La Hackería

With all the sleuthing that we've been up to, we've put together a fairly detailed spreadsheet of what our program can offer, and at what price. Our greatest expense by far will be our faculty and TA(s).

But it's looking like we can do a 12-week program for ~ $7k USD per student with a competitive salary for our teacher!!!

So we can offer -
3-6 hours of instruction and office hours with our faculty per day.
Housing
(tentatively) Daily yoga and maybe salsa dance and cooking classes.
Trips on some weekends for the 12-week duration of the program.

It really seems like we can offer really good value.... This school might not be very scalable, but I think it will be a very fun, very unique project to do! (And it will pay our bills without a boss!!)

Because both Arturo and I are non-tech founders, we need a kick*ss teacher, and this is quickly becoming the most important issue to tackle:

So our ideal teacher:

• Is a full-stack engineer
• Loves programming, and loves teaching other people how to program (
• Is preferably an Indiehacker
  -Enjoys traveling and can get very into being in Yucatán for 3 months (why not?)

Obviously industry experience is important. But I actually think teaching passion / experience matters a bit more. I've had professors at university who are stars in their field, yet find it difficult to empathize with students and communicate the material in an effective way.

On the other hand, I think my best learning experiences have been with faculty that while also very brilliant, they were less well-known. I think this is because they brought a passion for teaching that didn't end on delivering the material, but rather continued to the point of exciting and inspiring us to find out more and do a lot of "extra" work that really made their class a meaningful learning experience.

That being said, industry experience is still very important...

We're here to figure everything out that we need to build a school. This is stressful, but also exciting. The weather is really nice and our hostel has a swimming pool, which is great in the afternoon.

Our goals for the next 10 days:

• Find a place we can rent for three months starting in September that can work for 12-19 students as a school.
• Find well-located, yet affordable locations that might work for housing our students for 3 months
• Get in touch with local universities and the entrepreneurship scene in Mérida to start publicizing our school
• Finding cool places that we can recommend people visit
  Collect images and footage for the website

I'll be posting pictures soon!

--Edit:
02/30/2020

Managed to get some great pictures and video, went to amazing events like Carnaval and some salsa nights at a local bar.

We've also found what looks like a great alternative for our school!! And a couple of nice colonial homes where our students can stay, as well as hostels that might work because they've got some pretty nice amenities like a pool, yoga, salsa, and Yucatecan cuisine classes, which are really good.

Used Wix to whip up a landing page for La Hackería.
I used it as a way to begin experimenting with the brand identity, and also to have a place for people to learn a little bit more in detail about our school and also to get involved if they wish.

I used Figma for building the different design elements, and I used a mix of my own photography and also stock photos to communicate what student's day to day will look like.

Here it is!

www.LaHackeria.com

Firstly, Arturo and myself came up with some constraints for our idea:

1 - Needs to be short-term profitable / pay the bills
2 - Needs to grow our coding skills AND our audience to make future projects more feasible
3 - Needs to have a positive impact in the Mexican start-up / grassroots hacker scene.

After a brainstorm, we came up with La Hackería:

Here are some definitions:
NOUN - A Hackería is a place where hackers are made. Tacos may or may not be involved.

VERB? But in Spanglish, 'hackería' is also a peculiar Spanish form of verb. It is the practice of using your social and technical skills (and your determination) to solve an intricate real-world problem. As in - “What are you doing, Nayeli? “I’m here, Joe, chingándole a la hackería”. In this context, a hacker is that obstinate, detail-oriented, socially and technically savvy problem solver. La hackería is what the hacker is doing when they are hustling.

Capisci?

La Hackería can therefore take many forms, in many different places. But its first iteration is a coding bootcamp where students get practice addressing real world problems. This will take the form of a 12-week course where the first 8 weeks we impart industry standard courses in web development and data analysis, taught by world-class staff. The final 4 weeks, we connect our students with local academia and organizations to develop a working application or automated analysis tool.

We plan on bringing both local and international students and faculty together in Mexico, and we will leverage our connections with industry, academics, NGOS and students to do so.

Inputs:
$$ from tuition, industry sponsors, and donors
Amazing teaching talent
Passionate international and local students - no prior coding experience necessary
Arturo and myself’s full-time dedication to the project

Outputs:

• International Hackers - Full-stack web developers and data scientists with a new-found literacy about and engagement with Mexico / Latin America, and some real world experience developing a tool to help an academic or organization have greater impact.
• Local Hackers - Full-stack web developers and data scientists with a greater international perspective, industry connections, and real-world experience developing a tool to help an academic or organization have a greater impact in their country.
• “Hackerxs” Just as the taquero makes tacos, our Hackerx faculty makes hackers. They might be professionals taking a sabbatical, or university faculty wanting to switch things up a bit. Regardless, our “hackerxs” gain a new connections to faculty an industry experts in Mexico, an amazing teaching experience, increase their value as educators and mentors
• A series of innovative MVPs and products that address an existing problem in Mexico.
• A collaborative learning community
• Both Arturo and I live to see another day, grow our skills, and grow our audience for our future boot-strapped projects.

Bienvenido a La Hackería!

Cheers,

Fede