“Our Focus Is on Entry-Level IT Courses for People with no IT Experience” Says Alexander Eroshkin
Teach them they forget. Show them they remember. This aphorism matters more now than in times before digital invasion. With online platforms proliferating like never before, students are missing the live experience that on-ground classes offer. For someone with a non-technical background aiming to learn technical concepts online, this would rather be a Sisyphean task. Coding Invaders, unlike many other online Ed-Tech platforms, doesn’t leave online students at the mercy of digital interfaces. Instead, they adopt an engaging and hands-on approach to teaching. Analytics Insight has engaged in an exclusive interview with Alexander Eroshkin, Co-founder, and CEO at Coding Invaders.
1. Tell us about the company, its specialization, and the services that your company offers.
Coding Invaders is a professional EdTech platform that helps working professionals from non-IT backgrounds to switch laterally to technology-based roles in any industry. Incidentally, our entry into India during the pandemic was after experiencing success with setting up EdTech platforms in Eastern Europe. While studying the Indian market we realized that there are young professionals in the country who wanted to venture into technology from other industries but had no idea how to go about it. Either it was insufficient knowledge or access to the programs that could facilitate a domain shift, making a lateral job shift near impossible. We decided to step in here and lead the change by making technology programs accessible to interested Indian learners.
Once we had ascertained the level of interest among Indian learners, our next step was to develop the right product that would be simple to learn and apply in a real context. Through various interventions by experts from academics & industry, we zeroed down on the most popular programs that we could offer. Hence, we had our ‘Eureka’ moment when we zeroed down on the right product and discovered our formula for success. In a short span of time, we have grown 10 times, as we realized that our programs are a hit with students and young professionals. Presently we are focussing on entry-level IT courses that people with no IT experience can master in less than a year.
We offer 3 programs:
- Data Analyst is specifically designed for students who wish to join the big data revolution and start their careers as Data Analysts, Data Scientists, and similar roles
- Software developer (full stack developer) can help commence one’s coding career by helping a learner get a job as a Full Stack Developer.
- Learning IT from scratch, is the perfect option for those who want to build a successful IT career and increase their earning potential.
Going forward, we aim to offer all the popular entry-level professional courses in IT in the broadest sense including engineering, management, design, digital marketing, and others. There are a number of paths in the IT domain, and we would like to give our learners plenty of options that would suit their needs as they venture into IT.
2. Who are the Founders/CEO? What are their contributions to the company and the EdTech industry?
Alexander Turilin and I, Alexander Eroshkin, co-founded Coding Invaders in India. While I work as the CEO, Turilin works as the CPO at Coding Invaders. We have been in the EdTech business for many years now, starting modestly in Eastern Europe. We have been working closely with the industry to build an EdTech platform that helps young professionals from non-IT backgrounds to migrate to IT.
I come from a technical background having worked as CTO in Netology (one of the top-3 EdTech players in Russia) and Yandex. Alexander Turilin, on the other hand, is a serial entrepreneur and has over 10 years of experience in running EdTech companies. Prior to his entrepreneurial journey, he held leadership positions at Cisco and Netology (one of the top 3 EdTech players in Russia).
In 2016, together we co-founded SkillFactory which became one of the top 3 players in the EdTech space in Russia and later was acquired by VK (one of the largest tech companies in Russia). We are confident that our expertise and knowledge will help build an Edtech platform that will benefit millions of young professionals in India.
3. What are some of the major challenges faced by the company till now?
Stepping into a new market can be a challenge for any company or start-up. Our first challenge of course was zeroing down on the best-suited products for the Indian market. Once the right product was identified we had to figure out ways to reach our target audience, and connect with potential corporates that would hire our students. Needless to say, the EdTech space in India is very competitive. So, in some respects, many of us are vying for the same pie in customer acquisition and building the infrastructure. Our initial phase posed multiple challenges but once we set up our base, we have been flying since then. Our platform witnessed 10 x growth since the beginning of 2022. The right infrastructure, cutting-edge technologies, and good management systems helped us break the clutter and offer quality products. Our target audience which comprises non-tech professionals in the age group of 25-35, keen to migrate to IT responded well to our courses and learning modules.
4. What is the biggest USP that differentiates you from competitors?
In today’s highly competitive market, I don’t think it’s possible for different players to have clear USPs. It’s more about building ‘moats’ so wide and deep that your competitors find it too expensive to overcome.
Having the right product is most important – all other things pale in significance in the long run, if a product does not meet expectations. As entrepreneurs, we must build different moats that would create an edge and compete against other companies with great products. We feel that right now in professional education it is all about marketing and distribution.
We help our learners decide if it is important to have a certification or be assured of a placement at the end of successfully completing the program. Our bootcamp based learning also gives the participants hands-on and immersive learning experience which is unparalleled in regular degree or university curriculum. Our key idea is to build a brand that will cater to the widest audience and gain the trust and recognition of this audience. To achieve this goal, we will:
- Build a product portfolio that will cater to a wide audience, those without IT backgrounds
- Tailor our product to teach in a very easy and effective way – starting from the fundamentals
- Create a community of people who want to switch to the IT field and start helping people even before they have made a conscious choice to sign up for the course
5. What are your growth plans for the next 12 months?
Our goal is to become one of the leading players in the professional education space in India. We are majorly focusing on the boot camp segment where people study extensively for about 6 to 12 months and are job ready once they have successfully completed the course. We are looking at capturing the maximum market share in this segment.
6. What is your Leadership Mantra?
At Coding Invaders we believe that leadership is one of the key components of success and it is manifested in the way we do things. Each of our team members, irrespective of their designation, is equal and has an important role to play for us to be successful as an organization. We believe in empowering our team members and uniting them as a force working for Coding Invaders. As a new start-up, we believe in stretching targets but not stressing out our team members. Our work culture is ambition driven and we do not shy away from difficult situations. We strive to incorporate even the smallest of suggestions from our teammates which can make a difference in our offerings and in the way we function.
7. Can you throw light on the latest employment trends in the big data and analytics industry?
We are in the era of implementation of data science, as all the major algorithms have already been created and technology is at the core of it. The real problem is using such an algorithm and implementing it as per the need and demands of businesses and organizations. Right now, only a handful of organizations are using the power of machine learning and data science. In another 5-10 years we will see massive adoption of such algorithms by mainstream companies in production, services, and retail. Therefore, we will see a huge demand for engineers and professionals who can deal with these technologies. The industry will need trained big data and analytics professionals and the demand for data scientists, data analysts, data engineers, and machine learning engineers will increase manifold.
Teach them they forget. Show them they remember. This aphorism matters more now than in times before digital invasion. With online platforms proliferating like never before, students are missing the live experience that on-ground classes offer. For someone with a non-technical background aiming to learn technical concepts online, this would rather be a Sisyphean task. Coding Invaders, unlike many other online Ed-Tech platforms, doesn’t leave online students at the mercy of digital interfaces. Instead, they adopt an engaging and hands-on approach to teaching. Analytics Insight has engaged in an exclusive interview with Alexander Eroshkin, Co-founder, and CEO at Coding Invaders.
1. Tell us about the company, its specialization, and the services that your company offers.
Coding Invaders is a professional EdTech platform that helps working professionals from non-IT backgrounds to switch laterally to technology-based roles in any industry. Incidentally, our entry into India during the pandemic was after experiencing success with setting up EdTech platforms in Eastern Europe. While studying the Indian market we realized that there are young professionals in the country who wanted to venture into technology from other industries but had no idea how to go about it. Either it was insufficient knowledge or access to the programs that could facilitate a domain shift, making a lateral job shift near impossible. We decided to step in here and lead the change by making technology programs accessible to interested Indian learners.
Once we had ascertained the level of interest among Indian learners, our next step was to develop the right product that would be simple to learn and apply in a real context. Through various interventions by experts from academics & industry, we zeroed down on the most popular programs that we could offer. Hence, we had our ‘Eureka’ moment when we zeroed down on the right product and discovered our formula for success. In a short span of time, we have grown 10 times, as we realized that our programs are a hit with students and young professionals. Presently we are focussing on entry-level IT courses that people with no IT experience can master in less than a year.
We offer 3 programs:
- Data Analyst is specifically designed for students who wish to join the big data revolution and start their careers as Data Analysts, Data Scientists, and similar roles
- Software developer (full stack developer) can help commence one’s coding career by helping a learner get a job as a Full Stack Developer.
- Learning IT from scratch, is the perfect option for those who want to build a successful IT career and increase their earning potential.
Going forward, we aim to offer all the popular entry-level professional courses in IT in the broadest sense including engineering, management, design, digital marketing, and others. There are a number of paths in the IT domain, and we would like to give our learners plenty of options that would suit their needs as they venture into IT.
2. Who are the Founders/CEO? What are their contributions to the company and the EdTech industry?
Alexander Turilin and I, Alexander Eroshkin, co-founded Coding Invaders in India. While I work as the CEO, Turilin works as the CPO at Coding Invaders. We have been in the EdTech business for many years now, starting modestly in Eastern Europe. We have been working closely with the industry to build an EdTech platform that helps young professionals from non-IT backgrounds to migrate to IT.
I come from a technical background having worked as CTO in Netology (one of the top-3 EdTech players in Russia) and Yandex. Alexander Turilin, on the other hand, is a serial entrepreneur and has over 10 years of experience in running EdTech companies. Prior to his entrepreneurial journey, he held leadership positions at Cisco and Netology (one of the top 3 EdTech players in Russia).
In 2016, together we co-founded SkillFactory which became one of the top 3 players in the EdTech space in Russia and later was acquired by VK (one of the largest tech companies in Russia). We are confident that our expertise and knowledge will help build an Edtech platform that will benefit millions of young professionals in India.
3. What are some of the major challenges faced by the company till now?
Stepping into a new market can be a challenge for any company or start-up. Our first challenge of course was zeroing down on the best-suited products for the Indian market. Once the right product was identified we had to figure out ways to reach our target audience, and connect with potential corporates that would hire our students. Needless to say, the EdTech space in India is very competitive. So, in some respects, many of us are vying for the same pie in customer acquisition and building the infrastructure. Our initial phase posed multiple challenges but once we set up our base, we have been flying since then. Our platform witnessed 10 x growth since the beginning of 2022. The right infrastructure, cutting-edge technologies, and good management systems helped us break the clutter and offer quality products. Our target audience which comprises non-tech professionals in the age group of 25-35, keen to migrate to IT responded well to our courses and learning modules.
4. What is the biggest USP that differentiates you from competitors?
In today’s highly competitive market, I don’t think it’s possible for different players to have clear USPs. It’s more about building ‘moats’ so wide and deep that your competitors find it too expensive to overcome.
Having the right product is most important – all other things pale in significance in the long run, if a product does not meet expectations. As entrepreneurs, we must build different moats that would create an edge and compete against other companies with great products. We feel that right now in professional education it is all about marketing and distribution.
We help our learners decide if it is important to have a certification or be assured of a placement at the end of successfully completing the program. Our bootcamp based learning also gives the participants hands-on and immersive learning experience which is unparalleled in regular degree or university curriculum. Our key idea is to build a brand that will cater to the widest audience and gain the trust and recognition of this audience. To achieve this goal, we will:
- Build a product portfolio that will cater to a wide audience, those without IT backgrounds
- Tailor our product to teach in a very easy and effective way – starting from the fundamentals
- Create a community of people who want to switch to the IT field and start helping people even before they have made a conscious choice to sign up for the course
5. What are your growth plans for the next 12 months?
Our goal is to become one of the leading players in the professional education space in India. We are majorly focusing on the boot camp segment where people study extensively for about 6 to 12 months and are job ready once they have successfully completed the course. We are looking at capturing the maximum market share in this segment.
6. What is your Leadership Mantra?
At Coding Invaders we believe that leadership is one of the key components of success and it is manifested in the way we do things. Each of our team members, irrespective of their designation, is equal and has an important role to play for us to be successful as an organization. We believe in empowering our team members and uniting them as a force working for Coding Invaders. As a new start-up, we believe in stretching targets but not stressing out our team members. Our work culture is ambition driven and we do not shy away from difficult situations. We strive to incorporate even the smallest of suggestions from our teammates which can make a difference in our offerings and in the way we function.
7. Can you throw light on the latest employment trends in the big data and analytics industry?
We are in the era of implementation of data science, as all the major algorithms have already been created and technology is at the core of it. The real problem is using such an algorithm and implementing it as per the need and demands of businesses and organizations. Right now, only a handful of organizations are using the power of machine learning and data science. In another 5-10 years we will see massive adoption of such algorithms by mainstream companies in production, services, and retail. Therefore, we will see a huge demand for engineers and professionals who can deal with these technologies. The industry will need trained big data and analytics professionals and the demand for data scientists, data analysts, data engineers, and machine learning engineers will increase manifold.
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