Ask HN: Tips for finding a mentor for a 'learn to code' startup?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15739403

by mrborgen • 9 years ago

7 7 9 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hey all!

I'm Per Borgen, one of the co-founders of Scrimba, a tool for creating interactive coding screencasts. Our goal is to create the worlds best coding course platform.

We've gotten a 14K USD grant to pay a mentor who can help us with advice on product development, marketing, and getting into the US market. The hourly rate is very flexible.

We're looking for a person who's got first-hand experience with building and launching successful online coding courses. Ideally a teacher and a developer.

I'd love to hear if people here have got tips for specific mentors or advice on how we can find potential candidates?

kayhi• 9 years ago

Look for people that teach or give presentations at co-working spaces or meetups. I'm assuming you are looking for someone part time.

mrborgen3• 9 years ago

Good tip, thanks! However, it's really important that they also have been involved in online courses.

Yes, we're looking for someone part time.

saluki• 9 years ago

I would try to look for multiple mentors with online course experience that just want to help a startup and use the 14k for runway.

Try reaching out to founders of similar services who wouldn't be direct competitors but might be interested in providing advice and mentoring.

If you get to know a mentor that would be a good fit long term for ongoing advice and support I would think about offering them a share of the company for being an advisor/mentor.

mrborgen3• 9 years ago

Good points! Yeah, we're totally up for offering shares as well.

Regarding the money. As it's a grant for specifically this purpose, it's not an option to use it to increase our runway.

Hendrixer2• 9 years ago

I'm not so interested in the money but I'd be happy to talk. I've taught courses and pretty much every top online coding site . Egghead, front end masters, pluralsight. I've also created my own online courses on my own platform reaching 40k students in 3 months. Before that I was an engineer at Udacity and Hack Reactor. Both of which are coding education companies.

mrborgen3• 9 years ago

Awesome, I’d love to chat! How can I reach you? My email is per@scrimba.com

Hendrixer2• 9 years ago

You can email me here scott@onespeed.io

Ask HN: Tips for finding a mentor for a 'learn to code' startup?

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