turning casual coders into job-ready talent
while reducing cost per lead and increasing conversion percentage from leads generated
role
product design
company
newton school
platform
web & mWeb
timeline
2 weeks
overview
Newton School is an ed-tech platform, building a futuristic online university to provide a highly immersive and interactive learning path to millions of students and enable them to tap into new-age tech opportunities.
In two weeks we shipped a coding-and-data contest arena that now brings in 13 k MAU, 31 % repeat players and 26 % cheaper ‘job-ready’ leads—all while re-using our gra.UI.ty design-system to cut nearly 18 designer hours.
segue towards the problem
Our sales teams were spending hours qualifying raw leads, yet course enrollment still plateaued. We hypothesised that a “practice-first” Top-of-Funnel (ToFu) product could both filter high-intent learners and keep them in our ecosystem. At the same time, learners needed a reliable space to sharpen skills, showcase credibility, and win jobs or prizes.
need for this project
Filtering out leads based on skill and paying capacity for Access and XCelerate programmes. This would save sales and acad team’s effort to assess lead’s skills before enrolment.
XCelerate rarely takes freshers because most of the leads are poor quality. Coding contest would help upscale XCelerate in this way.
Becoming a go-to platform for both coding/data contest enthusiasts.
Create a ToFu product that sells itself and the users voluntarily stick to a loop of practice and learning (through Masterclass/Launchpad).
success metrics
Number of registrations /landing page footfall
Conversion % from the leads generated.
Reduction in cost per ICP lead
discovery phase highlights
Competitive landscape:
Kaggle, LeetCode, Codechef, HackerRank, Unstop & HackerEarth
Switching between separate coding & data platforms broke momentum
Learners cared more about outcomes (jobs, bragging rights) than prize money
Existing players (LeetCode, Kaggle) bury beginners
We benchmarked Kaggle, LeetCode, CodeChef, HackerRank & others for:
Reward mechanics
Leaderboard visibility
Onboarding friction Insights guided our IA & incentive design.
Risks to keep in mind:
Creating a platform radically different from the market leaders
Creating a platform which is unable to convey its value (if we go exactly as per the market leaders’ design)
Who are we building it for:
Creating a platform radically different from the market leaders
Creating a platform which is unable to convey its value (if we go exactly as per the market leaders’ design)
Current state of our brand in Google Trends:
Kaggle, LeetCode, Codechef, HackerRank, Unstop & HackerEarth
catalogue page
Most recent/live contest
Kaggle, LeetCode, Codechef, HackerRank, Unstop & HackerEarth
Right sidebar for past contest rewards & emphasis on categories
Kaggle, LeetCode, Codechef, HackerRank, Unstop & HackerEarth
Past contests with focus on rewards
Kaggle, LeetCode, Codechef, HackerRank, Unstop & HackerEarth
contest page
Most recent/live contest
Kaggle, LeetCode, Codechef, HackerRank, Unstop & HackerEarth
Right sidebar for past contest rewards & emphasis on categories
Kaggle, LeetCode, Codechef, HackerRank, Unstop & HackerEarth
Past contests with focus on rewards
Kaggle, LeetCode, Codechef, HackerRank, Unstop & HackerEarth
outcome & business impact
Our sales teams were spending hours qualifying raw leads, yet course enrollment still plateaued. We hypothesised that a “practice-first” Top-of-Funnel (ToFu) product could both filter high-intent learners and keep them in our ecosystem. At the same time, learners needed a reliable space to sharpen skills, showcase credibility, and win jobs or prizes.
Kaggle, LeetCode, Codechef, HackerRank, Unstop & HackerEarth
Metric
Avg. questions per chapter (Study Path)
Students completing ≥ 1 milestone
Overall Qual Feedback
(“I know what to do next”)
Pre-launch
-
-
27%
Post 4 weeks
38% Improvement
62% Improvement
73%
reflection
Our sales teams were spending hours qualifying raw leads, yet course enrollment still plateaued. We hypothesised that a “practice-first” Top-of-Funnel (ToFu) product could both filter high-intent learners and keep them in our ecosystem. At the same time, learners needed a reliable space to sharpen skills, showcase credibility, and win jobs or prizes.
roadmap moving forward
Our sales teams were spending hours qualifying raw leads, yet course enrollment still plateaued. We hypothesised that a “practice-first” Top-of-Funnel (ToFu) product could both filter high-intent learners and keep them in our ecosystem. At the same time, learners needed a reliable space to sharpen skills, showcase credibility, and win jobs or prizes.