Udemy CEO, Eren Bali’s Story – From One Room School House in Turkey to $12 Million Series B

December 7, 2012 by 1 Comment

I’m Eren Bali, the CEO and Co-founder of Udemy. I want to thank you for making Udemy such an amazing community.

Recently, a lot of people have asked me why I started the company. The answer lies in my personal story, and I wanted to share it with you today.

I was born in a small village in Turkey. My primary school was a one room schoolhouse where a single teacher tried her best to teach 5 different grades at the same time. That meant we were often left to try and learn from books on our own. As a kid, I was interested and somewhat talented in subjects like mathematics and science, but there was very little room for me to advance my skills.

One day my parents bought my two sisters and me a computer and Internet access for a few months. At the time none of us had any idea how it would change our lives. But once I started using the Internet, I knew I had found a new way to learn.

That’s where I discovered several math forums where people were exchanging problems to work on and a few websites with problem sets used in the Math Olympiads. Even though these forums were clunky and disorganized, they had a huge impact on my life. Long story short, by teaching myself math online, I eventually won a gold medal in the National Math Olympiads in Turkey and a silver medal in the International Math Olympiads.

Later on during college I studied computer science and mathematics. It was there that I met my good friend, and Udemy co-founder, Oktay Caglar. Together we started experimenting with the possibilities offered by the Internet.

So with the power of the Internet, combined with our own challenging educational experiences, we imagined a world where anyone could learn anything — from any expert in the world. It didn’t take us long to realize how much this idea could change people’s lives.

But the journey wasn’t easy.

We first created a product with Udemy’s vision 6 years ago in Turkey. We failed. So we packed our bags and moved to Silicon Valley to give it another shot. We were rejected by more than 50 investors before we launched the company in the Valley. But through it all, we didn’t give up because we believed in the power of the Internet to change how people learn.

We learned from the challenges we faced and eventually our hard work paid off.

It’s on that note that I want to share some exciting news with you. As a result of Udemy’s amazing growth, we just raised $12 million in Series B funding.

As a small thank you, I wanted to share a collection of Udemy courses that I wish I had access to while growing up in Turkey. I hope you enjoy them.

Thank you for making Udemy what is it today.

Eren

Filed Under: FTW!

Welcome to The New Udemy!

June 29, 2012 by

Over the last year and a half, you have given us product feedback, talked to our team, shared your stories, and most importantly, you’ve learned with us. Thank you!

We have been listening, and we are very excited to announce our biggest product change yet – The New Udemy!

Let’s have a look at what’s new.

Personalized Course Discovery

Our course library has grown quite a bit — more than 10x since last year — and we are still seeing around 100 new courses being published every month, which includes 1000+ hours of video content and 100′s of articles, presentations and e-books etc… And those numbers are growing by 50% every month.

We had to rethink how can you discover the best, most relevant courses in our library; to do this we built a personalized course discovery engine. It will recommend courses by analyzing your interests, past activity and social data. It even gets smarter the more you use Udemy. It’s similar to Netflix’s recommendation engine in that sense. We are also presenting more information and user reviews to help you pick the best courses.

Progress Tracking

Many of you requested to have the ability to see your progress while taking a course so we integrated this feature into the new site. You will be able to see your progress in the “my courses” section with a link that will take you directly to where you  left off in the course. You can also see your updated progress while transitioning between lectures and with more details in the course dashboard.

The New Course Taking Experience

We built the best course taking experience out there for you, and this is where the new site really shines. Full screen UI that takes advantage of all of your browser real estate, easy transitions between lectures, a powerful Quora style question & answer feature, an extras section with additional lecture materials, time tagged note taking, and a course dashboard with all details to capture your experience.

Starting now, you’ll be able to switch to the new version of Udemy. Go on, Give it a try :-).

- Eren Bali, CEO and Co-Founder, Udemy

PS – Please give us feedback and share your thoughts on the new Udemy! We want to make it amazing for you and the entire Udemy community.

PPS – Heads up, we will be launching a native iPad application and a new version of our signature course creation platform in the very near future. Stay tuned!

 

Filed Under: FTW!

9 Reasons You Should Learn Ruby

November 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The Ruby programming language, released in 1995 by Yukihiro Matsumoto, was designed as an intuitive platform with a focus on simplicity and productivity. Though it initially attracted a cult following, in recent years Ruby has gained more visibility in the programming community. Have you been curious about expanding your programming skills? Here are nine reasons why you should learn Ruby.

1. It’s easy to Learn

Ruby is a simple programming language that is easy for experienced programmers to pick up and a great introductory language for newbies to start with. It’s an object-oriented language (a language that streamlines the way you group code). In Ruby, all directions are consistent as the rules applying to objects apply to all of Ruby—a major plus when learning a new language.

2. Save time by writing more with less.

Because Ruby’s linguistic syntax is intuitive, writing code is much simpler and easier than other languages—you can kiss semicolons and parentheses goodbye. The language is designed to help you maximize action with fewer command calls, so you get cleaner code that is more functional (this saves de-bugging time—a major headache for programmers at all levels).

3. Write web apps quickly and easily.

Ruby is all about helping you make the things you want. Because the interface is easy-to-use and navigate, you can write web apps easily and quickly. With the introduction of Ruby on Rails, an open source web application framework for the Ruby language, you can create web apps in a matter of days instead of months. Sites like Basecamp, Amazon, Twitter, and Groupon were all created using Ruby on Rails.

4. The community will help you.

The Ruby programming community is welcoming and supportive. Ruby programmers are eager to help newbies starting out and to troubleshoot for experts who may have hit a wall, so you always have a network to reach out to while you’re learning. It also gives you access to new extension libraries to help you do more. Plus, Matz encourages new development in the community, recently collaborating with the Japanese government to offer a ¥1 million prize for the most interesting Ruby program.

5. It’s easy on the pocketbook.

Ruby is totally free of charge, only costing you the investment of time. And not only is it free of charge, it’s also free to use, copy, modify, and distribute.

6. Ruby can be customized.

One of the greatest features of Ruby is its flexibility. Users can alter all of its aspects by adding or removing any methods within the built in classes, as well as adding their own classes as necessary. In fewer words, this means you can easily format Ruby to fit your needs and work as efficiently as possible.

7. It’s portable.

Ruby functions across all platforms and operating systems, so everyone can access it and start learning anytime.

8. You can make your own Domain-Specific language.

For advanced programmers, creating a DSL can be a major help, but it can also be painstaking to make. (Domain-specific languages are programming languages made for a special purpose such as Maxima, which is used for spreadsheet formulas). Ruby’s simplicity and efficiency makes DSLs (such as Rake) much easier to write than in other languages.

9. Learning Ruby will get you more work.

Adding Ruby to your résumé makes you more versatile. The TIOBE index, which ranks the popularity and growth of programming languages, has continually ranked Ruby in the top 10, and its use is only growing in the programming and larger marketplace—even NASA uses Ruby to conduct simulations. With the growing popularity of Ruby on Rails, more large sites will be created using it and you’ll need to be on top of the trend. And now with the recent release of Ruby 1.9.3-p0, there’s no better time to start.

So whether you’re a seasoned programmer, code geek, or total noob, Ruby has something for you. What are you waiting for? Register today for our Ruby for Beginners course.

Filed Under: For Students
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