Jianjun “Jasen” Wang wasn’t exposed to technology as a kid. He was an “ordinary, poor child,” the 33-year-old founder and CEO of Makeblock, says at his company’s Shenzhen office. He’s wearing jeans, glasses, and a company T-shirt that reads, “Instruct your Dreams.” “My parents didn’t have the spare money for me to learn something like [robotics].”
Two decades later, Wang’s robots are making their way into kids’ hands across the world, and have made his startup one of the pioneers in a new trend in educational tech. Launched in 2012, Makeblock produces do-it-yourself robotics kits for kids that combine mechanical, electronic, and software components—think LEGO-like pieces that can be assembled into bots and controlled with a few lines of code. The idea began when Wang was in college, studying aerodynamics and tinkering with robotics on the side. He noticed a largely unaddressed market: those interested in robots but with a limited understanding of the technology. “All the products we developed are to help people create in the physical world,” he says.
Wang initially founded Makeblock at Shenzhen-based HAX, a venture capital firm and hardware accelerator. After graduating from HAX, Wang kept the company in Shenzhen, a young city that has a strong manufacturing base and thousands of high-tech enterprises. He turned to Kickstarter to raise early funds, which also helped strengthen brand awareness and customer loyalty overseas.
The company is now a success outside of China and Asia, still a rarity among Chinese high-tech startups. Makeblock says its robots are now used by more than 6 million users across 140 countries, including in more than 25,000 schools globally. In fact, 70% of Makeblock’s revenues last year came from overseas sales, mainly through educational channels in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. At an event in Mexico in April, the company even helped set a Guinness World Record for the world’s largest robotics lesson: 971 K-12 students used Makeblock kits to learn about technology and programming.
