Detailed Notes
In this episode of Building Better Developers with AI, we share proven tips for winning your first developer project. Learn how to specialize your skills, build confidence, and land your first paying client. Whether you’re starting a side hustle or launching your freelance career, this episode has actionable insights for new developers.
Listen to the podcast: https://develpreneur.com/winning-your-first-developer-project/
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Transcript Text
[Music] Okay, back to the job at hand here. No worries. Snackify. A lot of snackage here. Um, let's see. Let me throw this playing around with AI in my opening intro to my company. It's not a bad way to go. Um, let's see. I'll hit record because I think this would be good for the pre-show. Yes. Boom. I just hit record. Uh, as far as you know, as far as everybody else knows, we are recording now. Where did I put Sue? There's Oh, back to the meeting there. So, I can see you. Let me put this in chat. Yeah, I've used um I've used Grammarly AI for a long time for a lot of stuff. Um the other chat GPT the the free version or whatever. Probably about six months to a year ago. Yeah, probably about six months ago I was trying it. Wow, it thinks I changed to a different language. Please better quality transcription. Wow. Oh god. [Laughter] Wow. I just uh what's his name from Fat Albert? Uh through it there, I guess. Mushmouth. Mushmouth. Yeah. Or Dale Dribble. Oh, gotcha. The other guy. Yeah. Any of those. Holy cow. That is hilarious. I use too many nonactual words. I got to try that more often. I gotta see what language I can like if it can generate a the rob language or something like that. Anyways, um I found a lot of stuff like Grammarly uh over the years worked really well. It had always had the uh the ways to like adjust the tone. Chat GBT really just got to that point. I don't know, six months, nine months ago, something like that, maybe a year ago, something like that, when I was doing stuff and I was realizing it would it did pretty good. And I'm not talking about the grammar side of it as much as the helping you write something a little bit better, the creative side of it. And it's stuff like this that's really uh I think is great is if you want to sit down and think through uh you know, for example, create a podcast. What are some topics? What are some things I want to talk about? It's going to give you a lot. This is great for spitballing ideas, for outlines and things like that. Now, granted, you cannot just stop there. You can't just take it and go, "Boom, I'm going to take this and run with it." You need to use that as your starting point. Make it your own. Think through it, know why it's done that, and then put it into whatever it is you're going to use it. Just like your code. Do not just like copy and paste code in because next thing you know you're going to be totally lost and you're going to be asking you're going to end up in a circle with chat GPT or somebody and it's going to keep telling you to change stuff that it already told you to change because you don't understand what you're actually doing. Same thing as with creative side of it is is understand where you want to go. Understand your audience. Don't just assume that an AI robot actually knows people. There's going to be there's more to it than that. Okay, we've hit record. We're ready to go. Let's um This one is winning your first project, a developer's guide to starting your side hustle. Uh once again, a very AI generated title. So, we'll see what it says uh when it decides to generate the rest. Be using Grammarly or AI to make our titles. I struggle with that. I almost guarantee it. But it's like that's a whole different I will I will spend two seconds on it or maybe a little bit more is like yes it will generate SEO friendly things but I think if you know your topic you can build something better that is um much more precise. It's going to take the 10,000 foot view. I think you can do better if you if that's your goal. That being said my goal is to start this episode. We're going to do a little three, two, one. 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 uh BS skills. We'll call it that. Those skills come from Rob Broadhead. I happen to be a founder of developer and also the founder of RB Consulting where we help you get through life in a technology around it. Essentially, we are the ones that help you clean out your technology junk drawer. 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. Um, 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. Um, 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 plates 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 you know 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 bees turn into boom we basically have a plan. So I think that's a very good thing. uh bad thing is uh I'm going to pick on it a little bit. Networking gotten back to doing networking stuff and while it is there's 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. 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 soap box and I'm going to let Michael introduce himself. Hey everyone, my name is Michael Malashsh. I'm one of the co-founders of Developer, Building Better Developers. I'm also the owner and founder of Envision QA. We're a consulting group that helps startups and growing companies improve software quality through smarter testing, automation, and development workflows. At Image QA, we partner with companies that want to ship faster without sacrifi without sacrificing reliability, offering support across testing strategies, continuous integration pipelines, and scalable QA practices. You can learn more about our company at envisionqa.com, where we share resources, insights, and ways to connect if you're looking to level up your software delivery. Good things, bad things. Uh, I'm just going to go with gaming. Good thing we just had like these summer fest of like game reviews and games coming out. There was so much like fun stuff to watch on YouTube and all these live streamings. Bad thing. I do not have time to play games anymore. And the fact I cannot get my hands on the Nintendo Switch, too. It's just sold out. 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. And I I had the discussion with my daughter and she's like, "Well, dad, if you want one, uh, I'll give you my Switch. I'm too busy playing Sims, so I'll just like give you your games back and your and I'll give you my Switch and you can trade it all in." Uh because the tradein value, which is annoying, uh 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's like half off the new Switch. Now, it's like barely even scratching the surface. That and the fact that they tech on all the additions you have to buy for the Switch 2 at GameStop, you have to pay 800 bucks to get the super 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 gonna make our way through this topic, though. So, this episode we're we're going back to winning your first project, a developer's guide to starting your side hustle is what we threw into AI. And now it kicks us back some answers here. Uh, tips geared towards helping developers take action and land that first paying gig. Let's see what it says. So, first one, uh, and I'll give the three bullet points here. Mind mindset shift 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. Know 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 frontends, backends, 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 the door or however it is. The first thing where somebody's like, "Hey, I would 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 our 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 than 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. Know 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 that the customer is 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. You're you're 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 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 it's very key is it 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, "Look, 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, you know, simple like that. Now, I do want to move on to our next bullet point. So, identifying your offer. This goes in a couple other goals. What are you good at and enjoy doing? webdev, automation, APIs. Focus on simple, highdemand 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 a there's going to be a part of you 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 6 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 fivestar 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 couple days here, couple days there. Uh, 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. Uh, 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 plugin, 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 overd 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 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've rebranded again, um 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 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 like word of mouth, I got other business. It's like testimonials. It's like great and and I kept knocking it out, knocking it out. The key though was when I did that company, I was not niche enough. 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 Wi-Fi, 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 uh definitely underpromise and overd deliver. Uh I 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. Uh because if you have and I've had more than a few of these, I've had customers that I have I 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 of course knocked it out of the park because that's easier to do when you under bid 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 through, but it's easier to um, you know, to to start where it's comfortable with you and not do, you know, 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 a road you don't want to go down. Just like if you got stuff there may be stuff that you could put on your resume that you don't Allah doss 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 spent 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 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 lo 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. Be very careful going into it. I think it's it's very tempting to under bid something because you want it or you think they're not going to pay for it. I have been pleasantly surprised every time I've gone into something and quote over bid it where I've said like I'm gonna ask for probably more that I'm gonna ask for more than I think they're going to want or they're going to be comfortable with. Usually they are 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 the market price for it. Free is what we are providing you for sending us an email at [email protected]. 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 uh comments over the years and just love to get more of those. Infodelvelopeneur.com if you want to send us an email on X. We are at developer. There is a Facebook page developer. Developer.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 were going out three times a week. Uh we've got a couple years now of of videos of of podcasts, I think, or at least a year or two. We've got hundreds of things out on the YouTube channel, the developer channel, de vur, which is also on the background behind me if you're out on YouTube, so you can read it there. Uh, 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. Uh, 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 developer 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. Bonus material. I'll let you go first this time. All right. I want to go I want to actually because I didn't do this last episode. I want to fly through the next couple little things that AI threw out there. So, packaging your skills. There's a really good one. Position your service like a product. Clear benefit driven outcome. For example, I help small businesses get online with a modern mobile first website in under a week. Tip: Give your offer a catchy name or fixed price. This builds trust. I'm going to come back to that. Finding and winning the first project. Where to look? Your personal network, reach out directly. Freelancer platforms, Upwork, Fiverr with a strategy. Indie dev communities like indie hackers, Twitter X, things like that. Uh local businesses who need help. How to pitch. Don't just say, "I'm a developer." Lead with the value. Keep it short, focused on their problem and your solution. Offer something lowrisk, a free consult, a prototype, or an MVP demo. Uh, pro tip, your first win might be underpriced. Think of it as a launchpad, not long-term pricing, which is really funny because we just talked about that. Um, I want to do the because this is something I have lived with for a while in varying ways. Don't just say I'm a developer lead with the value. This is something that over the last few years I have worked on, refined, changed, done a lot of like chipping and edging and all that kind of stuff to try to get somewhere other than I do software because I do I can create software. I've created software lots of different places. So, it's not that it's not true, but it really doesn't do anything to move the ball forward. This is where it's key. Keep it short. Focus on their problem and your solution. If you don't know what their problem is, if it's a elevator pitch, what is the problem or problems that you solve with your solution? Like it said in the example, I will bring a responsive site to life within a week. Things like that is give them clear goals, milestones, outcomes. That is where you want to be. And you want to think about it in that sense because I that's going to help you when you got you've got all these skills. You can do all of these things. What is it that you want to do? And don't just say, "I want to write a lot of cool code because that's not it." What do you want to do that should be a a hook or a catch for a customer? If you don't understand that idea, go explore, spend some time looking at funnels, the idea of sales funnels, what they are and what they do, because that's really, and we've talked about this. You can go search for funnels on the developer site. You can find some great conversations we've had and interviews in that world as it really is about you throw a big net out and then you're going to use like a series of smaller nets essentially to get exactly to where you want to be. Now for what you want to focus on, you're going to start at the bottom of that funnel. You're going to start at the thing that is the most focused thing. What is your ideal customer? Dare I say an avatar. We've used that many times in many ways. Who is your best customer? Your ideal customer. They should have a name. They should have a family history. They should have an eye color. All of that kind of stuff. The more you can get detailed on that, the better you're going to become. I say this as somebody that really doesn't have that. My best customer's name is Bob only because I use that name all the time. But other than that, figure out what it is. What is your ideal customer? What does it look like? What is it they are looking for that you're going to give them that they're like yes I'm going to give you bags of money for it that is how you succeed and that is how you find if you can do that and it's a big bag of money that is your ideal niche dive into it own it and then worry about moving on to something else I will step off my soap I've been on my soap box a lot the last couple time jump on your turn Michael the soap box is yours so I'm going to just piggyback on that um if you are struggling ling and you're having issues, you know, AI is good, research is good, but if you're not great at that, talk to your local chamber, talk to your uh local uh Better Business Bureau, talk to the Small Business Bureau. There are a lot of local community and resources that you can tap into and they are cheap, free or very small cost to get you what you need to help you grow your business. It could even be simply go to your local chambers networking group. Um, it could be a free, hey, meet up for drinks. Everyone's there. Just talk to people. Make sure one, you introduce yourself. Ask them who they are and ask them what their business is and what they do. Don't make it about you. Make it about them. I'm still working on this, but it is one of the best networking tools in your hat. But tap into all the free tools in your community because there is a lot. And even if like your chamber, you know, costs money. Talk to your chamber and say, "Hey, I am a startup. I have no money. How can I join you with no money?" Now, some of them will say, "No, we can't help you." you. But some of them may say, "Hey, here is a government grant you can go get or go look at this to get some extra money that you can help fund that and get your business started." So, there's so many ways to do that. Tap into your local community first and then get going. You know, if you're an established company, do the same thing. There may be things out there you don't know about. Like me and Rob have talked recently. You know, there are internships in the state of Tennessee that we get grants for. I didn't know about that. I'm learning about it and I might be hiring people left and right soon if I can find the right job for them. But it is kind of one of our fundamentals in building better developers. We want to help grow developers. We want to help you learn more and grow. And if we can help you do that through our businesses, great. It helps if we can get some additional funding to do that so we can help more people instead of just doing it in slow drips uh you know over time. I think that is at the heart of it that is one of the best things to do is sit down and talk to somebody. I don't know how many good great ideas I've had that have actually been incorporated into my businesses over the years that have come from conversations. Um it is amazing how many of those conversations had some sort of alcohol involved. We were drinking wine or cocktails or something like that. Uh but those are the thing to do is to sit down with somebody just what is your business? What are some of your challenge? What are your pain points? You may not be able to address a lot of them, but there may be a few that you are. There may be one that's like you start hearing all the time and you go, "This is something that I can do something about." And obviously, because several people have mentioned it to me, it's something that has got some value. So, don't be afraid to spitball stuff, to throw things against the wall, to like Michael said, talk to people, have conversations, see what they're struggling with. If you need ideas, that sometimes is the best way to go. You can always uh you can always do like a proof of concept or an MVP or some sort of like starter project or something. Um it doesn't even have to be real. You can do something that's a a template or something like that just to get started to see if that is maybe, you know, if it has legs. And I will throw this out there again. I use the [email protected] email all the time. But if you want, we would be happy. Send us an email there and just say, "Hey, I'd love to sit down and talk about some ideas or maybe some places I can go with my skills. We will set something up with you, do a little Zoom call or something like that. Happy to spend a little bit of time and just uh help you become a better developer, a better entrepreneur, uh a better you basically if we can, you know, if we can get to that point or at least and we're not going to be able to do it. you're going to be the one that does it, but maybe we can at least, you know, throw some ideas at you and give you some guidelines and some direction on how to get there. Right now, I need guidelines and direction on how to get to my dinner and things like that. So, we're going to wrap this one up. Thank you for hanging out with us for all the time that you spent. All of the places that you can go, I've mentioned many times, whether it's exit developer, Facebook developer page, developer.com, the developer channel on Yahoo, wherever you listen to podcasts, feel free to leave us uh comments, leave us, you know, ratings. Even if it's a a zerostar rating, I would love to hear why you don't like us. I know it's Michael, but that's okay. However, whatever it is, because that helps us get better. We don't get better if we don't. Just telling us we're awesome doesn't help. We also want to hear where we can do better. We can provide you better information in a better format, in a more entertaining way. Whatever it is, we want to be there for you because you are why we do it. That being said, as always, go out there and have yourself a great week. We will talk to you next time. [Music]
Transcript Segments
[Music]
Okay,
back to the job at hand here. No
worries. Snackify. A lot of snackage
here. Um, let's see. Let me throw this
playing around with AI in my opening
intro to my company.
It's not a bad way to go. Um, let's see.
I'll hit record because I think this
would be good for the pre-show. Yes.
Boom. I just hit record. Uh, as far as
you know, as far as everybody else
knows, we are recording now. Where did I
put Sue? There's Oh, back to the meeting
there. So, I can see you. Let me put
this in chat.
Yeah, I've used
um I've used Grammarly AI for a long
time for a lot of stuff. Um the other
chat GPT the the free version or
whatever. Probably about six months to a
year ago. Yeah, probably about six
months ago I was trying it.
Wow, it thinks I changed to a different
language. Please
better quality transcription. Wow. Oh
god.
[Laughter]
Wow.
I just uh what's his name from Fat
Albert? Uh
through it there, I guess. Mushmouth.
Mushmouth. Yeah. Or Dale Dribble. Oh,
gotcha. The other guy. Yeah. Any of
those. Holy cow. That is hilarious. I
use too many nonactual words. I got to
try that more often. I gotta see what
language I can like if it can generate a
the rob language or something like that.
Anyways, um I found a lot of stuff like
Grammarly uh over the years worked
really well. It had always had the uh
the ways to like adjust the tone. Chat
GBT really just got to that point. I
don't know, six months, nine months ago,
something like that, maybe a year ago,
something like that, when I was doing
stuff and I was realizing it would it
did pretty good. And I'm not talking
about the grammar side of it as much as
the
helping you write something a little bit
better, the creative side of it. And
it's stuff like this that's really uh I
think is great is if you want to sit
down and think through
uh you know, for example, create a
podcast. What are some topics? What are
some things I want to talk about? It's
going to give you a lot. This is great
for
spitballing ideas, for outlines and
things like that. Now, granted,
you cannot just stop there. You can't
just take it and go, "Boom, I'm going to
take this and run with it." You need to
use that as your starting point. Make it
your own. Think through it, know why
it's done that, and then put it into
whatever it is you're going to use it.
Just like your code. Do not just like
copy and paste code in because next
thing you know you're going to be
totally lost and you're going to be
asking you're going to end up in a
circle with chat GPT or somebody and
it's going to keep telling you to change
stuff that it already told you to change
because you don't understand what you're
actually doing. Same thing as with
creative side of it is is understand
where you want to go. Understand your
audience. Don't just assume that an AI
robot actually knows people. There's
going to be there's more to it than
that.
Okay, we've hit record. We're ready to
go. Let's um This one is winning your
first project, a developer's guide to
starting your side hustle. Uh once
again, a very AI generated title. So,
we'll see what it says uh when it
decides to generate the rest. Be using
Grammarly or AI to make our titles.
I struggle with that. I almost guarantee
it. But it's like
that's a whole different I will I will
spend two seconds on it or maybe a
little bit more is like yes it will
generate SEO friendly things but I think
if you know your topic you can build
something better that is um much more
precise. It's going to take the 10,000
foot view. I think you can do better if
you if that's your goal. That being said
my goal is to start this episode. We're
going to do a little three, two, one.
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 uh BS skills. We'll call
it that. Those skills come from Rob
Broadhead. I happen to be a founder of
developer and also the founder of RB
Consulting where we help you get through
life in a technology around it.
Essentially, we are the ones that help
you clean out your technology junk
drawer. 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. Um,
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. Um, 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 plates 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 you know 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 bees
turn into boom we basically have a plan.
So I think that's a very good thing. uh
bad thing is uh I'm going to pick on it
a little bit. Networking
gotten back to doing networking stuff
and while it is there's 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.
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 soap box and I'm going to let Michael
introduce himself. Hey everyone, my name
is Michael Malashsh. I'm one of the
co-founders of Developer, Building
Better Developers. I'm also the owner
and founder of Envision QA. We're a
consulting group that helps startups and
growing companies improve software
quality through smarter testing,
automation, and development workflows.
At Image QA, we partner with companies
that want to ship faster without sacrifi
without sacrificing reliability,
offering support across testing
strategies, continuous integration
pipelines, and scalable QA practices.
You can learn more about our company at
envisionqa.com, where we share
resources, insights, and ways to connect
if you're looking to level up your
software delivery. Good things, bad
things. Uh, I'm just going to go with
gaming.
Good thing we just had like these summer
fest of like game reviews and games
coming out. There was so much like fun
stuff to watch on YouTube and all these
live streamings. Bad thing. I do not
have time to play games anymore.
And the fact I cannot get my hands on
the Nintendo Switch, too. It's just sold
out.
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. And I I had the
discussion with my daughter and she's
like, "Well, dad, if you want one, uh,
I'll give you my Switch. I'm too busy
playing Sims, so I'll just like give you
your games back and your and I'll give
you my Switch and you can trade it all
in." Uh because the tradein value, which
is annoying, uh 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's like half off the new Switch. Now,
it's like barely even scratching the
surface. That and the fact that they
tech on all the additions you have to
buy for the Switch 2 at GameStop, you
have to pay 800 bucks to get the super
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 gonna make our way through
this topic, though. So, this episode
we're we're going back to winning your
first project, a developer's guide to
starting your side hustle is what we
threw into AI.
And now it kicks us back some answers
here. Uh, tips geared towards helping
developers take action and land that
first paying gig.
Let's see what it says. So,
first one, uh, and I'll give the three
bullet points here. Mind mindset shift
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.
Know
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 frontends,
backends, 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
the door or however it is. The first
thing where somebody's like, "Hey, I
would 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 our 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 than 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.
Know 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 that the customer is
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. You're
you're 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 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 it's very key is it 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, "Look, 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, you know, simple like that.
Now, I do want to move on to
our next bullet point. So, identifying
your offer.
This goes in a couple other goals. What
are you good at and enjoy doing? webdev,
automation, APIs. Focus on simple,
highdemand 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 a there's going to be a part of
you 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 6 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 fivestar 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 couple days here,
couple days there. Uh, 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. Uh,
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 plugin, 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 overd 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 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've rebranded again, um 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 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 like word of
mouth, I got other business. It's like
testimonials. It's like great and and I
kept knocking it out, knocking it out.
The key though was when I did that
company, I was not niche enough. 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 Wi-Fi, 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 uh definitely underpromise and
overd deliver. Uh I 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. Uh because if you have and
I've had more than a few of these, I've
had customers that I have I 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 of course knocked it
out of the park because that's easier to
do when you under bid 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 through, but
it's easier to um, you know, to to start
where it's comfortable with you and not
do, you know, 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 a road you
don't want to go down. Just like if you
got stuff there may be stuff that you
could put on your resume that you don't
Allah doss 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 spent
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 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 lo 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. Be very careful
going into it. I think it's it's very
tempting to under bid something because
you want it or you think they're not
going to pay for it. I have been
pleasantly surprised every time I've
gone into something and quote over bid
it where I've said like I'm gonna ask
for probably more that I'm gonna ask for
more than I think they're going to want
or they're going to be comfortable with.
Usually they are 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 the market price
for it.
Free is what we are providing you for
sending us an email at
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 uh comments over the years
and just love to get more of those.
Infodelvelopeneur.com if you want to
send us an email on X. We are at
developer. There is a Facebook page
developer. Developer.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 were going out three times
a week. Uh we've got a couple years now
of of videos of of podcasts, I think, or
at least a year or two. We've got
hundreds of things out on the YouTube
channel, the developer channel, de vur,
which is also on the background behind
me if you're out on YouTube, so you can
read it there. Uh, 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. Uh, 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 developer
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.
Bonus material.
I'll let you go first this time. All
right. I want to go I want to actually
because I didn't do this last episode. I
want to fly through the next couple
little things that AI threw out there.
So, packaging your skills. There's a
really good one. Position your service
like a product. Clear benefit driven
outcome. For example, I help small
businesses get online with a modern
mobile first website in under a week.
Tip: Give your offer a catchy name or
fixed price. This builds trust. I'm
going to come back to that. Finding and
winning the first project. Where to
look? Your personal network, reach out
directly. Freelancer platforms, Upwork,
Fiverr with a strategy.
Indie dev communities like indie
hackers, Twitter X, things like that. Uh
local businesses who need help. How to
pitch. Don't just say, "I'm a
developer." Lead with the value. Keep it
short, focused on their problem and your
solution. Offer something lowrisk, a
free consult, a prototype, or an MVP
demo. Uh, pro tip, your first win might
be underpriced. Think of it as a
launchpad, not long-term pricing, which
is really funny because we just talked
about that. Um, I want to do the
because this is something I have lived
with for a while in varying ways. Don't
just say I'm a developer lead with the
value. This is something that over the
last few years I have worked on,
refined, changed, done a lot of like
chipping and edging and all that kind of
stuff to try to get somewhere other than
I do software because I do I can create
software. I've created software lots of
different places. So, it's not that it's
not true, but it really doesn't do
anything to move the ball forward. This
is where it's key. Keep it short. Focus
on their problem and your solution. If
you don't know what their problem is, if
it's a elevator pitch, what is the
problem or problems that you solve with
your solution? Like it said in the
example, I will bring a responsive site
to life within a week. Things like that
is give them clear goals, milestones,
outcomes.
That is where you want to be. And you
want to think about it in that sense
because I that's going to help you when
you got you've got all these skills. You
can do all of these things. What is it
that you want to do? And don't just say,
"I want to write a lot of cool code
because that's not it." What do you want
to do that should be a a hook or a catch
for a customer? If you don't understand
that idea, go explore, spend some time
looking at funnels, the idea of sales
funnels, what they are and what they do,
because that's really, and we've talked
about this. You can go search for
funnels on the developer site. You can
find some great conversations we've had
and interviews in that world as it
really is about you throw a big net out
and then you're going to use like a
series of smaller nets essentially to
get exactly to where you want to be. Now
for what you want to focus on, you're
going to start at the bottom of that
funnel. You're going to start at the
thing that is the most focused thing.
What is your ideal customer? Dare I say
an avatar. We've used that many times in
many ways. Who is your best customer?
Your ideal customer. They should have a
name. They should have a family history.
They should have an eye color. All of
that kind of stuff. The more you can get
detailed on that, the better you're
going to become. I say this as somebody
that really doesn't have that. My best
customer's name is Bob only because I
use that name all the time. But other
than that,
figure out what it is. What is your
ideal customer? What does it look like?
What is it they are looking for that
you're going to give them that they're
like yes I'm going to give you bags of
money for it that is how you succeed and
that is how you find if you can do that
and it's a big bag of money that is your
ideal niche dive into it own it and then
worry about moving on to something else
I will step off my soap I've been on my
soap box a lot the last couple time jump
on your turn Michael the soap box is
yours so I'm going to just piggyback on
that um if you are struggling ling
and you're having issues, you know, AI
is good, research is good, but if you're
not great at that, talk to your local
chamber, talk to your uh local uh Better
Business Bureau, talk to the Small
Business Bureau. There are a lot of
local community and resources that you
can tap into and they are cheap, free or
very small cost to get you what you need
to help you grow your business. It could
even be simply go to your local chambers
networking group. Um, it could be a
free, hey, meet up for drinks.
Everyone's there. Just talk to people.
Make sure one, you introduce yourself.
Ask them who they are and ask them what
their business is and what they do.
Don't make it about you. Make it about
them. I'm still working on this, but it
is one of the best networking tools in
your hat. But tap into all the free
tools in your community because there is
a lot. And even if like your chamber,
you know, costs money.
Talk to your chamber and say, "Hey, I am
a startup. I have no money. How can I
join you with no money?" Now, some of
them will say, "No, we can't help you."
you. But some of them may say, "Hey,
here is a government grant you can go
get or go look at this to get some extra
money that you can help fund that and
get your business started." So, there's
so many ways to do that. Tap into your
local community first and then get
going. You know, if you're an
established company, do the same thing.
There may be things out there you don't
know about. Like me and Rob have talked
recently. You know, there are
internships in the state of Tennessee
that we get grants for.
I didn't know about that. I'm learning
about it and I might be hiring people
left and right soon if I can find the
right job for them. But it is kind of
one of our fundamentals in building
better developers. We want to help grow
developers. We want to help you learn
more and grow. And if we can help you do
that through our businesses, great. It
helps if we can get some additional
funding to do that so we can help more
people instead of just doing it in slow
drips uh you know over time.
I think that is
at the heart of it that is one of the
best things to do is sit down and talk
to somebody. I don't know how many good
great ideas I've had that have
actually been incorporated into my
businesses over the years that have come
from conversations. Um it is amazing how
many of those conversations had some
sort of alcohol involved. We were
drinking wine or cocktails or something
like that. Uh but
those are the thing to do is to sit down
with somebody just what is your
business? What are some of your
challenge? What are your pain points?
You may not be able to address a lot of
them, but there may be a few that you
are. There may be one that's like you
start hearing all the time and you go,
"This is something that I can do
something about." And obviously, because
several people have mentioned it to me,
it's something that has got some value.
So, don't be afraid to spitball stuff,
to throw things against the wall, to
like Michael said, talk to people, have
conversations, see what they're
struggling with. If you need ideas, that
sometimes is the best way to go. You can
always uh you can always do like a proof
of concept or an MVP or some sort of
like starter project or something. Um it
doesn't even have to be real. You can do
something that's a a template or
something like that just to get started
to see if that is maybe, you know, if it
has legs. And I will throw this out
there again. I use the
email all the time. But if you want, we
would be happy. Send us an email there
and just say, "Hey, I'd love to sit down
and talk about some ideas or maybe some
places I can go with my skills. We will
set something up with you, do a little
Zoom call or something like that. Happy
to spend a little bit of time and just
uh help you become a better developer, a
better entrepreneur, uh a better you
basically if we can, you know, if we can
get to that point or at least and we're
not going to be able to do it. you're
going to be the one that does it, but
maybe we can at least, you know, throw
some ideas at you and give you some
guidelines and some direction on how to
get there. Right now, I need guidelines
and direction on how to get to my dinner
and things like that. So, we're going to
wrap this one up. Thank you for hanging
out with us for all the time that you
spent. All of the places that you can
go, I've mentioned many times, whether
it's exit developer, Facebook developer
page, developer.com, the developer
channel on Yahoo, wherever you listen to
podcasts, feel free to leave us uh
comments, leave us, you know, ratings.
Even if it's a a zerostar rating, I
would love to hear why you don't like
us. I know it's Michael, but that's
okay. However, whatever it is, because
that helps us get better. We don't get
better if we don't. Just telling us
we're awesome doesn't help. We also want
to hear where we can do better. We can
provide you better information in a
better format, in a more entertaining
way. Whatever it is, we want to be there
for you because you are why we do it.
That being said, as always, go out there
and have yourself a great week. We will
talk to you next time.
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