Inside Zoom: From 2011 to Now Into a $160 million business
Founders: Eric Yuan
Founded Year: 2011
Investors: Sequoia Capital, Emergence Capital, Yuan Ventures
Funding Raised: $160 million
What Is the business model of Zoom?
Video conferencing software offering HD virtual meetings and webinars with a freemium model for basic use and paid plans for advanced features
How Zoom got started?
Founded by Yuan after he left Cisco Webex to build a more user-friendly video meeting service, he wrote the initial code himself and launched Zoom in 2013 to a crowded market
what growth strategy has Zoom followed?
Grew largely through word-of-mouth and a superior product quality especially for group calls, eventually becoming ubiquitous during the pandemic which cemented its position globally
what are the top products/features of Zoom
Zoom Meetings app, Zoom Webinars, Zoom Phone, Zoom Rooms
what was the biggest challenge faced by Zoom?
Massive overnight scaling and security/privacy issues during the COVID-19 pandemic, when usage exploded 30x and incidents like “Zoombombing” forced the company to quickly address vulnerabilities