Jennifer Lee

I attribute my success to my passion for helping kids and my refusal to be defeated by life's challenges. You know, ever since I was little, my parents got divorced, my mom committed suicide in front of me, and there's a lot of stuff that went through my whole life. But I'm very happy that I haven't been defeated because of everything that happened. I still find helping kids is one of my main goals for my life. A lot of people think that making big wealth is success, but I think that I could already see that I would be able to help a lot of kids, and that's the success that I want. I'm not just a money chaser. I'm more like, if I could get the numbers up on helping how many kids, and then seeing they improve, man, I'll be like super happy, and then I'll be like screaming and jumping. If I could help thousands of kids, that's huge. That's success for me.

The best advice I ever received came from Carlo Wizard Martin, a billionaire from Brazil who is huge in education and adopted a son with autism. When I met him hoping he could become an investor, he told me that it is important for us to continue to pray and to have confidence towards God. You know, it might just sound really plain, like pray and believe in God, but he told me it happened magically. Whenever he messaged me, it's always the time that's very, very low, and he's like, knock on the door, and then speak to God, and then God will answer your prayers. That's what made him go through his obstacles when he started 1,500 English learning centers over in Brazil and Japan and around the world. He just messaged me last night too, speaking Chinese, saying he hopes I'm feeling happy with my kids and letting me know that I'm in their minds. I cannot understand why a billionaire would want to speak to me and encourage me every single day, but that advice to continue to pray and have confidence in God has carried me through my lowest moments.

I think that with AI and technology that's available right now, anybody and everybody should chase after what they want. I think a lot of women, they want something, but they will think of all the impossible over the possible. I really, truly believe that you should just use the technology and not be afraid of it, and then use them well to help you build your dream. It is possible, you know. I spoke with a lot of my friends, and they're like, Jennifer, I envy you, and I'm just like, why do you envy me? I've been through so much. And then they just never have the courage to chase after something that they want. They get settled for something that they don't like, and then they'll be upset and get angry with their husband all the time. But they could have done something with what's available already. So, you know, might as well just give it a try and spend a couple more hours on improving yourself, study on Coursera or whatever. That's what I did. I learned how to do AI, I learned a lot of online courses that's available. Get a good use of them. Invest in yourself. It's good to get out of your comfort zone, trust in yourself, and then build your dream.

The biggest obstacles are funding and finding the right people. You know, a lot of times people doubt me, and so they would not invest in me. They think that I'm only a mother and I don't have engineering background and have never worked at a tech company before, so I don't have enough support at all. I think funding, looking for funding and support is really difficult. Most people, yeah, 90% of people are doubting me and not believing in the project either, because they don't think there's enough kids with speech impairment. But once you start talking to people, you realize how big it is. Finding all the right people and investment was the most difficult one. But I have one investor which was pretty good, and she's also in medical background, and that helped me to push the MVP out, and we're very close to that. I'm very thankful. Even the engineer that's working with me, his name is Urozh, and his wife is also a speech therapist, so they understand fully and they want to have this project done because they're in this field also.

I would say family. Family, that's it. The time that we spend together, I think this is the most important. I mean, we cannot buy it with money, you know. A lot of people, they work, and they do business, and they travel, and then they miss out on the time that they could spend with their kids, and that's really sad. I'm feeling really, really happy that my son will walk into my room while I'm working on developing the app or in meetings, and then he'll be like, Mommy, I think I like this, and I like that character. Could you do this? Could you do that? So, I think, you know, in the future, if one day my son looks back, even if Enlightenary doesn't work out, I'm prepared to fail. I'm prepared for failure. If nobody liked the app, you know, it means that I failed. But I'm prepared to fail, and I don't think it is a bad thing to fail. Like Jeff Bezos says, our pressure comes from not taking action over something that we could take control of. So I think trying and going through everything will let my son learn about what they should do, to try anything and everything. And then it's okay to fail. Everybody fails all the time, and then we get better.