When I first came across the Malaysian education market, MyClaaz, my first thought was to try too.
It seemed to be contracted for students of all ages and to welcome coaches of any subject, be it school or more professional like compliance and investment. My second thought was, who was he trying to target then?
But the founder dr. Zaharuddin said this was intentional. At first, he targeted school students, but he realized that it was too typical and narrow for the target.
And he’s right. Browse your own Vulcan Post category of education and you would find more articles on education markets aimed at school students, many of which have been written in recent years.
That, however, was not the only question. Dr. Zaharuddin said they even went so far as to analyze existing edutech platforms that have certain target revenues and realized that those numbers were not good enough for his team.
Furthermore, he wanted to emulate the concept of e-commerce catering to a wider audience with an appropriate scale of offerings, citing Udemy, Coursera and Teachable as some global examples.
Creating pandemic opportunities
On paper, that sounded good. However, in practice, Dr. Zaharuddin acknowledged that this is a big challenge, especially with a limited amount of capital.
In order to manage costs efficiently, it set priorities well and first boarded coaches, teachers and educators. What followed was events that created awareness of MyClaaz, thus attracting registered members.
When the stock market crashed in March 2020, MyClaaz also used it to organize events that showed how it could be an alternative way to make money for qualified people. In return, he brought a significant crowd to the place.
Looking at MyClaaz, coaches (we will use this as an umbrella term) can provide a variety of services, from individual (physical) classes to video calls, videos and exams, etc. The experience seems pretty standard for most of the education marketplace.
MyClaaz is not an idea born of a pandemic, and hence its individual class. But the pandemic changed its plans. With new features like event creations, coaches no longer have to rely on individual lessons to make money.
“It could take years,” Dr. Zaharuddin said, earning money from physical education classes, “so we encourage coaches to sell tickets for educational events, e-books and videos. Each sale will give us a percentage similar to when a coach completes a lesson. “
Build the quality of your offer
Like any other product sold online, quality is often a concern, perhaps even more so when it comes to education. The website is a registered training provider within the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF), and MyClaaz has some basic verification procedures in place.
Dr. Zaharuddin explained: “At the current stage, we cannot be too strict because we are new. Too many restrictions will leave us with a small number of coaches, so the only verification procedures for coaches are their identity [verification] and certificates of qualifications for uploading to the platform. “After that, they will receive a certified badge.
At the same time, MyClaaz works with school administrators, universities and colleges to find quality trainers and lecturers.
If a coach somehow bypasses a MyClaaz check and students send true reports of a false qualification or harmful event, the site withholds the coach’s payment and returns it to the student. The coach’s account will also be deactivated, in accordance with the Terms.
Coaches can currently set their own fees, and some also offer RM10 disposable watches, and MyClaaz takes a 20% discount on each transaction.
Although this freedom benefits coaches, it still poses a potential risk of overcharging, which MyClaaz should keep an eye on.
Nonetheless, for each subject there are a number of lecturers to choose from, so students should be able to research independently before deciding who to book.
Persevere through skepticism as a new place
For his first financial year after launching in June 2020, Dr. Zaharuddin announced that MyClaaz is close to generating revenue of one million RM. Over 14,000 transactions were performed by users from more than 20 countries.
One of the biggest challenges for the team was the slow conversion rate, despite providing coaches with benefits such as easy gateways. Despite this, others. Zaharuddin is not discouraged.
“I think it’s a bit normal when people try something new and unknown. Other digital platforms face the same challenges – skepticism, suspicion, etc. Some of these platforms survive and some do not. We hope to survive, “he said.
Moving forward, it plans to provide the system as a SaaS with minor modifications to suit the needs of future customers, and to establish MyClaaz in other countries as well.
They include Nigeria, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei and India, but of course, with the pandemic slowing down, MyClaaz will first strengthen its foothold in Malaysia.
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Based on the MyClaaz labeling, it is clear that it wants to be different from many other edutech sites that mainly serve school students.
Classes that teach more advanced subjects like stock, investment, and business management are also likely to bring in higher income per student, so it makes sense that this is an area MyClaaz wants to take advantage of.
Although the site is not short on offer, it may be able to introduce a check box-based filtering system to improve its usefulness. Currently, to get to a particular topic, the user has to hover over a bunch of drop-down links multiple times, which is slower and prone to wrong clicks.
As MyClaaz grows, the team may find the need to tighten its verification procedures and set a healthy price range for different classes as well.
MyClaaz can stand out in one way if its trainers can skillfully localize their subjects. For example, investing or managing a business in the context of Malaysia, taking into account the different regulations or attitudes that exist.
Credits for prominent paintings: dr. Zaharuddin, founder and editor-in-chief of MyClaaz
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