Xuebajun
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Xuebajun (学霸君) was a Chinese K-12 edtech company founded in 2013 by Zhang Kailei, starting as a photo-based homework Q&A app and expanding into online tutoring. It raised about $150 million in venture funding. In late December 2020 its online courses stopped working and tuition became non-refundable, marking the start of its collapse.
02 / Xuebajun FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
The company burned cash on an expensive one-on-one tutoring model that never reached scale economics, while aggressive pre-collapse promotions locked in tuition it could not service. When funding dried up in late 2020, courses went dark on December 27, refunds stalled, and offline stores closed. The founder's January 2021 open letter promised he would 'never run away' and would not declare bankruptcy until problems were resolved — but the business never recovered. Its unraveling preceded the July 2021 'Double Reduction' crackdown, which later finished off the sector.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Founded
Zhang Kailei founded Xuebajun, a photo-search homework help app that later expanded into online tutoring.
- Courses halted
From December 27, online courses became unusable and tuition could not be refunded; two Nanjing offline stores closed.
- Founder's open letter
On January 2, 2021, founder and CEO Zhang Kailei published an open letter promising he would never flee and would not declare bankruptcy until the problems were resolved.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Online courses stopped working on December 27, 2020, with prepaid tuition frozen and refunds stalled.
- 02
Offline stores closed and staff went unpaid as the cash ran out.
- 03
The founder pledged in January 2021 not to flee and not to declare bankruptcy until problems were resolved; no recovery followed.
- 04
No audited loss figure was ever published; refund liabilities are not a loss measure, so loss_amount is left null.