CareerFoundry Wants To Be The Next General Assembly For Tech Skills

General Assembly was one of the first in the tech space to get that high quality brand name for technology education. But although the company – which won significant backing – has been building out online tools and resources, most of its business remains offline in the real world. Now a startup out of Berlin hopes to repeat GA’s success but using online-only tools, starting with a ‘minimum viable product’.

CareerFoundry is creating a customizable training package for vocational tech skills which aims to train technical teams in new technologies, onboard new employees and accelerate startups. The twist is that all of the work is done online in a peer-to-peer environment.

People are matched with a mentor online and interact online and via Google Hangouts. The mentors are often drawn from the companies which offer the products themselves. Their programs will include training for FrontEnd Development, Ruby on Rails, UX & UI Design and Digital Marketing.

A CareerFoundry mentor instructs groups of between 2 and 5 students. In turn, this acts as a conduit for partners like Invision App, Jumpstarter and others.

Founder and CEO Raffalea Rein said they got some early traction with employers who were putting their staff through a 3 month programs, but that it became “clear we needed a better solution for teams.”

She says they’ve found this P2P method far more effective than other methods.

Rein previously cut her startup teeth with Rocket Internet, while co-founder Martin Ramsin is a Nokia product expert. The company changed its name from doBranch last month after 6 months of testing and development with 250 students.