As almost any education entrepreneur knows that education is an industry with a slow return cycle.

Since the activation of this circuit in 2014, the sub-circuit products such as K12, vocational education and quality education have emerged continuously.At the same time, it has run out of public companies such as good future, fluent speaking, who to learn from, Netease Youdao, and so on, as well as star companies such as VIPKID, spark thinking, and leader 1 on 1.

Affected by the epidemic in China in 2020, after the Ministry of Education issued the notice of “Extending the start of school”, the “cloud class” model has been almost opened everywhere. Online education companies have ushered in a small climax.

According to the survey data of Domatters,the number of downloads of online education apps showed a significant decline at the beginning of the epidemic blockade.With the development of the COVID-2019 epidemic in China, the number of downloads of several online education apps has soared along with the release of the notice of “school suspension，but keep learning”.In the last week of February, the six platforms were downloaded more than 170 million times a week.

But returning to the market,after several years of development, the hot areas in the market have been gradually locked in with the frequent occurrence of thunderstorms in education companies.The threshold of entrepreneurship in hot fields is increasing and the degree of capital activity is decreasing.In particular, the education industry has suffered another shock in recent days as good future revealed it had faked staff sales.

For entrepreneurs and small investors, in addition to facing the space squeezed by the market,the giants are also waiting in the wings as the market continues to squeeze them.

Previously, Pin duo duo launched two quick apps in succession: “Mathematical Formula Collection” and “Visual Protractor”  (which was taken down on March 13).Although these are only two static products, they also indicate that they are going into education.

ByteDance is also exploring the field of education. In the 8th anniversary of the founding of ByteDance, the CEO Zhang Yiming mentioned in his letter that education would be one of the three new business directions he would focus on.

In the past, ByteDance has successively launched more than ten products including the knowledge service category “Good Learning” and the online English learning platform gogokid, aiKID English and other products. While researching on its own, it also continuously acquires education companies. Although none of these products actually ran out of head products, Zhang Yiming said that he was actually “not anxious and patient”.

“The online tutoring market is very hot these days, and a lot of people are asking me about the progress of our business.I’m not really anxious. I’m patient. I think it’s still very early days and there has to be more fundamental innovation in the education business.”At the same time, Zhang Yiming also announced that bytedance’s education business already has more than 5,000 foreign teachers in North America, indicating that bytedance is not just targeting the domestic market.

In 2019, the online education industry is said to have entered the winter, with frequent thunderstorms and layoffs. One obvious change in the external environment is that capital has tightened.

“Cloud class” makes online education a small outlet.But in any case, the mainstream players in the education industry are still clustered in the head companies, leaving little room for new entrants.The giants come in the market with huge amounts of money and business, and they may not necessarily be able to harvest the industry.