Prof Lun Borey, co-founder of E-School Cambodia, the country’s leading digital learning platform with more than one million subscribers, said recently that the company is eyeing Asean as the next stage for its expansion.
While making a presentation at the online event ‘35 Minutes on Business,’ organised by the Cambodia Securities Exchange (CSX) recently for the benefit of upcoming young entrepreneurs, Prof Borey said that a strong social commitment along with faith in the future of digitization has helped him succeed with the venture.
Prof Borey’s idea of success is simple. “You got to love what you do and believe in what you do, success will follow,” he said.
Prof Borey remembered that while launching the venture as a co-founder in 2017, the only thing he wanted was to provide the best e-learning application for students and he had the ample support of the Ministry of Youth, Education and Sports in this.
“Making a profit was not a criterion. And, Covid-19 was still more than two years away then. We went ahead with the vision of ‘one country, one digital school’,” he remembered.
Prof Borey, however, said that Covid-19 led to his company adding subscribers in large numbers. “But our motto was never to replace classroom education with online studies. We wanted to supplement classroom learning with the online app. Learn ‘Anywhere Any Time’ was what we offered,” he said.
Prof Borey reminded the upcoming entrepreneurs that they need to keep their fundamentals strong before launching a venture. In the case of E-School Cambodia, it was the expertise of the educators. “We had a strong team. I myself got the necessary experience from Japan. We ensured that we create the best e-learning platform for the country and this brought us the award for the best innovation app of 2021 from the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications,” he said.
Prof Borey also reminded the budding entrepreneurs that starting a business is one thing and sustaining it is a different thing. “Your commitment to the cause counts here the most,” he said.
The E-School Cambodia now employs over 100 people and has to his credit over 20,000 educational videos. Students up to grade 12 can access the online lessons from top professors at any time and from anywhere. The company is also now looking for potential investors for its Asean ambitions.
Meanwhile, Hong Sok Hour, Royal Government Delegate in charge as CEO of the CSX, also shared the successful business story of Duolingo, which is an American educational technology company producing language-learning apps.
The company, founded in 2011 raised funds in several stages to the tune of $183.8 million and also publicly sold shares worth approximately $521 million ($102 per share). Recently, the company was valued around $3.74 billion.
The purpose of sharing this story was to motivate and inspire local business owners to consider using the idle capital of others to quickly expand and strengthen their business ventures.
The ‘35 Minutes on Business’ is organised regularly to support small and medium enterprises, as well as potential start-ups. It allows business owners to share their experiences of successes and failures, and encourages members of the public who want to start their own businesses to get ahead with their dreams.
This article was first published in Khmer Times. All contents and images are copyright to their respective owners and sources.
