Christian Patiño, Coderhouse | Bootstrapping and scaling a startup to millions in revenue [Ep. 27]

The audio and video are in Spanish. These notes are a translation.

Ten years ago, before Coderhouse, the recorded online courses from startups like Coursera and Udemy surprised the world with quality education at a very low cost or even for free. Over time, the world fell out of love with these courses, because they had a very low completion rate. In reality, very few people have the learning ability and self-discipline to follow an online course on their own.

In recent years, online schools with live classes emerged, and starting with the pandemic, they have gained a lot of traction thanks to high-quality teaching, at a cost significantly lower than traditional universities and academies.

One of those schools is Coderhouse and, today, we have its CEO and cofounder, Christian Patiño. In this interview, we talk about how he bootstrapped his startup to millions of dollars in sales and his best practices in online education methodology

More than 50 thousand students across almost all of Latin America have gone through Coderhouse and, to date, they have raised capital from angel investors such as David Velez of Nubank.

If you like the podcast, the easiest way to help us is by leaving a review with ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ on Apple Podcasts. It takes less than 1 minute and helps us convince the hardest guests to land, such as David Vélez, CEO and founder of Nubank, whom we would love to interview.

Youtube Timestamps*

Origin of Coderhouse

[1:23] - How did Christian get into the world of startups?
- Freelance technology projects in 2011
- Difficulties learning to program
[2:57] - What is Coderhouse and what problem is it solving?
- Live online courses in digital skills
- Few professionals in Latin America who are prepared for the demands of the current market
[4:53] - Types of Coderhouse students
- Complementing what they learned at university
- Boosting personal ventures
- Building a career in a specific field

Bootstrapping to Scale Coderhouse

[6:31] - Coderhouse’s bootstrapping process
- Few initial fixed costs
- Understanding the business model very well before raising capital
- Moving forward until hitting a ceiling
[9:25] - Radical change in Coderhouse’s business model
- A strong desire to launch an online platform
- Developing internal software and a platform for students and teachers
[12:30] - Why did Christian decide to apply to Y Combinator?
- Building a giant company requires financial help from other sources
- Access to contacts in Sillicon Valley and to an incredible community
- Greater global exposure and access to capital
[14:37] - Criteria for deciding whether to bootstrap or raise capital
- It depends on the impact you want to have: if you want to create a company with greater impact and growth, it is better to raise capital.
- If the business model allows it, start by bootstrapping until you reach a ceiling

Coderhouse’s Online Education Methodology

[19:40] - Why did Coderhouse decide to pivot from an in-person model to a live online one?
- Looking for a more regional impact
- By doing it live, there is a higher completion rate
[21:55] - How does Coderhouse manage to offer quality and accessible prices?
- Volume of cohorts of 100 people
- Tutors who support the teachers and provide support to 15 - 20 students
[26:14] - How is Coderhouse’s culture created?
- Always do the right thing and be on the student’s side
- Transparency with users

The Future of Higher Education

[29:03] - Will Coderhouse be able to replace universities and traditional institutions?
- Replace certain technology degree programs
[32:00] - Coderhouse’s plans to support its students’ professional development
- Launch of more courses and of a digital membership
- Implementing a shared-gains system
- Adapting the services to students’ demands

Tweet Round

[36:13] -
- Verticals where Christian would like to see more startups: healthcare and artificial intelligence
- Recommended books: High Output Management and Only The Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove
- Changes in the startup ecosystem: more ambition from founders
- Entrepreneur to interview: Guillermo Rauch

Episode Mentions

You can find Christian on LinkedIn

Recommended books: High Output Management and Only The Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove