Code Academy Teaches Web Development to the Masses

Named after the year of the Great Chicago Fire, 1871, the 50,000 sq. ft. startup hub in downtown Chicago officially opened its doors last Thursday, ushering in the future of technology in one of Chicago’s oldest buildings, The Merchandise Mart. Now, engineers, designers, developers, entrepreneurs, startups, techies, and students can use the space to begin crafting their dreams, and Code Academy, a 12-week program that teaches non-techies web development, has been the first tenet to “beta- test” the space.  Even before the grand opening, Code Academy was able to pack the house with over 500 attendees for their first Demo Day.

Launched by two young African-American entrepreneurs, Neal Sales-Griffin and Mike McGee, Code Academy started its third semester with 80 students and three instructors. According to McGee, they should be in the neighborhood of $1 million in revenue by the end of this summer, which is the direct result of about two years of hard work, determination, networking and being told ‘no’ more times than they would’ve preferred.

Northwestern graduates, Sales-Griffin, 24, a business major and McGee, 23, a graphic design and political science major, knew nothing about software development before they founded their tech startup. But they attempted to learn code themselves over a 12-month period, scouring the web for classes, materials, and any resources they could find.

“We really wanted to respect and learn the process [of coding],” said McGee. “So we did that and it was awesome, but it was pretty frustrating at times when you’re stuck trying to learn, and you have no one to turn to, to get help. We spent a year [trying to learn how to code] and it shouldn’t have took this long to get to where we were. So we decided to create an environment where it’s fun to learn, you’re learning around other passionate people, you get taught by a professional instructor, and you have mentors who are professional software developers.”

Thus, Code Academy was born. The initial concept was simple: They wanted to charge 12 students $6,000 to learn how to code in 12 weeks for 12 hours each week. They learned enough to throw together a functional site that would help them drum up some capital to get their idea off the ground. So the visionary duo quit their jobs and spent the summer of 2011 meeting and pitching investors.

Of course, they found a bunch of support along the way, but no capital. “Every time we met with somebody, we were one more email, one more meeting away from getting funded. But that next email or meeting never happened,” recalled McGee.

Read more about Code Academy’s selection process and classes…

The support and connections the two made landed Sales-Griffin an offer to work on the re-election campaign for President Barack Obama

. Faced with a difficult decision, the startup’s chief executive (and subsequently the whole Code Academy team) passed on the opportunity; instead, seeing Code Academy through to the end.
After all of their promising leads fell through, the pair decided to bootstrap the startup with tuition from their users.  They polished their website and opened their doors. The founders only wanted 12 students for that first semester, but ended up with over 80 applications from people from various industries and backgrounds. They interviewed over 40 applicants and accepted 35 students. “Meeting those people, who we knew were out there…was the best week of my life,” McGee said.

The connections the young entrepreneurs made along the way provided them with the opportunity to rent space in Groupon’s headquarters, where they held their first classes. They found their first instructor, Jeff Cohen, who was teaching development classes part time, through the Twitterverse. Similarly, a meeting with Steve Collens, senior vice president of Chicago’s most popular philanthropy, The Pritzker Group, and its investment arm, New World Ventures

, landed them as the first tenant in the brand-spanking-new facility.

While still on the ground floor of their own startup, they have received requests from others to emulate their model in different locations around Chicago and throughout the country. Future plans include reaching out to youth, the economically disadvantaged, and minorities to provide coding, development and design opportunities.

Up to this point, Code Academy still hasn’t taken a dime from investors.  “Our model went from taking investments to bootstrapping,” said McGee. “We went from no money to $200,000 in one week. It was a liberating feeling to know the people who are investing in us were the students. It’s the perfect relationship.”

Now, in its third season, the Code Academy offers a wide range of classes, support and mentorship so other entrepreneurs can get the tools and resources they need to go out and, possibly, attend traditional accelerators and incubators. “We see ourselves as the accelerator before the accelerator.”

Additional reporting by Marcia Wade Talbert