The reason why Cody Chang launched the company Product Gym was simple—to get people jobs in tech.
He was inspired to launch this startup after he could not find an option in the market that suited his needs. Competitors in the marketplace only offered skills useful after he would get the job. And none of them had instructors or curriculum for someone with no background in tech. He decided to start his own company that would offer the strategy, skills instruction and career training needed to change a career or just get a job.
Product Gym’s core value, Cody said, is “anything that we try and impart is not only setting people up for success on the job, it’s setting them up for success to get the job. Without the skills to apply for a job, it’s all for nothing.”
That’s one way Product Gym differentiates itself from the competition—by setting its clientele up for securing a job. Towards this end, Product Gym offers two tracks—Skills Development and Career Acceleration.
Other companies don’t help secure jobs, Cody said, because “their leadership team just doesn’t know how to do it.”
Offering as much momentum is a recent merger with Technosoft Academy. That unfolded as Cody was leaving LearnVest, a personal finance tech startup, and got to talking with a coworker, Mohammed Mohammed, known as Mo.
Then, with Product Gym’s expertise in Product Management jobs and Technosoft’s expertise in QA Automation, the potential was boundless. The goal now is to build out a range of verticals, including full stack, AR and VR, data science and a tech management immersive. All of this is supplemented by AI adaptive learning technology built in-house.
“We’ve been operating for five, six years; we have all this data, which is great, and now we can plug it in to AI,” Cody said. “So the merger and the emergence of OpenAI couldn’t have been better timed. That all translates into value for students, because we now have a real platform for folks to actually work in an environment that simulates tech.”
Another competitive advantage lies with the Product Gym leadership team. With other startups, Cody said, few co-founders and executives actually worked in tech, from junior individual contributors all the way to senior leadership, who are responsible for hiring.
“I have served in all those roles in the product management industry,” he said. “So have Mo, Rich, and Robin—my partners. So not only are we individually competent, we’re also in management and we teach it. You just don’t find that elsewhere. We can craft products that we know are successful for our students and staff.”
The capital that Product Gym is raising will be used for expansion—marketing and instructors to begin with. But the bulk of the funding will be used to build its AI, which will be an adaptive learning experience for students and a learning management system (LMS) designed to generate personalized lesson plans, lecture notes, videos and quizzes. That will generate an output 10X that of other educational institutions.
Cody said one thing that will spur Product Gym as an institute of higher learning is securing accreditation, the process of which is under way.
“We’re in the process of getting accreditation because we want to affect systemic change in the education system,” Cody said. “And the only way to do that is to become accredited as an institution so we can work with established universities or colleges.”
This is where partnerships come into play.
“If we’re actually serious about getting people jobs, then we’ve got to work with players that have been in this field, more established players who have the resources, have the clout and the branding,” Cody said.
“Our trajectory of growth is, let’s build all the B2C, the recruiting, but ultimately partner and become a larger education company that’s really focused on getting people jobs. I think it’s very achievable. Now, especially with AI, we’re able to build much more adaptive learning modules that, quite frankly, I think universities are very far from even getting close to.”
So what do Product Gym’s students think of the operation?
“Product Gym pretty much secured me my first Product Management job, which was at Prolific Interactive, and everything afterwards was on track,” said James Won. “I don’t think I would have even known where to begin were it not for Product Gym.”
Visit productgym.io to learn more.
