BridgeAI

Hey everyone! 👋 I'm Poppet, founder of BridgeAI. Picture this: July 2020, During the Pandemic Lockdown, Ho Chi Minh City. It's 11 PM on a Sunday, and I'm sitting at my kitchen table surrounded by scattered worksheets, 47 open browser tabs, and cold coffee. I'm supposed to be planning ESL lessons, but instead I'm having a breakdown. "Why does it take me 2 to 3 hours to plan a 45-minute lesson?" That night, I texted my friend Patricia: "I think I'm burning out. I love teaching, but I hate lesson planning." Her response: "SAME! Every ESL teacher I know feels this way. Why isn't there a tool that actually gets what we need?" That was the lightbulb moment. 💡 For six months, we talked to hundreds of ESL teachers across Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines. The numbers broke our hearts: 30+ hours monthly on lesson prep, 44% reporting burnout, amazing educators considering leaving the profession they loved. But what really got us was the guilt. Teachers felt guilty for taking shortcuts, for reusing activities, for not making every lesson "Pinterest-perfect." Why not just use ChatGPT? Because I tried. For weeks. It gave me generic activities that didn't understand ESL pedagogy, broken links, and lesson plans that ignored proficiency levels. AI needed to be taught how to think like an ESL teacher. The moment I knew we had something special: Maria, our beta tester in HCMC, sent me a Zalo voice message at 6 PM on a Tuesday. She was crying happy tears. "Poppet, I just finished tomorrow's lessons in 10 minutes. I'm home for dinner with my family for the first time in months. Thank you for building a tool that can make a significant and positive change in teacher's lives." Here's what we learned: Teachers don't want AI to replace them – they want it to free them. The best lessons come from AI + human creativity. And cultural context isn't optional – it's essential. Building in public is terrifying. We're launching with 365+ teachers on our waitlist, but I'm still nervous. Will it work globally? Are we pricing it right? Can we build the community we envision? The real vision: BridgeAI isn't just about saving time (though getting 25+ hours back monthly is pretty awesome). It's about giving teachers permission to be human. To have dinner with families. To be present in their lives, not just their classrooms. To every ESL teacher who has felt that Sunday night dread – this is for you. You deserve tools that match your creativity and dedication. You deserve to teach smarter, not longer. ☕

I've come across a few tools here that seem promising. It’s always interesting to see how different platforms approach similar functions. Still exploring, but it's a useful overview so far.