Today we’d like to introduce you to Nate and Maryn Coughran.
Nate and Maryn, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Maryn and I love two things in this world. Empowering other people and our kids. We already have 3 kids and so we decided it was time to pursue our other love: empowering. After working with dozens of companies and hundreds of young professionals over the years, we started to notice a trend. Many young professionals did not have the skills to get the job they wanted or progress as quickly in a company. Unfortunately, many schools don’t teach skills and employers expect young professionals to already have these skills when they are hired. This leaves young professionals on their own. We decided to create a company to fix this problem. This was the genesis of our startup Wisdify’. Our whole purpose is to empower young professionals with skills and knowledge to dominate the world. We wanted to create a company that taught in-demand skills at an affordable price (because we all have student loans), whose courses were actually entertaining and engaging, and that cared about each individual’s success in all aspects of their life.
Before starting this company, we co-founded a successful on-site training company that focused on many of these same skills including data analytics, dashboards, Microsoft Excel, and more. That company started out as a side-business but quickly grew to a full-time commitment. The company allowed us to interact with companies in pretty much every industry and of every size. We also got to interact with hundreds of professionals and see the skills they lacked. Earlier this year we decided to shut down that company so we could 100% focus on Wisdify.
Maryn completed her undergrad at Wellesley where she studied Economics. Nate did his undergrad at Brigham Young University – Idaho where he studied Finance. He then went to Boston College where he did his Masters in Finance and Accounting.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We are 100% bootstrapping this business. That means the entire development is being funded by our savings and retirement account. This is really tough, especially when you have 3 young kids who are depending on you for their well-being. Every day you think to yourself, “I have to make this work, there is no other choice!”
Another challenge also revolves around the kids. Our family is #1 in our lives which means the late nights trying to start a company can put a strain on them. We have two loves, our kids and our company, and trying to balance the two is extremely difficult.
Another challenge is just learning how to start an online company. We are learning everything from how to develop a website that can handle online learning, how to incorporate and set up an accounting system, how to do social media marketing, how to hire, and on and on and on. We’ve made many mistakes and wasted lots of money figuring these things out. We’ve had some good mentors along the way, but ultimately most companies are unique and so you pretty much have to figure many things out through trial and error. That takes time and money, neither of which you have as a startup.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Wisdify – what should we know?
Wisdify’s mission is to empower you with relevant and in-demand skills and knowledge so you can find greater success both professionally and personally.
The way we accomplish our mission is by equipping you with extremely relevant and in-demand skills through our online bootcamps so you can become more employable and get a job you love. These engaging courses focus on skills like marketing analytics, dashboards, data analytics, financial statement analysis, and more. We also provide you with tons of free resources, including articles, webinars, and podcasts, to help you conquer the world. Our free resources include helpful items on navigating your career, interview tips, resume help, and more.
Our online courses are unique in that they are actually fun, affordable, and quick. We want them to be fun because…well who wants to sit through a boring course? They have to be affordable because we already have a mountain of debt. They shouldn’t have to spend a ton more money to acquire more skills. Finally, the courses need to be quick (6-10 hours each). We keep them short to cut out all the fluff and get to the heart of the skills.
What makes our company unique is that we don’t just teach skills like many sites do. We mentor and guide our students so they become well-rounded people and can find greater success. Another thing that makes us unique is our focus on millennials.
Everything we do is done for them and their needs in mind. Finally, our company is unique because of the bootcamp nature of the courses. The courses are fun, affordable, and to-the-point, the course also only focus on the most in-demand skills.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Being customer-centric is the most essential quality for us to succeed. Most of our competitors care only about selling you more courses, upgrading your membership, or upselling you to more services. That is the complete opposite of customer-centric and it shows when you interact with the company.
We want to model our company after the Southwest and Chick-fil-As out there that put the customer satisfaction above anything else. That customer-focus makes them successful. How we are going to be customer-centric is by: 1) empowering the “whole you” through our courses and also through our free material, and not just the “skills you”; 2) staying extremely connected to our students through social media and our blog so we can take their feedback and make the courses better for them; 3) work with companies to see what skills they are wanting/lacking so we can develop those courses for our students; 4) focus on quality, engagement, and style of the courses to ensure our students are having fun and actually learning.
Being customer-centric takes a lot of time and energy, but the payoffs are huge. Millennials (of which we are ones) don’t want to be sold to. We can see right through a company that only cares about making more money. We will never let that be us.
Pricing:
- Every course we offer will be priced at $49
- You get $15 off if you buy 2+ courses
Contact Info:
- Website: www.wisdify.com
- Phone: 617-997-3594
- Email: ncoughran@wisdify.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wisdify/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Wisdify/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/wisdified
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/11049509/
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