History of the founding and developing of the international programming school CoddySchool
Background to the school
I spent the first six months in the ordeal. I contacted my friend Maria Samarina, who lived in Silicon Valley, told her my ideas, she criticised them, I told her again, she criticised me again. And so on. I even despaired for a moment and decided that nothing was going to work out. I thought that I would go back to «Sberbank», where I was marketing director in the Moscow office.
Then my friend Tanya and I started our own MICE-company. We organised it 50/50, as two co-founders. We developed the business, took part in tenders - things were going well. But I wasn't interested, because I had been both in the client's shoes and on the agency's side. For me it was a way passed - I had not experienced anything new. And money can't «push me forward» like that, at least not for me.
Working in MICE, I was involved in branding, including creating a logo and a website for the company. And fate brought me together with Dmitry Bilash, a website developer who was also involved in machine learning (I did not even know what that was at the time). We started talking to him one night on various topics.
He casually told the story about a programmer that he knew, who earns a hefty $950 an hour in the States, coming back to Russia for a year. He went back to the countryside, where everyone was drinking and there was no future. And there he set up a group of 15 children and taught them programming for a year. And the kids excelled at it: one started making apps, the other started creating games. I was very surprised at the time: "Kids? Really? It's complicated!" And he said so confidently: "Kids can do it." And I was really fascinated by that.
The format itself with the modular system is spotted in San Francisco. It was also a casual conversation with Anna, a former colleague of my husband's, who sheltered us in her house. We discussed many things there, including education - and she told us about her boss's children, who go to a public school where this system has been introduced. There's a standard pool of subjects, plus you can choose up-to-date in-demand courses, shaping the program yourself. So, the children already get specific skills at school and know where to apply to university themselves.
All these factors resulted in the creation of CODDY. So, it is not a series of things like waking up one day and having an epiphany. Most of all, of course, was influenced by Dima Bilash, who shared a real story about how children can do that. Thanks to him, I realised that I am inspired by technology and I believe infinitely in the potential of children. I remember saying to him while still on Skype: "Dima, I want to do this." And he was one of the first to reply: "Come on, I'll support you.” Even though we had never even seen each other's eyes.
In search of inspiration for the name, I surfed many American, British and European websites. I realised that the root of the word had to be related to programming - "code" in English. And as I was always thinking of children, I noticed the diminutive ending "y". As, for example, in the words "puppy" or "daddy".
I remember I was going to the kindergarten to pick up my daughter and Dima and I were talking about the naming. I said, "Dima, have you got one? Any ideas?" - "Yes!" And we said the same word "CODDY"! Incredible coincidence!
By the way, when I googled and looked up American "coding classes", there was no combination of "coding school" yet. I came up with the phrase "coding school". If we talk about the meaning of the word combination, it was the school that I wanted - many levels, subjects and courses, like at that school in San Francisco. And now any company that has several courses calls itself a programming school. They are not a programming school - they are a club.
First steps
At the beginning, the creation of CODDY was a non-profit idea. I wanted to make the project free for people, like in Silicon Valley - when IT companies sponsor such organisations, and children study for free. I believed in the idea of children and technology. I thought: if it goes bust and loses money, what have I got to lose? Well?
I spent the first month pounding on the wall. I wrote to acquaintances and strangers on Linkedin — I contacted various directors and owners of IT companies, people who do something important in IT. I even had an animated presentation I made myself. I wrote that children should be taught for free, that digital literacy and technology are important.
However, absolutely everyone said: "Wow, that's a great idea, but we'll pass.” And it is understandable why, even now IT companies do not have a strong interest in young children, because there is very little chance that they will go to work for you. That is why they are more likely to promote the topic of students. "Yandex” is a prime example, which does everything it can to look cooler in the eyes of students and hunt the best players from the market.
That's why everyone kept saying to me: 'No'. A sea of tears was shed because there was not enough motivation. And the two people who said nothing, try again, and somehow encouraged me were Dima Bilash and my husband. I even told them about some small successes that someone told me that I was discussing with such and such a company. There was a process, but not a result.
Then I wrote to Gora Nakhapetyan. He had been managing director at “Troika Dialog”, then moved to “Sber”, and plus he is all about business, about investments. I told him about my idea on Facebook. And he told me that it was cool, but that we shouldn't make it free, because the same companies would sooner or later run out of altruism.
That's when I started working on the financial model. First of all, I looked at what was on the market, what the price of all sorts of circles was. The average price in Moscow was 4000-4500 roubles a month. And we at CODDY started at 4000 roubles for 4 classes a month for 3 hours - that price was from March to September 2016. Now we have set the price at 6000 — because otherwise we worked at zero, if not negative. Classes are now 2 hours - optimal for both children and us.
I thought about the financial model for a long time, and it didn't add up - I was pressured by rent, which costs a lot of money in Moscow. I wondered what I could do to minimise it somehow. And then my original idea of making everything free came into play. I decided to offer companies the opportunity to study in their offices. After all, no one is in the meeting rooms at the weekend, and all we need are meeting rooms.
They have an IT atmosphere - desks, monitors, flipcharts. And for children to be inside the walls of a real cool IT company is a wow moment. And for many accompanying adults, too. And here it turns out that I'm not asking for the money I asked for before. All they need is intercoms on the days they don't use them. And then I wrote on Linkedin that I was looking for partners to start a programming school.
Many people responded to this post. But only two companies invited me to the meeting: the international digital agency Actis Wunderman and the Russian IT integrator IBS. I went to Actis Wunderman to present the project alone. I remember: there were 4 people sitting on my right and left and they listened to me so unemotionally that when they agreed, I could not believe my ears! And at the meeting at IBS, the HR Director and Deputy CEO told me that they had already tried it and it did not work. Let's see if you can do it.
So, then we put a price tag of 4,000 rubles and broke even, not counting the investment my husband had made. And he didn't give any money, but paid for the expenses: a video clip, name badges for the children, certificates, leaflets, balloons, some things from the agencies (I used to use their services out of habit, because I used to work in corporations). It was kind of a small thing, but he paid somewhere around 200,000 rubles.
At first there were just two people organising something: me and my friend Irina Gerasimova, who was head of marketing at “Mercedes-Benz Belyaevo” and was also on maternity leave at the time. And she decided to help out - to work as an account manager. She was in charge of coming and going, recording, communicating with teachers, and building relationships. I remember giving her the first receipts. And one month there were 50,000 rubles in earnings and I gave them all to Irina. This was important to me because she was one of the first people who believed in me and got into it all, too.
Stages of school development
The first year was rough. A going through purgatory. Like catching a black cat in a black room. Because there was no one to look at, we were pioneers. How long to do the class? How to promote it? Where to find people? And what kind of programmes to create? And why exactly will they appeal to children? And how to test it? We knew nothing.
Even in the States back then there were only basic-basic courses - mostly Scratch. I remember we added Python, and that was an achievement - none of the foreigners had it. It was actively being developed, but nobody gave it to children at the time, although now it seems to be the norm.
It's the same with the video blogging course. I remember how long and painfully it was born. I was afraid of parents saying that they would say that children spend a lot of time on social networks and YouTube as it is. But I also understood that this is new media. The whole world will move there. So, we made up our minds — we were the first ones to launch it.
If you compare the beginning of the journey with today - it has become more confident and clearer. We are now an international company, with branches in 124 cities in 8 countries. And, of course, a lot of resources are now being spent on scaling, interacting with franchisees, and automating and standardising processes that were in their infancy during the first year. And we are still trendsetters - we are constantly developing new courses and coming up with ideas for partnerships and activities.
Features of the business
We focus on four areas, but we are developing two more of them. The first is programming and everything connected with it: websites, toys, applications, clean code, Olympiad programming and so on. The second is design: motion design, Photoshop, Illustrator, sketching, and so on. We want children to be able to express themselves not only through code, but also through other digital tools.
Why are these two areas of focus? The programmer and designer work in tandem, there is no need to separate them; there are no projects without their participation. When we open Word, we see the designer's work. When we open Skype, we see the designer's work. This is the first thing the consumer encounters. And when they start interacting with the interface, the work of the programmer comes into play.
The third is soft skills. Any professional has to be able to communicate well with the team. That's why we have “The Design Thinking course”, which teaches how to think properly. There are courses in Internet entrepreneurship. We also have public speaking and acting courses so that children can open up their minds and get to know themselves.
The fourth is cybersecurity. It's a mix of programming and computer literacy. Today you have to know how to protect everything you own. After all, in the online space, not just your photos, but more important data can be stolen. That's why there are people called ethical hackers. They are like the police in the IT world - they find vulnerabilities, they fight off attackers. And we teach that to children.
In terms of unique offerings, our first pride came in 2017 - we adapted Harvard's CS50 course for children. It's official — you can check it out on Harvard's website. After that, we adapted Stanford's Swift course for children. This is the second year that we have had joint courses with MSU's HMC. The first one is creating chatbots in Python, and the second one is creating web applications in Python, which is more complicated.
Since last year, we have been creating joint courses with companies. We have two courses with Acer company, we are developing a course with Wacom, with GlowByte company - on machine learning, a joint course with Codwards. That is, we are striving to develop courses in partnership with large companies, so that children's projects can be adapted to reality and implemented, rather than remaining prototypes 'on paper'. There should be teamwork, a project defence and a jury. And the project itself should not be created just for fun, but to solve some social and commercial problem.
I am a supporter of turquoise team organisation, when you hire professionals and don't have to engage in micromanagement. Everyone should feel that they are not a cog in a big machine but that something depends on them. And I don't hire people from the outside for professional, high-level tasks. I raise them from within.
About mistakes, promotion and target audience
I have not specifically highlighted mistakes, but rather what I would advise myself to do in the past in the present. The first is to keep an eye on statistics and introduce analytics as early as possible. Quantitative, numerical, percentage analytics, comparisons and so on. The second thing is to start a CRM system as early as possible. The third is to standardize processes as much as possible. And globally, you need to trust and not trust people at the same time.
As for advertising, at first we promoted ourselves by "word of mouth". We had no money for advertising, so there was no SEO, no context, no social media. The company was promoted by word of mouth. The company was promoted by word of mouth, using my personal brand, i.e. me as a top manager at Sberbank, and Linkedin, until it was shut down. Now we use almost everything except YouTube as a promotional tool.
Our target audience is parents who are closely involved in their children's education, who are on the "same page" with technology. They themselves understand why programming needs to be taught. There are also those who want to solve the problem of gadget addiction by steering their child 'in the right direction'.
About the situation with the coronavirus and plans for the future
At the end of March, the outflow of students was 0.6%. But in April there was an increase: by 14.58% compared to March and by 62% compared to April last year. The number of group classes in April decreased by 20.62% compared to March. But at the same time the number of personal online classes increased by 128.89%. CODDY's total revenue with the switch to online decreased by 19.46%.
There are two main reasons - not everyone has internet and a computer at home for their child, many parents have lost their job or are saving for fear of being out of money.
The programs, length of lessons, costs and, consequently, prices have not changed. But for the parents' comfort, it is now possible to pay a one-off fee: 750 rubles for a mini-group class and 1000 rubles for an individual class.
As for plans for the future, I have two main goals in order of priority:
- to grow the team;
- to grow the scale in depth and breadth.
The main value is the people I work with. Not the people who work for me, but the people I work with. It is important to me that they grow, because their growth makes me grow. And all the rest, all the rewards, all the scaling, are the consequences. Of course, the development of teachers is important to me first and foremost, because it directly affects the children.
CoddySchool in numbers and facts
Year of establishment: 2016.
Initial investment: Around 200,000 rubles.
Cost of classes: 6000 rubles per month.
Geography of distribution: branches in 124 cities in 8 countries.
Average bill (as of 2019): 5900 rubles.
Number of students in Moscow: an average of 1,200 students per month.
Seasonality of the business: CODDY operates all year round. The most visited months are September, November, March. The least visited are December, May and August.