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Shadine Taufik · · 6 min readAfter layoffs, Zenius bets on offline learning in revival strategy
In February, Indonesia-based edtech firm Zenius made headlines after it laid off 30 employees in its third round of job cuts.
Shortly after, the company’s co-founder and former chief education officer Sabda Putra Subekti stepped up as CEO, replacing Rohan Monga, who is now the president of Zenius Group. Subekti assures that the company is now “stable,” and the change in leadership was purely strategic.
“As Zenius Group President, Monga can focus on handling partnerships, potential acquisitions, investor relations, and the like. Meanwhile, I can focus on product development and academia,” he tells Tech in Asia.
Learning from mistakes
Speaking further about the layoffs, the CEO says that the main causes were the leadership’s errors in market predictions and strategies.
Former Zenius CEO Rohan Monga (left) and current CEO Sabda Putra Subekti / Photo credit: Zenius
“In 2019, we had a plan when we were fundraising. But then the Covid-19 pandemic happened and whether we liked it or not, the meticulously crafted plan had to be changed completely,” Subekti explains.
As more people started using edtech products due to social restrictions and school closures, Zenius quickly re-strategized to focus on maturing its digital education products. The fresh funds raised were utilized to expand the team size in order to boost productivity.
Subekti previously said that from June 2019 to 2021, the Zenius app was accessed by up to 20 million users, growing 3x compared to before. Its live-streaming class service, which was launched in July 2020, contributed to about 50% of the company’s total revenue at that time.
“Our big goal is to have 10 million monthly active users by 2025,” then CEO Monga told Tech in Asia in March 2022.
In the past year, Zenius states that its main app still contributes the most to the company’s revenue, followed by upskilling platform ZenPro. Its third-biggest contributor is Primagama, an offline tutoring institution Zenius acquired in early 2022.
See also: The key players in Indonesia’s promising edtech industry
As offline learning regained momentum, Zenius looks to revive its older, pre-pandemic strategies. As a consequence, the company says that it had to undergo downsizing in order to maintain efficiency.
Subekti explains that despite this, the startup’s team size is still twice as large as before the pandemic. He even says that the company may achieve profitability by the end of 2023, though this isn’t the priority. Its main focus is to capture the opportunities that come with offline learning.
The CEO also says that Zenius is open to a new fundraise.
Offline model takes center stage
The challenge of independent learning
Reinforcing the upskilling program
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After its third round of layoffs and a CEO change, the startup seeks to bring back offline learning and upskilling, which the pandemic put on pause.
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