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Coding Coaching Business

Idea threads

joco

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I'm a former Google engineer who wants to help other people learn to code. I'd like to start a coding bootcamp where you get once a week 1:1 personalized coaching instead of 6 day a week classroom instruction.
I think I can get people from 0 to career in 3 months - but I need to prove it.
My plan is to charge normal bootcamp tuition (~18k) and offer:
- Paying a 3k deposit upfront, 6k before the first lesson, and the last 9k after the 6th lesson.
- Continuing to coach people for up to a year or until they get a job offer, whichever comes first.

I'm essentially trying to sell the easiest path to a high paying, high quality of life career, for the same price as the other guys.

But I don't have testimonials and I'm concerned the price will scare people off.
Any suggestions for how I can get my first students?
Any thoughts on the pricing or the offer?
 
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Private Witt

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Make a deal with a first student at a greatly reduced cost and a plan to recover most of the discount back from their earnings. If you're charging the same price as the other established guys you better be able to show killer results and you're not gonna get a full price paid student with zero results to show unless you are some sort of marketing wizard.
 

joco

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Makes sense. What price though? I'd basically have to trust them on the earnings. I don't have a great way to verify their income or enforce them paying me out of it down the line.
 

csalvato

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I'm a former Google engineer who wants to help other people learn to code. I'd like to start a coding bootcamp where you get once a week 1:1 personalized coaching instead of 6 day a week classroom instruction.
I think I can get people from 0 to career in 3 months - but I need to prove it.
My plan is to charge normal bootcamp tuition (~18k) and offer:
- Paying a 3k deposit upfront, 6k before the first lesson, and the last 9k after the 6th lesson.
- Continuing to coach people for up to a year or until they get a job offer, whichever comes first.

I'm essentially trying to sell the easiest path to a high paying, high quality of life career, for the same price as the other guys.

But I don't have testimonials and I'm concerned the price will scare people off.
Any suggestions for how I can get my first students?
Any thoughts on the pricing or the offer?

I mentor people like this for free and personal fulfillment.

The fastest I have been able to get someone to go from 0 to career (e.g. no engineering ability to career) is 9 months, not 3 months.

And then they took another 3 months to convince themselves that they were ready to apply for jobs.

And we're talking about the kind of person who is supremely motivated. Most people are just looking for a panacea.

I do think there's probably room for another (unscalable) business model that focuses on 1:1 mentorship over churning out students for $18k-$60k (or a portion of their salary as Lambda school does).

But the cap on that is probably a decent personal salary for yourself, not a multi-million dollar business.

As a Google engineer, I'd expect more from you than what will basically amount to a time consuming side hustle.

IMO, think bigger and focus on software. Then mentor some people for free for personal fulfillment, if you want.
 
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Andy Black

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And then they took another 3 months to convince themselves that they were ready to apply for jobs.
Lol. I’ve experienced this too when I was helping IT friends go contracting. They had the skillset but didn’t believe they were good enough.

Same for folks offering Google Ads as a service. They don’t think they’re ready when they’re already ahead of 99% of business owners trying to DIY it.
 

Andy Black

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I'm a former Google engineer who wants to help other people learn to code. I'd like to start a coding bootcamp where you get once a week 1:1 personalized coaching instead of 6 day a week classroom instruction.
I think I can get people from 0 to career in 3 months - but I need to prove it.
My plan is to charge normal bootcamp tuition (~18k) and offer:
- Paying a 3k deposit upfront, 6k before the first lesson, and the last 9k after the 6th lesson.
- Continuing to coach people for up to a year or until they get a job offer, whichever comes first.

I'm essentially trying to sell the easiest path to a high paying, high quality of life career, for the same price as the other guys.

But I don't have testimonials and I'm concerned the price will scare people off.
Any suggestions for how I can get my first students?
Any thoughts on the pricing or the offer?
Coaching is hard. Most of it is untangling people who are in their own way.

I’m kinda with @csalvato. Are you helping a few people for free already? That will get you testimonials, and show you how to get clients. Maybe do that first, see if it’s for you, then figure out how to get paid, then how to scale?
 

klaipeda

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I bought a Flutter course (180$). The instructor opens a Slack channel, and he offers help to the students. I honestly think it could now jump to the next level offering a titanium course tailored to a small group of people. So the path is to start with free, sell a course, offer mentorship. The reputation is already built when you sell the mentorship.
 
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Private Witt

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Makes sense. What price though? I'd basically have to trust them on the earnings. I don't have a great way to verify their income or enforce them paying me out of it down the line.

Good point, I sometimes forget the world is littered with scamming leaches. I guess in the end you just need a success story that is documentable.
 
D

Deleted103621

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Macht Sinn. Aber welcher Preis? Ich müsste ihnen im Grunde auf die Einnahmen vertrauen. Ich habe keine großartige Möglichkeit, ihr Einkommen zu überprüfen oder sie dazu zu zwingen, mich später davon zu bezahlen.

Sie können eine Partnerschaft mit Banken eingehen, die Kredite (Privatdarlehen) vergeben. Vorteil: - Sie bekommen das Geld sofort - Ihr Kunde kann es sich leisten und in Raten zahlen - Die Bank bekommt Zinsen von Ihrem Kunden win win win
 

I Am I Said

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Same for folks offering Google Ads as a service. They don’t think they’re ready when they’re already ahead of 99% of business owners trying to DIY it.
geez @Andy Black we're all reading your posts and thinking you've probably got the planet market all sewn up
 
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I Am I Said

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I'm essentially trying to sell the easiest path to a high paying, high quality of life career, for the same price as the other guys.
Honest question here, do programmers actually make good money for the level of intelligence, focus and persistence needed? If you compare to a $38k secretary, sure, but to actually buy a house and raise a family, which is carefully ignored by anyone with a media voice but still the basis for strong nations, takes $130k minimum unless you live in the woods or accept a lifetime mortgage.

There is real money in coding as a secret weapon when you're a specialist (IE business analyst, procurement specialist, production planner, etc). In this case you don't need a degree or to understand the whole devops or engineering process - you just need to outperform your peers 2:1 by automating work.

I've personally coached colleagues from 38k to over 60k in 12 months by helping them get out of their own mental way, and teaching them to apply minor coding skills to solving problems on their own initiative instead of waiting for someone else to design software and feed them tasks.

What if you could do that, teaching business, project management and work skills as well as coding and get people on the path to actually constantly developing themselves instead of just finding a job?
 

csalvato

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Honest question here, do programmers actually make good money for the level of intelligence, focus and persistence needed? If you compare to a $38k secretary, sure, but to actually buy a house and raise a family, which is carefully ignored by anyone with a media voice but still the basis for strong nations, takes $130k minimum unless you live in the woods or accept a lifetime mortgage.

Junior software engineers can expect to make 70k-100k out of the gate, and be at 100-150k within 1-2 years of professional service.

After 2-5 years, 150-250k/year is more than possible depending on industry, company size and location. 350k-500k+ is possible in the bay area or NYC, and if you are a specialist.

On top of that, the jobs tend not to be demanding, allow for a high degree of autonomy, and are filled with dozens of alluring perks.
 

BizyDad

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joco

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Thanks a lot for the feedback everyone. I think I should probably pull it off a few times before I offer it broadly.
I'm thinking to start with a smaller, potentially easier niche. Helping current engineers make the leap in their careers from entry level jobs to jobs at FAANG/MAMMA (or at least jobs with equivalent pay.)
Less cost (maybe $10k?) for people with more money and knowledge (they already code) for a good ROI (potentially doubling their pay.)
If I can solve scaling (offer a course after, hire tutors, etc.) any other concerns?
 

Andy Black

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Thanks a lot for the feedback everyone. I think I should probably pull it off a few times before I offer it broadly.
I'm thinking to start with a smaller, potentially easier niche. Helping current engineers make the leap in their careers from entry level jobs to jobs at FAANG/MAMMA (or at least jobs with equivalent pay.)
Less cost (maybe $10k?) for people with more money and knowledge (they already code) for a good ROI (potentially doubling their pay.)
If I can solve scaling (offer a course after, hire tutors, etc.) any other concerns?
I like the idea of helping people already in motion. For a while I was going to help IT guys go contracting (in the UK), and maybe even take a cut for placing them.
 

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