Doing it Right with Adda Birnir
In S2E3, we fall hard for Adda Birnir, founder and CEO of Skillcrush — the online coding school with a heart.
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While coding bootcamp programs tend to talk about turning students into rockstar programmer gods, Skillcrush focuses on using tech to build a fulfilling, creative, and sustainable career. And the message is working: after some early ups and downs back in 2012, Adda has taken the business from a fledging idea to a stable, profitable, and growing company of 35 employees. And she’s here to tell us all about it.
At some point I decided that I wanted the business to survive and I was going to figure out what it would take for it to survive and do that. And that really meant sort of letting go of kind of any idea I had about what the business was going to be.
Listen in for a super-real convo about:
- Bootstrapping a business instead of raising venture capital
- How to bounce back when the bank account runs dry
- Why women are flocking to Skillcrush to learn technical skills — while most bootcamp programs struggle to attract them
- Building pay equity into the heart of how Skillcrush runs
- Making sure you don’t end up hating the company you built
Plus:
- Friend dates, cheese plates, and ordering as many desserts as possible
- Vocab swaps for “crazy” and “guys” (for more ideas on this one, check out this article from The Establishment)
- Morning people: are they a fuck yeah! or a fuck that?
And there’s always a full transcript.
No, You Go is a weekly podcast about being ambitious, building a career that won’t make you miserable, and finding friends who’ll high-five you along the way. Hosted by Jenn Lukas, Katel LeDu, and Sara Wachter-Boettcher. Produced by EDITAUDIO. Made with ❤ in Philadelphia.
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