On 28th April 2017 I searched for “the best coding school in the world” on Google and saw that Le Wagon had finally been ranked as number one by Switchup. Today it is still number one. This happened 14 months after I was asked to launch Le Wagon in the UK. Getting involved was a decision that has changed my life and many others’ forever. It sounds all cliché and typical of someone writing about a business they’re a part of, but the results speak for themselves.
I was sceptical about the job at first
It’s pretty self explanatory that any coding bootcamp of 9–16 weeks won’t turn beginners into magician programmers overnight so it’s tough for anyone making the decision to switch career and learn to code. Even for me, who would be getting paid! I had received another job offer at the same time, so it was a toss up between running a tech accelerator or launching Le Wagon. My reservations about the Le Wagon role were:
a) Is learning to code just hype? Is it just a wave that will die out?
b) Can we really build a leading coding school in one of the worlds most competitive markets against giants who’ve raised tens of millions?
c) Apart from technical skills, what will I learn from Le Wagon’s founders that I won’t in any other job?
How on Earth can these guys own 100% of their business, currently located in 27 cities worldwide and plan to globally dominate without raising investment?
Is learning to code just hype?
There are tons and tons of free resources and courses online through which anyone can learn to code to some degree. And when interviewing potential Le Wagon students I often hear, “but I can just learn online so I’ll save my money”. Yes you can, but for how long and with what intensity can you keep that up? Do you really have the discipline to focus for 10 hours a day over three months with no teachers onsite, support from fellow students and a class atmosphere that builds you as a person each day?
It’s only four or five weeks into Le Wagon’s program when the intensity subsides a little and students start realising the extreme power of what they’re learning. Le Wagon students attend for different reasons. Some are there to become developers, product managers or seek to launch their own product. Others are there during university holidays, sabbaticals or gardening leave. So after a bootcamp you get feedback from people whose post-course motives are totally different, but the feedback is very similar, “it was one of the best decisions of my life”.
Whatever you do after the course, you can apply these digital skills in multiple areas of life, not just to become a developer, and that’s why this course is for real. Code is eating the world and we should all do our very best to grasp the basics at least. There are currently 220,000 vacant jobs in the digital skills sector in the U.K. By 2023 this figure is expected to be 900,000. Coding is not just hype. It rewires your brain, teaches you to think differently and to solve problems more efficiently.
Can I really build a leading coding school in London?
Having accepted the job, the founders, Boris Paillard, Sebastien Saunier and Romain Paillard visited London separately to spend time with me as we began our London launch. Of course we started with building partnerships to understand the lie of the land, who’s who and what’s what. We met with competitors, accelerators, co-working spaces, entrepreneurs, incubators, business schools, engineering schools, universities; anyone with a network and ecosystem we could be a part of. We were mostly received as “yet another coding school trying their luck in London”. At which point I’d look at the co-founders and see little smiles of intent to prove them wrong. These guys had a very clear plan that, to this day, hasn’t changed.
At the start of 2016 Le Wagon was two years old and located in four cities in France. When I took the job in March 2016 we were present in nine cities globally. By December 2016 we were in 19 cities world wide and by November 2017 we were in 27.
It wasn’t long before I realised this was the best career move I’ve ever made.
So off we set with a marketing budget of £0, running endless free events and promoting Le Wagon wherever we could. Before we knew it, our first London class of 18 students was under way. We were clearly very new with no history here so the founders taught the first “batch of students” themselves and I was lucky enough to spend a solid nine weeks with them at the core of their business.
I believe Le Wagon’s success in London and other cities comes purely from the basic strategy of the founders. For almost four years they’ve focused on one product, a nine week Full Stack Ruby on Rails coding bootcamp with the sole intention of refining that product each day it exists. My priority is my students and community. The rules for a city manager are very clear, “Your students come first and then you want to spend the next two years building the best coding school and tech community in your city”. Pretty broad, I know, but the hard work has been cut out by the quality of the syllabus. And to achieve this, we must grow slowly. Each quarter we add two to four more students to the class. Slow growth, but accurately controlled. We could double growth if we wanted to, but we don’t. Unlike most young tech companies, there’s no rush here, we don’t have investors.
To sum up, we get the basics right. It’s no different from what we teach in the last three weeks of the bootcamp when building your own products from scratch. We tell our students to stay focused on their core product, don’t get tempted to add feature after feature as quickly as possible, just get the basics right and the rest will come.
Finally, I believe a huge part of their success is owning 100% of their business. Sales targets barely exist. It’s all about the customer and then the product. We’ve built our reputation in London and I hope we can make the most of the years to come by changing more lives through learning to code.
What have I learned from Le Wagon’s founders?
Firstly, the French business culture comes with a say-what-you-think attitude, no niceties and not too many compliments unless absolutely necessary and deserved. But I believe this mentality speeds up decision-making so work gets executed efficiently by the right people. There’s no small talk or beating around the bush.
Their founding partnership is unbeatable. Three completely different people with complimentary qualities in totally different areas. The only similarities are their outstanding work ethic and how much they genuinely care about their customers and staff.
Focus. Their clear approach and ability to stay absolutely focused is something I rarely see amongst young fast growth tech companies. For many companies it’s a race. Boris, Seb and Romain aren’t too concerned about the competition and they’re in no rush.
Community. This is a huge part of what we do. We run free coding workshops for anyone and everyone. Of course it’s promotional but we never keep our cards close to our chest. We give a lot and take a little. The founder’s approach to community speaks volumes about the company culture at Le Wagon.
Automation. Every company dreams of automating any process. Le Wagon and its schools in 27 cities run entirely off a few bespoke tools and a handful of third-party platforms, such a Slack, Trello, Wufoo, Hello Sign and more. Of course this stems from some in-house engineering geniuses.
Bootstrap. Getting the basics right. This is bootstrapping. Move forward, stop, refine a bit, and move on again. These baby steps have allowed them to avoid raising cash and answering to people who want a return on their investment NOW. It’s a great lesson to anyone starting out. Le Wagon has refined their product over 4 years to be a world leader because they’ve had full control. Most investors want an exit within 4 years and for these 3 founders, it’s just the start.
People. I’ve never worked at a company where so many customers want to become employees. They’ve hired so well and of course this attracts the right customer for our brand and culture. We spend 10 hours a day, five days a week for nine weeks together. ‘People’ and ‘culture’ are fundamental factors behind Le Wagon’s unique vibe. Half our applications are referrals from alumni. That’s an incredible achievement and is purely born out of producing a life changing nine weeks, which all stems from the people within Le Wagon.
I could go on, but I thought I’d outline the journey so far for our London hub, and describe to you my strongest take-aways so far. It’s been a crazy 20 months, but I’m lucky enough to say that it’s my proudest achievement to have been involved with Le Wagon…and there’s a whole lot more to come!
Here’s a sneak peek of daily life at Le Wagon London https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg-wM3kwlz0
