NexLiber

NexLiber is a comprehensive library of computer science projects promoting community-driven experiential learning.

27 million: the colossal population size of the global coding community. As coders, we share one identifying feature: the unadulterated pursuit of life-long learning. Being a coder means continuously learning technologies which develop at accelerating speeds. Alas, this sparks “tutorial hell”, where coders, especially beginners, are stuck regurgitating cookie-cutter projects without thoroughly understanding the code, preventing them from engineering original creations.

Tutorial hell burns as coders are stuck learning without doing, so encouraging learning by doing can extinguish it. Hence, I founded NexLiber.

NexLiber hosts Workbooks, which are comprehensive project documentations, in its Library to inspire coders (Learners) to engineer original creations after self-coding the in-Workbook projects to understand the thought processes of experienced coders. Workbooks are written by experienced coders (Creators) in different CS fields, allowing Learners to learn about and experiment with a variety of concepts and technologies. Workbooks are also complete with helpful features like interactive milestone quizzes to reinforce Learners' understanding. By creating and learning from Workbooks, a coder becomes a part of NexLiber's global community, who interacts on Discord, where they can connect, collaborate, and clarify doubts with fellow coders.

Coders all over the globe must constantly keep up with the latest and greatest technologies to stay relevant in the fast-paced tech industry. Look no further than the frontend web development space, where new framework after new framework pops up, claiming to be the next revolutionary game changer. Naturally, coders would feel overwhelmed, and in their attempt to learn these new technologies, they would fall into tutorial hell.

Today's coding tutorials often merely gloss over the code. They do not explain the code thoroughly, teaching the "what" rather than the "why". This causes coders to get stuck at the copy-pasta stage without truly understanding the underlying thought process or logic behind what they are writing. Consequently, they are unable to program original creations well, an issue for themselves and the overall coding community as the inventiveness of the industry suffers.

So, we have an exponentially growing number of innovative technologies on one hand, but an exponentially falling number of innovative coders on the other.

To solve this, NexLiber helps coders help themselves by providing a platform where experienced coders can write Workbooks to teach their peers while reinforcing their own knowledge, and coders who seek to learn new technologies and/or improve their skills in familiar technologies can read Workbooks. Through NexLiber, the disparity between innovative technologies and innovative coders will close, precisely because the community-driven experiential learning experience offered by NexLiber will ensure that coders will truly understand the core ideas motivating the code they are writing. Tutorial hell is thus extinguished.

Currently, NexLiber's core/permanent team includes only myself, the Founder. I am a tech entrepreneur who loves both coding and business, understanding the significance of fusing them together to solve the world’s challenges. In today’s world where individuals and firms live symbiotically, I believe combining coding and business is necessary to effectively help as many people as possible. Hence, I deliver NexLiber as an inventive software solution packaged in an impactful startup.

I also consistently engage with the global coding community. I interact with all coders, from students in my school's computer science club to mentors at international coding bootcamps to computer science professors I meet via my research projects. After interacting with them, I realised our collective need to stay up-to-date with the latest technologies, and thus our inevitable reliance on tutorials (and documentations).

A short backstory: For a brief moment in my early coding journey, I fell into tutorial hell. I was overwhelmed by the immensity of coding, feeling incapable of creating anything new myself. From conversations with fellow coders, I guarantee that many share my story.

As such, I believe NexLiber is a necessary platform for coders to extinguish tutorial hell ASAP.

But enough about me :D

The Creators (NexLiber Workbook authors) are also wonderful experienced coders who truly want to share their knowledge with their peers. To teach a variety of computer science fields, I collaborate with Creators of different expertise to write Workbooks on topics I am new or unfamiliar in. That way, NexLiber ensures that only quality Workbooks in diverse fields are published in its Library.

Having founded and ran Code for Hope, an organisation teaching underprivileged students Python fundamentals, I realised that a platform like NexLiber is the natural progression from Code for Hope. This is because Code for Hope teaches the fundamentals of coding, and NexLiber builds upon those fundamentals by inspiring coders to create projects using those fundamentals. Indeed, NexLiber is what my Code for Hope students, and the majority of coders out there, need, after honing the basics of programming.

Thus far, NexLiber has collaborated with bootcamps like Dreampiper in Nigeria and Rocket Academy in Singapore. NexLiber partners with them to support their learning processes such that their students use NexLiber to write project documentations (Workbooks) to consolidate their learning and share about their projects created as part of the bootcamp. This also complements NexLiber's mission to level up the skills of the global coding community as coders not enrolled in those bootcamps can learn about the technologies and fields of the in-Workbook bootcamp projects as well.

As of 23 January 2023, NexLiber hosts 9 Workbooks in various fields, such as web development, machine learning, game development, etc. Moreover, NexLiber is currently visited by 100+ Learners every single day. The feedback and community response for NexLiber has been highly positive, as evidenced by many partnership invitations from independent coders, bootcamps, and startups.

In fact, November 2022 marks 5 months of NexLiber and my first message from a Learner. To my joy, NexLiber inspired her to escape tutorial hell and confidently learn web development. Now, she is writing a web development Workbook herself to pay it forward, planning to publish it later this month (January 2023). I cannot help but feel proud and fulfilled as my startup has touched the life of another.

Overall, NexLiber is a relevant and positively-received solution specially developed to meet coders' learning needs.

NexLiber has education at the centre of everything we do. Because of this, NexLiber uniquely has an administrative team (consisting of Admins) who quality-checks all Workbooks before they are published, maintaining a high standard of Workbooks so that Learners will not be shortchanged by any of them. Similar platforms like Medium or DEV Community let coders post unfiltered content and opinions, which is not bad per se, but that is not what NexLiber is aiming for. Unlike those platforms, NexLiber is 100% focused on education. NexLiber is committed to improve the coding skills of coders everywhere via our community-created high-quality Workbooks.

In the under-development NexLiber v2.0, each step of the Workbook creation process (from writing to revising to publishing) by Creators and Admins are all done on NexLiber. This provides a seamless experience like never before, especially as Workbooks can also be accessed directly on NexLiber by Learners. In short, NexLiber is an all-in-one platform dedicated to make learning coding as easy and conducive as possible.

Given the current positive responses by the community about NexLiber, I believe more platforms will follow in our footsteps in the future should NexLiber receive substantial traction. Rest assured that while we encourage more platforms with a love for education to emerge, we will strive to be the most competitive, innovative, and financially sustainable platform (our business model is explained later). All in all, NexLiber's total commitment to education will naturally inspire others who seek to raise the standards of coding. Why else would our partner bootcamps partner with us?

I aim to extinguish tutorial hell by ensuring that coding tutorials of the future become Workbooks: comprehensive project documentations explaining the "why" and encouraging learning by doing.

I plan to achieve this aim by developing NexLiber to become a seamless and effective experience for Learners and Creators, thus naturally bringing NexLiber closer and closer to the centre of public attention hence adoption.

NexLiber v1.0 is a website built with Next.js, where Workbooks are MDX pages and the Workbook creation process is done on NexLiber's GitHub repository.

Technologies in NexLiber v2.0:

Next.js: frontend development for a practical and intuitive interface + API routes to implement the functionalities of the other technologies used

Supabase: host and persist user and Workbook data + user authentication using email and OAuth (Google, GitHub, Discord)

Stripe: create Stripe Connected Accounts for Creators + enable purchasing and selling of Premium Workbooks on NexLiber

Storyblok: host, persist, and enable creation of Workbook content via an in-built Workbook markdown editor on NexLiber

SendGrid: email notifications for Creators and Admins upon creation, revision (feedback posting + updates to draft), and publishing of Workbooks

Current number of nexliber.com visitors: 100+ every day

Future number of nexliber.com visitors: 1000+ every day

Publicising NexLiber and getting more Creators to write Workbooks.

To gain Creators: Dreampiper, Rocket Academy, String.sg

Learners

Impact/benefit: escape tutorial hell + study new and familiar coding technologies and fields.

Provided service: a library of quality Workbooks (comprehensive project documentations) created by experienced coders in different fields from all over the globe and equipped with learning consolidation tools such as syntax-highlighted code blocks and interactive milestone quizzes.

How service is provided: Creators sign up on NexLiber, write and revise Workbooks, and finally publish Workbooks on NexLiber's Library.

Creators

Impact/benefit: reinforce understanding in familiar software technologies and fields + earn money from teaching others via Workbooks.

Provided service: an integrated platform (NexLiber) to create, host, and sell Workbooks.

How service is provided: NexLiber is equipped with an intuitive and practical interface with complete functionalities for Workbook creation, publishing, and selling.

The following details NexLiber's Monetisation Flow (applicable to NexLiber v2.0):

1. Via the Creator Dashboard, a Creator chooses whether to write a Free or a Premium Workbook
   1. A Free Workbook costs S$0 to publish, costs S$0 for each Learner to read
   2. A Premium Workbook costs S$5 to publish, costs S$1 for each Learner to read
2. For a non-trivial example, suppose the Creator writes a Premium Workbook. The Creator leverages NexLiber's built-in Workbook editor to write the Workbook and submits its draft, paying S$5 upon submission to ascertain accountability
3. A NexLiber Admin is notified of the submission and reviews the Workbook
   1. If all is well, the Admin publishes the Workbook for it to be purchased by Learners via the Library
   2. If changes are required, the Admin writes constructive feedback via the Admin Dashboard and notifies the Creator of the necessary revisions (the Creator does not need to pay to submit revisions)
4. For a non-trivial example, suppose a Learner browses through the Library and buys the Premium Workbook, paying S$1 to the Creator via NexLiber's Stripe integration
5. The Learner reads the Workbook and gains knowledge (yay!)

Revenue Summary

For every Free Workbook, no money is involved. Free Workbooks function as gifts to Learners from charitable Creators, or as "free samples" by Creators who hope to heighten their reputation on NexLiber first before selling Premium Workbooks. Both Free and Premium Workbooks, however, will undergo equally rigorous quality checks.

For every Premium Workbook,

• NexLiber earns S$5
• The Creator earns S$(1 * n), where n is the number of Learners buying the Premium Workbook
• The Learner spends S$1 to "own" the Workbook forever