Education has now become the focus of many major Internet companies, and Bytedance is no exception. ByteDance, the parent company of Douyin and Toutiao, has made education business its latest strategic focus since last year, and has launched the overall education brand “Dalian Education”.
For a long time, teachers, student resources, and teaching and research capabilities have been called the troika of online education, and excellent talents are the core of doing business well. Previously, Dali Education said it would recruit more than 10,000 people. Chen Lin, CEO of Vigorous Education, clearly stated, “In the next three years, Bytedance will continue to invest heavily, regardless of profitability and cost.”
A recent change in the personnel responsible for the education business has attracted attention. According to “LatePost” reports, key projects including children’s enlightenment product Guagualong, primary and secondary school online school Qingbei online school, adult language product open language English, hardware business vigorous intelligence, etc., have had at least one business in the past year The line leader has been replaced, and 100 people have left for some projects.
△The changes in the personnel responsible for the education business
From doing education business to forming an overall education brand
Bytedance “vigorously” do education
Zhang Yiming always loves to say: Vigorously creates miracles. Byte has invested heavily in education. The three-pronged approach of incubation investment and acquisition has covered all popular tracks in the education field in less than two years: Enlightenment, K12, adult education, and even hardware research and development. Gua Gua Long, Tang Yuan English, Qingbei Online School…More than 20 education projects in hand, to create a matrix of online and offline products.
In May 2018, ByteDance made its first effort in the education industry, launching GOGOKID, the first children’s English product, which was benchmarked against VIPKID. In September of the same year, Bytedance acquired Ai Xue, the To B business of Xuebajun. In December, it bought the adult education product Kaiyan English.
In May 2019, ByteDance acquired Qingbei Online School, which focuses on the K12 track, and successfully entered the field of large classes. In November, it arranged the business of entering the school and acquired the big data of Jike.
In March 2020, Guagualong Enlightenment was launched, and the enlightenment business was deployed. In August, it acquired the math and science thinking education product You Pai Yi, and continued to increase quality education.
When Dali Education was established, Bytedance used internal incubation, acquisition, investment and other means to weave a nearly complete educational puzzle, covering English training, K12 subject counseling, knowledge payment, mathematical thinking, and educational information. In the industry chain, To B and To C go hand in hand.
In terms of operation, Byte has burned money very boldly. GoGoKid burned 1 billion, and Guagualong English invested 2 billion in diversion in a year. Qingbei Online School recruited online teachers with an annual salary of 2 million, and there was no ceiling. It is also unambiguous to give resources to people. After suspending the mobile phone business, Zhang Yiming immediately merged the Xinshi laboratory of the hammer technology team into the education hardware team to expand its strength. In Byte’s own words: All in education.
Head of business changed blood
Is it a competitive crisis or a new turning point?
Zhang Yiming’s three most promising industries are AI, automotive, and online education. Today, AI has “Flying Books” and automobiles have “Knowing Car Emperor”, but there have been no successful cases in the education field. Instead, GoGoKid was exploded with a large number of layoffs, aiKid ceased operations, Qingbei Online School founder Liu Yong resigned, and there was a large-scale transfer of branch leaders.
Behind the personnel transfer in the past year, is the industry competition too fierce, or the project requirements are further increased?
Industry competition:
/ / For the online education industry, Bytedance is a bit late
From the perspective of time arrangement, in June 2014, Chen Xiangdong founded GSX; in 2012, Yuanjiao was established; in 2010, Good Future went public in the United States. The industry competition pattern has basically taken shape. Since then, every company that tries to take a share in online education has encountered difficulties. Taking 2020 as an example, 80% of the 103.4 billion yuan that capital has sent to the online education industry went to the top 5 companies, such as the above-mentioned ape tutoring, homework help, and GSX.
In June 2020, “the first unit of online education” New Oriental Online recruited more than 200 fresh graduates in Xi’an to enrich the online education business, but this move suffered a rout. It experienced two layoffs at the end of 2020 and in March this year. More than 200 fresh graduates were almost completely laid off.
/ / Education for laymen also has certain risks
At the end of March, an Internet respondent posted a post on Weibo: A netizen who was certified as a “Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. employee” complained on the social platform: “I am leaving soon. Although I am very reluctant, there is really no way. The company is a good company, but Tencent Education is not. I hope that future generations will take warning and don’t educate if you are killed!” A “Beijing Byte Beat Technology Co., Ltd. employee” commented: “You have not come to Byte Education. …I jumped out of Tencent Education. I thought that Tencent’s education pits now… I can only say that pits are not pits or not.” Another “Tencent Tech employee” replied: “I feel that every education is pitted, run away. ”
Although it is only an online topic discussion, it is not difficult to see that even with a huge number of engines, it is equally difficult to cross-bank business. Tang Daosheng, vice president of Tencent, said: “Education is a very complex and professional field, and all our internal forces add up, and it may not be able to subvert all needs.” Education is a slow industry, and the Internet will definitely not subvert the education industry. “But there is no doubt that with the development of technology, education will indeed undergo subtle changes.
Project self-cultivation:
Zhang Yiming has proposed more than once that he wants to run the third product with a DAU of more than 100 million dollars in the education field and turn education into a 100 billion U.S. dollar business, which is larger than Douyin’s scale. It can be seen that byte’s requirements for its education projects are extremely strict.
In ByteDance, the establishment of innovative business projects needs to be reviewed by Zhang Yiming and the project leader, and then analyzed and demonstrated by the business analysis team. All projects need to assess ROI (input-output ratio). If the key project fails to prove its value within a period of time, adjustments will occur.
Do education from “0”, vigorously educate and keep trying “wrong”. I have done many projects vigorously, recruited a lot of people, spent a lot of money, and every time a person in charge is changed, the business direction will be adjusted accordingly. For example, the thinking course under Guagualong has experienced three principals for more than a year. The current principal, Liu Juan, used teaching and research to design experience courses, replacing the predecessor Qianjinchen’s strategic direction of teaching and research guided by products. In addition, vigorously educate because the team expands quickly, and projects and tasks are dismantled layer by layer. Once a team’s project fails, it will be replaced, and it will never be tolerated.
This time, a bold and resolute effort in education, but so far has not yet formed a successful work. In an interview with the media, Chen Lin, the head of Dali Education, said that internal BP has been done for three years. From the perspective of BP in three years, it is not profitable, but he thinks it may be unprofitable for a longer time in the future. He said, “Education is not a track that can be rushed into.”
For educational products, more patience and persistence are required, and a trace of luck is required to find the right method in frequent trial and error correction.
Source: Randiyuan Studio, Tiger Sniff APP, Taoli Finance, Mustard Education
Sorting out: Observation of Education and Training Industry
Report download method:
“Chinese Academy of Sciences: Research and Prospective Report on the Development of Small Classes in the Online Education Industry in 2020”
Report download method:
“2020 China Online Education Industry Research Report”
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