The question is: "Are you targeting Westerners with money?" American, and I extrapolate to other Western countries, don't care much for education after a certain income level. I don't mean they dislike education. They just don't see it as a priority in spending since they already have a public school system available.
If you are targeting this demographic, you'll need venture money. If you are targeting poor Asian countries, you need savvy. These countries are poor. They know the value of an education. As a result, parents will pay for their kids to get an education if they can.
If you can target poor nations, then you have to get your product known. The rest will follow. You should be able to do this on your own, assuming you've planned a runway.
Just a few thoughts. The parent poster is absolutely right that people will not pay for education, as all of the failed tutoring centers outside of cities will attest to. I almost started one myself but caught myself before I lost a lot of money.
While they may not spend money on education, one thing that people will spend a lot on money on is daycare and summer camps(for the daycare). The brick and mortar classes here have a real potential to expand into full blown licensed after school daycare.
To expand, this could possibly be a franchise model, or possibly just be a training class for people who want to start something on their own. And then they can sell them class materials as well.
I would love to talk more about your points offline if you had the time. ben [ at ] the ktbyte website
Can you speculate as to how the venture backed companies' business strategy works? For the free ones especially, is monetization part of their medium term plan?
If you are targeting this demographic, you'll need venture money. If you are targeting poor Asian countries, you need savvy. These countries are poor. They know the value of an education. As a result, parents will pay for their kids to get an education if they can.
If you can target poor nations, then you have to get your product known. The rest will follow. You should be able to do this on your own, assuming you've planned a runway.