Description
Today’s founder raised $1.2M because the investor found her apps on the App Store and now has the largest community of mobile code learners with over 6M members. She shares how she started a Microsoft accelerator, how a coding boot camp turned into SoloLearn and the importance of learning how to code.
Yeva Hyusyan is the CEO and Co-Founder at SoloLearn, Inc.
Show Notes
Starting an Accelerator
After Yeva’s team decided that having an accelerator was a good decision; they went into the boot camp business on the side to fund their accelerator activities. They started with simple training programs and then partnered with other companies who would employ the best student. It became a boot camp on its own as it is expanded immensely due to the increased demand and their partnerships. Students were attracted to the boot camp as it provided extra education and apart from the courses being effective, they were also fun!
From Coding Boot camp to SoloLearn
After trying a lot of things within the accelerator, they knew they wanted to do something new. They felt that education is something really big, is always needed and that they have expertise in the sector they were in. They have experimented so much in the boot camp that they learned what it took to hone good developers so they had an inkling of what it will take for their next undertaking. Their first product was a collection of fragments of YouTube videos which they would put together as a curriculum. People loved it as they just wanted little pieces of information and a lot of practice. Students didn’t want to go through books as they didn’t have the time and they really want to see that they are making progress while doing the course. It has evolved since then because at this time, they do not make the courses themselves anymore and they no longer have videos as reading text proved to be faster.
Show Mention
– Fav app: Wordament: (iTunes | Google Play)