[Meet the Team Behind ZEP QUIZ] ① How a Quiz Platform Chosen by 100K Teachers Got Started

 In this series of interviews with the people behind ZEP QUIZ, we’re sharing the stories of ZEP QUIZ team members that have been with us from the very beginning.

“A game-like classroom” - is that really possible?

 ‘ZEP QUIZ’ was born out of the metaverse platform ZEP, used by over a hundred thousand teachers. At the center of it all, from brand designing to development, was one person, ZEP’s CCO Joonmo Lee, who stretched to infinity to birth this service.

 This is the story of how ZEP QUIZ started, the ups and downs of becoming an EdTech company, and Lee’s vision of the future of classroom transformation all around the world.

Making Learning as Fun as Games

Hello, Mr. Lee. Can you tell us a little about yourself?

 “I am the CCO(Chief Creative Officer) at ZEP. In a nutshell, a CCO is someone who creatively solves various problems for the company.

Currently, I dedicate most of my time developing ZEP QUIZ, working on planning, design, and development by myself. It’s a very demanding position to be in, so I’m always on the ground with ZEP QUIZ.”

How did ZEP QUIZ get started?

“There were two main factors:

“The first factor is that educators required an intuitive and clear education-based content creation tool. ZEP is a platform that a lot of people love, but it was too complicated to create lesson content without support. We had educators who spent their entire vacations creating one piece of content, so it was a challenge for our team building the service and for the educators to utilize it.

“As a designer myself, whenever I heard ‘ZEP is complicated,’ it was very discouraging because it is a designer’s job to make complicated things simple, so it was always on my mind to provide an easier and clearer way.

“The other factor is that I felt that we needed a new service that was specifically made for education. ZEP was structurally unsuited for education, and adding educational features to it would conflict with existing customers in different areas, so we decided that we needed a separate platform optimized for education.

For these two factors, ZEP QUIZ was born.”

What do you think makes ZEP QUIZ different from other EdTech services?

 “In my opinion, the biggest differentiator of ZEP QUIZ is ‘overwhelming fun’ - fun lessons that keep students engaged, and high engagement naturally leads to better learning.

“There are a lot of services that try to make learning fun, but I personally don’t feel that any of them are as fun as ZEP QUIZ. Whether it’s then and now, our vision is to make learning as fun as games. We achieved a great balance of spaces, characters, stories, and game formats that are educational and fun.

“Some might ask, ‘Can learning really be as fun as a game?’ and to that, our team definitely believes it can. Classes full of laughter and high engagement with students looking forward to their next lessons - that’s how ZEP QUIZ is transforming classrooms.

“In fact, we received testimonials from educators saying, ‘Students who were always sleeping are now focused,’ or ‘Disinterested students are now willing to review,’ or ‘Students are asking their friends to help them solve problems.’ Whenever we see these testimonies, they are indicative that we’re on the right track.”

A Service Crafted on the Ground

“ZEP was originally a metaverse platform service. It’s really impressive how you’ve pioneered a completely different space within it - education.

What were some of the challenges you faced in moving into EdTech with ZEP QUIZ?”

“The biggest challenge was that we were clueless when it came to the education field. We weren’t teachers. I mean, we didn’t even know what ‘event-based education’ was.

“So in the beginning, I went around meeting every teacher I knew - my wife’s coworkers, their families, friends of friends, cousins’ friends, teammates’ parents, and anyone else I could get an interview with. I always brought my laptop to meetings because I never knew where opportunities would arise. By doing so, I met a lot of people who worked in public education and went to events to gain more insight and understanding of this field.

The more I understood, the more I saw the challenges. The more I learned, the more I needed to know even more.

“From everything we’ve learned so far, we realized just how diverse the education field truly was, so we’re still actively listening to the voices of those in the education field- whether it’s the district office, schools, or teachers’ associations. Now that more and more schools have integrated ZEP QUIZ as part of their education system, there’s a sense of responsibility we uphold- that even our office has become an educational site.”

First Handwritten Letter in 12 Years in Tech

“On the flip side, what’s been a moment when you’ve realized, ‘We’ve done a really good job building this service?’”

“The most gratifying moments for me and the whole team are when we see testimonials from educators and students - a respite, like an oasis in the midst of intense working days.

“Among them that are the most memorable are the handwritten letters we receive from students. I’ve been in the IT industry for 12 years now, but I’ve never received handwritten notes from a student before.

“They wrote to tell us how much they’ve been enjoying their lessons with ZEP QUIZ, and I remember the whole team was so touched and encouraged by them. They are our treasures and something I hold with great pride.

There’s also something else that I love - the video reviews showing the students dancing after getting the questions right, and the messages we often get from the students in the customer support center saying ‘Please let me do this at home’.

One teacher wrote this in a review.

‘I had a student who wasn’t interested in studying, but during a team game, he was leading his friends by saying ‘Just memorize it, if you memorize it, you’ll win!’

Whenever I get testimonials like this, it makes me realize that ZEP QUIZ is changing the nature of classrooms, and it makes me so happy to know that the service we’re building is really making a difference.”

For Classrooms Where Kids Can Be Happy

“How would you like to see ZEP QUIZ grow in the future?”

“We have a philosophy for whenever we’re developing a new feature or map templates for ZEP QUIZ: ‘Game elements should help learning.’ We try to merge the game elements as educational as possible, but we also want students to be really happy during the time they spend playing ZEP QUIZ.

“At the moment, ZEP QUIZ has spread to Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and so on. It’s my hope to see it become a standard part of classrooms globally.

Additionally, we’re working on AI features that will really help both educators and students. The goal is to create an environment where students can learn by interacting with AI in a natural way.

ZEP QUIZ will continue to evolve to become more informative and more fun.”

“Can you say something with sincerity to the teachers and users who love ZEP QUIZ?”

“We at ZEP QUIZ are also a part of the education community, and we're building our service with that in mind. We will do our best to make ZEP QUIZ an indispensable tool for your school, and we hope you will continue to love it!”