Last summer, students at The Coding Space in New York City had the opportunity to visit the offices of Hopscotch, a coding app for kids. Now, we’re thrilled to have the chance to learn more about Hopscotch from Samantha John, one of their co-founders. Hopscotch is on a mission to foster a programming environment that lets kids explore powerful ideas while making real software. Since launch, they’ve had over 33 million projects built on their app. We’ll learn about Samantha’s vision behind creating Hopscotch, her coding journey, and advice for new coders.
Tell us about Hopscotch! What was the inspiration behind creating it?
We started Hopscotch about eight years ago now, and the first idea was to create a program that girls would like to learn to code. Growing up, I had this idea that coding and programming were for boys. When I was in college I started getting into programming and thought it was great. It was project-based and I was constantly getting feedback. I loved that the more you worked on it, the better the program became.
How did you go about bringing it to life?
The first version was called Daisy the Dinosaur and it did really well. Apple featured it and it had almost two million downloads. In 2012, my co-founder, Jocelyn, and I were both still working full-time and decided to take a two-week staycation from our jobs to work on Hopscotch. When I came back to work, I felt like I was wasting time that I could be working on Hopscotch and gave notice that day.
What did you do before Hopscotch?
I was a programmer at a company called Pivotal Labs. They’re an agile software consultancy, startups and big companies would hire us to build their MVPs and improve their development process. A lot of the process that we follow at Hopscotch is based on what I learned at Pivotal.
What has been your experience being as a female founder?
It’s hard to say because I’ve never been a male founder. I’m sure that some things are harder, and I’m sure some things are easier. When you go to startup events, you may be the only woman there. People may underestimate you, but they also remember you. It can feel like you are trying to join a boys club, but you always stick out in the crowd.
Tell us about Hopscotch! What was the inspiration behind creating it?
We started Hopscotch about eight years ago now, and the first idea was to create a program that girls would like to learn to code. Growing up, I had this idea that coding and programming were for boys. When I was in college I started getting into programming and thought it was great. It was project-based and I was constantly getting feedback. I loved that the more you worked on it, the better the program became.
How did you go about bringing it to life?
The first version was called Daisy the Dinosaur and it did really well. Apple featured it and it had almost two million downloads. In 2012, my co-founder, Jocelyn, and I were both still working full-time and decided to take a two-week staycation from our jobs to work on Hopscotch. When I came back to work, I felt like I was wasting time that I could be working on Hopscotch and gave notice that day.
What did you do before Hopscotch?
I was a programmer at a company called Pivotal Labs. They’re an agile software consultancy, startups and big companies would hire us to build their MVPs and improve their development process. A lot of the process that we follow at Hopscotch is based on what I learned at Pivotal.
What has been your experience being as a female founder?
It’s hard to say because I’ve never been a male founder. I’m sure that some things are harder, and I’m sure some things are easier. When you go to startup events, you may be the only woman there. People may underestimate you, but they also remember you. It can feel like you are trying to join a boys club, but you always stick out in the crowd.
What has been your coding journey?
I took a Basic programming class in high school. When I graduated from high school in 2005, people didn’t have smartphones yet. Tech didn’t seem particularly exciting. I went to college for engineering and immediately eliminated computer science. I thought I wasn’t a computer person. so I ended up majoring in math.
Later on, I needed to build a website for a club I was in and became obsessed with it. I loved making it better for everyone who was using it. I didn’t know any good programming practices. I could only see my changes by uploading them to the site and seeing if something broke. That was inspiring enough where I decided to work in computer science after that. I got a programming job after college, and here I am now.
Why do you think learning to code is important for kids?
As a child, I think there is very little that you can do to participate in the adult world. If you’re into art, art supplies can be expensive. If you’re into cars, you’re not allowed to drive. Coding is pretty amazing as a kid; you can have access to all the tools that adults have. You’re not limited except by your time and abilities. That’s really empowering for kids. They often don’t have a lot of agency, and in this area, they can.
With building an app, you are constantly iterating and coming out with new features. What does that process look like for your team?
A really important step for us is to show new features to kids so we know what’s working and isn’t working. We spend as much time as we can fit into our schedule talking to kids and getting feedback. There is really no substitute for the wisdom of your users and kids really love being engaged in the process. Here is a link if your child wants to be a part of the user feedback testing.
What do you see is the future of coding education?
It’s really hard to teach coding in schools; you need a lot of repetition and time. We’re doing a study right now with schools to see the efficacy of Hopscotch. We designed eight, 45-minute lessons. When we started talking with teachers, we found out that teachers often only have 1 class session every 2 weeks to teach coding. To get anywhere with coding you have to spend hours and hours practicing. It doesn’t really conform well to the typical school model. If students are able to take their iPads home, that helps because they can get the spark in their classroom and then bring it home to keep working on their projects.
What advice would you have for kids who are just learning how to code?
Try Hopscotch of course!
