In this week’s Kingscrowd Investment Roundtable, Brian Belley, Léa Bouhelier-Gautreau, and Teddy Lyons explore Bitter Brains, an innovative online education platform currently raising funds on Republic. Bitter Brains specializes in developer certifications and courses for frameworks like Vue and React. The team analyzes its growth potential, business model, competition, and exit strategies while discussing broader trends in the EdTech sector.
What does Bitter Brains do?
Léa Bouhelier-Gautreau: Bitter Brains is an online EdTech company that provides courses and certifications for developers. Their Vue.js certification, “Vue School,” has been a major revenue driver, and they’re now expanding into React certifications to capitalize on a larger market.
What makes Vue and React important?
Brian Belley: Vue and React are JavaScript frameworks that power interactive web applications. React, initially developed by Facebook, is widely used and offers Bitter Brains a significant growth opportunity as they expand into this space.
How has Bitter Brains grown so far?
Léa Bouhelier-Gautreau: The company has scaled its revenue organically, reaching over $2 million annually. Certifications account for half of this revenue, and the company is now diversifying its offerings with new courses and certifications.
What challenges does Bitter Brains face?
Brian Belley: Competition is a key challenge, including platforms like Coursera and free coding resources like W3Schools. Additionally, scaling course development for various coding languages is resource-intensive.
How does Bitter Brains plan to scale?
Léa Bouhelier-Gautreau: They’re developing a certification platform that other companies can use, creating a scalable, revenue-sharing model. This strategy could help them grow less capital-intensively while expanding their reach.
What are the pros and cons of investing in a bootstrapped company like Bitter Brains?
Teddy Lyons: Bootstrapped companies focus on sustainable growth rather than hypergrowth, often resulting in healthier financials. However, this slower growth trajectory can limit potential returns for investors compared to VC-backed startups.
What are the exit opportunities for Bitter Brains?
Léa Bouhelier-Gautreau: The founder anticipates acquisition as the most likely exit. Comparable companies, like Codecademy, have been acquired at multiples of 9–11x revenue, suggesting a strong market demand for EdTech businesses with robust technological platforms.
