Austerity-friendly ideas
We have a fair chance of going into a deep recession, and I guess most of you know someone in your family or friends (not online) that is either going out of business, cutting back on expenses. I've just been through our expenses for Feb and we're cutting back just in case.
This means it might make sense to launch products that compete on price. Crazy right?
More concretely, the attitude of "meh it's ok to throw $100/m at that SaaS because developers time is precious" might change.
I am thinking along these lines to create high value ideas where the goal is to save people money.
A couple of ideas:
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Do you want to take a $5k coding bootcamp? Or maybe you pay me $1k to mentor you, while you do free youtube course, and I help you every week where you get blocked.
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Those super-expensive landing page creators $100/m - even the 'cheap one' is $6/m. Well I could sell a book to create one from HTML in an hour and stick that on free hosting and sell that for $19.
The value of a bootcamp is the alumni and the increased chance of getting a job.
https://carrd.co/pro is $19 a year for multiple websites.
I run https://versoly.com/ a landing page and website builder, we just had one of our best days yet.
Trying to think of ideas when "desperate" is hard.
Making money is the same as it was before the virus, find a problem and talk with customers.
Thanks, and well done on your versoly success. I'm just spitballing as I keep coming up with ideas :-). Pretending the economy won't be affected and shuffled around with winners and losers is wishful though.
With the bootcamp I'm not convinced that they increase your chance of getting a job. I have been talking to people. 1 hour of mentoring could go a long way to increase someones job chances.
Not everyone who wants to take a bootcamp is looking to get a job after. Myself, for example, would like to build my dev skills so that I can at least make good MVP's. Landing pages just aren't suitable for what I'm doing. I've been working on coding very slowly but just not getting to the point I want.
AND, since I blew my bootcamp budget on my last startup, not only do I not have the money to do it, I couldn't go for an ISA as I make it quite public that I'm focused on being an entrepreneur with no plan to go back to employment.
I keep going back and forth between dev tutorials and then no-code products without ever making any real progress. I have no one to blame but myself for not being able to overcome this mental barrier, my point is that I'm certain I'm not alone.
Thanks for that new perspective.
Have you paid for course and tutors at all since that last startup? Or are you learning just using free resources?
I've paid for JavaScript courses with Brad Traversy, Max Schwarzmuller, Shaun Pelling, and Colt Steele. I get hooked on those Udemy sales. They're all great, but I start and don't get any momentum. I also have a Python course with Mosh Hamedani, another great teacher. Oh, and I have a Front-end Masters subscription that I keep forgetting to cancel because I don't use it. The only thing I've finished is the FCC responsive web design certificate, so not really programming.
I spend far more time learning about programming than actually learning to code. I'm kind-of stuck in my old ways as in my previous careers I was more of the architect and the project manager, doing the high-level design and planning.
Thanks.
I like solving problems I have, then make sure there is demand in the market.
So you think top tier bootcamps don't increase your chance of getting a job? Compared to say self learning?
Some might, but my hypothesis is that self leaning + mentoring can be just as good but cheaper. I talked to someone who did 2 boot camps but still has to self learn and navigate the job market. They may not have been top tier though, but most people who go to boot camps will by definition not be going to the top ones. Thanks this has prompted me to research more to see if I can fit in somewhere. My current plan is to mentor people and use that to find out more about this market.
You think you can learn everything in 8-12 weeks bootcamp?
They most likely went to a bad bootcamp, most of them are it seems.
Not everything in 8-12 weeks. Probably enough to be useful in a basic job. More likely a consultancy making simple sites than a serious engineering role.
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If you did the $5K JavaScript bootcamp for startup equity, I would be interested hehe.
One thing I'm trying to push my buddy who is an awesome personal trainer is to get the small group, at home, "Zoom" training done. The clients still want the training and can afford the lessons, but my buddy doesn't know how to spin this up.
I'm sure there are many more like him that are experts in their offline field but can't move fast enough to get their expertise online, even though they already have the following.