It is better to be a samurai in a garden than an agricultural worker in a war - Miyamoto Musashi

In this article, I’ll share my story.

When I was younger, I thought I was destined to be a failure in life. To be isolated from everyone. But years later, I realized I was actually destined for success.

I went from wasting thousands of hours playing video games to giving a lecture to medical professionals called “Trustworthy AI: The Role of Small Models in Critical Systems.”

And I went from being told I was dumber than most people based on an IQ test I took as a 14 year old low self-esteem kid, to becoming a frequent contributor to freeCodeCamp. I’ve written articles on interpretable AI, applied math, and advanced tech. And these articles have now reached more than 200,000 people worldwide.

And this is just the beginning.

When it comes to education, I owe gratitude to three people and the organizations they lead:

• Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy

• Quincy Larson, founder of freeCodeCamp

• Andrew Ng, co-founder of Coursera and founder of DeepLearning.AI

I also owe a lot to the great author of the book Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones – James Clear.

I’m sharing my story to inspire others who are struggling in their lives just like I was.

I’m also writing this for those who know me or will know me personally, so that they can understand where my determination comes from and why I am relentless.

Here’s what I’ll cover:

1. Where I Was: Misery, Depression, and Isolation

2. My Transformation: Learning Triple Integrals and Programming

3. One of the Best Choices in My Life: Why I Chose Electrical and Computer Engineering

4. Being Restless and Determined: My Work Ethic in University

5. My Projects while in NOVA FCT: AI Projects, International Student Organizations, and freeCodeCamp Articles

6. My Personal Philosophy at 21 Years Old and View on Envy and Negativity

7. Where I Am Today: A Fraction of What I Have Achieved

8. Final Thoughts: Have an Adaptive Grand Strategy for Your Life

Where I Was: Misery, Depression, and Isolation

Photo by Nikko Balanial on Unsplash

"As it turns out, it was that very rock bottom that became the firmest foundation I had ever planted my feet on." — Mandy Hale

Five years ago, I was in a different place and was a completely different person.

Like many teenagers, I started playing video games and became addicted to them. Over time, games became an escape from reality and all my problems, including my bad grades and many other issues.

At age 14, I still held ambitions in my heart. I dreamed of being someone who would help others, maybe as a doctor or an engineer.

But after an IQ and vocational guidance test, I was told that I was incapable of doing these things. That I lacked the intelligence needed. That it was unrealistic for me to pursue these types of degrees.

Eventually, and because of many comments, opinions, and expectations of others, I began to believe in this lie for years.

Over time, depressed and constantly escaping reality, my grades plummeted and I got worse and worse. And this only made the prospect of going to college less and less likely.

By 11th grade, I was:

• Extremely shy and anxious

• Struggling academically

• Over 2000 hours in video games on two games alone:

  • 1000 hours in GTA V

  • 1000 hours in Destiny 2

2000 hours equals nearly 83 days.

This means that in these two games, I lost more than two months of my life.

But from these wasted hours, I learned English. This became crucial when learning online.

In January 2020, I was tired of everything. In particular, I was sick of the misery of always being at the bottom and of so much negativity towards and around me.

So I made these vows to myself for the rest of my life:

• Never again would I worry or care about what other people say about me.

• I would no longer accept the limitations imposed by others or myself on my growth.

• And as for the limitations I imposed on myself, I would rethink to see if they were really impossible or if I could actually conquer them.

As a result, I started relearning and learning everything by myself to make sure I succeeded in the national exams.

My Transformation: Learning Triple Integrals and Programming

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

"The expert in anything was once a beginner."
— Helen Hayes

I started going through chemistry exercises in the 10th and 11th grades using books from school and YouTube videos. In two weeks, I relearned or learned most of the material I needed to know.

I started doing the same for mathematics, something I always found hard due to a lack of basic foundational mathematics knowledge.

I found it hard, that was, until I discovered Khan Academy.

With the Khan Academy, I rebuilt myself, going from struggling with basic math to mastering double and triple integrals, all within five to six months.

My method was simple:

• Study a little bit every day.

• Take detailed notes

• Redo quizzes or units tests until I scored more than 90%

  • For topics that I found harder or failed to understand, I did the practice exercizes

• Use YouTube to close any knowledge gaps

For example, for Algebra I, where I started to relearn math, I say how many units there were. Each unit had a certain number of topics. As of 2025, Algebra I has, from units with mastery exercises, 89 topics.

For those 89 topics, I watched the videos and did the quizzes. According to my scores, I would either go on to the next video (if I felt confident), or stop, rewatch the video, go through the same material on YouTube, do practice exercises, and then try to do the quiz again.

I decided that I needed to do at least three topics every day. This way, by doing 3 topics per day, I could finish Algebra I by the end of one month.

But I was so motivated and so focused on it that I did more than 3 topics per day.

I did the same for Algebra II, and all the others until College Calculus BC.

Some days, I completed more than 8 topics. Other days, I struggle to even do 2. But I made sure that I mastered mathematics and its foundation for the rest of my life.

This was not just about grades. It was about regaining belief and confidence in myself.

I also read many books, primarily self-help, to make myself better. Over the years, I have started reading fewer self-help books and have started focusing on non-fictional books that explain to me how the world works.

COVID-19: Accelerating My Learning in Programming and Machine Learning

When the pandemic hit, I started accelerating my learning in other areas, like programming and physics. In many online classes, I didn’t pay attention as well as I should’ve – and I found myself prioritizing self study on topics I found more important. And I always used my time to learn more about programming.

I learned Python and C through free YouTube courses for beginners on freeCodeCamp’s channel.

This was where I first learned Python.

And C:

Soon after exploring C programming, I realized that programming languages are just tools. Once you master one, others come more naturally.

I studied data science tutorials on the web and on YouTube. This way, I learned how to import Python libraries in virtual environments. I also began building projects with Python libraries I found interesting and made it a habit to explain every line of code to myself as if I were the teacher.

For example, I started working with the scikit learn Python library to make simple linear and logistic models that could make make predictions.

I also decided to explore Deep Learning and taught myself how to work with Arduino and circuits. In other words, I learned how to train the architecture of neural networks to predict things.

I found this hard to master compared to triple integrals at the time!

But this way, I understood one very important thing about Deep Learning: to truly understand and master it, I needed to know, deeply, some difficult mathematics concepts. And I also needed to learn quickly about the new research coming out.

One of the Best Choices in My Life: Why I Choose Electrical and Computer Engineering

Photo by Nicolas Thomas on Unsplash

"Opportunities multiply as they are seized."
— Sun Tzu

After completing the Portuguese national mathematics exam in the 12th grade, I chose Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). I choose this area, because it would challenge me and allow me to gain the skills to learn and apply new mathematics by myself without anyone teaching me.

It was also broad:

• If I liked, I could follow an electrical engineering area. Like circuits, power systems, or telecommunications.

• If an electrical engineering subarea was not in my best interest, I could follow a computer science path or apply math in banking or other areas where people who know applied math work.

The ECE degree also allwed me to unite the following areas:

• Advanced Mathematics

• Programming (from low-level like assembly and C to high-level like Python)

• Physics (circuits, robotics, communication systems)

I wanted to become someone who not only mastered knowledge but could also create new systems and ideas from it.

I knew that I was laying the foundation for something greater than just academic success.

What Did I Gain Exactly?

Over time, I learned the many skills I needed to understand all the new AI research coming out after completing AI specializations.

I also learned hard math and applied mathematics areas such as:

• Partial differential equations: how they can represent and model real phenomena, like the economy of a country.

• Pure harmonic analysis: Fourier and Laplace transformations and how integral transformations allow us to see problems in other ways.

• Complex analysis: application of derivatives and integrals in a complex domain, with real and imaginary numbers.

• Numerical analysis: how math used to approximate analytical math is used by computers to get faster results.

• Signal and control theory: how the architecture of systems is studied to ensure rocket, train, and car control systems are stable, despite possible disturbances in the systems.

Not to mention physics classes like:

• Classical mechanics

• Electromagnetism

While these topics may not be applied in depth to AI, learning them helped me develop an incredible intuition into systems thinking. It also greatly improved my ability to learn hard STEM concepts on my own.

Being Restless and Determined: My Work Ethic in University

Me at 18 years old

"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out." — Robert Collier

I adopted a very rigorous work ethic.

When my work ethic failed to achieve what I wanted, I adapted with more knowledge and learned very deeply what I did wrong so as not to repeat it.

For example, in the first semester, my first grades were not the best. So, I read:

• Deep Work

• The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done

• How to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use

These books taught me how to focus and prioritize what needed to be done. This became essential as I entered one of the most demanding phases of my life.

In addition, I used Notion as a management system and Google Calendar as a schedule system.

Every week, I transferred next week's tasks from Google Calendar to Notion. This way, I never forgot anything and never worried about forgetting anything.

I had two simple scalable systems that worked very well for managing everything I did.

In the scheduling system, I would place certain events on repeat, for example:

1. Every week:

   • Read the top articles of the week on Subreddits dedicated to programming and others topics so I could keep learning and growing. Same with communities on Stack Exchange Network.

• Read new articles on IEEE Spectrum and learn as much as possible about what is happening currently.

2. Every two weeks:

   • Plan my studying according to time available, as well as all class and other resources I could get for tests, projects, and exams.

3. Every month:

   • Review my annual objectives and prioritize what was important and urgent to do in that month. Also, review new opportunities that appeared that aligned with my objectives this year and in my life.

This way, I was always aligned and efficient. And all this was from a Notion database.

Very often, I started working at 8:00am and continued until around 9:00 or 10:30am, when my classes often started. At that time, I studied, did student organization work, completed online courses and specializations, worked on AI projects, wrote freeCodeCamp articles, and many tasks.

I went beyond studying just the subjects from my degree:

• I also studied history, economics, and geopolitics to understand the hidden incentives that shape the world.

• I developed the habit of studying the architecture of things, from political systems to technology, understanding how they work to design better systems.

• I attended many free online and university events to learn as much as possible.

I also treated weekends as opportunities to grow and work, and did not stop. This was not possible 100% of the time, but most days I was able to do so.

In this way, I completed Coursera’s prestigious Deep Learning Specialization, a very important achievement in my journey.

I also read many books and listened to podcasts while taking public transportation, ensuring that no time was wasted.

My Projects While in NOVA FCT: AI Projects, International Student Organizations, and freeCodeCamp Articles

Me at 21 years old.

"The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team."
— Phil Jackson

International student organizations often offer opportunities that are rarely found in local college clubs.

These student organizations are also often better managed than some local clubs, which can sometimes suffer from internal politics focused on titles rather than making a real contribution to society.

For this reason, I sought international organizations that pushed members towards real impact and development.

After a while, I became interested in BEST (Board of Engineering Students of Technology), a large international organization of student organizations spread over 80 groups around European universities. I joined the local group, BEST Almada, one of the 80 local BEST groups across Europe that helps foster the development of students through courses and events.

I also became deeply involved in the IEEE, the world’s largest non-profit professional association, where I served as the Vice-Chair of the IEEE NOVA Student Branch. Currently, I contribute nationally in the IEEE Portugal Section by creating videos for social media.

Thanks to IEEE, I was able to go to the IEEE Melecon conference in Porto last year to speak with some amazing scientists and researchers.

Here’s a key thing I learned from IEEE that I want to share: Communication, alignment of expectations between everybody, and knowing how to navigate social dynamics is crucial for any project or initiative to succeed. Of course, the culture of the organization and a lot of other variables are important as well. But I believe communication is one of the most important and critical factors.

Along this path, I worked on projects like Eurostatify AI, which aimed to provide European public data insights and hidden patterns that are accessible to researchers and policymakers. I also led the Doctor AI Project as part of a Hackathon in March 2023, where I developed two AI bots using Flutter and the ChatGPT API to help doctors make better decisions.

Each step helped me forge myself into someone capable of inspiring and leading others. I also taught complex topics in my freeCodeCamp articles, such as how CPUs work in depth, interpretable AI, quantum AI, and even how to design a control system for rockets.

I was involved in local student clubs before I realized the value of joining international organizations. In Europe, these organizations bring unique opportunities, are usually better managed than local groups. They’re a great place for developing soft skills as well.

So in the end, joining international student organizations was one of the best decisions of my university life.

My Personal Philosophy at 21 Years Old and View on Envy and Negativity

Photo by Giammarco Boscaro on Unsplash

"Freedom lies in being bold."
— Robert Frost

Here’s one thing I’ve learned over the years: You need to make your own path. Chasing social status and falling prey to social pressures isn’t worth it, and you shouldn’t be blinded by these things. True freedom comes from defining your own path. Developing relationships with professors and mentors, learning from books, and taking advantage of solid free learning resource are all things that can help you go further in life.

But what about envy and negativity from others?

Well, unfortunately these will always be part of our lives. Being envious is human nature, and various forms of negativity will likely continue to exist. Anyone who works and achieves any level of success will inevitably attract envy and negativity.

The best response is not to react and to ignore it completely. Just keep growing.

Some people will disappear, mock you, envy you, or hate you – but just try to let it all go. Keep walking your path.

Time is precious. Don’t waste it on:

• Meaningless opinions

• Video games

• Distractions

I find it sad that, despite living in such an exciting time, and despite unprecedented access to knowledge and education, advances in technology, and immense global connectivity, some people still choose to hate and be envious of others. But as I said before, it’s human nature and there is little we can do about it.

Just remember: you have opportunities today that previous generations could only dream of. Take advantage of them to the fullest and worry about your own personal growth.

Where I am Today: A Fraction of What I Have Achieved

Me in a Tesla factory in Silicon Valley

"I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions."
— Stephen R. Covey

At 21, I am finishing my degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at NOVA FCT.

So far:

• I’ve been accepted into the Silicon Valley Fellowship Program: Only 18 out of 600 are accepted to visit Silicon Valley's top companies and universities.

• I’ve delivered a talk to doctors about AI called "Trustworthy AI - The Role of Small AI Models in Critical Systems.". Before this, I delivered other smaller talks.

• I’ve completed Coursera AI specializations such as the Deep Learning Specialization from DeepLearning.AI and Reinforcement Learning Specialization from the University of Alberta.

• In IEEE (the largest non-profit professional association in the world), I served as the vice chair of my faculty IEEE NOVA SB student branch, and I am now an IEEE PT Officer, creating videos for social media.

• I’ve had twenty articles published on freeCodeCamp since 2023 that have accumulated around 200,000 views. They are related to advanced applied math, AI, and technology. (Link below)

• I’ve been recognized as a Top Open Source Contributor for freeCodeCamp in 2022, 2023, and 2024

Final Thoughts: Have an Adaptive Grand Strategy for Your Life

Silicon Valley Fellowship post about me

"What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make."
— Jane Goodall

My life objective was and still the same when I was 14, 7 years ago:

• Help as many people as possible. In their opportunities to make their life’s better and in making society better for future generations that will come after mine.

My strongest advice for anyone: Have a grand strategy for your life.

A grand strategy is a type of long-term strategy in which nations align power and resources to achieve their objectives. You must align your actions, skills, and knowledge towards your purpose.

I used to be afraid of public speaking and so many other things. Not anymore.

Now, I know I am destined to contribute, inspire, and leave a mark on other people's lives for the better.

If you feel stuck, remember:

• You can change! It will be hard. Many people will not want it.

• Ignore all that and focus on yourself.

It takes effort, patience and courage, but it is possible.

Thanks to all organizations for the opportunity to contribute to society and grow as a person:

• NOVA School of Science and Technology and its student association, AEFCT

• IEEE Portugal Section

• Silicon Valley Fellowship

• BEST and BEST Almada

• Magma Studio

I also want to thank all the university professors at NOVA FCT who taught me, especially the ones from the department of electrical and computer engineering.

Finally, I want to express my gratitude to Portuguese society. Not long ago, in Portugal, pursuing higher education, especially in STEM, was inaccessible to many. Thanks to the efforts of past generations, today, young people like me can pursue these opportunities and contribute back to society.

This is just the beginning of my impact on society.

My FreeCodeCamp blog:

Being a great developer is not just about writing great code. There are certain habits I’ve discovered that are beneficial to your work and your life as well.

Habits are basically the parts of our lives that make up our daily routines. Once established, they are the most powerful tools we have to change our lives.

In this article I share the five essential habits that I believe will most benefit your work as a developer. But these habits won't just help your coding skills – they will also improve your life and make you happier and healthier.

At the end there's an extra tip for you as a little nugget. So make sure to read to the end.

Habit #1 – Eat Healthy Food

_Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@danielcgold?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Dan Gold on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/healthy-food?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utmcontent=creditCopyText)

Programming can be a very intensive task, especially for your brain. Your body can only work with the nutrients you are eating. If the input is bad, you can’t expect a great output, right?

A race car, for example, doesn’t take in water. It’s fueled up the gas that helps that car work as efficiently as possible. The same goes for yourself. If you want to perform better and work more efficiently, you have to put the right things in your body.

What is healthy food?

But what does it actually mean to eat “healthier”? I’ve learned a lot about good nutrition over the last two years, and I've tried out many methods myself. When I started eating right, I felt a huge improvement in my life and my work as a programmer.

I’m not a nutritionist, but you can consider the following advice as tips from my own experience and knowledge.

• Decrease your sugar intake
• Drink water instead of soda
• Eat just a small amount of sweets per day
• When eating fruits, focus more on low-sugar fruits like berries, kiwi, apricot or coconut (and many more)
• Take sweetener alternatives like Erythrit
• Follow a balanced diet
• Eat whole grains like brown rice, buckwheat, quinoa, bulgur, millet and oats (complex carbohydrates)
• Get plenty of legumes like lentils, kidney beans, green peas, chickpeas and soybeans
• Go for healthy nuts like almonds, pistachios, walnuts, cashews and peanuts
• Eat lots of vegetables (preferably cruciferous vegetables) like broccoli, brussels sprouts, kale, cabbage, cauliflower and turnips
• Eat seeds like chia seeds, hemp seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds (they're great on top of your dishes)
• Get your “healthy” fats from fish, algae, and the nuts/seeds mentioned above
• Minimize your meat intake to around 70g per day (I’d suggest to do your own further research on it because I don’t eat meat)
• Eat the most carbohydrates in the morning
• Your lightest meal should be at least three hours before you go to sleep

There are many different diets out there and most of them are completely useless in my opinion, since they just seem to try to pull money out of your pocket.

You don’t have to turn vegan like I did, but from my research and talks to doctors, following a mediterranean diet is what’s recommended most of the time. You can read more about it in this article.

If you really want to get serious about it, I’d suggest that you book an appointment with a nutritionist or any other professional in that field. They can help you set up your meal plans and advise you on how to make healthy choices.

Habit #2 – Do Plenty of Physical Activity and Stretching

_Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@aloragriffiths?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Alora Griffiths on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/sport?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utmcontent=creditCopyText)

We all know it. As programmers we might sit for 8 to 10 hours a day which causes our backs to ache and generally can make us feel unbalanced.

Physical activity like running, working out with weights, or doing some form of sports will not only improve our physical health but our mental health as well.

Why is physical activity important?

Being physically active is one of the most important factors that helps me perform on a high level as a programmer. It helps relieve stress, clears my mind, and strengthens my body.

Physical activity also helps protect you against many chronic diseases and improves your brain function – which is of course very important as a programmer.

Another great benefit is that it can help you control your weight. So when following a healthier diet and being physically active on a regular basis, you less likely to worry about your weight.

I love to run in the morning on an empty stomach because it gets my blood running and sets my energy for the day. It can be hard, especially when I don’t feel like it – but once I'm done, I know that I’ve already conquered the hardest part of the day right at the beginning.

This forms a strong mindset and loads me with energy. It’s also very beneficial because your body takes the energy it needs from your fat reserves which leads to fat burning.

Why stretching matters, too

Doing regular physical activity is great, but it's only half of the picture. The other half is all about stretching your body.

Stretching helps you improve your flexibility and posture. It also helps ease your pain after sitting all day in front of a computer. Varying your working position from sitting to standing is also a great way to move your body in different ways.

Stretching can also be very beneficial to other areas of your life. It releases tension and therefore reduces your stress levels. It also helps you calm your mind and increase your energy.

Don’t skip the stretching in the morning or in the evening. Your body and your mind will thank you. This video used to help me out a lot.

Habit #3 – Develop Proper Stress Management Techniques

_Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@oneshotespresso?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Hans Vivek on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/meditation?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utmcontent=creditCopyText)

Our lives as developers can be very hectic and stressful. So it’s very important that we integrate at least one way of relieving stress into our routines.

As we’ve seen above, being physically active and stretching daily can help us relieve a lot of stress. But there are more ways you should consider.

Good stress vs bad stress

But is stress bad in general? Basically it’s a warning system which produces the fight-or-flight response. There are both beneficial and harmful parts about it.

In small doses, stress can help you meet daily challenges and motivate yourself to reach your goals. It can also boost your memory and can help you to accomplish tasks more efficiently.

Too much stress, on the other hand, can cause serious health issues. It can weaken your immune system and can cause high blood pressure, depression, and anxiety.

Some of the most important signals of too much stress are an inability to concentrate, body aches, headaches, appetite changes and getting sick more often. Another very common signal is if you can’t sleep properly anymore and can't turn your mind off.

In my opinion, this bad stress isn’t something you have, it’s something you create for yourself. It’s always a sign that you are thinking about the future and feel anxious about it. Maybe you can’t meet a deadline or you’re thinking about what your boss will do when you’re doing a “bad” job. You feel your heart beating and it begins to take over you.

How to manage your stress

Breathing exercises are one of the best ways to calm your mind, to relieve stress, and help you to be more aware of yourself.

In stressful situations we begin to breath faster which will cause stress in our body. There’s also a thing called screen apnea which means we tend to stop breathing when looking at our screens. You can imagine that this can't be healthy at all!

With breathing exercises you can train yourself to breathe slowly even in stressful situations. Compare it with a cup of tea. Every day you’re filling up the cup with stressful or hectic situations. With relaxing breathing exercises like meditation, tai-chi, qi-gong or diaphragmatic breathing you empty the cup again.

Imagine what happens with the cup and with yourself when you don’t empty it every day and pour more and more tea into it.

If you don’t have any experience with meditation and the like, I can highly recommend that you start with an app like “headspace” or “calm”. They offer guided meditations that are very friendly for beginners. You can also visit a tai-chi group in your area or join a meditation group.

These practices don’t only help you relieve stress, they also train you to be more in the moment and to control your thoughts. You will learn to let the thoughts come and go. And it'll feel like 500 pounds has fallen off your shoulders. You'll also improve your ability to concentrate even better at your job.

Habit #4 – Maintain a Beginner’s Mindset

_Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@brett_jordan?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Brett Jordan on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/start?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utmcontent=creditCopyText)

Do you remember the first time you wrote code or explored the universe of computer science? Can you still feel that excitement that kicked in?

Think back to the beginning

I can still remember how I felt and what it did to me when I discovered coding. It was like tapping into a top secret. Computer Science and especially programming was like magic for me. Those people who were able to write code were like superheroes from my perspective.

Once I took my first steps in writing code myself, I remember feeling like “Holy crap, this will be my thing”. I wanted to learn it all, even though I knew that wasn't possible.

I knew that I was still at the beginning of my journey and I was really open to learning a lot of different things. It was okay for me to not be good at it, but I knew the more I sat down and learned, the better I would become.

I accepted my beginner level and the more I learned, the more I recognized how much I wanted to learn.

Be a beginner again

That’s what I consider to be a beginner's mindset. Looking through the eyes of a beginner who seeks out new stuff to learn and accepts that there is still a ton out there to learn. They still have this excitement to explore more and more.

Maintaining this mindset and recognizing that mistakes are opportunities to learn new skills is key to progress as a developer. Don’t shy away from new challenges, even if you have twenty years of experience.

Habit #5 – Get Enough Sleep and Take Breaks

_Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@adigold1?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Adi Goldstein on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/sleeping-man?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utmcontent=creditCopyText)

Taking breaks and making sure to get enough sleep are probably two of the most important factors to help you perform consistently at a high level.

Like batteries, our body and mind need to rest properly to recharge. Since programming can be intense and mentally taxing, taking breaks and sleeping enough is even more important.

Of course, I’m not a doctor or an expert in the medical field. But I love to share with you what I've found and what I've experienced while experimenting with my sleep routine. If you’ve got serious issues with your sleep and health, think about consulting an expert.

The negative effects of not enough sleep

There are many negative effects on our bodies when we don’t sleep enough. It can lead to memory issues because during sleep our brain forms connections that help us process and remember new information.

One of our most important skills is also in danger when we don't sleep enough. We can develop trouble thinking and concentrating. When we don’t get enough rest our problem-solving skills and concentration are negatively affected. So pulling all-nighter after all-nighter might seem efficient first, but can really damage your long term programming skills.

There are many other negative effects like mood changes, weakened immunity, high blood pressure, risk for diabetes, weight gain, risk of heart disease and a low sex drive. Sleep is as essential as water and air for our bodies.

How much sleep is enough?

But what exactly does enough sleep mean? There are different opinions about that topic and I’d suggest finding your own sweet spot. You can test different amounts like six, seven, or eight hours and track your energy levels during your day.

My own sweet spot is in between seven and eight hours. Sleeping less than seven hours sometimes is okay for me but over a longer time I feel that my energy levels go down. On the other side when I sleep more than eight hours it’s also not beneficial for my energy levels after some time.

There are some tricks to help you establish a healthy sleep routine, like avoiding daytime naps, not drinking caffeine a few hours prior to bedtime, going to bed and waking up at the same time (even on weekends!), doing relaxing activities an hour before going to bed like mediations, and not using electronic devices before sleep.

Why taking breaks is important

The same goes for taking breaks during your work time. I normally take a quick break once I get the feeling that I can’t concentrate properly anymore.

The break doesn’t have to be huge. Throwing some darts on my dart board, going for a quick walk with the dog, running for 30 minutes or just standing up, having a good stretch, and making new coffee or tea are some chances to get a little break.

Most of the time I find the solutions for problems I was thinking about for one hour straight during those breaks. Taking me out of that “black hole” does wonders.

Some productivity systems like the pomodoro technique can also help you to establish a routine of taking breaks. You can set a timer for twenty minutes where you’re doing concentrated work, and after that you take a five minute break. That’s one pomodoro. After three or four pomodoros you take a longer break of thirty minutes.

But you can just set up a timer to remind you every hour to take a break of around ten minutes, for example. As always, try different things out and stick to what works best for you.

How to Form Habits

_Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@iaman_upadhyay?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Aman Upadhyay on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/motivation?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utmcontent=creditCopyText)

If you want to learn more about building habits that last forever, I highly encourage you to read “Atomic Habits” from James Clear. If you’ve already read it and are still struggling with building your habits, read it again. He basically structures the process of successfully building habits into four laws.

Habit forming law #1 – Make it obvious

The first law is to make it obvious. Point out triggers that remind or force you to do the new habit.

For example if you want to work out in the morning, pack your bag the evening before and place it along with your outfit at your door. The first thing that you see in the morning is your stuff for working out.

Habit forming law #2 – Make it attractive

The second law is to make it attractive. Combine a habit you HAVE to do (your new habit, like running) with a habit that you LIKE to do (an already existing habit, like listening to your favorite music).

Another way is to search for an environment where your new habit is normal. This could be a local running club for example.

Habit forming law #3 – Make it easy

The third law is to make it easy. We often tend to expect too much of ourselves, especially at the beginning. There is no such thing as an overnight sensation when building habits – they are all formed over time.

The first 60 days are the most important when you're trying to form a habit, and it is established by doing it consistently. So, make it as easy as possible for you.

Cut all the obstacles that may get in your way of doing the habit. For example, if you want to cook your own healthy food, make sure that your kitchen is clean. Because cleaning it up before cooking your food can get in your way, drain your motivation, and lead to you not cooking at all.

A key factor for making it as easy as possible is to follow the two-minute-rule. Do actions that don’t take longer than two minutes.

For example you want to read more and your ultimate goal is to read one book a week, start with one page a day. Remember to first establish the habit and then optimize it. This is essential for getting used to the new habit.

Habit forming law #4 – Make it rewarding

The fourth law is about making it rewarding. After you’ve done your new habit, reward and cheer yourself on. A very common practice is to have a list or calendar and every time you’ve done the thing, you cross another day off.

You can also transfer this process into a habit tracker where you really can see your progress. You won't want to end the streak of consistently doing it. Like in law #3, remember to focus on consistency over quality. What’s been rewarded will be repeated and what’s punished will be avoided.

How to get rid of bad habits

If you want to get rid of bad habits, you can reverse those laws. Let’s say you want to cut down your time watching TV. Make it harder for yourself to turn it on by unplugging it, hiding your remote control in your basement, or by putting the tv completely away.

Or when you slip up and perform a bad habit, burn $50 or anything else that really punishes you.

Are there any habits you definitely have to get better at? Or are there habits I forgot to mention?

Just message me on my instagram account @jeanmarc.dev._ I’m very excited to receive your answers!

In this post, I'll talk about my experience serving in the military during 2020. It's a chapter in my developer journey that started way back with freeCodeCamp.

I spent 2020 as an (involuntary) military conscript in my country's armed forces. 14 months if you count training bootcamp.

The laws of the land here say that if you are a male citizen older than 17 years, with at least one other male sibling, you must enlist in the armed forces. There are a few exceptions, and you can delay conscription as long as you are enrolled in an educational program or are living abroad.

I happened to have been both living and studying abroad. However, a series of events led me to return to my home country after my studies and present myself to the army at the age of 27.

By that time, I had worked as a software developer for a couple of years. My greatest fear was losing all my technical knowledge and learning momentum I had gained over the years which would set me back in my career.

This is the story of how I overcame that challenge, and ended up taking advantage of the situation and becoming a better programmer.

Surprise – Time to Enlist

On a cold October evening in 2019, I remember receiving that fateful call from my local police station's military office. It was around 8 pm a few minutes after getting off a work call on Slack.

"Is this Adham Mostafa El Banhawy?"

"Yes, who is this?"

"This is the army conscription office. You have been enlisted for military service. Show up at the police station tomorrow morning to complete the necessary paperwork."

"Wh- is there anything I should bring with me?"

"Just your ID."

*click*

Following that call, I sat still at my desk for what seemed like forever. I'd been doing the conscription paperwork for almost a year, and every time there was a new class, my enrollment would be postponed. I had many factors that should've deemed me unfit for service, and people who were similar to me in the past were exempted before.

However, it wasn't the fact that I was enrolled that bothered me. I was prepared for that possibility mentally and physically. What really bothered me was the timing of that call.

As I sat silently at my desk, I remembered a heated debate I had had with my father the night before in that same room where I was now sitting. We were arguing, quite loudly, about the then dismal state of political affairs in our country.

I could not remember any specifics, but I did remember two worrisome facts. I remember criticizing the ruling regime, and I remember there was at least one open window in the room which was only about a meter a way from the street. That was extremely reckless of me.

Never mind. There was nothing I could do about it but comply. The day after was going to be the first day of a really long and treacherous journey I had to take.

I decided to get one last good night's sleep as a civilian.

How I kept a level head

My first month or so in the army I spent in a bootcamp. Even though it was a military base in the capitol city, it was an incredibly isolated and barren piece of land with strict anti-technology rules.

No phones or electronics of any kind were allowed. No books or notebooks. No personal belongings in general were allowed in.

I did sneak in a notebook and a pen, though. It may not seem like much, but they were actually very useful. I could write down important names, tasks, reminders, and sometimes try to solve issues that popped up using that information.

So in terms of maintaining a sharp mind amidst the lack of technology, I used a pen and paper to continue problem solving. Only this time I was solving problems of a social and military nature.

Seeking Out a Screen

Once I reached my main unit's base, I had one clear goal in mind: find out where computers were used on base and become a technical worker there. This was my best and only hope of doing any kind of programming that year.

It wasn't an easy task. I had to change my mentality and way of thinking because reaching a specific position or place in the army usually doesn't depend on merit alone. Rather, you need to ingratiate yourself with the right people and sweet talk your way in. It's not my style, but I had to practice that social aspect to get where I wanted to be.

And I did. Within a week of arriving, I grabbed an opportunity to talk with the base leader and I convinced him to let me work in the operations office that had the working computer.

Hello Work

Once I was in, I was quickly acquainted with a low spec PC running an outdated version of Windows 7, with 2 GBs of RAM, and no connection to the internet (prohibited).

My main tasks were typing up word documents and letters, sometimes doing powerpoint presentations, and occasionally fixing the damn printer despite my constant insistence that I had no idea how printers worked!

Ok, so I didn't have much in terms of computing power or ability to be creative at work. The first few months were physically excruciating because they entailed almost daily fitness testing, hard manual labor, and guard duties with an average of 4 hours of sleep per night.

Even when I got a rare hour our two of free time at the office alone with the PC, I was usually too exhausted and sometimes fell asleep while sitting at my desk.

But when I did force myself to focus, I read some ebooks about programming that I snuck in on a USB and hid well on the machine.

When I was really itching for some actual coding, I opened up powershell and learned how to program in that language using its integrated offline documentation on Windows. Even wrote a few scripts to help with work tasks.

My next goal was clear: now that I had secured access to a computer, I had to make myself essential in the office I was in. I wanted to be the go-to man for getting work done on the computer.

This was the advice given to me early on by my predecessor who was my office mentor and who had been the go-to man for the work due to his experience.

I had to find a way to use this computer to code without raising any alarms or suspicions (people can get really paranoid in the army, especially since I had access to sensitive info). Then I could spend the last few months of my service coding and preparing myself for coding interviews.

I'm the Captain now

The office I worked in had three ranks – an officer, 4 sergeants, and 3-5 privates. The officer had his living quarters only a few yards away from office so he rarely showed up.

He would phone in his commands to the sergeants, and the sergeants, depending on their work ethic, would then order the privates to do most of the tasks related to his commands.

We also had routine tasks we did on a daily basis. Mostly bureaucratic stuff that was designed to keep military folks working in offices busy.

Although the sergeants' laziness was annoying and frustrating at times, it meant that they relied heavily on me and other privates to keep the work flowing. They would depend on us so completely at times that they came to the office only a few hours per day, sometimes not at all. They knew that we'd call them if they got summoned or some serious task came up.

This meant that the office's chain of command went down to the privates based on seniority level. Due to some personnel reshuffling between bases, and my predecessor finishing his service 6 months after I joined, I eventually ended up being the most senior private and therefore the one with the most privilege and authority.

I was also accountable for most of the work on the computer. The officers would start phoning and summoning me instead of the sergeants because I proved that I was a capable guy. I was, in effect, the person running the office.

Preparing for Coding Interviews

6 months in, as an older member of the base, I knew how to get out of tricky situations that involved hard manual labor (I used my office's urgent tasks as an excuse to get out of a 2-3 hour pipe-cleaning activity, for example).

I am quite a diplomatic person, so I made friends with most of the privates and officers. We'd do each other favors which led to less night shift duties, more hours of sleep, and more free time. This meant I had more time to work on my coding skills.

I decided to learn Vue.js by creating an offline website for the office. The site would help onboard newcomers and explain our routine tasks. It would also show those tasks on a calendar with notifications for upcoming tasks.

I downloaded Vue on my USB along with its offline documentation and Node.js, then transferred them to the army PC. By building the website from scratch and without using any external libraries but Vue itself, I learned a lot about the framework as I went.

I liked it so much I built a browser game similar to Tic-Tac-Toe and played with the other privates for fun.

However, it was time to get serious as I had only four months left. Once I got out of the army, I would need to get a job right away, and it needed to be a good one, too. My household was accumulating huge debts since I, the only working family member, was now earning just enough money to buy two family dinners per month. So I couldn't help pay the bills anymore.

I signed up for a Udacity scholarship for the Full Stack Advanced Web Development track offered via my government's website – and thankfully got accepted.

This was a great way to refresh my knowledge of full stack development and enhance it. It was a serious commitment that required me to go through the course materials and do multiple graded projects that really tested my learning.

Thanks to my position at my office, I was able to commit to the program by staying up late at night working on the projects. I connected the old PC to my smartphone's internet so I could use online IDEs and look up stuff.

This was probably a serious offense from the army's point of view, but I think it was worth the risk. I was able to finish the program on time in three months, and along the way I learned some new technologies, brushed up on important concepts, and solved coding challenges.

Applying to Jobs

I remember when I had 45 days left until I finished my service. I felt ready to start applying for jobs and take on interviews. So I started working on my résumé and applying to jobs I saw online.

I used LinkedIn primarily for my job search. For the first time ever I was eligible to apply to enterprise companies. Let me explain this bit real quick:

In my country, according to the labor law, a company cannot officially hire a person and provide them with tax-deductible benefits if that person has not completed their military service and is not exempt from it.

This meant that, up to that point, no matter how qualified I was, I could only work for smaller business/startups/individuals in an unofficial capacity as an underpaid freelancer (without any benefits or health insurance).

So now I could apply to any job to my heart's content, and could find positions that matched my expertise. I'd say I applied to about 4-6 jobs (I am super picky).

Getting the interviews

Vodafone

With 30 days to go, I got my first interview request. This was from Vodafone, a giant mobile network operator, asking me to interview for a senior front end developer role. Cool, cool, cool – I had been contacted by their recruiter earlier on LinkedIn so it was no surprise, except for the "senior" bit.

I remember that the first behavioral interview phone call with one of their recruiters was incredibly awkward for me. I was about to finish a watch shift and hand off my body armor and weaponry to the next soldier, and the phone call came in just before that happened.

I did try to politely ask for a better time to hold that call or just call back within the hour, but somehow the recruiter convinced me that she was in a hurry and it would be quick.

The purpose of the call was to test my bilingual speaking ability and gauge my experience. The problem was I had to talk to the lady, in English, while handing off my military equipment to my non-English speaking peer which does look suspicious (we have strict policies about talking to foreigners). But it was a calculated risk, since I knew the guy and he didn't care and was not likely to rat me out.

Anyways, I ended up getting a coding assignment via email which was basically a few screenshots of a Pokémon listing application. I was asked to try to implement the UI in the pictures, with certain functionality like favoriting and un-favoriting a Pokémon. I was also asked to use React, Redux, TypeScript, and write unit tests in Jest.

I was given three days to submit the project.

One screen to list Pokémon info retrieved from an exported JSON data

Another screen to view favorite Pokémon

Bear in mind that I did not want to ask for an extension or a better time to do the project because I did not want to reveal that I was doing my military service.

Due to the reasons I mentioned earlier, any company was less likely to consider me for a job because of my unfinished military service status, no matter how long I had left. So I had to take the challenge and do that project in the time provided.

At least it wasn't a technical interview over zoom which would have been impossible for me.

There was no way I could build this web app using my phone or even offline on the PC. I needed packages, and I needed to read docs.

So, using my relatively senior position in my office, I spent those three days pretending to work and study late into the night at the office. I would hook up my phone to the PC and use my phone's data to access the internet and code on an online IDE.

If anyone happened to walk in on me during my all-nighters, all they would see is me staring at an ebook I alt-tabbed into in a foreign language on a strange subject. My phone and cable connection would be well hidden under paperwork and sometimes under my own cap.

At one point, I was slow to react and a fellow soldier saw me working on my coding assignment but he just assumed I was coding another game or program for fun.

Despite the hurdles and the lack of sleep during those 3 days, I was able to get most of the project done. I had a functional frontend working that was responsive, cleanly organized and coded, and was pixel-perfect compared to the screenshots I received. I only skimped on the testing part even though its importance was stressed in the assignment instructions.

Still, I believe I did a good job prioritizing and was ready to discuss my choices and reasoning in the technical interview.

I really enjoyed this format of candidate assessment as it made me practice and show off my frontend skills. It also served as a clue to the the kinds of projects and tech stack (at least frontend-wise) I'd be working on.

Nevertheless, my follow-up interview with that team would be about a month later after finishing my military service.

IBM

The other company I heard back from was IBM. This one was a pleasant surprise. I had applied to one of their job postings on LinkedIn which, in my opinion, had a really vague generic job description. But it really boiled down to an Application Developer (the job title) with working knowledge of cloud development.

I had that cloud knowledge, although it was mostly self-taught and based on hobby projects. However, I did not have any enterprise experience at that point. I had never worked on a large team, and the biggest development team I collaborated with was 4-5 members strong.

I think my CV did not adequately reflect that so I made sure to point it out in any upcoming interview.

Nevertheless, I was very excited to try my luck with IBM. To my disappointment, the first step of the interview process was to pass an online IQ assessment. I've done and passed those before, but I hate them. They do a very good job of triggering my anxiety and making me feel dumb.

Luckily, I had my smartphone which I used to download apps that let you practice IQ-related assessments in a gamified manner. Lumosity is a good one that I used, among others.

I spent almost a week practicing whenever I was able, and it was more nerve-wrecking than any face-to-face technical interview I could imagine.

I think I feared it so much because I believed that this step of the interview was purely automated. I thought it would boil down to a test score number that you needed to pass to get to progress to the actual interview. And the worst part was that you'd never know how well you did or what range they were looking for!

Anyways, I eventually overcame my anxiety and took the test on my phone (I made sure I was in a private place on base to avoid distractions).

I would not hear from IBM again until two months later, thankfully after I was out of the army.

Catching Up with the Industry

During my remaining few weeks of military service, I shifted my priorities. Instead of taking courses, reading technical books, and applying for jobs, I started focusing on preparing for interviews and reading online technical blogs to catch up with industry trends.

I had a lot of time on my hands since my duties were easier to bear and I could delegate to other privates I trained under my command.

My aim at that point was to just familiarize myself with industry buzzwords, new technologies and stacks, and understand how, when, and more importantly why they were being used.

freeCodeCamp News was an amazing resource I used to browse a lot. I also loved browsing articles and following notable companies' blogs on Medium like Netflix and Slack.

Another resource I used a lot was youtube. Again freeCodeCamp has an amazing YouTube channel covering tons of topics and talks that I watched regularly. I also discovered IBM Cloud's channel which to this day is my go-to resource for understanding cloud technologies and concepts.

However, I tried to keep watching videos to a minimum and prioritized reading to avoid consuming all my mobile data and depleting my phone's charge (recharging phones is a hassle if you're not an officer in the army).

Gaining Valuable Social and Work Skills

At this point I wanted to highlight a personal insight. It may sound like serving in the army is a huge and unfair challenge that really messes up any career you'd hope to have as a developer.

And there might be the misconception out there that fresh veterans, no matter how young or old, who are trying to enter the developer job market might be rusty, less knowledgeable, and less up-to-date with current trends compared to other candidates.

In my case that wasn't true, simply because I was lucky enough to have fairly frequent access to a screen. Others can and do spend years in barren and isolated environments with no access to computers or phones. But even then, don't assume they didn't have access to offline knowledge like books or actual engineers they served with!

In fact let me make my case that veterans are amongst the most qualified candidates you can hire and work with. The following are the top engineering skills you can expect from most veterans:

Good communication

I am a firm believer that the most important skill a developer can have in our industry is good communication. Communication plays a key role in the success of any project, from the requirements gathering stage to the delivery and maintenance of a project.

The better you are at understanding a project's requirements and at asking the right questions while communicating accurate statuses, the more likely it is that you'll grow in your role and work on successful projects.

Veterans have been conditioned to follow orders in a quick manner while still being forced to weigh and evaluate every word of each order. We ask only good questions that add essential information required to complete the task.

In my experience, stupid questions in the military are a taboo that are met with an angry and humiliating backlash. Only the brave soldiers attempt to ask the right questions in vague situations, and any military is full of brave soldiers.

Good Social Skills

I touched a bit on adopting new social skills, like appealing to superiors to get certain privileges. But that's not the social skills I want you to have in mind when thinking of veterans.

What I didn't mention is how tightly knit an army base and unit can be despite vast differences that do exist in both personalities and backgrounds.

I have learned to form strong bonds with people who think so differently from how I think, and who have completely different values than I have. This is because we had to live with each other and watch each others' backs. Sometimes our lives literally depended on the trust we formed.

That is not to say there weren't bad personalities and conflicts that we had to deal with. But at the end of the day, we depended on each other for survival. We did not have to like each other, but we did have to count on each one doing their job right.

You can expect a veteran to try to cultivate strong relationships built on trust and to be able to handle conflict well.

Creative Problem Solving

Military personnel (at least in my area) are usually undersupplied, and do not have access to a lot of resources. The only things they have an abundance of are laborious chores and problems to solve.

In my experience, more often than not, we received seemingly unrealistic commands from officers that just seemed cruel and undoable in a reasonable timeframe.

These kinds of environments really force soldiers to work and collaborate together to find the most efficient way to execute a task.

Without much management, you can expect soldiers to start working together in an efficient manner. And they'll usually find creative solutions as quickly as possible (born from a need to get it over with and get some much needed rest in the army).

You can expect a veteran developer to think outside the box and take on seemingly impossible challenges without much complaint. You'll find only determination and hard work.

Wrapping Up

I finally finished my military service and handed over my duffle-bag on November 30th, 2020. I did my follow-up technical interviews with both Vodafone and IBM in the following month.

By the start of the new year I had competing offers from both companies, and ended up accepting the one from IBM. I now happily work there as a cloud developer.

While a lot of people view military service as a waste of time and a hurdle to aspiring developers, I think it proved it to be the opposite for me. If you shift your mindset and learn to adapt, you can really turn this challenge or any similar challenge into a learning opportunity.

If you are facing a similar challenge that's stopping you from working as a developer even though you want to, my advice would be to not give up. Find a way to turn your situation to your advantage.

Are you working a boring job with spreadsheets? Learn how to write spreadsheet scripts. Are you only using Word? Build a program that creates Word files and templates. Are you working manual labor in a warehouse or a farm? Listen to technology podcasts. Are there no developer jobs in your area? Make your own! Freelance or build your own digital product.

Before you go...

Thank you for reading this far! I write posts about JavaScript, cloud development, and my personal educational and professional experiences as a self-taught developer. So feel free to follow me on twitter @adham_benhawy where I tweet about them too!

In this article I will share the story of how I became CTO of a software as a service (SaaS) company. It all started about 3 years ago when I was going to hackathons for fun.

At the end of the article you can find some tips and advice I would give to aspiring entrepreneurs as well as some reading recommendations.

It was – and still – is a wild ride!

Our company team (we now have 8 more employees!)

Although I have a good knowledge of entrepreneurship, don't just take my advice at face value. Learn from books, from other entrepreneurs, and from your environment in order to triangulate how best to act in a given situation.

My First Hackathon – Which I Lost

It might sound off, but I had no interest whatsoever in entrepreneurship or business 3 years ago. I was more of a researcher in spirit than an entrepreneur.

From studying memory at the molecular level, to helping schizophrenic patients learn better, or predicting consciousness recovery in patients with traumatic brain injuries, my mind was deeply focused on the frontiers of science.

However, I had a deep passion for programming and for finding ways of building tools that didn't exist before.

Like the time I built a brain computer interface that was compatible with a Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation electroencephalographic headset (that is, it stimulates the brain by giving shocks and lets you control a kind of ping pong game). I just love to build stuff.

Cutting edge graphic from my brain computer interface

So three years ago, my brother wanted to find a new job as a software developer. We figured out that we could attend hackathons to help him get noticed by recruiters.

It was my first hackathon so I was pretty excited to spend two days building something. Our team was composed of myself, my brother, his friend, and one more member (who didn't do a lot, but was still there).

It was two days of heavy coding, and at the end we came up with a pretty cool algorithm to pattern match people with jobs given some characteristics.

On top of that, I met nice people that, like me, love to build stuff. We ended up among the finalists and came in fourth during the final presentation.

Here I am trying to figure out why the clustering is not working

What I learned From My First Hackathon

It was a bit of a bummer not to win, but I realized something important then: except for the participants, no one really cared what I coded during these two days.

It was mostly the presentation of what we wanted to build that mattered. We should have spent a bit more time making a very compelling PowerPoint instead of focusing on the development of an algorithm!

It was a fun learning experience, but my brother didn't get a job out of it – so we were back at square 1.

My Second Hackathon – in Which We Won a Special Prize

I was ready to take a small break from hackathons for a while. However, my brother decided to sign us up anyway. So his friend and I to go to another hackathon right after the first one. I would have refused as I had other stuff to do, but he had already paid the sign up fees.

This hackathon was a bit bigger than the previous one and there were still a bunch of recruiters there. We figure that this could be our second shot at getting him a job.

The theme of this hackathon was open data and environment. So we were in a good position to make something cool with my background in machine learning.

A lot more people where present at HackQC which was nice!

Knowing that the presentation was everything, we decided to be a bit more strategic with this hackathon. We combed all the different prizes we could win and selected the one with seemingly the least competition. The project would deal with the prediction of combined sewage overflow.

We then split up our team of four (another friend of my brother's joined in) so that half of us were working on the coding and the other half on the presentation.

The name of our team was “Égout Quebec” which translates to Sewage Quebec (branding wasn’t our strength). Here is the excerpt from our competition log on DevPost in French:

ÉGOUT QUEBEC permet de prédire le débordement des égouts et d’en avertir les amateurs d’activités aquatiques. Ainsi les personnes désirant aller faire des activités aquatiques pourrons éviter les zones polluées par les déversements d’eau usée. De plus, des conseils seront dispensés aux gens des différents quartier, de façon à réduire les risques de débordement.

ÉGOUT QUEBEC utilise une technologie basée sur une intelligence artificielle. Celle-ci peut déterminer lorsque les égouts déborderont. Ses analyses et calculs sont basés sur des données disponibles sur le site de donnée Québec. Finalement, les différentes villes auront avantage à utiliser ÉGOUT QUEBEC.

Grâce aux prédictions et aux analyses de la plateforme, il sera possible de concentrer les ressources de la ville aux endroits les plus problématique.

All this basically translates to “we found a way to solve the problem using a random forest + a bunch of data”.

We actually ended up winning a $1000 prize, which was huge at that time! We even got a nice glass trophy in the shape of a water droplet. It was less challenging than the previous hackathon because we had a better plan for what we needed to do.

Here we are at the podium (still technically fourth place though).

What I learned From My Second Hackathon

This hackathon made me realize that presentation was indeed important. But I also discovered that focusing on problems that people don't find interesting is a good way of increasing your chance of coming out on top!

Winning felt good and I was ready to take my share of the $1000 prize and call it a day...

My Third (and Last) Hackathon – Which We Kinda Lost Again

However, the $1000 prize came with an automatic fast-track to the semi-final of yet another hackathon! This one had higher stakes with a $25,000 prize.

We met up at a coffee shop to figure out if we wanted to split up the money or to use it in order to take our project to the next level.

After looking at the other participants' projects and the rules of the competition, we decided that we actually had a good shot to at least get to the finals. This would unlock some more funding which we could use at will and would give us a nice trip in the summer to a lake in Ontario.

This hackathon wasn't like the others in the sense that it ran for the whole year. It was more of a take-home hackathon, which was great for me since I didn't have to do that insane two-day time crunch routine over a weekend.

We changed our name to EGC Labs and managed to get a website together to advertise our sewer overflow prediction solution (which was working surprisingly well). We then went to the semi-finals competition in Ontario, and to our amazement we moved on to the final!

Here we are as finalists! I didn't go all the way to Ontario for the semi-finals, though.

This was great! We had a very good shot at winning more than a small stipend, and maybe starting a business out of this thing. To help us bootstrap ourselves, Aquahacking generously gave us $2000 and École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) gave us $1000 for travel expanses.

However, we still didn't have any customers for our solution, which was a bit problematic.

We tried to contact a bunch of cities in Quebec in order to see if they would be interested in our sewage overflow application. We had some pretty advanced discussions with a few cities, however their process was so slow that we got very near to the finals without any concrete validation.

The final was a 5 minute presentation in front of a big audience with some investors present.

Things got a bit more tricky when we got closer and closer to the presentation date. The rest of my team started to become less and less responsive. I ended up not being able to reach my brother's friend who had joined at the HackQC competition.

This quickly followed by my brother losing all interest in the competition and focusing on other stuff. We were left with myself and my brother's other friend (Félix) who joined in the very beginning.

He was also starting to slip out of the picture because nothing seemed to be moving forward, as I was the only one left coding. I wasn't very interested in that project either, however one thing I hate is half-backed projects (even more when they are public).

Our faces were plastered everywhere

I felt that it would have been a waste to stop so close to a conclusion. So I took it upon myself to jump start the project by coding the app's user interface, getting some branding going, and creating our business cards for the event.

As things started to pick up Félix started to become more and more involved (which was a blessing because he was the one pitching!).

We were still finalizing the PowerPoint the night before the presentation in the hotel room. After all this hard work we had something pretty solid (by my standards at the time, anyway). We've ended up winning fourth place in the competition:

Us receiving the 4th place trophy (again) with no money whatsoever associated with it haha

We went from a team of 4 to 2 people and were able to get that far. However, it was exhausting since I had to do so many different things that were not in my core zone of competency.

What I learned From My Last Hackathon

I learned two very important lessons during that adventure:

• Having motivated teammates is the most important asset in any endeavor. If we had everyone pulling their weight we would have had more chance to win!
• For a startup, having clients is the ultimate measure of success. We did everything right, except making sure that we had paying customers. In the end this is what kept us at 4th place.

We won a big $0 in that part of the competition, and once again I thought that was it. I had coded some cool Flask applications, went to the final of a big hackathon, and learned some valuable lessons. Until I realized...

How I Learned About Entrepreneurship at An Incubator

Being part of the finalists of Aquahacking automatically gets you a spot in one of the provincial incubators for startups, which happened to be Centech for us in Québec.

I didn't really know what an incubator was (except in a biological sense), so I wasn't particularly excited. We had to make a pitch for our "startup" to the incubator panels even though we had a reserved spot. I let Félix do it without me, as I had other stuff to focus on.

Centech is inside an old planetarium so it has that funky circular shape. It's a pretty cool place.

At first I didn't go too often to the entrepreneurial classes and I was starting to think that this whole hackathon-thing was becoming a huge time-sink. However, I stuck to it because Félix was very motivated by the whole experience.

So I decided to give it a serious shot. I started attending the entrepreneurial classes (which were amazing), I did the homework, and I tried really hard to make our sewage company work.

Lots of entrepreneurs in our 2018 cohort, try to find me!

Frankly speaking, it was amazing. It was genuinely fun to try and make something novel. And being mentored by people that had built incredible products that helped millions of people was incredible.

The class that I was in was also very motivating, as we had people from all backgrounds and oddly enough most of them were graduate students, like I was!

I really got the bug for entrepreneurship. It was like doing research, except I could directly see the results of my experiments in a matter of days. It was like combining the pleasure of discovery I had while doing an experiment with the freedom of programming for a side project.

However, after reading the books and learning the material, I realized that we'd done everything upside-down for our budding startup. We had built the technology before even validating that there was a sustainable business out of it (silly us!).

We were ready for our very first pivot, which in entrepreneurial jargon means tweaking your business in a significant way in order to not crash and burn.

How We Made Our First Pivot After Learning that Our Startup Idea Was Doomed

Our combined sewage overflow predictor was working great. However, no one was willing to spend money on it.

We were targeting cities in order for them to be able to proactively do something about the overflow of raw sewage into their rivers (which, by the way, is a worse and more frequent problem than you think). But these cities had such a long cycle to sell to that we would never be able to grow this business.

One thing that we realized during this project was that the majority of the data that was available for the competitions were in a very bad shape. It took us many hours of cleaning and we had to develop some very custom toolsets in order to make the cleaning efficient.

We had also talked to a few of the judges at Aquahacking and what they were most interested in was the portion of our business that related to data cleaning.

So that was it! We would become a data cleaning company. For about three weeks we were frenetically searching for customers, making plans on how to make this type of business work, and coding outlier detection algorithms.

This would have been us inside the datasets for the rest of our lives: Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@mkjr?utm_source=ghost&utm_medium=referral&utmcampaign=api-credit">mkjr / <a href="https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=ghost&utm_medium=referral&utmcampaign=api-credit)

However, after meeting with our mentors at Centech, we realized that what we were building was a service company. Almost no data is similar, especially when it comes from different sources.

The amount of domain expertise we would have to gain in order to be efficient in one industry would not necessarily transfer easily to another industry. There was a lot of manual work involved in this and all our ideas for making it more automated were failing.

Now, there is nothing wrong with making a service company. It's a great type of company if you are very interested in your industry. But we did some amount of introspection and we realized that we weren't really passionate about data cleaning.

We were passionate about automating work and improving efficiency through technology. Building a data cleaning company where most of the work would be manual and not very efficient wasn't very exciting for us.

We were ready to make our second pivot, which would be our largest so far.

How We Made Our Second Pivot

During the Centech program we had met two other entrepreneurs that had a problem that was complementary to ours. They had a lot of validation from potential clients whose problem could be solved by technology. However, they didn't have the technical skills to make the technology required to power their business.

I had helped them out a couple of times in order to get them started with building their web application since I'd already done something similar for EGC Labs.

Helping out other entrepreneurs without expecting something in return is very common in this type of environment. The more I helped them, the more we realized that we could get way more done if we were a team of 4 instead of two teams of 2.

We went for lunch to discuss what a potential "merger" of our two ideas would look like. After discussing for a week, we decided to ditch the EGC Labs project completely, as it had the smallest chance of success. Instead we would join forces with their idea, which was called GRAD4.

That was the second pivot for Félix and me. It meant completely dropping a project that was leading nowhere and joining another one that we were much more excited about.

Félix pitching our new company instead of the data cleaning one

During the next weeks, we were absolutely crushing it. We did everything right. We officially incorporated our company. We made a few plans as to what the actual application would need in terms of functionality so it would deliver value to our potential customers. However, we didn't wait for me to complete it to start selling it!

The other two co-founders were already on the road talking to people who'd showed interested. They were gathering checks for a 1 year subscription to our platform, which didn't exist yet. The $500 yearly subscription would start when we launched the product and we were very upfront that we were in the process of building it.

Getting people interested in your project is one thing, but getting paying customers before building a SaaS app is the holy grail of business validation. By doing so we were able to get about 15 checks that would help finance the development of the product.

We also won a $1500 elevator pitch competition around the same time because Félix was very focused on practicing his pitch.

All of these small wins compounded during the program and we ended winning a $15,000 prize at the end of the incubator called the Unicorn prize.

This was great, but more importantly we secured a spot in the next stage of the incubator which was the Propulsion program. This would secure us an office and some additional perks that would help our company succeed.

Cozy office in the basement of Centech. It was nice, but there was lots of noise because of pipes. You can see a wild cofounder working through the night.

What I Learned From My First Startup Incubator

During that part of our young company's adventure I learned a few important lessons:

• Clinging onto an idea because it was yours even though all analysis tells you it's a bad one is usually a bad idea.
• A larger founding team is more productive than a smaller one. It also allows for cheaper labor as no one is getting paid at the start.
• Asking customers to pay for an in-progress idea is not as difficult as you may think. If the pain is big enough for the customers, they are usually very supportive of having someone fix that mess. Even if the probability of success is low.
• The technology part of the business is not that important.

We Have Money, Now What?

We now had gathered a fair amount of money and we had multiple options in front of us:

• Either we keep the money and pay ourselves.
• We keep the money and don't use it in case we fail to make the app and we need to reimburse people.
• We use the money to hire people to speed up the development.

The first idea was wasteful, and it would decrease the probability that our company would succeed. The second option would just let our funds sit idle. So we decided to go for the third option.

How We Scaled Our Startup Past the Founding Team

During that summer of 2019, we made our first two official hires to help me with the development of the platform. They were software engineering interns from the ÉTS (École de Technologie Supérieure). One intern would be focused on the backend side while the other would be focused on the frontend side.

Our product was a simple CRUD application that would allow buyers who needed metal parts manufactured and suppliers of metal parts to find each other.

It was basically a sort of marketplace where buyers would create what is called a request for quote and the suppliers would create a quote to say how much they could build the part for. Pretty simple!

The technology we choose to use was the following:

• Django + Django REST API for the backend.
• React + Redux for the frontend.
• Bootstrap for the styling.
• Heroku to host both applications.
• GitHub for remote source control.

This was our setup at first. Credit: https://blog.usejournal.com/react-on-django-getting-started-f30de8d23504

Choosing the technology was up to me as the CTO, and I honestly decided to go with what I thought would be better in the long run. I was already familiar with Flask, however I knew a bit of Django too. Seeing that a lot of the functionalities I needed were already pre-built into apps made me lean toward it.

I chose React on the frontend side because I had played around with it 6 months prior and found that it was such an easier way to build applications than the traditional way I was used to.

However, in retrospect I think I would have greatly simplified the stack. I would have only used Flask for the following reasons:

• I was more familiar with Flask than with Django.
• We didn't need to have a separate frontend, as the application we needed to build was very simple. Simple templates would have been enough for a first proof of concept.

Just this would have been more than enough

However, we went with this tech and we learned a great deal in the process.

What I Learned During My First Months as CTO

One lesson I learned from this first foray into making an application customers would actually use is that overthinking scalability is oftentimes useless.

Working with what you are already comfortable with and delivering something as soon as possible is much more useful as you learn more rapidly. This is actually what is most important in a startup.

The more learning you can do (about the business, what customers want, how to talk to them) the more probable it is that the next thing you try will work.

After a few iterations, we were finally ready to launch our closed beta with the customers that had already paid for our service.

How We Did Our First Product Launch (Closed Beta)

We were able to make the first version of the application at the end of the summer of 2019 and launched it for our users (1 month later than we promised). It wasn't pretty and it was barely working.

We had to babysit our users throughout the whole process and the buyer section of the application wasn't usable. We had to do the work manually for all our buyers while the suppliers were able to create quotes.

What was great, though, was that we continued to be able to get checks from people who were interested which helped fuel development. We made a few mistakes on the hiring side, though. We hired a friend of one of the founders who, although experienced, was a jerk to the other more junior developers.

This was the first firing I had to do, and I'm glad I did it. Creating an enjoyable work environment is much more important than technical prowess, because at the end no one wants to work in a bad environment for long.

Having people stick around for the long run in a startup environment is crucial for the company's success. I believe it is one of the reasons our startup is still alive.

As development was chugging along we realized that we had to structure the company a bit more than what we were doing. Thanks to being next to so many startups and successful companies at Centech, we could learn from each other.

During that year, we focused on getting financing going (this is a super important part of business and should be prioritized). We also focused on getting some sort of marketing going, making actual designs that made sense instead of winging it, and making sure our team was staffed by full-time people instead of only interns.

We also moved from the basement of Centech to an office space with windows on the second floor which was actually pretty nice! We maxed out the capacity pretty quickly, though, and the founders had to start working in the dining area of the building so that the employees had more room.

This was way too crowded in retrospect, but at least the view was nice

What I Learned From My First Launch

I learned a great many lessons after our first launch:

Don't do an official launch. It's useless. We put so much pressure upon ourselves to impress the paying customer with a pompous launch, and we were afraid that they would be mad at us if we didn't deliver.

The truth is they didn't really care. When we sent an apology email saying that we had to delay the launch no one complained. I'm pretty sure they were actually amazed that we were able to get something up and running so quickly.

Even if you have paying customers for your SaaS application, prioritize doing manual work over building an application. In retrospect, I would have made a simple form where the buyer could upload a Zip file containing the request for a quote which would be sent to the founders' email address.

We would then send out this request manually to the manufacturers we knew would be interested in this type of work. That would have delivered value way faster to our users and released the pressure on development.

It would also have validated a lot of hypothesis we had that would have accelerated the development work.

Stay focused on very few things and make sure that this focus is explicitly written down somewhere. At some point I was building a blockchain-powered smart request for quote because it was hyped up by one of the co-founders who knew someone working with blockchain technology. That was a solid waste of time and I'm glad I killed that project soon after.

We were starting to pick up steam and we finally had something that we could show the world. It still wasn't pretty, however customers saw the value in what we were building and we knew better what was creating value and what was not.

We were ready to open our beta to increase the amount of users in our application!

How We Opened Up Our Product to More Users

After tweaking the platform using feedback from our early users, we now had a better understanding of what exactly we needed to build. We were now ready to increase the amount of people using our platform and start to increase the output of the sales (which the founders did).

This put more pressure on our application and we started to experience downtime. We knew that we had to improve the way we were building this product if we wanted to scale to more users.

We asked an experienced software architect, now part of the team full time (thanks Karim!), to help us out. This really gave us a solid direction to follow. Here is what we changed:

• We moved to AWS to have more control over the cloud environment.
• We moved to Gitlab to have an easier-to-use CI/CD environment.
• We added automated testing to our application.
• We started to migrate toward Material-UI instead of Bootstrap.

After improving the way we worked, we now had a fully working CI/CD setup and a more robust application that was rigorously tested. The amount of downtime we experienced was drastically reduced and developers were more confident about the changes they were making. It was a more enjoyable development experience, too.

Gitlab is a very enjoyable work environment and reduces a lot of the complexities with lots of tooling. Credit: https://about.gitlab.com/

What I Learned From My First Open Beta

During that period, I learned that the minimal viable product (MVP) phase of the product is necessary. But when transitioning out of it you shouldn't hesitate to ask for expert help.

We now had sales giving us more clients (which were still a bit difficult to get, but coming along at a constant pace) and the application provided more value than before.

We were ready to ask for our first real investment!

How We Got Our First Real Investment

We applied for a funding from Front Row Ventures which is a venture capital fund entirely managed by students and which only invests in student-led startups across Canada.

We met with the people from Front Row, and explained what we were doing and where we were going with all of this.

We ended up having to do a 25 minute pitch in front of a full panel of students who were asking solid questions about the business and the technology.

This was great because we knew that if we got the funding we would not only have the cash, but also new connections that could be there to answer questions and make strategic introductions for us.

It was great, some of these people went to the same university as I did!

Well, we ended up getting the funding and the people at Front Row were very helpful in many aspects of the company!

What I Learned From Getting Our First Funding

This was another important lesson I learned during that time: when choosing a funding partner, it's not only about the funding. It's also about how much help they can provide.

Front Row ended up opening many more doors for us and ensured that their investment had all the possible tools to succeed.

What Our Day to Day Routine Looked Like

Everything was going pretty well for us on the business side. However, the pace we were following was a bit worrisome. We were an archetypal startup where employees would come at the office from 9 to 5 and where the founders worked 80 hours a week.

Meeting on the weekends at the office to plan stuff out and clear up more tasks was routine.

I wasn't too happy with this because this type of work isn't sustainable in the long run – and I started to see signs of burn out in the others. We also weren't very structured, the documentation was poor, and we had almost no processes clearly mapped.

It was at that time that I started to read more about how to structure a company properly in order to maximize our chances of success (see readings at the end).

Then, out of nowhere, we started to hear about the possibility of a pandemic hitting our Canadian shores...

How We Reorganized When COVID-19 Hit

Some employees were very afraid of the virus and of getting sick. There were no cases in Canada yet, but some of the employees had family abroad in areas more advanced in the pandemic's course.

We started to think about what we could do and we realized that we didn't absolutely need to have people come in the office to do their work. All of the work could be done remotely just fine – it was just the culture that we'd set up that required people to show up from 9 to 5 every day of the week.

This type of schedule was directly taken from what we were all familiar with, but we realized that we didn't have to do like all the other companies we'd worked for.

We decided that we would allow everyone that wasn't comfortable going into the office to stay home. I personally decided to not show up to the office and most of our employees followed suit.

_As long as people had a the tools they needed, they didn't need to go into the office: Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@xps?utm_source=ghost&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=api-credit">XPS / <a href="https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=ghost&utm_medium=referral&utmcampaign=api-credit)

This was great because we soon realized that a lot of the shortcomings of our company's structure were hidden by the fact that all employees were available in the office every day. Everyone was always trying to setup a Zoom meeting at random hours or calling at any time of the day to ask for operational tasks status.

We also realized that people had a hard time finding where all the information was, and many different people asked the same thing many times.

I decided to read a bit more about how to structure remote work efficiently so we read the remote playbook from Gitlab and implemented some changes:

• We removed the silos between the different teams by making all communication public and via written messages.
• We organized the documentation so that people would put their files in a shared drive instead of sending them on the instant messaging app.
• We instated a Kanban methodology for all departments, not just the people working on the technology since tasks weren't properly tracked.
• We reduced synchronous meetings by only scheduling those that were necessary and by having the results of the meetings communicated in one form or another.

This helped a lot! However, it took time before it really took hold. People were still having private messaging discussions when everyone could benefit from what was said. Synchronous meetings were still the default for a lot of people to share information.

Here are the co-founders trying to keep 2m distance in our first pandemic meetup (and photo shoot)

But it got better. By putting a lot of effort into making remote-work work, we were drastically improving our company's productivity to a level way above that pre-pandemic.

In a sense it was helpful that we were forced to experience remote work (as we were in full lockdown for a while) because it gave us the necessary buy-in from people that were skeptical that this was possible.

There was no other choice but to go all-in to remote work, otherwise the company would've just ground to a halt. We had employees to pay, so waiting the pandemic out wasn't an option.

In the business sense, we were very fortunate as our platform was useful for the manufacturing industry which couldn't do business in person anymore.

Some startups that we knew of weren't so lucky and their whole business was now impossible to operate within a very short time frame. Most of them had to close shop or do some radical pivot.

What I Learned From Pivoting to a Remote Company Structure

The first few months of the pandemic taught me some very important lessons:

Starting a startup is very, very, very risky. If you had started a ridesharing startup in 2019 and things were going fantastic for you, you would still have had to stop that business once the pandemic hit in 2020.

No matter how prepared you are, there are always risks and unforeseen events happening on a daily basis.

Working on the company is more valuable than working for the company as a founder. What I mean by that is spending time structuring the company and making adjustments to how people work in order to increase productivity is invaluable.

You can't expect employees to do that on top of doing their regular work. It's up to the founders to set up a structure that make sense and to always be improving it.

Remote work will improve your team's productivity compared to in person work (when possible) only if you take the time to make it work. Trying to reproduce an in-office way of working remotely will lead to an obvious decrease in productivity. Drastic changes needs to be made in order for this type of work to be useful and it requires a leap of faith.

We were still growing during that time as we were hiring more people to sustain our rapid pace. We also made a major pivot in how we were generating revenue by ditching our subscription-based model to a transaction fee model. This allowed our sales team to rapidly increase the amount of companies we enrolled in our application.

Our first version of the application started to show signs of not being optimally adapted given all the new information we'd collected from our customers. So we were working on revamping it with an improved design and user experience with a dedicated UI/UX team.

The Improved Version of the Application

We launched the revamped version of our app (this time without a hard deadline) and the reception was great. This is when I started to feel like we actually launched a real product and not a MVP to validate a need.

You could now see the part directly on the platform (we've used xeogl for that)!

The sales of our product increased dramatically as the user interface was great and the experience made sense to prospective users. We went on to do some more major refactoring and clearing up technical debt.

We knew that the added load on our platform meant that we needed to have something cleaner to work with. This was important as technical debt will always creep up and you can't just always build features.

We were slowly emerging from the bootstrapping phase of the company to more serious territory and it felt great. We made some more hires in the customer care and the marketing side. We improved month after month how the company operated.

Around that time, we decided to implement two systems that would improve our productivity:

Objective and Key Result system: This really switched our whole mindset from working long hours to working on objective attainment. By having concrete goals that would improve how the company was doing, it allowed everyone to focus on what really mattered.

It also allowed us to stop tracking when people were working or when they were taking vacations. As long as the objectives were worked on, it didn't really matter what the employees' workflows were (as long as they were not overworking).

EOS System from Traction: This system was a very good foundational system to ensure that everyone stayed aligned. It really improved how our meetings were structured and laid the foundations for the vision of the company.

I used to scoff at the thought of having a vision or core values. But after reading the book and implementing it, I cannot understand how we got as far as we got without one.

This aligned everyone to a level that we didn't think possible and allowed us founders to make better decisions for the company.

It now felt that we were really running at a solid pace. Every month we had major improvements or good news in the company. The whole startup thing felt easier and was more enjoyable.

What I Learned From My Second Product Launch

I learned another good set of lessons during the time of the launch:

Your job as a founder is to "elevate and delegate". At a certain point, if you are still working on the minutiae of the work you are wasting resources.

It is usually way more cost effective to hire someone else that is more competent than you to do the operational work and to move on to another position that doesn't have staffing.

By de-risking and laying the groundwork for a section of the company that is weak you are ensuring that it's worthwhile to hire someone and that this person has something to start with. This is priceless.

No one can work 80 hours a week on different job types effectively. We realized this when we were looking at what the weakest points of the company were. It was always the spot where someone that had 3 different hats was working because there wasn't enough time to do quality work.

If you are working on 3 different positions as a founder and you work 80 hours per week, it is the equivalent of working as a tired part time worker. The documentation will be poor, the process will be non-existent, and mistakes will start to show up.

As soon as we saw someone work more than 40h a week it was a big red flag that we needed to distribute the load onto someone else.

Part-time and volunteer workers are usually a waste of time. Once we were picking up more speed, we found ourselves constantly waiting for the part-time worker or the volunteer to finish their part of the work. This was holding us back so we made it a policy to not hire part time workers again.

It's different for interns though, as they have a well contained work arrangement. For instance, we currently have 3 interns working on various machine learning projects as part of their PhD. This is perfect because the work that is given to them is well balanced and we know what to expect.

Around the time of the new platform release, we started our first accelerator programs.

The NEXT AI and EcoFuel Accelerators

I didn't really know what an accelerator was at that time. However by being in two I quickly understood the difference between an accelerator and an incubator.

An accelerator's job is to give tools to an already up and running startup to accelerate their growth. On the other hand, an incubator is where startups usually begin.

One thing that is very useful in accelerators is that they provide startups they select with funding. By doing the NEXTAI and EcoFuel accelerators we were able to get $100,000 in total funding!

It was way more fast-paced than the incubator we'd been in. We had virtual classes with incredible entrepreneurs and got technical classes with researchers in machine learning such as Yoshua Bengio.

We also got to meet other amazing tech entrepreneurs living similar challenges in trying to get a startup to scale during a pandemic.

Here we are keeping the 2m distance for a photo shoot.

It's at that time that we officially founded the more "research-y" side of the company that dealt with making AI models and working on the data we collected. We staffed that section of the company with PhD students and graduate master's students (and me!).

It's also at that time that we decided to raise our seed round of venture capital (VC) funding. We made this decision because we knew that we had something great, however we were in the type of business where we needed to scale fast to deliver the most value to our customers.

The more people use the platform, the more valuable it is for the people using it. Therefore, getting funding to crank up the sales and marketing is a must. We put our CEO on that full time as it is indeed a full-time job.

Around the time when NEXT AI was ending, we had one of our first major financial drawbacks that would forever change the way we saw failure in our company.

We thought that, just like at Centech, we were in a very good position to get the financing that comes at the very end of the program. However, we were in the finalists but not in the top 3 winner startup.

This was a major blow as we thought we were very solid during the whole program.

After gathering more information about why we weren't shortlisted, we realized that there was a major communication gap between what the organizers of the program thought we were doing and what we were doing.

They didn't realize how advanced our product was and were not aware of all the cool AI modules we were building to complement our offering.

What I Learned From Our First Startup Accelerator

This is where we realized a very, very important lesson:

Other people's perception of your startup is as (if not more) important than what you are actually doing. We couldn't blame the program organizer for having the wrong perception about our company when they weren't even aware of most of what was happening with our company in the first place.

There was so much cool stuff happening everyday, but the number of things we publicly showed was thin in comparison.

This was problematic and could seriously handicap ourselves in the future. This is when I made the decision to celebrate the wins of the company publicly.

Every release of the product, I would publicly acknowledge my team's work on our social media. If we were passing major sales milestones, I would make a statement out of that. A major advance in the AI research of the company would be public within the week that it happened.

I used to hate posting on social media as it felt like I was bragging, but it was one of the most important change we've made so far. By celebrating our wins publicly, we've increased by a lot the likelihood of good opportunities coming our way. This is now a vital part of the company that we leverage every day.

With our new understanding of how to best promote the company and improve our probability of success, we applied to two other bigger accelerators (Creative Destruction Lab and MaRS) and got accepted!

The Current State of the Company

This last week of February was the best week the company has had, by far. User activity is way up and the amount of people involved in our project hasn't stopped growing. We are also in the final stretch of closing our financing round, which will allow us to accelerate our growth by a large margin.

However, it's not like it's all good and there is nothing to do now. One of the curses of starting to learn about a topic and making improvements in the way you work is realizing how much there is still to improve.

My company-improvement list on Trello never gets any shorter. Every time I finish a book, I have twenty new improvement ideas and every time I talk to a mentor, I have a dozen more. Even when I finish the implementation of one improvement, I have three more that spawn.

It's very comforting, though, to know that all of the work you put to improve yourself and your startup pays off. Also, realizing that you have created a company that can provide for other human beings is amazing.

I've made a lot of efforts to shed our old prototypical startup way of thinking. This means the following:

There Are Unlimited Vacations for All Employees

This basically means that we don't track anyone's time off. The only time I'm talking to an employee regarding vacation is when I feel they don't take enough time off.

There Are No Working Hours.

If an employee wants to work early morning or late evening, I don't really care (because I do too). As long as the objectives are reasonably met, there is nothing worthwhile to track.

There is No Bragging about the Amount of Work Someone Piles Up Allowed.

It doesn't matter. Only objectives matter. If someone is working an unusual amount of hours, we flag that to the human relations department and we initiate a proposal to find more personnel.

We Invest in Our Employees

We invest in them by buying books, courses, conference tickets, certifications or finding them mentors. Learning is a crucial part of the company's culture and it is heavily promoted. It's also very great for me because I can buy all the books I want on Amazon!

In short, I'm trying to build a company which I would have enjoyed working for. This is one of the guiding principles behind the choices I've made along the way and it really created something that I'm proud of.

My Advice to Aspiring SaaS Entrepreneurs

So that's how I ended up becoming the CTO of my company that has 20+ employees, all from doing random hackathons. It's been a wild ride and still is, but I would not trade this for any other job.

I want to conclude this section with a list of advice and tips for tech entrepreneurs (SaaS in particular) that I've learned along the way. I broke it down into subsections for convenience.

General Product Advice

Your Product is Way Less Important Than You Think

The value the customer can get from your product is what matters. If you can deliver the same amount of value to your customer in a simpler way than having a full blown application, do it.

You will learn faster and you will be able to create more value for your customers in return. At some point though, the only way to keep increasing the value you can deliver is to have a good application. At that point you should have a very good idea about what is important to put in it.

Validate the Need for the Product Before Thinking About a Solution

Spending time and effort on an application that your customers don't care about is the biggest waste of time you can have.

Validate with them every step of the way to see whether or not what you are doing is useful. Even at the expense of development time.

The Tech Stack you Choose is Less Important Than you Think

The most important concern is if you have enough knowledge to build something with the tech you choose, and if you can safely hire people to work with it.

Spending time finding the most optimal stack to work with is oftentimes pointless.

Do not Overcomplicate Your Application at First

Start with a good old monolith and gradually refactor it when needed. The monolith architecture will work like a charm for longer than you think!

Put the Minimum Amount of Features in Your App to Generate the Maximum Amount of Values for Your Customers

The fewer features you have, the less maintenance, fewer bugs, and less technical debt you will accumulate. If a feature is not used by your users, kill it and scrub it from your code base.

Talk to Your Customers

Spend as much time as possible with them and really learn from them. The knowledge you will gain will be a major competitive edge and will allow you to always deliver value to them!

At Some Point CI/CD and a Good Suite of Tests is a Lifesaver.

Not having to fiddle around with deployment and not having to worry as much that you introduced a regression in your code is liberating.

It allows you to become more productive and have a better understanding of the whole code base when you have to read test errors.

Monitoring is Super Important and Should be Implemented as Soon as Possible

Being able to know what is being used, what is the state of the application, and if there are potential problems is a must.

Not having monitoring tools is like driving in a forest road at night with your sunglasses on. It's a bit weird and generally not a safe way to get wherever you want to go.

DO NOT OUTSOURCE YOUR CORE COMPETENCY.

This advice is in all caps because I'm yelling it. If the core of your business is making a web app, make sure that you have everything you need in-house to make a web app.

Relying on outsourcing firms that don't have direct access to your customers or your reality is a sure way to mess the whole thing up. It's therefore extra important that you define clearly what is your core competency in order to not outsource it.

Artificial Intelligence Advice

AI is Great, but Delivering Value to Your Customers is Better

If you don't need AI to deliver value to your customers, don't put AI in what you give them. It will slow you down big time. However, if you validated that you indeed need some sort of AI to provide value to your customers, make that a top priority for your company.

Ensure That You are Collecting the Right Data for Your AI

This is especially important if you are working with partnering organizations as they often have no idea what is good data for a given problem. You need to figure out if the data is great for the problem you are tackling before getting more of it.

Start With a Linear Regression and Work Your Way to That Deep Neural Network with Thousands of Layers

Even if you have tasks for which you have enough data to attempt larger models, start with the simple ones. It will allow for rapid feedback on your data and will help you secure some baseline performance that can be used as benchmarks for the larger models.

Iteratively Improve your AI system and Don't Wait Until Everything is Perfect to Launch.

It's fine to label an AI system as Beta and start experimenting at a larger scale with users. This applies to any product you build, but I feel like this is worth mentioning again in the AI context as it is often forgotten.

Company Advice

Join an Incubator

The amount of coaching you will get – even from the judges before being accepted – is very important. They've seen thousands of startup ideas and they will be able to give you some very valuable advice.

Incubators are oftentimes paid by the government for every startup that they get in their program, which means it's a win-win situation for everyone.

Join an Accelerator After Joining an Incubator

This gives you additional resources and allows you to get very good coaching on very specialized parts of your business (like machine learning or financing). It is also a very good way to network!

Setup Your Core Values and Your Vision for Your Company

Having a vision is like a superpower. As soon as someone throws in that blockchain idea for the nth time you can throw it right back by saying that it doesn't fit the vision.

If someone has a rotten attitude you can easily show your core values publicly and correct course. The hiring and firing is much easier when all of this is setup and understood by the whole company.

Document Your Company's Processes as Soon as Possible

You will be surprised by how much processes you have even at an early stage. You will also be surprised by how little everyone is aware of it (including yourself!).

By documenting these processes you will be in very good shape to start improving and refining them to increase everyone productivity.

You Most Likely Don't Need an Office

If you are building a SaaS product, your stuff will most likely live on the cloud and your offerings will be purely software-based. Learn about how to setup a remote work environment efficiently and save on the office cost early on!

Meetings are Less Important Than You Think

Face to face synchronous meetings are not that useful. I've found that most of the time, just having a Google document that says what problem you want to fix in the meeting and distributing it to people you want to meet with is 99% of the job.

You will get a few comments on what to change, 3-4 asynchronous back-and-forth discussions, and voilà! Another problem fixed.

Meetings are Sometimes Necessary

No meetings whatsoever are not possible, though (I'm a hardcore asynchronous guy and even I need to admit that). If after sending that document you have 30 comments and you get to a stalemate kind of situation, it's usually time to ring the meeting bell and address the point of contention synchronously.

Most of the time, it's a matter of miscommunication. Having this synchronous back and forth allows the issue(s) to be resolved more efficiently.

Make Most Stuff in Your Company Public to All Employees

If something that is work related doesn't have to be private to a specific set of people, it should be public. By having the opportunity to jump in someone else's operational discussion, you can provide much needed feedback that will save lots of time.

Also, by having this whole bank of general knowledge available to everyone, you ensure that people are all aware about what is going on in the other departments.

Make Sure that the Private Stuff Stays Private

This goes both for security-related sensitive material and for private employee matters. If an employee tells you something personal, do not break that trust.

Continuously Improve Your Company's Structure

A company is an ever-growing organism. The structure that is best for today won't necessarily be the best in a month's time. It needs to be continuously tweaked and improved in order to maximize the work that the people working on it can output.

Beware of Working with Large Entities Like Cities, Multinationals, or Governments

These are slow and could end up suffocating your company. They will book meetings upon meetings to move the project forward by inches. Even if they pay you a lot, the cycle of learning you can do with them is so long that you will not have improved by much.

Working with smaller entities allows for more direct feedback. And if you can gather enough of them you can have a much more robust business. Resting on a thousand small pillars is more stable than resting on two huge ones.

Employee Advice:

Don't Hire Jerks Just Because of their Technical Skills

It's a big no-no. If you think about it this way, a person will stifle the productivity of everyone by souring the cultural soup.

If people are dreading going to work because of that one person, you will end up with more problems than what this person can fix with their code.

Cultural Fit is not an Option

Clearly check if the person has the technical abilities that you are looking for. However, check just as rigorously if the person as the right personality for your company.

Having someone clash with the company or not upholding one of your core values will do more harm than good.

Team Fit is not an Option

Make the teams an integral part of the hiring process. You will be surprised by how picky the team is and how rigorous they are in the hiring process.

It happened quite often that the person we were interviewing passed the technical interview and the cultural one, but didn't pass the team interview.

The rationale for rejecting a participant from the team was always valid and we couldn't believe we didn't catch it earlier in the process.

Neurodiversity Increases Productivity

You have to resist the urge to hire people that think exactly like you if you want to have a truly productive company.

By having people from different backgrounds, you will increase the chance of finding creative ways out of problems and you will reduce your blind spots by a lot.

Don't Try to Fit a Good Profile in the Company, Find a Good Profile for a Need

Always start by assessing what is your most urgent need and then find the best person to fill that position. By starting the other way, you will bloat your company with people that don't truly create value.

You Will Have to Fire People and it's for the Best

I've had to let a few people in the company go, and every time it was better for all parties. However, do it with respect. If you did all the work to bring someone on your ship, you should do all the work to bring someone out of it.

This means ensuring that this person understands why it's not a fit, that you gave enough warning signs, and making sure that this person has the support they need once they are moving away from the company.

Make Sure That Your Employees are Genuinely Happy

If someone doesn't feel good, talk to them and help them out. Wish them a happy birthday. Say thank you when they do something great. Coach them when they want to grow. Debug them when they make a mistake.

Having happy employees is one of your most valuable currencies as a startup and what makes working in one such a great experience.

Personal Advice:

Make Sure that the Founders or Executives don't Kill Each Other – and the Company

What do you get when you have a toxic startup culture of working insane work hours coupled with financial stress and customer problems? A good recipe for company failure.

Make sure to always reserve at least one hour per week where you don't talk about the company, but just check on each other and try to mend personal issues in the open.

Repeat After me: It's 👏 a 👏 Marathon 👏 not 👏 a 👏 Sprint

Insane working conditions cannot last. It's not if you will burn out, it's when.

If you cannot envision keeping the pace of work you currently have for the rest of your life, change it before it's too late.

I've seen too many startups crumble suddenly because of people thinking they can sustain having no time off forever.

Leave Room for Your Personal Growth

Learn about that one topic that is completely left field for your startup and enjoy it. Go ahead and network with people for your own benefit, it's okay. The more you grow as a person the higher the potential growth for your company.

Leave Room to Just Chill Out

Even if you enjoy working on your startup don't neglect the other aspects of your life.

It's fine to have other friends outside of work and it's fine to just unplug for a while. If you can't do that you have serious issue to fix in your company.

Have Fun

It's genuinely fun to build a company from the ground up. Enjoy the time working on that nasty bug that put the whole EC2 instance down. Enjoy your time calling this one customer that has nothing good to say about what you do.

Enjoy all of the little problems that will pave the way of your company. Because a startup can only do two thing: Die, in which case you will look back at those days with fond memory. Grow, in which case it will start to become something bigger than you and gain a personality of its own!

Useful (SaaS) Entrepreneurship Reading

The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses:

This book is a very simple read and taught me that cycling through hypothesis/learning is way more important than doing the most perfect thing right off the bat.

As a technical person that loves technology, I couldn’t understand why the tech was not at the forefront of every business discussion.

This book, with the clear example of bold tests that were done with real users, showed me exactly why a focus on building a product before understanding what the users will think of the product is a bad idea.

Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business

This book helped me make sense of how to structure our company once it has scaled past the founders. I’m at something like the sixth read cover to cover.

There is a lot of useful information and practical guidelines to use in order to really get a solid structure that make sense for the next growth phase.

It also helped create a sense of calm when thinking about the future because it increases your awareness of what will come in the future.

Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs

I read this book before reading Traction, however there are a lot of similarities between the OKR goal structure and the Rock goal structure from Traction. The basic idea is that you have limited time to work on goals/projects, so work on the most impactful ones and ditch the rest.

The idea of simply not thinking about the low priority objectives really creates a sense of space in your head. Knowing exactly what to focus on and having the liberty to think about how to get there also helped create an ultra-collaborative structure.

I use the OKR system in my personal life too. It really helps me reassure myself that I’m on the right path and allow me to say no to opportunities that pop up throughout year that are not aligned with my objectives.

Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams

This was a very enjoyable read. It talks about a facet of software engineering that is often not taken into consideration, which is the people factor. I absolutely love the straight to the point organic writing style that the authors use.

Lots of examples are given and there is a significant supplementation of statistics along their argumentation that really help gauge what non conventional changes to implement.

DRIVE: The surprising truth about what motivates us

Drive is very closely related to Peopleware in the subject it addresses. Both of them help in figuring out how to create a work environment that is purposeful and that drive people to give their fullest.

I’ve learned a great deal about how much “carrot and stick” kind of reward/punishment comes into play in the traditional workplace and how it's not the optimal way to increase motivation.

It also allowed me to understand how I can push myself to accomplish my goals in a purposeful manner without having to bribe and trick myself.

Effective DevOps: Building a Culture of Collaboration, Affinity, and Tooling at Scale

This book is an extensive introduction to DevOps culture and is a good handbook to keep to consult when you're unsure about a certain aspect or situation.

It was the book that introduced me in more depth to that way of thinking and got me to really understand it more than on the surface level. It had some very neat examples of how all of the DevOps concepts tie up in the real world.

However, it’s quite a lengthy book. It is meant to be consulted in a non-linear fashion. I recommend keeping a copy at hand if you manage a technological team to get some ideas about what to do in a given situation.

The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win

I read the Phoenix Project a while after having read Effective DevOps. Effective DevOps gave me a deeper understanding of the movement, but it’s the Phoenix Project that really made everything “click”.

It’s a novel, but explained in such an organic way that it could have been a biography. I read the whole thing in 2 days over the summer as I was very engaged with the protagonist's struggle with inefficient process and “impossible” goals to meet.

After reading it I felt way more confident that the changes I was making to my organization were the right ones.

If I had one book to give to a non-tech manager to make them understand how to make a tech department fail and how to make it thrive, it would be this one.

Designing Data-Intensive Applications

This book was so densely packed with information gained from working with very difficult problems that you probably need to re-read it from time to time while you also work on difficult problems.

I’ve learned a lot, both in the inner design of the behemoth of the internet and how much these behemoths were built by facing a constant stream of problems.

The sheer amount of tradeoffs, learning, and ambiguity that takes place in systems at huge scale was staggering. It helped me prepare and better react when I hit various problems in my tiny (in comparison) systems I’d been building.

Likewise, this is the kind of book that should be read periodically while building something that is in the process of scaling.

Forge Your Future with Open Source: Build Your Skills. Build Your Network. Build the Future of Technology

This book is one that really helped me better structure our remote company so we could hit our business objectives and help our employees feel productive and happy.

I drew a lot of inspiration from how open source projects were structured and made quite a lot of changes in that sense. It also helped me understand and appreciate a bit more about how open source projects work.

Principles by Ray Dalio

This is an incredible book with an insane amount of tips from a successful entrepreneur in the financial sector.

The amount of useful content in there is staggering and will require multiple reads in order to extract it all. If you are looking for new ideas to make your organization more efficient, better at problem solving, or stimulate growth, it's a must!

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

A very beautiful book by the late CEO of Zappos. It's a humble book filled with good learning and takeaways by Tony Hsieh in his entrepreneurial journey.

The most important part here is the focus on making sure that the culture was right, as he had two main company successes in his career: One with LinkExchange that had no focus on the culture and another one with Zappos which was heavily invested in it.

The latter is arguably the stronger business.

Reaching Out

If you are interested in learning more about my company, you can check our website. If you have questions feel free to add me on LinkedIn or Twitter to chat :)

I hope this was helpful!

With not even a dollar to my name, it still didn’t feel like rock bottom.

When you tell someone you’re working for a startup, they’ll either think you’re gonna be really rich or crazy broke.

I remember telling my parents and friends about my decision to join Christina’s,

“I really like the company’s mission and they’re growing really fast. If they continue at this speed, I should be coming back with more than enough to start my own business once my stocks are fully vested”.

Yeah, that didn’t happen.

Just like an investor would do their due diligence before investing, so did I before I committed to Christina’s. When the co-founder & CEO, Thu, reached out to me, I had him on hold for almost a month while I investigated. I looked into the company, the mission, the team, and especially, him.

He’s the kind of guy who shares his thoughts earnestly, finds silver linings in his mistakes and failures, takes on random 30-day challenges, writes love letters to a girl he’s never met before, advocates for a culture that empowers people to do what they love, and reads books like Leaders Eat Last and then actually does something about it. Like making sure everyone in the company gets paid first before the leadership team does.

At the same time, he was a starry-eyed visionary that believed in not only changing the world but also how people viewed it. During this time, I had a competing job offer in New York but it was his persistence and vision that got me to pack my bags, say goodbye to my family and friends, and move across the world to Saigon.

What was the vision? To make Vietnam a model for other developing countries. He got me, then and there. He knew I wanted to be a part of something bigger, and he was right.

A part of me knew that working for a startup can either return 10x or nothing at all. The other part of me knew that even if all hell broke loose, I would have been met with a great adventure and even crazier story to tell.

After all, I’m only 26. I’m not supposed to know everything, but after this, I can say I know a hell of a lot more than I did about people, work, and life than I did before. It was a trade-off that I could afford to make at this stage in life.

June 2017

After wrapping up my goodbyes, I moved to Saigon, Vietnam to become Christina’s second product designer. There were less than 100 people working in the company at the time. Everyone knew each other’s name and during our bi-monthly town hall, we had enough time for every new member to strut to the front of the room and introduce themselves.

December 2017

It’s almost Christmas and we’ve received news of a potential big investment. I won’t disclose who or how much the investment would have been due to the Confidentiality Agreement but it was more than enough to get everyone worked up.

January 2018

We saw an increase in positive cash flow and were growing by 3x. From less than 100 members to now over 300, our family was growing bigger. It was now common to not know everyone’s name. Adjustments had to be made to our town hall format since we no longer had time for individual member introductions.

With talks of the big investment underway and months of positive cash flow, the company announced a 20% salary increase company-wide. Our Tết (Vietnamese New Year) bonus was also paid out early and the company could now afford to provide every full-time member with additional benefits & private health insurance. It was the most exciting time of our lives, and the company’s.

August 2018

8 months later and we barely missed the iceberg. Something happened and we struggled through our first month of financial setbacks. The company was unable to pay the team’s salary on time and it was delayed for several weeks.

After all the salaries were disbursed, we were optimistic that it wouldn’t happen again. Certainly, someone would have looked into the issue and fixed it. Besides, if we’d gotten through it once, surely we could get through it again.

January 2019

The next six months flew by with no visible issue and the company continued to grow as we took in more investments while waiting in anticipation of the even bigger investment.

By now, we’d grown 4x with over 450+ team members spanning across 8 locations in Vietnam. More promotions were announced including my promotion to Head of Product. Cutting it close with the Tết bonus this time, talks of slowing down started to surface.

April 2019

3 months later and our death sentence arrived in the form of an investment that never materialized.

With news of the investment falling through, the company was now in fight or flight mode as we scurried to figure out a plan to stay afloat and pay our team in the coming months.

New ideas to save the company sprung up and died out as quickly as they came up. More cost controls and salary delays were announced. Those who were in a position to loan money or part of their salary to the company did so and were promised a 10% interest in return.

July 2019

With the company’s four business lines not generating enough revenue to cover our accrued costs, intense pressure was placed on our technology team to launch our products and generate at least $50,000 USD in monthly revenue within the first 6 months.

It was an unrealistic goal given the state of our products, but I volunteered to head the initiative. Still, no salary had been paid. No salary was reduced and the leadership team was adamant about not laying off anyone.

August 2019

We managed to launch our technology, but not the way we wanted to. We went to market with bootstrap marketing and zero advertising budget.

It was like a plane taking off with no runway. We were hoping that we could get off the ground without crashing and burning. And we did, kind of. Our product showed signs of life and market-fit but we ran out of fuel, and time.

It was also around this time that I sent in my two months’ notice. It was time to look forward.

October 2019, The Final Dance

During my farewell lunch, my CTO, a quiet and incredibly talented engineer, said three words to me that silenced my inner critic and guilt:

“Thanks for everything.”

Looking at him, I knew he meant every word.

I came to Saigon as a wide-eyed and ambitious self-taught product designer looking to gain experience, get my hands dirty and make a name for myself.

In that, I found myself building out an entire product team with our own set of processes and principles that allowed us to redesign our technology and assist the company in scaling operationally. Our team was looked up to by everyone in the company. We were the team that got it together and we wore that badge with pride.

Takeaways

There were many nights where I laid in bed unable to sleep as I played through the events that unfolded while rotating through a cycle of emotions. Guilt. Shame. Embarrassment. Sadness. Repeat.

But not once have I ever felt angry at the company and trust me, there were many, many reasons to be.

I could have been angry at the reckless decisions that were made, the inability to keep our finances in check, or even the lack of communication and unity displayed by the leadership team when everyone was looking to them the most.

Even then, I couldn’t allow myself to invite that anger in. I knew if I did, it would have chewed me up and spit me out into the dark, covered in nothing but self-pity and insecurities.

I did question my calm demeanor those nights and wondered if I’d grown thicker skin over the years or had simply lost my sanity. I mean, where were the tears?

Looking back, I realized that after cycling through all those emotions, I always came back to feeling resolved. Resolved in knowing that I did what I could and gave my best.

In my high school business class, we were taught to have an emergency fund of at least $1,000 to prepare us for unexpected costs and rainy days. Little did I know that it was hardly enough to prepare me for 4 continuous months of unpaid salary.

The question that I continued to turn over and over in my head was how I was supposed to look my parents in the face and tell them that after so many years of working abroad, I was coming home with nothing except credit card debt?

And I don’t know yet, I’m still figuring that out. I’m still figuring out a lot of things. All I know is that it starts with an honest and vulnerable conversation and, no matter how I look at it, I can only feel blessed to be so young and boundless. I can only imagine how much more difficult this would have been if I had other people to take care of besides myself.

For someone who plans to become an entrepreneur themselves one day, the lessons and skills I’ve gained through this experience have been nothing short of invaluable. I’ve worn so many hats and witnessed so many red flags that came with growing a startup.

I’ve toyed with the idea that maybe this was how the captain of the unsinkable Titanic felt before they hit the iceberg, especially after being warned that they were sailing too fast in such icy conditions.

When did we start seeing the ice? Could we have switched course or slowed down enough to dodge the icebergs?

At the same time, I also saw firsthand all the things we did get right. Like scaling a company 4x with a 450+ team that were willing to give up their paychecks and loan money to the company for many consecutive months – all because they believed in the mission and culture we had worked so hard to build. I know I did.

You can start a business overnight, but to build a strong and resilient culture with hundreds of people believing in one collective goal, that took something else.

I can only hope that the experiences I’ve learned will be of use for when I have my own business where I will be faced with making decisions that won’t just affect me, but my team and their loved ones as well.

Edit: Epilogue

The initial draft of this article was written during my one-way flight back to the States. At the time, I had a million questions in my mind and less than a dollar in my checking account.

Several months later, I’ve moved on to land a job at my dream company (Evernote), I've co-founded an exciting new venture (Noted), and even more importantly, engaged my parents in that overdue vulnerable and honest conversation.

I confided in them about my setbacks, the lessons I learned, and how excited I am for the future. My mom cried, my dad beamed with pride as he looked away and asked what I wanted for dinner.

In my initial draft of this article, I concluded by saying there was no happily-ever-after ending to this story. It was never my intent to make this story inspirational either. My only goal was to wrap up this bittersweet journey by sharing my story, and writing was the only way I knew how to do that.

But after having lived it out and arriving at this point of clarity, I can say beyond a doubt:

There wasn’t meant to be a happily-ever-after ending to this story.

It wasn’t meant to be inspirational either.

Yes, I was left with nothing.

But at the same time, I was left with everything: myself, the lessons I’ve learned from this bittersweet adventure, and my dreams.

And to me, that was everything I could possibly need.

Besides, I’ve always been a believer that everything in life happens for a reason… as long as we give it one.

Let that reason be to learn, to grow, and to continue evolving into that person we want to become someday.

And remember,

“Tough times don’t last, tough people do. ”

— Robert Schuller

There aren't many people out there who grew up dreaming of writing code. I definitely didn't. I wanted to design cars. But somehow I ended up building software.

I used to help my grandpa work on cars in the summer when I was growing up. And I thought one day I'd grow up to be a mechanic like him. But my mom and grandma had different plans.

We didn't have money, so they always kept me busy with something. Whether it was volunteering in the community, reading books from the library, or doing homework for "fun", they always had me focused on learning. I think it was mainly to keep me distracted from a lot of the chaos around me.

I grew up with my great-grandma, who is the mom I refer to throughout this. My family was all over the place and it wasn't the most stable environment. But with my mom and grandma shielding me from a large amount of that craziness, I was able to pretend to escape into my love for math and experiments.

There was one birthday present I remember as my first exposure to anything tech-related. It was a little VTech laptop and I loved that thing. I took it everywhere, playing whatever games were on it.

It stopped working eventually and I tried to go back out and help my grandpa with cars. But my mom didn't want me to because I was a girl. That kind of crushed my little hopes and dreams of becoming a mechanic.

There were times I would try to sneak out and work with him, but he knew it would only make my mom mad, so he'd send me back inside.

I'd go back in and start thinking of other stuff I could work on inside of the house. Eventually I got good enough to do minor plumbing and electrical work with a lot of tinkering and a lot of luck.

To this day I still don't understand why mom thought working with electricity was better than working on cars, but she never yielded on that issue.

From Mechanic to Engineer

I still wanted to do something with cars because of how much I enjoyed working on them so I picked the next best thing: designing the cars that mechanics get to work on!

That didn't seem like a real job at the time, so I satiated that desire by drawing pictures of concepts I thought were cool. Then I'd try to do some math behind them to see if I could build a prototype out of the junk we had around.

Luckily someone saw me doing that and they starting talking about engineering and that they get to design stuff like that. That's when I made up my mind to become a mechanical engineer. I was probably about 13 at the time and things at home were becoming more hectic.

Motivation for Mechanical Engineering

The immediate family I grew up around was largely elderly people. They had started dying. And that was a lot to handle.

Keep in mind that, by now, my mom was about 87 years old. At the time I kind of thought it was because we didn't have enough money. I learned that engineers make a lot of money, so I doubled down on my decision.

At that point, no one in my family had been to college and nobody knew what an engineer actually did. I think my mom thought I was going to drive trains for a while.

To be honest, I didn't fully understand what an engineer did until I was almost done with college.

From the reading I had done, I just saw you needed to be good at math and science and I loved those things already so it made sense for me to keep going. Then I joined a robotics club in high school and that's where I got my first whiff of code.

It was amazing getting hardware to respond to my commands from a computer. While it was fun, I still went off to college determined to be the best mechanical engineer, and to go design awesome cars because cars were one of the best parts of my childhood.

The car behind it all, a 1977 Chevy Monte Carlo

College Time

There was so much I didn't know about college. I didn't start talking to anyone at school about college until maybe the beginning of senior year of high school.

I knew you had to apply, but I didn't know you had to pay. Until I talked to a guidance counselor, I thought college was just what happened after high school if you wanted to stay in school longer. You just put in your application, get accepted, and go.

The level of absolute emptiness I felt when I first saw how much college cost almost made me give up immediately. We couldn't afford to keep people alive, so where would we get the money for college?

My dad is an army veteran, so he was able to help me use some of his disability benefits and that helped take a bit of the stress off. Thankfully, my counselor taught me about scholarships and a bit about financial aid. By now it was the spring and scholarship deadlines were around the corner.

After that I spent almost all of my free time search for and applying for any and every scholarship I remotely qualified for. I probably applied for hundreds of scholarships and I was actually able to piece together enough of them to get my first year completely paid for.

College days

I went into my freshman year on a mission because I didn't understand anything. I thought that if you took out loans you basically die so I was terrified of them. I didn't even go to the financial aid office my first semester because I was scared of that place.

It definitely worked out for the best, because every semester I would spend hours searching for and applying for scholarships. I was able to get through college debt-free doing this. It took a lot of work, but it was some of the best work I had experienced up to that point.

I joined everything that would let me work with cars – from welding frame joints on the SAE team to designing body panels in SolidWorks. I did undergrad research in aerospace just so I could learn more about aerodynamics and materials to make better cars.

Me getting ready to go weld some joints together

My journey into engineering research started out of both passion and necessity and it was an incredible time. I became a lab rat for years and most of it was hands-on work. We used power tools, created out own bills of materials, and built the things we designed on paper or in SolidWorks.

College "Distractions"

By this point I was half-way through sophomore year when I got hit with the first blow. One of my best friends died in a car accident. It hurt, but I was able to kind of "power through" and stay focused. Then the worst, most random news came.

My grandpa got diagnosed with cancer, and he was gone in less than 4 months. That shook me to my core.

I considered dropping out several times during this period, but my mom and grandma keep me encouraged. They pushed me when I didn't want to budge.

I was coming home every weekend at this point, so I basically went class, lived in the lab, and took my homework home every weekend. I wanted to help my grandma take care of mom because she was getting older and she couldn't drive anymore. So we teamed up and took care of her.

Throughout all of my home concerns, I still tried to escape into my coursework. Then code started popping up more and more in my assignments. And I took the one class that really shook my confidence in my path that had been so dedicated to cars.

"Real" Coding

We worked with PIC micro-controllers using C and I was hooked. I loved everything about getting those sensors to work together, and how you could use the data to make real world things happen. That blew my mind, and I started wandering down that path.

But cars were still in the back of my mind. Cars had always been in my life and they got me through a lot of hard times. So I wasn't ready to imagine doing anything else.

Ignoring my conflicting feelings, I jumped into a different research project where I could work with micro-controllers. That was my first real departure from the mechanical path. Then I hit a major crossroads when it was time to graduate.

Grad School

My mom's health was on a noticeable decline and I wanted to stay close by. So I decided to go to graduate school for mechanical and aerospace engineering. That's when the big switch came.

My research ended up focusing on machine learning algorithms on-board an autonomous golf cart. I wrote more code than I ever imagined I would in my life. And I'm not sure if I'll ever write code that complex again.

While I was still working with hardware, my focus shifted to processing all the raw data and writing code that could handle that much information so fast. After spending 16+ hour days coding and still not completely hating it, I knew it was hopeless.

It got to the point that the car part of the research didn't matter nearly as much as the beauty of my code. That's where the final difficult decision came.

I had to decide whether to move – so I could keep working on cool robotics projects – or stay with family and try working as an engineer.

I made a decision I've never regretted and I stayed with my family. My mom didn't live long enough to see me become a "master" engineer. But I'm glad I was there to share the time with her I had.

She died a few months before I graduated. And the rest of that semester is still a blur.

My mom in the good times

Thankfully throughout all of this I had a very sweet boyfriend, who is now my husband, to attempt to keep me sane.

From Grad School to The Engineering

So I tried working as a mechanical engineer in oil and gas for a while. My first day, my boss came to show me what I would be doing. He plopped down this grotesquely large stack of oddly sized paper with these technical diagrams on it called P&IDs.

Then he sat next to me with a highlighter and showed me how to go through all of the P&IDs and find specific sensors. He gave me a smile and a pat on the back and said, "I've been doing this for 37 years and we haven't changed much yet! You'll get the hang of it."

I knew that wasn't going to work. I at least wanted to look at a computer pretending to do work. That's when figured I'd try aerospace engineering. I just knew that there would be plenty of opportunities to design things in aerospace.

After I got an aerospace job, I was introduced to CATIA V5 – which is considerably less friendly than SolidWorks – but it's an aerospace thing. That's when I found out there still wasn't any design involved!

Doing standards and tolerance analyses for FAA compliance was cool for a few months. Sure, getting 800 signatures on an eighth of an inch change on a 2 inch shim was exciting. But it still wasn't what I'd hoped for.

At one point I was working on nacelle analysis in FORTRAN on this super old box monitor computer setup.

This is what got me back into code. FORTRAN was so difficult that I started going back to some of the languages I had used before, like C++ and Python. After making a few useful tools for work, I knew software is probably where I should look next.

The jobs I had were so far away from cars or design in general that I knew I had to figure out how to get a job where I could write code that didn't have to involve hardware. Engineering didn't turn out to be what I expected, so I had to make that switch happen. That's when I learned about web development.

I still didn't want to move, because the husband likes his family and my grandma was all I had left. So I started learning how to make WordPress sites and did a little freelancing to get some experience.

Then I dived into plugin work with PHP, and that made me research more of the free online coding resources. So I started learning more about HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. And the rest is history.

Once I had a few projects under my belt, I applied for a software engineering job that still needed some engineering calculations, and that's how I got my first real software job.

Growing in Code

After that, I just slowly started improving my skills. I got into the MVC and .NET Core worlds. That was a cool tech stack, but as I learned more about JavaScript and all that I could do with it, I decided to dive deeper into those stacks.

Then I accidentally ended up working as a consultant. But it was a great experience. I learned everything from front-end, back-end, database, DevOps, mobile, client management, and so much more.

That's where I really had to time to see everything and figure out what I really wanted to do. So I jumped into React and Node, and that's where I'm currently the happiest.

Engineering in Code

One thing I weirdly miss about being in one of the physical engineering worlds is the amount of structure around everything. No matter what you tried to do, there was always standard knowledge that had been established, researched, and tested.

Software doesn't have any type of enforcement like mechanical engineering, because most of the stuff we make won't kill anyone if it breaks. So I started taking some of the design principles I had never gotten a chance to apply to cars, and applying them to my personal software projects.

That's when I started finding amazing opportunities. I get to build projects that range from machine learning on the front-end to serverless apps and virtual reality games using the same methods I was taught as an engineer.

If you could see some of the ridiculous software equations and constants I've made up over the years, it would make you chuckle.

Going With the Flow

I never started out on this path and didn’t expected to go this far. It kind of happened in a lot of odd ways, just like most people that end up in this field. There are battles I fought and won throughout this journey that I’m still recovering from.

Even though software isn't as diverse as it could be, I've never really felt like people were trying to hold me back or pigeon-hole me into a position.

This was not the case when I was in traditional engineering. It was such a toxic place for a woman of color. I had people interrogate me on how I had gotten into the facilities for the parts I was responsible for. I had people try to belittle my accomplishments. And I ran into a few people who flat out told me they didn't want someone like me around for long.

Tech has never been that intimidating for me.

One thing I can say is that I've encountered so many friendly and genuinely helpful people over the years, despite the few jerks sprinkled in between them.

If you've ever considered switching to anything in tech from an engineering field, just know that there are a bunch of people who will help you at every step.

##

Known knowns, unknown knowns and unknown unknowns

It’s been almost twenty years since Donald Rumsfeld, the then US Secretary of State of Defense, said:

"There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know. "

This saying is typically used to conduct risk management analysis by splitting the upcoming obstacles into 3 categories:

Known knowns — things that we know (i.e are aware of) that we know. These pose less of a risk, as they are facts we are confident in.

Known unknowns — things that we know (i.e. are aware of) that we don’t know — they imply a risk, but since we know them we can measure the risk, understand it and investigate more to make this a known known.

Unknown unknown — things we don’t know (i.e are not aware of) that we don’t know. These are probably the most dangerous since these encompass what we are not aware of and therefore can’t plan, analyze or take actions to mitigate them. You’ll have to do some thorough exploration to find the things you don’t know that don’t know.

It can get a little confusing when you put it that way, so let’s put it in a graph:

But wait… what about the unknown knowns? this is something Donald Rumsfeld didn’t discuss, but might be the most interesting.

The things you don’t know you know

The unknown knowns quadrant is often overlooked or just misinterpreted. I can easily understand why people don’t see the importance of it and just refer to it as a nonsense contradiction — how can someone not know something they already know?

Well, it turns out that your knowledge is based on many things you are not aware of — instincts, intuitions or other factors you think are trivial.

Think about your mother tongue. You can easily formulate any thought to an accurate sentence. As English is not my first language, I had to study it for years. I had to learn thousands of words to expand my vocabulary, learn the difference between a noun, a verb, an adjective and how to use them to construct a sentence. I had to learn the difference between present simple, present progressive, and past perfect. Even knowing when to use “on”, “in” or “at” is still a challenge for me. If English is your native language you might not even be aware of all these rules, you learned them when you were young and just know how to use them properly. Thus, you may also be unaware of the challenges others face when they try to speak English.

What can happen if you ignore the unknown known?

So far we’ve only tried to understand what these known unknowns are, but haven’t elaborated on why these matter at all. Ignoring the known unknowns leads to a problematic dissonance between facts (what you know) and your awareness (what you aren’t aware of). Ignoring them can be harmful and lead to situations, some of you know all too well:

“Imposter syndrome”

A few years ago I heard about imposter syndrome, and I immediately related to it. I always try to surround myself with people smarter than I am so I can learn and advance. The problem with that is that I always doubted my knowledge and felt like one day they will all expose my “secret” and realize that I’m not as good as I made my self out to be. I was terrified that one day they’ll demand to replace me with someone better. So far it didn’t happen (and I hope this post won’t give them any crazy ideas ?).

In the last couple of months, it was very hard to avoid stumbling upon an article, a talk, or a blog that didn’t mention imposter syndrome. Everybody loves talking about it, sharing their personal stories, and being proud of being a part of an exclusive group that has this syndrome. Well… guess what, almost all of us have it. Ask 20 of your friends if they ever felt like they aren’t good enough for their job or whether they ever doubted their accomplishments — I promise that almost all of them will be able to relate.

If that’s the case, is it really a syndrome? Perhaps people that always feel that they’re the best fit for the job have some “overconfidence syndrome”.

I’m sorry to burst your bubble and make you feel like you are not as “unique” as you thought. If you ask me, you are just like any other person who is unaware of what they know or appreciate the skills they have. If you’ve accomplished something or if people believe you are good at something, then you probably are. If you feel like you were just lucky or that people around you didn’t see you for the fraud that you are, then you probably have some problem in the way you perceive your skills and knowledge. This misperception means that your unknown known area is taking over the known known. You have a lot of knowns (which made you succeed) but the lack of awareness makes you feel like a fraud and is blinding your field of vision to the point that you are no longer able to see the positive qualities in you.

comprehension gaps

A few years ago I was trying to explain what I do at work to a young student- “We do a file sync & share product for SMBs. We have an out of the box SaaS, but clients can also buy S3 storage and install it on-premise”. While all that might sound trivial to people with entry-level experience in the field of cloud, this student looked at me like a deer in the headlights. To top it off, he was also too embarrassed that he barely understood a word.

Honestly, I don’t blame them because there was no way they could have know. This then got me to realize that I was ,in fact, the problem in that situation. By assuming that those terms were just common knowledge, I was ignoring my unknown knowns.

It’s important to note that unknown knowns aren’t limited to terminology. When you talk to grads or less experienced engineers (or other less experienced folks in your field), you may find that they too lack the knowledge that nowadays seems utterly “basic” to you.

Even when working with more experienced professionals, we sometimes don’t give enough context or drop enough details. In my field, I work on certain features for months at a time, adopt a particular team terminology and absorb individualized team practices. When I speak with other colleagues (especially those not in my team), I am entirely unaware of these knowns and assume that they’ll all intuitively understand how my team works.

These types of comprehension gaps often lead to misalignments because everyone tends of interpreting the implicit details differently. Being more aware of small details such as these and being more explicit about them, can reduce confusion and create better team alignment.

Feeling like you aren’t growing enough

At the start of my career, everything was new and I felt like I was learning new things every day. At some point, I started feeling like my learning curve is slowly diminishing. Eventually, it got to a point where I didn’t learn new languages or coding techniques every day because I was already familiar with the operational patterns… Turns out I was wrong about that.

In truth, I was learning a ton every single day. As a senior software engineer, I was doing more work that required “soft skills” such as communication, planning and team engagement. It was difficult to be mindful of these skills, when I only briefly thinking about what I’ve learned.

But even the “hard skills” that I’ve learned are tricky and easy to ignore: When I look back at last months I might only remember that I’ve learned GoLang, but if I dig deeper, I’ll find all those other sneaky unknown knowns which ARE the key factor in advancing my career to the next level.

It’s time to follow the yellow brick road

In the story of the Wizard Of Oz, Dorothy meets the Scarecrow, who wants a brain, the Tin Woodman, who desires a heart, and the Cowardly Lion, who needs courage. They all walk together, experience many adventures and overcome their challenges through the utilization of each others` strengths. When they get back to the Wizard of Oz, he explains to them that the attributes they sought after were within them all along. The way I see it, the journey on the yellow brick road simply cleared their blind spots and helped them see their unknown knowns.

Now it’s your turn.

How to hit your yellow brick road?

Now that you understand the importance of the unknown knowns, it’s important that you realize that this isn’t something that requires further exploration or analysis. All you need to do is give it the attention it deserves by turning the implicit knows into explicit ones. Turn to your intuition and unconscious beliefs; tap into your instincts and mold them into something you can make known to the rest of the world. By doing so, you’ll not only be able to better communicate your thoughts and knowledge to others, but also, help yourself finally raise awareness to your unknown knowns and thereby, become better at what you do.

You also understand that switching an unknown known into a known known, doesn’t require you to study anything new — all you need to do is to call it out and turning the implicit known into explicit known. Turning your intuitions, unconscious beliefs and instincts into something you can write/talk about will help you not only to communicate and share your knowledge with other, but can also help yourself be aware of the things you know and therefore be a better professional.

So what you can you do to reveal your unknown knowns?

Practical Ways of Revealing Your Unknown Knowns

_Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@enka80?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Nine Köpfer on <a href="https://unsplash.com/search/photos/discover?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utmcontent=creditCopyText)

Write More

Either a blog, a draft or simply a document containing your reasoning behind a certain decision (i.e. why you preferred solution A over solution B). You’ll be surprised to learn that your seemingly simple ideas are far more profound after you write about them.

In my case, just a few days ago I thought about the unknown knowns. I didn't have more than 5 lines about this topic (actually I only wanted to tweet about it, but I didn't have twitter :) ) , but as you see it turned out to be much more than that.

Pursue Public Speaking Opportunities

Speak up and share what you’ve learned with others. Don’t assume that anything you say is trivial. The best talks I’ve heard weren’t necessary given by people who studied a subject field for 20 years, but rather, those who brought forth a fresh new perspective. Remember that it’s possible to hold a five-minute talk about any topic you desire because what may seem “easy” to you requires more context when speaking to others.

It doesn’t have to be at the biggest conference you can think of. Start with a 5 minutes talk to your team — I’m sure you have at least one thing to share with them. You’ll be amazed how many times my peers told me they won’t be able to hold a 5 talk about a topic they thought was trivial. After they’ve had the slides they asked for 10 minutes, and I was going on the safe side scheduled 15 minutes for them. It took about 20 minutes until I had to stop them ;)

Mentor Others

Helping others will provide you with the much-needed proof that you don’t give yourself enough credit. Taking on mentorships will help you realize how much you have to offer and just how beneficial your knowledge is to others. You may not have the answer to everything and that’s fine, but never underestimate the value of the little tips and tricks you picked along your yellow brick road.

When you help others, you finally understand that you don’t give yourself enough credit. You’ll be shocked with the number of things you didn’t think of and can now help others grow and learn. You might not have the answers for everything, and that’s fine, but you can surely help them with tips you’ve learned along the way. You can also help them with the way you analyze situations or the way you think when you hit an obstacle.

If by chance you don’t feel confident to become a full-on mentor, start small. Assist new hires at your workplace, or a couple of students from the local college. I can guarantee that small gestures such as these will have you reaping the fruit in no time.

Track What You Learn

Take a few minutes every week or month to write down the things what you’ve learned. Yes, even those that may initially appear trivial. Don’t put too much emphasis on the prominent accomplishments, but rather, pay more attention to the smaller ones. This can be a new shortcut you learned or a new strategy on how to write better emails. Share your list with your manager at work, or a 1x1 with your team during your weekly meetings. Everything deserves to be listed and appreciated, no matter how small.

Don’t Ignore Positive Feedback

You can learn a lot about yourself and what you are capable of from others. The best way to learn is by requesting feedback, either from your manager or your teammates. People often focus on the negative comments, but that’s not all you should pay attention to. When you receive feedback, make sure to also give space to your strengths and positive attributes . These can help you better understand your knowledge, and shed some light on the progress you’ve made. You might even learn that something that you thought you are not very good at, is perceived by others as one of your strengths, or rather your unknown knowns ;)

Express Gratitude

When someone appreciates your work or compliments you, say thank you. Don’t be too modest, don’t try to explain why it wasn’t so hard, or underestimate your accomplishments — Just thank them. If someone made the effort to recognize your achievement, they have a good reason for it.

from https://twitter.com/cszhu

Ultimately, it’s your road

You don’t have to follow each and every step listed above. Everyone’s road looks different. Pave your own path and take your own road. It’s easy to forget to follow the road you took, so from time to time try to be more conscious of your unknown knowns and turn them into known knowns.

Thanks for spending a few minutes of your time. Feel free to add me on Twitter / Linkedin, or comment bellow

-Alon

Special thanks to:

• Keren for her great work editing this post and after many iterations — turning my ideas into something readable
• Rina Artstain for proofreading, reviewing this article and giving awesome technical feedback

My name is Tigran and by definition, I’m probably a half-indie hacker. Why half you may ask? Because I’m a full-time software engineer at Buffer but at the same time I’m building an online profitable side-business called Cronhub.

If we think how one of my favorite Internet sites, Indie Hackers defines it, I think I fit into that definition but not quite.

How IndieHackers.com defines indie hacker

I generate money independently through the product I’ve created but also have a primary source of income which is my employer. I’m a solo founder and have been bootstrapping Cronhub for the past 8 months or so. As you see I may have the rights to call myself an indie hacker, right? If your answer is yes then let’s read my story further. Also, I’ve written another article if you like to read more about how I work remotely.

I wanted to be an indie hacker for multiple reasons but the biggest motivation has always been my passion for building products. In the past, I’ve built other side-projects that were free. I even created a side-project when I was studying at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) called Wheelie. It became the official ride-sharing online platform for RIT students. However, I’ve shut it down two years ago due losing my interest for the product as well as worrying too much about safety issues. So yes, I love side-projects because it’s fun and you get to learn a wide range of skills.

Another reason why I started Cronhub is financial income. I understand that money doesn’t necessarily buy happiness but it can buy freedom and I think it’s a big deal at least for me. Not having enough money is always very stressful and making money is usually more fun.

For the past year or so I’ve started to value my time a lot and decided if I ever get involved in side-projects it won’t be for free. Having a full-time job and a family doesn’t give you too much free time so I better justify what I spend my time on. This thinking really changed my perspective on things that I was keen to work on. This article is a reflection of that journey.

The motivation behind this article

The motivation for writing this article is primarily based on wanting to share my knowledge and experience with others who are thinking of becoming an indie hacker. When I started this journey I always enjoyed reading other people’s stories, how they came up with an idea, how they ran their businesses and what it was like being an indie hacker.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a universal formula that one can share for building a successful business. Even the word “successful” has a different meaning for different people. One may define success by revenue and others care about other metrics.

Thus, my goal is not to give any advice but rather openly share everything I’ve learned and experienced throughout this year so you can make your own conclusions. I also want to encourage other indie hackers to write about their stories because having more data points only helps people who want to get started with building their own products and making money independently.

The Internet has become the most innovative medium to meet like-minded people, read stories and get inspired by them. Inspiration and motivation are two great forces that fuel your mind to achieve your goals and dreams. So I hope I can motivate you even a little bit with this article. If I do, then my time writing this article is fully justified.

Launch

Starting my own business and having side-income has been on my mind for a long time. Since I changed my perspective about side-projects I knew that if I was going to dedicate my time to building something it wouldn’t be free.

Getting paid for my own products was never about quitting my full-time job. I know many indie hackers whose main motivation is to become independent and not work for anyone. I can see that view and respect it. However, I enjoy my current job at Buffer and have no plans to leave it anytime soon. Will I ever work for myself full-time? I don’t know yet.

Coming up with an idea that can turn into a business wasn’t as hard as I imagined. I had a couple of requirements which I used to run my ideas over for evaluation.

For each idea I asked the following questions:

• Is this the idea for the market I’m familiar with?
• Is this product solving my own problem?
• Can I charge for this product?
• Is this something I’m passionate about?

At the end only two ideas made it to the last step:

1. An online course on how to build a SaaS product with Laravel and Vue.js
2. An easy Cron monitoring tool for developers

I ended up choosing the second option above only because I knew it would take me less time to launch the MVP compared to making an online course.

I’ve never done any online course before so I knew it would take quite a lot of time to finish it. I told myself I was going to give this idea a try and if it didn’t work out then I was going to step back and focus only on creating educational materials for developers. I knew there would always be a demand for those type of products.

Cron monitoring has always been very tricky and challenging. At Buffer I deal with many cron jobs and need to make sure they run on time and if they fail I want to be aware of it. Before Buffer when I was at YCharts I created a custom dashboard for the team to track all internal scheduled jobs. The dashboard would contain the list of the scheduled jobs and some logs.

However, the way we would know whether the jobs ran or not was by looking at the internal dashboard. This meant that we had to check the dashboard every single day to make sure all the checks have passed. This wasn’t ideal.

When I talked to other developers I realized that this pattern repeats in many engineering teams. So this was a big signal for me of an existing problem. So I decided to build a product that makes it a breeze to monitor Cron jobs. If I could build it, I could use it for my side-projects and Buffer.

After working on the first version of the product for almost 2 months (part-time) I launched Cronhub on Product Hunt on March 20, 2018. The reaction of the PH community was quite positive and this set the beginning of my indie hacker journey.

Cronhub’s listing on ProductHunt

Launching a new product is a great milestone to hit but what comes after that is probably what most people struggle with. Growing your product and finding a product-market fit is a big challenge especially for first time founders.

Growing and attracting users

Trying to grow a business on the side comes with many challenges. Obviously, time is the biggest constraint but figuring out what to work on is another one that most founders face. Early on when you don’t have many users or customers it’s really hard to rely on data and make data-driven decisions. So the only option left is either seek advice from other founders or follow your own intuition.

Most of the product based decisions early on were based on my own intuition. Since I was building Cronhub for myself I knew exactly the features I needed to focus on. Being your own user is a big advantage and I strongly believe the idea of solving your own problem is really on point.

After launching your own product, you usually end up doing two things:

1. Iterating on the product
2. Selling your product

Most developers I know including myself are good at iteration but kind of suck at selling and marketing. I had no knowledge of sales so I focused on marketing instead.

I decided the way I was going to attract users and acquire customers is content marketing. Not only do I enjoy writing but I also knew that it had great long-term SEO benefits. It helps to grow your audience and get more exposure.

After following all the basic SEO guides and publishing articles I was able to bring Cronhub to the first page of Google under certain keywords such as “cron monitoring”. It jumped from the 6th page to the second search result within months after me sharing articles on the blog.

Checking Cronhub’s Google Analytics data for November 2018, organic search was the biggest acquisition channel. So I think writing really pays off if you enjoy it.

Jumped to the first page for certain keywords!

However, content marketing is very time-consuming so it’s hard and sometimes not sustainable for a solo founder. Making it your primary marketing channel requires you to dedicate a ton of time on writing.

I started to think about different distribution channels that could work for Cronhub. One of them is Github marketplace which I’m currently working on. With this, I hope I can get more exposure to developers. I will share my experience after launching Cronhub on Github Marketplace in a different article so stay tuned.

Current growth

For the past few months, growth has been slow but partially meeting my own expectations, if I take into account the time I spend on Cronhub. November has been the highest revenue month when I hit around $620 in revenue.

The organic search is the top acquisition channel

I do want to speed up growth and increase revenue but I think that requires changing my strategy. First, I need to understand who my ideal customer is and If I’m targeting developer teams then I should narrow it down further. It will help me to create a plan to bring more relevant users to Cronhub and increase the conversion rate.

Apart from bringing more leads to the site, I want to improve the onboarding process for new users. New users should be able to easily integrate their system jobs with Cronhub monitors. I usually have around 7 - 10 signups every day but only 2 - 3 of them actually activate monitors.

In order to increase the activation, I want to eliminate the manual work it requires. For this purpose, I’m building a new CLI tool that developers can run on their servers to easily hook up their cron jobs with Cronhub monitors. I’m very excited about this tool and can’t wait to release the first version next year.

Another small addition that helped me increase the number of sign-ups was supporting Github authentication. It took me less than a day to get it done but as of now almost half of my new users choose to sign up with Github. It’s a different concern whether those users have a higher conversion rate or not.

Reflections

Writing articles like this is really a great way to reflect on your past journey. I feel like writing in a way is a meditation where you try to control your thoughts and direct them into a single purpose - writing.

So here I’ll try to write down everything that comes to my mind, everything that is worth sharing with you. These reflections are solely based on my experience of building a side-business while working full-time. The reason why I emphasize this is because it can be very different from someone who is working full-time on their own project.

When I meet new people in person or online and tell them about my side-project they keep asking me about how I manage to find time to work on anything else other than my job. My answer has been the same for the past year. I spend very little time but do it every day. It can be an hour or two hours but no more than that. After doing the same work every day it gets easier over time and it becomes a habit.

When I know I have only 1 - 2 hours every day to work on Cronhub I get very strict about things I should work on. I usually break down my tasks so that I can finish them in a day. I know if it goes beyond a day or two I’m going to abandon it. It’s tough but it happens to me every single time. I keep my tasks small and that helps me get things done.

There are some days when I feel down and just want to watch Netflix. I believe this happens to everyone and I noticed there is a pattern in my case. When I don’t get new customers for 2 weeks or so I lose my motivation because I think growth has stopped. When this happens I try to encourage myself to have the patience or sometimes open a new Dropbox Paper and write down some ideas that can help me accelerate the growth.

I miss having a co-founder sometimes. I need someone to bounce my ideas off or ask for advice. It also helps with motivation. When you share your concerns with someone who really cares and gets the context it helps because when you share you suddenly feel a lot better.

Will I ever try to find a co-founder for Cronhub? Maybe. I thought about this a lot and obviously, I don’t want a co-founder just for helping me feel better. ?

I do want to fully define that role before I start actively looking for one. I also need to understand the trade-offs of having a co-founder versus staying solo.

Customer support and pricing is something I wonder a lot about as well. How one affects another? I think it does in some way. If I’m considering running my business alone for a long time I need to define the type of customers I want to serve.

I can have many low-touch customers or few high-touch customers. I don’t want to spend too much time on customer support because I won’t have time left for product work. I think it’s better for me to focus on high-touch customers and focus on serving teams. On the other hand, targeting high-touch businesses suggests that I should start working on sales and it really scares me.

Product-market fit always gets me. How does one define finding a product-market fit? Or how do you know if you found one? I read about these topics a lot but it’s still unclear for me how you apply the theory in practice. One signal that maybe tells me that I have yet to find a product-market fit is slow growth.

Thus, I want to keep working on the product, make it better and only then hit the growth pedal. I’d like to learn more about the symptoms that people look for when thinking about product-market fit.

While working on Cronhub for the past year I discovered my strong passion for helping developers. I realized how much I love and enjoy building tools for developers. Improving developer productivity even with a small margin is a big deal and has a strong business value if you look at it on the company level.

Even 5% developer productivity increase can play a huge role in any company and directly impact the value that business delivers. This realization helped me to shape my professional vision - I want to help developers be more productive. I’m currently defining the “How” part.

I found a great report, The Developer Coefficient by Stripe that conducted a study with thousands of C-level executives and developers across 30+ industries. One of the survey questions was the following:

How much of a priority is it for upper management to increase the productivity of its developers?

And the answer was 96%.

Then I started to think about the environment where I could maximize my impact on developers. How can I have a bigger impact? It’s really hard to answer but I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. I can work for myself in the long run by becoming an entrepreneur or have an employer where I can build a career. Right now, I have taken the hybrid approach where I do both but I’m curious to see how this evolves over time. Maybe it’s a story for another time.

Thanks for reading. If you’re a developer who is using cron jobs or any scheduled tasks then try Cronhub. It’d mean a lot to me if you could share the word. Thank you!

_I also want to thank my wife Ani for helping me to edit this article. ❤️_

Originally published at blog.cronhub.io on December 5, 2018.

A New Year always brings with it a couple of recurring events. There’s the New Year’s Eve where people party hard get wasted. We all know we’ve pulled off a couple of #YOLO and #LiveLikeTheresNoTomorrow here and there on social media. ?

Then there’s New Year’s day which is all about making resolutions and saying how this time around we are going to cross the finish line no matter what.

And then there’s the reality check a couple of days or weeks later where you quit on those resolutions and sit there feeling like garbage.

This is nothing new, I myself have “been there, done that” ?

Truth is, resolutions as a theoretical concept seems like a pretty easy thing to adopt. You make a to-do list of everything you want to do and start crossing it off, one by one, starting day one. But when it comes to executing our resolutions, it’s a whole different story. Most of us including myself, set ourselves to fail. What we set out to achieve as resolution, 9 out of 10 times is an unrealistic target.

Once the rhythm becomes monotonous, it drives away the interest in pursuing it.

This is what had been happening with me ever since I started making resolutions. And I am sure everyone can relate to this experience — starting the year off with a goal, then striving towards it for a couple of weeks and then getting bored to death, to the point that we quit.

A couple of weeks into 2017 the usual pattern started repeating. I was gonna quit on my goal and it was not even February. After well over a decade of failing to execute my goals (surprise surprise), I decided to shake things up a little bit last year.

Here’s a list of things I did to make sure I was not burdening myself with unrealistic targets. I managed to end the year with with a good bunch of things checked off from this list.

This guide is not for a specific group of people, it doesn’t matter if you are a developer, designer or a liberal arts student. It’s a general list of things which will help you come out a more well-rounded person at the end of the year.

Step 1: Quit making resolutions

Accept it, they never work (at least for most of us). And when we fail on executing them consistently for 365 days, it makes us feel terrible.

Instead here’s a better, more “do-able” approach. Instead of setting up one goal for the entire year, set up multiple milestones for a year. They can be weekly monthly or quarterly targets.

Having smaller, isolated and more focused targets tend to work much better, than trying to move one monolithic goal into each month.

Our brain works in weird ways. 10 checked boxes look more rewarding to us at the end of each month than one or two at the end of the year.

Reward yourself every time you achieve one small target. Don’t stress on not being able to check off each task — it’s ok to miss a couple of them. But this approach always makes sure you are achieving more than skipping

Also make sure you carry a small notebook with your targets written down. No, DO NOT use an app for that. Carry an actual physical notebook and a pen/pencil. Draft your targets each week/day/month and check them off once done. You won’t get the same satisfaction on an app.

Don’t stress about the things you couldn’t do, reward yourself for the ones you did

Every checked box matters. Let that sweet sweet dopamine flow.

Step 2: Commit to something publicly

This one’s new for me as well. I have noticed that committing to something publicly adds a good amount of pressure to push you to deliver. Being a great developer always means you are aware and up to date on the new things in the community. And there is no better way of doing that than gaining first hand experience.

Writing code a couple of hours each day helps keep your skills sharp. In the little time that I did it last year, I found that I was coming up with better ways of writing what I had already written before. Trimming down the fat from an old project has an extremely satisfying feel to it.

I have committed to 3 rounds of the #100DaysOfCode challenge, for the sheer love of it. It’ll also help me gain muscle memory and the ability to make new things as quickly as possible.

Thanks to Scott Spence and the Isometric Contribution plugin for Chrome for pushing me to take this challenge

Having committed to this publicly (twice now) is definitely gonna make sure that I don’t even think about quitting. Also it really helps if you can find a code buddy who’s committing to something similar. That way, you both can compete and at the same time can make sure you push each other in case you start slacking.

Step 3: Always Be Building (a habit)

The universal truth to learning something and then excelling at it is doing it repeatedly. I have experienced this on many occasions. This is why I suggest having a personal project to work on at all times. It not only serves as a playground to try new things, but also helps you think how can your existing solution be improved. Once you get into the habit of building something all the time, it will soon turn into an addiction. I for once have built stuff, scrapped it off, built it using a better newer stack and scrapped it off again.

So come up with a product/idea you are truly psyched about. Contribute 2% to it everyday and repeat this 365 times. It doesn’t feel like a burden if what you are building excites you.

Side Note: Always make an attempt to visualize your progress using Scrum or something similar. You can use Trello or just a good old sheet of poster paper and some sticky tape with post-it notes. Remember “It’s all about that dopamine.”

Cheap DIY version of a scrum board, costs less than $0.4

Step 4: Read a Book (and then read 10 more!)

The human brain, however marvelous, is limited in its abilities. Every person is unique and everyone approaches life differently. The only way to have a diverse outlook on life and problems is by reading how others went around solving them. Books are really one of the only things that do not expire in value and let you truly expand your imagination and abilities. It’s like tapping into someone else’s brain and just soaking up all the knowledge.

Again, do make sure you grab a physical copy instead of the kindle version. There’s innate satisfaction in turning over the last page. (Sorry trees ? )

I finished reading 2 great books this year and I regret not reading more.
( something I am definitely gonna change this year )

Here are a few of the books that are in the mail as of now and the 2 that I managed to read in 2017:

• The Design Of Everyday Things: Don Norman (read)
• Lateral Thinking: Edward de Bono (read)
• Hooked: Nir Eyal
• Sprint: Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky
• Sapiens: Yuval Noah Harari
• The Lost City of the Monkey God: Douglas Preston

If you have read a book which you think changed your outlook, fiction or non-fiction, leave me a note, I will definitely try to grab a copy.

Step 5: Adopt a Sustainable Lifestyle

With the internet in our pockets and services like Amazon available at the tap of a button, compulsive hoarding is a now a problem more than ever. We buy things we most likely do not need and in a very short span of time we regret that purchase. Try cutting that down.

Trust me when I say that it’s liberating to be content in only the bare necessities. I am not suggesting you to adopt a monk lifestyle.

Instead of making senseless purchases, make wise investments.

Don’t be stingy in investing in yourself. You want the latest and greatest computer on the market? Do you have the funds for it? Will it improve your workflow or cut down your time? Is there a significant improvement switching to the newer model?

If you answered yes to all these questions go ahead and make the purchase. Investing in yourself and your tools is never a bad choice unless you’re just randomly buying anything and everything that comes out. You’ll find that instead of making senseless purchases, if you invest in yourself or on your gear, it will start paying for itself in a very short time.

Step 6: Give back to the world a little bit

There’s a very good saying which goes something like: “leave the camping ground better than you found it.”

Amidst all the upsetting things that are going on in the world, you as an individual hold the power to spark a positive change and turn things around for the better for someone.

If you are reading this post, it means you have an internet connection and a smartphone/computer. You have a decent life. Giving away a few bucks a month will not really affect your life. There are people in the world right now who would kill for a dollar.

We are living in times where we don’t need much to affect someone’s life positively. Pick a charity or a cause you care about or can relate to and give away a few dollars each month. Most of them don’t have a minimum donation amount. So it really doesn’t matter if it’s $1 or $10. Try it out once — it really helps pacify the conscience.

Step 7: Start reading up on Blockchain

Blockchain is the technology which will shake up everything about our society in a couple of years. It doesn’t matter if you are an engineer, a doctor or a teacher.

It is going to be an essential part of the business sector, the education sector, medicine and just about everything.

Knowing how the technology works and what it’s applications are will really be in one’s best interests, considering the widespread adoption that’s underway.

One misconception I would like to clear right away is that Blockchain is not limited to Cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is just a popular application of the Blockchain technology. The way things are with the crypto ecosystem isn’t what it started out to be. It was a means of solving a problem but instead it’s turned into a quick way of making or loosing some money.

This hype will fade away soon, making way for the real innovation to begin.

Investing in Cryptocurrencies is a different topic altogether and it’s totally your call on doing so or not. But I would highly recommend everyone to learn up about Blockchain and watch the space.

Step 8: Question everything

Let’s face it. I am not perfect neither are you. But you may have expertise in a domain which I barely know about. The only way in which we can progress as a society collectively, is when we throw our ego out of the window and ask questions about what we don’t understand. What’s the worst that would happen? Someone would say that’s a stupid question? Big deal!

Always keep this in mind and this is something I follow religiously —

It’s better to look stupid for 5 minutes than staying ignorant for life

Step 9: Live Dangerously

No don’t get that bungee cord out just yet!

I am talking about challenging yourself and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. Try everything, just for the fun of it!

In the past year, I’ve tried and done stuff I wasn’t even sure I would ever do in my entire life. With some of those experience I’ve been able to pick up skills or techniques, that I have now applied to stuff I do on a day to day basis.

Remember, you do not have to be great at everything you take a shot at. Failure is good, it points out gaping holes in your skills for you to fill up. Embrace it instead of fearing it. Eventually you’ll get to a point where things start falling in place in one shot. It would honestly start feeling weird that you did it without failing.

Step 10: Don’t Settle For “Good Enough”

This may sound very cheesy, and for good reason it kinda is. Some of the most successful companies have been built, because the people who started it didn’t settle for the bare minimum or the “good enough”.

Develop a habit of caring about the little things in any job you take up. Let it take a little more than the usual time but give it your best.

Little things matter, and they set apart the great products from the “just fine” ones.

Don’t be afraid of being a junior on the team and taking a call for investing a little more time in the details. It shows you’re passionate about the project. And if you are convincing enough, almost all the time people will agree with you.

Step 11: Live (for real)

Lastly, make sure you live. Not for anyone else but yourself. I’ve learnt this in a painfully hard way. Always remember this,

You are, and will always be, the only person who’s lived with you the longest.

It is absolutely important that you realize that you matter the most to you. It’s nobody else’s job to care about your dreams, your aspirations. So might as well stop trying to impress or please others. You’ve just got a few decades in your hand.

It’s our quirks that makes us unique. If you see that you have to change yourself to be around people, avoid them! There are 7 billion people on this planet. It’s not as difficult as you may think it is to find someone who enjoys your quirks. Always be looking out for them and when you find them never let go!

The steps I’ve mentioned above are more or less the kind of things that most of us set out to achieve. This is the general layout of how I structured my year. And if it worked for a person like me, I’m counting on it working for most of you.

A very happy 2018 to everyone once again. ??

“May The Force Be With You ??”

(I know the quote is from Star Wars and Spock is in Star Trek… Thanks for letting me mess with your head ?)__

Fin!

Comparing your work or abilities to someone else’s can be an unproductive and self-destructive activity. Yet we compare ourselves all the time.

In my own experience, it feels like every day I’m comparing my work against those I admire. Even now, a decade into my career, I can always find someone doing something I wish I could do even half as well.

These types of comparisons can often leave you feeling unmotivated or discouraged, afraid of a seemingly waning future, completely deprived of a way forward. When I compare myself I end up feeling like I’d rather watch TV or play video games than do anything else, because why bother? I could never do what those I admire have been able to.

Fortunately there’s a better way to compare yourself against others. One that is much more productive and healthy.

It comes down to five things: the face of something is not the whole thing, you have to be honest with yourself and your motivations, the way forward is by becoming insatiably curious about the work, always do your own thing, and growth takes effort.

Remember the face of something is never the whole thing

The most challenging part of any endeavor often takes place behind the scenes, invisible to anyone who didn’t put in the work.

When you come across something you naturally want to compare yourself to—something that causes you to question your own work or abilities—it’s good to remind yourself that a lot of work goes on behind the scenes.

There’s a fairly famous parable on this notion:

The celebrated Spanish painter Pablo Picasso was sketching in a park one evening when a woman passing by instantly recognized him. She begged Picasso to paint her portrait and he agreed. After just a few minutes, he hands the woman a sketch that beautifully captures her image. The woman is glowing with joy from the artwork.

When asked how much she owes him for the work, Picasso replies by saying the painting will cost something like $5,000 (give or take). The woman is outraged. She’s fuming. She asks Picasso how a drawing which only took five minutes to create cost so much?

Picasso replied:

“It took me my whole life to be able to create that work in five minutes.”

Be honest with your motivations

When you don’t know what your motivations are or what you’re trying to accomplish at any point in your career, you’re easier discouraged or hindered by comparisons than not.

Another way to think of it is: if you’re not running towards something in particular, it’s easier to just not run at all, or to burn out running in the wrong direction. You have to give yourself clear motivations in order to keep moving toward progress. To do that, you have to first know where you are and where you want to be.

When I compare myself against someone I really admire, I use the gap between where I am and where they are as a method of directing my next action; not fearing that I might not be able to do the same caliber of work. What skills might have helped get them there that I am lacking? Is there a specific type of work I should be pursuing? Are there details in the work I can focus on learning to do well myself?

Here’s wisdom from the Dalai Lama on motivation vs. anxiety:

“Having proper motivation and honesty are the keys to overcoming fear or anxiety. Fearless and honest self-appraisal can be a powerful weapon against self-doubt or low self-confidence.”

Identifying a gap—in experience, knowledge, or ability—is important, but only as much as it is a gap between where you are and where you want to be. Everything else is just noise.

If you’re not certain of where you want to be, it’s easier to get discouraged by anything you come across. But when your motivations are clear, the things that discourage you are really just signposts on where you need to go next.

Be insatiably curious about the work

Once you’ve identified a clear gap between where you are (or what you’re capable of) and where you want to be, you have to get really—insatiably, ridiculously—curious about what’s actually inside that gap.

When you compare yourself to others, you likely fail to look deeper than the surface of the things you’re comparing against. But, as you might recall, the surface of the thing is rarely ever the whole thing. You have to dig into the gap to really identify what’s between you or your work and them and theirs.

To figure out what’s in the gap is as easy as spending a bit of time deeply looking at it, asking questions, talking about it with others, then experimenting and tinkering.

In the book Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future author Ashlee Vance explains how Elon Musk uses his overwhelming curiosity to suck knowledge and insights from experts in fields he has little to no knowledge or experience in.

“‘I thought at first that he was challenging me to see if I knew my stuff,’ said Kevin Brogan, one of the early engineers at Space X tells Ashlee. ‘Then I realized he was trying to learn things. He would quiz you until he learned ninety percent of what you know.’”

By actively pursuing his desire to better understand things he might have little-to-no information into, Elon has been able to go from launching an online payments platform to becoming a leading voice on electric vehicles, space exploration, and rocket science.

You can use curiosity and the power of questions to help fill the gap. Be pro-active, reach out to those you admire or are inspired by, ask them how they did what they did or any lessons they learned along the way. Dive into the work and focus on the details of it. Really get to know the work and why it feels different than your own. But remember…

Always do your own thing

Your goal should never be to become someone else. Your goal should always to become you, the unique version of yourself that produces work only you can. There will always be subtleties in your work that reflect your experience, passion, and perspective; embrace those nuances.

Of course the gap between you and your work and those who inspire you is fill-able, but only in ways you can fill it. At the end of that gap isn’t another version of the person or work you are inspired by, it’s a version of your own work/perspectives/abilities at the same level.

Here’s author/artist Austin Kleon’s advice on how to go about doing your own thing:

“Next time you come across someone’s work and you’re not sure exactly how they do it…Look closer. Listen harder. Then use your imagination and experiment with the tools you have. Your bad approximation will lead to something of your own.”

Remember that growing takes effort

I feel like writer Jocelyn K. Glei put this point best: “If everything was easy, nothing would have significance.”

There’s no way around it: the best way to grow and fill the gap is to put in the work. Whenever you find yourself afraid that you just don’t have what it takes to do good work, remember that all it takes is work.

Beating yourself up or feeling unmotivated isn’t going to help you get better. Putting in the work is the way to get better, nothing improves if you don’t do something about it. So when you identify a gap and start digging into it, remember that what comes next is the part many people want to imagine doesn’t exist: the diligent practice, the exploration, the tinkering, the sweat (and sometimes tears).

As Virgin Records/Airlines/Galactic founder Richard Branson puts it:

“Hard-won things are more valuable than those that come too easily.”

None of this is easy, but that’s exactly what makes it so valuable.

When you remember any of the above, comparing yourself to those you admire most becomes an exercise in growth and opportunity, not anxiety or failure.