Edu2review: Education quality evaluation system

Vietnamese parents are spending 47% of their income on their children’s education, according to TTC Edu’s statistics, while according to the Institute of Educational Research, 75% of parents admit that they are sending their children tutoring. The general education sector is also forecast to grow impressively, reaching $ 89 billion by 2026.

These figures show that the demand for investment in education in Vietnam is huge. But not all training units are qualified and suitable to the needs of learners. Most parents have to spend time and money trying to bring their children to 1-2 tutoring centers and many parents encounter poor quality centers.

In order to provide accurate and transparent information about teaching centers, Mr. Ho Duc Hoan has decided to start a business with the first educational quality assessment platform in Vietnam – Edu2Review. Mr. Ho Duc Hoan, founder and CEO of Edu2Review, shared: “On the side of the centers, those with money and expertise can run ads. Because the advertising content lacks control, it more or less creates a presence in the tutoring market, while the good, reputable, small-scale teaching units have few advertising operations. Realizing the supply and demand in the market, I decided to create Edu2Review, a professional evaluation platform for the first educational centers in Vietnam ”.

Photo by: Edu2Review

Mr. Hoan shared: “In developed countries, the supply-demand connection model has a foundation to play the role of assessment and booking, thereby helping users to reduce risks and not spend a lot of money. Vietnam, time for self-testing. However, in Vietnam in 2015, there was no foundation for educational evaluation. That is an opportunity for Edu2Review “.

Those who want Edu2Review to be certified will be trained by experts, collect students’ assessments, attend classes to check the quality. The startup is also committed to representing the student’s interests at the center, taking responsibility if the student is dissatisfied and making sure to find another suitable course for that person.

Edu2Review also features video assessment, pictures of schools and centers, helping users to have more information to make better learning options. Users only need to register by email to write reviews including strengths, weaknesses and experiences at the training unit learned. Edu2Review system will evaluate and verify the content before publishing.

Another convenient point is that Edu2Review also has an online course booking service that helps users not have to come to the center to register. The courses and centers range from kindergarten to university, so Edu2Review can meet the majority of the needs of parents and students in Vietnam.

Photo by: Edu2Review

“The current average growth of Edu2Review is always 2-3 times per year and Edu2Review is also leading in terms of brand awareness among students, students and employees in Vietnam”, Mr. Hoan said. know.

Only after 2 years of establishment, Edu2Review has successfully raised capital with a total capital of 1 million USD. Edu2Review also won many awards in the startup community: First Prize of Startup Wheel 2016, Second Prize of Hatch Fair 2016, Top 5 startups competing at APEC 2017. Singapore’s valuation of $ 4.5 million. This startup also appeared on the program Shark Tank Vietnam, invested by Shark Nguyen Hoa Binh and Shark Nguyen Manh Dung.

After 5 years of development, Edu2Review has achieved certain successes. Currently, 70% of tutoring and training centers in two big cities Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi are partners of this startup. According to Mr. Ho Duc Hoan, Edu2Review has more than 2,500 partners, 1.5 million visits from users and 7,500 students book each month.

Mr. Hoan also said that Edu2Review has reached breakeven point so far and is about to make a profit. Therefore, in mid-2021, Edu2Review will continue to raise capital to expand the system nationwide, aiming to serve 3 million students per month.

In August, Edu2Review also launched the online learning system StudyNow.vn. This system will help connect students with teachers in a one-to-one form, consistent with the current world learning trend, whether or not the COVID-19 translation occurs.

Source from: nhipcaudautu

After Topica, Vietnam seeks its next edtech breakthrough

Despite Topica’s setbacks, Vietnam edtech is on the radar of some regional investors.

Topica, Vietnam’s leading education tech startup, has been a hard act to follow, even for itself.

In a 2018 interview with Tech in Asia, the founder and then-CEO Tuan Pham was riding high. At the time, Topica was fresh off its announcement of a US$50 million series D funding from Singapore-based private equity firm Northstar Group.

Topica’s founder and former CEO Tuan Pham at an edtech conference / Photo credit: Topica

Two years later, Topica’s series D is still one of the largest funding rounds ever closed by a Vietnamese tech startup. Established in 2007, the company focuses on three core areas: Topica Native, an online English-speech tutoring service for adults; Edumall, a marketplace that features short courses; and Topica Uni, which partners with universities to offer online bachelor’s degree programs.

But in January this year, Tuan stepped down as CEO and was replaced by Nguyen Huy Duc, Topica’s chief financial officer. According to local media reports, Duc said that he would “streamline” operations and invest aggressively in AI-driven products for children and young students.

A report on DealStreetAsia suggested that Topica had laid off the majority of its staff due to pressure from investors and to better manage its operational costs.

Several sources also told Tech in Asia that Topica rushed its expansion, both in terms of products and geographic markets. In response to an email from Tech in Asia, Topica’s new CEO Duc said the company would discuss its current priorities at a later time.

Topica’s troubles show that it’s not easy for startups to crack the sector despite the obvious potential. Vietnam’s edtech market is expected to be worth about US$3 billion by 2023, according to estimates from Ken Research.

The addressable market is quite significant. Vietnam has about 16 million students in primary and secondary levels as well as another 1.7 million studying at universities. Frustration with the current education system prompts Vietnamese families to splurge billions of US dollars each year to send their children abroad.

Parents and students rush to classes in Hanoi / Photo credit: 123rf

“In the past few years, most edtech companies have pursued a similar business model as that of Topica, without any remarkable feature that can differentiate themselves from other big players,” says Vy Le, co-founder of Do Ventures, a Vietnam-focused fund that was launched in September. “There are some innovative edtech [companies] in the markets that receive seed investments, and their sizes are still small.”

With Covid-19 expected to accelerate the growth of edtech, can smaller Vietnamese startups in this sector ride the wave and potentially become the next Topica, Ruangguru, or even Byju’s?

Weathering Covid-19

Austin Carter co-founded Ho Chi Minh City-based startup Edu2Review in 2017 with two others. The startup wants to make it easier for parents and students to get credible information about universities, colleges, language schools, and other education providers in Vietnam and overseas.

The Edu2Review team / Photo credit: Edu2Review

While users can do their own research via Google and Facebook, Edu2Review let them compare course prices, check verified reviews from past learners, get discounts, and receive refunds after a one-week trial, says Carter. For some courses offered locally, students can even book directly on the platform.

Carter, who also serves as chief financial officer, describes the company’s business model as similar to Booking.com, which means Edu2Review charges a commission on each transaction.

But relying on offline centers meant that when Covid-19 struck Vietnam in February, Edu2Review was hit.

He claims that the startup has about 1.5 million monthly active users and around 10,000 education providers listed on its site. In August 2018, Edu2Review announced that it had raised an undisclosed amount from Nest Tech, a Singapore-based venture capital fund.

But relying on offline centers meant that when Covid-19 struck Vietnam in February, Edu2Review was hit. Registration for classes went down by about 25% to 30%, according to Carter, while offline education centers had to burn through their cash reserves and cut down on marketing.

To make up for the drop in course registration, the startup began working with universities for advertising and supporting their student recruitment amid the pandemic. Edu2Review also expanded its offerings for online courses.

For Tony Ngo, chairman and co-CEO of Everest Education, a startup with brick-and-mortar learning centers in Ho Chi Minh City, its decision to develop live interactive online classes paid off.

Everest Education co-CEOs Don Le (left) and Tony Ngo / Photo credit: Everest Education

In August 2019, Everest announced that it had bagged US$4 million in a series B round. The startup operates in the after-school segment, meaning it caters to students who take extra classes in Math and English and do test preparation at its offline facilities.

To reach students in the suburban districts and other provinces, Ngo says that Everest started developing online classes in December 2019. “We were able to move all of our offline classes to online one week into the national shutdown [in February] while other big incumbent offline centers looked relatively sleepy,” he tells Tech in Asia.

Everest doesn’t have an app. Instead, it focuses on the live component of online learning, allowing students to interact and practice with classmates and their teachers. Getting students online allowed the startup to avoid letting any staff go, Ngo observes. “It’s hard to send great teachers everywhere in the country, but you can do that through technology at a much lower cost.”

Long-term obstacles

Nguyen Tri Hien, who runs Hanoi-based edtech consulting firm GetJSC, estimates that there are about 600 e-learning and edtech companies in the country. He points out that about half of them operate in the K-12 segment, offering products and services with little differentiation.

Maria Spies, co-founder and CEO of education market intelligence platform HolonIQ, says that about 20% of edtech firms in Vietnam covers language learning, followed by workforce upskilling, STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and coding as well as international education and study.

Besides Topica, no other company has really dominated any market segment. And with Topica having to restructure and slow down, smaller edtech startups must overcome long-existing barriers before they can think about pulling ahead of the pack, according to experts interviewed by Tech in Asia.

Students in Ho Chi Minh City / Photo credit: 123rf

They note that Vietnam’s education system in general takes a passive approach. As such, it doesn’t really encourage independent or online learning. With the boom of ecommerce and financial tech, paying for online services has taken off in the country. Opening wallets for online courses, however, is still fairly new. Most Vietnamese parents remain traditional and prefer keeping children at schools and offline centers.

Giang Le, a mother of a 12-year-old, says she prefers Khan Academy, a US-based nonprofit edtech organization, because the English content is top-notch, interactive, and totally free. She also uses VietJack.com, a homegrown platform that digitalizes all official learning content as required by public schools.

It also doesn’t help that investments in Vietnam’s edtech sector have been fairly limited, with only US$3 million record for the first half of 2020.

As Covid-19 forced Vietnam to shut down schools nationwide from February to May, Giang says she started searching for online learning platforms. “What I don’t like about local edtech platforms is that there are too many ads. That isn’t the case for foreign platforms.”

It also doesn’t help that investments in Vietnam’s edtech sector have been fairly limited, with only US$3 million record for the first half of 2020, according to an estimate by Do Ventures. In contrast, US$64 million flowed into retail during the same period.

Tram Ho, co-founder and CEO of Kyna for Kids, an online learning school for children and students below 10th grade, explains that it’s challenging for local edtech startups to raise substantial funding. “You need a larger pool of startups with proven, go-to-market solutions,” she says.

“Edtech startups need initial funding to build products […] It’s not just about building a platform to match demand or a marketplace to sell courses. It’s really about building engaging content and technology for a seamless learning experience and optimized operations,” she adds.

Tram also previously ran Kyna.vn, a marketplace that provides skills-focused short courses for adults, directly competing with Topica’s Edumall. In December 2019, she sold Kyna.vn to Navigos Group, which owns popular job and recruitment portal Vietnamworks.com.

The absence of sizable funding rounds means that some edtech companies have to opt for a merger. A notable name in the K-12 segment is online education marketplace Hocmai (which means “keep learning” in Vietnamese).

Founded in 2007, Hocmai claims to serve 4 million students and has 1,200 courses for every grade level on its website – still a rather modest number for a 13-year-old startup. In August, it was acquired by Vietnamese media and entertainment group Galaxy.

Knocking on the door

Meanwhile, foreign players are giving Vietnam’s edtech scene a necessary jolt.

Leading Indonesian edtech startup Ruangguru, which raised a whopping US$150 million last year, quickly expanded to Vietnam as its first overseas destination.

Though its efforts in Vietnam are nascent, Ruangguru operates Kien Guru, which targets students from elementary to high school. According to advertisements on its website, Kien Guru has 6,500 video lectures and tutorials with more than 50,000 practice questions, which are available to users for as low as 3,400 dong a day (US$0.15).

US-based language-learning app Duolingo, which is valued at US$1.5 billion, also considers Vietnam as a high-priority market in Asia due to a strong interest to learn English.

In February, Snapask, an on-demand tutoring app based in Hong Kong, announced its US$35 million series B round. Founder and CEO Timothy Yu specifically identified Vietnam as its next expansion target in Southeast Asia, citing a growing demand for tutoring and private education services.

Photo credit: Snapask

To compete with well-funded foreign providers, especially in English and language learning, local startups need to capitalize on their understanding of what Vietnamese parents and students demand, says Kyna’s Tram.

For example, courses on Kyna for Kids tend to be more test-oriented rather than game-based. “We understand that Cambridge English Assessment is very popular and well-regarded in Vietnam. So we focus on helping students to do well on the test – that would open doors to good schools,” she adds. “It would be very difficult if we compete based only on animation or content with edtech startups from more advanced countries like China or South Korea.”

Ngo from Everest Education also thinks that foreign players can leverage “their tech ability and general know-how,” but the go-to market has to be hyperlocal.

“So many players have tried to be a regional one-stop shop. But you can’t be Sea or Grab because their business models are more easily adaptable across geographies, which is fundamentally different from edtech,” says Ngo. “For edtech, we have to provide different content for each market. Your curriculum and assessments are going to be different.”

The right model

But whether Vietnam’s edtech scene can produce more star players like Topica or Ruangguru could depend also on the rise of fintech companies, which can spur online payments for education services, or telecom providers, which can bring cheap internet even to the country’s far-flung areas.

In emerging markets such as Vietnam, business-to-consumer edtech models “are attractive but difficult to get off the ground where the ability to pay is low,” says Spies of HolonIQ. “On the other hand, business-to-business sales in education is traditionally very slow and fragmented.”

While the country’s edtech sector seems to be under the radar compared to fintech and ecommerce, its potential could attract more investor interest in the future.

Shuyin Tang, a partner at Patamar Capital, agrees that there’s tremendous opportunity in the sector. “While Topica is the leader in delivering upskilling for working professionals, the K-12 segment is much more fragmented. The challenge here is how to deliver an engaging, effective learning experience at an affordable, mass-market price point.”

The Tech in Asia Conference 2020 report predicts that many parents in Southeast Asia will be more willing to invest in their children’s schooling. To benefit from this, edtech startups can bridge the gap between online and offline learning or improve learning management and communication.

Holon IQ estimates that from 2015 to 2020, Southeast Asia drew about US$480 million in edtech VC investment.

A survey conducted by Do Ventures of 50 active funds among six major markets in the region identified education as among the top three sectors that investors will focus on in Vietnam in the coming year.

“Our fund has been actively looking for startups in the edtech sector. We prefer to invest in startups that can provide an innovative online class model with good content and quality instructors,” says Vy of Do Ventures.

Source from: vnexplorer.net

Yangon Broom raises funding led by Yangon Capital Partners to launch mobile app, training school

Yangon Broom, a Myanmar-based company, today announced that it has raised an undisclosed third funding round led by Yangon Capital Partners, the investment arm of a financial advisory company Trust Venture Partners.

Other backers include existing investors such as Emerging Markets Entrepreneurs (EME) and Nest Tech VN, who had previously invested a five-figure funding round in the startup in August 2019.

The new capital will be used by the startup to launch a training school that will train people in high-quality cleaning services. It is also set to launch its own mobile app.

Yangon Broom is an on-demand quality household cleaning service

Founded in 2016, Yangon Broom is an on-demand quality household cleaning service, which manages hundreds of maids on their platform. Its clients range from households to SMEs and schools.

The funding comes at a time when the pandemic prompts the necessity of maintaining high levels of hygiene.

In addition to that, Yangon Broom also mentioned in a press statement that many cleaning companies are struggling to stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving households and SMEs with limited cleaning options at a time where cleanliness is increasingly important.

Shinsuke Goto, Managing Director of Yangon Capital Partners, said that the investor is attracted to the startup due to its positive customer reviews and “clear market trend” in outsourcing domestic help.

“It’s clear that the co-founders have the right values for this very people-oriented business, putting their maids first and ensuring that they are properly rewarded for their efforts,” he said.

Apart from Yangon Broom, Yangon Capital Partners has made several investments in Myanmar such as logistics company Konesi and lifestyle membership platform Flexible Pass.

Recent funding activity in Myanmar includes a US$600,000 funding round for telemedicine startup MyanCare.

Startups from other Southeast Asian markets have also begun seeing Myanmar as a potential market to expand to, such as Indonesia-based Svara, which has mentioned plan to enter Myanmar’s broadcast market following their recent funding round.

Source from e27.co

KoneSi - Myanmar startups receive investor funding to expand from Nest Tech VN

KoneSi, a Yangon-based on-demand trucking start-up, has received a six-digit sum investment for nationwide expansion of Trust Venture Partners, a local financial advisory firm, and Nest Tech, a Vietnam-based venture capital company.

This is the second round of investment for KoneSi after it initially received pre-seed funding from Phandeeyar in 2017, according to its release on Monday.

The start-up is planning to use the new funding in three strategic business areas-to boost the utilization of its technology platform, acquire talented staff, and expand to other commercial cities around the country to strengthen its user base.

Soe Pyae Aung, third from left, co-founder and chief operating officer of KoneSi Freight Co, joins his team in a group photo (Photo: supplied)

“We believe that understanding the power paradigm between the customers and truck suppliers is the key to success in the business,” said Ma Zar Phyu Tint Lwint, CEO of KoneSi.

“In addition to that, knowing the logistics freight flows throughout the year in the country is critical because that way we can help our partner truckers getting the return loads and operating efficiencies,” she said.

Businesses in Myanmar face difficulty in outsourcing transportation to third parties due to unreliability, lack of standardised procedures and non-transparent pricing among truckers, according to KoneSi.

Moreover, due to fluctuating transport pricing controlled by large trucking groups as well as unethical working nature, small fleet owners and individual truckers have to struggle to get regular jobs. KoneSi aims to bridge the gap between shippers and small fleet truckers.

“The services designed by market-savvy management will bring down logistics cost, a bottleneck of business operations across industries, and eventually benefit consumers in Myanmar” said Shinsuke Goto, managing director of YCP.

The ecosystem of KoneSi comprises more than 100 business shippers and over 2000 truckers; it also has an average month over month sales growth of 30 percent.

Before receiving investment from YCP and Nest Tech, KoneSi was first seeded by Phandeeyar, an early investor in Myanmar which has invested in KoneSi and 16 other local companies since 2016.

“Since they first joined Phandeeyar’s Startup Challenge 2017 and, later on, were invested by Phandeeyar in 2018, we’ve seen intense growth, both on them as founders and their startup as a business. This new round of investment reinforces our initial belief that they are on a path to positively transform the logistics industry in Myanmar “said João Dutra (Kyaw Aung), startup ecosystem director at Phandeeyar.

Just last week, Emerging Markets Entrepreneurs (EME), an early-stage venture capital firm, had also announced during its anniversary celebration on November 20 that it had invested a six-figure and five-figure sum respectively into two local startups: Natural Farm Fresh, a local company producing high-quality solar-dried chili powder and other dried products, and Yangon Broom, a home-services firm offering on-demand services including cleaning and ironing to residential homes and businesses.

Source from mmtimes.com

TrophyRoom secures another seed funding

TrophyRoom secures another seed funding for its third round from its existing investors.

TrophyRoom, Singaporean mobile football game, announces that it has received the third installment of its seed round from its existing investors. In its previous round, the company behind the game said that it focussed on building a minimum viable product, while this time they are eyeing global launch.

The company describes the TrophyRoom game as “taking the best parts of fantasy sports, shaving off some of the complexities, and adding a wonderfully stressful card game similar to Hearthstone on top.”

Nest Tech invests in TrophyRoom

Co-Founder and CEO Zacharias Tegefeldt elaborates: “There’s a void in the market for a social entertainment product that brings fans closer to the sport, the action – and to each other. We aim to fill that void and be there in your pocket whenever there’s a game on.”

TrophyRoom game puts players in the role of a club manager, allowing them to name the team, select the jersey colors, and start playing. Players are free to choose any real-world football player, even put Ronaldo and Messi in the same team, without any transfer budget restrictions, as long as they play a real-world match the same day.

Once the ultimate squad is formed, the player can challenge friends. When the real world matches start, the real action begins.

Players then must issue orders to your players by playing Tactics Card – a TrophyRoom’s feature. Each card comes with a potential gain and a potential loss, so it’s important to play the right card at the right time.

TrophyRoom supports all the major international football leagues, such as Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, and plan to launch even more global leagues as they enter new markets.

Some of the game’s backers include Nest Tech, a Southeast Asian venture capital fund, focussing on seed-stage tech startups, as well as and Maxify, a Swedish tech investor focussing on social and gamified experiences.

Soe Moe Oo, Founder of Nest Tech and one of the early investors in TrophyRoom, says: “TrophyRoom caught my eye early on. I saw the social viral component and an unsatisfied growing global market with huge potential. The game is contagious, very hard not to play, for hardcore fans and casual followers alike.”

The company behind the game said that the product is currently in a pre-launch stage and TrophyRoom is recruiting heavily to their offices in Singapore and Ho Chi Minh City at the moment.

Source from e27.co

Nest Tech invests in Mote Poh

Mote Poh is a localised version of employee benefits programmes that leading companies in Singapore, the US and other countries have been using for decades.

(L-R) EME Myanmar’s Investment Manager Matthew Viner, and Mote Poh CEO Loring Harkness. EME Myanmar, a recently-launched early-stage VC fund, has led a six-digit seed round in Mote Poh, a Yangon-based employee-benefits-as-a-service startup in the country.

Nest Tech, a seed-stage VC fund focusing on technology startups in Myanmar, Vietnam and Singapore, also participated in the round.

Loring Harkness – Founder of Mote Poh

Founded in May 2018 by serial entrepreneur Loring Harkness, Mote Poh seeks to transform the HR industry by partnering with companies to recognise and reward employees. Currently based out of the Phandeeyar co-working space in downtown Yangon, Mote Poh is developing a mobile app, and expanding to other types of loyalty programmes.

According to Founder and CEO Harkness, Mote Poh is a localised version of employee benefits programmes that leading companies in Singapore, the US and other countries have been using for decades. Many companies in Myanmar provide employees with limited compensation packages: salary, personal income tax, social security contributions, and occasional ad hoc benefits like team dinners. At the same time, many companies have difficulty recruiting, recognising and rewarding, and retaining top talent.

“I spoke to dozens of company owners, CEOs and HR Managers. I asked them why they didn’t provide better benefits to their employees. Their answers were nearly all the same: they fear that implementing an employee benefits programme will be time consuming and expensive — and that employees wouldn’t appreciate it,” Harkness said.

“So I created Mote Poh — a small book full of 100 per cent free items and exclusive discounts at favourite shops, restaurants and activities across Myanmar — to help companies surprise and delight their employees every month. Mote Poh makes employee benefits easy — just great benefits employees love, with no hassle and no big price tag,” he added.

Mote Poh claims it has benefits for every taste and budget, and it is an effective tool to surprise and delight employees — which makes it easier and cheaper to recruit, recognise and reward, and retain staff.

Currently, Mote Poh serves over 60 clients, including Yoma Strategic Holdings and MyJobs.com.mm.

“In the years ahead, I see us partnering with leading employers to help them build truly inspiring places to work, which promote health, happiness and productivity, and then recognise and reward employees for great performance,” Harkness added.

Harkness has over eight years experience building, funding and mentoring impactful technology startups in Myanmar and across Southeast Asia. He was formerly Country Director of Building Markets, an international NGO focused on building Myanmar’s startup community. His previous ventures include Ngwe.Su, focusing on prize-linked savings accounts, ROSCAs and other financial inclusion tools for the under-banked, and Next Billion, which connects positive organizations to the next billion mobile consumers via mobile video, apps, and messaging platforms. He was also curator of TEDxYangon (2012) “People, Planet, Profit”.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts from St. Olaf College in the United States and a Master of Laws from Monash University in Australia.

Based in Yangon, EME focuses on ‘tech-plus’ companies that are layering technology on top of existing networks and industries. Since inception in October 2018, it has made two investments: CarsDB, Myanmar’s leading online car portal, as well as Joosk Studio, an animation studio producing digital content for Myanmar’s emerging consumers.

Nest Tech invests in and nurtures technology entrepreneurs at the seed and early growth stages, focusing on the fast growing markets of Southeast Asia. Its other investments include TrophyRoom, a peer-to-peer football gaming app in Singapore; Edu2Review, an education review platform in Vietnam; and Flexible Pass, a health and fitness app in Myanmar.

Source from e27.co

Nest Tech invests in Flexible Pass

The health and fitness platform from Myanmar Flexible Pass has completed its fundraising round worth of six-digit dollar closed by Nest Tech, a VC firm that actively backs startups in Myanmar, Vietnam, and Singapore. Participating in the round were Seed Myanmar and Yangon Capital Partners (YCP), which is the investment arm of the financial advisory firm, Trust Venture Partners (TVP).

Nest Tech invests in Flexible Pass

The company plans to use the funding to expand into new markets such as beauty & lifestyle and to cover neighbouring city Mandalay, the second largest city in population.

Flexible was founded in June 2017 by CEO Sully Bholat, CEO and Founder of Flexible Pass, who told e27 that he “was very inspired” by US-based fitness class subscription platform ClassPass in the US. When he saw a similar platform, GuavaPass, emerge in Asia, he started work on bringing his own version of it to Myanmar.

“I noticed there was no one else who’s doing a fitness startup in Myanmar at that time, and I see a big market opportunity there, so I tried to start it to get the first-mover advantage in the country,” he said.

The difference between Flexible Pass and the aforementioned fitness class platforms is that in place of a subscription package, users book classes on a “pay-as-you-go model with reload packages.”

“Our initial model was like a subscription-based model like ClassPass and GuavaPass but we quickly learned that users in Myanmar don’t like the idea of the subscription model and putting a a maximum limit on the number of times users can visit a studio in a month,” said Bholat.

There are currently 3 reload packages available for users to buy and they are 30 points, 50 points and 100 points where 1 point = US$1. All the points are valid for use for 6 months from the date of purchase. Users can pay for these packages using cash or bank transfers.

Flexible Pass has partnered with 80 gyms and fitness centres in Yangon. It currently has about 500 monthly active users with about 2,000 bookings made monthly.

Flexible Pass’ users take an average of 4 classes or fitness activities per month. Bholat claims that users can save up to 40 per cent by booking through the platform instead of paying the walk-in-rates of its partner fitness centres and gyms.

“We have over 1,000 unique users of Flexible Pass so far and about 10,000 bookings have been made so far since it officially launched on June 2017. Initially, the usage rate has been low but we have seen a big increase in growth in the year of 2018,” said Bholat.

The low usage the result of a chicken and egg problem: the company could not get enough users as there were few top fitness centres and gyms on the platform and the centres themselves were reluctant to sign up as there were few users.

Bholat believes that Flexible Pass will be able to hit profitability in two to three years.

Flexible Pass was a winner of Rice Bowl’s ‘Startup of the Year in 2017’ and ‘Best HealthTech Startup of the Year’ in 2017 and this year consecutively in Myanmar. It was also a graduate of Phandeeyar-based Founder Institute.

“Flexible Pass has huge potential to become a major regional player in this sector with its disruption in the traditional fitness industry. We look forward to being a part of the growth and success of this startup,” said Soe Moe Kyaw Oo, Founder and Managing Partner Nest Tech.

Source from e27.co

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