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[? music ?] [Treehouse Friends]

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Hi everyone, my name is Pasan,

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and today I want to talk to you about raising your profile.

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Whether you're an indie developer, a freelancer,

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or you work for someone else, it's always important

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to highlight your skills, past experience,

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and knowledge in such a way that you'll always be open to new opportunities.

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Today we're going to talk to Sam Soffes.

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Sam is an iOS developer who has been in the game a long time.

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He's worked as a freelancer.

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He's worked for startups, and he's worked for big companies.

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Today let's talk to him and hear what he has to say

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about raising your profile for someone who is new to the tech world.

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Sam, thanks a lot for taking the time to do this with us.

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You're my inaugural interview,

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and for those who don't know, tell us a little bit about yourself,

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and by little bit, I mean I lot.

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[Sam Soffes] [iOS Developer] All right, thanks for having me.

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I'm an iOS developer living in San Francisco.

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Do you want the whole story?

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Yeah, from the beginning.

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So in high school I was doing Mac apps just for fun,

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and the iPhone SDK came out, and I was like, "This looks amazing,"

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because I sort of know how to do this, so I started doing that,

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made an app called Bible that's pretty popular.

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I had my first job and then did some freelance for a bit,

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moved around, and now I'm here in San Francisco.

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I was at a company called Seesaw, but now I'm freelancing.

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I guess in there I made Cheddar, which was pretty popular for a bit.

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It's like a Mac iOS web app for to dos.

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I don't know, I've done a lot of stuff.

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Let's start at the beginning.

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How did you learn to code?

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You said you started off doing Mac apps.

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How did you learn to code, and why?

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It sounds like you taught yourself.

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Yeah, so way back in 5th grade,

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I was 10 years old, my local ISP was having HTML classes,

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which is pretty hilarious.

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It's nothing that happens anymore.

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But my mom wanted to learn how to make websites,

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so she's like, "Well, let's go," and I didn't have a babysitter, so I tagged along.

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And she didn't really get into it, but I was like, "Oh, this is amazing!"

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I started doing HTML in Notepad way back in the day,

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and then I got a Flash 5 demo at some point along the line,

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and somebody was talking about it or I saw it.

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I was like, "What is this Flash thing?" so I got a demo.

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And I wrote my first if statement in ActionScript in Flash 5

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just tweening a ball, stupid stuff.

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And I guess I took a C++ class in high school,

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which the teacher didn't really know anything, but it was still pretty cool, just encouragement,

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like we'll figure this out together.

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I did that for a bit and then picked up PHP

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because I wanted to make better websites for clients,

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and that's very similar to the C syntax, so I was like, "Oh, this is easy enough."

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It's all similar to ActionScript.

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This is all kind of the same, just more $ signs.

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And then went to an Apple event

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in Atlanta.

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I was living in Kentucky at the time, so I drove down with a friend

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just because I was an Apple fan.

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I didn't really know Apple development, and they were showing off all their tools,

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and I was like, "This is incredible!" so I bought a book and taught myself

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Mac stuff because I liked Apple stuff.

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I completely understand that.

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Now, where did you get your start in iPhone development?

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What prompted you to jump onto that platform,

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and how did you teach yourself?

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For our students out there who are teaching themselves iPhone development and iPad development through us,

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what prompted you?

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How did you go about teaching yourself how to code

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and then translating that into what you do now?

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["How did you go from teaching yourself how to code to making a career out of it?"]

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I think the biggest thing with learning anything is doing it,

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so I wanted to make a Mac app after seeing the Apple stuff at that demo,

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so I was like, "Okay, I'm going to buy a book and figure this out and go make something."

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I had a project in mind and went and made it.

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And same for the iPhone.

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We were talking at my job, and I was like, "Well, why don't we make an app?"

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"Yeah, why don't we make the Bible?" and I was like, "All right, easy enough."

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I had no idea, but I was like, okay.

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My first interface bullet wasn't even there yet.

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From the very beginning it was super hard to do anything.

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I was like, all right, I'll figure it out,

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and I spent 6 months and fought through it, had no idea what I was doing.

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The first version was probably really terrible.

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So that was your very first app that you did?

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Yeah.

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Wow, and for those who are listening, to put this in perspective,

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that's been downloaded well over millions and millions of times now.

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A hundred million,  yeah.

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They had their big party a couple weeks ago.

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So walk us through that experience.

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I think one of the biggest things for our students

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is that sometimes they'll go through tutorials

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and then wonder where to go next.

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Back then when you were starting on your first project,

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when you got stuck, what did you do?

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How did you teach yourself?

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["When you get stuck, how do you work your way out?"]

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It was tough, because by law, you weren't allowed to talk about it

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because it still hadn't been released, so you couldn't even talk to anyone.

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It was really hard, because there weren't great resources like Treehouse and Stack Overflow.

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I guess when I was stuck on something I'd try to understand

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more about the problem and less of there's an error, and I don't know what it means,

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and I'll google it, and I'll get no results.

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It was like, well, crap.

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It was more like, okay, what did I do recently

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to get me in this spot?

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I'll try to work backwards and understand more.

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I think a big mistake a lot of people can make early on

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when learning something is I want to understand everything there is to know,

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and then I'm going to start.

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They treat it like a college or something,

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and I think that's a really terrible way to start,

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especially iPhone or Rails or whatever you're learning.

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They are huge, vast frameworks, and it would take you years

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to understand them, and then by that time, it would all be different.

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It's a huge waste of time.

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But I guess when you're stuck on something it helps to get a little more context

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to understand more about what you're stuck on.

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There's a balance to trying to understand all of it,

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but I'm trying to remember back.

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I'd walk around like I have no idea and think about it for a bit,

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like oh, maybe I'll try this, and it happened to work or didn't work.

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So it was very much getting stuck,

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figuring out that one block and then moving on,

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getting stuck again and progressing from there?

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Yeah, it was very slow and tedious.

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The way I learn anyway is trial and error,

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so when I'm doing anything new

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I'll say, "Well, I'll try this. Well, it didn't work.

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I'll try this. Oh, okay."

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And eventually I'll get it, so I think doing is the best way to learn something

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than trying to understand all of the book knowledge.

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Personally that doesn't do anything for me.

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I'd rather get in there and play with it.

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Absolutely.

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With all this experience that you have, is it any different?

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Or do you still work through, get stuck?

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It's kind of the same thing, right?

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Yeah, absolutely.

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Now it's way easier because there's so many resources.

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IOS specifically or whatever else

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there's a huge amount of things to know,

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and it's impossible to remember it all.

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I'll find myself—I've done this a bunch of times.

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I found something on Stack Overflow and went to comment.

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This is exactly perfect. This is the best answer.

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And then I saw a comment from me years ago with the exact—

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it was like oh, well, all right.

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I search for stuff all the time

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because I can't remember how to do stuff,

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or I might learn something new, like all the new stuff in iOS7.

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Obviously no one has any experience with it because it's brand-new, or whatever else.

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It's like, okay, I'll sit down and spend a couple hours and learn it

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by playing with it and making a little demo app or something.

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The theme of this discussion, because you have a lot of experience in this area,

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is how to raise your profile.

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You've come a long way from when you first started.

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You have a lot of great apps, Shares, Bible.

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Walk us through that.

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What specific steps do you take?

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What advice do you have for people who have taught themselves how to code?

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What's the next step?

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Because now the gold rush is over.

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You've got to put a lot of effort into it,

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especially if you're doing indie development like you are

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to raising your profile and being able to market these apps.

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Walk us through that.

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["What steps have you taken to raise your profile?"]

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Personal branding I think is really important, and it's something I've spent a lot of time on.

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I didn't just stumble upon whatever position I have in the community.

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There's intentional effort put into that,

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which sounds weird, like "I'm going to try to be famous today."

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But it really pays off,

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because I can tweet something and get 1,000 clicks pretty easily,

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which is really powerful,

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which is crazy because TechCrunch has hundreds of thousands of followers,

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or I don't even know, tons.

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But they'll tweet something, and I've had them write a story about something I've worked on

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and got a couple hundred clicks, and I was like, "This is insane."

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People that are into me are really engaged

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in what I have to say, which is flattering.

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Pretty cool.

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I guess one of the reasons people respect me—

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this sounds so arrogant, this whole thing—

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is open source stuff, because I've put out a ton of open source libraries,

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and that was my start.

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Some of that stuff came from code that was in Bible way back in 2008.

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I know that's probably terrible, but I've been doing it since the beginning.

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I wrote some stuff that I'm going to use in another app, so why not let everyone use it

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instead of hoard it all?

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And people seemed to really like it, like "Oh, yeah, you saved me all this time. Thanks so much."

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I think that's where the start of it came from, but I'm super open about everything.

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That's in your DNA analysis.

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Yeah, you can totally go download my DNA in GitHub.

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There's 3 or 4, I don't even know, Founders Talk interviews.

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They're an hour and a half each, and it's my entire life story

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from when I was super depressed.

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It's long.

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I talk about pretty much everything.

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I think a lot of people find that refreshing.

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Some people in their online persona take a lot of time and thought

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into what they're going to say and how they're going to project themselves, and I don't really do any of that.

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I'm like, "Here's what I'm doing.

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Today I hate my client work, so that sucks."

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You let your work speak for itself.

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Yeah, exactly.

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I work really hard on what I work on, and I try to make it really good,

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and some people appreciate it, and I get people that are like, "Oh, this guy is stupid.

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His stuff is terrible," and whatever, I don't care.

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One question is that you are both a designer and a developer.

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I want to be a designer, yes.

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Talk about that.

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How has that helped what you do?

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Is it essential to know those skills?

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The baseline for all these questions is you've taught yourself how to code.

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Is that set of skills essential as well to creating this career path for yourself?

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["Is learning cross disciplinary skills important to advancing your career?"]

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I'm not a great designer.

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I can make some stuff that I'm really happy with and some stuff that's terrible.

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It's like, "Okay, I've got to find someone to help me."

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And so you're seeing the gold rush is over,

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and that's a really big shift from 5 years ago.

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If you have the first anything, people are going to go download it, because that's all there was.

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Now there's probably not any super new game-changing ideas.

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There's a million Twitter clients.

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If you want to make a Twitter client, you've got to make a really special Twitter client,

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and that's the thing with any kind of app.

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And a lot of that is if it's really pretty and has a good icon.

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A lot of developers starting out don't have science skills, and that's fine,

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because it's really 2 completely different skill sets.

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Partnering with a designer I think is a really good move you can make from the beginning,

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and I do a ton of apps with other designers.

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I did work on Roon with Drew Wilson

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and a couple other apps coming out with designer friends,

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because I'm not skilled enough to design them.

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But I know if I was to do it it wouldn't be good,

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and there's no point in putting out something that's terrible

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00:13:20,500 --> 00:13:23,450
unless you're just learning and want to test the waters.

242
00:13:23,450 --> 00:13:25,760
But for me, I want to put out something that's excellent,

243
00:13:25,760 --> 00:13:28,000
so I'm going to work with a designer to help me,

244
00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:33,700
and I find that having designed stuff myself, it's a lot easier to see where they're coming from,

245
00:13:33,700 --> 00:13:38,090
and everyone I work with I have a lot of feedback,

246
00:13:38,090 --> 00:13:40,000
and we'll work together on it.

247
00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:42,920
They'll do all the actual work, and I'm like, "Why don't we try this?"

248
00:13:42,920 --> 00:13:44,360
"Oh, that's a great idea."

249
00:13:44,360 --> 00:13:48,290
And coming at that together, even if I was on the other end of that as a designer,

250
00:13:48,290 --> 00:13:50,160
having feedback is essential.

251
00:13:50,160 --> 00:13:52,610
Working with someone I think is really fulfilling

252
00:13:52,610 --> 00:14:03,000
on the developer end as well as having the end result that's pretty is really important.

253
00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:05,090
Does that answer the question?

254
00:14:05,090 --> 00:14:07,100
Yeah.

255
00:14:07,100 --> 00:14:11,630
To summarize, it really helps you work together as a team,

256
00:14:11,630 --> 00:14:14,670
because you understand their frustrations and their workflow,

257
00:14:14,670 --> 00:14:19,010
and you can gel better, for lack of a better word.

258
00:14:19,010 --> 00:14:24,440
Yeah, absolutely, and I find that designers, especially if they're a really great designer

259
00:14:24,440 --> 00:14:26,910
but they've never done iOS before, and they're doing an iOS app,

260
00:14:26,910 --> 00:14:29,330
it's like this is going to be really painful,

261
00:14:29,330 --> 00:14:35,340
because they don't understand all the intricacies of touch devices and whatnot.

262
00:14:35,340 --> 00:14:39,780
An experienced designer, especially a designer in code, is amazing.

263
00:14:39,780 --> 00:14:42,130
They'll have the same thing right back.

264
00:14:42,130 --> 00:14:45,510
You can work really well together.

265
00:14:45,510 --> 00:14:48,150
On Roon, it's a blogging app I run,

266
00:14:48,150 --> 00:14:53,900
the designer also does all the HTML and JavaScript, CSS and stuff.

267
00:14:53,900 --> 00:14:57,150
We work really well together because he understands where I'm coming from,

268
00:14:57,150 --> 00:15:01,170
I understand where he's coming from, and we can get stuff done.

269
00:15:01,170 --> 00:15:03,790
If you're just starting out, finding a designer friend

270
00:15:03,790 --> 00:15:07,330
would be a huge thing to work on some stuff together,

271
00:15:07,330 --> 00:15:11,490
because there's a ton of good benefits.

272
00:15:11,490 --> 00:15:13,400
I'm a big fan.

273
00:15:13,400 --> 00:15:15,530
So you've taught yourself iOS development

274
00:15:15,530 --> 00:15:21,530
and then got a job in it or had a job and then taught yourself iOS development

275
00:15:21,530 --> 00:15:23,080
while you had the job?

276
00:15:23,080 --> 00:15:30,040
I was doing PHP at LifeChurch, which is where I was after high school.

277
00:15:30,040 --> 00:15:36,570
I did a couple flying apps, and a guy hired me to make a YouTube ripoff,

278
00:15:36,570 --> 00:15:38,760
which was pretty hilarious.

279
00:15:38,760 --> 00:15:41,010
It was totally out of my league, but it was a really good time.

280
00:15:43,260 --> 00:15:46,510
Not to get too sidetracked, but he's like, "Hey, can you make this?"

281
00:15:46,510 --> 00:15:48,170
I was like, "Well, sure,"

282
00:15:48,170 --> 00:15:51,510
having no idea how to do it, but I was like I'm going to learn and figure it out

283
00:15:51,510 --> 00:15:53,660
and learn by doing.

284
00:15:53,660 --> 00:15:55,930
It's really good, but anyway, I was doing PHP,

285
00:15:55,930 --> 00:15:59,500
and iPhone came out, and it was like I kind of know Objective-C.

286
00:15:59,500 --> 00:16:01,380
Why don't we make something?

287
00:16:01,380 --> 00:16:03,030
I was really fortunate.

288
00:16:03,030 --> 00:16:07,420
I got to spend 6 months working on it as my job

289
00:16:07,420 --> 00:16:10,440
and not having to do it on my free time.

290
00:16:10,440 --> 00:16:12,950
That was really great.

291
00:16:12,950 --> 00:16:16,960
So I do a ton of Ruby on Rails stuff as well,

292
00:16:16,960 --> 00:16:26,790
and I've learned that in my free time shortly after my first app came out.

293
00:16:26,790 --> 00:16:32,000
I think the difference between learning during your full-time job

294
00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:35,760
and learning in your free time is that learning on your job

295
00:16:35,760 --> 00:16:37,970
there's not any sort of cost.

296
00:16:37,970 --> 00:16:42,180
It's like I'll just mess around and learn all this stuff for the fun of it,

297
00:16:42,180 --> 00:16:47,650
and that's great, and if you can get paid to learn, that's incredible.

298
00:16:47,650 --> 00:16:53,230
But learning on my own I was like okay, I want to make this thing, and I don't know how,

299
00:16:53,230 --> 00:16:55,110
so I'm going to do everything it takes to make this thing

300
00:16:55,110 --> 00:16:59,240
as quickly as possible, because I don't have a ton of time.

301
00:16:59,240 --> 00:17:05,609
I think the sense of urgency, because your time is limited, helps.

302
00:17:05,609 --> 00:17:07,500
It's definitely a different way to learn something.

303
00:17:07,500 --> 00:17:09,119
Interesting.

304
00:17:09,119 --> 00:17:13,910
Say I know how to code, and I'm looking to get a job in iOS development.

305
00:17:13,910 --> 00:17:16,310
What do you recommend as some of the steps I can take

306
00:17:16,310 --> 00:17:18,319
to raise my profile?

307
00:17:18,319 --> 00:17:23,589
Do I work on side projects, or do I try to build apps on my own

308
00:17:23,589 --> 00:17:25,430
to showcase the skills that I have?

309
00:17:25,430 --> 00:17:29,480
What are some of those ways that our students can land a job

310
00:17:29,480 --> 00:17:32,340
once they've learned these skill sets?

311
00:17:32,340 --> 00:17:34,230
["What are some of the different ways you can land an iOS job?"]

312
00:17:34,230 --> 00:17:36,000
When I was at Scribd, we were hiring like crazy,

313
00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:44,520
and I interviewed tons and tons of iOS developers,

314
00:17:44,520 --> 00:17:47,160
and because there were so many candidates, I had to be like,

315
00:17:47,160 --> 00:17:49,610
"Here's a set of rules, and I'm going to eliminate people."

316
00:17:49,610 --> 00:17:53,530
Basically if you'd only ever had 1 job,

317
00:17:53,530 --> 00:17:57,760
if you got a job as an iOS developer and you'd only ever worked on 1 thing

318
00:17:57,760 --> 00:17:59,720
and then you applied somewhere else, I'm not going to hire you,

319
00:17:59,720 --> 00:18:02,070
because you probably can't do anything on your own,

320
00:18:02,070 --> 00:18:06,430
and you're just going to rely on the people that are there that are better than you.

321
00:18:06,430 --> 00:18:09,840
I want people that are more self-sustaining.

322
00:18:09,840 --> 00:18:12,680
If you've never done any side projects, I probably wouldn't hire you,

323
00:18:12,680 --> 00:18:16,620
because finishing a project, like the last 10% of anything,

324
00:18:16,620 --> 00:18:18,760
is really hard and not fun at all,

325
00:18:18,760 --> 00:18:20,710
and everyone is really bad at it,

326
00:18:20,710 --> 00:18:22,400
because it's not fun.

327
00:18:22,400 --> 00:18:25,690
You have to finish all the things and fix the last bugs you've been putting off.

328
00:18:25,690 --> 00:18:30,160
Showing that you can finish and ship is really important.

329
00:18:30,160 --> 00:18:32,840
If you've done at least an app,

330
00:18:32,840 --> 00:18:36,520
even if it's not amazing, just something on the store,

331
00:18:36,520 --> 00:18:41,590
sets you way above tons of people who have never really finished anything.

332
00:18:41,590 --> 00:18:43,090
Open source is really huge.

333
00:18:43,090 --> 00:18:45,760
If you've contributed anything on GitHub

334
00:18:45,760 --> 00:18:48,530
or if you have your own stuff that people are using,

335
00:18:48,530 --> 00:18:50,400
that's really huge.

336
00:18:50,400 --> 00:18:56,000
That sets you way above a whole other big class of people.

337
00:18:56,000 --> 00:18:59,840
My ideal candidate is someone that's done freelance for a while,

338
00:18:59,840 --> 00:19:04,450
because freelance is really great because you have to try a bunch of different things.

339
00:19:04,450 --> 00:19:07,630
For example, none of my apps until recently

340
00:19:07,630 --> 00:19:09,770
had ever needed to use Map Kit.

341
00:19:09,770 --> 00:19:11,520
One of my clients used Map Kit.

342
00:19:11,520 --> 00:19:13,150
Oh, I'll go on Map Kit.

343
00:19:13,150 --> 00:19:16,080
You learn a bunch of stuff you'd never have to know stuff I was like—

344
00:19:16,080 --> 00:19:19,220
obscure things that I've never needed to know.

345
00:19:19,220 --> 00:19:22,050
But I need it for a client app, so having done freelance

346
00:19:22,050 --> 00:19:25,470
you touch a lot of different things, and that's really great,

347
00:19:25,470 --> 00:19:29,780
and you have to finish and ship because people are paying you.

348
00:19:29,780 --> 00:19:32,030
I mainly look for people that can finish

349
00:19:32,030 --> 00:19:36,890
and have done a bunch of things and show that they can work independently.

350
00:19:36,890 --> 00:19:43,010
Tangibly that's side projects and open source.

351
00:19:43,010 --> 00:19:45,510
Okay, now going back to what you said,

352
00:19:45,510 --> 00:19:49,140
that an ideal candidate would have had some freelance experience,

353
00:19:49,140 --> 00:19:52,370
that was the second question I was going to ask you.

354
00:19:52,370 --> 00:19:57,480
How can one go about getting that experience now?

355
00:19:57,480 --> 00:20:01,160
You're an indie developer, and you do things on your own.

356
00:20:01,160 --> 00:20:03,110
How hard is it to do something on your own?

357
00:20:03,110 --> 00:20:05,750
Or you've done client work as well. You've done it all.

358
00:20:05,750 --> 00:20:10,620
So let's talk about some of those non-employer roles.

359
00:20:10,620 --> 00:20:14,750
One, how hard is it to be an indie developer and make money?

360
00:20:14,750 --> 00:20:17,120
Just touch on that. I know these topics are really vast.

361
00:20:17,120 --> 00:20:21,970
And then secondly, freelance work.

362
00:20:21,970 --> 00:20:25,170
What should someone who just learned how to code—

363
00:20:25,170 --> 00:20:31,220
where should they look, how can they land freelance gigs, that kind of stuff.

364
00:20:31,220 --> 00:20:33,100
["How do you go about finding freelance jobs building mobile apps?"]

365
00:20:33,100 --> 00:20:35,780
The biggest thing transitioning from a salary to not having a salary,

366
00:20:35,780 --> 00:20:40,320
which is kind of terrifying the first time you do it,

367
00:20:40,320 --> 00:20:42,000
is having a big enough buffer.

368
00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:45,950
I was fortunate enough my first big freelance thing after I left my first full-time job

369
00:20:45,950 --> 00:20:51,320
paid me half down, and I always do everything half down

370
00:20:51,320 --> 00:20:53,380
I think because of this.

371
00:20:53,380 --> 00:20:56,240
It was enough money that I could pay my rent for a couple months,

372
00:20:56,240 --> 00:20:58,340
and I had time to finish this project,

373
00:20:58,340 --> 00:21:02,010
and I got the check the week I was quitting.

374
00:21:02,010 --> 00:21:04,170
It was amazing.

375
00:21:04,170 --> 00:21:06,280
No financial stress.>>Perfect setup.

376
00:21:06,280 --> 00:21:09,010
It was really great, so if you can make that happen, that's really huge.

377
00:21:09,010 --> 00:21:14,600
Otherwise you have to bankroll yourself and save up and hope you find something.

378
00:21:14,600 --> 00:21:16,970
And if you've never found a freelance gig before,

379
00:21:16,970 --> 00:21:19,870
it's probably not the best idea,

380
00:21:19,870 --> 00:21:23,730
and even recently switching from being full-time at Seesaw

381
00:21:23,730 --> 00:21:28,640
to back to freelance in indie,

382
00:21:28,640 --> 00:21:30,790
again, I had work lined up before I left

383
00:21:30,790 --> 00:21:36,130
and had down payments before my salary ended

384
00:21:36,130 --> 00:21:39,500
that was enough to cover me for a couple months.

385
00:21:39,500 --> 00:21:42,730
That's the biggest thing, just solving the financial stress,

386
00:21:42,730 --> 00:21:47,720
and then once you get beyond that, staying motivated is really important,

387
00:21:47,720 --> 00:21:50,730
especially if you've never done it before.

388
00:21:50,730 --> 00:21:53,840
Oh, I don't have a job. No one is making me do anything.

389
00:21:53,840 --> 00:21:58,650
Cool, I'm not going to put on pants for a week, because I don't have to.

390
00:21:58,650 --> 00:22:01,700
The first time I freelanced, I didn't leave my house for several weeks on end once.

391
00:22:01,700 --> 00:22:03,630
I only saw the pizza guy.

392
00:22:03,630 --> 00:22:05,440
I got a notice from the city I had to mow my lawn,

393
00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:08,610
and I was like okay, this is a problem.

394
00:22:08,610 --> 00:22:12,580
I was 19, though, so I guess it's okay.

395
00:22:12,580 --> 00:22:17,890
Anyway, so I guess as far as finding stuff

396
00:22:17,890 --> 00:22:21,420
I'm fortunate enough I've never really had to deal with that

397
00:22:21,420 --> 00:22:23,100
just because my first app was so high profile,

398
00:22:23,100 --> 00:22:25,840
and I've worked on a bunch of other things since.

399
00:22:25,840 --> 00:22:30,380
[Hire Sam] [hire.soff.es] I have a page that's hire.soff.es,

400
00:22:30,380 --> 00:22:33,200
and it has all of my rates and my availability,

401
00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:36,740
and people seem to really love how transparent that is,

402
00:22:36,740 --> 00:22:38,330
so I get a ton of stuff.

403
00:22:38,330 --> 00:22:41,130
I even get people emailing me like, "Hey, I can't afford you, but I really love your page,"

404
00:22:41,130 --> 00:22:43,220
and it's like, "Thanks, that's cool."

405
00:22:43,220 --> 00:22:46,090
I think charging the right amount is important,

406
00:22:46,090 --> 00:22:52,180
and I think not to be—I hope this doesn't date this,

407
00:22:52,180 --> 00:22:55,800
but $125 I think is the lowest you should ever go,

408
00:22:55,800 --> 00:22:58,280
even if you've never done anything before ever.

409
00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:02,580
IOS is a really sought-after skill, and not many people can do it

410
00:23:02,580 --> 00:23:08,230
relative to the population or even the people that have iPhone ideas.

411
00:23:08,230 --> 00:23:12,230
You should charge what you're worth, and even if you've never done anything before,

412
00:23:12,230 --> 00:23:14,460
as long as you can push through and finish,

413
00:23:14,460 --> 00:23:17,870
$125 an hour is acceptable,

414
00:23:17,870 --> 00:23:26,600
and I charge $300 now, but I was doing $150 and $200 for a really long time.

415
00:23:26,600 --> 00:23:29,270
I only did $300 recently.

416
00:23:29,270 --> 00:23:34,520
That's really exciting, I think, and will hopefully keep you motivated through the terribleness.

417
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:36,930
Like, "Well, I'm getting paid enough to push through,"

418
00:23:36,930 --> 00:23:38,880
because clients are terrible.

419
00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:40,330
We can talk about how to pick a good client,

420
00:23:40,330 --> 00:23:44,460
but I guess as far as finding people

421
00:23:44,460 --> 00:23:48,430
you may do an app or two, especially if you've never done one for hire.

422
00:23:48,430 --> 00:23:50,430
Just find someone.

423
00:23:50,430 --> 00:23:56,270
I had a friend, he actually works at Apple now, but there was a local brewery,

424
00:23:56,270 --> 00:24:02,920
and they had all these different beers, and he was like, "Hey, I'll make an app for you to showcase your different beers,

425
00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:04,870
and when you add new ones, I can update the app."

426
00:24:04,870 --> 00:24:06,820
And they're like, "Yeah, that would be awesome.

427
00:24:06,820 --> 00:24:08,080
You're just going to give it to us?"

428
00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:10,120
"Yeah, I like your stuff.

429
00:24:10,120 --> 00:24:12,010
You don't have an app. Let's do it."

430
00:24:12,010 --> 00:24:14,100
And they're like, "Yeah, this is amazing," and he did it all,

431
00:24:14,100 --> 00:24:18,740
and that was one of his first projects.

432
00:24:18,740 --> 00:24:20,920
That kind of thing I think is a good place to start

433
00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:26,320
to practice working with someone and finishing.

434
00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:30,470
Those are really hard things on their own that have nothing to do with development.

435
00:24:30,470 --> 00:24:32,350
If you're not comfortable charging someone,

436
00:24:32,350 --> 00:24:35,810
that's probably a really good place to start is to do something for free

437
00:24:35,810 --> 00:24:38,080
just to put out there more apps in your portfolio,

438
00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:42,810
which will help you either get a full-time job or find more clients.

439
00:24:42,810 --> 00:24:44,930
I have something that you should totally do.

440
00:24:44,930 --> 00:24:48,880
I have on my iPhone my last home screen

441
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:50,260
is all the apps I've worked on.

442
00:24:50,260 --> 00:24:53,220
When people are like, "Hey, what have you done?" I'm like, "This."

443
00:24:53,220 --> 00:24:56,280
And they're like, "Oh, man, this is crazy. You have a whole home screen."

444
00:24:56,280 --> 00:25:00,000
That's right, and it blows minds.

445
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:03,240
I had someone offer me a job on the spot when I showed them that.

446
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:05,560
It was like, "Cool, when can you start?"

447
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:07,800
I was like, "I don't want to work with you. Thanks though."

448
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:10,310
Building up your portfolio is really important,

449
00:25:10,310 --> 00:25:13,420
because it blows minds when you show it to people.

450
00:25:13,420 --> 00:25:15,950
Yeah, that was super long winded.

451
00:25:15,950 --> 00:25:17,700
Not at all.

452
00:25:17,700 --> 00:25:20,280
So now you're an indie developer, right?

453
00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:23,900
Well, most of my income comes from freelance,

454
00:25:23,900 --> 00:25:27,570
but I do have a lot of projects I work on.

455
00:25:27,570 --> 00:25:31,080
The dream is to make money on my own on my apps,

456
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:33,330
but that's probably a ways off.

457
00:25:33,330 --> 00:25:36,240
What prompted you to go into that?

458
00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:42,590
It's something I've always wanted to do, and this is my third time

459
00:25:42,590 --> 00:25:46,440
being self-employed, and I'll usually run out of money

460
00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:49,640
or get angry with dealing with clients,

461
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:52,380
and I'm like, "Okay, I'll go get a job."

462
00:25:52,380 --> 00:25:55,510
And I was at my last job, and I really liked the people,

463
00:25:55,510 --> 00:25:58,360
and I enjoyed what I was working on, but I was like you know what?

464
00:25:58,360 --> 00:26:02,840
I'm not passionate about making a social network or all this stuff.

465
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:05,230
I'd rather work on my own products,

466
00:26:05,230 --> 00:26:08,680
and most of my products, or all my products really,

467
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:10,940
have nothing to do with social networking.

468
00:26:10,940 --> 00:26:12,850
It's more like utilities that solve problems that I have.

469
00:26:12,850 --> 00:26:14,960
That's what I was excited about, and that's not what I was doing,

470
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:19,270
and I was like, well, there's no reason to sit here and spend all this time working on stuff

471
00:26:19,270 --> 00:26:21,510
that I'm not super passionate about.

472
00:26:21,510 --> 00:26:25,370
I want to give them my best work, and I want to do my best work,

473
00:26:25,370 --> 00:26:27,560
and it's not helping anyone.

474
00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:32,470
I was like I'll leave and do my own stuff,

475
00:26:32,470 --> 00:26:37,020
because that's what I want to do, and there's no reason not to.

476
00:26:37,020 --> 00:26:40,020
I found a client that was a friend

477
00:26:40,020 --> 00:26:44,190
and paid me half down, and I quit and did my thing,

478
00:26:44,190 --> 00:26:46,460
and that was that.

479
00:26:46,460 --> 00:26:49,590
Now I spend a lot of time working on my own projects.

480
00:26:49,590 --> 00:26:53,140
I still spend the majority of my time on freelance, unfortunately,

481
00:26:53,140 --> 00:27:00,700
but hopefully I can start to lower that time as I charge more.

482
00:27:00,700 --> 00:27:02,210
Right.

483
00:27:02,210 --> 00:27:05,640
So your company is called Nothing Magical.

484
00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:08,900
Yeah, sort of.

485
00:27:08,900 --> 00:27:13,350
That was for Cheddar, so I founded It's Nothing Magical, Inc.

486
00:27:13,350 --> 00:27:17,370
It's an actual incorporation in Delaware,

487
00:27:17,370 --> 00:27:24,910
which taxes are the worst, but I'm really bad at that side of things.

488
00:27:24,910 --> 00:27:28,280
So that was what I started, and I was trying to get funding,

489
00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:31,660
investment for Cheddar, and it didn't really work out

490
00:27:31,660 --> 00:27:35,800
since no one is—they're like, "You're just this kid by yourself.

491
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:37,780
We don't really want to give you all this money,"

492
00:27:37,780 --> 00:27:40,070
and I was like, "All right, that's fair, I guess."

493
00:27:40,070 --> 00:27:42,390
I didn't really go after it,

494
00:27:42,390 --> 00:27:46,360
and mainly the reason is VC's want you to have a billion dollar business,

495
00:27:46,360 --> 00:27:48,090
and Cheddar wasn't a billion dollar business.

496
00:27:48,090 --> 00:27:50,100
It was something that was just making money and people really liked,

497
00:27:50,100 --> 00:27:52,790
and that's not exciting to most investors.

498
00:27:52,790 --> 00:27:54,690
Sadly.

499
00:27:54,690 --> 00:27:57,130
Yes, it's very sad.

500
00:27:57,130 --> 00:27:59,590
But anyway—

501
00:27:59,590 --> 00:28:01,180
Yeah, separate episode, right?

502
00:28:01,180 --> 00:28:09,100
Yeah, anyway, it kind of sat there, and Cheddar paid for Cheddar,

503
00:28:09,100 --> 00:28:11,850
and I took the money from Cheddar, and that's pretty much it.

504
00:28:11,850 --> 00:28:16,220
And now it pays Roon, and a couple other things go through it.

505
00:28:16,220 --> 00:28:20,210
But most of my contracting is me personally.

506
00:28:20,210 --> 00:28:25,440
I don't know, I'm still in a branding crisis,

507
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:31,470
and I need to figure out what I'm doing, but I have a couple other things.

508
00:28:31,470 --> 00:28:34,870
Some friends and I are talking about starting a company pretty soon,

509
00:28:34,870 --> 00:28:37,990
so I may ditch it altogether and move everything.

510
00:28:37,990 --> 00:28:39,330
I don't know. I've got to figure it out.

511
00:28:39,330 --> 00:28:42,650
So the interesting thing that I'm getting out of this conversation

512
00:28:42,650 --> 00:28:47,820
is you're very open to change and embrace it and are quick to try out different things.

513
00:28:47,820 --> 00:28:52,670
How important is that in this landscape that's changing so quickly?

514
00:28:52,670 --> 00:28:54,130
["How important is it to be able to adapt to change?"]

515
00:28:54,130 --> 00:28:56,540
The plan was I was enrolled in college,

516
00:28:56,540 --> 00:29:01,420
and I was going to go and then got a job at LifeChurch,

517
00:29:01,420 --> 00:29:04,500
and that was Oklahoma, and I grew up in Kentucky,

518
00:29:04,500 --> 00:29:07,240
and I was like, "Cool, I'm going to move to Oklahoma

519
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:11,590
and not go to college," and my mom is like, "What? How?"

520
00:29:11,590 --> 00:29:14,940
I was like whatever, it shouldn't be that bad.

521
00:29:14,940 --> 00:29:17,040
That's what I did, and it was fine,

522
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:20,850
and I've made huge changes randomly,

523
00:29:20,850 --> 00:29:22,600
like I'm going to move to Texas and get a job.

524
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:26,840
I moved to Dallas, and then most recently I guess the most notable change

525
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:36,510
is I quit my job, got married, and moved to California all in a weekend in August.

526
00:29:36,510 --> 00:29:40,670
That was a good time, but anyway—

527
00:29:40,670 --> 00:29:43,170
oh, this is what I was getting at.

528
00:29:43,170 --> 00:29:48,020
If I had gone to college, that was before iOS came out.

529
00:29:48,020 --> 00:29:51,120
It was the summer before, so I would have finished college,

530
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:54,850
and they surely wouldn't be teaching iOS at all.

531
00:29:54,850 --> 00:29:57,760
What did you go to college for, if you don't mind me asking?

532
00:29:57,760 --> 00:29:59,850
It was for computer science.

533
00:29:59,850 --> 00:30:03,030
But I almost went back a couple years ago.

534
00:30:03,030 --> 00:30:08,590
I was like, okay, I'll actually go to college, and I was going to go back for philosophy or something like that,

535
00:30:08,590 --> 00:30:10,830
something silly, not computer science.

536
00:30:10,830 --> 00:30:13,080
Going to school for computer science is a waste of time, in my opinion.

537
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:16,910
But that's another thing.

538
00:30:16,910 --> 00:30:22,040
Had I not done that and gone with the plan,

539
00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:26,080
I would have got out and not really known anything, and that's fine.

540
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:28,780
I guess that has nothing to do with what I was getting at.

541
00:30:30,930 --> 00:30:32,310
Development changes so quickly.

542
00:30:32,310 --> 00:30:36,020
Here we go.

543
00:30:36,020 --> 00:30:39,710
I think if you're opposed to change you'll be stuck in the past,

544
00:30:39,710 --> 00:30:45,180
and for development that's really bad.

545
00:30:45,180 --> 00:30:47,940
I had a job offer recently from a pretty cool company,

546
00:30:47,940 --> 00:30:50,950
and everyone was awesome, a super great opportunity,

547
00:30:50,950 --> 00:30:56,350
amazing pay, and I met the developers, and they were still on a version of Rails from 5 years ago,

548
00:30:56,350 --> 00:30:58,500
and I was like, "What's the deal with this?"

549
00:30:58,500 --> 00:31:00,610
"Oh, yeah, they're really hard to change."

550
00:31:00,610 --> 00:31:03,360
And I was like, "Yikes! I don't want to work here at all."

551
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:06,910
Developers that hate change, avoid that.

552
00:31:06,910 --> 00:31:08,350
You have to embrace it.

553
00:31:08,350 --> 00:31:10,230
Stuff changes.

554
00:31:10,230 --> 00:31:14,230
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.

555
00:31:14,230 --> 00:31:18,160
I don't see that happening, but whatever it is.

556
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:22,380
That's a really bad thing, because if you stay in the past,

557
00:31:22,380 --> 00:31:24,920
you'll be left behind,

558
00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:27,040
because consumers don't care what the technology is.

559
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:29,640
They just want to buy the new thing.

560
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:31,770
Embracing change is really important,

561
00:31:31,770 --> 00:31:37,310
and not being too married to whatever language or technology you're using.

562
00:31:37,310 --> 00:31:41,740
Once you learn how to code, and especially if you learn 2 different languages,

563
00:31:41,740 --> 00:31:43,560
you've learned how to learn a language.

564
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:48,250
The first time you're learning basics, and you can't really abstract that away.

565
00:31:48,250 --> 00:31:53,210
But once you learn a second language, you're like, "Oh, I understand an abstract sense of language,

566
00:31:53,210 --> 00:31:55,010
and then I can apply it to these 2."

567
00:31:55,010 --> 00:32:00,610
Then you can learn a language in a weekend, and that's an amazing skill to have,

568
00:32:00,610 --> 00:32:06,080
and it's really important, so change is really good, and you shouldn't fear it as a developer.

569
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:09,960
I've noticed I think you've started playing with Android as well.

570
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:11,950
You and Ben were tweeting back and forth.

571
00:32:11,950 --> 00:32:14,460
Yes, I was going to make Cheddar for Android a while ago,

572
00:32:14,460 --> 00:32:19,300
and I've had this a couple times like I'm tired of iOS.

573
00:32:19,300 --> 00:32:21,260
I don't want to do it anymore.

574
00:32:21,260 --> 00:32:27,700
I think Android is going to be terrible, but I'll at least try it out and didn't really get very far.

575
00:32:27,700 --> 00:32:30,200
I started that same chorus way back

576
00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:35,430
and then downloaded Android Studio, and I didn't understand how to adapt the chorus to the stuff,

577
00:32:35,430 --> 00:32:37,630
so Ben was helping me.

578
00:32:37,630 --> 00:32:39,840
He's like, "Isn't this great? Android is so fun!"

579
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:45,030
I was like, "I waited 30 minutes for the emulator to start. This is not fun."

580
00:32:45,030 --> 00:32:48,890
But I started working on hardware recently.

581
00:32:48,890 --> 00:32:50,850
My biggest project right now is hardware,

582
00:32:50,850 --> 00:32:55,140
and I know nothing about hardware or circuits or any of that stuff,

583
00:32:55,140 --> 00:32:58,760
so it was really hard, and I don't know what I'm doing, but that's great.

584
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:04,290
That's the place I want to be, because there's only so many times I can hit an API

585
00:33:04,290 --> 00:33:06,150
and show some stuff in a table view.

586
00:33:06,150 --> 00:33:09,740
That's every iOS app ever.

587
00:33:09,740 --> 00:33:13,070
Putting myself in a situation

588
00:33:13,070 --> 00:33:15,480
where I'm over my head and I have to push myself to learn

589
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:19,870
is really important, and it's easy to get in a spot where you're comfortable,

590
00:33:19,870 --> 00:33:23,230
like okay, I have a really good hang of iOS,

591
00:33:23,230 --> 00:33:26,160
and you're not going to learn anything new for a long time.

592
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:28,110
You're just going to rinse and repeat all of your apps,

593
00:33:28,110 --> 00:33:32,440
and I don't want to be in that spot, so I'm trying to find things that are—

594
00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:34,410
That challenge you.

595
00:33:34,410 --> 00:33:36,290
Yeah, exactly.

596
00:33:36,290 --> 00:33:38,180
I don't want to take up too much of your time,

597
00:33:38,180 --> 00:33:43,090
so to wrap this up, if you had advice for our students

598
00:33:43,090 --> 00:33:46,290
who have just learned how to code for iOS

599
00:33:46,290 --> 00:33:53,690
and want to do something from there, what's on the top of your mind?

600
00:33:53,690 --> 00:33:58,450
So especially if you've told your friends and family

601
00:33:58,450 --> 00:34:02,870
that I can do iOS now, because you're proud of yourself, which is great,

602
00:34:02,870 --> 00:34:05,630
they're like, "Oh, hold on, I have this idea."

603
00:34:05,630 --> 00:34:08,800
And you're like, "Tell me, what's your idea.

604
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:10,540
Okay, that's stupid."

605
00:34:10,540 --> 00:34:12,360
Occasionally you get one that's good,

606
00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:15,840
and you're not working on anything, like I hear a lot of people that have just learned

607
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:17,610
and are like, "Okay, go make something."

608
00:34:17,610 --> 00:34:19,310
That's what you have to do.

609
00:34:19,310 --> 00:34:21,409
"Well, I don't have any ideas."

610
00:34:21,409 --> 00:34:24,000
There's tons of terrible ideas or half good ones.

611
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:26,330
Just pick something and work on it.

612
00:34:26,330 --> 00:34:29,699
Yeah, working on a terrible idea will still get you practice.

613
00:34:29,699 --> 00:34:31,510
Exactly.

614
00:34:31,510 --> 00:34:35,250
I can't stress enough, going from a bunch of apps on your phone to finishing something

615
00:34:35,250 --> 00:34:38,120
and putting it on the store is a huge step,

616
00:34:38,120 --> 00:34:40,370
and it's not really a development skill.

617
00:34:40,370 --> 00:34:44,290
But having the self-control and discipline to finish the last 10%

618
00:34:44,290 --> 00:34:46,659
is so incredibly important.

619
00:34:46,659 --> 00:34:48,889
I've worked with a lot of people that can't do that,

620
00:34:48,889 --> 00:34:52,360
and it's the people I wouldn't hire again given the option.

621
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:56,480
So yes, learn how to ship,

622
00:34:56,480 --> 00:34:58,320
because that's really important.

623
00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:01,810
Cool. Thank you very much for taking the time to do this, Sam.

624
00:35:01,810 --> 00:35:04,730
Now what I've learned from this is you have lots to say,

625
00:35:04,730 --> 00:35:06,690
so I think we'll do more episodes in the future

626
00:35:06,690 --> 00:35:10,310
and break it down to freelance and all sorts of different things.

627
00:35:10,310 --> 00:35:14,320
But if anyone has any questions, where can they reach you?

628
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:16,520
I'm @soffes on Twitter,

629
00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:19,180
and that's probably the best.

630
00:35:19,180 --> 00:35:21,110
Cool. Thank you very much.

631
00:35:21,110 --> 00:35:23,020
Thanks so much.

632
00:35:23,020 --> 00:35:27,180
[? music ?] [Treehouse Friends]