What's up, everybody? This is Cortland from IndieHackers.com, and you're listening to
the IndieHackers podcast.
On this show, I talk to the founders of profitable internet businesses, and I try to get a sense
of what it's like to be in their shoes. How did they get to where they are today? How
did they make decisions, both at their companies and in their personal lives? And what exactly
makes their businesses tick?
And the goal here, as always, is so that the rest of us can learn to build our own profitable
internet businesses.
Today, I'm here with Pete McLeod of NoCSDegree. Pete, what's up?
Really good to join you. I've been a big fan of IndieHackers for about two years now. I
think I first heard about you guys from the Scott's Cheap Flights interview.
Oh, yeah, that was a good one.
Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Very inspiring. So yeah, it's a huge honor to be on. So thanks for
having me.
It's my honor to have you on. You're the founder of a company called NoCSDegree, which you
started in order to show yourself and others that you don't need a computer science degree
in order to succeed as a software developer. So tell us a little bit about how it works.
Sure. So basically, I interview developers that don't have the conventional four year
computer science degree. And a lot of people are perhaps they've been a waitress in the
past or they've been working in a bar. And now they've gone to either boot camp or they've
taught themselves code in the evenings after work. Basically, it's just a blog where I
show those stories. But what's really good is it's showing people an example where you
don't have to be the kind of Mark Zuckerberg, you know, perfect score student, you know,
learned coding when you're six years old kind of person to get into coding. So for instance,
one person I interviewed was a waitress and she was like learning code in her spare time
every evening. And she's doing great in a development role. Another person I interviewed
probably possibly my favorite story, Ben Ford was in the Royal Marines and while he was
on active duty on a warship, he learned to code with like a beat up laptop and a book
by Python and like no, no searching on Stack Overflow. He learned on his way like inactive
G. So on a warship. Yeah, there's like a ton of cool stories like that. So it's really
interesting for me to hear how people change their lives through learning code really.
One of the similarities between your business and any hackers is that we both interview
people. And we're both talking to people who are themselves I think supremely motivated
to change their own lives for the better, which I think is kind of the best possible
customer you could ever serve in any business because if you succeed, you're watching all
these other people succeed and it's just a pretty cool feeling. You yourself have a pretty
interesting backstory. I think eight months ago, you were unemployed and five months ago,
you were making minimum wage. But today, you're an anti hacker, you're working for yourself
and you're making I think around a couple grand a month and your website so far and
hopefully more in the very near future depending on some deals you have coming up. What was
it that set you on this path?
Oh, man, yeah, I have a very different story to possibly most of the hackers. So which I
think was a good thing. But basically, yeah, like at the start of the year as unemployed
as like going for a bunch of like marketing jobs kept on going for NPS going to like last
round, they can quite get there. And eventually, and I was like on like welfare or unemployment
benefit or whatever you call it. And eventually, I was like, right, I just need like any job
even if it's a minimum wage job. I got a job in a bedding shop, like a bookies. And basically
it was like the worst of imaginable. Like the first week I was there someone, the customers
smoke and crack in the toilets, people would like come in and drink all day and then pass
out. People would be like my manager would go home and just like leave me on my own.
While people were like getting wasted and I'm like demanding money from me. It culminates
in this day where I went in, there's this kind of weird atmosphere and I was asking
other coworkers like, Oh, what's happened? And like someone the women that been working
night for on like solo, she like had to call the police because she's getting like threatened
because people were kicking off and getting violent. And then someone the manager came
in and I was like, Oh, yeah, someone before you started to shift someone like threatened
to stab me. So I chased them at the shop and tried to beat him up. And everyone was
holding me back. And that's the kind of shop it was. And I was like, it's not your typical
like, Oh, I was working at Facebook making 200k and it's decided to become an India hacker.
So it's kind of like, I kind of just like was like, what the hell are you doing here?
I've got like a few months savings. So I quit the job. And then I was just like, right,
I've got enough savings, not like a crazy man, but I've got enough to last me like six
months or so. I'm already kind of like, well, yes, definitely a professional rock bottom
considering I've got like two college degrees. And I was just like, well, I can either like
go back on welfare, while I look for a job or like get another sucky kind of minimum
wage job while I look for something else. But I was kind of like, this was just like
an awesome opportunity to just go out my own and do my own thing. Since then, I've just
had like so much drive, because obviously, I want to like completely change my life.
And that's starting to happen. So yeah, things are really great. Now.
It's fascinating to think about that difference, because a lot of the people that I talked
to, they feel motivated to take, you know, the quote unquote risk to be an anti hacker
because they know they can fall back on their computer science degree, they know they can
fall back on their programming skills, they can go get that job at Facebook back again.
Whereas you're coming from a different place where you're kind of motivated by like, I
don't want to have to do that again. I don't want to go to a place where people are being,
you know, threatened with stabbings every day just to make ends meet. Yeah, I really
need my business to work. Yeah, I think in a way that I mean, I can probably say this
now because it is working. But I think I'm really grateful for that because I think I
see a lot of times online and not indie hackers and other websites where people are like,
you know, Oh, I don't know if I should quit my job. I'm making like 150 K, like, you know,
got the stock options. And it's just like golden handcuffs, just like you can't quit.
And like, I didn't have to have the complete opposite situation. So in a way, it was kind
of like, from a really, because it's such a bad situation, I was like, well, it's not
gonna get any worse. I can if I do six months of anti hacking, and then if it doesn't work
out, I can, okay, I've lost some money, but I can just go back into, you know, a bad job
if I have to. So it's kind of like, I don't really have anything to lose at this point.
So I might as well go for it. So yeah, it's worked out really well.
When you don't necessarily have an idea that you know, you're going to work on. And when
you have this limited runway of just a few months of savings, how do you come up with
a business that has a good chance of working and making the revenue that you need? And
the time that you need it?
Well, I had, so while I was working in Vicki's, I would like ditto on like the bedding slips
and I'd make logos and make kind of plans, because there's quite a lot of like dead time
where like, it's funny, actually, the I worked for once, like the biggest betting, like booking
shop, like betting shop chains in the UK, the week after I quit, they closed like a
third of the shops, because like, everyone's betting online now. And so it's quite funny,
like I was listening, I have to say, like, my favorite audio of all time is like your
own view with them with Lin from key values. And I listened to that all the time. I was
listening to that again recently. And I walked past my old shop, which is all like bordered
up. So I'm like, I'm doing better than you guys. So yeah, I guess like, I was always
thinking about it. So while I was still working there, I was still kind of like, making like
making ideas and making plans and thinking, okay, what's gonna work, I guess I took a
lot of inspiration from peer levels, because with no madness, no madness is really like
the content, and he doesn't make money per se from that. But he's parlayed that into
community into that remote, okay, job scored. So my kind of initial idea was like, I've
got, I'm going to make the content, I'm gonna make this blog written a few people. And then
I'm going to make a job sport, which I have actually launched, it's nucsok.com. I'm going
to be like, bringing that back into like the main nucs3 brand. But actually, the blogs
making more and more money funnily enough. So yeah, I definitely was in this bad situation.
I was definitely making plans and plotting in the scape, if you see what I mean.
Yeah, the reason I ask is because I think it's easy for a lot of people to think of
a product or an idea that they want to build. But it's not easy to think of something to
build, it's also going to be able to make money in any kind of reasonable timeframe,
which I think is one of the reasons why it's hard for people to quit their job because
they just see their bank account, you know, getting lower and lower every single month.
And they compare how much money they would be making at a job. How do you make money
from a website where you're basically interviewing software engineers?
Sure. So up until very recently, most of it's been from newsletter ads. So I've got my blog
newsletter has a thousand subscribers. My job support one has 1500. I figure because
people are, you know, you need a job more than you need to read a blog, right? And so
most of it's been from newsletter sales where I've just been really just messaging people
and communities like indie hackers and Telegram, just pitching them and just being like, Hey,
I've got this blog, I've got this big audience. And do you want your coding product in front
of it? And if not really had doing much work on that people have been like, Yeah, this
is really cool. I've got a big like Twitter phone as well. So I think that's helped. But
I think one part was I had a really good month in October where like I sold like about a
grand's worth of sales in for newsletter ads. And then is really funny, like virtuous circle
or I think flywheels how you say in SF, where I went on indie hackers and they say, Hey,
just crossed over $1,000 for the first time. And then someone was like, Oh, that's awesome.
We want to see as well as like, okay, and just like email and then go like another 600
bucks from then. So this is awesome. So it's kind of like, be open with your revenue because
it can lead to more money. So most of it's been from newsletters so far, I've started
doing sponsorship with them aside doing sponsorship with boot camps. So Holbert in school in
San Francisco, sponsored an article that's just about come out very soon about women
who is a dancer and that she's a developer, which is a pretty cool story. And she's also
a developer in Paris. And so she's been able to move to France for her first role. So that's
very cool. I'm getting some affiliate income now from coding courses that are mentioned
in my interviews. And yeah, I've just had a couple of calls recently with boot camps
for like packages of interviews. The good thing about that is boot camps, you know,
you can ask them for quite a nice summer money. It's not the kind of $5 or $10 a month kind
of thing that love Indie Hackers Day. So yeah, so I think I definitely recommend doing E2B
because in one phone call, maybe in the last week, I potentially make, you know, it would
take a long time to make that from a $10 after that way.
Yeah, there's so many people who, for their first business, they make something they can
only charge $5 or $10 a month for. And it's, it's the math there's just so difficult. If
you want to charge $5 a month, you need 2000 paying customers to get to $10,000 a month
2000 paying customers, it takes years to get to but if you can do what you're doing, pick
up the phone or send an email, and one person will pay you $1,000 or $600. And it's significantly
faster to ramp up and build a lifestyle for yourself.
If you if you think that's bad, I saw someone in Telegram group recently that was wanting
to charge $2 a month.
It's just such a tiny. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, it's just like businesses. I think Lynn
made this point in her podcast interview, which everyone should definitely listen to
that you recorded with her, where she said, you know, businesses have budgets for this,
but they have people that in my case have marketing departments, every bootcamp will
have a marketing director who has a pot of money, and they need to spend it somehow.
And so you can get in there and pitch them and try and get that part of that money. I
think the problem with the kind of $5 $10 thing is a lot of men have been thinking about
this a lot is a lot of people will do things like they'll say, Oh, but it's just the same
as like price of one coffee a week or something. But you've been having that drink of coffee
every day for like the last 10 years of your life. Maybe you know what it tastes like you
know tastes great. You have every day to have it. And then someone else is just being like,
this is a completely alien product that you've never used before. You don't know if it's
gonna be great, but it's gonna suck. And you have to like substitute one of your beloved
coffees for that. It's just like, yeah, it's a much harder style.
And also, if you think about the coffee shops revenue, somebody's drinking coffee for five
bucks a day, that's $150 a month. That's not $5 a month. So I think a lot of times founders
think they can compare themselves to a coffee shop. And if I can only get people to pay
me $5, you know, I'll be profitable. But you need, you know, frequency and people to buy
a lot more if you're gonna charge that little. That's pretty hard to do.
Yeah, I think someone that I know very well from Telegram groups, Andre Asimov, he made
a sheet to sites, which sheet to site calm, which is basically what I based my job board
off. It's really great for making MVPs like no matchless or a job or anything like that.
He sent his my birthday last month, and he sent me a telegram video message saying, like,
you've done lots of great work this year, but I want you to make 10 grand a month by
your next birthday. Okay, that's a good challenge. But like you say 10,000 a month for a $10
app is like 1000 1000 customers. And then for every thousand customers, you've got you've
got probably like reach 100 people for each one of those. And it's churn. And like, you
got like 1000 people that you have to deal with. Like I could potentially have, you know,
maybe I don't know, like 10 people to talk to a month with my bootcamp index, or, you
know, something along those lines or five people or something like that. So there's
it's just like a lot easier. It's far a few people to have to convince and convincing
like, you know, a room for people basically not like 1000 people.
Yeah, exactly. There's so many good reasons not to charge a super small amount for your
app. And I think, you know, one of the mindsets that people get into, and I'm curious why
this didn't affect you, your first time starting a company, is that essentially, you get rewarded
in life and in the markets by just putting in a lot of work. And thus, if you're an anti
hacker, and you've just now started your business, you can't possibly charge more than $5 a month
for anything because you haven't put in the time. Where the reality is that you get paid
money for providing value to people and doing things that they find valuable.
And so if you're doing something like helping a bootcamp grow, that's worth many thousands
of dollars to them. And even if you've only been working on your site for a few months,
they'll pay you $1,000. Whereas if you're solving like a $5 a month problem, that's
not worth anything to anybody. It doesn't matter if you worked on it for years, they're
still ongoing to pay you $5 a month. And so it's kind of a waste of time to artificially
hamstring yourself by starting off by charging very little money when you could be solving
a more valuable problem and charging people a lot more money.
Where did you learn all this stuff? How did you figure out, you know, what you're going
to charge for and have a sustainable business model when you were just now getting started
as a founder?
I guess like, like, I'm going to mention it again, but really, Lynn's podcast is very
influential. Like I can even like, I can actually even quote it because she says like, say a
big number, they don't like it, or they make a face, you can always come down and then
you can ask them for something else. So but it's just kind of like, a lot of these businesses
like there's a lot of money in tech. So it's okay to say like, quite a big number. And
like I say, if they say like Lynn says as well, like, if you say like a big number,
and they're like, yeah, that sounds perfectly reasonable. And then you're like, okay, I'm
gonna say no more to the next guy, because and you can get it's just like, it's just
like trial and error. Like, there's one I mean, early on, there's one bootcamp, which
I pitched like a really high number to. I mean, I think they were probably it wasn't
totally right for them anyway. But they're just like straight off the bat, like, yeah,
that's too high a number. And then I was like, okay, that's cool. I know. So I'll next time
I approach someone, I'll do a bit less. But I think one method I really love doing is
the, like the 123 sales method from that Steli talks about in your podcast, where it's basically
the way I got like $920 from someone that from Swizek teller who's in San Francisco
and does the serverless handbook for developers is it's going to we've run like a month pads
before for like less money. I've been messaging him since then saying like, are you still
interested? Or do you want to do more ads? I haven't got anything back. So I did this
thing which Steli talks about where you give them three options. So it's kind of like a
traffic light system. So you say like, so I just sent a message saying like, Hey, man,
like I'm just going to give you like three options for what you want to do about advertising.
One was like, yeah, I still want to do I want to do more ads. Two was like, yeah, possibly
let's talk about it some more. And three was like, you know, I'm not interested right now.
I thought and I was like, just type just type back one, two or three. So it makes it really
simple for the person. And maybe if they don't want to buy from you, you're making it easy
for them because they just have to say, okay, three. And it doesn't have to be a confrontational
thing or you know, something like that. Swisek message back saying how much for ads until
the rest of the year. And I was like, oh, damn, that's like secret answer number four
that wasn't an option. And so I put together a number and like gave him a bit of a discount
because he's buying in bulk. And he was like, yeah, okay, that's cool. And it's like, damn,
nice one. So yeah, one, two, three is really good. I would add a caveat is that I've seen
some empty hackers where they make the number three, like the no option, some really kind
of just like really like sales these sleazy kind of three is like, oh, you're trapped
in the lift and you can't get out help help. And it's kind of like really disrespectful
to the other person because you're not giving them an option to say no. You know, I mean,
it's very patronizing. Yeah. So when I've mentioned some people, I've mentioned the
one, two, three methods to people before. And they've just been like, oh, that's a terrible
method. Because someone hit me up with that and said, like, help out from on fire and
blah, blah, blah, it's the last option. And I was like, well, I would never do that. Because
yeah, it's really rude. And you're disrespecting the person. So you do have to do it in a correct
way.
Kind of like those pop up ads where you go to a website and they're like, click yes to
subscribe or like, and there's no, you know, no button. The other button is like, I would
definitely not like to receive any valuable information or something. You can't find the
no button, you're looking for it for a while. And it's just like, why would you want this?
The ones I like, I, I can do, I've got way better example. I know exactly what you mean.
But other ones are just like, you know, are you happy being like a fat worthless loser?
Or do you want to subscribe? It's like, well, you know, I mean, it's just like, don't be
so aggressive, man. It's just like, I'm not going to buy any product from you if you're
being so like, rids, if you know what I mean.
I think a lot of it comes from a scarcity mindset. A lot of people have where they're
just like, I just need the sale to work so badly. I need to do anything to increase my
conversion rates or anything like that. And I think a lot of that can go away again, if
you charge enough for your product and your situation, it's not the worst thing in the
world. If somebody says no to you, you don't feel like you've exhausted your entire universe
of customers.
Because you're sort of going one at a time, you're doing sales, you have these real relationships
with people who actually talk to you and have conversations with. Of course, you're not
going to have any sort of motivation to be super sleazy, or do things like that. And
you're not going to have this scarcity mentality that makes you think, hey, if I don't land
the sale, I'm screwed. Because there's so many other people you could sell to. Whereas
you're charging like $5 a month for a product, and you need to reach thousands and thousands
of people, it's easy to start feeling like, oh, man, I'm really exhausting the entire
potential of my market here. And if all these people say no, I'm never gonna have another
chance. So let me put the sleazy pop-up on my website or send a sleazy email.
Yeah. I mean, one thing I definitely work on, and this is something that might have
mindset for everything, for interviews, for dates, for this podcast interview, is I just
prefer things to go well. So if you go into, say you're doing an exam in high school or
whatever, or like, let's say for this, you're doing a sales call. If you go into sales call,
going like, I have to sell. And if I don't, it's the worst thing in the world. And it's
you know, it's drama, and failure, blah, blah, blah. You're probably not gonna be very relaxed
person in that sales call. You're like, it's always like, it's one or the other, it's gonna
be like amazing or awful. Whereas if you go into it, just kind of like, I honestly do
this with everything, I just go, I prefer it to go well. But if it doesn't, it's not
the end of the world. And I literally tell myself that every time I do a sales call,
or like an interview or anything like that, and you're just so much more relaxed. Because
if the person says no, you're kind of like, okay, yeah, no worries. I'll just, you know,
thanks for your time. And then I just moved on to the next person. And it's a lot healthier
than kind of like, you must buy this for me.
So let's talk about how you got started with no CS degree. Because obviously, in order
to sell advertisers slots in your newsletter, you'd have actually some subscribers need
to have a newsletter, you need to have these interviews, you posted on any hackers in July
of 2019 that in your first week, you made $70 in revenue, you got 440 subscribers, you
get 48,000 page views for your website. What did it take to get to that point?
Yeah, I had a really crazy launch where basically, in the past, I'd like done stuff on product
hunt, which had got to number one, but then I didn't make any money. So it's kind of like,
yeah, if you're listening, getting to product hunt number one isn't everything you need
to have a business plan. So like my day started off dead slow, because I was on product hunt,
but it's in like the top five or something like that, or maybe top 10. And I was like,
Oh, I thought I'd be killing it thought against number one. And then I was like, Oh, I'll
just go and post some hacker news. Now, I didn't have any I've never posted on there
before. So I didn't have any like, credit or ranking or whatever. Totally new posted
on that. It just went crazy. Got like 29,000 views on the first day, got like shed load
of comments. And I got is funny, I was actually like making the subscribe like call to action
books like on the fly while while it was like, in production is so crazy. And I was messaging
like Steph Smith on Telegram. And I was just like, Oh, how do you make the pop up box like
not pop up straight away? How do you make it like an exit pop up box? And it is so like
kind of like driving a car down a highway like on its side just on two wheels. But everyone
and like, but it was really great. Because like, I thought how could use like, you're
gonna get some comments and some negative comments. And I guess that comes back to what
I was saying about preferences. Like I prefer everyone's like it. But reality, not everyone's
gonna like your website. So but everyone like virtually everyone was really supportive.
Something I've been surprising was all my friends have computer science degrees were
like, Oh, your website is really awesome. I regret doing my degree in hindsight, or
I wouldn't do one now. And I was like, man, I thought you'd hate it. I thought this could
be gonna be like really awkward. But um, yeah, everyone. Yeah, everyone did. Everyone really
liked it. And as I thought it'd be this thing, which would be a love, hey, apart from a few
exceptions, everyone loved it. The job board did even better. It was on the top of Hack
and Use in the news section for two days straight. Which is pretty crazy. And I got like 1000
subscribers in one week, this time as a call to action prepare it in advance. So it's like
boom, emails first thing you see. So yeah, and just that and being like heaps active
on Twitter. And I'd say on Twitter, I definitely have been very influenced by I say like, Scott's
cheap flights approach to emails. So I have his is very personal. And it's kind of like,
I'm gonna do a bad impression of you. But you're kind of like, Hey, Scott here, I've
got cheap flights for you. And it's like very kind of personal and friendly. It's you know,
I mean, yeah. So that's why I do on on Twitter. And so I think it's a real advantage for me
because I come across as someone that's trying to help people out, which I am, of course.
And yeah, sometimes I'll just say random stuff like fuck the gatekeepers. And I'll get like
tons of people liking and retweeting that. So yeah, I can kind of be a little bit outrageous
and get away with it because you know, I don't have to report to anyone.
It's pretty remarkable to get to the top of Hacker News twice to do so well on product
time to get 1000s of subscribers for something that you just built. What are what are some
of your takeaways for how others can do that? Why do you think your launch went over so
well with people? Yeah, that's a good question. I suppose I did spend a lot of time thinking
about the concept in advance. I'd chosen like a really good blocking platform like I was
building in public. So I sent like a public tweets Peter levels, who's like my basically
my main mentor. And I said, like, what blocking software would you use in 2019? And he's just
like, I probably use ghost, which I haven't, I think I've maybe heard of it. But it wasn't
totally on my radar. And so I used to go. So it's just, just like the default theme.
And everyone's like, wow, your website's so slick and clean. And it's like, yeah, thanks,
man. Yeah, I spent a lot of time on that default theme. Yeah, I guess putting putting time
and effort into it, I guess ahead of time, I was kind of like, I was obviously influenced
by indie hackers, I should like, that probably goes that saying, but I was kind of like,
you know, I'm learning to code or like, well, I code already a little bit over the summer,
I was kind of like, while I was launching all this, I was doing like a part time coding
course in Scotland. So I kind of just figured like, I was already messaging people on telegram
finding out how they learn to code because I was curious like, the first person in infuse
during this yesterday was this guy, Richard Bletchinger from Austria. And when I interviewed
him, or when I first heard about him, Richard's 21, high school dropout. So this is obviously
his great start is going to be and he, but despite that makes like between 10 and $15,000
a month. And he works remotely from Austria, he's not having to live in a super expensive
city or anything like that. So I saw a lot of people that I saw Harry Dry, who's been
on this podcast before, who made the Yeezy dating, the Kanye West dating app, which I
thought was hilarious. And I was like, wait a minute, didn't you do like a marketing degree
at Durham in the UK? And he was like, Oh, yeah, this is how I learned code. So I was
kind of just like, well, I love indie hackers. And I love how finding out how people build
independent businesses. And like, I'm really interested in this. I didn't I'm not a big
believer, I've seen a ton of the kind of, I guess, Silicon Valley, like you have to
validate an AP test and blah, blah for six months. I was kind of just like, well, this
is interesting me. There's a ton of people online learning to code without degrees, this
is probably going to interest them as well. So I think spending time researching and thinking
about your product would probably be, yeah, a good bet.
How much time did you spend doing these interviews and setting up your website and getting everything
ready before you were able to launch?
Let's see. So my manager was threatened with getting stabbed at the end of June.
What a great what a great timeline.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Quit the next day. And yeah, so just like three weeks later,
good. But this gets back to what you're saying for how, I guess, is maybe a little bit crazy.
But when I when I decided I had six months, and I was like, like you said, my savings
were going down, I made like $70 my first week, it kind of lights the fire under your
ass because it's like, well, I don't have time to sit around. I don't have time to do
like six months of, you know, making the blog and getting interviews together and doing
tons of like prior research, I have to get some money in my bank account to get moving.
So I guess from, yeah, from quitting my job to launching was like three weeks. So I had
about I think I had about 10 interviews lined up before I launched because I didn't want
to like obviously launch with one. And then, oh, yeah, something I should add is like,
the other great thing about Hacker News was, I got 30 emails on my launch day for my blog
from people asking to be interviewed. So it's like, okay, I'm doing like, I started off
doing once a week. And after a couple weeks, I went to two a week. So that's kind of like,
you know, four months of content right there, theoretically, I don't, I probably didn't say
yes to all of them. Some of them weren't totally what I was looking for. But if you have people
like banging down your door saying, Hey, here's the content for your website. And you can
build use that to get an audience. And then you can parlay that into talking to boot camps
or other advertisers for money. That's a pretty good situation.
So you are interviewing people who've been successful becoming software developers and
making a lot of money doing that without a CS degree. But you yourself have become an
Andy Hacker without having any sort of business school degree or prior experience running
a business. What are some of the similarities between those two paths?
Well, yeah, that's really interesting question. I guess even I had really bad impulsive syndrome.
And even until like, probably a couple of months before I started the business, because
I didn't have like, I know you hear all these stories, like, oh, if you want to be an entrepreneur,
you should have been like, selling candy to the kids in your high school when you're six
years old and making a handsome profit. And I was doing any of that. I did like a politics
degree when I was like 18, because that's why I was into it when I was 18. So yeah,
I guess similarities were would be, you know, I don't think anyone's a born programmer,
I don't think anyone's a born entrepreneur, it's all about hard work. If you can definitely
imagine it happening, you can, that's a good start. I mean, I was actually, I was really
helped by one of Harry Dry's answers when I interviewed him for a new CS degree, because
he could be Confucius. And I'm going to like mangle this quote, but essentially saying
those that think they can can do it, and those that think they can't won't, which is like,
you know, if you go if you're going into entrepreneurship or coding, and you tell you're telling yourself,
oh, there's no way I can learn to code because I don't have a degree, or there's no way I
can start a business because I don't have an MBA, you know, that talks not particularly
helpful. Whereas if you do the opposite, hopefully with my CS no CS3 website, more people are
seeing pathways. If they can go on the website and see someone like Taylor Alexis who's working
like minimum wage as a waitress, and as she's doing really great as a developer, or tons
of other people like high school dropouts are working at like JP Morgan, it's like really
incredible stories. So if you can see yourself making that change, yeah, it's totally impossible.
You just have to have the self belief and yeah, a lot of drive into termination.
How much do you need to learn on the job, not having, you know, a huge array of qualifications
and just having this belief? And what are some of the habits that you develop to help
you learn as a founder?
Yeah, I guess, honestly, I just, I listened to the ton of podcasts, I try to listen to
an anti hackers podcast, like pretty much every day recently, I've gone into a good habit
doing that. So like, I can probably reel some off. So I've got like, you know, 123 sales
method for sending an email got out from like, Steli's podcast, talking to talking to your
users and just showing them what you're working on. Like, this morning, I had a really great
like meeting with a friend for friends who's a manager tech team for like, probably shouldn't
say which one but like a really large tech company. When I like I met him for coffee
and I was just like, okay, here's my job sport and I'm not trying to sell you anything. But
you know, what do you look for in a job sport? How do you hire people? And all these things.
But yeah, it's that's really helpful. So I guess just mainly just like, all this stuff
is free, you can just go on Twitter, Twitter is a huge resource. I definitely recommend,
if you're curious about anything I've done, for instance, just go in search bar and search
at peak codes, and then do like sales or marketing or, you know, blog or whatever. And you can
find out everything I've said about these things. I've done that a ton with Peter levels,
because he's like a really busy guy. So he's very generous with his time. But you know,
you can't be like messaging them every five minutes. So like, this is like, it's a really
good hack, which I don't probably maybe people know about it. But anyone you admire, go on
Twitter, and search their username and search like blocking platform or sales or whatever.
And you can learn from that. And of course, just like, I should say like, although I started
in July, I have been like reading indie hackers interviews for like two years, you can soak
up a lot of information, but you just have to like, read tons of articles, see what other
people have done. I'm not a big fan of books, per se, but the interviews and podcast episodes,
you can really start to see what people have done. And you if you're if you can be a little
bit analytical, like I should totally mention someone else. I should mention Pat walls who
runs starter story. He was a really big inspiration. When I launched in July, like he views people
that like, it's a similar idea to empty hackers, but he views people that have like e commerce
products. So it's like a beer killer for the when you go to the beach and stuff like that.
He's making when I launched in July, he was making like for a grand a month. And he was
in like, say, he only launched like maybe one or two years ago, he's in the same telegram
communities as me. So I saw him go up from zero to four grand. So I was kind of like,
okay, I reckon if Pat can do it, I can do it as well. I checked him with him recently.
He was like, and I was like, Oh, how much you making now? And he's like, Oh, like seven
grand. So I'm like, Oh, damn, just go. Just like, just as I'm getting like, maybe like
I'm getting like two grand a month. And just like, Oh, yeah, I'm catching up with Pat.
I'm just like, Oh, damn, need to catch up to go harder.
You have such a similar quality to Len, where I think I put both of you in the category
as people who are almost excessively willing to get help from others. So you've messaged
me, you talk about messaging, Peter levels, Len is the same anybody she can find, he knows
more than she does about something or who's already done something before, she'll reach
out and ask for help, or she'll try to find something else that they've done, which is
I think just such a smart approach, because no matter what you're trying to do, someone
else has already done it. They've already figured out the hard parts, they've already
learned from different mistakes. And if you can avoid making those mistakes yourself,
then you basically save yourself a world full of hurt. And I think there's kind of a myth
that when you're just getting started, you're gonna have to fail, you have to go through
a bunch of failures to succeed. And while that's common, it's not necessarily true.
It's not a necessary requirement. And I think a lot of times people can build businesses
that work their first shot out of the gate because they learn from other people's mistakes.
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, I should say, I have made, like some other websites
in the past, which didn't make any money. And I've kind of learned from them as well.
So one thing I wrote about on my blog recently is I've got this idea that basically if you're
deciding what idea you should work on, it has to pass what I call the hit by the bus
test, where if you're walking down the street and you get hit by a bus, this is gonna get
pretty gruesome, by the way, it's just...
It already is.
Here, it's gonna get worse. But like, if you get hit by a bus, and you're like bleeding
out in the street, and you're like, basically gone, or you have to be thinking like, oh,
man, like if that happened to me, hopefully it doesn't. If that happened to me, I'd be
like, oh, man, I was doing like, you know, I made the news yesterday, I got tons of emails
from people thanking me for it. It's something I really love to do. It makes me really happy.
I think that's the kind of quality of things you need to be working on. Because if you're
trying to make something and you're just like, I'm gonna copy that guy over there and make
a quick buck, you're probably not gonna be very motivated. And, you know, I think it's
just not something that you're gonna, you need that passion, you need that interest.
So I think, like, if you're in an accident, I think you'd be like, oh, man, I made indie
hackers. That was awesome. I don't think you'd be like, I wish I was like selling insurance
door to door or, you know, something like that. You know what I mean? So I think if
you have that level of drive, and it's so important to you, then that's gonna help tremendously.
And I mean, I guess, as well, there's probably some people are listening, they're kind of
like, Oh, my God, that's way over the top. I just want to make money, money, money. And
that's fine. It's like, I don't care if that's your value system, that's cool. But I definitely
have to work on something I'm super interesting, passionate on, because there's gonna be days
that suck, there's gonna be days where I have to work on it, like, on the weekend, well,
I do work weekends anyway, but there's gonna be times when it where I really don't feel
like working on it, but I have to, to get it done. But if you're working on an idea,
just make a quick buck, that's probably like what every day is going to feel like. And
you probably, I think another thing is maybe a less gruesome analogy than the bus is like
work an idea that you want to work on for five years. Because that will really separate
the people out from that have a very short timeframe in mind, and just like, Oh, I'm
gonna get I'm gonna be loaded in six months or whatever. It's probably not, probably not
gonna happen. But if you're willing to work on something for five years, I think you've
already got the kind of like dedication required to really see it through.
Yeah, I think what's kind of ironic about the whole mindset of I just want to make money,
money, money is that when you have that mindset, you're less likely to succeed and make money.
Whereas if you work on something that you're more passionate about, as you said, not every
day is gonna feel like drudgery. And even the days that do, you'll have a little bit
more motivation to keep going. And I think also, you'll build something that resonates
with people. So when I look at what you're doing with no CS degree, that really resonates
with people because a lot of people don't have a computer science degree, but they're
looking to change their lives for the better through learning to code. And you can identify
with that because that situation that you were in yourself. And so the energy you bring
to that and like the like the sense of purpose, he mentioned earlier, you'll tweet things
like fuck the gatekeepers, like that just resonates with people because they understand
like, there's actually a mission behind this. There's a why behind it. And you're much more
likely to reach people if you have that sort of meaning baked into what you're working
on.
Yeah, I think exactly. It's just, I mean, I don't take my own horn here. But it's just
kind of a lot. I do get tons of emails where people are like, this is so great. This is
like someone I messaged recently where I was like, Hey, can I interview you for my website?
And they're like, Oh, yeah, like your website really helped me. And I just like helped me
like stay motivated and everything. And I was like, Oh my god, this is really cool.
So I mean, it's making money and it's making me happy. So it's kind of like, it's very,
very ideal. Never like I was saying before on Twitter. I'm like, well, very open big,
but like never been like professionally happy. Like, had always, you know, I just hadn't
found anything that I felt happy with and work. I think if you're happy when you're
working, you're gonna work a ton more of it because it doesn't really feel like work.
It's just like, it's making you more happy. So you're going to work more. So it's kind
of like, really fair just circle.
So you've done a lot of things, right? We've talked about how you're able to basically
come up the idea for this and then get it out to the point where it was ready to launch
in just about three weeks. So you build something super quick. You charge a lot, you're not
charging $5 a month, you're charging companies thousands of dollars to sponsor your website
and your newsletter, which enables you to actually pay for your lifestyle and build
a business that works. And you actually build something that's meaningful, which means that
your message resonates with other people, it resonates with you. That means that there
are channels like Hacker News where lots of people who believe in this sort of mission
gather, which makes it easier for you to launch successfully, etc. What else is on your checklist
for what makes a business worth working on? And what are some things you've learned from
your other past failures?
Yeah, definitely do what Paul Graham from YC says is solve your own problems. So this
has worked really well because like I said, I've been coding for like a couple of years
kind of like on and off, didn't have CS degree. And this summer I was kind of like, it's funny
because I started doing this part time course and I was kind of like, I don't know how much
time should I spend doing the coding and work my technical skills or the business and then
business is completely tick over. Because at the end of the day, it's paying my rent.
And I guess I decided like I didn't want to be, if I had the choice, I prefer to be an
indie hacker that knows enough code to get by rather than say maybe a professional programmer
who's, you know, stuck working in a bank or somewhere that doesn't really align with my
values or my priorities. Solve your own problems. I can give a really good example of when I
didn't do that. I made like this website called ski resort list, which is kind of like, kind
of like copy of nomad list. Unsurprising, but but I've listened then. I was like, okay,
I'm gonna make it like a version of nomad list. Oh, it's gonna be like that. But it's
gonna be like for skiers and snowboarders. Only problem, I don't scale that often. So
I didn't like, you know, I was like asking people online to be like, how do you live
for resorts or what's important to you in a resort? Or like, what do snowboarders want
the skiers? You know, maybe don't because I'm a skier, I've never boarded before. I
spent ages working on it. I think by the time I finished on it, take like four months or
so I think the ski season year was like finishing by the time I launched, which was like, yeah,
great timing. Everyone wants to go on a ski resort list in May. But yeah, I think that
was like a really good example. Because if you're your only user, you already know, like
what you're wanting from it, you already know the problems. So for like, notice the ice
screen. I already knew that there wasn't really one place online where I could find tons of
stories was like really interesting content and hearing how people did it. Finding like
their tips, finding their advice, finding like how they got their first job. Same goes
with the jobs board. Yeah, this is kind of funny, because a lot of people like I am helping
people and I do provide a lot of value. But I think a lot of people think that it's like
this, maybe this top down thing, they assume I'm this like pro developer that's like made
this thing. For an actual fact, all these things benefit me as well. I mean, like no
stress is going great, but in the future, if I need a job, it'll really help me that
I've made a job sport that is for people that don't have CS3, because that's promoting this
the mission that you shouldn't have to have a degree. So in the long run, that's kind
of helping feature me maybe. But I think so yeah, I'd say definitely, don't create something
which isn't solving your problem. And I've seen this recently as well, where someone
made like made the same mistake as me. He's making like a golf course like membership
website. And it was like quite a cool idea, where you could basically like, if you want
to be a guest at a golf course, usually you have to know someone, right? And that way,
you maybe pay out like 20 30 bucks or something. And if you don't know someone, you know, off
the top of my head, maybe you have to pay like 200 bucks or something to play a really
good course. So his idea, which I'm kind of like sharing with the world now, was that
you could have this thing where you could just like a marketplace for these things.
So if you want to be a guest, like a really good course, or whatever, you don't have to
know someone, you can just match with someone online. And then they can get you along to
play and you'll pay like, you know, the 20 bucks price or so. But this guy who made this
like MVP doesn't play golf. So he went on Reddit. And he's like, Hey, what do golfers
think of this? Like, is this something you do? And you just set an immediate disadvantage
because you don't know the problems that you're solving. You don't know if this is even going
to work. You don't know. Yeah, you know, I mean, don't if you I see this as well. A lot
of times in business books where it's just like, oh, I'm like, I'm in a queue for a dentist
surgery. And I'll make an app for dentists. It's like, are you a dentist? Do you know
how much money they have? Do you know their priorities? And it's just like, yeah, you
have to you really have to solve your own problems because you just got such a just
got such a head start because you already knew it inside out.
I think it's such a great point. And for a lot of people, I think this also comes down
to having kind of a scarcity mindset where they think, you know, I don't have that many
great ideas. If I find one that has potential, even if it doesn't affect me, even if I don't
resonate, if it doesn't resonate with me perfectly, I'm gonna do it anyway, because it's just
so hard to come by a great idea. And I think, you know, you should probably hold out for
a better idea that actually resonates with you personally. But yeah, people that's difficult
because it's difficult for them to look at their life and say, well, here are the problems
that I have that are worth turning into some kind of business. How do you look at your
life and figure out that, you know, a problem you have is worth solving via business, even
if other companies already kind of exist in that space?
Number one would be Google's the 13th search engine in the world. It wasn't the first.
But it's the one that everyone uses now, you don't have to be the first, you can be a product
that is just better. To put it simply, I know, for instance, like I used to DJ back at uni
and back in college. And I'd like us, I asked one of my friends, like, Oh, how did you get
into DJing? Like, how did you like, work up the courage to get into DJing? And he was
just like, Oh, I just saw someone playing. I didn't think they were very good. So I thought
I could do a better job. So I just helped in the day. And that's like, it's pretty much
Yeah, it's pretty much the way it goes. It's like, I'm making boot camp index. So there's
already like options that exist in this space, like course report, switch up or up switch
or switch rear or whatever. And I personally think both of them suck that you go on. And
it's like, you're greeted with a wall of text. It's not really, I don't like the UI. So in
this situation, I'm making a super simple like MVP, where it's going to be, okay, you
want to find a boot camp in New York, which is part time and teachers react, you can find
that on boot camp index in like, you know, a split seconds, just by tapping one button.
And the current boot camp websites don't have that, you know, you have to sign up to get
all the syllabus. And there's all these things, like say, a lot of them have all these things
where they have like, oh, we got like 5000 reviews, 5000 reviews from students, it's
like, does anyone have the time or inclination to read 5000 boot camp reviews? I know I don't.
So I'd much prefer to read like success story. So what I'm going to do is have the stories
from blog once to the ones that are sponsored are going to be on the boot camp index. So
that way, when you go on their profile, you can immediately see a success story rather
than like, you know, 4.5 by 5, which by the way, all the boot camps have, like, you know,
a kind of artificial, you know, a kind of like this rating, which doesn't really make
sense to me. And like I say, I think I prefer to like read a success story rather than like
troll through tons of reviews. So yeah, I don't definitely if something exists, if you
think you can make it better, which I think I can definitely go for that. The thing for
me that I find really old is that lots of people are like, I don't have any ideas, can't
think of any ideas. And I'm just like, I'm lots of other people say, you know, like Paul
Graham says, like, you know, solve your own problems. And to me, if you're saying you
have any ideas, I know you might not be saying this deliberately. But it's kind of like saying
to me like, my marriage is perfect. I've got beautiful children, I can't ask for more money.
I've got like the biggest house on the block, I've got perfect life, and nothing I want
to change a single part of it. It's like, come on, man, you probably, you know, you've
probably got some problems, you've got doesn't even have to be a huge thing. It can just
be you tell me there's no aspect of your life that you don't have an issue with or you don't
want to improve. It's pretty unlikely. So I'm pretty sure you can find problems if you
look hard enough.
Well, listen, Pete, it's been pretty cool to watch your journey. I've been following
along on any hackers. And I think the advice that you're giving that comes out of your
experience and your stories is super helpful, first time founders. So hopefully people listening
to this will will be able to overcome their inability to come up with ideas and figure
out how to get started quickly and ideally charge a lot more than they're thinking of
charging at first and hopefully able to catch up to Andre's challenge. They had $10,000
a month in revenue in the near future.
Yeah, thanks a lot. If I can throw a kind of a sales pitch your way, if I get if I get
to 10,000, can I come back on for like a longer interview? Because I can get like skin in
the game with incentive. Well, extra incentive.
You get $10,000 a month in revenue, I'll have you back on the podcast, Pete.
Boom. That's awesome. That's what I want to hear.
All right, thank you so much for coming on. Can you tell listeners where they can go to
find out more about your journey? I know you're building in public and sharing what you're
learning. And also where they can find no CS degree and the other resources that you're
building.
Sure. So my websites are no CS degree.com. That's where interview developers. I've got
a job sport, which is no CS okay.com. That's for jobs that don't require CS education.
I'm just about launch bootcamp index.com, which will be a really super quick way to
find the best coding camp for you based on your own particular needs. I started blogging
every day. So that's at Pete codes.io and Pete codes on indie hackers and on Twitter.
If you want to ask me anything, shoot me a message. I'm totally always happy to help
the people I've been the last two or three years I've sent like a gazillion messages
to peer levels. So I think it's kind of only fair that I return the favor. So if you need
any, yeah, if you need any help and if I can't help, then I'd be happy to.
All right. Thanks again, Pete.
Okay. Cheers, Matt.
Listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you reached out to Pete and
let him know. He is Pete codes on Twitter. Also, if you're interested in hearing my personal
thoughts and takeaways on each episode of the show, I share them in an email newsletter
that you can subscribe to at indiehackers.com slash podcast. Thanks so much for listening
and I will see you next time.