Former Otago Boys' High School teacher David Cameron (26) said he left teaching to start an online start-up which had been recently relaunched as LearnKo offering English language lessons to people living in China.
The lessons focused on a specific Chinese academic English competency exam.
''The exam is based around listening and speaking and it's the verbal part they can't master by themselves.''
Many Chinese students were great with ''book-work'' but had no opportunity to practise talking.
''Most of them have never talked to a native [English] speaker before.''
There was a ''huge shortage'' of English language speakers in China, he said.
''It's a big problem and the software brings in the student, the teacher, and the curriculum.''
The exam determined if students were accepted to a foreign university and were employed by foreign companies, he said.
Half the exam marks were awarded for talking and listening to a native English speaker.
New Zealand teachers could cater for most of the learning demand because the similar time-zone allowed the company to match tutors to learners in the daytime.
But LearnKo was considering employing teachers in England so tutors were available for people in China wanting lessons after midnight, he said.
The software on the website was similar to Skype but curriculum could be uploaded and online tools installed.
LearnKo employed 30 tutors, who taught about 100 people but the numbers involved would ''ramp up'' soon, he said.
The company planned to employ 50 teachers to cater for 200 people in China.
By the end of the year, he expected 1000 people in China to be using LearnKo.
The growth potential for the company was huge and the three-year goal was to have 10,000 people in China using LearnKo.
''It's quite exciting.''
The potential for global expansion by reproducing the website in other countries with other curriculums was exciting, he said.
Besides the teachers, LearnKo had eight full-time staff in offices in Wellington and Shanghai.
Mr Cameron was based in Wellington but was in Dunedin for the weekend visiting his girlfriend, who was studying here, he said.
