Coursera Office Tour: Ideas & Inspiration for Your Startup

0 Comments read more
bio

I’m Harsh Agrawal

Blog Scientist & a passionate blogger. Love minimalist life & talk about things that matter. Adventure from heart & doer by action.

read more

I love visiting a startup because its office is always full of creativity and enthusiasm.

I always end up learning something new from their office setup. In an earlier post, I gave you an exclusive tour of Google’s headquarters and now, as promised, here is a virtual tour of the Coursera office.

You may ask, why the Coursera office?

Well, credit goes to Rajat. If you have been following ShoutMeLoud since 2008, you know Rajat. If not, let me quickly introduce him to you.

Rajat Kumar iOS ninja

Rajat was 18 when he joined ShoutMeLoud’s team. He had a passion for technology. He started contributing to my tech blog in 2009 (CallingAllGeeks) & a lot of that blog’s success is because of his hard work.

After 2 years, he moved to the United States for his higher degree studies. Recently, when I visited San Francisco, he invited me to visit his startup Coursera, located in Mountain View, California (he is working as a lead iOS developer).

I gladly accepted his invitation. It was great seeing Rajat again, as he is not only a bright mind but also one of the oldest members of the ShoutMeLoud team.

(So, that was quick intro of Rajat.  You can connect with him on Twitter @veryrajat. Now, let’s check out the Coursera office & I’m sure you will get tons of office ideas for your own startup.)

What is Coursera?

I visited Coursera to meet Rajat, but at the same time, I got to know about this cool startup which is changing the lives of many young guns around the globe.

Before I give you this exclusive fun-filled tour of Coursera’s office, let me quickly share some details about this startup. This might change your life or somebody else’s life in your network.

Coursera is a tech startup in the education field. They partner with top universities & organizations worldwide to offer university courses via an online platform.

Affiliate universities with Coursera

There are hundreds of specialization courses available in Business, Data Science, Computer Science, Social Science & many more. Coursera also offers financial aid to students who can’t afford a course.

Coursera’s financial aid is a special program to give Coursera students in all economic circumstances the chance to earn course related certificates.

Financial aid was designed specifically for those who face significant economic hardships. They may give individuals with genuine needs the chance to earn a course certificate at no cost.

You can go ahead & create a free account on Coursera to browse their courses.

Exclusive office tour of Startup company Coursera:

I reached their office around 3 P.M. & this is what their front desk lobby looks like:

Coursera Fontdesk

What I really like about this company is their value system. Coursera puts their customers first & revenue later. This is the same with their policies for employees; everyone is free to make their own decisions and mental well-being comes before profit.

They use real testimonials from satisfied clients as graffiti which shows this customer-centric culture:

Coursera Meeting Room

This is the zoomed version:

Testimonial

While working for the company, employees can also pursue degrees from any college using this platform.

They have a dedicated wall for employees’ certificates that they have earned while working for Coursera:

Degree earned by employes

They have TVs all over the office and in the conference room.

The screensavers feature their own employees’ quotes and testimonials:

Coursera employees culture

They have also taken care of company branding.

The “Coursera” brand is everywhere in the office:

Coursera Branding
Coursera Startup office tour

Many employees ride bicycles to work, and they did this specific setup to minimize the amount of space taken up by parked bicycles:

Coursera Ride
Coursera Values
Coursera Cafeteria

And the wall art is so cool:

Coursera Brand value
Wall Art at Coursera
Standing desk

The ground floor is where their sales & marketing team works.

The first floor is where you will find all the “cool stuff”. That includes a play area, music area, and many more “cool things”:

Sitting area
Cool Stuff
Music area in startup
Drums at startup office
Gaming area at startup office
Pool Table
Drinks
Startup office inspiration
Free food for employee
Coffee maker
Testimonial

I stayed at the office to complete some of my own work, and I enjoyed the friendly & productive environment of Coursera’s office.

This is the second such post here at ShoutMeLoud, where I’m featuring a startup office. I will continue giving you exclusive tours of startups, which should give you a lot of inspiration for your own startup office space.

Do let me know what you think of this Coursera office tour.

Don’t forget to share this with your entrepreneur friends who are about to launch their own offices!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *