We launched a mobile lemonade stand and it went global in a matter of hours!
The Tale Of LemonAlong — Our First TradeCraft Simulation
When we launched Corsair’s TradeCraft for BETA testing in mid-February, we had a goal of 50 users within a few weeks. We ended up closing the signup window after 125 users and just a little over a week. Pretty impressive for a lemonade stand.
What surprised us most, however, is the global interest in our product. We are based on the East Coast of the United States, so we expected to get quite a few signups among our local student communities, friends, and colleagues. If anything, we were a little upset not to get more uptake in NY, Chicago, and Silicon Valley.
But when, just a few days in, we had hours where our platform was being used on five different continents simultaneously… well, that was something we didn’t expect. But perhaps you need to understand a little more about our lemonade stand to realize why?
LemonAlong is not your grandmother’s lemonade stand. Actually, it is not really a lemonade stand at all. It is 100% virtual and simulated, although you would never know by pouring through the thousands of transaction records, payment logs, and email results files.
LemonAlong is a simulation built to allow aspiring Data & Analytics professionals to learn and practice in a real-world environment. Our subscribers are provided access to LemonAlong’s data as if they were an entry level analyst or intern working for the company. They are expected to use ETL techniques, develop SQL coding, read spreadsheets, develop pivot tables, and provide actual insights into the performance of the company.
Analyst subscribers are introduced to Mike & Molly, LemonAlong’s fictional owners via a Business Overview. They are provided deep context into the workings of this entrepreneurial team, including but not limited to their education, their personal biases, their aspirations for their company, and various marketing tests and product experiments they have tried along the way. This is not sample data. It is not a YouTube video (although we use those on occasion), and this is not some vanilla case study. It is real-world data, real-world challenges, and as close to real-world personalities as we can make it!
BETA & Early Access
This is a very different way to learn. Simulations are not common in the data and analytics education space. But users learn a lot about the quirks of real-world situations. Many of our users were not given a SQL IDE tool until several days into their training.
Much like your favorite PC or mobile game — this simulation is early access. New tools, new exercises, and new data are being introduced regularly. But then, isn’t that exactly what a real-world data and analytic position is like? If you join a company that isn’t changing, you better keep your resume up-to-date. You should also consider how much you could actually be learning…
Of course, some of you would just be happy to have ANY position. Despite massive demand in this industry, it is really difficult to land that first analytics opportunity. Colleges, boot camps, and Khan Academy videos just don’t provide the experience you need to secure a great opportunity. TradeCraft has arrived to fix that! LemonAlong was our first experiment. And it proved to be a great one… one that is still open for anyone interested.
But we are busy building our your next opportunity to train, learn, and engage with real-world data. PayThruUs is a virtual and simulated mobile payments company. While LemonAlong offered a solid education for a business or data analyst, PayThruUs will offer lines of training for financial analysts and business intelligence analysts as well!
Where LemonAlong offered users access to thousands of records and a half dozen data tables, PayThruUs will expose subscribers to millions of records and a database of dozens of tables. It is a massive increase in complexity and opportunity. If LemonAlong was like joining a small company, PayThruUs is a mid-size start up. And wait until you see what is coming next!
All of this is delivering on a vision. It began with a lemonade stand, but it is about closing the data divide. It is about providing aspiring analysts an opportunity to train, learn, and create the experience they need to secure their next (or first) opportunity in the field of Data Science & Analytics. It is about learning a trade craft (thus the name), a discipline, and a science. But most of all, it is about getting our customers a great paying job and a future in the data-driven economy. Not so bad for a little lemonade stand…
So come check out our first offering. See what you can learn from working at a next generation lemonade stand. Right now, you can join LemonAlong for just a $5 signup fee (all subscription fees are waived!). Or signup for our email list and be one of the first users invited to PayThruUs when it is released later this quarter. It will be our first full subscription product and well worth the wait.
To Check Out LemonAlong:
To Sign Up For PayThruUs:
