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Baemin Academy Online Lectures: 50,000 Small Business Owners Studying Hard for 1 Year

Professional instructors are recording online training videos for restaurant owners at the Baemin Academy Studio located in Songpa-gu, Seoul.

#. Kim Sun-rye (pseudonym), who runs a restaurant in Seoul, has recently been taking online lectures whenever she has time. Last year, her sales were cut in half due to COVID-19, and although she tried delivery sales, she faced difficulties due to lack of experience. Then, she discovered the Baemin Academy online lectures, where she could learn delivery business know-how, which helped her solve the problem. By applying what she learned from the online lectures, such as recipes considering the time until delivery to customers, Kim’s restaurant regained vitality. In fact, by adding delivery menus learned in the classes, her income increased significantly.

More small business owners in the food industry are studying hard to overcome the crisis caused by COVID-19. The number of people wanting to learn food delivery business know-how is increasing to alleviate the intensified management difficulties due to the resurgence of COVID-19. Especially, online lectures are gaining popularity among business owners who find it difficult to secure time due to restaurant operations.

According to Woowa Brothers, the operator of ‘Baedal Minjok (Baemin),’ more than 50,000 small business owners participated in the online education program launched in July last year through the Baemin Academy, a free education program for small business owners. A total of 250 online lectures were provided. Considering that Baemin Academy, which started in 2014 to provide free education for small business owners, had over 500 offline sessions attended by more than 30,000 small business owners until last year, the one-year online lectures achieved educational effects comparable to the offline lectures.

◆Learning ‘Practical’ Delivery Business=Woowa Brothers moved the Baemin Academy, which was previously conducted mainly offline with limitations, to an online platform in July last year, greatly expanding the scope and target audience. Although offline lectures saw more than double the number of participants annually and high satisfaction, there were limitations for those located in provinces or running one-person businesses to attend. Therefore, Baemin systematically prepared for launching online education over two years, built related systems on the Baemin Academy site, and set up a video studio for online content production at the training center in Songpa-gu, Seoul.

The content mainly focused on practical know-how that small business owners were curious about and could be immediately applied to their business. The more than 250 video lectures covered various fields such as menu development, store promotion, success strategies, labor, and taxation, receiving evaluations that they effectively taught how to run a business and how to cook and sell menus.

◆Promoting Online and Offline Blended Learning=Baemin Academy’s online lectures also signify that the platform company, which has been growing rapidly with a contactless business model amid the persistent spread of COVID-19, demonstrated ‘untact competitiveness’ in supporting small business owners on its platform. Baemin created an online education system based on IT technology that allows free learning anytime and anywhere nationwide. Users can click on videos of their desired topics on the site to watch lectures immediately and download lecture materials.

Baemin Academy plans to strengthen video content that provides ‘practical business tips’ to increase sales and reduce costs through online education in the second half of this year. They also plan to continuously promote ‘blended learning’ to create synergy between online and offline education. A Baemin official said, "After completing the first stage of education online, participants will efficiently combine online and offline education by joining interactive sessions with experts offline for Q&A or participating in hands-on training such as cooking and production."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.