Thread by @sajithpai

Interesting (not good) week for bootcamps / ISAs in US.

And I think a clear sign that things are tightening up for the bootcamp segment...not sure if we will see this soon in India soon.

(1) Galvanize which raised $130m in VC money gets sold for $165m

(2) @theinformation did a hit piece on everyone's beloved @LambdaSchool

Essentially growing pains. Struggles in translating coding success to other segments and scaling etc.

theinformation.com/articles/lambd… ($🔒)

I think the key challenge w bootcamps is that you see product market fit at very early stages but there is no guarantee that the PMF will hold w scale.

You will place 100-200 students and maybe even 500 but 5,000? Not easy to hold quality as you scale.

The solution is perhaps not to adopt the entire Lambda model wholesale for India.

ISAs solve a key friction in US : debt. However in India where parents are happy to chip in a few lacs? - here the key friction is employment, and hence we need to solve for that at scale.

In this light @cnha 's (v good) piece suggesting that a at scale Lambda school in India = Infosys Mysore campus is interesting. It says that at scale bootcamps have to become staffing / training companies.

nextbigwhat.com/lambda-school-…

Not surprising for the two interesting models that I have liked + seeing scale fast have been @mountbluetech & @bridgelabz - both effectively staffing plays as a business model with training cleverly bundled in.

I haven't seen numbers from too many others to comment - many are growing fast indeed but it is early days. They are all relatively tiny.

While I would love for all of them to do well + return multiples of venture money, they need a clear path to scale holding the same quality.

End/

for now.