AYU Partner Spotlight: Hello Genius

Introducing our latest perk partner, Hello Genius, the new learning app!

We sat down with co-founder Lee Daley to talk tech, capital raising and parenting. After a 25-year career in global advertising, including as chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi, Lee made a career pivot to pursue his love of learning and pioneer a new paradigm in AI-based education alongside his business partner Jack Lee. Together, they founded Hello Genius, a global learning platform designed to enhance child development through personalised learning and empower closer parental connectivity. 

Hi Lee, we’re delighted to introduce Hello Genius as our latest AYU Partner. What gave you the inspiration to start Hello Genius?

Initially, the idea for Hello Genius revolved around how to ensure that children were safe while using portable devices and exploring online. The anxiety around this challenge has become a major issue globally. Then, a far broader discussion evolved between my business partner Jack Lee and me around the challenges of parenting children during their formative years. Through empathy and research, we identified the different dimensions of ‘parental anxiety’ for mothers and fathers who seek to be the best parents they can be, but who are often faced with significant amounts of time away from their children due to work, travel, and the demands of modern life.

I brought my own experience of raising my daughter and son, who have different personalities and experienced early education very differently, and how I often felt concerned and distressed by my lack of intimacy and closeness to them and their challenges due to the demands of my career. This led to our understanding that there was a significant gap in the market for a technology solution dedicated to empowering parents. Hello Genius gives them the tools, insights and confidence through better connection with and understanding of their children to help them achieve fulfillment and guarantee that their children had the best chance possible of being understood and fulfilled, recognising that no two children are the same.

Together, Jack and I set out to build a technology-based solution that would not only help children reveal their individuality, interests and natural talents organically as they explore through safe pathways across the web, but provide parents with the knowledge, insights and tools to support and nurture this development during their child’s formative period from ages 3-8.  Thus, to become the best partner to both children and their parents.

Have you worked within tech before?

Before developing Hello Genius, I had a long career in international advertising. I was the global CEO of Red Cell Network for WPP, Chairman and CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi UK, Global Head of Strategy for McCann-Erickson and a co-founder of a boutique agency in New York City in the 1990s. I served on the worldwide boards of three major networks and was entrusted with the strategic direction, development and financial performance of several agencies for over 20 years.

Around 2010, my interest gravitated toward the technology space and I began to recognise the business opportunities of the digital revolution, and how entrepreneurs and startups could be the solution to some of the world’s greatest social challenges. The world needed more great ideas that would impact everyone’s lives for the better. For me, that meant pivoting my career and starting over as a technology novice, but bringing with me an understanding of strategic marketing, brand building, creativity and consumer psychology. I have helped several successful Silicon Valley start-ups over the past decade achieve scale and value and I started Hello Genius as a Founder in late 2017.

How did you find financing the project?

We raised $5 million in seed funding from private individuals and family offices to develop the Hello Genius technology and learning system. We have focused on maintaining a high degree of control over our destiny and populating our board and investor family with people who are, above all else, deeply committed to our core purpose of helping optimise child outcomes through learning, parental bonding and deepening empathetic understanding of the uniqueness of every child.

Any advice to people who are looking to raise capital in this current economic climate?

Do your homework, build an excellent plan focused on solving a very real problem. Understand your market, focus on differentiation and, have a business model that stands up. Talk product and brand and recognise the importance of marketing, surround yourself with experienced talent. Not all sources of capital are the same, try and find good alignment in terms of category focus, values and experience. Be prepared for rejection.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt during the whole process?

Persevere, do not give up. Starting a tech company has tested me beyond measure, and it’s important to keep fighting every step of the way to keep your idea alive. The only time to quit is when you stop believing in the strength of your idea, otherwise, you must continue to find a way to keep going.

What are your plans for Hello Genius post-launch?

With Hello Genius we are building a business and technologies that can help equalise opportunities for learning. The platform is built upon a tiered subscription and when people commit to an annual subscription, we pledge to deploy our technology into the lives of people and individual families who have less ability to pay – underserved communities, developing countries.

Additionally, Hello Genius is built upon an adaptive and preference-based learning platform for the future, one that anticipates the changing dynamics of education and the need for lifelong learning. While this first iteration of Hello Genius is targeted at parents and young children (ages 3-8 years old), the underlying technology platform sits at the forefront of personalised learning technologies which can be used by individuals of all ages, expanding their opportunities, development and experiences into their senior years. This is a massive market opportunity and one that will serve all sections of society. As McKinsey pointed out in their study on the future of learning, this is a multi-trillion dollar opportunity and one we aim to be a leading player in.

Any other exciting projects you’re working on?

My entire focus right now is on Hello Genius and the development of our platform, products and innovation pipeline. This is a business that can make a difference in tens of millions of people’s lives globally and it is demanding every minute of my time.

 AYU members receive a year’s free subscription to Hello Genius, saving £365.