HOW TO MAKE MONEY IN THE CODING BOOTCAMP MARKET?

Robert J. Shiller, an American economist, and Nobel prize winner, once said that

'To diversify your business is to jump on raising waves of new trends and technologies that attract investors' attention at a given time and reward with above-average growth rates.’

Right now, such a trend is to be found in the coding bootcamps industry. Intensive courses focused on the practical effects of the training attract more and more students wishing to become junior software developers. The market demand explains the popularity of IT schools – coders are a scarce commodity all over the world. According to the European Commission's estimates, Europe will need over 900 000 developers by 2020. Already, more than 90% of professional occupations require some ICT competence. In a situation where traditional public education is not able to keep up with these changes, bootcamps come to the fore.

THE MARKET GROWS FOR A REASON

Their response to the market demand is simple: in the shortest time possible, let’s equip students with basic but useful programming skills so that they can start a career in the IT sector and develop their own workshop under the guidance of experienced developers. In the case of Coders Lab, the largest Polish IT school, the trainees are able to enter the professional path of a programmer after just two months of the course. As many as 82 percent of the school graduates manage to find their first jobs in IT within a quarter after having finished the bootcamp. The reason for this is that already during the course, they are developing their own portfolio and creating their first applications. As a result, in addition to the diploma, they can present real achievements - evidence of acquired skills – to their future employers. Coders Lab also hires HR experts who prepare students for recruitment interviews and show how to create an attractive portfolio of programmers.

Coders Lab IT School was established in 2013. The number of its graduates exceeded 3,400 in 2019. 

- When we started six years ago, we were the only programming school in Poland. Now there are at least a dozen of such schools and the number of their graduates is counted in thousands. Coders Lab itself will train about 2 thousand of juniors this year. This is about 40 percent more than last year - says Marcin Tchórzewski, founder of Coders Lab. He estimates that as much as 5,000 Poles enroll in programming courses annually.

The Course Report portal estimates that the number of bootcamps graduates in the US reached 20.300 in 2018. The reported market value is 240 million dollars. This is a ninefold increase since the first survey in 2013! The dynamic development of the bootcamp market is strongly correlated with changes that are gradually occurring in the economy. According to estimates made by the Oxford University, 47 percent of occupations existing today will disappear over the next 25 years. The future labor market will be significantly different from the one we know. As demonstrated by this year's report of the World Economic Forum - 65 percent of children who are just beginning their education will work in professions that do not exist yet.

A PLACE TO BE FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Doesn’t it sound like an ideal environment for doing business? Running your own IT school is not only an idea for a profitable investment but also an opportunity to have a real impact on changes in the socio-economic landscape of your country. And, most importantly, now there is a way to undertake such a venture with minimized risk and limited capital investment at the start. Just use the know-how and brand of Coders Lab, which decided to share its six-year experience with partners on foreign markets.

Coders Lab franchise is based on an asset-light model, in which the investment in brick and mortar and other fixed assets is limited to a minimum. The existing companies can simply add the programming courses to their current portfolio and thus generate additional revenues. The franchisor provides all the necessary tools and materials needed to start a new coding bootcamp. Let’s take a look at what actually is passed to the partner as a part of the franchise package.

1. First and foremost, the educational materials. Coders Lab courses are run in 7 technologies, thanks to which virtually every franchisee can choose a portfolio of courses corresponding to the demand on its own domestic market. In the Coders Lab’s portfolio, both front-end and back-end technologies are available, which makes the bootcamp offer complete. In addition, you can offer classes in UX and testing. Coders Lab provides the materials in the English language version and constantly keeps them up-to-date. Programming languages, libraries and frameworks are constantly developed, which necessitates the regular modernization of the training materials. Franchisees do not have to worry about it, which allows for saving a great deal of time and money. Learning materials are made available through a dedicated portal that facilitates their distribution among lecturers and students. This portal is also one of the elements of the franchise package.
2. The HUB - an IT system supporting the organization of courses. While initially, at a small scale of activity, courses can be managed using a spreadsheet in Excel, at some stage of business development it simply ceases to be possible. Hundreds of students, dozens of lecturers, lecture rooms, school departments in various cities, exams, people responsible for organizing the course, terms - coordination of all these elements becomes a serious challenge. The proficiency in dealing with this challenge ultimately translates into the quality of education and customer satisfaction, as well as the level of costs and consequently the profitability of the business. Using the internally developed HUB facilitates everyday operations and allows for better control of the organization.
3. The ready-made website. Developed in accordance with the current UX rules, it helps the partner to acquire leads and present their offer from day one. The site has been designed in a way that allows for a comfortable adjustment of the content to the specifics of a given market. The franchisee can insert the content in the selected language and apply modifications required by the specifics of the local market. The website can also be freely combined with the selected marketing automation tools.
4. Apart from the marketing expertise, the franchisee learns about the tested sales process tailored to the characteristic of IT courses. B2C sales at Coders Lab is based on a consultative model. During the recruitment process, the future students talk to a course advisor who examines their expectations, answers questions, and gets to know their doubts. On the basis of the conclusions from the interview with the candidate, he is able to choose the optimal solution. Coders Lab also shares its experience on effective B2B sales. More and more companies entrust Coders Lab with the mission of recruiting and training junior developers with a specific skill profile. This shows that the franchised IT school can gain revenues both from the different sources - both companies and individual clients.
5. Marketing, sales, and managerial tools that a franchisee receives become complete only when supported by the appropriate training. Coders Lab provides complete initial training for the team of the franchisee. The staff responsible for the management of the franchised school is trained in the fields of marketing, sales, HR activities, and organization of courses. Lecturers and mentors will take part in test classes, during which they will be able to observe the work of experienced trainers and, later on, teach the classes themselves. On this basis, they will receive feedback and valuable tips on how to conduct the courses. The training takes place at the Coders Lab headquarters in Warsaw.
6. All procedures, know-how, and instructions of the Coders Lab management tools are described in the franchise operational manual. The franchisee has access to this knowledge base from the first day of operation. Its digital form ensures the comfort of use and allows for regular updates. The manual also contains a set of helpful documents, such as sample contracts with students or lecturers as well as sample commercial offers.
7. After starting his business, the franchisee will not be left alone. Coders Lab provides continuous support to partners, providing effective solutions based on its own experience. The partners are kept informed about all innovations introduced in the course program as well as new products available to clients. The franchisor also constantly develops tools for facilitating the organization of courses.

Use the Coders Lab franchise to enter the coding bootcamp market and you will not have to reinvent the wheel!

But be careful - even the most experienced franchisor and the best business support tools will not do the work for the franchisee. Achieving success in running your own IT school requires, more than everything else, commitment, and hard work on the side of the franchisee.

Learn more about Coders Lab IT School franchise now!