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Hey! I’m Paul and I want to raise funds for creating my Coda Courses and Expert Certification Program


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Coda
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is a ‘superdoc’ platform for building docs as powerful as apps.

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Coda: Your all-in-one collaborative workspace.
Coda is an all-in-one platform that blends the flexibility of docs, structure of spreadsheets, power of applications, and intelligence of AI.
coda.io
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All-In-One Doc Startup Coda Reaches $1.4 Billion Valuation In $100 Million Raise From A Major Pension Fund
A year after Kleiner Perkins led an investment in Coda, this newest funding comes from an unusual source: the Ontario Teachers Pension Plans (OTPP), one of the world’s largest institutional investors with CA $221 billion dollars in net assets.
www.forbes.com
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You know
Notion
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? Coda is better than Notion at everything.

All it needs is great learning resources so that companies learn how to use all of its power to build precise tools for their bespoke workflows, making them streamlined and efficient.


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image.png
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I am the
Top Coda Expert
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known for my deep knowledge of the platform, thorough answers, and passion for pushing the limits.

“Just when I think I know Coda well, Paul teaches me something new 🙂”
—
Shishir Mehrotra, the co-founder and CEO of Coda
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I’m fit and equipped to create such resources.

All I need at the moment is funding to cover production and marketing, as well as offset living costs for the next 4-6 months. I estimate this to be in the ballpark of $50k–$70k. After that I expect the project to start sustaining itself through profits from course sales.


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More About Coda

Targeted at teams and enterprises unlike Notion that primarily became a cult app for personal productivity use
Over 1M users and 25,000 paying teams Coda claims 80% of the Fortune 100 companies use it

More About Me

Strong background in software engineering Coding since 12. At my only full-time job won an award among 100+ companies. ​
Indie hacking
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before I encountered Coda and started consulting on it.
A passionate teacher I was teaching computer science as an Assistant Professor at my university. I once trained a person from zero coding skill to a Team Lead at AWS in Berlin. I often go the extra mile to explain a solution — like
this
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or
this
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.
Coda Community Champion ​My ability to solve the toughest of the problems with Coda, come up with hacks and creative solutions, yet explain it all in simple language earned me some quite some cred. But don’t take my word for it — feel free to contact Coda and ask around.
Heck, Bing AI knows me :)
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image.png
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The Mission

Teach companies and teams to use Coda in the right way that will bring them benefit and satisfaction over long time. And also teach that to fellow Coda consultants so that they could build better and longer-lasting solutions for their own clients.
The happier the clients are with Coda, the more successful Coda is and the bigger its market share becomes, the more I can earn from course and plugin sales.

The Vision

Create educational content in various formats that complement each other and serve as cross-marketing: publicly available YouTube videos and shorts, affordable quick guides and starter kits, premium-priced end-to-end courses on technology, UI/UX, client relations; and ultimately the Certification Program and the ‘Michelin Star Guide to Coda Experts.’

The Strategy

The plan is to create content and roll out incrementally.
Phase 1: Launch the
Formula Quick Guide
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and simultaneously relaunch YouTube ​The Formula guide should be the affordable entry to learning the most powerful part of Coda, the Coda Formula Language. I’ve already planned it and collected 30 pre-sales. I’m planning to sell it approximately at $59–$129.
This should be the ‘economy of scale’ offer. Even with 1M existing users to roll out to and the pessimistic conversion rate of 0.5% at the lowest price it is capable of turning in ~$250,000 worth of sales after fees and taxes, making the next step possible without raising. I don’t expect high marketing expenses as Coda should help me promote the guide across its user base as they’re also interested in increasing their users’ happiness.
Simultaneously I plan to relaunch
my YouTube channel
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investing into better production. Videos should become more precise, bite-sized, and appealing to all new Coda users. They will upsell on the Formula Guide and ultimately the courses.
Duration of the phase: 2 months.
Phase 2: Launch the
Fundamentals Course
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and Doc Templates ​The Fundamentals Course is a VOD course about all the essential functionality of Coda along with tips, tricks, gotchas, common idioms, and best practices. It is already planned and
validated as a live group course
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with a cohort of 14 students each paying $399–$799 per seat (depending on their Patreon membership status).
Simultaneously I will be producing doc templates, free or affordably priced, for common needs similarly to how Notion Partners do this. The main goal of these templates will be to increase the reach of Coda, inspire to learn more about the platform, and upsell.
Duration of the phase: 4 months.
Phase 3: Launch extra courses on Design Patterns, Performance, and Making Packs ​Complimentary to the Fundamentals Course will be the additional VOD courses that will offer deeper dives into data design, UI/UX design, optimizing docs for longevity and scale, and creating connectors to 3rd party services. These will be sold as individual extras at $499–$1499 or as a bundle along with the Fundamentals at $2499, and together form the complete curriculum for the Certification Program.
With 25,000 paying teams at the moment and pessimistic conversion of 0.5% this is capable of generating ~$300,000 in revenue shortly after the launch. With the hope that previous steps will also help with the spread and adoption of Coda, I expect this to grow into substantial and stable recurring monthly revenue.
Duration of the phase: 4–6 months.
Phase 4: Launch the Certification Program and the Network of Coda Experts ​The end goal is creating a network of rigorously selected Coda Experts and establishing it and myself as a no-brainer choice to go for Coda help. An applicant would have to buy and complete the full bundle of courses before enrolling in a live program with me or another certified expert. I will train and test the first cohort myself, and the alumni would train and test the following cohorts.
The business model will then essentially be income from revenue sales + certification fee + recurring membership fee. Some of these can be waived if the person works as a mentor for subsequent cohorts.
The expectation is that as Coda adoption will rise, so will demand in Experts (think of any other Partners program for any enterprise SaaS in its prime, e.g. Salesforce or Hubspot.) If we can capture this market early, the dividends shall be juicy.
Duration of the phase: 4-6 months.

Reason I’m Raising

Initially I wanted to bootstrap and not seek funding. I got a stimulus Maker Fund grant from Coda in late 2021 so that I could make time for developing the courses. I set up to start production in early 2022.
Then the war in my country Ukraine started.
At the time I could get back to working on the course, my family’s funds have drained and I had to take up client work to earn some. Unfortunately the projects I encountered were unfulfilling and didn’t improve my standing. I’m still dependent on client work to stay afloat and therefore cannot make time for producing the courses.
The amount I’m hoping to raise should be enough to cover my cost of living and immediate needs, as well as production costs, until I turn profit. This will allow me to stop being dependent on client work that consumes all of my time, and focus on production.

What’s in it For You?

I’m open to revenue sharing.
I’ll be honest, this is not a grow-a-unicorn, make-an-exit kind of investment. This is not a startup in terms that it doesn’t imply rapid growth. This is a classical case of creating an info product that takes an effort once and then is capable of generating recurring passive income. The income would then hopefully accelerate as the adoption of Coda rises.
This could be the most boring product on your portfolio. Don’t do it for the portfolio. Do it for the good.

Validation

I’ve experienced interest in my learning materials before:
430+ unique visitors on my free
Best Practices Guide
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and 2.1k+ views on YouTube;
Collectively 95+ unique Patreon subscribers coming for my guides, live streams, and templates;
20+ pre-sales of the Fundamentals course (at $400);
30+ pre-sales of the Formula Guide (the majority being $80 per sale);
14 sales of the live and improvised Coda Superpowers Course.
So far I’ve only been promoting my materials through the Coda Community and haven’t been marketing them elsewhere. However, the Community is frequented mostly by enthusiasts and various users coming for help and advice — but rarely the ‘whales’ who make purchasing decisions in larger companies and could spend more eagerly on training materials. Also the Community has limited user base (just over 12,000 accounts out of the 1M total Coda accounts) limiting my reach.
That said, I’m in good standing with Coda, so whenever I make a launch I expect them to amplify it across their channels.

Risks

War in Ukraine ​I live in the safest and the most distant region that borders with the EU on two sides. We haven’t been impacted by shellings yet and it is unlikely to happen in the future. While I cannot leave the country at the moment, I’m immune to being drafted.
Competition ​While there are experts and courses that compete with me, I believe my offer will be a better one. The only commercial course that is launched by a competitor is rumored to be rather superficial and overpriced. I believe the only reason why such offer would exist and sell is that there’s a shortage of end-to-end Coda courses in general and there’s no alternative yet to that one. Well, until I make one.
There are also official learning materials by Coda but they aren’t as detailed as I wish to make mine. They don’t cover tricks, performance optimizations, or implementing workflows and writing formulas beyond the simple ones.
Failing to gain traction ​Naturally it’s hard to predict how fast or slowly sales will happen. Yet I believe that Coda is still in its Early Adopters phase. If there is no immediate surge in sales, it will eventually happen later. As it’s not a for-rapid-growth project and frankly not a huge investment, this should not pose a risk.
Failing to deliver ​There is a risk that I don’t deliver the product. After all, at the moment I’m working solo. For what it’s worth, making the courses and ultimately the Certification Program is the only end game I see for myself. I’ve already managed to jump on Coda early and establish myself as the top Coda Expert capturing this market while it was blue ocean. So it would be extremely unwise for me to give up on this one in a lifetime opportunity.
When I couldn’t deliver the VOD course I initially planned, I still ran a live cohort later. So I’m certain I will find the way to get the knowledge across. Besides, the provided funding will allow me to outsource parts of the production such as filming and video editing should I feel stuck on those.


Other questions?

Please drop a line at
paul@codatricks.com
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.


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