"Walk Down the Road of Life Without Fearing Anything" Max Azarov, CEO and Co-Founder, Novakid

What's your startup called? And in a sentence or two, what does it do?

The startup's name is Novakid, it's an online AI-platform that provides personalized English learning for kids ages 4-12 through gamification. Novakid is more than just a language school, it's a global project empowering kids around the world with knowledge of the globally-used language and subsequent limitless communication abilities.

What is the origin story?

Together with my future co-founder, I was once visiting an exhibition in Shanghai. On the local subway, we saw an advertisement for an online English language school popular in China. It was then that it struck me – at that time I was struggling to find a competent native-speaking tutor for my eldest son who would teach him remotely as we were travelling a lot. At that subway station, I finally found the solution - not just for my son, but for all English-as-second-language (ESL) kids.

What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem?

The thing that really impresses me about my team is that we can work from anywhere in the world and build a business that has a large-scale social mission. I enjoy bringing together the most professional people from all over the world without the hassle of relocation to another city or country. I sincerely believe that Novakid has a really important mission and that we solve real problems for our target audience, because every month several thousand new students start learning with us, and half of the newcomers come by recommendation from our current students.

All of this makes me think that not only do we connect the professionals from around the world, but we also create a link between them and students from different countries, building a strong community.

If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing?

I think I have an entrepreneurial mindset: even in my corporate work I have always tried to get into the position of a project manager, always coming up with new ideas and looking for problem-solving methods that no one else has used before. So, it seems to me that if I didn’t come up with an idea for Novakid, I would have created my own business anyway.

At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics?

Children and parents' satisfaction rates are our major success metrics. Nearly 50% of new students come by recommendation from the existing Novakiders.

What’s most exciting about your traction to date?

I would say that the most exciting thing is finding new effective techniques that motivate students to learn English remotely and encourage them to continue learning even after the lesson is over. Novakid's platform allows the students to do engaging activities and play exciting games outside the lesson. We've recently launched Novakid Unit review interactive that enables the child to go over the material on their own by completing interactive exercises.

What technologies are you currently most excited about, and most worried about? And why?

Right now, I am interested in the subject of electric vehicles and the environmental challenges that the automobile industry is facing. On the one hand, I am incredibly excited about the new possibilities in this field, such as the ability to recharge without using gasoline or diesel and creating a microcosm inside the car like Tesla is doing.

On the other hand, I am concerned about unmanned driving and the inability to achieve maximum safety in this regard, given the black box problem inherent in all artificial intelligence.

What drew you to get published on HackerNoon? What do you like most about our platform?

The thing that impresses me most of all is that a small but professional and enthusiastic editorial team brings thousands of contributors from all over the world together in order to work on insightful content for Hackernoon. After publishing my story on the platform, I am also interested in finding like-minded technology entrepreneurs and discussing with them the actual challenges of the tech founders' life.

What advice would you give to the 21-year-old version of yourself?

Giving advice to yourself from the past is a thankless task. The mistakes and problems I faced when I was 21 essentially made me into the person I am today. I believe in the butterfly effect: if I had begun my journey with the knowledge I have now, my life would have looked very different. In fact, that's why I would advise just to walk down the road of life without fearing anything.

What is something surprising you've learned this year that your contemporaries would benefit from knowing?

The modern pace of life often forces us to act very fast, so sometimes we simply don’t have enough time to think about our decisions and the obstacles we face. I tried to find an unusual way out of this situation: I learned how to solve a Rubik's cube in less than five minutes! This skill, according to my friends who also have an entrepreneurial background, develops the ability to make the right decisions in an optimally short period of time: We’ll see how well such an exercise works in the long run.