Have 15 Million Users, Ruangguru Prepare for Overseas Expansion Debut

Startups EdTech Ruangguru is currently preparing to debut outside of Indonesia this year after celebrating its fifth anniversary. The achievements of the last year have been solid Ruangguru for expansion. Co-Founder and CEO Ruangguru Belva Devara is currently reluctant to disclose further about this plan.

"This year, Indonesia will leave, in the form of a business unit below Ruangguru like any other product. But it has been [prepared], it is still a secret," he said, Wednesday (10/7).

To support this plan, fresh funding support has been announced soon. Belva said, the nominal amount of funds the company would get would be quite large. "This year there will be a [announcement] funding] and the value is great."

Final, Ruangguru announce Series B funding led by UOB Venture Management with an undisclosed amount in 2017.

Belva continued since the past year service Ruangguru quite "exploding" in terms of awareness among parents. Without mentioning detailed figures, he claimed the overall growth could reach 20 times. Users through more than 15 million students and 300 thousand teachers joined throughout Indonesia.

Interestingly, around 70% of its users are students who have never taken conventional tutoring lessons and come from the lower middle class. From the results of an internal survey, Ruangguru comparing students before and after using the app for several months, regardless of their family's economic background.

It can be seen that the increase in their average value has increased to 20 points. As many as 92% of respondents said their grades went up within three months of completing their studies Ruangguru.

"Indonesia has 52 million students. Now we have 15 million, which means there are still many who don't use them Ruangguru. In essence, how can we reach 52 million as quickly as possible. That's why we are intensively promoting on TV, recruiting brand ambassador, so that more parents and children know us."

In terms of B2C products, they are increasingly varied, such as Ruangbelajar, Digital Bootcamp, Roboguru, Ruangles, Ruanglesonline, Ruangread and so on. The quality of teachers is also improved, by recruiting them through search events. As a result, now Ruangguru have teaching staff in-house high achievers, top university graduates and Olympic winners.

According to him, the quality of these teachers is very important to produce high-quality content. Not only from an academic point of view, but also the teacher's ability to teach in front of the camera.

The reason is, teaching in front of the camera is much different than in front of the class. They are required to be interactive, so that students do not get bored easily. This ability is not fully mastered by the teacher.

Ruangguru have two types of partnerships for teachers. The video content that appears on the application is fully made online in-house by teachers working in Ruangguru. The number is claimed to be in the hundreds. As for the total employees Ruangguru was already at two thousand people.

In addition to the teacher who appears in front of the camera, there is also a teacher behind him who prepares all the content. They all discussed the whole topic of learning and how to package it until it finally aired.

"There is also a system that is paid by commission, for example for Ruangles products, so we pay commissions. So the system depends on the program taken by the teacher," CPO added. Ruangguru Iman Usman.

Through massive recruiting for teachers, the company has now revitalized video content to make it more attractive since 2018. The increase is even claimed to be up to 5 times the previous year. claimed Ruangguru already has tens of thousands of video content and lesson notes. Producing thousands of question bank questions and covering all subjects from grades 1 to 12.

Ruangguru also has a B2B product called Ruangkerja to train employee skills online. Belva said that the platform has been used by several institutions, such as Nestlé, Pertamina, the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education, and local governments.

"Because all these companies have the same problem, how can they improve the skills of their employees without having to send them off to study abroad."

Development of new features and services

Application Ruangguru continue to be enriched with new innovations and new technologies whose aim is to improve the learning experience to be more effective. Belva explained, there are features Smart Recommendations which automatically detects student weaknesses and provides recommendations for learning materials that students need.

"This feature distinguishes us from similar players. Previously, Ruangguru it's like library, have any material that students need. But now there are smart systems that can record what they do in the app and automatically make recommendations to make their learning more effective."

other features, Ruangguru Adventure, making the learning experience feel like playing a game. Users will have an avatar and they can compete to collect points every time they move. These points can be exchanged in various ways digital items to beautify your avatar.

Lastly, features Social Learning to make it easier for students to interact and discuss school lessons with other users. Also provided Live Teaching which can be seen through the application.

"This last feature is like Instagram Live, watching teachers teach live and students can directly interact."

The UI/UX appearance of the application is getting improved from time to time. Faith also feels proud, that the application Ruangguru received a rating of 4.7 out of 5.0 on the Google Play Store. According to him, getting this rating is quite difficult in Indonesia, especially for local applications.

Ruangguru last year it received a nomination from Google User's Choice in the ranks of the best applications in Indonesia, alongside Tokopedia, Shopee, Gojek, and Bukalapak.

Immediately enter the vocational program

The tit for tat after it was ratified PP Number 45 of 2019 concerning Amendments to Government Regulation Number 94 of 2010 concerning Calculation of Taxable Income and Payment of Income Tax in the Current Year, Ruangguru will take advantage of this incentive by taking the vocational program seriously.

Bella said the truth Ruangguru President Joko Widodo has been involved since the beginning. The President wants to encourage what can be done Ruangguru to improve the quality of vocational graduates with technology.

This segment is considered more challenging because the curriculum is different from what they usually use from the Ministry of Education and Culture. So to make the teaching materials, you have to look at various sources because the ultimate goal of vocational training is to prepare Vocational and Polytechnic students to be ready to work.

"We will soon launch this vocational product because now it has become our focus as well. Now we need to discuss with industry players and associations to find the curriculum that is really needed," concluded Belva.