Learning to Code Taught Me This Fundamental Rule to Success

Hey All!
First-time poster, long time member :)

Fair warning, this is a lengthy post but sums up a core belief that I think differentiates an ok product from a truly great one.

In 2015 I decided to create a Facebook ads software I wanted to do for quite a while.

I managed Facebook campaigns for clients, and I noticed a repeating pattern that could easily be automated (or so I thought) and could cut my working time by 90%. And as a cherry on top, I can make it available for other people to make a second revenue source.

At that time, I had no coding experience, so naturally, I hired a freelancer to transform my idea into a reality.

Having absolutely no knowledge about coding, or the possibilities of the Facebook API, put me at a severe disadvantage and limited my thought on making truly beneficial software.

I had so many ideas I wanted to do. Unfortunately for me, the developer gave me a hard time, and rather than search for a solution, he always came back with "that's not possible with the Facebook API."

I believed that it wasn't possible and tried to find different solutions that got me 10% of what I initially wanted.

I spent more time working on the platform, learning how to design a proper UI, and compensating for the lack of features.

In 2016 I launched a beta version of my platform to as many people who wanted to try it.

The feedback was horrible:

1. too slow
2. buggy
3. too many errors
4. horrible UI

So I went back and hired someone else to improve the platform and see what was wrong.

This guy was a go-getter; he was working hard and coming back with solutions. The only problem is that he had no Facebook marketing experience, which limited the logic and understanding he can implement.

I was spending much more time with developers, so much heartache and the feeling of helplessness.

One day my father told me that I should stop hiring other people to create the software's core functionality and learn to do it myself.

He said that absolutely no one would work harder and with more passion than you.

This was my project, and I have been struggling with it for the past four solid years, sure it was profitable, but it was nowhere near what I wanted to achieve and what it could be.

I finally decided to start coding in March 2019; at the same time, I just had my first baby girl.

I started in Udemy and thought long and hard about what programming language to use and what stack. I ended up learning Laravel and VueJs.

Boy, oh boy, was it difficult. I remember being at Starbucks for hours on end, feeling so frustrated and fumbling with everything I did. Setting up Vagrant on my mac and using terminal was utterly overwhelming.

Each day I felt more and more comfortable and started to grasp the idea of models, controllers, middleware, APIs.

Eventually, I started to enjoy coding and saw the potential and tremendous speed a computer has to formulate and parse data.

I was in awe and had no idea, so many things occurred at a split second.

After learning a substantial amount of PHP and JS, I shifted my focus to the Facebook marketing API and tried to understand how it works and what I can do with it.

I was a complete and total idiot for not learning earlier. I found so many hidden gems and possibilities in the API that could drastically help any marketer. I just needed to set up the proper logic to implement it.

Fast forward to March 2020; I decided its time to implement all that I learned and start creating the software from the ground up.

I ditched everything about the old platform, including the name, domain, design, and, most of all, the dreadful backend I read after learning PHP.

I set a goal for at least 6 hours a day on active coding until I completed it.

Here is the core thing that made a massive difference for me as a coder vs. hiring someone else.

While I was coding, I frequently saw room for improvement and iteration that I could implement that steered away from the goal but inevitably made the software a million times more valuable.

I got real and actionable insight on the immense possibilities of the platform while working on it.

One of the things that blew me away was that I was able to create a solution that prevents audience split testing from overlapping on each other with some logic and tweaking.

This was not something I planned initially, but it ended being an immense feature for users.

Best of all, I realized why the past developers told me it wasn't possible. It was just because they did not have the in-depth knowledge about Facebook ads that I had.

It wasn't that they were terrible developers. It was just the lack of an in-depth understanding of Facebook ads and how it truly works.

Fast forward to August 15th, 2020. I invited the most active users in the old platform to try it out.

The results were terrific; users loved it!

It was such a huge step up from the last platform, not because I'm a great developer but because I spent hundreds more hours and spent much more effort on the fine details and improvements.

When I read the feedback, it clicked in my head when my father told me about doing something myself.

No one will ever match the time, effort, and passion you put into your project.

I genuinely believe this, and I hope you believe this too.

In the words of the legendary Les Brown - "if you do what's easy, your life will be hard. However, if you do what's hard, your life will be easy."

If you read the whole post, I am honored you took time out of your day to read my story. I would love to hear your thoughts if you faced something similar.