I love going to visit a startup because their 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 was 18 when he joined ShoutMeLoud’s team. He had a passion for technology. He started contributing for my tech blog in 2009 (CallingAllGeeks) & a lot of that blog’s success is because of his hard work. He also contributed to many articles here at ShoutMeLoud.
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 my 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.
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. Individuals with genuine needs may be given the chance to earn a course certificate at no cost.
You can go ahead & create a free account on Coursera to start browsing 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:
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:
This is the zoomed version:
While working for the company, employees can also pursue degrees from any college using this platform.
They have a dedicated wall for employees’ certificates which they have earned while working for Coursera:
They have TVs all over the office and in the conference room.
The screensavers feature their own employees’ quotes and testimonials:
They have also taken care of company branding.
The “Coursera” brand is everywhere in the office:
Many employees ride bicycles to work, and this specific setup is done to minimize the amount of space taken up by parked bicycles:
And the wall art is so cool:
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”:
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.
Also see:
- 13 home-offices of professional bloggers for inspiration
- How to work from a home office & stay productive
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!
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Hey Harsh,
Thanks for sharing such a cool culture of Coursera. These stuffs can only be found in an StartUp. Agree to you that they are giving much value to their employee.
One question Harsh but it’s not related to this particular post, which plugin you use for “Last updated on” and how the post is coming on top. Please let me know if you have any article for this.
Thanks,
Ashutosh
Hie Harsh,
I know little bit about Rajat,but i was unaware about Coursera. Positively growing start up always give us pleasure and motivation of to work hard. Thank you for sharing about Coursera and hope in future ,you will share more about start-ups.
Hi Harsh,
Thanks for this inspiring posts, thanks to harsh which boosts the morale and confidence of the startups. Nice Coursera Office and Best of Luck Rajat for the future !!!!
The office view of Coursera is great. Coursera has really great online courses. Right now, I am studying the HTML, CSS, and Javascript. I’ve never appreciated that course anywhere else than in Coursera.
Congrats Harsh. You are becoming true inspiration for bloggers in India. You and Rajat looks cool. Keep going.
Great concept. Online learning platform is the need of future. With the growth in technology, people using hand held devices to learn anywhere and anytime. Students can log in to their online classrooms any time they like. This can be cost effective solution as well.
Hi Harsh and Rajat.
Thats impressive rajat. Motivation and finally paid off your hard work Mr.rajat.
your office is very amazing sir, i liked 🙂
Inspiration, ideas enthusiastic, really play big role.
Great Sir. Keep posting this kind of motivational stuff.
One question to Harsh .Please the reply.
Why I’m not seeing any advertisement in this site ? Have you not placed adv? What’s the reason ? And how you are earning from this site ? Plz reply.
Thanks for sharing the cool pics with us bro, they are very cool especially the wall art – Advance pedagogy (don’t exactly know what does pedagogy means) – but I will search for it in google now 🙂
Good pics and a lot to learn
Hi Harsh !!! great and it’s will be good memory
Oh its amazing i also want to work in that envirmoment so that I can increase my productivity level
Thanks for sharing such a cool culture of Coursera. These stuffs can only be found in an StartUp. Agree to you that they are giving much value to their employee.
It is one of the world’s leading online training and learning platform.
This office is really very creative and innovative. I loved this idea, it seems so living and cheerful environment that people would want to come back and work the next day once they are gone on a day. Loved this office and the growth of the business.
Keep sharing!!
Definitely the working culture will boost the productivity and motivate yourself. Really impressed with this culture, not even big companies do offer this kind of environment.
Only the startup will understand the importance of this sort of culture. Thanks Harsh for taking us on virtual tour with courseera.
Hi! Congrats Harsh for achievement
I am also started blogging today and registered my self as a entrepreneur in digital way of earning by making quit from my service in pharmaceutical field. In this reference I have also joined basic course at Digital Profit Course which is for 90 days syllabus and it has given me assurance that after completion of this course i can earn a better income than service on 9th days Session this course advice me to make a blog and in this step i reached up to you
Now i hope that you will understand my situation at present. Though I have adequate knowledge of internet, fb, twitter, too and many more but in blog section i am completely new and request you to give me advice how to create a nice commercial blog step wise viz how i can upload images and from where related images, videos, banner can be obtained. See Harsh this is my first month so please help me to earn some penny from this new technique to get started and for your kind information i have invested my valuable 25 years of life for other’s growth but no more now
Rest in next mail….
Thanks for sharing the cool pics and inspiring posts.