"Getting laid off? I'll just go solo." Is this path still viable?

For a long time in the past, the education and training industry gave many practitioners a sense of confidence: even if they left the institution, they could still go solo based on their teaching, recruitment, and operation experience. However, today, educational products and services are becoming increasingly complex, and starting an education and training business is no longer a venture that can be successfully run by just a few capable people getting together. Although AI seems to enhance individual capabilities, it is also accelerating the competition between individual capabilities and system delivery in the industry. This article attempts to discuss why the path of "going solo if laid off" is becoming increasingly narrow.

"If I'm laid off, I'll just go solo."

In recent years, many people in the education and training industry have heard similar statements.

This statement sometimes appears in colleagues' conversations, sometimes at the dinner table, and sometimes after an organizational adjustment. Especially when news of business contraction, job adjustments, or even layoffs spreads, it easily becomes a form of self - comfort: I've been working in the education industry for so many years. I understand teaching, recruitment, and parents, and I know a few reliable friends. If I really leave the institution, I can just start my own business.

This statement was not an empty boast for a long time in the past. Many education and training institutions were initially established in this way. A teacher who was good at teaching, a campus manager who understood operations, and a sales manager who was skilled in recruitment got together, rented a classroom, set up a few desks, and started with acquaintances and old students. Gradually, they could build a class, a campus, and even a regional brand.

Especially those who came from large institutions naturally had a certain aura. They understood both the processes and the strategies, and it seemed that starting a new business was not that difficult.

However, now this statement doesn't sound as confident as before.

When one really decides to go solo, they will find that the problems are not as simple as whether one can teach or understand conversion. Where do the students come from? Why do parents trust you? How to build the curriculum system? How to provide services? How to prove the learning effects? How to handle renewals and refunds? Should short - videos and communities be established? Can AI tools be integrated? These problems will emerge one after another.

In an institution, a person usually only takes charge of one part of the process; once going solo, they have to face the entire chain.

Therefore, behind the statement "going solo if laid off", the real question to ask is not whether an individual has the ability, but whether the education and training industry today is still a business that can be run by just a few capable people getting together. AI is making individuals seem more powerful, but will it really make going solo easier?

I. In the past, going solo after leaving an institution was not only feasible but also quite viable

If we look back a decade or so, or even more recently, it was not particularly rare for many education and training practitioners to start their own businesses after leaving institutions.

At that time, although there was competition in the education and training industry, it was generally in a stage where the demand was relatively strong and the product forms were relatively simple. When parents signed up their children for classes, the judgment criteria were often not very complicated: whether the teacher taught well, whether the children could understand, whether there were recommendations from people around, whether the location was close to home, and whether the price was acceptable. As long as these aspects were okay, there was a chance to start a small class.

The entrepreneurial logic at that stage was also very simple. A good - teaching teacher could retain students; a sales or consulting manager who understood parents could recruit students; a campus manager who understood class scheduling, renewals, and daily management could support the basic operations. If these people trusted each other and brought some resources and experience, getting together to start a small institution would create opportunities.

Especially those who came from large institutions were naturally more likely to gain trust. Over the past ten or twenty years, New Oriental has always been regarded by many as a "military academy" for the education industry. There is a reason for this. It has trained a large number of teachers, principals, marketing personnel, and has also introduced a set of basic methods for the education and training industry: how to teach, how to recruit students, how to manage campuses, and how to communicate with parents. Many people who came out of such a system, with the golden signboard of "former New Oriental", were indeed more knowledgeable about the industry than ordinary entrepreneurs and were more likely to gain the trust of parents, students, and partners.

Therefore, the statement "going solo" in the past was based on the context of the times. At that time, the education and training industry was still in its relatively early stage. Although organizational capabilities were important, they were not so complex as to completely overshadow individual capabilities. A good teacher could be the product itself, a person good at recruitment could solve the traffic problem, and a person who understood operations could support the campus operation. Many people's belief that "they could survive outside the institution" was not blind confidence but was based on the fact that many people had succeeded in this way in the industry environment at that time.

II. Today, what parents want to buy is no longer just a single class

However, looking at the situation today, things have changed.

It's not that the education and training industry no longer needs good teachers, good salespeople, or good principals. It's just that educational products and services themselves have become increasingly complex. In the past, whether a small institution could succeed largely depended on how strong a few key people were; but now, even if several people have good capabilities, it's not necessarily possible to naturally build an education institution that can operate stably in the long term.

Because what parents are buying is no longer just a single class.

In the past, parents might have been more concerned about whether the teacher taught well and whether the children liked it. Now, parents still care about these aspects, but they will also continue to ask: What exactly are the children's problems? Does the curriculum match the school progress? Is there feedback after learning? Is there someone to supervise the homework? If the children don't study actively, is there someone to manage? If the learning effect is not good, is there an adjustment plan? And so on.

Behind these questions is actually not just a single - point ability but a whole set of delivery systems.

Teaching a class well is just the starting point. To really keep users in the long term, it is necessary to have stable customer acquisition at the front - end, a clear curriculum system and teaching standards in the middle, and operations such as homework supervision, feedback, and renewals at the back - end. Going deeper, it also involves curriculum research and update, teacher training, data accumulation, brand trust, and cost control. If any link breaks, it will affect the user experience and the institution's sustainable operation.

Many practitioners only realize after leaving the institution that their past success was not only because of their own abilities but also because there was a whole set of organizational systems supporting them.

A teacher could teach well in the past, perhaps because there were mature teaching materials, course outlines, question banks, curriculum research support, and class - type designs behind. A salesperson could achieve conversions in the past, perhaps because there was brand trust, advertising traffic, trial - class products, and a price system. A campus manager could run the operations in the past, perhaps because there was support from the headquarters in terms of finance, human resources, training, systems, and processes. When people were in the institution, these supports were easily taken for granted; only when they really left did they find that everything had to be rebuilt.

So, the most difficult part of starting an education and training business today is no longer finding a few capable people, but whether these capabilities can be re - organized into a stable system.

Getting a few old friends together still has the opportunity to create a small and beautiful project. However, if there are only people who can teach, people who can recruit, and people who understand operations, but there is no stable product system, delivery process, service standard, and customer acquisition method, the institution is likely to fall into a state where it relies on people to hold on in the early stage and works overtime to fix problems in the later stage. When facing problems such as fluctuations in recruitment, teacher turnover, and parent complaints, the entire system will become very fragile.

In the past, individual capabilities could support a small institution; today, individual capabilities are more like a part of the system. It's not that capable people are unimportant, but having only capable people is increasingly not enough. The requirements of users for the education and training industry have changed from "a few key people getting things done" to "a whole set of systems stably delivering results".

III. AI makes an individual seem more powerful, but it doesn't mean it's easier to achieve success

If we only look at it from the tool perspective, AI seems to give individuals new possibilities for going solo.

In the past, when a person started an education and training business alone, the most difficult thing was that they couldn't handle many things: writing teaching plans, making courseware, finding questions, grading homework, organizing parent feedback, and coming up with recruitment copywriting, short - video scripts, and community content. Even if a person had strong capabilities, their energy was limited.

But now it's different. AI can help generate teaching plans, assist in designing courseware, create practice questions, grade compositions, organize wrong - question collections, generate learning reports, and help write recruitment copywriting and short - video scripts. From this perspective, an ordinary practitioner can mobilize much more capabilities than in the past.

So, some people may think that AI makes going solo easier. In the past, when starting a business, one had to find curriculum researchers, teaching assistants, and operators. Now, with AI, one person seems to be able to do the work of many people.

However, when it comes to educational delivery, the problem is not that simple. AI makes an individual seem more capable, but it doesn't make it easier for an individual to establish an education institution.

AI can generate teaching plans, but it doesn't mean you have a stable curriculum system; AI can grade homework, but it doesn't mean you have a complete teaching closed - loop; AI can answer students' questions, but it doesn't mean you can guarantee the quality of answering; AI can generate learning reports, but it doesn't mean parents really believe that the children have changed; AI can write recruitment content, but it doesn't mean you can continuously and cost - effectively acquire accurate users.

Tool capabilities do not equal engineering capabilities.

The real difficulty in education and training is not whether a single - point function can be achieved, but whether these functions can be stably embedded in a whole set of delivery processes. For example, how to verify the content generated by AI? Who will take responsibility for wrong answers? How to accumulate students' usage data? How to adjust the learning paths of different students? How to make the feedback seen by parents both real and persuasive? How to divide the work among teachers, AI, and service personnel? These problems cannot be automatically solved by just a good tool.

This is also the subtle aspect of the AI era: on the one hand, it enhances individuals, allowing them to do more things; on the other hand, it also makes the system advantages of mature institutions more easily magnified.

Because institutions can integrate AI into curriculum research and production, teacher training, classroom interaction, homework grading, learning situation diagnosis, business analysis, and other links. These links are interconnected and mutually reinforcing. At the organizational level, it may even become a new set of production capabilities.

So, when a person decides to "go solo", their competition has also changed. In the past, you might have been competing with a teacher next door or a small institution; today, you may be facing an education system with a brand, traffic, curriculum research, data, a service team, and being enhanced by AI.

Therefore, AI has not brought the education and training industry back to the era when "one capable person could dominate the world". On the contrary, it is accelerating the transformation of the education and training industry from competition based on individual capabilities + AI to competition based on system capabilities + AI.

IV. There are still opportunities for going solo, but the era of going solo based on single - point capabilities is over

Of course, this doesn't mean that there are no opportunities at all for education and training practitioners to go solo.

In any industry, there will always be a small number of people with extremely strong capabilities who can create a small and beautiful project based on their individual capabilities. Especially in the education industry, truly excellent teachers, principals, salespeople, and operators are still scarce. Parents and students often ultimately trust specific individuals.

However, compared with the past, the threshold for "going solo" has indeed changed today.

The statement "going solo if laid off" can still be said today, but perhaps one should ask an additional question: What can you take away, just your fragmented experience or a whole set of capabilities for stable delivery?

In the past, starting an education and training business relied on a few capable people; today, it relies on a system. In the AI era, this shift from individual capabilities to system capabilities will only accelerate further.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Duozhiwang" (ID: duozhiwang), author: TCOH. Republished by 36Kr with permission.