there's an idea floating around that one cannot charge $$ for their coding skills until they are "proficient." let proficient be the ability to write code with similar ease as writing a blog post.

this is false.

i began picking up freelance clients long before i was proficient in programming. to deliver those gigs each feature was just as painful as completing a tutorial. the key difference is i was paid to learn.

first gig

• amount: $1,500


• learning for: 3 months


• spec: utility that validates a California resident's "medical marijuana" legal status (yes seriously)


• how i got it: no clue... was taking a walk around 9p on a weeknight and got a call from a random number... guy heard about me somewhere, can't recall where

coding is about breaking up big problems into a bunch of tiny problems that can be solved with "true" or "false."

the client pointed me to a government website where one can punch in a person's full name and medical ID number, then click Verify. on the following page was a "success - valid" or "error - not found" type of message, along with a green or red background respectively.

my client gave me some sample names + IDs for testing, so first i simply used the website like a normal person, in the browser. i then noted the differences described above... red background + "not found" vs green background + "valid."

i cracked open my Ruby terminal and read a few pages of documentation on watir.com. within 20 minutes i was filling out the government website form, browser-free, and geting back a page of HTML.

next i browsed documentation for scanning text with Regex and was able to parse out whether a results page was successful or invalid.

finally i deployed this to Heroku with a free boilerplate rails app, dropping the code into a service file and attaching a form input (HTML) to the "lookup" variable in my script.

within 90 minutes i had a working checker that handled bulk "lookup" of California resident medical marijuana eligibility. my client cut the check, ecstatic.

second gig

• amount: $3,000


• learning for: 4 months


• spec: SMS newsletter platform for an ecommerce wine shop


• how i got it: perhaps Angel.co? emailed founder, pitched ideas, and "gulped" when they said yes

i was way over my head with this gig, but i probably 2x'd my coding chops while building it.

since i was already working full-time at a venture capital firm i think version 1.0 took about 3 weeks. then i spent another couple months improving it, and we switched from the $3k flat fee to a monthly retainer. so, probably made closer to $10k for this project over 4 months.

basically i built "Mailchimp for SMS," which tapped directly into the ecommerce store's API and synced customer records.

features:

• admin, aka "Somm on Demand," could log into the tool and build a custom audience with dropdowns


• admin could blast a text like "Hey {{ first_name }}, we have a bottle of XYZ for 50% off! Reply to order!"


• shopper would reply "3" or "5" or "how does it taste," etc, and admin could automatically process payments using credit card attached to customer account


• every shopper had a "profile page" with a notes area -- basically a lightweight CRM -- so admin could keep tabs over time


• shopper's entire conversation thread was always available in-app, and admin could text back/forth (1:1) with a bunch of shoppers simultaneously, all from the website interface

at one point this app drove several thousand dollars per month in sales, so i think it was a win-win for all parties.

third gig

• amount: $2,500 (i think!)


• learning for: 5 months


• spec: cold email generator that drives qualified traffic to a cold email SaaS tool


• how i got it: casually introduced by a former boss years prior, then asked to hang out at the office

since this project is public, i'd rather "show" than tell:

https://www.producthunt.com/posts/cold-email-generator

#1 Product Hunt app of the day, 100s of leads, ranks #1 on Google, yada yada. fun to build and forced me to learn more JavaScript! until this point i was primarily focused on Ruby.

fourth+ gig

once you build a few things, and particularly after you capitalize on them with a Projects page, you'll have more inbound leads than you can handle.

i spent the next couple years toggling between paid (contract) vs personal (passion) projects, as well as continuing my studies (on and off) via online bootcamps.

there are still many things i don't know, but today i am "proficient" and make more $$ than i ever thought i was capable of.

if you want me to teach you to code, go here.