![]() ![]() However, with the market already saturated with products like Skype, Google Hangouts & the then market leader Webex, investors were skeptical of putting money into Eric’s new venture. ![]() More than 40 engineers followed Eric and left Webex to become a part of his venture. Why were the customers unhappy? The product had not evolved to keep up with the times.įor example, every time users logged into a Webex conference, it took a lot of time to get down to business because the company’s system would first have to identify the version of the product (Android, iPhone, Mac, or PC). If too many people joined the conference, Webex’s system wouldn’t be able to handle the strain, leading to a decline in the audio and video quality. And not just that, Webex also lacked modern features like screen sharing for mobile.Įric tried to convince his bosses to upgrade the product for a year, but they wouldn’t budge. In 2011, Eric finally decided to leave to give a shot at the video-conferencing business, taking his new product in the direction he wanted Webex to follow. In 2007, Webex was acquired by Cisco for $3.2 billion. By that time, Eric had climbed the ranks to become VP of Engineering.Įric continued to work on Webex, which was now a part of Cisco, until 2010, when he realized many of Webex’s customers were unhappy with the product. Webex grew quickly & went public in 2000, riding the exuberance wave of the dot-com bubble. Operating in the space of real-time video collaboration, the company had half a dozen employees at the time. In 1997, Eric joined Webex as a founding engineer. Otherwise, I’m not going to stop.” He continued reapplying for two years until he was finally accepted on the ninth try. I’ll do all I can until you tell me that I can never come here anymore. The US customs misunderstood Eric as a part-time contractor because his business card listed him as a consultant. After that incident, the now-skeptical immigration services rejected his Visa 7 more times, but Eric did not give in. Let’s find out the exciting backstory behind what might look like an overnight success before we delve into Zoom’s’ Business Model.Ĭonvinced that the internet was the next big thing, Eric decided to migrate to the US from China in the mid-’90s. The first time he applied for a US Visa, his application was rejected. There’s no denying that the coronavirus propelled Zoom’s growth in a way nobody could have predicted, not even Eric himself, but Zoom was a successful product even before the whole virus thing happened. When Eric Yuan, Zoom’s CEO, decided to go after the video conferencing market in 2011, the market was already flooded with incumbents like Microsoft-owned Skype, Google Hangouts & the then market leader Webex, owned by Cisco.Įric served as the VP of Engineering at Webex when he decided to venture out independently. So why did he quit Webex, start Zoom & how did he turn Zoom into a leading video conferencing software with almost 50% market share? ![]()
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