Live data from Hacker News

Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down

facebook.com

11–20 of 306 posts

Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down

#13
post #2

"Hi Andrew, we had actually been working too find a sustainable business model since the very beginning. Ultimately we couldn't find one that didn't sacrifice on our commitment to provide the highest quality program possible while keeping our program open to the most diverse students possible." What does that mean? It seems like this should've been a profitable business - 3000 graduates @ $10k/piece = $30mm revenue.

I believe that three thousand was over the last five years. So 6mm. I don't know much about it, but you could eat that up pretty easily it seems. Figure 300 students at a time, ten students an instructor, 100k per instructor, gives 3 million. Then there's rent and support staff.

Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down

#14
Burst of bootcamp bubble? Dev Bootcamp seems to have been the first ever coding bootcamp. Think Hack Reactor (another popular bootcamp) was founded by Dev Bootcamp grads. Or maybe the herd would just distribute to other bootcamps? Even if the failure of Dev Bootcamp doesn't directly hurt the business of other bootcamps, it has a psychological effect on the bootcamp industry: suddenly the bootcamp experience doesn't seem so attractive anymore. If the school failed to survive, does it affect the survival of its graduates? Is this going to have a psychological effect on how industry views bootcamp grads, and consequently affect the job prospects of bootcamp grads?

Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down

#16
post #9
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. Though the existence of what seems to be a number of other bootstrapped bootcamps working fine confuses me. Also, pretty sure dev bootcamp was bootstrapped - if they didn't put in outside capital, then either they were profitable from day one or they were running break even. I'd guess they were profitable.

Hm, wikipedia lists 40 staff, and 450 students per year. Say 40 * $200,000 = $8mm/yr, plus rent. 450 students/yr ~= $6mm. This back of the envelope would point to them being unprofitable.

Avg. salary of 200K seems to be very high?

Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down

#17
post #13
post #2

"Hi Andrew, we had actually been working too find a sustainable business model since the very beginning. Ultimately we couldn't find one that didn't sacrifice on our commitment to provide the highest quality program possible while keeping our program open to the most diverse students possible." What does that mean? It seems like this should've been a profitable business - 3000 graduates @ $10k/piece = $30mm revenue.

I believe that three thousand was over the last five years. So 6mm. I don't know much about it, but you could eat that up pretty easily it seems. Figure 300 students at a time, ten students an instructor, 100k per instructor, gives 3 million. Then there's rent and support staff.

Rent is certainly huge. These guys are renting prime time space in city centers.

Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down

#18
post #2

"Hi Andrew, we had actually been working too find a sustainable business model since the very beginning. Ultimately we couldn't find one that didn't sacrifice on our commitment to provide the highest quality program possible while keeping our program open to the most diverse students possible." What does that mean? It seems like this should've been a profitable business - 3000 graduates @ $10k/piece = $30mm revenue.

Translation: To balance the books we would have had to either raise prices or reduce quality, and we didn't want to do either.

Kudos to them for making that kind of hard call rather than compromising on their values.

Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down

#19
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, wikipedia lists 40 staff, and 450 students per year. Say 40 * $200,000 = $8mm/yr, plus rent. 450 students/yr ~= $6mm. This back of the envelope would point to them being unprofitable.

Avg. salary of 200K seems to be very high?

Fully loaded cost.

See: https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Vicarious-raise-so-much-money-..., https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-mean-cost-per-year-for-a-s...

Re: Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down

#20
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, wikipedia lists 40 staff, and 450 students per year. Say 40 * $200,000 = $8mm/yr, plus rent. 450 students/yr ~= $6mm. This back of the envelope would point to them being unprofitable.

Avg. salary of 200K seems to be very high?

It was a ballpark of the cost per employee, not the salary per employee.
Post reply on HN