted years on ineffective methods that fail to deliver results — a frustration I experienced firsthand. Our mission is to end that cycle. By providing a scientifically-proven path to fluency, we want to give our users the confidence to connect, access global opportunities, and explore the world without language as a barrier.

Looking back, what is the biggest lesson you wished you’d known before launching and scaling your venture? The biggest lesson is that in a scalable venture, every single day matters. Time is your most valuable asset because traction compounds exponentially, and I wish I had understood the true cost of a late start.

My biggest regret is waiting six months into my MBA to launch. In our early days, it took us half a year to generate our first $10,000 in annual recurring revenue. Today, thanks to compounding growth, we add that same amount of ARR in less than a week. That stark difference highlights the immense opportunity cost of those initial months.

That slow start also meant we missed out on several student-only pitch competitions because our traction wasn’t strong enough to be competitive yet. So my advice to any aspiring MBA founder is simple: Start now. Don’t wait for the perfect class or the right moment. The clock is ticking.

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