Programiz Learning To Code

Punit Jajodia
Co-founder, Programiz

Text by Ankita Jain

Online platform programiz.com helps software engineers and students learn programming languages via tutorials in the simplest way possible. “We break the barrier of complexity,” says Punit Jajodia, Co-founder, Programiz. Based in Nepal, it is one of the largest platforms across the world known for programming languages tutorials. From C, C++, Python, Java, Kotlin, R and Swift, Programiz covers all.

Programiz was launched by Ranjit Bhatta by the end of 2011 realising the lack of simple tutorials with examples. “Ranjit was learning C/C++ in his college and it was really difficult for students like him to find information that was simple to grasp. Hence, he started writing tutorials and Programiz came into existence,” Jajodia shares. Later, Jajodia and Ashwin Shrestha joined Bhatta in 2015. What started as a hobby has now grown into a fulltime profession.

Before they started working on Programiz together, they executed different ideas of online content and launched 21 websites on various verticals. Adhuro.com was one of them. “We were amateurs. Though the ideas are still great, we lacked the skills. Eventually it didn’t work out and we incurred a lot of losses,” he informs. Since all three are engineers, they decided to stick to their strength in programming and together made Programiz, now a brand we all know.

The three worked on removing the two major barriers in learning programming: money and complexity of language. The entire website is free of cost and comprises tutorials that are simple to read, understand and emulate. “We make sure every concept is explained with easy to understand examples. We are working to make Programiz a reliable source of programming knowledge, focusing on battle-tested programming languages like C, C++, Python and R,” he shares.

So far there are 1200 tutorials uploaded on the website and each one of them goes through various quality checks before going online. “All the tutorials are run on the computer to check its authenticity. Further, it undergoes grammar checks and other reviews. “We also receive emails if there exist any errors in our content, and we do the needful. More than rectification mails, we receive appreciation from millions of users monthly,” he smiles.

Programiz today has 8.5 million page visits every month. And 200 million page visits since its existence. They proudly claim that 2.5 million monthly users rely on Programiz to learn programming.

Unlike other startups, they never had a lot of trouble convincing people. And today, eight years down, the company is stable and is a completely advertisement supported platform. “We don’t see advertisements as the future and are looking forward to premium content and courses which users can subscribe to,” he shares.

The company which started with zero investment earns in lakhs today. Their main markets are US, India and Canada. “Our biggest problem is that Nepal is not our market. If we were in India or US, our revenue would have multiplied by ten times,” he highlights.

Despite running successfully, the company underwent some issues last year and the owners decided that they wanted to sell Programiz. “We didn’t receive the valuation we wanted and therefore decided to grow with Programiz,” he says. “There are a lot of independent bloggers and companies making a lot of money through content but no company has reached this scale. Our biggest compliment comes when people are shocked to learn that we are from Nepal,” he elaborates.

With an investment of approximately Rs 10 lakhs, they launched an android application for Programiz last month. “We wanted to develop an app which is personalised and interactive. Over a period of time, the team literally ironed out every little wrinkle on the app. Within 45 days, we have more than 20,000 downloads and amazing reviews,” he shares. They are planning to launch an application for iOS within two months. Further, they are coming up with interactive learning videos by the end of August. “We are also adding new programming languages on the website and new content to the existing ones,” he says.

Programiz was started several years ago to help anyone learn the skills they need to succeed in today’s digital world. “The website is built in such a way that even a layman can understand and learn the language,” he concludes.