手把手教你做一家 “2 万亿” 美元的教育公司
编者按:互联网的普及,创造了互联网教育平台,移动端的出现,带来了在线教育;现在越来越多的创业者把目光放在教育行业。
尽管它比较热门,但真正成功的公司还是比较少的,在成功的案例中,其中2U 教育公司去年以 5 亿美元的估值正式上市,另一个不太出名的教育公司EdTech去年的市场资本额已达 15 亿美元;另外,在线教育平台Lynda以 15 亿美元被LinkedIn收购。教育创业公司如何发展?如何塑造未来估值可达 “2 万亿” 美元的成功企业?投资人 Mahesh Vellanki谈了他关于教育创业公司未来发展的看法。
就美国而言,每年在教育行业的投资可达 1.6 万亿美元,其中政府投资可达 1 万亿美元,K12 教育市场和高等教育市场资本额分别为 6880 亿美元和 5350 亿美元。尽管拥有大量的资金支持,但教育行业的现状和创业公司的发展都不容乐观。
教育行业现状
1、贫困家庭学生大学入学和学费压力
学费上涨,教育变得越来越昂贵,贫苦家庭和学生早已负担不起。
2、失业率上涨
教育成本变高,但学生数量并没有减少,就业压力依旧巨大,失业率近些年呈上涨趋势。
3、过时的学习模式
现阶段大学的学习模式已经延续了几百年,大都是照本宣科,创新能力较低。根据现在社会的发展来看,这种模式已经过时,不适合培养当代人才。
我们要做什么?
纵观当下的教育行业,会发现在 K12、高等教育和成人教育类别中出现了很多的创业公司,他们会为教育行业的发展带来新的希望。
未来发展的想法
我认为对于教育行业的创业公司来讲,2U 公司和 Lynda 公司是一个可以借鉴的成功案例。2U 专注于提供名校在线学位课程,它与美国名牌大学达成合作,为学生提供虚拟课堂服务,为大学提供工具、技能、资金等来帮助大学管理在线教育项目,同步大学教学课程。而 Lynda 是一开始就使用收费订阅,打造丰富优质的教学课程,让用户养成付费阅读的习惯。
与其他教育机构合作。在公司固有结构的基础上与学校等其他教育结构达成合作,借用其生源优势和影响力。
学习硅谷客户营销策略。树立产品观念,通过免费商业模式以及病毒式传播等方式扩大影响力,增加客户群。
基础内容建设。对于一些初创公司,最根本的还是要通过技术和服务建立丰富教育资源,内容为王。完善公司即教育平台的基础性服务。
教育行业的创业公司更多依靠着网络,优化网络技术平台,为在线教育提供技术支持。
未来教育会变成什么样?
在这里让我大胆的预测一下:
· 学习成果优先化。
· 教育结构的规模变大。
· 去大众化,更多 “个人核心” 内容。
· 减少人力教师,利用技术和自动化教学。
· 远程学习和在线课程将成为解决教学问题的主要模式。
而这些情况则需要当下的教育创业公司来实现,他们的成功将改变教育的模式。
本文来源:编译自Mahesh VC
How Startups Are Shaping The Future Of The $2 Trillion Education Industry
Education is the second largest industry in the US following healthcare. Yet despite it’s gargantuan size, start-ups have had a difficult time navigating it and achieving success. One of the few recent success stories is 2U (in Redpoint’s portfolio), a company that partners with top colleges and universities to bring their degree programs online. 2U went public at a half billion dollar valuation last year and has quietly traded up to $1.5B in market cap – it’s one of the biggest EdTech companies that you have never heard of. Separately, online learning platform Lynda.com was acquired by LinkedIn for $1.5B.
I want to see more case studies like 2U and Lynda in other areas of education. While the US was once the clear leader in global education, that is no longer the case in the K-12 sector – the largest of the education markets – with fears that the post-secondary sector may soon follow down that path.
There is $1.6 trillion spent annually in the US on education, and $5.5 trillion globally. The government alone spends $1 trillion. The US K-12 market and US post-secondary markets (both public and private funding combined) are $688 billion and $535 billion in size, respectively. To tackle this market, start-ups have also raised a fair amount from venture investors – $320 million in 2009 and approaching $2B in 2015. It’s easy to throw around big numbers, but what’s really going on?
Key Problems and Trends in Education
1) Enrollment and pricing pressure on universities due to families’ inability to pay
Following the financial crisis, there has been a 39% decline in family net worth. Student loan debt has also been steadily rising, reaching about $30k on average today. Education is already expensive but it is becoming increasingly difficult for students and families to pay up.
2) Growing budgetary pressure to find cheaper solutions
Annual spend by educational institutions has increased as a percentage of GDP every year. Despite all of the increased spend, the US Department of Education, State, and Federal departments have all been facing budget cuts. At least 34 states are providing less funding per student for the 2013-2014 school year than they did before the recession hit. There is also growing regulatory pressure for better student outcomes and analytics.
3) Poor educational outcomes despite increasing expenditures and student debt
The unemployment curve today, particularly for younger people, is far worse than when compared to pre-financial crisis. Institutions are receiving less government funding and as a result students have to pay more. Adding in poor job placement to the mix is basically adding salt to the wounds.
4) Inefficient and bureaucratic organizational structures
It is just plain hard to weed through the bureaucratic and organizational mess that is education. Start-ups have to figure out how to navigate existing processes, deal with compliance, find the right budgets and decision makers, and determine the proper go-to-market strategies.
5) Antiquated learning models
Our current learning model, i.e. college degrees, textbooks, learning pedagogy, etc are all antiquated. Most of our institutional learning was developed a couple hundred years ago and has changed at a snail’s pace in regards to technology when compared to other industries. There are better ways to learn.
What Could The Future of Learning Look Like?
Let me take a stab at the future here (applies to both K-12 and post-secondary):
Outcomes-based learning will be front and center
Education will be more about mass customization versus today’s structured and regimented learning
Less Common Core (wikipedia), more “individual core”
Focus on adaptive learning in capsules rather than a one-size-fits-all approach (Altschool is a good example)
Rather than teachers lecturing a class, they will instead employ a hybrid model where the teacher shepherds the learning process and leverages technology and automation in the classroom
Vast amounts of data will be created which will reinforce the mass customization element
Distance learning and online programs will solve issue of university saturation (colleges have fairly static enrollment supply while student demand keeps increasing)
So How Are We Doing Today?
There are many interesting start-ups going after K-12, post-secondary, and adult learning categories. Below are some of the main segments:
Parting Thoughts
I could argue that some of the recent start-up successes have gotten to where they are by focusing on adult learning, that is, totally ignoring K-12 and post-secondary where the go-to-markets are quite challenging. Companies like Pluralsight, Lynda, Udemy and General Assembly come to mind. Still, there are promising young start-ups attacking the existing education industry such as ClassDojo, Remind101, Instructure, AltSchool, Clever and Brighbytes (and 2U). Some of these companies have done a particularly brilliant job of solving specific problems for end users by leveraging Silicon Valley consumer tech lessons to juice their go-to-market strategies (i.e. thinking product-first, freemium distribution, viral hooks, etc). In any case, it is still early days and I expect to see iconic companies built in educational content, software, infrastructure and services.
在线教育
2015年09月18日
在线教育
日本在线英语辅导公司Langrich被收购,在线教育已成日本热潮
美国远程教育公司EnglishCentral上周早些时候宣布了对日本公司Langrich的收购。
Langrich总部位于日本东京,提供在线英语辅导一类的服务。签署换股协议后,该公司将并入EnglishCentral,其投资者 KLab Ventures以及Hitomedia 都将成为EnglishCentral的小股东。据KLab公司发言人表示,此次并购标志着第一次日本创业公司被美国同类大公司收购。
Langrich成立于2010年,通过Skype语音软件提供英语教学,授课老师均为菲律宾籍。和其主要竞争对手Rarejob以及DMM一样,Langrich提供一对一教学,并专注于会话技巧。今后,其用户还可以通过电脑或者手机观看录制好的视频课程,并配上EnglishCentral的智能化语音识别技术来学习词汇和发音。
EnglishCentral首席执行官Alan Schwartz在采访中表示:“在日本,我们还将继续使用Langrich作为我们的品牌。”
“EnglishCentral不会更改旗下公司或平台的名称,包括很多在韩国、中国以及巴西的领先的在线学习公司。”
EnglishCentral总部位于马萨诸塞州阿灵顿,每月拥有超过10万付费用户。其服务范围包含全球各地超过100个国家的400多所大学。在扎堆的远程教育领域里,EnglishCentral这家创业公司最大的亮点或许就是有退款保证了。如果学生在三个月内不能得到提升,EnglishCentral会退还全部学费。
Schwartz表示,EnglishCentral将会接手Langrich现有的包括教师在内的260名员工,同时还表示:“我们也会每个月增加几十名教师,并且我们不会再限制教师国籍,菲律宾籍之外的老师也可以考虑。”
日本的补习班(juku),也就是培训学校产业价值大约100亿美元。而英语口语课程就占据了当中很大一块市场。随着互联网的发展,智能手机的日益普及,很多这些课程被搬到了线上。
这对线下实体学校造成了很大冲击,因为对于学习者而言,在线学习更为划算,以至于目前许多实体学校已如强弩之末,而在线教育却已经成了日本最热的创业领域之一。
“2007年,日本最大的实体英语培训学校Nova破产之后,整个日本培训市场一度停滞不前,但近几年,情况有了转机。”Schwartz解释说:“Rarejob现在已经上市了,你可以看到它的财务状况,其注册用户数量增长了将近50%。DMM的增长还要快。它们是日本在线市场上,最主要的两个竞争对手。而去年,我们的收入也增长了90%。”
还有一件事进一步证实了日本在线辅导热潮的火爆,上周的亚洲科技东京舞台上,日本国内的在线教育公司Mana.bo就拿下了特等奖。
Japanese edtech startup acquired by US startup amid online tutoring boom
American edtech startup EnglishCentral earlier this week announced the acquisition of a Japanese startup offering similar online tutoring for English learners. Langrich will be acquired in a share-swap agreement that sees the Tokyo-based startup’s investors – KLab Ventures and Hitomedia – become minority shareholders in EnglishCentral. According to a KLab spokesperson, it marks the first time that a Japanese startup has been acquired by a larger American one.
Founded in 2010, Langrich uses English tutors in the Philippines to provide English instruction via Skype. Like its main competitors, Rarejob and DMM, lessons are one-on-one and focus on conversation skills. Langrich users will now benefit from a video lesson archive for web and mobile, as well as EnglishCentral’s speech recognition technology for studying vocabulary and pronunciation.
“We will keep the Langrich brand as our consumer brand in Japan,” Alan Schwartz, EnglishCentral’s CEO, tells Tech in Asia. “EnglishCentral will remain the name of the company and the name of the platform that we provide to our global partners, including many leading online learning companies […] in Korea, China, and Brazil.”
EnglishCentral, headquartered in Arlington, Massachusetts, boasts more than 100,000 paying users per month. The service is available in more than 100 countries and at over 400 universities across the globe. Perhaps EnglishCentral’s biggest differentiator in the crowded edtech space is its money-back guarantee – the startup refunds 100 percent of a student’s lesson fees if they don’t level up after three months.
Schwartz says that EnglishCentral will retail all of Langrich’s current employees – a total of 260 including teachers. “We’re also adding dozens of teachers a month, and we will not limit teacher hiring to the Philippines going forward,” he adds.
The Japanese juku – cram school – industry is valued at roughly US$10 billion.Eikaiwa – conversational English lessons – take a big chunk of that market. With strong internet infrastructure and a population that’s increasingly fond of smartphones, many of those lessons are moving online. That could hurt brick-and-mortar schools, which have already faltered, since online learning is more cost effective for learners. This shift to online has created, arguably, one of Japan’s hottest startup verticals.
“After the Nova implosion (once Japan’s largest physical English conversation school, Nova went bankrupt in 2007), the whole market in Japan stalled, but things have changed in last several years,” Schwartz explains. “Rarejob is now public and you can see from their financials they are growing at close to 50 percent in terms of registered users. DMM we believe is growing even faster. They are the main competitors in the online market in Japan that have traction. We grew 90 percent last year in terms of revenue.”
Further evidence of Japan’s online tutoring boom could be seen at Tech in Asia Tokyo’s Arena pitch battle last week, where domestic edtech startup Mana.bo took the grand prize.
Editing by Terence Lee
Source:techinasia