05.01.2018 - By Sara Wachter-Boettcher
#### In S2E3, we fall hard for Adda Birnir, founder and CEO of Skillcrush—the online coding school with a heart.
While coding bootcamp programs tend to talk about turning students into rockstar programmer gods, Skillcrush focuses on using tech to build a fulfilling, creative, and sustainable career. And the message is working: after some early ups and downs back in 2012, Adda has taken the business from a fledging idea to a stable, profitable, and growing company of 35 employees. And she’s here to tell us all about it.
> At some point I decided that I wanted the business to survive and I was going to figure out what it would take for it to survive and do that. And that really meant sort of letting go of kind of any idea I had about what the business was going to be.
>
> —Adda Birnir, founder and CEO, [Skillcrush](https://skillcrush.com/)
Listen in for a super-real convo about:
- Bootstrapping a business instead of raising venture capital
- How to bounce back when the bank account runs dry
- Why women are flocking to Skillcrush to learn technical skills—while most bootcamp programs struggle to attract them
- Building [pay equity](https://iwpr.org/issue/employment-education-economic-change/pay-equity-discrimination/) into the heart of how Skillcrush runs
- Making sure you don’t end up hating the company you built
Plus:
- Friend dates, cheese plates, and ordering [as many desserts as possible](https://medium.com/no-you-go/working-with-friends-is-amazing-but-its-still-work-6255ad0854c)
- Vocab swaps for “crazy” and “guys” (for more ideas on this one, check out [this article from The Establishment](https://theestablishment.co/replace-crazy-with-the-adjective-you-actually-mean-425562812da2))
- Morning people: are they a _fuck yeah!_ or a _fuck that_?
## Sponsors
This episode of NYG is brought to you by:
![Shopify logo](http://www.noyougoshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/shopify_logo_black.png)
_[Shopify](https://www.shopify.com/careers), a leading global commerce platform that’s building a world-class team to define the future of entrepreneurship. Visit [shopify.com/careers](https://www.shopify.com/careers) to see what they’re talking about._
_[![Codepen Logo](http://www.noyougoshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/codepen-horizontal-logo-1.png)](https://codepen.io/)[CodePen](https://codepen.io/nyg/?utm_source=no-you-go&utm_medium=podcast)—write code like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript directly in a browser and see the results as you build. CodePen is giving away three free PRO accounts to NYG listeners. Enter at [codepen.io/nyg](https://codepen.io/nyg/?utm_source=no-you-go&utm_medium=podcast)._
![](http://www.noyougoshow.com/w)