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 all over the world stumble through American-accent apps that didn't match how they would actually be assessed — in IELTS, in UK university interviews, in job interviews, in real conversations. 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 more than a dozen countries — students, jobseekers, parents, working professionals. 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 people's speaking from hesitant to fluent.

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. 11,000+ learners across multiple 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.

A global launch — English learners everywhere, on every continent. iOS + Android apps Q3 2026. SOC 2 audit kickoff Q4 2026. The mission is simple and it doesn't change by region: every learner with a smartphone gets a British English coach in their pocket, on their budget, that meets them at their level.

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.