Do you need to have had work experience working for someone to become a freelancer?
American poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay is quoted as saying, “I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes“. Even though that classy, gangsta quote sounds like something the Dowager Countess of Grantham would say on Downton Abbey, it is super applicable today when we broach the topic of freelancing and previous experience.
On our ‘code-on-the-go’ segment we answer the oft-asked question: should young devs get experience working for a company prior to getting into freelancing? Can a self-taught freelancer get as skillful as a dev who works within a company?
“Short answer is yes – not a problem. I’ve had many of my mentees come right outta school and they start freelancing; working for me as contractors: I start them with little projects and they would build up that way.” We’ve talked about this in past and even dedicated a whole article to it regarding field experience vs. class/book learning, but essentially “…learn your foundations, one or two quick project courses and then what you do is you start asking around local businesses about whether they need a website (if you’re doing web stack), and start with small simple projects…the key is to build your portfolio…yes, self-taught programmers can become just as skillful…”.
Check out the VLOG. Although it’s short I can guarantee you’re going to be illuminated. Also<Shameless Plug> if you’re interested in freelancing but don’t know where to start or you’ve just started and don’t think you’re doing it right, check out our course: ‘The Complete Freelancer‘. We wouldn’t offer it unless we were confident that you could profit from our over 3 decades of experience in the field. Links down below… -Enjoy!
Wix is another tool that web designers can use to build out simple client websites and for some client websites, using Wix just makes sense.
When it comes to building websites for clients most devs will turn to CMS giant WordPress but there are other less complicated web-builders out there like Wix, SquareSpace, Weebly, etc. that generally let you create websites easily at the cost of versatility. And that’s not altogether a bad thing, depending on what the client’s needs are.
And from these sites that offer simplicity and ease have risen freelancers in their own right. “If you look at Wix today or shopify…even though they’re much easier to use than, let’s say building from scratch: using a template or something, it’s still something that many small business owners don’t want to tackle. …In terms of freelance work, I call it becoming a web professional. A web professional is not necessarily somebody who is a developer (although they could be), …[It’s] somebody who knows how to put up websites, knows the different options; knows how to build from scratch, …you understand when those types of builders make sense, …hosting options, …domain names …this is what a web professional brings to the table.”
Don’t call Wix and the other builders a niche – I’ve been here for years, rockin’ my peers, puttin’ others in fear…okay seriously though, “…because it’s such a huge demand, this type of freelancer is gonna make a lot of money because there’s so many small businesses out there who are positioned on the web in some form or another and they don’t have all this knowledge, they don’t understand the differences between these different platforms and they’re probably not aware of most of these platforms…”
So should you consider using Wix, shopify, etc when choosing how to service client(s) demands over WordPress? “So your job as a consultant/web professional is to direct them in the right direction. Shopify, Wix, SquareSpace, etc. they’re not competition, they’re not taking away from web design and development, they are just tools in your toolbox. …Go in there first [and] talk to your client: see what their needs are and then you as a web professional can determine whether or not the Wix platform can support that.” As previously mentioned, “the thing about these web builders… they’re typically limited: the simplification comes at the cost of flexibility. …When you simplify you usually remove options that you have on the table. So you have to determine whether you need those options or not; maybe you don’t/maybe you do…”. Hey, we never said it was gonna be easy…
The VLOG goes into a way better explanation, you should check it out. And maybe while you’re at it <shameless promo> check out the really cool and thoughtfully put together courses that we offer. Whether is freelancing, or learning web development, you’ll be taking advantage of almost 3 decades of experience in all these subjects AND if you click here, you can take advantage of a super deal! We’ve teamed up with InMotion hosting for a really amazing offer where they essentially pay for you to take my course and learn how to become a web developer. Links to all these offers are below as well. -Enjoy!
In safety news today, we regret to inform you that our ‘code on the go’ segment: where we drive around and talk about coding/tech and give our opinion will no longer be done in the car. I know, I know, but driving requires attention and concentration coupled with the ability to react to danger in a split second, and I just don’t think I can do that while delivering a deep dive into coding and insulting ‘Ruby’ at the same time…
Going forward there will still be a ‘travel’ component, where I show you parts of the city or nice scenic views but that will either be at the beginning of the VLOG and then we’ll go into deep dives, or maybe it’ll be more of a ‘walk n’ talk’, I haven’t decided yet… Which brings me to my next point; multitasking is a lie. There I said it. Think about it. When have you ever been able to do two things at once and finish both of them quickly and efficiently? Or to put it another way, “…our brains cannot multitask: they can focus on one thing, and then they focus on something else… that’s why if you want to be maximum productive in what you do, do one thing and finish it and then you move on to the other thing.” Studies have shown that taking on two tasks or projects at the same time has been shown to actually reduce your output and efficiency. “There’s not such thing as multitasking with human brains. …Our brains cannot multitask: they focus on one thing, then they focus on something else. That’s why if you want to be maximum productive, …you do one thing and then you finish it and then you move onto the other thing. If you’re trying to do two projects at the same time you’re actually reducing your output by quite a bit. …There’s a start-up time, there’s a spin-up time; let’s say you’re focused on talking about subject A and then you want to go to coding for an hour and you’re going to go back to talking about something else…the time it takes you to spin-up into coding mode…typically it’s ten/fifteen minutes, especially if you’re dealing with complex application development. …When you’re switching from one area to the next, there’s a loss of productivity with every switch, so multitasking doesn’t actually happen”.
There you have it. Now, obviously the VLOG will go into better detail about multitasking and you can hear the channel news straight from the source, so check it out. -Enjoy!
WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world and they just released a new major update.
With over 30% of the world’s websites running on WordPress and something akin to 80% of small businesses, it’s safe to say that this content management system (CMS) is a pretty big deal. Which also makes it a huge opportunity for freelancers to become ‘WordPress professionals’ – someone who provides services on the site to those businesses.
WordPress recently released version 5.2, named “Jaco” in honor of renowned and revolutionary jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius, and it’s available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard. For those of you not familiar with the CMS giant – TaDa! – and for those of you that just wanna check it out for yourself –Abracadabra!– but we’ll be looking at a couple key/cool updates. Full disclosure, we use WordPress…why? “Because dealing with the headaches of creating your own CMS or your own sites…”, it’s just easier with WordPress.
–PHP Error Detection: You’ll be able to fix fatal errors – like the white screen of death – without requiring ‘developer time’. Also, if your plug-ins and themes go haywire, there’s a recovery mode that you can enter into.
–Accessibility Updates: If you’re using a screen reader of other accessibility technologies, there’s a more seamless integration and more “contextual awareness and keyboard navigation flow”.
–Heads up: *If you are running an old version of PHP (less than 5.6.20), update your PHP before installing 5.2.
Of course, please check out the link above for a list of all things new and shiny, not to mention the VLOG for a more robust pass at this new version. On a side note click here for a really cool offer. We’ve teamed up with InMotion hosting and they’re essentially going to pay for you to take my course and learn how to become a web developer. Links to the offer and my courses are down below. -Enjoy!
OR ‘how did I get started as a web developer?’ OR ‘you kids today don’t know how good you’ve got it…’
Gather round the fire again, younglings, it’s story time. Some of you have been asking how I got my start as a web developer…well now, I reckon I can’t remember that far back (and every time I try, I see quick flashes of people with pitchforks and dragons: greedy and terrible), but I’ll try fer ya…!
It was the 1990’s…’94 to be exact and I had no idea what a website was. In fact, I wasn’t even working anywhere near computers…I did have my own business but you’ll have to checkout the VLOG to find out what is was (mostly cuz I forget…).
You can stick around to the end of the VLOG or click here for a really cool offer. We’ve teamed up with InMotion hosting for a really amazing offer where they essentially pay for you to take my course and learn how to become a web developer. Links to the offer and my courses are down below, but this is a really great opportunity and who knows, maybe one day you’ll be telling the story of how YOU got your start. -Enjoy!
Netflix uses Python in the ways that Python is commonly used. It’s a good way to look at common Python applications.
Whether you’re waiting for Disney or WB to roll out their new streaming site, you can’t deny that Netflix is a giant in the streaming game – and depending on how every Media corporation now having a streaming media initiative that we’ll have to pay for goes – the catalyst/scapegoat for how this will all play out…
But we’re here to talk about PYTHON and specifically how NETFLIX use it in their day to day. Now, this is somewhat connected to a VLOG we covered recently and if you need citations, here’s the original article, but, “Netflix as you might imagine being a pretty big company with 140 million users they have all kinds of systems writing, and so what they do is they use PYTHON to reinforce the security of the systems…to analyze alerts and data reports coming off the systems; like activity reports and so forth. They leverage PYTHON’s AI capability and machine learning capability to do things like analyze movies, and to optimize the streaming, and to pull out images as an example to display thumbnails to people, etc, etc.” It’s really pretty interesting and amazing that PYTHON is being used in this way, because we definitely don’t think about it when we’re binge watching NARCOS, GLOW, or any other guilty little pleasures we might be ashamed to admit…
Get ready for a meaty and technical VLOG filled with, but not limited to the PYTHON libraries used, how Amazon’s servers are involved, and even security. It’s illuminating, if not a little dizzying to think that something we almost take for granted has sooo many moving parts (well, not moving parts, but you know what I mean)… -Enjoy!
JavaScript needs no introduction… even a quick google search will give you all you need to know. But at one time JS had a rival, a new kid on the block and it was called CoffeeScript (You can google it if you want but don’t bother…). “A few years back people were like ‘oohhh, CoffeeScript!’, the hipster nerds were, ‘Ooooh, CoffeeScript runs faster than JS, it’s better – you gotta use CoffeeScript!’.” And the sad thing was CoffeeScript did have some advantages and was actually slightly faster than JS but, “Rule of thumb: when you have a technology, whether it be a programming language or framework but it’s extremely dominant in the marketplace, for it to be replaced there would literally have to be some paradigm shift for that to happen. It is very very rare that you see a very established technology replaced by something that’s maybe 20% or 30% better…It has to be 5 times better! …or more.”
“Now CoffeeScript was faster blah blah blah, JS was so dominant that all JS people had to do was come in with es6, which is the latest version of JS…and CoffeeScript is now {indicates ‘thumbs down’ motion and ‘failure’ sound effect}…no more.”
This falls into something we talked about herenot too long ago, called ‘the shiny tech trap’, which is abandoning more mature/tried and true/old technology for something that’s brand-spanking new and purports to do things slightly faster and better. Unless it’s a HUGE leap forward the absolutely changes everything for the better, it’s generally not going to happen…
Take a sip of the steaming-hot cuppa VLOG to really get a sense of what we’re talking about and as a bonus, we talk about RUBY but not in a terrible way…I mean not a great way, but not terrible. Check it out. -Enjoy!
We touched on this in a previous article but thought it needed expanding upon. You younglings might wanna listen too, this could help you envision what your golden years could look like… . Freelancing, making money on the side and working at your own pace with clients you want to work with is a great way to stay sharp and keep a little “action” in your life, whether it’s coding or anything else, really.
If your 50+ freelancing is a “…super viable option for you that way because you…could work remotely, you can choose when you work, how you work, with whom you work, which clients you have (firing clients, by the way, is one of my favorite advantages of being a freelancer…).”
Love it or hate it the 9-5 full-time job landscape is shifting and while there are still some strong holdouts, it may just be a matter of time until most jobs realize that to stay competitive, they might have to hire out to freelancers. “…with my business I hire freelancers because there’s certain jobs that I have that don’t require a full-time employee, there’s just no reason for it.”
And if you need more incentive to become a freelancer, “Freelancing is the easiest type of business to get into, by the way; quickest to get up and running, cheapest in terms of cost…so if you’re older and you have a lot of domain [industry] knowledge: you may be a bookkeeper, you may be an expert in X, Y or Z, you can come in as a consultant, as a freelancer…maybe you can combine that with basic web skills and help small businesses get online or improve their web presence.”
The VLOG really does this subject justice and you can check it out below. Also (and yes, here’s the pitch…), we offer a really great, immersive course called, “the Complete Freelancer“, that takes advantage of almost 3 decades of experience. You don’t have to take it, but it helps… -Enjoy!
Life is a wonderful and complicated mess…at the best of times. Sometimes we think we know what we want right out of the gate and we follow it only to realize it’s not what we wanted after all. Then we find something else and maybe we do that for awhile, then something else strikes our fancy (or need to pay bills) and we gravitate towards that. The point is all these things cost us really is time. How much of it we’ve spent, how much we have left and what we want to spend it doing…man, this got serious and sobering real fast… So, is it possible to become a coder a little later in life? Say 50? It’s a nice round number, and the answer is ‘Yes, but…’
Alright, sirs and madames…I was trying to sound respectful but it sounds like I called you a bunch stuck-ups and brothel owners, apologies; let’s try again… Alright, I’m just going to jump into it. The answer is YES, you can become a coder at 50, BUT there are going to be some things that will be an advantage to you and others that will be a disadvantage:
Advantage: “When you’re getting into this game at an older age, you’ve probably got a lot more discipline, you definitely have a lot more life experience, and you may have a lot of domain [industry] knowledge.” By domain/industry knowledge we mean the business you were part of in the past. Maybe you worked in the coffee industry, maybe you were an accountant, etc. That insight into your previous business is worth a lifetime of experience and could help you to create a more streamlined/intuitive program for that industry. Companies would value that experience in a coder much more than a young nerdling with maybe a couple years programming experience and no industry knowledge…which brings us to the disadvantages…
Disadvantage: “A lot of companies will be reluctant to hire somebody in their 50’s or older because they know that this person is close to or closing in on retirement more often than not.” People are healthier these days which means they’re living longer (Although why you would want to live longer to work more is beyond me…).
An example is start-ups; they usually hire young coders that they can abuse or burnout but there are start-ups that have hired older and in their 50’s too for their specialized industry knowledge, it’s just a little more rare…
Honestly, there’s a lot more positives working in your favor than negatives, including going into freelance work which means you collect and retain clients at your own pace. The VLOG covers this in way more detail including some paths/specialties that we think would compliment your experience, so please check it out. Bonus: Some nice footage at the end of winter in Montreal at a devastating height… -Enjoy!
Marketing yourself as a developer is the best way to get the word out so you can build a reputation and secure work for yourself, especially if you intend on being a freelancer. Great, so what do I need to start getting myself out there? I’m Glad you asked…there are essentially 3 things you need to get started: 1- Skill Sets (both Technical and Social) – Skills you’ve developed through education/experience. 2- Reputation – The better it is, the better the chance you have of getting work. 3- IP (Intellectual Property) – What have you done in the real world. Projects you’ve worked on, jobs you’ve completed: for free or for pay.
Now, I know you’re looking at this and thinking these are all things that you get by doing real world work, how can I get real world if I don’t have these things? Ahhhhh…the catch 22, my friends…
The short answer is by any means necessary. Go out and do some free work/small project(s) for a small local business (not a long time, maybe 3 months or until the small project is done). At the end of that, yeah you may not have any money, but you’ve just got all three things you need to put towards getting a paying job (it might not pay much, but it’s a start), and when that paying job is done, you’ve got even more skill/rep/IP to put towards your next gig. From there you rinse/repeat ad nauseam and BOOM! work/life balance and a happy ending, LOL. Just kidding,, but it’s a good start.
Wriggity-wreck yo’self on the VLOG for some great advice on this subject from an almost 3 decade experienced ‘warrior of the code’ turned ‘diplomat of the code’, I guess… also a great analogy that might make you real hungry…you’ve been warned. -Enjoy
