Treehouse (company)

Last updated
Treehouse Island, Inc.
Treehouse's logo (Jan 2015).png
Type of business Private
Available inEnglish
FoundedMarch 22, 2011;13 years ago (2011-03-22) [1]
Headquarters
Portland, Oregon
,
U.S.
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s) Ryan Carson, Gillian Carson
Industry Internet
Services Technology education
Employees5
URL Teamtreehouse
CommercialYes
Users 50K+ [2]
Current statusActive

Treehouse or (Teamtreehouse) is an online technology school that offers beginner to advanced courses in web design, web development, mobile development and game development. [3] Its courses are aimed at beginners looking to learn computer coding skills for a career in the tech industry.

Contents

The Treehouse learning program includes videos combined with interactive quizzes and code challenges. Treehouse Tracks are guided curricula, composed of courses that train students in large topic areas. Treehouse for Teams is designed to assist businesses, organizations, schools and community programs in technology training. As of 2011, companies including Simple and LivingSocial used Treehouse to recruit new employees based on their progress and achievements on Treehouse. [4]

History

Ryan and Gillian Carson founded Treehouse in 2011, a project that emerged from Carson's previous company, Carsonified, and its video-tutorial service Think Vitamin Membership. [5] Carson redesigned and rebranded the service as Treehouse because the name "reflects the wonder of learning as a child." [6] [7] In 2011, Treehouse opened their first office in Orlando, Florida, In 2012 they opened their second office and moved Treehouse HQ to Portland, Oregon. [8]

In April 2012, Treehouse raised $4.75M in funding. [9] In April 2013, Treehouse closed a US$7 million Series-B fundraising round led by Social+Capital and Kaplan bringing its total raised capital to $12.6 million. [10]

In July 2013, Treehouse released its first iPad app for accessing Treehouse's content. [11] Treehouse also released an Android application in 2014 and added a course for Apple's Swift programming language. [12] At the time, Carson was the current CEO of Treehouse. [7]

In May 2016, Treehouse announced the launch of the Techdegree Program. The Techdegree program is a guided learning program that is designed to help students prepare for entry-level development jobs. [13] There are currently Techdegree programs available in Front End Web Development, Full Stack JavaScript, User Experience (UX) Design, PHP, and Python Development [14]

In September 2019 Treehouse launched "Project: Unlock the American Dream" in Portland, in partnership with AnitaB.org, The Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and musician Aminé. The project aimed to train and place young adults into paid internships with technology firms, with the potential to turn into permanent jobs. [15]

Controversy

Carson has faced criticism in the past from employees and community members accusing him, a white man, of profiting off DEI efforts and of blocking individuals on social media who have questioned his motives, including prominent diversity advocate Stephen Green. [16]

In September 2021, Carson drew the ire of Treehouse students and community partners by laying off 90% of Treehouse's staff without severance pay via a five-sentence message to Slack, despite expanding the company over the first half of 2021 and launching new initiatives such as the Ubora scholarship program. Employees who remained were told Treehouse would no longer cover their health insurance. [17] [18]

Acquisition

In December, 2021 Treehouse was acquired by Xenon Partners, an owner/operator of enterprise SaaS businesses. Founder Ryan Carson departed the company in conjunction with the acquisition, with Jason Gilmore assuming the role of CEO. In the months following the acquisition, Treehouse significantly boosted the staff size and resumed work on several educational and student job placement initiatives. In January 2024, Kari Brooks assumed the role of Treehouse CEO, succeeding Jason Gilmore, who transitioned to the role of Xenon Partner. Under the new leadership, Treehouse continues to expand its educational offerings and partnerships, and enhance its career-related programs.

See also

Related Research Articles

A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to go public, startups are new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo-founder. During the beginning, startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to become successful and influential.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Powell's Books</span> Bookstore chain selling new and used books

Powell's Books is a chain of bookstores in Portland, Oregon, and its surrounding metropolitan area. Powell's headquarters, dubbed Powell's City of Books, claims to be the largest independent new and used bookstore in the world. Powell's City of Books is located in the Pearl District on the edge of downtown and occupies a full city block between NW 10th and 11th Avenues and between W. Burnside and NW Couch Streets. It contains over 68,000 square feet, about 1.6 acres of retail floor space.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silicon Forest</span> Nickname for the cluster of high-tech companies near Portland, USA

Silicon Forest is a nickname for the Washington County cluster of high-tech companies located in the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Oregon, and most frequently refers to the industrial corridor between Beaverton and Hillsboro in northwest Oregon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salesforce</span> American software company

Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides customer relationship management (CRM) software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics, and application development.

Babbel GmbH, operating as Babbel, is a German subscription-based language learning software and e-learning platform, available in various languages since January 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jive Software</span>

Jive Software, an Aurea Software company, is a provider of communication and collaboration software for business.

Twilio Inc. is an American cloud communications company based in San Francisco, California, which provides programmable communication tools for making and receiving phone calls, sending and receiving text messages, and performing other communication functions using its web service APIs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Udemy</span> American online learning platform

Udemy, Inc. is an education technology company, founded in May 2010 by Eren Bali, Gagan Biyani, and Oktay Caglar. It is based in San Francisco, California, United States, with hubs in Denver, Colorado; Dublin, Ireland; Austin, Texas; Melbourne, Australia; İstanbul, Turkey, and Gurgaon, India.

Cvent Holding Corp. is a Tysons Corner, Virginia-based company that provides software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions for meetings, events, and hospitality management. Their web-based platform caters to in-person, virtual, and hybrid events, offering functionalities like online registration, venue selection, event management tools, and attendee engagement features. Cvent also provides software for hotels and venues to manage group bookings, including corporate travel, and source new group business. Previously a public company, Cvent was acquired by investment firm Blackstone Inc. for $4.6 billion in June 2023.

New Relic, Inc. is an American web tracking and analytics company based in San Francisco. The company's cloud-based software allows websites and mobile apps to track user interactions and service operators' software and hardware performance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Codecademy</span> Online code-learning platform

Codecademy is an American online interactive platform that offers free coding classes in 12 different programming languages including Python, Java, Go, JavaScript, Ruby, SQL, C++, C#, and Swift, as well as markup languages HTML and CSS. The site also offers a paid "Pro" option that gives users access to personalized learning plans, quizzes, and realistic projects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Chasen</span> American businessman

Michael Chasen is an American businessman. He is a co-founder and former CEO of Blackboard Inc., a position he held from 1999 to 2012. In April 2013, Chasen co-founded SocialRadar, a technology startup company developing a location-based social app. In 2020, he co-founded ClassEDU, the maker of Class For Zoom, which aims to improve the effectiveness of Zoom-based remote learning.

Turn 2 U Inc. dba The Last Mile (TLM) is an Oakland, CA based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide opportunities for personal and professional growth for justice-impacted individuals through education and technology training. The Last Mile is celebrating more than a decade as an organization, originating with its first program in San Quentin State Prison with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. TLM has leveraged the power of public-private partnerships with Department of corrections and industry-leading companies to build and expand its programs. Programs are currently operating in 16 facilities across 7 states in the United States, including California, Indiana, Oklahoma, Michigan, North Dakota, Montana and Massachusetts. TLM has been able to expand its purpose, "To Imagine, Build, and Open Doors," into other facilities through these partnerships as well as funding and employment opportunities from the technology sector. Through in-prison education, transitional support, and workforce reentry, TLM is disrupting the system of mass incarceration across the United States. In-classroom curricula and course material prepare students for meaningful employment in modern job roles including web development, software engineering, and audio and video production. Students cultivate personal and professional development in alignment with the technical education and with the support of TLM reentry staff, volunteers, and a community founded on shared lived experience.

General Assembly is an American-headquartered private, for-profit education organization founded by CEO Jake Schwartz, Adam Pritzker, Matthew Brimer, and Brad Hargreaves in early 2011 and purchased by The Adecco Group in 2018. It maintains campuses in various countries throughout the world to teach entrepreneurs and business professionals practical technology skills. It provides courses in mobile and software engineering, data science, product management, and other digital technology–related courses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oregon Venture Fund</span> Venture capital fund

Oregon Venture Fund makes venture investments in the Portland, Oregon area and throughout Oregon and SW Washington. The fund consists of 180 institutional and angel investors, of whom 85% have run or founded a business. The fund evaluates up to 300 business plans per year, selecting five to seven to invest in annually. In 2018, the fund changed its name from Oregon Angel Fund to Oregon Venture Fund and launched a new $30M fund. Since its inception, Oregon Venture Fund has generated an average annual rate of return of 34% and a return on investment exceeding $3.50 for each dollar invested.

Pluralsight, LLC is an American privately held online education company that offers a variety of video training courses for software developers, IT administrators, and creative professionals through its website. Founded in 2004 by Aaron Skonnard, Keith Brown, Fritz Onion, and Bill Williams, the company has its headquarters in Farmington, Utah. As of July 2018, it uses more than 1,400 subject-matter experts as authors, and offers more than 7,000 courses in its catalog. Since first moving its courses online in 2007, the company has expanded, developing a full enterprise platform, and adding skills assessment modules.

OpenSesame Inc. is a Portland based educational technology company that provides an online marketplace for buying and selling SCORM elearning courses focused primarily on employee training. Its online training platform, directly connects content providers with employees and businesses for online training resources and specially designed courses for professionals, which can be accessed through a Learning management system. The company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Portland, Oregon. As of January 2024, OpenSesame tracks around 30,000 courses from more than 200 publishers.

Responsive is a privately owned developer of cloud-based software that automates and streamlines the process of responding to a request for proposal (RFP) based in Beaverton, Oregon. The company also maintains an office in Coimbatore, India. Founded in 2015, the company has expanded rapidly and now has more than 150,000 users worldwide after tripling its user base in 2019 and sustaining growth during the global pandemic. Responsive software has supported more than $20 billion in RFP responses.

inDinero is an accounting software and services company providing accounting and financial software. Founded in 2009 by Jess Mah, Andy Su, and Andrea Barrica, inDinero graduated the startup incubator, Y Combinator in 2010. On May 8, 2018, inDinero acquired San Jose-based firm tempCFO. On February 1, 2019, inDinero acquired a second company, mAccounting, an Indianapolis-based accounting and tax firm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zach Sims</span> American entrepreneur

Zach Sims is an American entrepreneur who co-founded Codecademy, an online platform offering interactive coding lessons and tutorials.

References

  1. ↑ "TeamTreeHouse.com WHOIS, DNS, & Domain Info - DomainTools". WHOIS . Retrieved 2016-08-20.
  2. ↑ "Treehouse Site" . Retrieved 17 February 2015.
  3. ↑ "Treehouse". Treehouse Island Inc. Retrieved 8 January 2014.
  4. ↑ Tsotsis, Alexia. "Web Design And Development Community Treehouse Wants To Teach You How To Code, Get You A Job". TechCrunch. Retrieved 28 April 2013.
  5. ↑ "Treehouse Blog". Treehouse Island inc. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  6. ↑ May, Tom. "Ryan Carson on Treehouse, FOWA, startups and more!". Creative Bloq. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  7. 1 2 "Treehouse: About". Treehouse. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
  8. ↑ Rogoway, Mike. "Online education startup Treehouse says it has raised $4.75 million and will move HQ to Portland". Oregon Live. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
  9. ↑ Tsotis, Alexia. "Web Dev Education Startup Treehouse Raises $4.75M From Chamath And Greylock - TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. Retrieved September 8, 2014.
  10. ↑ Empson, Rip. "Treehouse Lands $7M From Kaplan, Social+Capital To Help You Learn To Code". TechCrunch. Retrieved 5 June 2013.
  11. ↑ Tomer, Caryn. "Treehouse Launches iPad App; Helps Programmers And Designers Be Job Ready". Techli. Retrieved 31 Jul 2013.
  12. ↑ Williams, Owen. "Treehouse releases Android app, adds course for Apple's Swift programming language". The Next Web. Retrieved 17 Sep 2014.
  13. ↑ "Treehouse Introduces Techdegree". Business Wire. Retrieved 20 May 2016.
  14. ↑ "Start Your Techdegree | Treehouse". teamtreehouse.com. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  15. ↑ KATU Staff. "Coding school, local hip-hop artist team up for 'Project: Unlock the American Dream'". KATU. Retrieved 28 September 2019.
  16. ↑ Malia Spencer. "Online code school Treehouse to lay off majority of staff". Portland Business Journals. Retrieved October 3, 2021.
  17. ↑ Mike Rogoway. "Online coding school Treehouse, formerly based in Portland, lays off most of its staff". The Oregonian. Retrieved October 3, 2021.
  18. ↑ Jessica Xing. "Inside the sweeping job cuts at coding school Treehouse, where insiders say the CEO's 'impulsive management style' left employees in the lurch". Business Insider. Retrieved October 3, 2021.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.