I'm Doan. I was born in Finland and moved to the UK as a young child — British-English is the language I grew up in. By 2022 I had spent years watching family, friends, and English learners across Europe and Southeast Asia stumble through American-accent English apps that didn't match how they would actually be assessed in IELTS, UK university interviews, or Home Office settlement processes. The British-English coaching market was either £3,000/year human tutors or nothing. The gap was obvious. The product wasn't.

I spent most of 2023 building a janky speaking-practice app on top of GPT-3.5 + a Google TTS voice that sounded broadly British if you squinted. It worked. Sort of. It also taught me that AI assessment without a Cambridge-aligned rubric isn't coaching — it's entertainment. So I tore it down and started again.

By the time GPT-4 + ElevenLabs RP voices landed, the product became viable. I onboarded ~80 closed-beta users across Vietnam, India, and Turkey. Many of them are still customers in 2026. We learnt what worked (Angie, the AI Buddy modelled on my daughter Angeline), what didn't (gamified-only progression — adults hated it), and what genuinely moved IELTS Speaking bands.

On 1 June 2026 I incorporated Britwise School Ltd (Companies House 17253094) — four years after the first sketches. We registered with the ICO (ZC174279) the same month. I wanted the legal entity to be a wrapper around a working product, not a wrapper around a deck. Most founders incorporate first and build later. We did it backwards on purpose — and I'd do it the same way again.

We're live to everyone. Bootstrapped. 12,000 learners across 47 countries. Stripe live, Apple + Google submissions filed. UK councils piloting. Schools onboarding. Press kit at britwise.school/press.

Three reasons. First — schools and councils don't buy from companies that incorporated last week. The 2-year build buys us credibility we couldn't fake. Second — the AI infrastructure (Claude Sonnet 4.5, GPT-4o, Nano Banana for images) wasn't mature enough in 2023 to deliver Cambridge-grade scoring at scale. Waiting was technically right. Third — slow building lets you say no to features. Britwise still doesn't have group video calls, leaderboards, or NFTs because none of those help anyone get to Band 7.

Vietnam-first, then India, Turkey, Indonesia, MENA, Nigeria. iOS + Android apps Q3 2026. SOC 2 audit kickoff Q4 2026. The mission: every learner in Asia and Africa with a smartphone gets a British English coach in their pocket, on their wage, in their language.

I read every email to hello@britwise.school. Whether you're a learner, a parent, a HR lead, a council commissioner, or a journalist — reply and you'll get me, not a bot.