Raising Your Profile - Sam Soffes

[? music ?] [Treehouse Friends] 0:00 Hi everyone, my name is Pasan, 0:05 and today I want to talk to you about raising your profile. 0:07 Whether you're an indie developer, a freelancer, 0:11 or you work for someone else, it's always important 0:14 to highlight your skills, past experience, 0:17 and knowledge in such a way that you'll always be open to new opportunities. 0:19 Today we're going to talk to Sam Soffes. 0:23 Sam is an iOS developer who has been in the game a long time. 0:26 He's worked as a freelancer. 0:30 He's worked for startups, and he's worked for big companies. 0:32 Today let's talk to him and hear what he has to say 0:35 about raising your profile for someone who is new to the tech world. 0:38 Sam, thanks a lot for taking the time to do this with us. 0:42 You're my inaugural interview, 0:45 and for those who don't know, tell us a little bit about yourself, 0:47 and by little bit, I mean I lot. 0:52 [Sam Soffes] [iOS Developer] All right, thanks for having me. 0:54 I'm an iOS developer living in San Francisco. 0:56 Do you want the whole story? 1:03 Yeah, from the beginning. 1:05 So in high school I was doing Mac apps just for fun, 1:07 and the iPhone SDK came out, and I was like, "This looks amazing," 1:11 because I sort of know how to do this, so I started doing that, 1:15 made an app called Bible that's pretty popular. 1:20 I had my first job and then did some freelance for a bit, 1:25 moved around, and now I'm here in San Francisco. 1:29 I was at a company called Seesaw, but now I'm freelancing. 1:32 I guess in there I made Cheddar, which was pretty popular for a bit. 1:38 It's like a Mac iOS web app for to dos. 1:41 I don't know, I've done a lot of stuff. 1:44 Let's start at the beginning. 1:47 How did you learn to code? 1:49 You said you started off doing Mac apps. 1:52 How did you learn to code, and why? 1:54 It sounds like you taught yourself. 1:56 Yeah, so way back in 5th grade, 2:00 I was 10 years old, my local ISP was having HTML classes, 2:04 which is pretty hilarious. 2:09 It's nothing that happens anymore. 2:11 But my mom wanted to learn how to make websites, 2:13 so she's like, "Well, let's go," and I didn't have a babysitter, so I tagged along. 2:16 And she didn't really get into it, but I was like, "Oh, this is amazing!" 2:18 I started doing HTML in Notepad way back in the day, 2:22 and then I got a Flash 5 demo at some point along the line, 2:28 and somebody was talking about it or I saw it. 2:32 I was like, "What is this Flash thing?" so I got a demo. 2:34 And I wrote my first if statement in ActionScript in Flash 5 2:36 just tweening a ball, stupid stuff. 2:42 And I guess I took a C++ class in high school, 2:48 which the teacher didn't really know anything, but it was still pretty cool, just encouragement, 2:53 like we'll figure this out together. 2:56 I did that for a bit and then picked up PHP 3:00 because I wanted to make better websites for clients, 3:03 and that's very similar to the C syntax, so I was like, "Oh, this is easy enough." 3:05 It's all similar to ActionScript. 3:10 This is all kind of the same, just more $ signs. 3:12 And then went to an Apple event 3:18 in Atlanta. 3:22 I was living in Kentucky at the time, so I drove down with a friend 3:24 just because I was an Apple fan. 3:27 I didn't really know Apple development, and they were showing off all their tools, 3:29 and I was like, "This is incredible!" so I bought a book and taught myself 3:32 Mac stuff because I liked Apple stuff. 3:35 I completely understand that. 3:42 Now, where did you get your start in iPhone development? 3:44 What prompted you to jump onto that platform, 3:47 and how did you teach yourself? 3:51 For our students out there who are teaching themselves iPhone development and iPad development through us, 3:53 what prompted you? 3:59 How did you go about teaching yourself how to code 4:01 and then translating that into what you do now? 4:04 ["How did you go from teaching yourself how to code to making a career out of it?"] 4:08 I think the biggest thing with learning anything is doing it, 4:10 so I wanted to make a Mac app after seeing the Apple stuff at that demo, 4:15 so I was like, "Okay, I'm going to buy a book and figure this out and go make something." 4:19 I had a project in mind and went and made it. 4:24 And same for the iPhone. 4:26 We were talking at my job, and I was like, "Well, why don't we make an app?" 4:29 "Yeah, why don't we make the Bible?" and I was like, "All right, easy enough." 4:34 I had no idea, but I was like, okay. 4:39 My first interface bullet wasn't even there yet. 4:41 From the very beginning it was super hard to do anything. 4:44 I was like, all right, I'll figure it out, 4:48 and I spent 6 months and fought through it, had no idea what I was doing. 4:51 The first version was probably really terrible. 4:54 So that was your very first app that you did? 4:56 Yeah. 5:00 Wow, and for those who are listening, to put this in perspective, 5:02 that's been downloaded well over millions and millions of times now. 5:04 A hundred million, yeah. 5:08 They had their big party a couple weeks ago. 5:10 So walk us through that experience. 5:12 I think one of the biggest things for our students 5:15 is that sometimes they'll go through tutorials 5:19 and then wonder where to go next. 5:22 Back then when you were starting on your first project, 5:24 when you got stuck, what did you do? 5:27 How did you teach yourself? 5:30 ["When you get stuck, how do you work your way out?"] 5:32 It was tough, because by law, you weren't allowed to talk about it 5:34 because it still hadn't been released, so you couldn't even talk to anyone. 5:36 It was really hard, because there weren't great resources like Treehouse and Stack Overflow. 5:41 I guess when I was stuck on something I'd try to understand 5:47 more about the problem and less of there's an error, and I don't know what it means, 5:53 and I'll google it, and I'll get no results. 5:57 It was like, well, crap. 5:59 It was more like, okay, what did I do recently 6:01 to get me in this spot? 6:03 I'll try to work backwards and understand more. 6:05 I think a big mistake a lot of people can make early on 6:08 when learning something is I want to understand everything there is to know, 6:11 and then I'm going to start. 6:15 They treat it like a college or something, 6:17 and I think that's a really terrible way to start, 6:19 especially iPhone or Rails or whatever you're learning. 6:21 They are huge, vast frameworks, and it would take you years 6:26 to understand them, and then by that time, it would all be different. 6:30 It's a huge waste of time. 6:32 But I guess when you're stuck on something it helps to get a little more context 6:34 to understand more about what you're stuck on. 6:39 There's a balance to trying to understand all of it, 6:44 but I'm trying to remember back. 6:46 I'd walk around like I have no idea and think about it for a bit, 6:52 like oh, maybe I'll try this, and it happened to work or didn't work. 6:57 So it was very much getting stuck, 7:00 figuring out that one block and then moving on, 7:03 getting stuck again and progressing from there? 7:06 Yeah, it was very slow and tedious. 7:09 The way I learn anyway is trial and error, 7:12 so when I'm doing anything new 7:16 I'll say, "Well, I'll try this. Well, it didn't work. 7:19 I'll try this. Oh, okay." 7:21 And eventually I'll get it, so I think doing is the best way to learn something 7:24 than trying to understand all of the book knowledge. 7:29 Personally that doesn't do anything for me. 7:32 I'd rather get in there and play with it. 7:34 Absolutely. 7:38 With all this experience that you have, is it any different? 7:40 Or do you still work through, get stuck? 7:42 It's kind of the same thing, right? 7:46 Yeah, absolutely. 7:48 Now it's way easier because there's so many resources. 7:50 IOS specifically or whatever else 7:54 there's a huge amount of things to know, 7:57 and it's impossible to remember it all. 8:00 I'll find myself—I've done this a bunch of times. 8:02 I found something on Stack Overflow and went to comment. 8:05 This is exactly perfect. This is the best answer. 8:07 And then I saw a comment from me years ago with the exact— 8:09 it was like oh, well, all right. 8:13 I search for stuff all the time 8:16 because I can't remember how to do stuff, 8:18 or I might learn something new, like all the new stuff in iOS7. 8:21 Obviously no one has any experience with it because it's brand-new, or whatever else. 8:26 It's like, okay, I'll sit down and spend a couple hours and learn it 8:30 by playing with it and making a little demo app or something. 8:34 The theme of this discussion, because you have a lot of experience in this area, 8:38 is how to raise your profile. 8:43 You've come a long way from when you first started. 8:46 You have a lot of great apps, Shares, Bible. 8:48 Walk us through that. 8:54 What specific steps do you take? 8:57 What advice do you have for people who have taught themselves how to code? 8:59 What's the next step? 9:04 Because now the gold rush is over. 9:06 You've got to put a lot of effort into it, 9:09 especially if you're doing indie development like you are 9:11 to raising your profile and being able to market these apps. 9:13 Walk us through that. 9:17 ["What steps have you taken to raise your profile?"] 9:20 Personal branding I think is really important, and it's something I've spent a lot of time on. 9:22 I didn't just stumble upon whatever position I have in the community. 9:27 There's intentional effort put into that, 9:32 which sounds weird, like "I'm going to try to be famous today." 9:36 But it really pays off, 9:40 because I can tweet something and get 1,000 clicks pretty easily, 9:44 which is really powerful, 9:47 which is crazy because TechCrunch has hundreds of thousands of followers, 9:50 or I don't even know, tons. 9:54 But they'll tweet something, and I've had them write a story about something I've worked on 9:56 and got a couple hundred clicks, and I was like, "This is insane." 10:00 People that are into me are really engaged 10:03 in what I have to say, which is flattering. 10:05 Pretty cool. 10:07 I guess one of the reasons people respect me— 10:09 this sounds so arrogant, this whole thing— 10:14 is open source stuff, because I've put out a ton of open source libraries, 10:16 and that was my start. 10:22 Some of that stuff came from code that was in Bible way back in 2008. 10:25 I know that's probably terrible, but I've been doing it since the beginning. 10:33 I wrote some stuff that I'm going to use in another app, so why not let everyone use it 10:37 instead of hoard it all? 10:40 And people seemed to really like it, like "Oh, yeah, you saved me all this time. Thanks so much." 10:42 I think that's where the start of it came from, but I'm super open about everything. 10:46 That's in your DNA analysis. 10:54 Yeah, you can totally go download my DNA in GitHub. 10:57 There's 3 or 4, I don't even know, Founders Talk interviews. 11:00 They're an hour and a half each, and it's my entire life story 11:04 from when I was super depressed. 11:07 It's long. 11:09 I talk about pretty much everything. 11:12 I think a lot of people find that refreshing. 11:14 Some people in their online persona take a lot of time and thought 11:16 into what they're going to say and how they're going to project themselves, and I don't really do any of that. 11:22 I'm like, "Here's what I'm doing. 11:26 Today I hate my client work, so that sucks." 11:28 You let your work speak for itself. 11:31 Yeah, exactly. 11:34 I work really hard on what I work on, and I try to make it really good, 11:36 and some people appreciate it, and I get people that are like, "Oh, this guy is stupid. 11:39 His stuff is terrible," and whatever, I don't care. 11:45 One question is that you are both a designer and a developer. 11:47 I want to be a designer, yes. 11:53 Talk about that. 11:55 How has that helped what you do? 11:57 Is it essential to know those skills? 11:59 The baseline for all these questions is you've taught yourself how to code. 12:02 Is that set of skills essential as well to creating this career path for yourself? 12:08 ["Is learning cross disciplinary skills important to advancing your career?"] 12:15 I'm not a great designer. 12:17 I can make some stuff that I'm really happy with and some stuff that's terrible. 12:19 It's like, "Okay, I've got to find someone to help me." 12:23 And so you're seeing the gold rush is over, 12:25 and that's a really big shift from 5 years ago. 12:27 If you have the first anything, people are going to go download it, because that's all there was. 12:31 Now there's probably not any super new game-changing ideas. 12:35 There's a million Twitter clients. 12:40 If you want to make a Twitter client, you've got to make a really special Twitter client, 12:42 and that's the thing with any kind of app. 12:44 And a lot of that is if it's really pretty and has a good icon. 12:46 A lot of developers starting out don't have science skills, and that's fine, 12:52 because it's really 2 completely different skill sets. 12:55 Partnering with a designer I think is a really good move you can make from the beginning, 12:59 and I do a ton of apps with other designers. 13:05 I did work on Roon with Drew Wilson 13:08 and a couple other apps coming out with designer friends, 13:10 because I'm not skilled enough to design them. 13:14 But I know if I was to do it it wouldn't be good, 13:16 and there's no point in putting out something that's terrible 13:18 unless you're just learning and want to test the waters. 13:20 But for me, I want to put out something that's excellent, 13:23 so I'm going to work with a designer to help me, 13:25 and I find that having designed stuff myself, it's a lot easier to see where they're coming from, 13:28 and everyone I work with I have a lot of feedback, 13:33 and we'll work together on it. 13:38 They'll do all the actual work, and I'm like, "Why don't we try this?" 13:40 "Oh, that's a great idea." 13:42 And coming at that together, even if I was on the other end of that as a designer, 13:44 having feedback is essential. 13:48 Working with someone I think is really fulfilling 13:50 on the developer end as well as having the end result that's pretty is really important. 13:52 Does that answer the question? 14:03 Yeah. 14:05 To summarize, it really helps you work together as a team, 14:07 because you understand their frustrations and their workflow, 14:11 and you can gel better, for lack of a better word. 14:14 Yeah, absolutely, and I find that designers, especially if they're a really great designer 14:19 but they've never done iOS before, and they're doing an iOS app, 14:24 it's like this is going to be really painful, 14:26 because they don't understand all the intricacies of touch devices and whatnot. 14:29 An experienced designer, especially a designer in code, is amazing. 14:35 They'll have the same thing right back. 14:39 You can work really well together. 14:42 On Roon, it's a blogging app I run, 14:45 the designer also does all the HTML and JavaScript, CSS and stuff. 14:48 We work really well together because he understands where I'm coming from, 14:53 I understand where he's coming from, and we can get stuff done. 14:57 If you're just starting out, finding a designer friend 15:01 would be a huge thing to work on some stuff together, 15:03 because there's a ton of good benefits. 15:07 I'm a big fan. 15:11 So you've taught yourself iOS development 15:13 and then got a job in it or had a job and then taught yourself iOS development 15:15 while you had the job? 15:21 I was doing PHP at LifeChurch, which is where I was after high school. 15:23 I did a couple flying apps, and a guy hired me to make a YouTube ripoff, 15:30 which was pretty hilarious. 15:36 It was totally out of my league, but it was a really good time. 15:38 Not to get too sidetracked, but he's like, "Hey, can you make this?" 15:43 I was like, "Well, sure," 15:46 having no idea how to do it, but I was like I'm going to learn and figure it out 15:48 and learn by doing. 15:51 It's really good, but anyway, I was doing PHP, 15:53 and iPhone came out, and it was like I kind of know Objective-C. 15:55 Why don't we make something? 15:59 I was really fortunate. 16:01 I got to spend 6 months working on it as my job 16:03 and not having to do it on my free time. 16:07 That was really great. 16:10 So I do a ton of Ruby on Rails stuff as well, 16:12 and I've learned that in my free time shortly after my first app came out. 16:16 I think the difference between learning during your full-time job 16:26 and learning in your free time is that learning on your job 16:32 there's not any sort of cost. 16:35 It's like I'll just mess around and learn all this stuff for the fun of it, 16:37 and that's great, and if you can get paid to learn, that's incredible. 16:42 But learning on my own I was like okay, I want to make this thing, and I don't know how, 16:47 so I'm going to do everything it takes to make this thing 16:53 as quickly as possible, because I don't have a ton of time. 16:55 I think the sense of urgency, because your time is limited, helps. 16:59 It's definitely a different way to learn something. 17:05 Interesting. 17:07 Say I know how to code, and I'm looking to get a job in iOS development. 17:09 What do you recommend as some of the steps I can take 17:13 to raise my profile? 17:16 Do I work on side projects, or do I try to build apps on my own 17:18 to showcase the skills that I have? 17:23 What are some of those ways that our students can land a job 17:25 once they've learned these skill sets? 17:29 ["What are some of the different ways you can land an iOS job?"] 17:32 When I was at Scribd, we were hiring like crazy, 17:34 and I interviewed tons and tons of iOS developers, 17:36 and because there were so many candidates, I had to be like, 17:44 "Here's a set of rules, and I'm going to eliminate people." 17:47 Basically if you'd only ever had 1 job, 17:49 if you got a job as an iOS developer and you'd only ever worked on 1 thing 17:53 and then you applied somewhere else, I'm not going to hire you, 17:57 because you probably can't do anything on your own, 17:59 and you're just going to rely on the people that are there that are better than you. 18:02 I want people that are more self-sustaining. 18:06 If you've never done any side projects, I probably wouldn't hire you, 18:09 because finishing a project, like the last 10% of anything, 18:12 is really hard and not fun at all, 18:16 and everyone is really bad at it, 18:18 because it's not fun. 18:20 You have to finish all the things and fix the last bugs you've been putting off. 18:22 Showing that you can finish and ship is really important. 18:25 If you've done at least an app, 18:30 even if it's not amazing, just something on the store, 18:32 sets you way above tons of people who have never really finished anything. 18:36 Open source is really huge. 18:41 If you've contributed anything on GitHub 18:43 or if you have your own stuff that people are using, 18:45 that's really huge. 18:48 That sets you way above a whole other big class of people. 18:50 My ideal candidate is someone that's done freelance for a while, 18:56 because freelance is really great because you have to try a bunch of different things. 18:59 For example, none of my apps until recently 19:04 had ever needed to use Map Kit. 19:07 One of my clients used Map Kit. 19:09 Oh, I'll go on Map Kit. 19:11 You learn a bunch of stuff you'd never have to know stuff I was like— 19:13 obscure things that I've never needed to know. 19:16 But I need it for a client app, so having done freelance 19:19 you touch a lot of different things, and that's really great, 19:22 and you have to finish and ship because people are paying you. 19:25 I mainly look for people that can finish 19:29 and have done a bunch of things and show that they can work independently. 19:32 Tangibly that's side projects and open source. 19:36 Okay, now going back to what you said, 19:43 that an ideal candidate would have had some freelance experience, 19:45 that was the second question I was going to ask you. 19:49 How can one go about getting that experience now? 19:52 You're an indie developer, and you do things on your own. 19:57 How hard is it to do something on your own? 20:01 Or you've done client work as well. You've done it all. 20:03 So let's talk about some of those non-employer roles. 20:05 One, how hard is it to be an indie developer and make money? 20:10 Just touch on that. I know these topics are really vast. 20:14 And then secondly, freelance work. 20:17 What should someone who just learned how to code— 20:21 where should they look, how can they land freelance gigs, that kind of stuff. 20:25 ["How do you go about finding freelance jobs building mobile apps?"] 20:31 The biggest thing transitioning from a salary to not having a salary, 20:33 which is kind of terrifying the first time you do it, 20:35 is having a big enough buffer. 20:40 I was fortunate enough my first big freelance thing after I left my first full-time job 20:42 paid me half down, and I always do everything half down 20:45 I think because of this. 20:51 It was enough money that I could pay my rent for a couple months, 20:53 and I had time to finish this project, 20:56 and I got the check the week I was quitting. 20:58 It was amazing. 21:02 No financial stress.>>Perfect setup. 21:04 It was really great, so if you can make that happen, that's really huge. 21:06 Otherwise you have to bankroll yourself and save up and hope you find something. 21:09 And if you've never found a freelance gig before, 21:14 it's probably not the best idea, 21:16 and even recently switching from being full-time at Seesaw 21:19 to back to freelance in indie, 21:23 again, I had work lined up before I left 21:28 and had down payments before my salary ended 21:30 that was enough to cover me for a couple months. 21:36 That's the biggest thing, just solving the financial stress, 21:39 and then once you get beyond that, staying motivated is really important, 21:42 especially if you've never done it before. 21:47 Oh, I don't have a job. No one is making me do anything. 21:50 Cool, I'm not going to put on pants for a week, because I don't have to. 21:53 The first time I freelanced, I didn't leave my house for several weeks on end once. 21:58 I only saw the pizza guy. 22:01 I got a notice from the city I had to mow my lawn, 22:03 and I was like okay, this is a problem. 22:05 I was 19, though, so I guess it's okay. 22:08 Anyway, so I guess as far as finding stuff 22:12 I'm fortunate enough I've never really had to deal with that 22:17 just because my first app was so high profile, 22:21 and I've worked on a bunch of other things since. 22:23 [Hire Sam] [hire.soff.es] I have a page that's hire.soff.es, 22:25 and it has all of my rates and my availability, 22:30 and people seem to really love how transparent that is, 22:33 so I get a ton of stuff. 22:36 I even get people emailing me like, "Hey, I can't afford you, but I really love your page," 22:38 and it's like, "Thanks, that's cool." 22:41 I think charging the right amount is important, 22:43 and I think not to be—I hope this doesn't date this, 22:46 but $125 I think is the lowest you should ever go, 22:52 even if you've never done anything before ever. 22:55 IOS is a really sought-after skill, and not many people can do it 22:58 relative to the population or even the people that have iPhone ideas. 23:02 You should charge what you're worth, and even if you've never done anything before, 23:08 as long as you can push through and finish, 23:12 $125 an hour is acceptable, 23:14 and I charge $300 now, but I was doing $150 and $200 for a really long time. 23:17 I only did $300 recently. 23:26 That's really exciting, I think, and will hopefully keep you motivated through the terribleness. 23:29 Like, "Well, I'm getting paid enough to push through," 23:34 because clients are terrible. 23:36 We can talk about how to pick a good client, 23:38 but I guess as far as finding people 23:40 you may do an app or two, especially if you've never done one for hire. 23:44 Just find someone. 23:48 I had a friend, he actually works at Apple now, but there was a local brewery, 23:50 and they had all these different beers, and he was like, "Hey, I'll make an app for you to showcase your different beers, 23:56 and when you add new ones, I can update the app." 24:02 And they're like, "Yeah, that would be awesome. 24:04 You're just going to give it to us?" 24:06 "Yeah, I like your stuff. 24:08 You don't have an app. Let's do it." 24:10 And they're like, "Yeah, this is amazing," and he did it all, 24:12 and that was one of his first projects. 24:14 That kind of thing I think is a good place to start 24:18 to practice working with someone and finishing. 24:20 Those are really hard things on their own that have nothing to do with development. 24:26 If you're not comfortable charging someone, 24:30 that's probably a really good place to start is to do something for free 24:32 just to put out there more apps in your portfolio, 24:35 which will help you either get a full-time job or find more clients. 24:38 I have something that you should totally do. 24:42 I have on my iPhone my last home screen 24:44 is all the apps I've worked on. 24:48 When people are like, "Hey, what have you done?" I'm like, "This." 24:50 And they're like, "Oh, man, this is crazy. You have a whole home screen." 24:53 That's right, and it blows minds. 24:56 I had someone offer me a job on the spot when I showed them that. 25:00 It was like, "Cool, when can you start?" 25:03 I was like, "I don't want to work with you. Thanks though." 25:05 Building up your portfolio is really important, 25:07 because it blows minds when you show it to people. 25:10 Yeah, that was super long winded. 25:13 Not at all. 25:15 So now you're an indie developer, right? 25:17 Well, most of my income comes from freelance, 25:20 but I do have a lot of projects I work on. 25:23 The dream is to make money on my own on my apps, 25:27 but that's probably a ways off. 25:31 What prompted you to go into that? 25:33 It's something I've always wanted to do, and this is my third time 25:36 being self-employed, and I'll usually run out of money 25:42 or get angry with dealing with clients, 25:46 and I'm like, "Okay, I'll go get a job." 25:49 And I was at my last job, and I really liked the people, 25:52 and I enjoyed what I was working on, but I was like you know what? 25:55 I'm not passionate about making a social network or all this stuff. 25:58 I'd rather work on my own products, 26:02 and most of my products, or all my products really, 26:05 have nothing to do with social networking. 26:08 It's more like utilities that solve problems that I have. 26:10 That's what I was excited about, and that's not what I was doing, 26:12 and I was like, well, there's no reason to sit here and spend all this time working on stuff 26:14 that I'm not super passionate about. 26:19 I want to give them my best work, and I want to do my best work, 26:21 and it's not helping anyone. 26:25 I was like I'll leave and do my own stuff, 26:27 because that's what I want to do, and there's no reason not to. 26:32 I found a client that was a friend 26:37 and paid me half down, and I quit and did my thing, 26:40 and that was that. 26:44 Now I spend a lot of time working on my own projects. 26:46 I still spend the majority of my time on freelance, unfortunately, 26:49 but hopefully I can start to lower that time as I charge more. 26:53 Right. 27:00 So your company is called Nothing Magical. 27:02 Yeah, sort of. 27:05 That was for Cheddar, so I founded It's Nothing Magical, Inc. 27:08 It's an actual incorporation in Delaware, 27:13 which taxes are the worst, but I'm really bad at that side of things. 27:17 So that was what I started, and I was trying to get funding, 27:24 investment for Cheddar, and it didn't really work out 27:28 since no one is—they're like, "You're just this kid by yourself. 27:31 We don't really want to give you all this money," 27:35 and I was like, "All right, that's fair, I guess." 27:37 I didn't really go after it, 27:40 and mainly the reason is VC's want you to have a billion dollar business, 27:42 and Cheddar wasn't a billion dollar business. 27:46 It was something that was just making money and people really liked, 27:48 and that's not exciting to most investors. 27:50 Sadly. 27:52 Yes, it's very sad. 27:54 But anyway— 27:57 Yeah, separate episode, right? 27:59 Yeah, anyway, it kind of sat there, and Cheddar paid for Cheddar, 28:01 and I took the money from Cheddar, and that's pretty much it. 28:09 And now it pays Roon, and a couple other things go through it. 28:11 But most of my contracting is me personally. 28:16 I don't know, I'm still in a branding crisis, 28:20 and I need to figure out what I'm doing, but I have a couple other things. 28:25 Some friends and I are talking about starting a company pretty soon, 28:31 so I may ditch it altogether and move everything. 28:34 I don't know. I've got to figure it out. 28:37 So the interesting thing that I'm getting out of this conversation 28:39 is you're very open to change and embrace it and are quick to try out different things. 28:42 How important is that in this landscape that's changing so quickly? 28:47 ["How important is it to be able to adapt to change?"] 28:52 The plan was I was enrolled in college, 28:54 and I was going to go and then got a job at LifeChurch, 28:56 and that was Oklahoma, and I grew up in Kentucky, 29:01 and I was like, "Cool, I'm going to move to Oklahoma 29:04 and not go to college," and my mom is like, "What? How?" 29:07 I was like whatever, it shouldn't be that bad. 29:11 That's what I did, and it was fine, 29:14 and I've made huge changes randomly, 29:17 like I'm going to move to Texas and get a job. 29:20 I moved to Dallas, and then most recently I guess the most notable change 29:22 is I quit my job, got married, and moved to California all in a weekend in August. 29:26 That was a good time, but anyway— 29:36 oh, this is what I was getting at. 29:40 If I had gone to college, that was before iOS came out. 29:43 It was the summer before, so I would have finished college, 29:48 and they surely wouldn't be teaching iOS at all. 29:51 What did you go to college for, if you don't mind me asking? 29:54 It was for computer science. 29:57 But I almost went back a couple years ago. 29:59 I was like, okay, I'll actually go to college, and I was going to go back for philosophy or something like that, 30:03 something silly, not computer science. 30:08 Going to school for computer science is a waste of time, in my opinion. 30:10 But that's another thing. 30:13 Had I not done that and gone with the plan, 30:16 I would have got out and not really known anything, and that's fine. 30:22 I guess that has nothing to do with what I was getting at. 30:26 Development changes so quickly. 30:30 Here we go. 30:32 I think if you're opposed to change you'll be stuck in the past, 30:36 and for development that's really bad. 30:39 I had a job offer recently from a pretty cool company, 30:45 and everyone was awesome, a super great opportunity, 30:47 amazing pay, and I met the developers, and they were still on a version of Rails from 5 years ago, 30:50 and I was like, "What's the deal with this?" 30:56 "Oh, yeah, they're really hard to change." 30:58 And I was like, "Yikes! I don't want to work here at all." 31:00 Developers that hate change, avoid that. 31:03 You have to embrace it. 31:06 Stuff changes. 31:08 You can't be like you've spent all this time on an iOS, and now 5 years from now we're not using iOS. 31:10 I don't see that happening, but whatever it is. 31:14 That's a really bad thing, because if you stay in the past, 31:18 you'll be left behind, 31:22 because consumers don't care what the technology is. 31:24 They just want to buy the new thing. 31:27 Embracing change is really important, 31:29 and not being too married to whatever language or technology you're using. 31:31 Once you learn how to code, and especially if you learn 2 different languages, 31:37 you've learned how to learn a language. 31:41 The first time you're learning basics, and you can't really abstract that away. 31:43 But once you learn a second language, you're like, "Oh, I understand an abstract sense of language, 31:48 and then I can apply it to these 2." 31:53 Then you can learn a language in a weekend, and that's an amazing skill to have, 31:55 and it's really important, so change is really good, and you shouldn't fear it as a developer. 32:00 I've noticed I think you've started playing with Android as well. 32:06 You and Ben were tweeting back and forth. 32:09 Yes, I was going to make Cheddar for Android a while ago, 32:11 and I've had this a couple times like I'm tired of iOS. 32:14 I don't want to do it anymore. 32:19 I think Android is going to be terrible, but I'll at least try it out and didn't really get very far. 32:21 I started that same chorus way back 32:27 and then downloaded Android Studio, and I didn't understand how to adapt the chorus to the stuff, 32:30 so Ben was helping me. 32:35 He's like, "Isn't this great? Android is so fun!" 32:37 I was like, "I waited 30 minutes for the emulator to start. This is not fun." 32:39 But I started working on hardware recently. 32:45 My biggest project right now is hardware, 32:48 and I know nothing about hardware or circuits or any of that stuff, 32:50 so it was really hard, and I don't know what I'm doing, but that's great. 32:55 That's the place I want to be, because there's only so many times I can hit an API 32:58 and show some stuff in a table view. 33:04 That's every iOS app ever. 33:06 Putting myself in a situation 33:09 where I'm over my head and I have to push myself to learn 33:13 is really important, and it's easy to get in a spot where you're comfortable, 33:15 like okay, I have a really good hang of iOS, 33:19 and you're not going to learn anything new for a long time. 33:23 You're just going to rinse and repeat all of your apps, 33:26 and I don't want to be in that spot, so I'm trying to find things that are— 33:28 That challenge you. 33:32 Yeah, exactly. 33:34 I don't want to take up too much of your time, 33:36 so to wrap this up, if you had advice for our students 33:38 who have just learned how to code for iOS 33:43 and want to do something from there, what's on the top of your mind? 33:46 So especially if you've told your friends and family 33:53 that I can do iOS now, because you're proud of yourself, which is great, 33:58 they're like, "Oh, hold on, I have this idea." 34:02 And you're like, "Tell me, what's your idea. 34:05 Okay, that's stupid." 34:08 Occasionally you get one that's good, 34:10 and you're not working on anything, like I hear a lot of people that have just learned 34:12 and are like, "Okay, go make something." 34:15 That's what you have to do. 34:17 "Well, I don't have any ideas." 34:19 There's tons of terrible ideas or half good ones. 34:21 Just pick something and work on it. 34:24 Yeah, working on a terrible idea will still get you practice. 34:26 Exactly. 34:29 I can't stress enough, going from a bunch of apps on your phone to finishing something 34:31 and putting it on the store is a huge step, 34:35 and it's not really a development skill. 34:38 But having the self-control and discipline to finish the last 10% 34:40 is so incredibly important. 34:44 I've worked with a lot of people that can't do that, 34:46 and it's the people I wouldn't hire again given the option. 34:48 So yes, learn how to ship, 34:52 because that's really important. 34:56 Cool. Thank you very much for taking the time to do this, Sam. 34:58 Now what I've learned from this is you have lots to say, 35:01 so I think we'll do more episodes in the future 35:04 and break it down to freelance and all sorts of different things. 35:06 But if anyone has any questions, where can they reach you? 35:10 I'm @soffes on Twitter, 35:14 and that's probably the best. 35:16 Cool. Thank you very much. 35:19 Thanks so much. 35:21 [? music ?] [Treehouse Friends] 35:23

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