Portfolio Spotlight: JDoodle
Gokul Chandrasekaran, Founder of JDoodle
How a $20 investment changed the way we write code
When it comes to coding, it’s can be a complex world filled with inefficiencies, failure-points, and LOTS of time spent figuring it all out. But does it have to be that difficult? That’s the question Gokul Chandrasekaran asked himself when he was coming up against challenges in his own line of work as a software developer. With a dream to simplify the process, and just a $20 investment (yes, just $20!), Chandrasekaran created JDoodle – an online programming ecosystem which has now grown to have 800,000 global monthly users, 76+ programming languages, and a recent funding raise of $3.2million.
We sat down with Chandrasekaran to chat about how far JDoodle has come since the first $20 investment in 2013, his experience in the UNSW Founders 10x Program, and what's next for the startup.
“This is very personal to me,” Chandrasekaran said, “I started my career as a software developer - anyone who is trying to do software programming, they know that how hard it is to run even one line of programme. If I want to run a programme in, say, any programming language, the first thing I need is a laptop with the right configuration, right? You need specific CPU, you need specific memory, things like that, then you will be spending time installing all these libraries, compilers, editors, and you will be configuring them to make what together to run just one line of programme. And once you set up this stuff, spending hours, the next day, the operating system may upgrade, and everything can break. This is just like criminal waste of human time, in my perspective. So, I wanted to build something where you can just go do the coding straightaway, click a button, you get the result.”
Chandrasekaran started the idea of JDoodle in 2013, and worked on it privately in his spare time. Just last year, he joined the Executive MBA program at UNSW, and it was through his studies that he discovered the UNSW Founders programs. But there was an initial hesitation around the world of startups.
“I have always had a feeling that [a] startup is something I can't do. It's something people from some specific background, from a specific location," Chandrasekaran said of the misconceptions around entrepreneurship, “People from Silicon Valley probably can only do it. I never thought that we can do it in Australia, right?”
These misconceptions were quickly put to rest when he joined our Coach and Connect Program, and he was supported from the very first conversation. JDoodle continued on into our Pre-Accelerator Program, and then into the 10x Accelerator Program. From there, success followed, and JDoodle was the recipient of the UNSW Founders’ inaugural People Choice Award in 2022.
“Like, that perspective completely changed in the last year. Now, even we have the full ecosystem here in Australia itself, especially in Sydney, Canberra, we’ve got the full ecosystem to support as a startup.”
“The program really helped me shaping my vision. How should I approach fundraising, how to value... Throughout my funding journey, UNSW founders were behind me.”
So, what’s next for JDoodle? After successfully raising $3.2million with the support of Main Sequence, the dream – and vision – is to turbocharge the industry by 100x.
“We are trying to solve all these problems, even though there seems to be isolated problems, the current siloed solutions are not addressing them. So basically, what we believe in as bringing those solutions together, it's very important to solve this problem collectively.”
JDoodle continues to excel in its sector, now with a fully functional team supporting Chandrasekaran’s vision – it’s come a long way from the private challenge that Chandrasekaran was trying to solve on his own.
To find out more about our programs, and how you can join the startup ecosystem at any level, visit https://unswfounders.com/