Detailed Notes
Welcome back to our Developer Journey series! In this episode, we dive right into a crucial topic: winning your first project, particularly in the context of a side hustle. Landing that initial project is pivotal whether you want to start a consulting business or build client products.
Read more ... https://develpreneur.com/winning-your-first-project-a-developers-guide-to-starting-your-side-hustle
Stay Connected: Join the Developreneur Community
We invite you to join our community and share your coding journey with us. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting, there’s always room to learn and grow together. Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, feedback, or suggestions for future episodes. Together, let’s continue exploring the exciting world of software development.
Additional Resources
* From Side Hustle to Success (https://develpreneur.com/from-side-hustle-to-success/)
* Launch Your Side Hustle – Amy Harrop Interview (https://develpreneur.com/launch-your-side-hustle-amy-harrop-interview/)
* Side Hustle Success Through Perseverance – Chris Myles Interview (https://develpreneur.com/side-hustle-success-through-perseverance-chris-myles-interview/)
* Side Hustle Ideas From Your Annual Review and Planning (https://develpreneur.com/side-hustle-ideas-from-your-annual-review-and-planning/)
Transcript Text
[Music] okay we hit record now you can start repeat that brilliant you were just starting to say last time we did what was the last couple we covered uh so the last one I believe was updating your tools and then the one before that was uh working effectively within teams let's see so we were thinking oh this was actually one you actually asked and I I thought it might be actually not a battle topic was uh basically getting like customer feedback and testimonials U because I think particularly when you're I think might not be a bad one to talk about um because I don't think we have I don't think we've talked about like getting started on your side hustle like winning your first project or something along those lines have we I don't think we have am I or have we no uh don't think so and I had reached out to you uh last week or because I was trying to get the customer feedback for the assessment and um there was a couple different things I could used like Google forms Survey Monkey things of that nature and uh I end up using I think type form which actually was pretty cool I have seen that um a couple of times and um it was it's actually a pretty yeah it is a pretty cool little uh little piece to to go through uh to use for feedback and and things of that nature let's see one second while I'm looking there I'm trying to clean some crap out of my see this is why I should probably clean crap out before rather than during a call uh but I'm multi pseudo multitasking don't forget your turn focus on too my what Focus you're on your Mac oh that's I do that and end up breaking myself for so long like forget it although actually unless I'm doing a presentation good good tip for you kids if you're going to do a demo or presentation especially if you're on a Mac because it's really nice you can go to your little focus and you can shut it off so you don't get uh particularly like if you're even in a zoom and you're going to share you don't see like your little pop pop ups of you know which most of us do where it's like you know your email is coming through or you got a slack message or Discord or whatever the heck you're doing because those can be a little bit uh could be a bit embarrassing depending on what you do and things like that uh and it's just not terribly professional so you might as well just be as professional as possible so I think we'll do that I think we'll talk about maybe that'll do maybe we'll do a little twofer we'll sort of go like setting up for your first project and then we can cover it we'll swing back around part two will be by getting feedback and you know utilizing your first project to get your second project and things like that sound good yeah that works cool well hello and welcome back we are continuing our season where we're doing the developer Journey this episode I'm getting right to the topic look at this right away we're going to talk about really it's winning your first project we're going to talk about what do you need to do if you're going to do a side hustle in particular job is sort of the same uh but we're going to think of something where you know with the job you have a resume you get a job you move on you're you're doing all of that stuff with your job if you're doing a side hustle particularly Project based then you're going to win a project you're going to do it but then you're G to that's going to feed the next project the next project and the next project now granted it's it's a little bit focused on a on a Consulting side but but it would also work if you are wanting to build products for people so if you're more product based but before I get too far I want to introduce myself my name is Rob Broadhead I am one of the developer or Founders also a founder of RB Consulting where we do simplification integration and automation that is like our you know bread and butter right there is finding ways to leverage technology to make your life evil evil easier and avoid the evil of Technology sprawl I can't even talk so I'm going to have a little caffeine while Mike gets to introduce himself hey everyone I'm Mike Mage also one of the founders of developer Nur and founder of Envision QA so if you're looking for custom built software or just having an assessment done of your current application stack to see if it's actually working for you you know contact us so let's talk about that first project winning your first project one of the things you need to do is you need to establish I guess there's two things of this you want to establish who you are in order to win that first project but then you also want that first project to help establish who you are and now it's one of those things is where you say hey I can do this and then when we're done with that first project which will cover this in the the next episode is taking that project and saying hey I did this and so I can obviously do it again now when you first come in and this is probably going to feel familiar to when you first graduated college or got out of your boot camp is you're trying to get a job where people like experience and then you look at you say well I don't actually have professional experience we're going to have the same thing with our project however you have done stuff you have written apps you have written code you have you know solved problems and some of those things that happen on a regular basis and so what you want to do is create a a flyer a website a page something you know a LinkedIn profile that highlights that that is something you can point to or send somebody to or hand to them you know download them put it on a a signature of a file or something it's like hey here is an example of some of my work now if you don't have an example of some of your work it's time to make an example of some of your work one of the things that you're going to see and this is something that I don't know how much we've talked about it on the within this season but definitely some of last season and some of the stuff you probably will see in the YouTube particularly going back into the mentor Mastermind sessions of of days gone by we'll talk about what is it that we what are the materials that we like to have just like a like an artist let's say would have a portfolio and they'll have let's say they're they do paintings they'll have some paintings that they've done what we want to do is we want to have some projects that we've done if we haven't if we don't have any that are good then one of the things we can do is to help ourselves else is create a little do a little mini project that is that we talk about this a lot in the book when we talk about the in the developing or book we talk about using your uh your learning as part of also building your resume and so you're you're doing two things at once you're building your skill set you're building experience but also you're doing so in a way that allows you to build out a portfolio and a the tools that you have to sort of show those tools off and say heyy I can build an app in Java I can do something in Python I can do something in net or whatever it happens to be so when you're starting out the first thing you want to do is say hey do I have any projects do I have some things that would make sense and you probably do whether you did Boot Camp or you were you came out of a degree program or something there was probably some sort of Capstone project that you did I know even if you if you'd never work with Michael he's got a Java thing and a tutorial boot camp thing he goes through and that's one of the things you do is you build towards essentially a Capstone project and actually usually there's a couple of those along the way if you're using the the learn to do python series of stuff that we've got out on YouTube there are little apps and and essentially Capstone kinds of projects within those now what you want to do is don't just point people to your Capstone don't just be like there it is first double check your work go back through and really refine particularly it's an application go in there and make sure that it makes sense like add comments do some things to add a little polish to it make sure that it's something that you are proud of if there's something that you saw that's very complex don't be afraid to call that out or maybe like have a little highlight within documentation or something within the portfolio that says hey here's something I solved and here's how I solved it what you want to do is present that you can understand problems you can solve problems and ideally within some somehow within that is that you can do it in a a reasonable amount of time so it doesn't hurt to one look at sites that are out there that are Consulting sites and you will see examples of projects we've done and they'll usually say what was it done in how long did it last uh maybe what was the cost and who was the customer those kind of things are a perfect template for you to take your work and build it into that so that now what you're doing is you're going to be building out these little templates of cool look at the stuff I did and be able to present that to customers within that keep track of as much as you can keep track of all of your proposals that you need to do particularly from a Consulting you know Project based thing because whether you win or lose the the content that you generate is going to be useful for for you to uh reuse refine and so if you maybe missed the first one then when you come to the next one you've made some adjustments and if you've got any feedback that's come from either co-workers or customers or potential customers definitely integrate that into your uh your your portfolio will say of of documents and examples I'm given sort of like a I've just sort of like jumped up and lectured for a minute here so I definitely want to step back and throw us out to Michael and and with one what are some of your suggestions but also maybe where uh some of these things have worked for you or or where you've maybe had to make a couple of adjustments yeah so in building especially in kind of our history working in healthc care and working like banking things of that some of the issues you run into as you're kind of building up your profile is those ndas and or working on projects where you can't really talk about what it is you're working on now in in in essence yes the the ndas protect the company's intellectual property rights but in the same sense though a lot of what you're doing in these projects are essentially kind of common knowledge now if it's a very specific like algorithm or something to a company no you don't want to take that and put that out on your portfolio or your profile but a lot of the stuff that you do like building web applications or building mobile applications those are things you can put out on your profile and you can be very explicit about it's like hey I can build a mobile application X Y and Z and as you're putting together this kind of online portfolio hopefully you're building it using like git or some repository and as Rob mentioned as you go through the process of building these or putting these out there to be presented you want to think about some of the things that it took you to get there you know what was involved in building this application so you know you're going to have to spend time putting together like doing the research so you're going to have to spend time understanding the problem you need to Define what the project is so once you kind of do the research it's like okay now that we understand the problem how did we go about putting together the design so you go through that kind of design phase you know the whole sdlc process but you can do do that from a portfolio perspective by actually putting together your project or your view of your software in such a way that it follows kind of that stlc process you don't have to give away the kitchen syn if you're just setting something up to like sell a service or sell an application but you do need to give enough information so that the person coming to your site starts reading and understands what it is that you provide in the same Tok token and I just ran into this recently um and it just kind of was a refresher for me was understand your target audience so if the people coming to your site are non-technical don't put a whole bunch of technical jargon up there they're going to go away they're going to go somewhere else because they're going to read the first paragraph and be like what is this this may be what I need but I have no understanding of what it is that you're trying to communicate to me so I'm going somewhere else so you need to understand that whatever you put out there needs to be in a form conceptually that the consumer can ingest it they can consume what it is in an understandable way so if you're talking to doctors make sure it that you're using the right medical terms if you're talking to uh businesses make sure that you're talking in the correct business terms in that particular industry acronyms are good but acronyms can mean different things from one industry to the next so be very careful ful with making assumptions on things when you put out documentation for example rdbms relational database management system a doctor has no idea what the hell that is write it out then put the acronym I actually put together an assessment recently and I gave up actually doing the acronyms I wrote out the description everywhere in the document because even though I did the acronym the first pass through when I had someone read it they're like what is that even though I had it in the definition section and the terms in technology it was still lost in the meaning so be very clear and have people come back have people proofread your documentation whatever it is that you're putting out there it does kind of show a bit of professionalism if you have that little bit of extra when it comes to presenting your materials thankfully my daughter is an English major and she is a grammar Nazi when it comes to uh correcting me on things so I thankfully can go to her or you can use like AI tools like Claud uh chat GPT or some of the other tools like grammarly to check your context so make sure whatever it is you put out is clean understandable and congestible now the next piece of that as you're building that profile as you're working either on your side hustle or in your day job that you're going to come across things where you're going to write those little utility scripts we've talked about these in pass where it's like oh I do this repetitively so I create a script make sure you capture that make sure you document that and then put it into your little bucket somewhere so that you can come back and reuse it later this could be something even where you could put it out in GitHub and open it up to the world and say hey I have this what do you guys think and then you get public feedback you can tweak it you can make it great and then hey there's recognition the other thing with that to take that one step further is you could actually even go out to GitHub search for similar ideas for things that you've worked on find a project and become a contributor to that project to get your name out there which helps build your brand build your name recognition and it helps you to be more accessible and you can point to that on resumés and in interviews lastly before I hand it back to you Rob is get involved in similar communities online be it LinkedIn online groups Discord whatever go find things that you're interested in especially when it comes to your business or your side hustle and start figuring out what people want how are they using it what other interesting things are out there reason I say that is because I was recently in a co-starter class and came across someone that had a problem and all of a sudden my rebranding business became a solution for someone in the class so you never know and until you just get out there and talk to people what it is that they want what problems they need help with and if your solution or if you have a solution that you don't even know you have till you talk to someone it's like oh I have this here it is here it it'll cost you but I already had something so these are just some ideas and ways that you can take your side hustle or even an idea and turn it into a side hustle and those are those are excellent because the focus I had is I started this is really about setting up your brand is like what does your brand look like and really the next step is like a nice little followup it's almost like we scripted this even so cool even though we didn't is then Michael's saying okay now that you've got that what do you do with it because there are a lot of businesses out there where people have and products they're awesome and somebody gets everything built it's there crickets because nobody knows it's there and so you do need to find ways to get your name out there now you can do stuff like try to like you know do a billion dollar advertising Blitz or something like that but you probably don't want to do it if it's a little side hustle what you can do which will help you in so many ways is get involved in your user communities whether it's maybe it's the local business bureau or Chamber of Commerce or maybe it's some sort of like a a meetup group or one of the LinkedIn groups or something like that one of these you know a chat board whatever it happens to be so that you are becoming a member and you're active you're integrating or you're you're communicating with other people you're part of it and you are you know getting information as well as sharing information as Michael said what you'll do is you'll end up in conversations whether it's virtual or not and there will be ideas that will come to you people will say hey this is a problem I've got and you may say I already have solved that problem or you may say that's a really interesting problem why don't we sit down and talk about it it's something like that and a lot of times that's what we find in honestly that's where a lot of my best customers have come from is that we start with something and we start talking about that problem a little bit more and the next thing you know they're like oh there's this problem over here I never really talk about I love to see it solved but I just don't think it's solvable next thing you know we have a project that's solving that because it's you look at you say oh you know what that is possible there is a way we could do that and you walk through it so it's it's really that twofer that two-step of setting up your brand and then being your brand is is going out there and talking about it and finding a way to effectively shout from the mountain tops instead of just put your shingle out and say hey my business is open is find ways to get out there and let people know that your business is open and you can do that right away you could do that today you could go look at a couple of of just look for groups and whatever your favorite social site is or or you know topics or areas and start just being a part of it be a member of that join in and contribute some you know some of these places they're gamified so it'll have like a little tag that says you know brand new member highly you know highly uh contributing men member gold star member whatever it is and you want to work your way up to that and it may just be simple sites like you know uh Reddit or somewhere like that there may be one of these sites that you use that it's a that people go to with experts and that's fine but just you know be sure that as you're doing that that you are you know you're aware that that's that's your brand you're out there and you know get out there get involved find some of these sites and you know start being active and that's where you're going to start seeing your your first business your first project come to before wrap up I want to throw back to you Michael if there's anything else that I triggered or any any follow-ups you wanted to throw out there yeah actually triggered a thought of you know yes we deal with a lot of online tools and you can do a lot of things in chat groups and things like that that we mentioned here other things is look within your community you don't necessarily have to go look around the world to solve a problem also if you're having problems understanding your customers go to things in your area like local meetups or possibly business conferences and just walk around the vendor vendor area and watch how people interact with other vendors or other customers if you're not good at sales and you're not good at marketing you may not know what to ask or what questions to trigger or even how necessarily to listen to some cues from your customer or potential customer as to what their problem is or what they're really asking for because sometimes they'll say one thing but they really mean something else and it takes time to kind of flush through that so if you actually go look for those venues or events and there are some online but just go walk around like the vendor shows and see what potential people are doing even a car show is great because then you hear people say okay well I'm looking for a car well what kind of things do you want in a car do you need four tires do you need an engine you know what do you need so you hear these salespeople ask all these questions you're going to have to start thinking that way but these are just some of the starting points to get there I agree there's there's definitely a value being a you know essentially a on a wall in some of these conversations uh conferences that is a great thing that you can get from them just talk to the vendors listen to the conversations that go on and you will you will start to pick up on uh some of the language some of the approach how do you how do you ask questions how do you keep asking questions to draw out your customer and one of the things you could do is you could do things like request feedback like we're asking for right now is send us an email at info developer.com or leave us a comment or send us smoke signals however you want to get to us there is really a lot of different ways you can get to us whether it's through the form contact us form on developin word.com whether it's content or comments on out on our podcast site out on YouTube out on all the different places that you see that you can receive and and check out podcasts you can also as I said shoot us email lots of different ways we're happy to hear from you and figure out from you help us figure out what is like some some of the best topics to come forward and and to add into this where do you want to become a better developer and how can we help you do so let us know and we probably have some suggestions and and maybe some topics that we're going to cover based on that specific we are not done though we are just getting started in this season and we'll be back next episode we're going to just continue talking through this developer journey and sort of get into what is it that uh helps you grow from wherever you're at to becoming a better developer and note that really wherever you're at could be anywhere and that better developer is never going to end it's never you never hit best developer you just always are going to get better so step here step there you know journey of a Thousand Steps starts with that first step go out there and take that first step into your day have yourself a great day a great week and we will talk to you next time bonus material anything you want to throw on this one for the the kids at home I guess in a sense so we haven't really talked too much about but it kind of flows with this is we're talking about developers we're talking about the developer journey and we kind of threw out a couple different things in this episode but also look in your community so like if you do Java development there's a lot of java groups Java meetups uh in the community same with python same with.net don't just look online but look within your community because you could find other like-minded people like me and Rob how we met and you could grow other relationships not just a business you can actually build and grow your networking of friends networking of uh mentors just by getting going out there and looking if you stay at home in a box you're not going to grow you're going to shrivel up because you're not getting sunlight you're not getting out and seeing people now for some of you that may be fine but you know you have to if you want to grow if you want things to expand you're going to have to get out there you're going to have to you know push and you're just going to have to you know keep like Rob said keep taking that step forward and growing I think that's it that is one thing that I've I hate to sound like an old gezer or something but I have seen a little bit of a change in that is that there's this um there's this push for like you know work life balance and all that kind of stuff and honestly if you're getting into the developer world it's not totally but basically throw that out because there's going to be times you're gonna you're GNA work if you want more you're GNA have to work more to become better to become a better developer you're going to have to take an extra step here and there that means that you're not going to be just sitting there you know coming into work every day you got a couple of coding assignments and just go with that or you know go with what you got you you need to be looking for that next thing is even if you don't have a side hustle that's getting paid that's a hustle part of it hustle anyways and build build yourself a little side project whether this is some of those utilities like Michael mentioned where you've got something that you just you find yourself doing stuff on a regular basis you're like hey I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to build something to solve this problem for myself even if it's something as simple as like a a little to-do list app or something like that where you're like I don't like jerro or something like that it's too big fat and and heavy I want something that's super simple just for me do that do it right and that becomes something that then you can use to highlight for your next customer if you see a lot of requests for stuff and you're like I haven't really done that start doing that anyways start building some of that out that way the next time somebody comes through you can say well maybe I haven't completed it but here's some of my thoughts on it here's what I you know so that you are not Rusty that you're up to dat that you're current on it and I think that will help you out quite a bit so instead of you sitting here watching us more come back next episode go out there go go hustle for a while but come back cuz we're going to give you some really valuable information and we will talk to you next time go out there as always leave comments all that good stuff out here on YouTube uh doe stranger let us know reach out so we can say hi we may even call say hi by name whoever you happen to be so you could be internet famous like a billion other people that being said go out there and have a good one we'll talk to you guys later [Music]
Transcript Segments
[Music]
okay we hit record
now you can start repeat that brilliant
you were just starting to say last time
we did what was the last couple we
covered uh so the last one I believe was
updating your
tools and then the one before that was
uh working effectively within
teams let's see so we were
thinking oh this was actually
one you actually asked and I I thought
it might be actually not a battle topic
was uh basically getting like customer
feedback and
testimonials U because I think
particularly when you're I
think might not be a bad one to talk
about um because I don't think we have I
don't think we've talked about like
getting started on your side hustle like
winning your first project or something
along those lines have we I don't think
we have am I or have we no uh don't
think so and I had reached out to you uh
last week or
because I was trying to get the customer
feedback for the assessment and
um there was a couple different things I
could used like Google forms Survey
Monkey things of that nature and uh I
end up using I think type form which
actually was pretty
cool I have seen that um a couple of
times and um it
was it's actually a pretty yeah it is a
pretty cool little uh little piece to to
go
through uh to use for feedback and and
things of that nature let's
see one second while I'm looking there
I'm trying to clean some crap out of my
see this is why I should probably clean
crap out before rather than during a
call uh but I'm multi pseudo
multitasking don't forget your turn
focus on too my what Focus you're on
your
Mac
oh
that's I do that and end up breaking
myself for so long like forget it
although actually unless I'm doing a
presentation good good tip for you kids
if you're going to do a demo or
presentation especially if you're on a
Mac because it's really nice you can go
to your little focus and you can shut it
off so you don't get uh particularly
like if you're even in a zoom and you're
going to share you don't see like your
little pop pop ups of you know which
most of us do where it's like you know
your email is coming through or you got
a slack message or Discord or whatever
the heck you're doing because those can
be a little bit uh could be a bit
embarrassing depending on what you do
and things like that uh and it's just
not terribly professional so you might
as well just be as professional as
possible so I think we'll do that I
think we'll talk
about maybe that'll do maybe we'll do a
little twofer we'll sort of go like
setting up for your first project and
then we can cover it we'll swing back
around part two will be by getting
feedback and you know utilizing your
first project to get your second project
and things like that sound good yeah
that works cool well hello and welcome
back we are continuing our season where
we're doing the developer Journey this
episode I'm getting right to the topic
look at this right away we're going to
talk about really it's winning your
first project we're going to talk about
what do you need to do if you're going
to do a side hustle in particular job is
sort of the same uh but we're going to
think of something where you know with
the job you have a resume you get a job
you move on you're you're doing all of
that stuff with your job if you're doing
a side hustle particularly Project based
then you're going to win a project
you're going to do it but then you're G
to that's going to feed the next project
the next project and the next project
now granted it's it's a little bit
focused on a on a Consulting side but
but it would also work if you are
wanting to build products for people so
if you're more product based but before
I get too far I want to introduce myself
my name is Rob Broadhead I am one of the
developer or Founders also a founder of
RB Consulting where we do simplification
integration and automation that is like
our you know bread and butter right
there is finding ways to leverage
technology to make your life evil evil
easier and avoid the evil of Technology
sprawl I can't even talk so I'm going to
have a little caffeine while Mike gets
to introduce
himself hey everyone I'm Mike Mage also
one of the founders of developer Nur and
founder of Envision QA so if you're
looking for custom built software or
just having an assessment done of your
current application stack to see if it's
actually working for you you know
contact
us so let's talk about that first
project winning your first project one
of the things you need to do is you need
to
establish I guess there's two things of
this you want to establish who you are
in order to win that first project but
then you also want that first project to
help establish who you are and now it's
one of those things is where you say hey
I can do this and then when we're done
with that first project which will cover
this in the the next episode is taking
that project and saying hey I did this
and so I can obviously do it again now
when you first come in and this is
probably going to feel familiar to when
you first graduated college or got out
of your boot camp is you're trying to
get a job where people like experience
and then you look at you say well I
don't actually have professional
experience we're going to have the same
thing with our project however you have
done stuff you have written apps you
have written code you have you know
solved problems and some of those things
that happen on a regular
basis and so what you want to do is
create a a flyer a website a page
something you know a LinkedIn profile
that highlights that that is something
you can point to or send somebody to or
hand to them you know download them put
it on a a signature of a file or
something it's like hey here is an
example of some of my work now if you
don't have an example of some of your
work it's time to make an example of
some of your work one of the things that
you're going to see and this is
something that I don't know how much
we've talked about it on the within this
season but definitely some of last
season and some of the stuff you
probably will see in the YouTube
particularly going back into the mentor
Mastermind sessions of of days gone by
we'll talk
about what is it that we what are the
materials that we like to have just like
a like an artist let's say would have a
portfolio and they'll have let's say
they're they do paintings they'll have
some paintings that they've done what we
want to do is we want to have some
projects that we've done if we haven't
if we don't have any that are good then
one of the things we can do is to help
ourselves else is create a little do a
little mini project that is that we talk
about this a lot in the book when we
talk about the in the developing or book
we talk about using your uh your
learning as part of also building your
resume and so you're you're doing two
things at once you're building your
skill set you're building experience but
also you're doing so in a way that
allows you to build out a portfolio and
a the tools that you have to sort of
show those tools off and say heyy I can
build an app in Java I can do something
in Python I can do something in net or
whatever it happens to
be so when you're starting out the first
thing you want to do is say hey do I
have any projects do I have some things
that would make sense and you probably
do whether you did Boot Camp or you were
you came out of a degree program or
something there was probably some sort
of Capstone project that you did I know
even if you if you'd never work with
Michael he's got a Java thing and a
tutorial boot camp thing he goes through
and that's one of the things you do is
you build towards essentially a Capstone
project and actually usually there's a
couple of those along the way if you're
using the the learn to do python series
of stuff that we've got out on YouTube
there are little apps and and
essentially Capstone kinds of projects
within those now what you want to do is
don't just point people to your Capstone
don't just be like there it is first
double check your work go back through
and really refine particularly it's an
application go in there and make sure
that it makes sense like add comments do
some things to add a little polish to it
make sure that it's something that you
are proud of if there's something that
you saw that's very complex don't be
afraid to call that out or maybe like
have a little highlight within
documentation or something within the
portfolio that says hey here's something
I solved and here's how I solved it
what you want to do is present that you
can understand problems you can solve
problems and ideally within some somehow
within that is that you can do it in a a
reasonable amount of time so it doesn't
hurt to one look at sites that are out
there that are Consulting sites and you
will see examples of projects we've done
and they'll usually say what was it done
in how long did it last uh maybe what
was the cost and who was the
customer those kind of things are a
perfect template for you to take your
work and build it into that so that now
what you're doing is you're going to be
building out these little templates of
cool look at the stuff I did and be able
to present that to customers within that
keep track of as much as you can keep
track of all of your proposals that you
need to do particularly from a
Consulting you know Project based thing
because whether you win or lose the the
content that you generate is going to be
useful for for you to uh reuse refine
and so if you maybe missed the first one
then when you come to the next one
you've made some adjustments and if
you've got any feedback that's come from
either co-workers or customers or
potential customers definitely integrate
that into your uh your your portfolio
will say of of documents and examples
I'm given sort of like a I've just sort
of like jumped up and lectured for a
minute here so I definitely want to step
back
and throw us out to Michael and and with
one what are some of your suggestions
but also maybe where uh some of these
things have worked for you or or where
you've maybe had to make a couple of
adjustments yeah so in building
especially in kind of our history
working in healthc care and working like
banking things of that some of the
issues you run into as you're kind of
building up your profile is those ndas
and or working on projects where you
can't really talk about what it is
you're working on now in in in essence
yes the the ndas protect the company's
intellectual property rights but in the
same sense though a lot of what you're
doing in these projects are essentially
kind of common knowledge now if it's a
very specific like algorithm or
something to a company no you don't want
to take that and put that out on your
portfolio or your profile but a lot of
the stuff that you do like building web
applications or building mobile
applications those are things you can
put out on your profile and you can be
very explicit about it's like hey I can
build a mobile application X Y and Z and
as you're putting together this kind of
online portfolio hopefully you're
building it using like git or some
repository and as Rob mentioned as you
go through the process of building these
or putting these out there to be
presented you want to think about some
of the things that it took you to get
there you know what was involved in
building this application so you know
you're going to have to spend time
putting together like doing the research
so you're going to have to spend time
understanding the problem you need to
Define what the project is so once you
kind of do the research it's like okay
now that we understand the problem how
did we go about putting together the
design so you go through that kind of
design phase you know the whole sdlc
process but you can do do that from a
portfolio perspective by actually
putting together
your project or your view of your
software in such a way that it follows
kind of that stlc process you don't have
to give away the kitchen syn if you're
just setting something up to like sell a
service or sell an application but you
do need to give enough information so
that the person coming to your site
starts reading and understands what it
is that you provide in the same Tok
token and I just ran into this
recently um and it just kind of was a
refresher for me was understand your
target audience so if the people coming
to your site are non-technical don't put
a whole bunch of technical jargon up
there they're going to go away they're
going to go somewhere else because
they're going to read the first
paragraph and be like what is this this
may be what I need but I have no
understanding of what it is that you're
trying to communicate to me so I'm going
somewhere else so you need to understand
that whatever you put out there needs to
be in a form conceptually that the
consumer can ingest it they can consume
what it is in an understandable way so
if you're talking to doctors make sure
it that you're using the right medical
terms if you're talking to uh businesses
make sure that you're talking in the
correct business terms in that
particular industry acronyms are good
but acronyms can mean different things
from one industry to the next so be very
careful ful with making assumptions on
things when you put out documentation
for example rdbms relational database
management system a doctor has no idea
what the hell that is write it out then
put the acronym I actually put together
an assessment recently and I gave up
actually doing the acronyms I wrote out
the description everywhere in the
document because even though I did the
acronym the first pass through when I
had someone read it they're like what is
that even though I had it in the
definition section and the terms in
technology it was still lost in the
meaning so be very clear and have people
come back have people proofread your
documentation whatever it is that you're
putting out there it does kind of show a
bit of professionalism if you have that
little bit of extra when it comes to
presenting your materials thankfully my
daughter is an English major and she is
a grammar Nazi when it comes to uh
correcting me on things so I thankfully
can go to her or you can use like AI
tools like Claud uh chat GPT or some of
the other tools like grammarly to check
your context so make sure whatever it is
you put out is clean understandable and
congestible now the next piece of that
as you're building that
profile as you're working either on your
side hustle or in your day job that
you're going to come across things where
you're going to write those little
utility scripts we've talked about these
in pass where it's like oh I do this
repetitively so I create a script make
sure you capture that make sure you
document that and then put it into your
little bucket somewhere so that you can
come back and reuse it later this could
be something even where you could put it
out in GitHub and open it up to the
world and say hey I have this what do
you guys think and then you get public
feedback you can tweak it you can make
it great and then hey there's
recognition the other thing with that to
take that one step further is you could
actually even go out to GitHub search
for similar ideas for things that you've
worked on find a project and become a
contributor to that project to get your
name out there which helps build your
brand build your name recognition and it
helps you to be more accessible and you
can point to that on resumés and in
interviews lastly before I hand it back
to you Rob is get involved in similar
communities online be it LinkedIn online
groups Discord whatever go find things
that you're interested in especially
when it comes to your business or your
side hustle and start figuring out what
people want how are they using it what
other interesting things are out there
reason I say that is because I was
recently in a co-starter class and came
across someone that had a problem and
all of a sudden my rebranding business
became a solution for someone in the
class so you never know and until you
just get out there and talk to people
what it is that they want what problems
they need help with and if your solution
or if you have a solution that you don't
even know you have till you talk to
someone it's like oh I have this here it
is here it it'll cost you but I already
had something so these are just some
ideas and ways that you can take your
side hustle or even an idea and turn it
into a side hustle and those are those
are excellent because the focus I had is
I started this is really about setting
up your brand is like what does your
brand look like and really the next step
is like a nice little followup it's
almost like we scripted this even so
cool even though we didn't is then
Michael's saying okay now that you've
got that what do you do with it because
there are a lot of businesses out there
where people have and products they're
awesome and somebody gets everything
built it's there crickets because nobody
knows it's there and so you do need to
find ways to get your name out there now
you can do stuff like try to like you
know do a billion dollar advertising
Blitz or something like that but you
probably don't want to do it if it's a
little side hustle what you can do which
will help you in so many ways is get
involved in your user communities
whether it's maybe it's the
local business bureau or Chamber of
Commerce or maybe it's some sort of like
a a meetup group or one of the LinkedIn
groups or something like that one of
these you know a chat board whatever it
happens to be
so that you are becoming a member and
you're active you're integrating or
you're you're communicating with other
people you're part of it and you are you
know getting information as well as
sharing information as Michael said what
you'll do is you'll end up in
conversations whether it's virtual or
not and there will be ideas that will
come to you people will say hey this is
a problem I've got and you may say I
already have solved that problem or you
may say that's a really interesting
problem why don't we sit down and talk
about it it's something like that and a
lot of times that's what we find in
honestly that's where a lot of my best
customers have come from is that we
start with something and we start
talking about that problem a little bit
more and the next thing you know they're
like oh there's this problem over here I
never really talk about I love to see it
solved but I just don't think it's
solvable next thing you know we have a
project that's solving that because it's
you look at you say oh you know what
that is possible there is a way we could
do that and you walk through it so it's
it's really that twofer that two-step of
setting up your brand and then being
your brand is is going out there and
talking about it and finding a way to
effectively shout from the mountain tops
instead of just put your shingle out and
say hey my business is open is find ways
to get out there and let people know
that your business is open and you can
do
that right away you could do that today
you could go look at a couple of of just
look for groups and whatever your
favorite social site is or or you know
topics or areas and start just being a
part of it be a member of that join in
and contribute some you know some of
these places they're gamified so it'll
have like a little tag that says you
know brand new member highly you know
highly uh contributing men member gold
star member whatever it is and you want
to work your way up to that and it may
just be simple sites like you know uh
Reddit or somewhere like that there may
be one of these sites that you use that
it's a that people go to with experts
and that's fine but just you know be
sure that as you're doing that that you
are you know you're aware that that's
that's your brand you're out there and
you know get out there get involved find
some of these sites and you know start
being active and that's where you're
going to start seeing your your first
business your first project come to
before wrap up I want to throw back to
you Michael if there's anything else
that I triggered or any any follow-ups
you wanted to throw out there yeah
actually triggered a thought of you know
yes we deal with a lot of online tools
and you can do a lot of things in chat
groups and things like that that we
mentioned here other things is look
within your community you don't
necessarily have to go look around the
world to solve a problem also if you're
having problems understanding your
customers go to things in your area like
local meetups or possibly business
conferences and just walk around the
vendor vendor area and
watch how people interact with other
vendors or other customers if you're not
good at sales and you're not good at
marketing you may not know what to ask
or what questions to trigger or even how
necessarily to listen to some cues from
your customer or potential customer as
to what their problem is or what they're
really asking for because sometimes
they'll say one thing but they really
mean something else and it takes time to
kind of flush through that so if you
actually go look for those venues or
events and there are some online but
just go walk around like the vendor
shows and see what potential people are
doing even a car show is great because
then you hear people say okay well I'm
looking for a car well what kind of
things do you want in a car do you need
four tires do you need an engine you
know what do you need so you hear these
salespeople ask all these questions
you're going to have to start thinking
that way but these are just some of the
starting points to get
there I agree there's there's definitely
a value being a you know essentially a
on a wall in some of these conversations
uh conferences that is a great thing
that you can get from them just talk to
the vendors listen to the conversations
that go on and you will you will start
to pick up on uh some of the language
some of the approach how do you how do
you ask questions how do you keep asking
questions to draw out your
customer and one of the things you could
do is you could do things like request
feedback like we're asking for right now
is send us an email at info
developer.com or leave us a comment or
send us smoke signals however you want
to get to us there is really a lot of
different ways you can get to us whether
it's through the
form contact us form on developin
word.com whether it's content or
comments on out on our podcast site out
on YouTube out on all the different
places that you see that you can receive
and and check out podcasts you can also
as I said shoot us email lots of
different ways we're happy to hear from
you and figure out from you help us
figure out what is like some some of the
best topics to come forward and and to
add into this where do you want to
become a better developer and how can we
help you do so let us know and we
probably have some suggestions and and
maybe some topics that we're going to
cover based on that
specific we are not done though we are
just getting started in this season and
we'll be back next episode we're going
to just continue talking through this
developer journey and sort of get into
what is it that uh helps you grow from
wherever you're at to becoming a better
developer and note that really wherever
you're at could be anywhere and that
better developer is never going to end
it's never you never hit best developer
you just always are going to get better
so step here step there you know journey
of a Thousand Steps starts with that
first step go out there and take that
first step into your day have yourself a
great day a great week and we will talk
to you next
time bonus material anything you want to
throw on this one for the the kids at
home
I guess in a sense so we haven't really
talked too much about but it kind of
flows with this
is we're talking about developers we're
talking about the developer journey and
we kind of threw out a couple different
things in this episode but also look in
your community so like if you do Java
development there's a lot of java groups
Java meetups uh in the community same
with python same
with.net don't just look online but look
within your community because you could
find other like-minded people like me
and Rob how we met and you could grow
other relationships not just a business
you can actually build and grow your
networking of friends networking of uh
mentors just by getting going out there
and looking if you stay at home in a box
you're not going to grow you're going to
shrivel up because you're not getting
sunlight you're not getting out and
seeing people now for some of you that
may be fine but you know you have to if
you want to grow if you want things to
expand you're going to have to get out
there you're going to have to you know
push and you're just going to have to
you know keep like Rob said keep taking
that step forward and
growing I think that's it that is one
thing that I've I hate to sound like an
old gezer or something but I have seen a
little bit of a change in that is that
there's this um there's this push for
like you know work life balance and all
that kind of stuff and honestly if
you're getting into the developer
world it's not totally but basically
throw that out because there's going to
be times you're gonna you're GNA work if
you want more you're GNA have to work
more to become better to become a better
developer you're going to have to take
an extra step here and there that means
that you're not going to be just sitting
there you know coming into work every
day you got a couple of coding
assignments and just go with that or you
know go with what you got you you need
to be looking for that next thing is
even if you don't have a side hustle
that's getting paid that's a hustle part
of it hustle anyways and build build
yourself a little side project whether
this is some of those utilities like
Michael mentioned where you've got
something that you just you find
yourself doing stuff on a regular basis
you're like hey I'm going to go ahead
and I'm going to build something to
solve this problem for myself even if
it's something as simple as like a a
little to-do list app or something like
that where you're like I don't like
jerro or something like that it's too
big fat and and heavy I want something
that's super simple just for me do that
do it right and that becomes something
that then you can use to highlight for
your next customer if you see a lot of
requests for stuff and you're like I
haven't really done that start doing
that anyways start building some of that
out that way the next time somebody
comes through you can say well maybe I
haven't completed it but here's some of
my thoughts on it here's what I you know
so that you are not Rusty that you're up
to dat that you're current on it and I
think that will help you out quite a bit
so instead of you sitting here watching
us more come back next episode go out
there go go hustle for a while but come
back cuz we're going to give you some
really valuable information and we will
talk to you next time go out there as
always leave comments all that good
stuff out here on YouTube uh doe
stranger let us know reach out so we can
say hi we may even call say hi by name
whoever you happen to be so you could be
internet famous like a billion other
people that being said go out there and
have a good one we'll talk to you guys
later
[Music]