What a year 2023 was and what does 2024 hold?! 2023 was decisively the year that killed a LOT of bootcamps, apprenticeships, and competitors - but for Qwasar, we had a pretty great year. As we look at the next 12 months, we wanted to take a look back at 2023 and share some company progress.
In 2023, we surpassed 9,000 users on our platform since our company began. It’s a good milestone, and in 2024, we’re fully confident we’ll surpass 11K users.
Unlike many, many other companies in our space, we more than doubled our revenue in 2023. This is a significant milestone given that most competitors saw more than a 50% reduction in their revenue, to the point that they shut down, closed programs, and conducted one or more rounds of layoffs.
It turns out we have a pretty good blog, as it racked up 20K blog views in 2023, with very little ad spend overall, and no ad spend whatsoever sending traffic to blog articles. Check it out: https://blog.qwasar.io/blog
As we continue to lead various trends in workforce development, talent development, and post-secondary education, we’re proud to have launched the nation’s first dual Master’s-Apprenticeship program. This dual program allows accepted apprentices to complete their apprenticeship, transition to a FTE, continue learning, and earn a Master’s degree over a two-year period.
For roles that are prone to high turnover and little loyalty, such a program is a smart and strategic approach to onboarding, retaining, and growing top-quality talent at a Master’s level.
It’s also a strategic way of addressing “degree requirements” for software roles.
For society, it’s a strategic way of increasing diversity in technical roles in a way that’s affordable for learners, and is perhaps the first earn-and-learn model at the Master’s level.
Without a doubt one of our most successful ‘product additions’ or ‘feature additions’ in product speak is the launch of our much-loved Engineering Labs.
These hands-on labs provide Master’s students with the opportunity to complete real software projects in groups, starting from scratch and going through deployment. Projects are rooted in real-world scenarios, empower students to put themselves in Senior Engineer positions, and provide significant learning opportunities for industry-relevant tools and technologies, such as DuckDB, Turf, Typescript, Cassandra, Docker, and more - subjects rarely covered in traditional Master’s programs.
Learners have adored Engineering Labs thus far, and continue to rave about them.
We’re inking deals with multiple major tech companies - details can’t be shared yet, but we’re excited for what’s in the works.
This is a continued recognition of our expertise in the field, our excellence in the level of engineering we train to, and the value of the certificates and credentials we offer.
After adding 2 countries to the list in 2023, we’re pleased to announce that we’ll be adding 3 more countries to the Qwasar community in 2024. Stay tuned for announcements, dates, and locations.
After a lot of work with ex-Facebook designers and UI specialists, we cannot wait to release our new interface. It’s not about putting on makeup - it’s about the learning experience, and how to use technology and interactions to drive and maintain that learning experience.
Believe it or not, but there’s a huge amount of science and psychology behind a great learning platform and its design, so we’re excited to launch in Q1.
Finally, in an industry that saw MANY competitors go out of business, conduct one or multiple layoffs, go bankrupt overnight and face jail time for fraud, we’re honestly really pleased to say that we’re doing well. Qwasar is thriving, not dying like almost every one of our competitors.
That’s thanks to smart strategic moves, great partnerships, and continually learning, questioning, and growing as founders in what has been a very dynamic industry in the last 4 years.
So, to wrap up, 2023 was good. 2024 looks great. As ever, we remain hungry to learn, progress, and grow our excellence, programs, and modern approach.