"Within a year after Le Wagon, I joined an accelerator program, received funding, and my passion project quickly became a start-up."
Can you introduce yourself to our community?
Hi, I'm
Michael Zavattaro and I come from Sydney, Australia. I’m a Batch #186 graduate and I finished my bootcamp in November 2018.
I’m also the founder of Moruya, a start-up I started working on during my time at Le Wagon!
What decided you to learn to code and to join Le Wagon?
I was an environmental consultant working at one of Australia’s leading consultancy firms, specialized in contaminated land. I found the industry was more logistics focused and you’d spend a lot of time overseeing the movement of contaminated material around Australia. There was a lot of report writing and due diligence involved, coordinating with subcontractors and stakeholders... At the end of the day, we were just a box to tick for our clients, and the industry felt like it was 20 years behind the technology curve. There wasn’t enough push to try and innovate the space. I came to the realization that I needed to pivot my career into a more fulfilling industry and that's why I decided to join Le Wagon in Melbourne.
How would you describe your experience in Le Wagon?
I found Le Wagon to be incredibly fast-paced. There’s a lot of material to cover in a fairly short amount of time. It had a good balance between guiding you down the right path when solving a problem and letting you develop your own solution to it. The extra course material that you complete after the classes was incredibly helpful at building the foundations. The teaching staff were very supportive and encouraging through the rollercoaster of emotions you’ll get to experience. The team environment keeps you motivated and everyone encourages you to keep pushing yourself.
It had a good balance between guiding you down the right path when solving a problem and letting you develop your own solution to it.
What were the steps for you to launch your own start-up after Le Wagon?
Towards the end of the bootcamp, I started working on a passion project called Moruya. With some incredible support and mentorship, the project got more advanced and I joined an accelerator program called INCUBATE. I was able to receive funding and Moruya quickly became a start-up. This was all within a year after Le Wagon. We learned a lot. How to operate a tech start-up, market fit, customer interviews, how to build a product to solve your customer’s pains, how to pitch to investors. This was all while I was still working and developing Moruya’s platform. During this time, we even were approached by one of the world’s largest global laboratory companies who loved what we were building!
What would you say to someone thinking about joining the course?
The real challenge comes after you graduate the bootcamp. If you want a career as a software engineer, you'll need to keep coding every day!
If you’re ready to change your life and career pivot into the tech scene, Le Wagon is a fantastic place to start. The real challenge comes after you graduate the bootcamp. If you want a career as a software engineer, you’ll need to keep coding every day. Work on personal projects, replicate others. Don’t forget to continue to learn new tech stacks, and build lots of projects. Most importantly, don’t forget to showcase your work to the world!
