By Jamal Thalji
Tampa Bay Times, St. Petersburg, Fla.
TAMPA
The founders of Gr8code all met in the startup world, guiding entrepreneurs and helping launch new businesses. It was in that world that they discovered a glaring unmet need: startups could not find enough skilled coders to build apps and websites.
“There was such a gap between being able to hire the skills they needed,” said Gr8code CEO Virginia Barnett, “and what was actually available.”
So Barnett and her partners Phuong Nguyen Cotey and Deborah Neff did what came naturally: they created a startup.
Gr8code bills itself as Tampa Bay’s first homegrown coding bootcamp.
In nine intense weeks, the coding school said it can teach prospective web developers programming languages such as HTML, CSS and Javascript. The first classes are set to start Jan. 12, and Gr8code hopes to start taking deposits next week.
The Ybor City startup has already received a major financial endorsement: $5.4 million in venture capital from OmniElite Financial Group that the startup will use to expand its bootcamp as more students sign-on.
That’s believed to be the largest first-round of funding for any female-founded startup in Florida, according to the University of South Florida St. Petersburg Entrepreneurship Program.
Barnett used to be the director of operations at Florida Next Foundation, an advocate for entrepreneurs and small businesses founded by former state CFO Alex Sink. Cotey, a former reporter for what was then called the St. Petersburg Times, also works at Florida Next. Neff is the director of operations at Tampa Bay Wave, Inc., a start-up accelerator that provides offices and support to grow new businesses.
The women met last year when Florida Next moved into Tampa Bay Wave’s Venture Center, a communal space for startups in downtown Tampa. Barnett and Neff compared notes.
“One of the most common things we hear from new businesses is they need a coder,” Neff said. “They need someone to create that website, to create that app, and that was a gap we were absolutely seeing.”
So the three women started Gr8code in April. Their first classes were for kids this summer, and they plan to offer future programming classes for children to go along with the bootcamp.
“We saw the opportunity,” Barnett said. “So many employers were desperate to find quality coders.”
Anyone can learn how to code, says Gr8code’s Justin Davis, the veteran web developer who designed the curriculum. He said learning code is like learning a new language. But the school will also teach coders how to work through the programming problems they’ll encounter.
“It only seems daunting because it’s unfamiliar,” Davis said.
Gr8code charges $10,000 for its courses in several programming languages. Students also get an Apple MacBook Pro laptop.
Prospective students must successfully complete 18 hours of online and classroom work before they’re allowed to start classes to make sure they can keep up.
Financing is offered by Climb Credit Corp. which charges 5 to 12 percent interest. The cost of coding bootcamps across the country can range from a few thousand to as much as $17,000. Miami’s Wyncode Academy charges $9,000 for nine weeks.
But Gr8code said there’s plenty of coding jobs out there to justify the investment and estimated that the average starting salary in the bay area market is around $55,000.
Coding is a skill that many often pick up on their own, often at an early age, and there’s no shortage of free online instruction. So why pay five-figures to learn how to code?
Gregg Hilferding is a self-taught coder who started his own web design, marketing and consulting startup, GreenBarLabs, six months ago and is located at Tampa Bay Wave. His example notwithstanding, he said the quality of homegrown coders can be uneven.
Also, startups can’t afford to train coders. They need them to be ready to work.
But designing a website, he said, doesn’t require spending four years getting a bachelor’s degree in computer science.
“You don’t need to know how to do figure out an algorithm,” Hilferding, “to build a website.”
