Codédex Update - May 2025

Record-low net burn. v1.0 coming soon. Big months ahead.

Author

Sonny Li
June 10, 2025

Hi Codédex Investor community,

We’ll keep this short since things have been going well.

Thanks to strong growth, we just had our lowest net burn in two years (since July 2023 🥲). We also signed a lease for a bigger office as we prep for the next few months.

Making some moves.

Key Metrics (MoM)

  • Total Registered Users: 745,346 (+19%)

  • MAU: 136,381 (-4%)

  • MRR: $43,895 (+22%)

  • MR: $63,935 (+7%)

  • Run Rate: $837,220 🔥

May Highlights

Curriculum

Product (Eng & Design)

  • 🏆 Shipped Monthly Challenge revamp.

  • 🛢️ Shipped SQL course pixel art.

  • ✅ Added Code Eval for Python Ch. 3-8. And regex to exercise 1-2.

  • 🤔 Ran product survey on learning environment.

  • ⚒️ Optimized database reads to cut down costs.

  • 🧪 Pressure tested price increase (success!):

    • Monthly: $12.99 → $14.99

    • Annual: $95.88 → $119.88

  • 🧹 Shipped 36 papercuts & fixed 23 bug reports.

Marketing & Community

Others

  • 👩🏻‍💻 Hired Gabriela Banaag for summer work.

  • 📦 Signed lease for a bigger office. Woohoo!

  • 🇺🇸 Dharma’s U.S. visa was officially approved!

Monthly Challenge Glow Up

That’s right! We gave our Monthly Challenge page a makeover. Now it’s easier than ever to browse, filter, and get inspired by the current and past challenges.

Here’s what’s new:

Cloud Usage Optimizations

In the past 12 months, our userbase has grown 5x, so it was time to take a step back and take a look at where we are burning cash, especially on the IT & infrastructure side.

Key savings:

  • Google Cloud: Improved Firebase usage by 56%. Saved ~$7,450/month.

  • OpenAI: Replaced LLM-based checks with regex. Saved ~$900/month.

Total saved: ~$8,350/month! Shoutout to Dharma for making these improvements.

Lowlights

Churn ticked up in May. Partly seasonal (end of school year), partly due to a rise in lower-intent users. We're watching it closely.

So… What’s Ahead for June?

  • 🚀 Gearing up for v1.0 launch in July:

    • New Game Development, Machine Learning/AI, GitHub Copilot courses.

    • Wrapping up SQL and C++ loose ends.

    • Launching cutscenes, landing page art, and UI updates.

    • Working with an animation studio on an epic launch video.

  • 🤖 Kicking off Build-A-Bot Monthly Challenge.

  • 📺 Releasing Walkthrough Videos in Python.

  • ✍️ Wrapping up Q2 with performance reviews.

  • 💭 Prepping Q3 OKRs.

Big Launches Coming Up

We have four big months coming up:

  • 🚀 July: Take a well-earned week off and launch Codédex v1.0.

  • 🐙 August: Launch GitHub Copilot course + Monthly Challenge.

  • 🍂 September: Fall Hackathon 2025 (backed by GitHub).

  • 👋 Fall: Hello World Manifesto / 100-Year Brand campaign.

We'll share links in July for RTs & reposts. 🙏

Final Note

Get ready for our v1.0 launch in late July!

It’s been exactly three years since I left Codecademy after the Skillsoft acquisition. I didn’t know what would come next – only that I needed to build something new and lasting in this space, with a team that is just as wild and ambitious as me.

Since starting Codédex, we've been so heads-down building that we haven't properly launched the product since our scrappy MVP debut on Product Hunt in November 2022. I watched the video again today – it's almost unrecognizable. We've grown up.

Now, with profitability in sight (so close I can smell it lol), the question is no longer “Will we survive?” but “What kind of company do we want to become?” and “How can we be so impactful, so transformative, that we shift the trajectory of this planet for the better?”

To get there, we're going back to the drawing board.

Here's our plan: 1) craft our mission statement and story, 2) reintroduce Codédex to the world, and 3) launch the manifesto this fall as our answer to the times.

Things are in motion. More in the next update.

The future's v bright.

- Sonny