I began working at Teachable in July 2016. And boy, have things changed a lot since. Company-wide, we moved offices twice and tripled our staff. On a personal level, my role evolved; when I started I wore a lot of different hats, but as we’ve grown I’ve been able to specialize more in product-related work. (Last July there wasn’t even a product team!) That’s one of the things that makes Teachable so special — we encourage employees to learn and develop professionally.

Despite these changes, one thing I’ve always been interested in is the processes that go into hiring. In my past as an entrepreneur, I had focused solely on the candidate side — helping job-seekers find the resources they needed to land a job in tech.

Now, sitting on the other side of the table, I turned my focus in the other direction: figuring out how a growing startup could find and recruit the best talent. Attracting A-players is something companies of all sizes struggle with, and as Teachable’s growth exploded, the question became more interesting and relevant to me than ever.

At Teachable, a major goal for us in 2017 has been talent acquisition and company expansion. The most pressing need was for us to grow our workforce, especially the technical teams — developers, the data team, and related — so we’d have the capacity to maintain and develop our application. We’ve done a ton this year to improve upon this, and there’s much more to come.

In pursuit of our talent acquisition goals, and keeping in mind this question of finding and hiring A-player employees, one thing I started doing along with others at the company was establishing an employer brand.

What is an employer brand and why does it matter?

An employer brand can also be referred to as a “hiring brand” or “talent brand.” These terms are all relatively new, meaning that definitions may vary depending on who you ask.

But in a nutshell they mean a company’s reputation as a great place to work.

This encompasses things like its value proposition to its employees, company culture, work perks, and so on.

The very existence of employer branding challenges the notion that employees are the ones who have to impress the company and that’s it. Rather, this concept poses the relationship as a two-way street, where the employer must intentionally work to provide value in return. By doing so, companies are able to create a positive work culture that organically attracts top talent.

Larger companies have dedicated employees, or even entire teams, who focus on establishing, maintaining, and building an employer brand — externally as well as internally (because people who love their jobs are the best for word-of-mouth branding!).

But for a fast-moving startup like Teachable, where everyone has limited time and several projects to juggle at a given time, we had to start small.

As I did research, it became increasingly clear that the foundation of a solid employer brand was getting in tune with the people who already worked at the company.

Here are a few resources we used to help guide us:

• How to Create Your Talent Brand ebook (Greenhouse)
• Employer Branding 101 ebook (The Muse)

The first step was to assess our current situation to figure out where Teachable stood as an employer.

How to gauge your employer brand

Before we could promote our hiring brand to outsiders, we had to figure out exactly why people liked to work here. We had to look internally first, and identify the qualities that make Teachable a special place to work. This would provide a foundation so we could later set ourselves apart from the competition and humanize our organization.

There are lots of ways you can collect feedback from existing employees. Examples include:

• One-on-one interviews with top performers
• Company-wide surveys
• Focus groups

During this process (whichever method(s) you chose), you would ask employees questions like:

• Why did you join the company?
• What values are important to you at a job?
• What do you love most about working here?

For us, the decided best thing to do was send out a company-wide survey. Our primary objective was to identify common stories, themes, values, etc. in the words of our people, and make note of the distinct value we offered. We would then use those themes to shape our employer brand — which I’ll dive into later. First, I’ll tell you about the survey itself.

How we conducted an employer brand survey

Objective: Collect current employee feedback about why they like working at Teachable. Use these insights to shape our About, Careers, and Team page(s) on the marketing site, as well as talent-focused social media challenges, and use as testimonials.

Process: Send questions as a survey. Make all questions optional (we didn’t want a person to be forced to answer something if they didn’t feel strongly). Ask permission to use feedback on marketing/social properties.

Questions we asked:

• Why did you join Teachable?
• What’s different about our company than others you’ve worked for?
• What values are important to you at a job? How do you experience those values at work? (Specific examples are great!)
• What are your biggest motivators at work?
• What qualities do people need to be successful here?
• What work/projects are you most proud of since working here?
• What are your favorite parts about your job, the team, and the workspace?

We also made sure to get permission to use on other channels, and if yes, how they would like to be attributed.

How we got people to answer: Let’s face it — people aren’t exactly itching to take time away from their main tasks to complete a survey, especially one that doesn’t really relate to their day-to-day. To help motivate responses, we offered a reward (an ice cream social!) if we reached a certain level of participation. I also sent the survey out via email a few times and reminded people to answer in Slack.

I tried to make the emails engaging :)

And the final email I sent out was only to people who had yet to take the survey… okay, I made it just a tad click-baity.

Results: We ended up getting 75% participation rate and had our ice cream social!

How we used (and will use) findings

There are truly limitless ways a company can use employee feedback after conducting a survey like this.

On a big picture level, we identified key themes as to why people want to work here. A few constants that kept cropping up in responses included:

• Working at a fast-growing, diverse, and mission-oriented startup
• Operating in a culture of transparency
• Owning important projects and responsibilities
• Developing new skills through new projects and work-related undertakings
• Enjoying a company culture that supports work-life balance

We now know these are things that draw people to stay here. And we can leverage this information across the board.

Here are a few specific things we did with the results:

• Hiring video — we looked out for interesting stories and themes we could use in our “Why work at Teachable” video. The video is going through the final editing phases and will be out soon!
• Social media — we made employee quote cards to use on Twitter, and also used quotes in places like on our Glassdoor and Built In profiles as testimonials (with permission, of course).
• Marketing site (like the careers page) — again, making sure to play up the themes that we know people value.
• Job descriptions — writing our job ads to be aligned with these core findings.

On a related note, conducting this survey also helped us think about other aspects of hiring process — like the candidate interview experience and new hire onboarding experience. Some teams have started surveying candidates after in-person interviews to collect their feedback too!

What’s next

Ultimately, our goal with this is to make Teachable as amazing of a place to work as humanly possible. The word “brand” can be very appearance-focused, but we want the full package: not only to look like an amazing place to work, but to truly be one for everyone walking through the doors every workday.

By welcoming feedback and keeping the lines of communication open across the company, we hope to continue improving our workplace experience, attracting great talent, and propelling Teachable into the future :)

Want to check out our awesome employer brand in person? Apply to one of our current job openings. We’re excited to meet you!

How Listening to Our Employees is Helping Teachable Build An Employer Brand was originally published in Teachable on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I (very) recently launched the Learn to Code With Me podcast. It was my first time podcasting.

The show ended up getting into the New and Noteworthy section on iTunes, thousands of downloads, and overall great feedback from my existing blog audience.

I wrote this post to share how I prepped, launched the show, and what I learned. For the most part, this post is launch specific. But feel free to hit me up if you have any logistical/technical questions about podcasting. I’m still a podcasting noob, but I’d be more than happy to share insights with you!

Quick backstory

I have the blog learntocodewith.me (LTCWM) where I’ve been writing for 2 years. I am super comfortable with writing. In fact, I now write for other sites — and get paid for it!

But writing has its limitations. People can’t hear your voice. People can’t take you on the go. Through writing, a person can’t get to know you the way they can through a podcast.

Plus, after two years of writing, I wanted to try something new. Take on a challenge. You know? Besides, I was getting a little too comfortable. (Nothing like self-induced stress to make you feel alive!)

So, in early 2016, I decided to launch a podcast in late April. The Learn to Code With Me podcast.

Instead of committing to a weekly or even bi-monthly show, I decided to go with a seasons approach. That way I could do a season, and see how it went. Then, based on (1) how much I enjoyed it and (2) feedback from audience, I could decide to do a second season or not.

Reasons for starting a podcast

1. I wanted to give my existing audience the chance to get to know me better (audio is much more personal)
2. I wanted to give my existing audience (and new folks) the chance to consume my content on the go (at the gym, in the car, walking the dog, etc. Audio is the only medium where multitasking is possible.)
3. I wanted to reach new people. People who maybe would never find LTCWM in any other way.
4. I wanted to get on a new medium—audio (all I do is write, write, write)
5. I wanted to improve my speaking skills (because I am crappy at conveying my thoughts through spoken word)
6. I wanted to push my content creation abilities. I love creating educational content that encourages people to learn to code. It has been fun to experiment with doing so via audio.
7. I wanted to connect with peers in my field (requesting an interview is a great way to connect!)

My main podcast launch goal

Make it into the New and Noteworthy section on iTunes. (But ideally high enough so the show would be on the front page of the technology category.) Spoiler alert: my goal was achieved after about 10 days of being in iTunes!

… Why did I care so much about iTunes?

In 2014, there were 800 million iTunes accounts. Who knows how many there are today, in 2016.

The iTunes store is like a search engine in itself. Except, unlike Google, there is far less competition.

As I discovered throughout my journey, podcasting and the numbers behind it are a big mystery. But in 2015, there were 60,000 active podcasts in the iTunes store. Other data points to 250,000 unique podcasts in the store (2013).

Whatever the exact number may be, it is far less than the number of websites online — which is now over a billion. The number of blogs online has been pegged around 152 million — back in 2013.

Meanwhile, the number of Americans who are listening to podcasts is on the rise. So are the number of downloads.

The point is:

• There are a ton of iTunes users.
• There is far less competition between podcasts than blogs — at least for my niche
• More and more people are listening to podcasts every day.
• iTunes is the largest directory out there
• In my opinion, having a podcast and NOT being on iTunes would be crazy.

And for the record, since launching my show on April 25, I have had new email subscribers tell me they found my podcast in iTunes by searching the term “learn to code”. Boom.

How I launched the LTCWM podcast

I invested in myself. Never underestimate the power of investing in yourself. Before anything I signed up for John Lee Dumas’s Podcasters’ Paradise (PP) course. It was a big investment, but I was serious. And I knew dishing out the cash would urge me to stay committed. Because of PP, I was able to understand how podcasting worked, the process of creating a show, and best practices. PP also placed you in an accountability group, which I took advantage of. (At the time of writing, I still meet with my accountability group once a week.)

Set a hard deadline. As soon as I could I set a hard deadline. As I say, “If it’s not in your calendar, it doesn’t count.” My initial deadline was April 26th. But because got into the iTunes story early, I ended up officially launching on April 25.

Scheduled interviews early. I blocked out the first two weeks of March to do almost all of my interview recordings. But I began scheduling them back in early February. I knew people would be busy, or have to reschedule, or even cancel. I wanted

Got help. Early on I knew there was no way I could put together an entire show on my own by April 26th, and maintain other responsibilities as well as sanity. And I had absolutely no interest in audio editing. So, I got help. I already had a VA at the time who helped me with organization/project planning. But I also found someone to help with audio editing. Which I knew was critical for podcasting — all you have is the audio quality. Later on, I ended up having someone else help with the episode transcripts and show notes.

Content bank. This is something John Lee talks about in PP course. Before launching your show, you should have about a month worth of content ready to go. Before I launched, I had all 15 episodes for season 1 recorded.

Organized as f$&@. Throughout the whole process, I’ve kept things pretty…pretty…pretty…organized. Okay, you caught me. This doesn’t directly relate to the launch. But it indirectly relates because it helped me stay sane, and not forget anything.

We also made use of Asana as far as project management and assigning tasks goes. (The reason the first few episodes aren’t shown below is because they’ve been already marked “done” since they have gone live.)

Build up. In the past, whenever launching something new, I would keep it quiet till right before. Not this time. For the podcast, I began talking about it early on.

I would casually mention it in emails to my entire list, on social media, in blog posts, etc. A week before launching, I sent out an email broadcast about the show. And teased the contest. (See next point.)

Podcast launch contest. To encourage ratings and reviews from my audience, I coordinated a podcast launch contest. There are three prizes total, the first amounting to over $600. Two second places prizes that are worth over $200.

The contest is still going on right now. As of now, there hasn’t been as many entries as I thought there would be. But it’s not exactly easy to enter. (There is a step-by-step process to go through, after all.)

Sure, I could have made it easier to enter the contest. And maybe boosted subscriptions or ratings. But I’m happy with how I did it. Because the people who end up winning the prizes deserve it. They went out of their way to enter. (Again: you have until May 10th at midnight to enter the contest! Details here.)

I was completely blown away by the prizes I was able to wrangle. To everyone who “donated” a prize: I ❤ you.

Launched with three episodes. When I submitted the show to iTunes on Thursday April 21st, I already had three episodes published to my RSS feed. Many podcasting pros recommend launching with more than one episode. The idea is to give people the opportunity to listen to more than one show if they like it. Which will allow them to get a better feel for the show AND increase your listen/download count. Which are factors that comes into play when making it into the New and Noteworthy section.

If I could redo the launch, I maybe would do things differently. Like release one episode a day for the first week. (Instead of three right on the first day.)

Email blasts + blog post announcement + shared on social media. I promoted the show a lot for the first ten days it was out. I sent out emails, wrote a special announcement post, and posted multiple times on social media. (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat — you name it.) I even added a Hello Bar page take over to my homepage announcing the show. (Something I hardly do — add popups or related.) Basically, I promoted the show like a madwoman.

Sent out personal emails to friends/colleagues/etc. Aside from sending out email broadcasts to my subscribers, I also sent out personal messages to people I knew.

With the personal messages, I didn’t send them all out at once. I trickled them out. And I plan to keep doing so over the next few weeks. Apparently iTunes likes it when subscriptions, ratings, and reviews come in over time — not once and done.

And some of the recipients, like my friend Brad Hussey, were kind enough to email their own email list about the show.

Setbacks/challenges

There were some setbacks, or challenges, I experienced before and during my launch.

• For starters, I hate hearing my voice played back. Which is normal. But still can make it difficult at times.
• A guest I was really looking forward to interviewing had to cancel. I ended up getting two replacement guests. I am happy with how it turned out, though. Instead of 14 episodes, I have a total of 15.
• I was accepted into the iTunes Store early. Like really, early. (After about 5 hours. The average is 12–72 hours.) Which was better than late. But…it still caused me to readjust my launch plan at the last minute.
• When it rains it pours. The very hour my show was accepted into the iTunes store, I experienced technical difficulties on my website. (Which was at 10PM, by the way. It was a late night to say the least.) Then, the following day there was a slew of unexpected events. Not necessarily bad things, just a lot to happen at once.

Overall, nothing terrible happened that was unexpected. However, it’s still very early on in my podcasting career.

What I learned

I still have a lot to learn and master when it comes to podcasting. But so far I learned that:

1. iTunes is really mysterious.
2. In general, podcasting analytics are kinda weak. Nothing like the data you can pull from looking at Google Analytics.
3. I like podcasting much more than I thought I would. It was scary at first. But all good things are.

Results/numbers

My main launch goal was to get into the New and Noteworthy section — which I accomplished. As far as the numbers go, it’s still very early on. (The show has been out for about two weeks at the time of writing.) But to give you an idea…

(A) Most people are listening on iTunes.

(B) Most of the listeners live in the U.S.

(C) So far, I’ve had almost 4,000 downloads. (FYI: Downloads does not equal listens.)

What’s next?

1. It’s still the first 8-weeks. New shows can stay in the New and Noteworthy section up to eight weeks. Meaning I’ll still be promoting the show — just at a lower frequency.
2. Season 2 is a already in the works. Translation: I am assembling a potential guest line-up. Want to be interviewed? Know someone who should be interviewed? Get at me: laurence@learntocodewith.me
3. Sponsorships. Good podcasting takes time. And money! (Professional audio editing isn’t cheap!) That said, I want to look into getting show sponsors. Want to sponsor the show? Know someone who should? Email me: laurence@learntocodewith.me
4. I’m taking a break. I always set aside time to take a break, and never do. But I’m really hoping to enjoy some down time in June and July. Maybe even go on vacation. I have a few projects to wrap up in May, but I’m leaving those two months open for now to just…do whatever I want to. I miss the days when I would experiment with new technologies, or write, with no real end goal, you know?

Finally: here’s where you can listen to the Learn to Code With Me podcast

Listen to the podcast on the following platforms:

1. The LTCWM website
2. iTunes
3. SoundCloud
4. Stitcher
5. PodBean

If you like the show, and have a few extra minutes, I’d be so happy if you could leave the show a rating and review!

A podcast launch story (case study) was originally published in We’ve moved to freeCodeCamp.org/news on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Technology jobs are primarily the domain of men.

Although there has been a push to promote women in tech over the last few years, there still seems to be a divide, with men outnumbering women at all of the major tech companies — usually hovering at or below a 70/30 split.

Does this mean women simply aren’t interested in learning tech skills, like programming?

As the creator of a website that helps people teach themselves coding skills—and a woman—I decided to dig a little deeper into my readership.

In a recent survey I conducted on Learn to Code With Me, I was happy to see a relatively even balance between the genders. Specifically, 264 people who identify as men took the survey, compared with 240 people who identify as female.

Of course, there are biases in the data. The survey was not scientific. As all answers were self-submitted, they are, from a technical standpoint, unverifiable.

Below are 9 things I discovered from the survey.

Insight #1: Men learning to code are younger

Slightly more men fell into the under 18 and 18–24 age groups.

More women were between 25–34 years old, though the 25–34 group is the largest one for both genders.

Men essentially outnumbered women in every age group, except 25–34 years old. About half of the women who took the survey were between 25–34 years old. Coincidentally, or maybe not, that’s the age group I am in.

Insight #2: Women spend less time learning every week compared to men.

Overall, women surveyed spent less time learning to code every week than their male counterparts.

In fact, almost half of the women who took the survey said they spent five hours or less learning every week.

115 women said they spent 0–5 hours learning every week, whereas only 90 men said they spent 0–5 hours learning.

When looking at the people who said they spend over 20 hours every week learning:

• 30 were men
• 16 were women

Insight #3: The women learning 20+ hours a week are more educated (and older).

Who were these small minority of women (16) that were spending over 20 hours a week learning?

These 16 women:

• were mostly between ages of 25–34 (10), followed by 35–44 (4)
• were highly educated: 8 had a post-graduate degree, 5 were college graduates
• 15 of these women cited “Better career” as a reason why they were learning
• 7 said they were currently “out of work and looking for work”

The 30 men, on the other hand, who were learning for 20 hours or more every week:

• were mostly between the ages 18–24 (10) and 25–34 (10)
• were not as educated* as the women: college graduate (12), followed by some college (5), and then high school graduate (4)
• 18 of these men cited “better career” as the reason why they were learning. 18 of them also said to “create a business/startup”
• 9 said they were “out of work and looking for work”, 8 said they were “employed (full-time)”

*Less educated could also be due to the fact that many of these men are younger.

Insight #4: When it comes to struggles, there’s not much of a difference.

“Finding time” and “maintaining motivation” were the top answers for both genders, though they were chosen by a slight majority of women.

Men were more likely to cite “maintaining interest” as a struggle (12.5% to their female counterparts’ 7.5%).

Insight #5: A lot of women are from the US

Under half (44.3%) of male respondents hailed from the United States, but nearly two-thirds (62.5%) of women did so.

This is likely not representative of the worldwide statistics for women in tech careers, however. Case in point: this article by Forbes reports that other countries are outpacing the U.S. in tech careers/education.

Insight #6: Men and women equally want to pursue web development. Women want to do web design at higher rates, men want to be software engineers.

Almost half of both genders chose web development as their ideal career. The other choices were more markedly split, with women favoring UX/UI and design, and men gravitating toward software engineering and mobile development.

Insight #7: Women have been teaching themselves for a shorter period of time compared to men.

A total of 56.7% of the women surveyed by LTCWM had been learning for six months or less, compared to 43.6% of surveyed men. Moreover, 18.9% of the men had been learning for over two years, contrasted with 10% of the women.

That said, Quincy Larson told me that on Free Code Camp, women tend to stay for longer sessions than the men.

This could mean that even though women have been learning for less time in the macro sense, they are learning more in the day-to-day.

Or that women are more engaged overall.

I have also found that women tend to stay on my site longer than men.

Insight #8: Men want to start businesses, women want to freelance.

A majority of both genders chose “full-time employment” as their ideal scenario. For women, that was followed up by freelancing (38.8%), then founding a small business/startup (14.2%).

Men were more evenly split between those two options, with 29.5% choosing small business ownership and 28.8% choosing freelancing.

Nonetheless, when looking at the graph above, you can’t help but notice the huge difference between men and women that want to create businesses or startups.

Insight #9: Men use Windows more, women use Mac more.

Over 60% of men surveyed used Windows as their preferred OS; only 27.3% chose Mac. Women, meanwhile, were almost equal: 47.5% used Windows and 48.8% chose Mac. The increased popularity of Mac with the female respondents could be correlated with the women’s greater interest in design-related careers. (It’s pretty commonly accepted that Macs are better for doing design work.)

Conclusion

Considering the hundreds of thousands of people learning to code, ~500 is a relatively small sampling — so make of this what you will.

It’s also worth noting that Alexa (a web analytics company) features the demographics of major learn to code sites, including Udacity, Code School, Codecademy, and Treehouse, and shows that women were underrepresented there.

My larger-than-average female audience may be attributable to the fact that I am female myself, and thus have increased exposure among female coders — and thus have a higher “relatability” factor. Or it may be something else entirely. Either way, I’m pleased to see that the information I publish appeals more equally across genders.

Whether or not these data are evidence of a larger trend, there’s one thing they illustrate for sure: men and women are teaching themselves how to code.

Note: all data in this article has been derived from a recent Learn to Code With Me survey. Download the full report here, which includes all of the raw data. #GeekOut

9 Differences Between Men and Women Learning to Code was originally published in We’ve moved to freeCodeCamp.org/news on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

What does your idea of a perfect life look like?

There’s a good chance it involves escaping your morning commute, ditching your mundane 9–5 job, having more time to do the things you love like travel, or spending time with your family, and so on.

It sounds too good to be true, right?

But living that kind of lifestyle is more possible than you think.

I know this because I speak from experience. A few years ago, I was stuck at that boring desk job.

I thought I had “made it”. And when I got “there”…it just wasn’t right. I had to be somewhere for X hours a day. Letting someone else call the shots. It wasn’t what I thought it would be like.

But instead of sitting there, day after day, I took action. I began teaching myself how to code. And as a result, my life has changed dramatically.

Listen: I’m no savant. In fact, I was put in a remedial computer course my freshman year of college because that’s how badly I did on the computer literacy test at orientation.

Nonetheless, over the past few years I’ve been able to level up my skills, and enjoy all the benefits that came with it. Below are nine reasons why gaining in-demand coding skills can change your life, too.

Reason #1: There are a ton of tech jobs out there

Today’s job market is tough: there are too many qualified applicants competing for too few positions…in most industries, that is. The tech sector hasn’t been suffering, though.

Instead, it’s been exploding.

IT jobs were forecasted to grow 22% between 2012 and 2020, and they tend to be great jobs across the board, too.

Not sure where to look? There are dozens of online job boards for programmers and developers: Sologig, Envato Studio, StackOverflow Careers, Smashing Jobs, Dice.com, Get A Coder, and the list goes on.

Reason #2: It pays to have coding skills

And I don’t mean “pays” in a, “I’m eating Ramen for three meals a day, but I am sooo fulfilled and happy selling my stencils on Etsy” way.

It literally pays.

In Dice’s 2014–2015 Tech Salary Survey, tech salaries (and bonuses) keep on rising. In 2014, technology professionals earned on average $89,450 annually.

On the other hand, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014 the annual mean wage for US workers—across all fields—was $47,230.

Tech people make almost double that.

Of course, this is an average. You won’t necessarily walk out of the gate getting a $90k salary.

Nonetheless, there’s no denying that having tech skills pays.

Reason #3: Freelancing full-time/working remotely gets a lot easier

For a lot of people, working from anywhere is a dream.

When you possess valuable tech skills (like programming), that dream is much, much closer to becoming a reality. A lot of companies these days couldn’t care less if they see your face at the office, as long as the work you’re assigned is done.

This could mean working from home, working from your hotel room in Hawaii, or working in wifi hotspots as you backpack Southeast Asia.

It means you don’t have to sacrifice living in your dream location because there aren’t any jobs there. Simply put, having in-demand digital skills can give you freedom.

Reason #4: You can make your own schedule

If you’re not tied down to a brick-and-mortar workplace, you’ll probably be setting your own hours. Do you work best at midnight? No problem. Want to take a three-day weekend to visit friends? Sure thing.

A lot of modern companies understand that set work hours aren’t necessary. Instead, your time is your own to manage. Because when your job involves coding, all you need is your computer and an Internet connection.

Reason #5: You’ll never have to take work you don’t want

In a normal job, you don’t really have choices. Your boss hands you a project, and basically your only option is to grit your teeth and get it done.

But if you’re working for yourself (as a freelancer or consultant), you get to say “No.”

Even if you don’t work for yourself, a software engineering or web development career gives you leverage. There’s a lot of demand for these skills. So if you’re unhappy with your job, you can feel more confident about leaving in search of greener pastures.

Reason #6: You’re able to build things and see results

Are you one of those people who’s constantly brimming with amazing ideas for websites or businesses, but can’t justify spending the money on hiring people to help you make them a reality?

Well, when you can can build out your ideas on your own, that ceases to be a problem.

Aside from turning your ideas into something real, making a website or app with nothing but your brain, fingers, and laptop is pretty satisfying.

Reason #7: Making money from side projects is a real thing

Remember Flappy Bird, that simple little flash-game app? Well, at its peak, the app was generating revenues of about $50,000 a day.

Now, obviously that was a fluke occurrence. But it does go to show how much is possible from your side gig.

Ultimately, learning how to develop websites, apps or games can help you hone your skills and maybe even bring in a little side income while at it. And if you choose projects you’re passionate about, you will even have fun during the process.

Reason #8: You’re able to connect with a whole new community

The tech community is massive, and very active.

Meetups, hackathons, and conferences are great places to collaborate with others on projects, network with experts, and make friends, all while sharpening your professional skills.

And location is no excuse.

Even if you live in the middle of nowhere, you can still participate in online groups, forums, and even virtual conferences.

• If you’re a redditor, add r/programming to your subscription list.
• If you like conferences and videos, participate in Hack Summit.
• If you like Slack, join one of the many relevant Slack communities.
• If you’re an avid Facebook user, check out my very own Facebook group Newbie Coder Warehouse
• If you have specific questions while learning, there are thousands of people out there to answer them on sites like Stack Overflow.

The tech community is extremely supportive; learning/working in tech is not something you have to do on your own.

Reason #9: You’ll feel empowered, fulfilled, and capable

Last and certainly not least: knowing how to code is empowering.

It’s an amazing feeling to take on something difficult and master it…and with coding in particular, that means taking something that’s basically gibberish to you and turning it into something you’re able to understand and use.

I was a history major in college with very little computer experience. When I started taking coding courses a few years ago, nobody believed I would stick it out, and I only half-believed it myself. All of this makes it that much better. (“Hi, guys! Still here!”)

****

Having tech skills (coding/programming, namely) really doesn’t have downsides.

It’s challenging enough to keep your brain active. It gives you freedom — financially and in your day-to-day. And it opens up a whole new world of people to meet, events to attend, and things to learn.

And with so many free places where you can learn to code, there is no excuse to not give it a try.

Trade an hour of TV every day for your first coding course. It’s a decision you won’t regret.

Laurence Bradford is the creator of learntocodewith.me, a website dedicated to those teaching themselves how to code. She helps people make the leap from simply having digital skills, to getting paid to use them and ultimately live life on their terms.

• What should I say?
• What should I include?
• What should I leave out?

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

If you’re stuck, take a look at these 15 samples of web developer portfolios for inspiration. (And if you want even more guidance on building your portfolio, look here.)

******

1. Matt Farley

mattfarley.ca

What he does: UX/UI and front-end development

2. Dejan Markovic

dejan-markovic.com

What he does: UX and UI Design

3. Rafael Caferati

caferati.me

What he does: front-end, back-end and UX

4. Emily Ridge

www.emilyridge.ie

What she does: WordPress developer and designer

5. Ian Lunn

ianlunn.co.uk

What he does: web-design and front-end development

6. Pierre Nel

pierre.io

What he does: design, front-end, back-end, and more

7. Timmy O’Mahony

timmyomahony.com

What he does: Django developer

8. Denise Chandler

www.denisechandler.com

What she does: web design, development, and more

9. Ben Adam

benadam.me

What he does: UX/UI design and front-end development

10. Daniel Fischer

www.danielfischer.com

What he does: front-end, back-end (Ruby on Rails), and more

11. Seb Kay

sebkay.com

What he does: web design and WordPress development

12. Jonny MacEachern

www.jonny.me

What he does: front-end development

13. Kathryn McClintock

www.kathrynmcclintock.com

What she does: Drupal developer

14. Devin Walker

imdev.in

What he does: front-end and WordPress development

15. Jack Jeznach

jacekjeznach.com

What he does: front-end and WordPress development

******

Want *even more* on how to create a top-notch portfolio? Click here to get my free 7-step cheat sheet for crafting a stellar portfolio.

15 Web Developer Portfolios to Inspire You was originally published in We’ve moved to freeCodeCamp.org/news on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

After you tweak your website design/layout, how do you know if your new choices are effective? And if your audience is behaving like you would like them to?

Two words: heat maps.

In short, heat maps measure the exact clicks of your website visitors.

And the user behavior data that heat maps provide is extremely revealing.

Yeah, Google Analytics and related tools rock. But Google Analytics can’t show you precisely where people are clicking. (And where they are not clicking.)

And, unlike AB testing where you need a lot of conversions to get conclusive data, heat maps allow you to draw conclusions with a few hundred to thousand clicks. Boom.

Several Heat Map Options

1. Free options, like SumoMe.

On my website I use SumoMe.

I may be wrong, but I *think* it’s the only free heat map tool out there. Or at least the most reputable.

The downside to the SumoMe heat map is that it only tracks up to 1,000 clicks per campaign. (You can upgrade your membership, though, to get more.)

However, you can have unlimited campaigns — meaning you can run tests on multiple pages at once.

2. Paid heat map tools

Here are a few paid options:

• Crazy Egg: plans start at $9/mont (paid annually)
• Inspectlet: plans start at $39/month
• Mouseflow: plans start at $19/month
• Lucky Orange: plans start at $10 a month

If you’re just looking for something basic (especially if you’re just getting started), you should probably go with SumoMe.

9 Things I Discovered About My Site After Testing With Heat Maps

Here are nine things I discovered about my website design/layout choices after testing with the SumoMe heat map tool.

1. The language in my author byline sucks.

I stole this trick from Brian Harris — adding a link in the author byline to sign up for the mailing list.

Despite what the picture shows above, the byline does get clicked on other articles…sometimes.

No, it seriously does. But not often.

However as you can see in the image above, there were 1,000 clicks recorded on that article…and not a *single* one on the “Get free updates of new posts here”.

I can do better.

Next steps → Change the language to something more appealing to increase the click-through rate. Like, “Get awesome stuff here” or, “Let’s become BFFs”. Try to make it stand out more through color/font-size. Or just nix it altogether. If something isn’t getting clicked, there is no use in keeping it. It’s not serving any purpose and is clutter.

2. Newly added search form *is* being used.

I recently added a search box to my site navigation after having a few people ask about it.

TBH: I didn’t think a lot of people would use it.

But I was wrong. While it isn’t clicked a ton on every page I tested, it is being utilized.

Next steps → Keep the search in the navigation. But make it better eventually. (It’s still a little glitchy, and doesn’t appear at all on tablets or mobile.)

3. Some in-post opt-ins suck.

Translation: no one clicks them.

While some in-post forms perform well and get clicked often, others are completely ignored. (Like the one above.)

Next steps → Change language/design to make the un-clicked forms more clickable. Add social proof — like, “2,000+ people already signed up”. If that doesn’t work, get rid of the ones that aren’t performing. Again — no point in keeping something that isn’t being utilized.

4. People engage with the footer on pages, not posts.

People engage with the footer on pages like the tools page, about page, and blog reel.

People *do not* click the footer often, or at all, on long blog posts.

I could change the footer on single posts — and make it more simple. Or just leave it as is — the same as all other pages on the site.

Moreover, I could condense footer links. That is, remove the links that aren’t necessary and aren’t being clicked. (And are already in the main navigation…like the “About”.)

Next steps → For now, I am leaving the footer as it is on all pages. However, I will consider taking out some of the underperforming footer links that aren’t necessary.

5. People don’t click the ‘Read Next…’ article box.

This box can be found towards the bottom of single posts.

Should I nix it? Or put something else there instead? (Ugh…it took me awhile to build that just right, so it looped through the posts correctly :-/)

Next steps → Experiment with putting something else there. Article tags? Other links on site? An opt-in? Or, probably the simplest, just make the “Most Talked About Posts” span across. See if these things get clicked more.

6. On posts, this bottom form doesn’t get clicked.

This form appears towards the bottom of the page on all posts/pages.

It’s basically site-wide.

While it gets clicked on pages (like the About page), it is basically ignored on single posts. (I get it…it is hard to spot on my single posts because so much other “stuff” surrounds it.)

Next steps → Experiment with the way the box looks/what it says on single posts. Change the colors to make it stand out more. Add social proof to it, as discussed by Ramsay Taplin in this Copyblogger post. Or change it to a modal pop-up form — where a user clicks a button, and a box appears to enter email. And if all else fails — I could take it out entirely on single posts.

7. My little bio blurb *does* get clicked.

This author box appears on the bottom of single posts.

After reading Neil Patel’s article about sidebars, I freaked out about not having an obvious photo of me plus short bio around the site. (I don’t have a sidebar on my site where I can put a blurb like this.)

So, I added this last minute, before I had my new site design go live. As you can see, I am very happy I did! It gets clicked on all articles I tested.

Next steps → Nothing! Mission accomplished.

8. Tags on articles don’t get clicked.

Ugh.

This is another thing I added to the bottom of all single posts…that seems to get ignored.

I can understand why the tags don’t get clicked often — they are all the way at the bottom of the post. They don’t exactly stand out.

The question I now have to consider, or test for, is if I put them higher or make them more noticeable — will people click more? Or will they continue to go un-clicked?

The problem with putting them higher on the page is that they are not what I want people to click. Well, I do. But it’s not my top priority. My top priority is getting people on my email list.

Next steps→ Run more campaigns on other articles to see if this trend holds true. If yes, experiment by making them more noticeable (first try designing them to standout more). If clicks continue to be low, keep them unnoticeable at the bottom of the page. Some people click them, and they aren’t taking up a huge amount of page real estate.

9. People *like* tables of contents.

I began adding table of contents to some of my articles that are long — like this one.

As it shows above, a lot of people seem to click it. This is true on other posts, too.

Next steps→ Add more table of contents to articles — previous and future ones. Of course, only on articles where it is relevant like long posts, with various sections.

Conclusion: Heat Maps Give You Valuable Visitor Insights

Heat maps give user behavior information like no other tool.

This data can be helpful for marketers, bloggers, UX peeps, web designers, and more. Heat maps show you which actions people are taking, and perhaps more importantly what site elements are being ignored.

As for me: it’s time to implement these next steps…and see what happens.

Did you like this article? If yes, click the “recommend” button beneath you. Recommending it means more than you realize ❤

Do you like me? If yes, come say hi on learntocodewith.me!

I knew girls run the world...but my recent experiment with Facebook advertising proved it.

And I’m about to tell you how.

But first…

Why Facebook Advertising?

Why not Twitter, or Adwords?

Here are my five main reasons why I chose FB.

Reason #1: The quality of my FB traffic is…second best.

Based off the data above, should I have gone with Twitter? Not so fast.

Reason #2: Many people still sing praises for FB advertising.

This includes people I look up to, like:

• Amy Porterfield
• Gary Vaynerchuk
• Neil Patel

Reason #3: I wanted to put some of Neil Patel’s recent site-growth strategies into use.

This FB experiment was really triggered by Neil Patel, and his challenge of making $100,000 fr0m a new nutrition blog.

I was captivated by how he went about getting “likes” on his Facebook page — one of the first things he did, in fact.

And when he did, he targeted audiences in Asian countries. Which is exactly what I did, too.

Reason #4: In other countries, FB is the queen bee.

About one in five people have an active FB account worldwide. It just makes sense if you want to reach people in other countries (like I did), to advertise on Facebook.

Reason #5: Interest targeting.

I didn’t want “likes” from anyone.

I wanted “likes” from specific people, interested in learning how to code. So I targeted people who “liked” the Codecademy and Udacity Facebook pages.

Why?

• Both online learning platforms
• Both have heavy emphasis on coding (Codecademy is entirely about coding/programming)
• Both platforms are for people teaching themselves

Bingo.

Step #1: Finding ‘Likable’ Images

Before running my ultimate experiment, I did some preliminary testing. (Basically, I ran a cheap ad set with a whole bunch of ads with differing images, and saw which seemed to do the best.)

A few things I found from this initial test (where I spent less than $10):

• This image of a guy grabbing his tie performed horribly

• My cover photo did pretty poor, too (this surprised me…)

• The smiley stock photo girl didn’t do that well, either (Well, better than the two images above…but nothing spectacular)

After some initial experimenting with 10+ images, I narrowed it down to five finalists based off the results.

For the record: I felt ridiculous including animal photos. So ridiculous.

But after listening to a recent Tim Ferriss podcast about hacking online dating and how animal pictures are like crack (people just *have* to click them)…I figured the same could apply to FB advertising.

Step #2: The Ad Copy

I have to admit, I barely considered this. Which, in hindsight, I should have tested, too.

I basically looked at what Neil Patel did…

Took inspiration from it, and replicated it for my own purposes. Which is how I came up with,

“In the 21st century, you need digital skills. Learn how to get them here.”

Step #3: Audience Targeting

It was quite simple, really.

• Based off Neil Patel’s recommendation and another post I found on UpWord, I stuck to Asian countries because it is more affordable
• Targeted Asian countries where English is spoken by many (if you’re wondering how I knew which countries had a large portion of English speakers, look here. You could also do some Googling.)
• Chose to reach both men and women (despite my site being frequented more by men)

• Targeted those who “liked” the Codecademy or Udacity page — because if a person “likes” one of those pages, they are probably a good match for “liking” mine (which is all about learning how to code)

I then set the budget initially for $4/day. After likes began pouring in, I dropped it down to $1/day. I ended up pausing the ad entirely after a few days — I felt a little sketchy, getting so many likes in such a short period of time.

The Results

To my surprise, one of the animal pictures did not do the best.

Rather, *she* did.

She also brought in the most “likes”, with a $0.02 per page like.

In the end, this ad scored a 10/10 relevancy score. (Which basically means how well the ad does with the audience — a 10/10 being the best.)

Not bad.

In second place was this guy:

But he was far behind first place. He only brought in 55 likes, with a price at $0.03 per like.

As for other ads in the set that didn’t perform as well?

I paused them.

I figured why spend $0.10 a “like”, when I could spend $0.02 a “like”?

Breakdown of the “likes” from my Ad experiment:

• Total page likes: 461
• Total amount spent: $10.88
• Average cost per like: $0.02

Things to Consider For Next Time

1. Next time, I’ll stick with the images that I know do well: namely, the winner from this ad set. (The girl looking up into the sky.)
2. Since I do have more men who “like” my page and frequent my site, should I create more ads with men in mind? (…Maybe. As long as I am still being authentic to myself.)
3. Would have testing the ad copy been a wise decision? (Probably. Will try to do this in the future.)

What This Means For *You*

1. Test the images → I honestly thought in my initial test that the winner would not do well. I am glad I cheaply tested out 10+ varying photos to begin with (Because a lot of the ones that I thought would do well, like my cover image, did not)
2. Test the copy, too → Even though I didn’t :-x #regrets
3. Social proof works → Since stopping the ad, I keep getting more “likes” than I normally used to
4. Never underestimate the power of a woman → Duh

Did you like this article? If yes, click the “recommend” button on your lower left-hand side. Recommending it means more than you realize ❤

Teaching yourself how to code, and become a developer, is tough. (The people who say it is easy are lying.)

It’s normal to feel frustrated, overwhelmed, and out of touch.

A common concern I hear from many (different occupations, countries, genders, ages, and so on) is the feeling of being far behind:

• “I can’t catch up.”
• “I’m not ‘ready’ yet for a job…”
• “I’m not learning fast enough.”

I have to admit…I am getting a bit tired of all this negativity.

Instead, I want to focus on positives, or advantages, of being a newcomer to the world of web development.

Everyone Feels Like They Don’t Know ‘Enough’

I want to start by telling you a story about my dad:

My father has always been very intelligent. He knows a lot about everything. He graduated high school at 16 years old, scored close to perfect on the SAT (yes, both math and verbal), went on to study physics in college, and finally got a Master’s degree in Computer Science. (In the ‘80s, and much has changed since.)

He’s worked at various companies and government institutions. He’s always been a “computer guy” — or as some co-workers once called him, “the scientist”.

You get the point. He’s a smart guy.

Anyway:

When I first began teaching myself all these foreign “computer skills”, I remember telling him (more like complaining) how I had sooooooo much to learn:

• “I feel so out of place.”
• “I could never learn ____ AND ____.”
• “Maybe if I had exposure earlier on…”
• “Why did you allow me to go to a liberal arts college?”
• “Why bother when I am so far behind?”

My dad’s response to my fears? He laughed. (He doesn’t smile often, so it’s memorable when he does.)

Then he said, “Every day I feel like I don’t know ‘enough’.”

Huh?

He went on:

• He constantly feels “behind”.
• He gets into conversations and sometimes has no idea what is going on.
• He hears about new languages and technologies he “should” be learning and/or using (but isn’t).
• People look at him, surprised, when he asks clarification questions.

And I’ll never forget this:

He said, “Sometimes I feel ‘dumb’.”

What? The smartest person I have ever met feels dumb sometimes?

My point is that everyone, beginner or advanced, feels inadequate at times. We all have moments of self-doubt. We just don’t all talk about it.

And if you’re just starting out, and ever feel this way, you’re far from alone. But rather than focusing on the downsides to being a newcomer — let’s look at the upsides.

7 Advantages of Being a “Newbie”

Before I get into the advantages, I just want to say that without a doubt a person who has been programming for ten or even five years has certain experience and insights that a beginner can’t possibly have.

You can’t “catch up”, per se.

But you can recognize your advantages, and use them.

1. Junior devs work to prove themselves

Avi Flombaum, Dean of the Flatiron School, says:

“Junior devs on the other hand, are hungry. They want to prove themselves and are eager to learn. And assuming you’re fostering the right culture, are excited to be part of your team.”

While junior developers want to prove themselves, senior devs are highly intelligent…but tough to rally.

One of my favorite explanations on this comes from Jason Calacanis. In his show (during a reading for Pager Duty) he often compares rounding up engineers or developers to “herding cats.”

Enough said.

(…I know, I am a creepy fan girl for knowing exact words he uses during sponsor spots. Whatever.)

2. Juniors are eager, seniors are bored

This ties into my first point — junior developers have a world of new things to experience, are eager to see it all, and want to find new ways to solve problems.

Senior developers, due to their experience in the field, are not as interested in finding new ways to solve problems.

Put simply, a project that a junior developer relishes may be too small for a senior developer to want to focus on.

3. Senior devs may be more likely to have bad habits

Due to that boredom senior developers may have with projects, they’re more likely to have bad habits in their work philosophy.

In an article on Elegant Code,

“With a junior developer, you can easily mold them into the kind of developer you want them to be. They haven’t really had a lot of time to pick up bad habits, and they are eager to prove that they belong at your company so they will be very eager to learn and improve.”

It goes without saying: bad habits are undesirable.

4. Senior devs tough to find, hard to integrate

Perhaps worse than possible bad habits — senior developers are tough to find. And when you do find them, may not gel well into existing teams.

A junior developer, on the other hand, is more flexible to joining a team and can grow into a capable senior developer with good training.

5. Juniors can be trained into great senior devs

Good training can turn an eager newbie into a great developer, and for most businesses, that’s a good investment.

After finding a junior developer who will work well with the team, it’s very rewarding for managers to build up this person into a great senior developer with staying power, as opposed to other developers that may come and go from the team.

6. Senior devs’ stock will only increase

The demand for the “best” senior developers is great, and will continue to grow — demand is on the side of the developer, not the company.

As a junior developer who will one day become a senior developer in an organization that will train you well, it’s important to keep in mind that you will get that power in the future.

7. Senior devs are much more expensive

And finally, the most obvious advantage:

A senior developer’s salary is approximately double that of a junior developer.

It’s not like junior devs are making pennies, either. According to Glassdoor, as of 201, a junior developer’s average salary is $60,930.

Senior devs come with a higher price tag due to experience and their relative scarcity. (It’s all economics, baby.)

Looking ahead: realize that one day you’ll be that senior developer who is in high demand.

In The End: Stop Comparing Yourself to Others

It’s easier said than done, I know.

But you can’t compare yourself to someone who has been doing whatever you’re doing two, three, four or even five times longer than you have. It’s simply not fair.

Remember that learning how to build applications is really freaking hard.

If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.

So stop putting unrealistic pressure on yourself and your capabilities.

Take the first steps, ask questions, and don’t be afraid to look silly for asking a question.

The best people out there are like my dad — they are able to admit that they don’t know everything about everything.

And always remember that you’re in good company — every senior developer started as a beginner, just like you.

Even better?

There are lots of beginners over at learntocodewith.me who can help support you as you begin, or continue, your journey. Come say hi ☺

— — —

Did you like this story? If yes, please recommend it. It means more to me than you realize.

• I watched a 45 minute long AB testing webinar with Neil Patel
• I read articles, guides & blog post
• I signed up for Optimizely
• I talked to others with experience about how they setup AB tests
• I learned the difference between split and multivariate test types
• … I even created an entire Google Doc with AB testing notes

And despite the warnings from others, I trekked through .

And one month later the conclusion from my test is … nothing. Or “inconclusive” as Optimizely says.

If you’re like me — eager to try new things and measure results—let me save you some time: don’t AB test unless you have a lot of visitors and conversions on the page you are testing.

A Few Things I Learned, Anyways

After researching AB tests and then failing to measure any meaningful results, I still learned a few things.

• Visitors and page views to your entire site do not matter. What matters is the numbers of the individual page you are testing.
• More importantly than unique visitors and page views is the conversion rate. (Example: you have 300 people come to your testing page in a week timespan. 75 make the conversion. 10 on version A. 65 on version B. That’s telling you version A sucks. But the chance of you seeing a difference this big over something like a color button or headline change is unlikely. However, if you test two homepage images: a devil versus a pretty girl next door type — then maybe you’d see that kind of difference from just 75 conversions.)
• Always test for a full period. So, one full week. Or two full weeks. One one month. Because things like weekends can make a difference as far as traffic / conversions go.
• Only test one thing, on one page at a time. Don’t change a menu bar and a sidebar — because you won’t know which causes the difference in results. (Rule #4 here.)
• Only test important pages on your site. Pages that directly affect your business. Like a sales page.

And if you’re just starting out/aren’t receiving many conversions a day on what you want to test — don’t AB test. It’s not worth it.

Instead Of AB Testing, Spend Time …

• Promoting existing content
• Making upcoming content better
• Building relationships with other people in your industry

Lesson lived, lesson learned. And despite the warnings, I just had to get my hands dirty.

In the end, even though I learned nothing about my own site — I did learn about AB testing as a practice. So I guess I’m walking a way a bit wiser.

❤ Laurence

(PS - As I wrap this up, I am secretly playing with the idea of AB testing the image on my front page … even though I shouldn’t. Stay strong, folks. And fight the urge to test meaningless, little things.)

I’m Laurence. And I’m just like you. I have a gazillion things going on (namely client work and building up my own site at learntocodewith.me). And like many others out there just getting started, I’m tight on money.

After traveling (and working) in Asia, I moved back home to my mother’s house last year. Mostly to save money.

I don’t spend much these days.

But recently, I decided to start paying for help with daily tasks I don’t enjoy doing very much. And now I wonder why I didn’t start sooner.

Overwhelmed (By Choice)

I lived (and still arguably do) in a state of constant overwhelm.

The never-ending to-do list. Trouble focusing on what matters. In fact, oftentimes not even being able to pinpoint what matters. Because I am so inundated.

Nonetheless, I constantly tell myself and others,

“But this is not ‘working’!”

I’m following my dreams and passions and still trying to make money on the side.

So what if I want to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at my laptop — no one is impacted. I am not married. I have no children. And my parents are healthy. Who cares?

But is this Lifestyle Sustainable?

Sure, I think about the long-term. I want to get married and have kids.

And when that happens, I know full well I will have even less time in the day.

However, before even reaching that point — marriage, family, responsibilities — I’ll more than likely burn out if I continue down the road I am on.

Leading me to the question I have been thinking about lately: How I can reach my full potential, while balancing other responsibilities?

I’m not entirely sure of the answer. But I do know that I can’t possibly do everything on my own. Even with relatively few “responsibilities” I have at the moment (at least compared to others), there is no way I achieve my greatest potential if it is just me.

Realizing this is what led me to finally look beyond myself for help.

Starting Small. Very Small.

I promised myself when I started this site I would only spend money on it that I made from it. Basically, money that comes in from the site can go back out, towards building the site. But that’s it.

The promise, while admirable, was also perhaps too frugal-minded. How can I take my site to the next level without investing money in it? I can’t.

(By “investing” I mean everything from software like Adobe products and Buffer to hiring outsiders to help take care of tasks that are difficult for me to accomplish—like image editing.)

However, I already have been investing every so often in some new software or equipment (like a new keyboard). But the thought of handing off work to others was more difficult to embrace. It felt like a waste of money to pay someone else for something I could do.

But, the fact is, many people out there can do many things better —and in less time—than me.

So I started small. Very small.

Through Elance, I hired a photo editor based in Bangladesh to edit images of me for my new homepage. (Namely, cut my body out of the background. As seen below.)

It wasn’t perfect. But it was inexpensive. And he did a 5 times better job than I could have, in about half the time.

I later moved up to Fancy Hands*. Fancy Hands is like a team of on-demand virtual assistants, where you pay for a set number of tasks by the month or year.

It’s not a dedicated assistant. But it is still helpful — on a budget.

Fancy Hands is awesome because all the people are pre-vetted. However, certain tasks — like technical ones or say, photo editing—are not included.

I found that services like Elance are great for specific, more technical/design based projects. On the other hand, Fancy Hands is better for more general research. Research on upcoming blog posts, research for client projects, etc. That’s what I’ve been using it for, at least.

Do Yourself a Favor - Get Help, too.

Even if you’re on a tight budget like me, with services like Elance and Fancy Hands $20 or $30 can can save you a few hours.

And I think those saved hours make it worth while.

Although I am still working long hours, finally allowing myself to pay for help has made my life a lot better.

— — — —

*Note: The link to Fancy Hands will get you 50% off your first month. And it will give me credit to their service in exchange. Absolutely no pressure to sign-up. I just think it’s an amazing service that I know many can benefit from ☺