Eric Yuan was born in China in 1970 and always had an entrepreneurial drive. As a child, he would collect and sell scrap metal to raise money for his family. This creativity continued into adulthood when a chance encounter inspired Eric’s vision for Zoom.
While riding crowded trains for 10 hours just to visit his girlfriend, Eric dreamed of an easier way to see her face and talk from afar. Years later, after moving to America, attending conferences, and working for other tech companies, Eric made this dream a reality by founding Zoom in 2011.
Through tireless work ethic, innovative ideas, and a focus on customer happiness, Zoom has become a multi-billion dollar company that conquered the pandemic video conferencing boom. This is the story of how Zoom beat industry titan Skype.
Overcoming Rejection and Language Barriers
After being inspired by the potential of the internet, Eric wanted to move to Silicon Valley. However, his poor English skills meant Eric’s visa applications were rejected 9 times over 2 years.
Finally, in 1997, he was sponsored by a friend’s startup WebEx. As one of their first engineers, Eric overcame language barriers through hard work. He quickly rose the ranks to lead WebEx’s engineering team.
Focusing on Customer Needs
WebEx was acquired by Cisco in 2007. Frustrated by new management ignoring customer complaints, Eric dreamed of building software that actually made users happy.
In 2011, despite everyone warning him video conferencing was too crowded, Eric founded Zoom to provide an intuitive platform for seamless video calls. With an initial $3 million raised from friends, Zoom was born.
Launching a Superior User Experience
Zoom launched its first beta in 2013 with a focus on usability and reliability. Users could join calls in one click with no account or downloads required.
Positive media coverage brought in 50,000 users overnight. By utilizing a “freemium” model, Zoom lured in enterprise customers who realized it was far better than competitors like WebEx.
Pandemic Accelerates Zoom’s Rise
Over the 2010s, Zoom slowly gained market share but Skype still dominated with around 300 million monthly users. Then COVID-19 struck in 2020.
With workers and families now isolated, an easy-to-use platform was needed. Skype’s outdated design frustrated users. But Zoom’s superior interface made it the obvious choice, propelling its growth.
Overcoming Scaling Challenges
Zoom was not prepared for such sudden mainstream adoption. There were outages, security flaws called “Zoombombing,” and criticism over ties with China.
But Eric and his engineers tirelessly strengthened security, rebuilt infrastructure, and listened to customer concerns. Despite hurdles, Zoom still became a $42 billion company.
Focusing Again on Happiness
Revenue has declined recently as competitors catch up. But customer happiness remains Eric’s priority. He believes remote work harms employee morale, so he cut his own salary by 98% and asked staff to return to the office.
By staying grounded in his original vision to foster human connections through seamless video calls, Zoom continues pushing new innovations under Eric’s leadership Zoom Beat Skype.”