Today we’d like to introduce you to Andy Tiffany, Kurt Mansperger and Calli Rothberg.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Andy, Kurt and Calli. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
The company started as a Meetup group in San Francisco to introduce first-timers to coding after work. Even with all the resources online today, learning to code seems daunting to most people at first glance. A small amount of guidance can go a really long way when people are just getting started, and this is something we saw first-hand with family members and friends that would come to us with a curiosity. What language is best to start with? What does it mean when someone talks about “back-end” vs. “front-end” coding? Which online resources are actually going to be helpful? Our Meetups addressed these questions, and we gave people a taste of coding so they could see if they enjoyed it. Through running the Meetups, building relationships, and working at a coding school, we got to know the coding bootcamp space really well. We noticed there was still a major gap between coding curiosity and the level of readiness required to drop everything and make a full-time investment into an immersive training program. To gauge interest, we marketed a 4-week part-time “bootcamp prep” course to our Meetup members. There turned out to be a lot of interest, and that was the seed. Since then, we’ve been iterating on the product and making improvements every month. We are entirely self-funded, and we’ve been careful not to scale at a rate that would degrade the experience for students, but we’re now active in five locations, including an online class.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Our path has been a jagged line trending in the upwards direction. Our biggest challenges in the beginning were filling classes and generating enough revenue to stay afloat without seeking funding. We didn’t have the history we have today or the list of reviews to help convince people we were offering a legitimate program, so we ended up offering up a lot of seats for free. This turned out to be a great move. It allowed us to help people get started who normally would not have been able to afford our program, and it helped us build the history we needed to move forward.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with First Step Coding – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Coding bootcamps will graduate more than 20,000 students this year, across more than 100 different programs. Our core product is a 4-week introduction to coding that prepares students for bootcamps. Being prepared pays off, not only because our students can get into more selective bootcamps, but also because they come into their immersive programs at a higher bar. A number of bootcamps offer their own “bootcamp prep” programs. What makes us unique is that we focus exclusively on the prep stage, so we aren’t trying to funnel students into our immersive program. Instead, we partner with 9 select schools that offer generous tuition credits to First Step Coding alumni.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
Historically, we have marketed towards those considering a career change, but we have found the same content to be very relevant for further developing people in roles that interact with developers. Being able to speak the same language and empathize with the people you work with is key to a team’s success. We have begun doing corporate training with our existing introductory coding course, but we are expanding that offering to include other key topics that would help a non-technical person excel in their role when working with technical co-workers or taking on more technical challenges.
Pricing:
- $2,000 per student for in-person introductory coding course (Alumni earn tuition credit up to $1,500 when they do an immersive program with partner bootcamps)
- $1,500 per student for live online introductory coding course (Alumni earn tuition credit up to $1,500 when they do an immersive program with partner bootcamps)
- Corporate training is customizable to your organization. Pricing is determined based on each organization’s needs.
Contact Info:
- Address: 711 Atlantic Ave, Boston, MA 02111
- Website: https://www.firststepcoding.com/
- Phone: (415) 937-7634
- Email: hello@firststepcoding.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yourfirststepcoding
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yourfirststepcoding/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/firststepcoding
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/first-step-coding-cambridge-3
- Other: https://www.switchup.org/bootcamps/first-step-coding
Getting in touch: BostonVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
