The Success Story of a Widely Used Video Conference Application (ZOOM)
What seem like the sudden emergence of zoom as a video application despite the already existing similar interface like skype and windows is something we should know about. Although I am not really a fan of skype and the likes, whenever I want to do a video call with any of my family I simply use the WhatsApp video call option and that is not to forget that skype has been existing for a very long time.
In the world of invention, it usually seem like the big giants win over the entire sector, so if there are big giants in the world of video calls, why did zoom suddenly take over and succeed? Eric Yuan was an engineer who has the passion for developing future successful video communicating option, he was one of the core team who created the video platform on webex and it became one of the first successful video conference option, it was really successful at that time and cisco purchased the company for $3.2 billion. Eric Yuan kept on working with webex and the company grew so well that it was generating over $800 million in a year as annual revenue, even if the revenue generated was great the fact that webex had lots of flaws could not be ignored and the only reason why people kept on using it was because they had close to no other option at that point and Eric spoke to a lot of unhappy customers and had brought report to the management asking for improvement in services and basically because he was ignored, he quit his job at webex.
When Eric left webex, forty engineers decided to also leave with him and he focused on the problems customers always complained about while using webex and because he was focused on solving the problem, he had investors on his side and as at 2011, he raised $3million, two years later which was January 2013,he already launched zoom the idea was accepted so fast that by May 2013 zoom already grew to one million users and just after a year which was 2014, zoom’s user base already grew to 10 million users.
Things that made zoom unbeatable than other existing video applications.
Unlike skype which grew a video setting from audio, Zoom did not try to use the audio functionality as it moved straight to video. Zoom was able to offer more for a lesser amount. Rather than charging for tutoring, they have made it free. They take customer service very seriously, Eric himself will take time to personally attend to the tweets of complaints from customers.
By 2017, zoom was already valued at $1 Billion and at 2019 when zoom went public, it was valued at $16 Billion. By 2020, when the pandemic had people stay at home zoom was an application that was ready to be used and that was what produced the spike in the use of zoom during the lockdown.
References
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/27/tech/zoom-app-coronavirus/index.html
https://www.drift.com/blog/how-zoom-grew/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/zooms-runaway-success-carries-a-heavy-burden-11586172602
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/03/how-zoom-rose-to-the-top-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic.html
