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- 🤯 Zenith Learning Group: How Evan Heng Built a $30M Tuition Business After Growing Too Fast
🤯 Zenith Learning Group: How Evan Heng Built a $30M Tuition Business After Growing Too Fast
Evan Heng built Zenith Learning Group into a $30M tuition business — but hiring too fast and building too big nearly broke what made it work.
Admond Lee
May 10, 2026
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Hey Founders,
👋🏻 Welcome to The Runway Ventures (🎙️Podcast Edition) — where I interview founders and deep dive into their stories to help you become the top 1% founder by learning from their startup journey and mistakes with actionable insights.
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In today’s story, I invited Evan Heng to our podcast to share how Zenith grew into a $30M+ annual revenue education group — and the biggest mistake he made when he tried to scale too fast into edtech. Let’s get to it! 🚀
Today at a Glance:
🫡 1 Founder → Zenith Learning Group
⚠️ 2 Mistakes → Building too big before validating market demand
🧠 3 Lessons Learned → Hire slow, fire fast
🔗 The Runway Insights → YC: Requests for Startups (best 16 AI startup ideas now)
💰 Southeast Asia Funding Radar → ReN3 raises $5M (Seed) to scale enterprise agents AI across Southeast Asia
🫡 1 Founder: Evan Heng (Founder & CEO of Zenith Learning Group)
🌟 The Highlights
🇸🇬 Founded by Evan Heng in 2019, Zenith Learning Group is a Singapore-based education company that helps primary, secondary, IP, and JC students prepare for major exams through tuition, structured academic support, and a growing education ecosystem built around better learning outcomes.
The Problem — 📚 Singapore’s education system is brutally competitive, and many students need more structured, exam-focused support than school alone can provide.
Parents want reliable teachers, clear curriculum, consistent academic guidance, and a system that helps their kids improve without guessing what to study next.
The Solution — 🧑🏻🏫 Zenith gives students structured tuition and exam prep across primary, secondary, IP, and JC levels — with strong teachers, curated materials, clear lesson systems, and academic support designed around Singapore’s exam pathway.
🫡 Founder Story
Evan Heng started tutoring almost by accident in 2017 after a torn hamstring delayed his army enlistment.
🇬🇧 He used that 6-month gap to teach his juniors, then continued tutoring during army to save money for university in London.
By 2019, he had saved enough to go — but chose to stay in Singapore because Zenith was already gaining traction and he didn’t want to abandon his students.
🔥 So instead of becoming just another full-time tutor, he took a risky bet → rented his first centre for around $10k/month, hired teachers, and started building Zenith Learning Group to scale his impact beyond himself.
 | Zenith went from Evan teaching students 1-1 to supporting 20,000+ students since 2019. 🚀 Not just that, the company grew to around 14 locations, 100+ employees, and served around 25% of Singapore’s JC students, achieving 99% J1-to-J2 promotion rate, 80% O-Level distinction rate, and around 90%+ A/B rate for A-Levels. |
The craziest part?
🤯🤑 Before raising venture capital, Zenith was already profitable. In 2022, the company did $6.7 million in revenue, with close to 30% margins and around $2 million in profit.
💰 Later, Zenith raised $1.4 million from investors including East Ventures, TriHill Capital, K3 Ventures, and angels — not because it needed to survive, but because Evan wanted to build a bigger education ecosystem, including tech and regional expansion.
That’s the rise of Zenith.
A hamstring injury became a tutoring side hustle.
The side hustle became a $10k/month rent gamble.
And that gamble became one of Singapore’s biggest pre-university education groups.
🌋 The Lowlights
I was so eager to grow, hire a lot faster than I should have… that was a very big mistake that still haunts me today.
Things changed when Evan tried to turn Zenith from a profitable tuition business into an edtech company.
🚀🚀🚀 After COVID, he believed education would become hybrid: offline classes + online learning. So after raising VC money, he built a tech team of 15 at peak, hired fast, and went all in on an online learning platform with recorded lessons, question banks, educational games, AI tutors, and a full suite of edtech features.
But the market didn’t move the way he expected.
😵 Once COVID ended, parents and students still preferred offline tuition. It was more engaging, more familiar, and frankly, parents liked having someone physically there to guide their kids. So even though Zenith built what Evan felt was a good product, the market didn’t really want to pay for it.
That forced Evan to make one of the hardest calls as a founder:
laid off the edtech team
turned the product into an internal platform for Zenith’s existing students instead of selling it as a standalone online product
The mistake wasn’t that they hired the wrong team or built something bad.
The mistake was building too big, too fast, before the market had proven it wanted the thing. It was a big mistake made by Evan that still haunts him today.
🚀 The Comeback
That became the reset.
🧑🏻🏫📚 Zenith stopped chasing the post-COVID online learning hype and went back to the core business that customers had already validated → strong teachers, structured lessons, exam-focused support, and better student outcomes.
The mistake also made Evan more disciplined as a founder. He became more careful with hiring, spending, and growth. No more building too big before validating demand. No more trying to “burn” his way to success. No more waiting too long when someone clearly wasn’t the right fit.
And the comeback worked.
🤯 Zenith continued scaling its offline education business, grew to around 14 locations, 100+ employees, and is now doing over $30 million in annual revenue.
📌 Here’s the TLDR of Zenith Learning Group:
2016 — 🧑🏻🏫 Evan started tutoring his peers while still in junior college and discovered he actually liked teaching.
2017 — A hamstring injury delayed his army enlistment, giving him 6 months where he tutored juniors more seriously. He kept tutoring during National Service to save for overseas study.
May 2019 — 👋🏻 He ORD-ed with enough savings to fund the full cost of studying in London, but decided to stay in Singapore because the opportunity felt too meaningful not to try (he was right!).
Incorporated Zenith right after leaving army camp. A few months later, the first centre opened in Buona Vista with 50 students.
2019 — He invested S$100,000 of his savings into the business, rented a centre big enough for 3 classrooms from day 1, and set out to build beyond a solo tutoring practice.
Jul 2019 — 🕺🏻 A co-founder left after about 2 months, forcing Evan to continue as a solo founder while carrying a S$10,000 monthly rent commitment.
2022 — 🤑 Zenith hit S$6.7 million in revenue with 30% margins before raising outside capital.
Jul 2023 — 💰 Raised $1.4 million in seed funding led by Trihill Capital, with participation from East Ventures and other investors.
The company has 6 centres and over 40 teachers and was funding its move into edtech.
Oct 2023 — Zendora launched in public beta with over 50,000 MOE-aligned questions, 100 topic-based videos, an AI guide, and a parent app.
Early 2024 — Crossed 100 employees, reached 8 figures in revenue, opened 3 new outlets, and Evan personally stepped down from teaching to run the group full-time.
May 2026 — 🔥 Zenith had 14 established centres, over 100 tutors, and more than 30 head-office staff, serving over 20,000 students since 2019.
That painful reset changed how Evan built Zenith.
He became slower to hire, faster to cut what wasn’t working, and more disciplined with growth.
🔥 Today, Zenith has grown into one of Singapore’s leading pre-university education groups, with around 14 locations, 100+ employees, and over $30 million in annual revenue.
Not bad for a company that started because of a torn hamstring. Go Zenith! 🚀
Want to learn more about Zenith Learning Group?
⚠️ 2 Mistakes
Mistake 1: Building too big before validating market demand
If the market isn’t interested in it, if the market isn’t willing to pay, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. It’s not going to work.
The biggest mistake was Zenith’s edtech push.
📚 After COVID, Evan believed the future of tuition would be hybrid → offline classes supported by online learning. So Zenith raised VC money, built a tech team, and created a full online product with recorded lessons, question banks, educational games, AI tutors, and other edtech features.
On paper, it made sense.
But the market didn’t care enough.
👨🏻👩🏻 Parents and students still wanted offline tuition because it felt more engaging, more proven, and more accountable. Evan realised that even if the product was good, it didn’t matter if the market wasn’t willing to pay for it.
The deeper mistake here wasn’t “building tech”.
The mistake was building a full product before testing whether the market truly wanted that product badly enough.
Mistake 2: Not firing fast enough when early warning signs appeared
When I noticed all the early warning signs, I told myself, “Okay, I have to trust them. I have to give them more time.” And inevitably, what instead happened was they set the wrong culture, they built the wrong systems, and the mistakes that they made were even harder to correct.
⚠️ Evan said he believes in “hire slow, fire fast”. But in practice, when he saw early signals that certain hires weren’t working, he gave them more time, more trust, and more chances.
The intention was good.
He wanted to be fair. He wanted to trust people. He didn’t want to be too cutthroat.
But the cost was high.
👺 The wrong people didn’t just underperform — they shaped the wrong culture, built the wrong systems, and created problems that became harder to undo later.
This is painful because founders often think firing is just a people decision. But in reality, it’s also a culture decision, a speed decision, and a company direction decision.
🧠 3 Lessons Learned
Lesson 1: Validate before you build
Zenith’s edtech mistake wasn’t that the product was bad. It was that they built too much before proving the market really wanted it.
Don’t build what sounds strategically right. Build what customers are already pulling from you.
🌮 Key Takeaways:
A good product can still fail if the market doesn’t want to pay for it.
In education, parents don’t buy “better tech”. They buy confidence, results, and accountability.
Before building a full product, test whether customers will pay for the MVP.
🛠️ Operator Playbook:
🦠 Test the new behaviour (not the old one)
Zenith already knew parents would pay for tuition.
What they needed to test was: Will parents pay for an online-only product without the offline classroom?
🤑 Sell the smallest online-only product first
Example: “$49/month access to JC Math recorded lessons + question bank.”
Or: “AI tutor add-on for existing students at $19/month.”
🚦 Track real buying signals
Did parents pay without bundling it into tuition?
Did students use it weekly?
Did they still want it when offline classes were available?
Set a kill rule before building big.
Lesson 2: Hire slow, fire fast
As a founder, it’s extremely painful to fire someone whom you hired. But sometimes doing the right thing is the right thing to do.
Firing fast is not about being ruthless. It’s about protecting the company before the wrong standards become normal.
🌮 Key Takeaways:
A bad hire doesn’t just cost salary. They cost time, culture, morale, and execution speed.
The longer you delay the hard decision, the more expensive the cleanup becomes.
In a people-heavy business like education, your team is the product. One wrong teacher, manager, or leader can hurt student experience, parent trust, and internal culture.
🛠️ Operator Playbook:
🧪 Use EOS’ “Right Person, Right Seat” test
Right Person: Do they live your company values?
Right Seat: Do they Get it, Want it, and have Capacity to do it?
🎯 Turn people decisions into a scorecard
Don’t wait until emotions take over. Every quarter, ask:
Are they raising the standard?
Are they creating clarity or confusion?
Would I fight to keep them if they resigned?
🔥 Move fast when the signal is clear
If they fail on values, cut fast.
If they fit the values but not the role, move them to a better seat.
If they still can’t perform, let them go.
Resource → 📕 Read Traction by Gino Wickman. It breaks down EOS, including the “Right Person, Right Seat” framework, GWC, accountability charts, scorecards, and meeting rhythms founders can use to run the company with more discipline.
Lesson 3: Enjoy the process (not just outcome)
This is more personal. When I asked Evan what he would tell to his younger self, here’s what he shared:
I would tell him to enjoy the process a lot more… the entire first 4 or 5 years of building the company, I was just so focused on the outcome.
Don’t sacrifice your whole life just to reach a milestone you may not even enjoy when you get there.
🌮 Key Takeaways:
Outcomes matter, but they shouldn’t be the only thing you live for.
If you delay your health, relationships, and happiness until “after we hit the next milestone”, there will always be another milestone.
🛠️ Operator Playbook:
🎯 Set your goal. Then set your anti-goal.
Your goal is what you want to achieve.
Your anti-goal is what you refuse to become while achieving it.
Example:
Goal: Grow your company to $10M revenue.
Anti-goal: Become unhealthy, absent from relationships, and unable to enjoy the process.
🥳 Celebrate process wins (not just business wins)
Not every win has to be revenue. Celebrate:
A great class delivered
A strong hire onboarded
A customer success story
A hard conversation handled well
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That’s all for today
Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed today's issue. More than that, I hope you’ve learned some actionable tips to build and grow your business.
You can always write to me by simply replying to this newsletter and we can chat.
See you again next week.
- Admond
Disclaimer: The Runway Ventures content is for informational purposes only. Unless otherwise stated, any opinions expressed above belong solely to the author.
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