This article is from WeChat official account:Deep Web Tencent News (ID: qqshenwang), author: Zhang Rui, the original title: “from the bottom Zhang Yiming strong educational territory: can you tear off” follower “label? | Deep Web”, head picture from: Visual China
With more than 3 years of layout, the education business of ByteDance finally ushered in its own name-“Vigorous Education”.
On October 29th, Bytedance launched the new education brand “Dali Education” to undertake all educational products and businesses of Bytedance. Chen Lin, the senior vice president of Bytedance and former head of education business, became the CEO of Dali Education. “The education business and Bytedance’s previous product areas are completely different. In the long run, the education business of Bytedance needs its own brand.” Chen Lin said at the scene.
Zhang Yiming has always believed in “making miracles vigorously”. In his eyes, as long as he is optimistic about the track and direction and devote all resources and energy, he will eventually “bloom and bear fruit”. But in the face of e-commerce, games and other fields with high industry competition barriers, it is not easy to disrupt the situation, and the relatively low industry concentration of education is betting heavily.
From the launch of the first educational product “Learn well” in the field of knowledge payment at the end of 2017, ByteDance’s education business has covered pre-K, K12, quality education, higher education, education informatization, and education hardware TOB field. For each segment of the online education track that has been verified by the market, Bytedance will quickly follow up (or acquisition), iterate, and verify.
If the education business of Bytedance is divided into two parts, 2020 will be a watershed. Before 2020, Bytedance is a “follower” in the education field. What fire does and what to do, the launch of GOGOKID, the acquisition of Qingbei online school, and the development of the Guagualong series are the best examples, but the results are not obvious. In 2020, Zhang Yiming will position education as the/p>
In May 2019, ByteDance acquired Qingbei Online School at a price of 20 million yuan, and quickly established its own K12 online school business through mergers and acquisitions, and provided online dual-teacher live large class classes for primary and middle school students.
The predecessor of Qingbei Online School was Hualuogeng Online School, an Internet mathematics education platform founded by Liu Yong in April 2018, and it had received 10 million yuan in angel round financing from Xu Xiaoping’s Zhen Fund.
It can be seen from the fact that ByteDance once named Qingbei Online School as “Strong Class” (later changed back to Qingbei Online School) , ByteDance had high hopes for K12 online school business.
However, judging from the current competitive landscape of K12 online schools, Qingbei Online School has a weak sense of presence in the double-teacher live broadcast of the big class track. Compared with the millions of paid course students such as Xueersi Online School, Homework Assistant, Ape Tutorial, Gaotu Class, etc., Qingbei Online School has obviously not become the research and defense target of K12 Online School Unicorn Company.
The online big class track has become a red sea. ByteDance wanted to find another way, starting from the K12 online small class. In December 2019, ByteDance launched “Dali Small Class”. “Compared with the online large class, the small class has a higher degree of refinement and a slower starting volume, and the online small class track is firmly grasped by Dongfang Youbo, so it is still unknown whether the small class can run out of it.” Some online education entrepreneurs said to “Deep Web.”
In 2020, the popularity of online education will shift from live broadcast of large class classes to enlightenment AI classes. According to statistics, the overall revenue of “Zebra AI” under Yuandao Coaching exceeded 1 billion in 2019. Seeing the ByteDance of Zebra AI’s development momentum, quickly launched a “similar” product-the Guagualong series.
On March 7, 2020, the enlightenment AI class Guagualong English under the banner of Byte will be launched quietly. A month later, Bytedance launched “Guagualong Thinking” again, and “Guagualong Language” was launched again in July. In just 4 months, the enlightenment stage of language, mathematics, and foreign disciplines were built.
From the early exploration of ByteDance in the education field, it can be seen that it has its own set of strategies in the education field: Start with the form of education products that have been verified by the market, and are more like “followers.” The role of the company is quickly followed up through investment and mergers.
In 2017, the paid knowledge track ran out of the “get” dark horse, and Bytedance quickly followed up.In early 2018, the paid knowledge “learn well” app was launched; in 2018, VIPKID, which focuses on one-on-one foreign teachers in North America, ushered in its bright moment since its establishment, achieving a performance of 500,000 paying users. ByteDance was launched that year. Product GoGoKid; In 2019, Xueersi Online School, Homework Assistant, and Yuanjiao will focus on the K12 online live broadcast large-class mode. ByteDance acquired Qingbei Online School in May, and “entered” K12 teachers to broadcast the large-class class track .
Starting from March 2020, ByteDance has successively launched Guagualong English and Thinking, hoping to replicate the growth “myth” of Zebra AI under Ape Coaching; in 2020, Spark Thinking, which has only been established for only three years, has raised a total of US$440 million. , Refreshing the financing record of the Mathematical Thinking Track. In this context, ByteDance acquired the mathematics enlightenment education brand You Pai on August 21.
“In the early stage of exploration, the byte education business has always been at the level of what to do. It wants to use traffic, algorithms, and capital advantages to create a bright road, but education is an industry that emphasizes content and services. Education and training companies face It is students and parents with very big group differences, so BYTE wants to use the gameplay in the field of information distribution and short video to educate obviously,” said the above-mentioned education entrepreneur to “Deep Net”.
Some people in the industry close to Byte Education said to “Deep Web” that “The middle station of Byte Education integrates the teaching system, educational administration system, renewal referral system, and enrollment system of online teaching.”
The development path of ByteDance education business, “Deep Web” organizes according to public information
“Strongly” play and challenge
Looking at the path of ByteDance’s layout of education, we can see that in the early days of the cross-border education business, ByteDance used both TOC and TOB businesses. “But judging from the current status of ByteDance’s education business, its TOC business lacks word-of-mouth, and the TOB business has just begun,” an online education investor said to “Shen Wang”.
As for the above-mentioned investor’s evaluation of Bytedance’s education business, Li Haoyang, the founder of Squirrel AI, agrees, “Bytedance is indeed a follower in the TOC business, but the Matthew effect is not obvious in the education field. While Siwang School was the first to explore the double-teacher live broadcast of large classes, but the latter was the first to go public. The biggest challenge for ByteDance in education is that it has not established its own brand and reputation.”
Education has three main characteristics: content and service, decision-making, and word of mouth. The importance of word-of-mouth is clearly reflected in the two giants of the offline education and training industry, New Oriental and Good Future. New Oriental relies on the reputation of “TOEFL and GRE high scores”, and has no competitors in the education and training industry for a long time; learning and thinking relying on high scores in mathematics and the reputation of being able to enter “prestigious schools” has firmly grasped the K12 elementary school extracurricular Training market.
Well reputation is mainly divided into two parts, one is the quality and effectiveness of teaching, and the other is localization. In Li Haoyang’s view, the quality of education can be slowly polished by people who understand education with high salaries, but the localization of education is a barrier that Internet giants like Bytedance are difficult to overcome.
“China has more than 1 million education and training institutions located all over the country. Shanghai has Elite, Four Seasons, and Ongli, Guangdong has Zhuoyue and Bangde, Si Le, Zhengzhou has Dashan and Horizon, and localized education courses and policies. , Teaching and research, topics, etc. will be different, and these are not the barriers of Internet giants,” Li Haoyang said.
In terms of education localization, news broke. In March 2020, Bytedance planned to acquire two offline education and training institutions in Jiangsu and Henan.
“Acquisition and deployment of offline training institutions are not what ByteDance is good at. The current advantages are still in traffic and algorithms, but it may expand its radiation range through TOB business such as entering schools or education informatization”, offline The principal of education and training told “Shen Wang”.
In his speech on October 29, Chen Lin also made it clear that big education is a systematic project, and “vigorous education” should empower the entire education industry.
In fact, in the early stages of the layout of the education business, Bytedance expanded its educational business territory by acquiring the company of Education TOB.
On May 11, 2018, ByteDance participated in the A+ round of financing to invest in Xiaoyang Education. Xiaoyang Education was established in February 2016. It is an information technology-based enterprise that provides overall solutions for the reform of the high school and college entrance examination. Its core business is to provide a standardized SaaS system for class selection for middle and high schools. Two months later, ByteDance acquired the B-end business of Xuebajun, paving the way for school business and smart education. In August 2018, ByteDance also invested in Minerva University, an American innovation university, and Zhang Yiming later became a board member of Minerva.
“Bytedance is expected to deploy education TOB business at the same time. The advantages of Tencent and Alibaba in smart education and school-enterprise cooperation have allowed BYTE to see the prospects of education informatization.” Net” said.
The TOC business is already “on the string”, and the TOB business is poised to take off. Can the byte-beating education business “make great efforts to perform miracles”?
“Whether a miracle can be achieved depends mainly on the determination and organizational culture of Byte for education”, many educational entrepreneurs have said to “Deep Web.”
“To put it bluntly, it is a matter of determination. It depends on how much Byte is willing to invest in education and how much loss it can bear. If Byte Beat is determined to do education, it may be optimistic. Because whether it is artificial intelligence algorithm The level, the genes of thousands of people, or the high-paying digging people, byte education can achieve high distribution and high standards. However, judging from the current capital investment of byte, the advantages are not obvious. The education industry has become a height. A money-burning market.”
Li Haoyang explained, “However, the problem with Bytedance’s education is that Bytedance has adopted the past APP group strategy, too many fronts will greatly disperse the power of miracles. The education industry The customer experience and research and development are very deep. Whether to expand or to be thorough is a soul torment.”
In Zhai Lei’s view, the Internet giants ultimately fight for only two things in their cross-border business: money and people. “Bytedance has traffic, there is no shortage of money, and it can attract talents. The key is whether the existing organizational structure of BytedancePeople who understand education can take their time to do education.” But it’s worth noting that in October 2019, Liu Yong resigned from the position of head of Qingbei Online School by ByteDance, which was acquired by ByteDance. Qingbei Online School is only 5 months old.
This article is from WeChat official account:Deep Web Tencent News (ID: qqshenwang) author: Rui