Are you in demand?
TL;DR: Introducing Phoenix — 1:1, efficient, coaching in the skills that companies need right now. It’s completely free until you start a job. It’s the simplest way for anyone to be in-demand in a post-COVID economy.
UPDATE: we’ve been featured on Product Hunt!
A message from a friend
Like many of us right now, I recently started having a video call with my closest friends every Friday evening.
In early April, we got an unexpected message from Steve a few hours before that call — our only opportunity to have fun with friends all week.
“Shitty day. Got laid off. Need to figure a few things out. Probably won’t join the call today, gents.”
Just like tens of millions of others in the last couple months, Steve lost his job. His company was affected by COVID-19, and had to let go of all their sales people.
With a mortgage to pay, two kids, and his wife a doctor with her own work stress to deal with during this crisis — this news came at the worst time.
The biggest crisis in 100 years
We all have friends who have found themselves in the same situation as Steve. He is lucky, relatively speaking — he’s worked at some great companies and his skills are applicable to many companies hiring today.
Others aren’t as lucky. People who were about to enter the job market, or those working in restaurants, hotels, retail and many more need to be retrained completely. The US economy is on fire and for those people that fire is not stopping anytime soon.
It’s a broken record by now that over 30 million Americans have lost their jobs during this crisis, and a big part of them won’t be able to get them back soon, perhaps ever.
And globally, the number could end up being almost 200 million.
A time to act
What if there was a simple way to help all those people not only get back to work, but be in a much stronger position than they were in before? Or as Taleb fans would say, make them antifragile¹?
Our solution? Offer free instructor-led courses while out of work. To quickly and efficiently learn skills companies are looking for, from the experts.
It’s the right call to say it’s time to build. But what skills will enable that building to happen? We need to get the whole world back to work, and with the right skills to build the future, not the past.
A call to arms
Here at Enki we feel it’s our duty to help. This is because we’ve trained over a million people online, and spent the last 2 years building a remote, 1:1 training experience accessible to anyone.
Until last month, we focused on helping employees at companies learn new skills efficiently. Since then, we’ve repurposed our platform to also help the millions who’ve lost their jobs recently to benefit from it and get back to work more quickly. And without paying anything until they can afford it.
And we don’t stop there. We can give those people better careers and earning potential than they’ve ever had before. Hence the name: Phoenix².
Here is how we’re doing it.
Become in-demand for free
We started off by interviewing managers at a wide range of hiring companies and identified the most in-demand skills across all roles.
We focused on skills that can be learnt not just by people already in tech, but by anyone, anywhere, and in days rather than months. That are guaranteed to make you more employable because they give you an unfair advantage in any role.
You can view them on the Phoenix homepage, starting from the data courses here. You’ll also notice courses in no-code tools, collaboration skills, writing for business, and essential business tools. And even how to nail your interview.
The right mentor proactively guiding you is essential to understand the fundamentals quickly, and learn how to apply a skill properly.
Imagine if you had an experienced, friendly colleague constantly by your side answering your questions, motivating you, and suggesting areas for improvement. That’s what we’ve designed Phoenix to achieve.
But because of the technology we’ve built, we can charge $400 or less for each course, which is many times less than a bootcamp or hiring a private coach.
But best of all, there’s no upfront cost at all for job-seekers. If you’re in-between jobs, you pay nothing until your first paycheck in your next job.
The power of mentorship, right now
The reality is that even if you have no experience in a certain industry, if you have the skills that are relevant for companies that are hiring right now — they will want to hire you.
Knowing the basics of technical topics like SQL and Python will put you in the top 1% for marketing, operations, support and sales roles. Most might think they’re beyond them, but they’re not!
From our experience it takes less than 10 focused hours of the right guidance and mentorship — no matter your background — to acquire enough of those skills to add value in a company. Phoenix provides that focus and guidance.
That means that irrespective of whether you’ve only ever worked in a restaurant, or were a marketing manager at a travel company — a Phoenix course could change your career trajectory.
Our instructors are not just experienced at communicating key topics in a simple way. We also ensure they know how to make you realize that you can be great at those skills yourself — and fast.
Let’s act now, together
Many are struggling and most would agree that the government hasn’t been able to step up. Since we specialize in helping everyone get access to the right mentorship, we felt it was our duty to help in this crisis. But we need your support!
If you would benefit from Phoenix, we encourage you to apply now. And if it doesn’t speak to you — you’re lucky! Spread the word to your friends that might be less so. We can only get out of this mess if we act as a community, and act fast.
It doesn’t matter if you wanted to make America great again, or you thought it was always great. It’s time to act together. It’s time to Make America Work Again!³
[1]: Antifragility is a property of systems that increase in capability to thrive as a result of shocks and volatility. It is a concept developed by Professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book, Antifragile.
The classic example of something antifragile is Hydra, the Greek mythological creature that has numerous heads. When one is cut off, two grow back in its place.
[2]: In Ancient Greek folklore, a phoenix is a bird that cyclically regenerates or obtains new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor.
We aim to have a similar effect on everyone who is in the eye of the worst economic, financial and social storm in 100 years.
[3]: I reference America here, but the problem is global. Right now, Phoenix is limited to English speakers from any country, but as we grow our network of instructors this may change.
Thanks to Roy Bahat, Andy McLoughlin, Roger Dickey, Bob Ippolito, Jason Calacanis, Hiten Shah, Kal El-Wahab, Vitaliy Gubskiy, Nemanja Stojanovic, Catalin Buruiana, Tim Kubatkin, and Bruno Marnette for reading drafts of this.
