Winning Your First Developer Project: Lessons from Building Better Developers with AI

Welcome to building better developers, the developer podcast where we work on getting better step by step professionally and personally. Let's get started. Hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season of AI with AI. We're going to do the topics we had from two seasons back. Now we're going to kick it into AI and see what it kicks back and see if we get kicked in the teeth or it kicks it up a notch. I just made that up that had nothing to do with AI. So that was not artificial. That was real BS skills. We'll call it that. Those skills come from Rob Brodhead. I happen to be a founder of Developineur and also the founder of RB Consulting where we help you get through life and the technology around it. We are the ones that help you clean out your technology junk tour. We sit down with you. We do a technology assessment, which is basically making sure that we are clear on what your business is, where you want to go, that you are clear on what your business is and where you want to go because sometimes that's not quite there yet. You haven't really thought through it. And then we take our experience decades now, over three decades of experience in technology and small businesses, large across a wide range of lines of business through integration, automation, simplification, innovation. We use all of those shuns and we find ways to take what you have and turn it into something that is a special recipe for success for your business. We help you create a roadmap for your technology and then we can either point you to how to execute it or help you execute it as well. Good things, bad things. Wow, I've had so many things lately. Now I got to think I want to like split it up this time around. So let's do it a little bit different. Good thing is. Wow, what is a good thing? Oh, good thing is clarity. Good thing is there's like I have a lot of things on my plate. There's a lot of plate spinning and all those different analogies. And just recently I sat down and sort of like walked through these things and all of these things were vague. We walked through it and we got some details and it really simplified the whole thing down. Like all of these like could be, could be, could be, could be turned into boom. We basically have a plan. So I think that's a very good thing. Bad thing is I'm going to pick on a little bit networking. Gotten back to doing networking stuff. And while it is, there is a huge value. We've had some great conversations with people in the past on how to network properly. Still, there are a lot of people that don't quite get it. And a lot of people that are just like you walk in a room and all they're doing is handing out business cards. That's all they give you. That's not networking. That's just throwing a business card at somebody that doesn't really help. You need to actually talk about who you are, what you do, and maybe where you can work with whoever it is you're giving that business card to. I'm going to get off my soapbox and I'm going to let Michael introduce himself. Hey, everyone. My name is Michael Mulash. I'm one of the co-founders of DeveloperNUR, Build Better Developers. I'm also the owner and founder of InVision QA. We're a consulting group that helps startups and growing companies improve software quality through smarter testing, automation, and development workflows. At InVision QA, we partner with companies that want to ship faster without sacrificing reliability, offering support across testing strategies, continuous integration pipelines, and scalable QA practices. You can learn more about our company at InVisionQA.com, where we share resources, insights, and ways to connect if you're looking to level up your software delivery. Good things, bad things. I'm just going to go with gaming. Good thing. We just had the Summerfest of game reviews and games coming out. There was so much fun stuff to watch on YouTube and all these live streamings. Bad thing, I do not have time to play games anymore. Bad in the fact that I cannot get my hands on the Nintendo Switch 2. It is just so bad. I actually went looking for one of those for somebody that I can't really talk about because she happens to be in the same room right now. I don't know how long it's going to be before I get one, but I was like, we need to add one to the family and not going to happen yet. Yeah, it's a bad thing. I had the discussion with my daughter and she's like, well, dad, if you want one, I'll give you my Switch. I'm too busy playing Sims, so I'll just give you your games back and I'll give you my Switch and you can trade it all in because the trading value, which is annoying for this round, the Switch OLED at GameStop is only like 150 bucks. Where when they did the original or the second tier Switch to the OLED, they gave you like 200 bucks down. So it was like half off the new Switch. Now it's like barely even scratching the surface. That and the fact that they tacked on all the additions you have to buy for the Switch to at GameStop, you have to pay 800 bucks to get the stupid thing. So it's like, no, you guys aren't saving me money. Yeah, they're always going to make their bucks out of it. We are going to make our way through this topic, though. So this episode, we're going back to winning your first project. A developer's guide to starting your high side hustle is what we threw into AI. And now it kicks us back. Some answers here. Tips geared towards helping developers take action and land that first paying gig. Let's see what it says. So first one, I'll give the three bullet points here. Mindsets shipped from employee to entrepreneur. First bullet point. You're not just writing code, you're solving business problems. Next, think of yourself as a service provider, not just a developer. Third, confidence comes from clarity. Know what you can offer and own it. Those are all excellent points. I'm going to jump on the third. No. Whoops. Know what you can offer and own it. This comes down to focus. This comes down to we as developers like to say, yes, I can do everything. And maybe you can. Maybe you have built front ends, back ends, middle tier, and you can do everything. Back ends, middle tier, APIs, integrations, security, all of that crap. None of it's crap, but still all of that stuff. And we can maybe, and that is probably our biggest Achilles heel is that we want to be everything to everybody. If somebody says, can you do this? We don't even care what the can you do? This is what that this is. We're like, yes, I can. I will do it. I just want to go work. I want to go get a customer, win a project, complete it. Your first project. I know I've been there. That is so hard to not say yes to the first thing that comes across the door or however it is the first thing where somebody's like, Hey, I wouldn't like for you to do X. You're like, yes, you had me at, I would like it's like, it is a challenge, but. We're going to be in a better shape and be in a better position for our business and for a side hustle. When we do the things that we know that we stick to, because you really are going to be better off having that first project being something that you knock out of the park, then something that you slog your way through. You end up taking a big hit. You don't get paid what you're worth and the customer is not terribly happy. No, what you want to do, know what you are willing to do, know what you're good at and make sure that the request, whatever it is, whatever the customer's looking for is something that you're like, I know that I know that cold. And if you don't at least something where you're like, I know this and yes, I'm learning things, but I know all of the pieces. I know where this needs to go. And if not, you better go in and give them a discount of some sort and say, Hey, I'm going to use this as a learning opportunity, which is a possibility. Different path. Read the developer book. If you want to go down that path. But first let's listen to Michael a little bit. So I'm going to just go with what popped into my head as you were going through that. When you go from being a coder, working for a company to working for yourself and actually going out there and running your own company and you are basically the developer for your company, your, your customer, you're working for your customer. Make sure your mindset is that you are working for your customer and that you are not working for yourself and that you can basically tell the customer to go to hell if you don't like what they're doing. I have been in a couple of situations with contractors that came in that were self-employed contractors that came in and said, I don't work for you. I work for myself. I will do what I want to do to solve your problem. I'm not going to listen to you. You definitely need to make sure that when you do that transition shift from. Coder to working for someone consulting business, whatever. There is a certain mentality to the customer is always right. But the thing is you need to listen to your customer. You do not need to be abused by your customer though. So if you have a bad customer that is basically wanting things that cannot be done, it may be time to fire the customer, but in most situations, you can reconcile most things by having a conversation, making sure you understand what the project is supposed to be and stick to the requirements. I think the very key is it is about, um, serving your customer, which is finding a way to make them win whatever their goal is, figure out how to allow them to win that goal. Now there are customers that are going to insist that the path to that goal to win that is not actually going to be viable. Sometimes you're going to have to work with them a little bit and talk them back off that ledge and say, what, we can get you where you want to go. The way you think you need to get there is not going to work. It's going to be too pricey or whatever it is. You know, as long as you give good reasons, unless they're just mental, you're going to be okay. They're going to be able to say, okay, I get it. And that's part of the confidence is, you know, hopefully because you've done this before, you can show examples. You say, this is how it's done. This is the results. These are the outcomes. Keep it very simple like that. Now I do want to move on to our next bullet point. So identifying your offer. This goes into a couple other goals. What are you good at and enjoy doing web dev automation APIs? Focus on simple high demand solutions. For example, landing pages, e-commerce setup integrations, avoid trying to offer everything niche beats generalist when starting out. Now, those last two points is what I really want to talk about here. You want a win. You do not want, I know there's, there's going to be a part of it. It's like, I want a 15 year project that covers me so I can just work on that project. You don't, that means you're an employee. You don't want that. If you spend 15 years on one project, you will probably never ever work on your business again, and you're going to end up when that project goes away, you might as well have been an employee. Get something, especially early on. Take the quick hits. Take the stuff that's like, I just need a landing page. I just need a database table created. I just need a query fixed. I just need an app that you can do in an hour. You know, if it's something that you can do in a day or less, fire off that proposal and tell them this is how long it's going to take. I'm going to get it done. I'll have it back to you by tomorrow. Whatever it is. However you need to do it to do a quick turnaround because it helps you. And it's speaking their language. If they want a quick app, they're going to expect it quickly. They're not going to sit there and say, okay, I want this and I'm going to, I'll be happy if you give it to me in six months, accept it, knock it out of the park, get it back to them, get a reference, get a, you know, some sort of a win, a five star rating, whatever it is, move on to your next one. I can look back at my history of projects and yeah, there are some nice big ones along the way, but so much of it that has built my reputation online for these projects are, these are the small ones. It's the one that took me like a couple of days here, a couple of days there. And then a lot of those are customers that came back to me. So it was like, you know, a day or two here and then six months later, I get another project for a day or two there. And then those things add up over time. Thoughts on those. I totally agree with you on that. However, if you are not in your, like, if you have not pulled the plug yet, if you're still working for an employer and you're just working on this as a side hustle, what Rob laid out is perfect. Go out and like go to Fiverr, Guru, freelance, whatever they are, pick up small jobs and figure out what you like. Start building that reputation. If you have pulled the plug and you are in your business, you now have a successful business launch, you need to get the wins to get the customer validation, essentially you need to get those testimonials to say, Hey, you are good at what you're doing. You can accomplish it. You knock it out of the park. Initially, and this may sound counterproductive, but you may want to low bid your first few projects, but go for smaller projects. Essentially low bid, but over-deliver. Like basically knock it out of the park. Like pick something that maybe you can do in an hour or two, maybe bid for like 30 minutes or maybe whatever you can do that you can basically give them a deal. Say, Hey, I'm going to give you a discount, but I want a testimonial if I can knock this out. Great. Do that. Get established. Word of mouth is the best way to kind of grow your business. That's how I've always done it. I I'm not, I will confess. I'm not great at SEO. I'm not great at marketing. That's not my wheelhouse. I write code. I build systems. I test software. And once I knock out a project, especially once I rebranded again, I'm working with customers. It's interesting though, Rob, you make the comment, you know, you don't get stuck with one customer where it may be a job. I've actually had a couple of customers that one lasted 10 years. I came in, I built them a website. They loved me so much that I ended up being their net ops or their DevOps guy. And it lasted for over a decade. Um, and the only reason it ended was because unfortunately, you know, he died. Um, but through his word of mouth, I got other business. It's like testimonials. It's like great. And I kept knocking it out, knocking it out. The key though was when I did that company, I was not niching up. I basically was like, Hey, I can do anything you need for technology. Like if it is a computer, it has a wire. I can help you do it. I can build websites. I can write software. It unfortunately put me into situations and jobs that I was not happy with. Yes, it paid the bills, but. You really want something that you're going to be happy doing. You don't want to be running wires and be like, I don't like this, but why am I doing this? Oh, it's a paycheck. Well, early on, yes, you have to bite that bullet and do some of those jobs to get those testimonials. But once you figure out what you really like, especially if you're starting out, do everything like start out and really kind of cherry pick a little bit though. But like, Hey, website, cool. Done. Hook up, you know, run wires to an office, done. Set up wifi, done. Do a handful of these and then figure out where do you succeed the best? What is your wheelhouse? Pick that narrow down your website, change your marketing strategy and go for that. Get those customers to give you those testimonials and then you're going to be off and running, you know, off to the races. You're going to be in a good position. I would, I would add to that. There is a value in. Definitely under promise and over deliver. I'm low bidding. I think is an issue. I think you, you're going to get into some problems, but if you do, you need to make sure that you're very clear on what the expectations are. And you are very clear with yourself what you are giving up. Because if you have, and I've had more than a few of these, I've had customers that I have to this day, I have customers. I absolutely love working with them. I set the bar very low initially, because it was just something I wanted to go do. Under bid it. And the chorus knocked it out of the park because that's easier to do when you underbid it. But then what happens is now you're locked into somebody that they're like, if you suddenly up your rates, they're going to wonder what the heck's going on. Now that is a conversation you can have that is often going to be possible. If you, you know, if you follow the rules of the race, you're going to be possible if you, you know, if you follow through, but it's easier to, um, you know, to, to start where it's comfortable with you and not do a one off or something like that. And if you're going to do everything, I would recommend that you not, hopefully you haven't gotten into a business first. If you're going to build a business, you should know where you want to go. What you want to do. This is again, speaking from experience, it's a lot harder to. Um, refine it down after you've opened it up and that can cause you a lot of problems and a lot of headaches. And what you'll end up with is you'll have customers that yes, it paid a bill at some point, but you can't use them as references because that's going to take you down a road. You don't want to go down just like if you've got stuff, there may be stuff that you could put on your resume that you don't, I'll, uh, DOS Fox pro. I got a lot of stuff. I can say, I don't ever want to do a project like that again, unless I'm moving somebody off of it and saving them from the burning pit of hell that they're living in. Those are the things that you like. You don't want that as a business either. You don't want customers where you spend a year on projects and you don't really want to claim those because they're not where your wheelhouse is. However, if it is in your wheelhouse, it could be an opportunity for you to grow your business by looking at small business. You know, talk to your, uh, you know, the business bureau, small business bureau, better business bureau, look at things like maybe an intern or things like that, you might be able to hire a cheaper resource to maintain that project going forward at that rate, um, and keep them happy while you continue to grow your business. So if you find a customer and yes, you love it, like Rob said, and you get stuck in that low rate, it might be an opportunity for you to grow your business by bringing in someone at a lower rate where you can start growing your company and then you can take on larger projects. That is an opportunity. If you want to do that, if you want to grow as a general in general as a company, or you want to not leave your customers out to dry, there are some opportunities there. Well, be very careful going into it. I think it's, it's very tempting to underbid something because you want it. Or you think they're not going to pay for it. I've been pleasantly surprised every time I've gone into something and quote overbid it, where I've said like, I'm going to ask for probably more of it. I asked for more than I think they're going to want, or they're going to be comfortable with usually they're comfortable with that because I'm doing it based on what's the value, you know, what is it, what is the, the time spent and the value that they're going to get out of it. Value for value works very well. Trust me. It is. Don't this goes back to confidence is being confident in what you provide, what the value is, and then being able to ask the market price for it free is what we are providing you for sending us an email at info at developer, nor.com. That is the going price. Actually, some people actually pay for it. I guess they will send marketing stuff. If you want, let me know. We can send you some swag of some sort. We'll give you a kudos, something like that. We just love to hear from you. Love to hear from all of our people. I've gotten some really fun emails and comments over the years and just love to get more of those info developer, nor.com. If you want to send us an email on X we are at developing newer. There is a Facebook page developing or developer nor.com is a bonanza of content. We are pushing, we're getting really close to 10 years of content with a lot of that time being podcasts that we're going out three times a week. We've got a couple of years now of videos of podcasts, I think, or at least a year or two, we've got hundreds of things out on the YouTube channel, the developer, nor channel D E V E L P R E N E U R, which is also on the background behind me. If you're out on YouTube, so you can read it there. So I guess you've already, that's chicken and egg thing. You've already figured it out. That being said, we're going to wrap this one up. I want to thank you so much for your time. Thank you for hanging out with us and just seeing what AI can do. We're going to continue doing this because we're getting some pretty cool little discussions out of this. I highly recommend you do it yourself. Feel free to take our past topics, throw it out to AI and just say, Hey, what would be some cool things to cover? If this was the building better developers, developing our podcast, add all the other features around it that you want, and I bet you'll get some pretty cool answers as well. That being said, we're going to get out of here. So go out there and have yourself a great day, great week, and we will talk to you next time. Thank you for listening to building better developers, the developer nor podcast. You can subscribe on Apple podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere that you can find podcasts. We are there. And remember just a little bit of effort every day ends up adding into great momentum and great success.