Working with 37S will easily be the best thing that ever happened to Starter League. Perfect fit, the creators of Rails, Chicago locals... etc. I'd love to see Chicago become the anti-silicon valley. A place for more practical, "get rich slowly" types of tech businesses. 37S is the perfect cornerstone. It just feels right with Chicago's blue collar roots (I am biased -- a Chicago native).
Separately, I love the fact that the name has been changed (CodeCademy conflict was awful), but The Starter League doesn't have the same instant semantic meaning as Code Academy did. Sounds almost like a startup incubator at first.
We definitely have an affinity towards our original Code Academy brand, but unfortunately we had some confusing overlap with another awesome company - Codecademy. Zach Sims and his team are great and he and I have been good friends since we've discussed how to resolve our name confusion. I'm happy that we'll be able to support each other going forward. We encourage our students to use resources like theirs and Treehouse in order to prepare for some of our in-person courses.
As far as the name change not having the same semantic meaning, I completely agree, however "teaching people to code" was never our only purpose. We wanted to provide a path for people who wanted to start change -- in their industries, in their communities, in their lives. To us, being a Starter means so much more than just being able to write code; it's about being driven to do something meaningful with it. A Starter is an innovator, a disruptor; someone who is burning to solve problems and is willing to bust their ass to learn what they need in order to do so.
We are also not a place that you visit for three months to acquire a skill and then leave. You don't just attend, graduate, and then disconnect. To be a member of The Starter League means to have earned a permanent place in a team of people dedicated to supporting one another in ongoing efforts to learn and build, to solve meaningful problems for ourselves and others.
We are not simply an academy for coders. We are a League of Starters.
Come take a tour of Capital Factory when you come over to checkout the scene. There'll be plenty of people to answer any questions you have about the area (and hopefully persuade you to move here!).
I'm up north a bit in Madison, Wisconsin, and my co-founder and I have definitely been interested in what's going on in Chicago. I'd love to connect with more Chicago founders and learn more about the scene.
Next time you're down here, gimme a shout. Would love to meet up for coffee and help you get the lay of the land.
Also, if you happen to be in town during any of our Entrepreneurs Unpluggd (http://entrepreneursunpluggd.com) events, that's one place (of many great places) to get started.
entrepreneurs unplugged is a great event (As tim mentioned), and Technori Pitch (http://technori.com/thepitch) is another one to check out. I"m the CTO for Technori.
Separately, I love the fact that the name has been changed (CodeCademy conflict was awful), but The Starter League doesn't have the same instant semantic meaning as Code Academy did. Sounds almost like a startup incubator at first.