Hosting Helen Doron, a journey from cassettes to international franchises!

On November 17th, we gathered at Protik under the spirit of Global Entrepreneurship Week, to welcome global entrepreneur Helen Doron of Helen Doron Educational Group!

The interview was moderated by Aneida Bajraktari, director of Startup Grind Tirana and CEO of Balkans Capital Financial Services.

Helen Doron was born in London. She has innovated the way people learn English, all over the world, by developing her own methodology, known as the Helen Doron method. As we welcomed her in the fireside chat, Helen shared with us how she came up and developed this method.

During her studies and teachings, Helen had identified that education was not being executed in the way it should be and there was a lot of space for improvement and innovation that could upscale the way that people learn.

Thus, Helen developed the Helen Doron method, that teaches English in a fun way, often using music, for children from 3 months old up to youth. There is also listening, watching teacher’s body language and gestures and student repetition involved in the method.

Helen began teaching at her home all the way back in 1985, using cassette tapes she made herself with songs, poems and stories in English and in 1990, the first learning center was opened.

Helen shared that she started her business with her husband as the sole partner and supporter. She shared how difficult it was in the beginning, as they had to deliver the learning materials to every child and family in person, which made it more difficult as the demand grew.

Nowadays, all these materials can be found both physically and online, providing learning opportunities for everyone.

During the interview, Helen said that she didn’t start her entrepreneurship journey wanting to be an entrepreneur. She had simply found a passion. After a few steps in this journey, Helen’s idea and method started gaining a lot of interest and the demand to learn English by this ideology was increasing massively.

At that moment Helen understood that she had a business model in her hands and she had to develop it further, so the impact could be greater and it could reach more people.

This made Helen realize that there could be something entrepreneurial in her, which was sparkling to create a great impact, that would later transform in international dimensions.

In 1997, Helen successfully opened the first franchise in Austria. In 2000, approximately 15,000 children in Israel took part in Helen Doron classes from the franchise. In 2002, in Germany and Poland, there were 8,000 children involved and in Hong Kong, Indonesia and South Korea as well.

Nowadays Helen Doron English is located in 40 countries with over 1100 centers, more than 3 million students and more than 5000 teachers. Isn’t that simply inspiring?!

We wanted to know more of Helen, aside from the business side, so asked if she has any daily routine or habits. She said that she does transcendental meditation twice per day, her favorite sport was swimming and that she follows a vegan lifestyle.

Helen pointed out that being vegan is important to her as she can make an impact for the planet, values which are promoted in their teaching as well.

When asked if there was any dream that she hadn’t achieved yet, Helen said that she still has not impacted as many children as she wants to. She aims to give learning opportunities to every single child in the world, so they all can benefit from learning. “I’m just starting!”- Helen said.

Helen shared many insights, motivation and humbleness during the fireside chat that awoke the productive spirit within us. It was a very distinguished pleasure to welcome Helen Doron. Thank you Helen!

We also would like to congratulate the Albanian center of Helen Doron English as they celebrate their 10th birthday of operating in Albania!

Special thanks also go for our special community. We are very grateful to always have a room full of inspiring, motivated and productive people, who all gather to manifest the values that Startup Grind stands for.

We believe this fireside chat was very motivating and depicted that passion and entrepreneurship are closely related and you must know how to do both in order to be successful.

Through this event, as we welcomed Helen Doron, it was truly showcased and proved that entrepreneurship and inspiration have no borders and we can all connect through these impactful values.

You can watch the full interview here.

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