Made $45K in 2020, but the business is in trouble, losing the market share. Help

[mousab]

Hello everyone

First of all excuse my bad English as am not a native speaker. I learned a lot from this great community, but now I want to share my story and asking you for help :)

I’ve started a business in 2019 and it has been doing well until recently , but I see that the future is not doing well as I keep losing market share and a lot of new business getting into my space to compete. Here’s a list of question that you might ask, I’ll answer it one by one.

I need your help in three things: 1-Increase the market share from %10 to %50 at least 2-Your feedback about the new business model. (See below) 3-How do I implement the new business model that I plan to make the business more efficient.

What is your business? I sell question bank for multiple local exams in my country. The website is doing something like https://www.pastest.com

What is the Market size? I target 7 local exams (One exam is source of 90% of the sales) Market size is tiny ( Max is about <5000 students/y)

Sales vs cost ? In 2019 I made total 123K , total cost about $60k/y This year as you can see $45K (%20 lower than same period of 2020) and the cost is $20K so far

Cost structure ? I use Upwork to outsource content writing (They make practice questions from old test papers)

The issues?

Many student don't want to join they rather review the past papers themselfs via study groups in telegram. (%70 are studying for free via study groups)

I can’t increase the market share no matter what I tried as you can see since jan 2020 I got only 500 of them and I tried to increase the market share by offering free demos , self assessment exams , discounts, lowering the pricing above all increasing the content quality.

What is your new business model?

I give away the questions for free and sell analytics and advance filters to go through all questions + ability to view their mistakes and so on.

Please share your feedback and tips Thank you

[mkbkn]

I have a long-list of questions that, if you answer them all, could turnaround your business. Contact me if interested, it's free.

Fact/Disclaimer: I use this questionnaire to generate big ideas for clients. When implemented, they see great and measurable results. I do not charge for the questionnaire. It is more of a homework for a client. I decide whether to work for the client upon reviewing the answers.

[digitaltrees]

Talk to users, try to see what additional problems they have. For example, if they are taking a test, maybe they need help with applications, or individual tutoring. Whenever you are struggling, talk to users. Figure out how to make the users LOVE you and what you can do for them. Solve their biggest problem.

After that, see if there are similar users in a bigger market.

[verdverm]

Seems like a market that is in a race to the bottom and consumers that are not really interested in spending money. Sounds like a tough market to be in.

I'd start making Edu games with MRTK (mixed reality toolkit) because I believe this platform will be significant in a few years and AR might be the way to reinvent a broken system that is hard to change.

BTW, if you do XR for something besides games, there is a LOT of money on the table

[mousab]

Hi Yes,it is a tough market. What is XR?

[verdverm]

A catch-all for VR/MR/AR. If you can get yourself a Hololens 2, highly recommended!