Podcasts about skillcrush

HCM platform Dayforce, Inc. (NYSE: DAY); announced the award-winning Dayforce® Flex Work is available to organizations in the United States. Flex Work is an on-demand marketplace that helps organizations augment their workforce with flexible talent – quickly, simply, and compliantly – to address fluctuating labor demands. https://hrtechfeed.com/dayforce-launches-on-demand-flex-work-marketplace/ Cornerstone OnDemand Inc., a leader in Workforce Agility solutions, today announced the acquisition of workforce skills intelligence capabilities and a team of highly specialized domain experts from SkyHive Technologies Holdings Inc.. SkyHive's AI-powered skills intelligence platform and services help customers build skills-based organizations, providing visibility into the capabilities of employees and enabling organizations in their transformation efforts. https://hrtechfeed.com/cornerstone-acquires-skyhive/ hireEZ, the only sourcing and candidate relationship management (CRM) platform built for recruiters by recruiters, today announced new partnerships with job boards Monster, Resume-Library, and CV-Library and the release of a new platform feature, Sourcing Hub. https://hrtechfeed.com/hireez-partners-with-leading-job-boards-to-source-their-databases/ PowerToFly, a leader in connecting diverse professionals with jobs since 2014, just acquired Skillcrush, an online platform that teaches tech skills to underrepresented groups. This merger gives both job seekers and employers new ways to build modern workforces. https://hrtechfeed.com/powertofly-acquires-upskilling-platform-skillcrush/ SeekOut, an eight-year-old recruiting startup that uses AI to find candidates, cut about 30% of its workforce this past Thursday, TechCrunch has learned. https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/20/seekout-layoffs-30percent-talent-search-tigerglobal/  

Show NotesShow notes and a full transcript of this episode is available at opsy.work/podcast.Connect with usAre you an opsy person in tech? Join our community at Opsy.work.Caro Griffin is on LinkedIn and Twitter.Kelli Smith is on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Over the last nine years, Jennifer McFadden has played an integral part in developing and fostering an entrepreneurial culture across Yale University. On the show, we dive into the net of who is an entrepreneur and who has the opportunity to become one. Jennifer explains why she feels that we all have a responsibility to think wisely about our organizations, why we're building them, who we include, how we reward them, and why she's optimistic that these changes are coming. We also zoom in on the role of design and design research and how Jennifer advises that new founders approach it when preparing to launch their new business. Jennifer serves as an advisor to the Yale Landscape Lab on Yale's West Campus, which supports synergistic projects in health science, entrepreneurship, and more, and connects over 20 professional schools, departments, organizations, and student groups across Yale. She also launched the Women Entrepreneurs at Yale (WE@Yale) Initiative and is a co-founder and advisor at Skillcrush, an online education company that focuses on teaching women technical skills. Prior to joining Yale SOM, Jennifer worked in media and tech. She was an adjunct professor at the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the City University of New York, where she also conducted research at the intersection of media, tech, and entrepreneurship and worked with start-ups in the news space. “You try to give as much as you can get, and so my perspective on all that is, you know, regardless of the industry in which someone operates, they always have something to offer.” - Jennifer McFadden “It's equally as important to pull people through the process of just exploring what it's like to find a problem, to find people who have that problem, to talk to them, to figure out how you can solve that problem and to put something out into the world.” - Jennifer McFadden In this Episode 05:25 How Jennifer pivoted to her current role working with founders 10:09 The most significant challenges new founders face 12:21 Skillsets that new founders often undervalue 16:37 Trends in the types of problems that founders are trying to solve today vs when Jennifer first started in her role as an adviser to entrepreneurs 20:31 How Jennifer is approaching her mentoring responsibilities in a virtual environment 25:19 Why she launched WE@Yale Initiative for women innovators, and its goals going forward 34:31 What Jennifer advises founders who have just received their first set of truly terrible feedback do to get back on track 37:30 How Jennifer's approach to working with founders has evolved over the last decade 42:23 Jennifer's reflections on the future of entrepreneurship as an industry and how it's taught at universities Resources and Social Jennifer McFadden on LinkedIn Skillcrush website Skillcrush on Facebook Skillcrush on Instagram Connect with Substantial - Optimistic Design: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/substantial/ Podcast: https://substantial.com/OptimisticDesign LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/substantial/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/substantial Website: www.substantial.com

Don't miss out on the next #womenintech podcast episode, get notified by signing up here http://womenintechshow.com. Be featured in the Women in Tech Community by creating your profile here http://womenintechvip.com/“Gloria Chou, Jesse Genet, And Adda Birni”#womenintech Show is a WeAreTech.fm production.To support the Women in Tech podcast go to https://www.patreon.com/womenintechTo be featured on the podcast go to http://womenintechshow.com/featureHost, Espree Devorahttps://twitter.com/espreedevorahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/espreeGuest,Gloria Chougloria@gloriachoupr.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/gloriaychou/Guest,Jesse Genethttps://twitter.com/jessegenet?s=21https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessegenet/Guest,Adda Birnirhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/addabirnir/https://www.instagram.com/addabjork/Be featured in the Women in Tech Community by creating your profile here http://womenintechvip.com/In LA? Here’s some awesome resources for you to become immersed in the LA Tech scene -For a calendar of all LA Startup events go to, http://WeAreLATech.comGet Podcast Listeners, http://getpodcastlisteners.com/Resources Mentioned:Gloria Chou PR, https://www.gloriachoupr.comLumi, https://www.lumi.comY Combinator, https://www.ycombinator.comHomebrew, https://homebrew.coSkillcrush, https://skillcrush.comFree Coding Camp, https://learn.skillcrush.com/skillcrush-free-bootcampThe Lean Startup, http://theleanstartup.comRunning Lean, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13078769-running-leanSXSW, https://www.sxsw.comMother Jones, https://www.motherjones.comCredits:Produced and Hosted by Espree Devora, http://espreedevora.comStory Produced, Edited and Mastered by Cory Jennings, https://www.coryjennings.com/Production and Voiceover by Adam Carroll, http://www.ariacreative.ca/Team support by Janice GeronimoMusic by Jay Huffman, https://soundcloud.com/jayhuffmanShort Title: Gloria Chou, Jesse Genet, And Adda Birnir

One key outcome in how we work and where we work is fast emerging: a workforce revolution supports hybrid work. The radical shift in our podcast's branding inspired us to explore deeply the suddenly changing nature of work. Not surprisingly, we found that hybrid work has emerged as the way many of us will operate, splitting time each week between home and office. "[The revolutionary forces] unleashed by the pandemic are numerous. But the-most notable paradigm shift is that people who work full-time are getting the tools they need to make work a successful part of their day." In this episode, we highlight fresh insight from SkillCrush which supports the workforce revolution to hybrid work. When remote work options are available: People become more focused on the job; Workers better manage their mental health, and; Introverts (half of the total workforce) gain solitude and control over interpersonal engagements, making them happier and more successful. A workforce revolution that supports hybrid work is happening now. Last week, we discovered that 80 percent of people who work full-time will opt for hybrid work. "There is much to be worked out to make hybrid work a successful option. People who share time at home with children are still struggling to create a sense of balance." Still, when people who work full-time are allowed to work in a remote or hybrid fashion, they will become happier. What is more, hybrid work helps them make work part of a day, and not the day. Their relationships with co-workers and family members will become stronger and more fulfilling. EPISODE DATE: October 23, 2020 Social media: – LinkedIn – Facebook – Twitter – Instagram Please Subscribe to The Dan Smolen Podcast on: – Apple Podcast – Android – Google Podcasts – Pandora – Spotify – Stitcher – TuneIn …or wherever you get your podcasts. You may also click HERE to receive our podcast episodes by email. Image credits: Hybrid worker, nito100 for iStock Photo; Behind the mic 10/22/2020, The Dan Smolen Experience; Podcast button, J. Brandt Studio for The Dan Smolen Experience.

Don't miss out on the next #womenintech podcast episode, get notified by signing up here http://womenintechshow.com. Be featured in the Women in Tech Community by creating your profile here http://womenintechvip.com/“Adda Birnir of Skillcrush, An Online Education Company Teaching Women”#womenintech Show is a WeAreTech.fm production.To support the Women in Tech podcast go to https://www.patreon.com/womenintechTo be featured on the podcast go to http://womenintechshow.com/featureHost, Espree Devorahttps://twitter.com/espreedevorahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/espreeGuest,Adda Birnir of Skillcrushhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/addabirnir/https://www.instagram.com/addabjork/Listener Spotlight,Shubhangi Raj https://www.linkedin.com/in/shubhangi-raj/Be featured in the Women in Tech Community by creating your profile here http://womenintechvip.com/In LA? Here’s some awesome resources for you to become immersed in the LA Tech scene -For a calendar of all LA Startup events go to, http://WeAreLATech.comGet Podcast Listeners, http://getpodcastlisteners.com/Resources Mentioned:Skillcrush, https://skillcrush.comFree Coding Camp, https://learn.skillcrush.com/skillcrush-free-bootcampLynda, https://www.lynda.comDigital Divas, https://digitaldivas-2020.weebly.comTraction, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22091581-tractionSuperhuman Blog, https://firstround.com/review/how-superhuman-built-an-engine-to-find-product-market-fit/SNL, https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-liveThe Lean Startup, http://theleanstartup.comRunning Lean, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13078769-running-leanPredictably Irrational, https://danariely.com/books/predictably-irrational/SXSW, https://www.sxsw.comMother Jones, https://www.motherjones.comcodecademy, https://www.codecademy.comNotes, https://apps.apple.com/us/app/notes/id1110145109Trello, https://trello.comJira, https://www.atlassian.com/software/jiraSlack, https://slack.comThe Tools, https://www.thetoolsbook.comPeople Mentioned:Gabriel Weinberg, https://www.linkedin.com/in/yegg13/Rahul Vohra, https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulvohra/Dan Ariely, https://www.linkedin.com/in/danariely/Al Gore, https://www.algore.comWilliam Clinton, https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/william-j-clinton/Hillary Clinton, https://www.hillaryclinton.comCredits:Produced and Hosted by Espree Devora, http://espreedevora.comStory Produced, Edited and Mastered by Cory Jennings, https://www.coryjennings.com/Production and Voiceover by Adam Carroll, http://www.ariacreative.ca/Team support by Janice GeronimoMusic by Jay Huffman, https://soundcloud.com/jayhuffmanShort Title: Adda Birnir of Skillcrush

Kate’s feeling down, but finds solace in finishing a bottle of face mist, and Doree’s got some pop culture reccs to share. They also give an update on their social justice initiatives before speaking to Adda Birnir (Founder and CEO of SkillCrush) who expands on how she overcame her fear of failing, her experiences getting laid off, her love of a good sourdough starter, and how the skills she learned in tech are reflected in other parts of her life.To leave a voicemail or text for a future episode, call or text 781-591-0390. You can also email the podcast at forever35podcast@gmail.com. For info on Forever35 Office Hours, click here. This week’s episode is sponsored by:OXICLEAN - To Work your Magic with OxiClean, go to OxiClean.com/TRYME and order a free sample.RITUAL - For 10% off during your first three months visit ritual.com/FOREVER35.PROSE - Get a FREE consultation and 20% off your first order today! Go to Prose.com/forever35.MOLEKULE - For 10% off your first order, visit molekule.com and enter FOREVER10 at checkout.BROOKLINEN - Get 10% off your first order and free shipping when you use promo code FOREVER35, only at Brooklinen.com.Theme music by Riot. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

María Dolores comparte algunos sitios para aprender nuevas habilidades. La educación en línea es una herramienta que ha transformado la forma de aprender, por ello es importante identificar sitios y aplicaciones que ofrecen cursos relevantes y actualizados. CreativeLive es un sitio en el cual se transmiten más de 1,000 clases en vivo gratuitas, con expertos mundiales sobre temas como fotografía, negocios, diseño, arte, etc. Officehours brinda sesiones de 10 minutos con profesionales experimentados que brindan consejos a través de videochats. Coach.me es una plataforma para recibir coaching profesional y seguimiento de metas personales. Skillcrush envía información de distintos temas, todos los días por medio de correo electrónico. Entre otras.

Marc explores the creative destruction of industry, starting with the invention of the phonograph which eventually replaced the piano in the home, to the invention of the iPhone, which rapidly replaced many communication and entertainment functions and created an array of new industries. Marc gives solid advice for keeping your career ahead of the creative destruction wave that is sweeping all areas of employment. This material comes from a presentation Marc has given several times during the recent tour for the third edition of Repurpose Your Career.Listen in to be prepared for changes that are only accelerating. Marc is asking for your financial support for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Please donate at Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer to support this Podcast.   Key Takeaways: [1:21] Marc welcomes you to Episode 149 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast. [1:34] If you are enjoying this podcast, please share it with other like-minded souls. Subscribe on CareerPivot.com, iTunes, or any of the other apps that supply podcasts. Share it on social media or just tell your neighbors and colleagues. The more people Marc reaches, the more people he can help. [1:51] Marc’s expenses to put this podcast on are about $400.00 a month. After nearly 150 episodes, Marc is grateful for his growing audience. It’s clear that the stories from experts and people like yourself on this podcast have had an impact. [2:25] Marc is asking for direct listener support. Marc needs help continuing to provide entertaining content, mindful of your time. Marc asks you for a donation of $5.00 a month but you can contribute as much or as little as you like. Every penny counts. [2:40] If the Repurpose Your Career podcast is a part of your week and you like what Marc is doing, please support the podcast today. Go to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer/ to give. This link will be at the top of the show notes at CareerPivot.com/episode-149. [3:06] Repurpose Your Career, Third Edition, is now available! The book tour has launched and is almost complete. Marc is recording this podcast introduction and ‘outro’ from a hotel room in Washington, D.C. When this episode of Repurpose Your Career is released, Marc should be in Austin, preparing to drive back home to Ajijic, Mexico. [3:26] Marc thanks everyone who’s made this tour a success. Marc is tired and looking for some downtime! [3:35] Marc has yet to decide what the subject of next week’s podcast episode will be. It will be Episode 150 and Marc is approaching three years of doing the Repurpose Your Career podcast! [3:48] This week, Marc is giving an abbreviated version of one of the talks he has been giving during the book tour, called “Embrace Creative Destruction or Be a Turkey. It’s Your Choice.” Marc hopes you enjoy this episode! [4:03] Marc has given this presentation multiple times during the past month and thought it would be a good topic for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. You can find a blog version of it at CareerPivot.com/surviving-creative-destruction and the PDF version of the presentation can be found at https://careerpivot.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Embrace-Creative-Destruction-podcast.pdf [4:30] Marc starts by defining creative destruction as industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, destroying the old one and creating a new one. It has been going on for many centuries. One technology destroys a previous one. Jobs are destroyed and jobs are created. [5:01] Creative destruction is accelerating. Understand it, or become a turkey. Nassim Taleb said, in Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, “A butcher feeds a turkey for 1,000 days. Every day, the turkey’s life remains constant and confirms the surety of his current existence. This is the way it goes. This is the way it always has gone. [5:39] “This is the way it will always go. All his data confirms that butchers love turkeys. The turkey can rest confident in this idea because he has 999 days of benevolent treatment to back it up. Then, a few days before Thanksgiving, everything in his worldview is upturned.” [6:02] This is what Taleb calls a Black Swan Event. All the evidence proves it can’t happen — until it does. [6:14] In 1905 there were 400K pianos made and sold. If you wanted music in your house, you bought a piano. In 1877, the phonograph was created but it didn’t destroy pianos. In the 1930s, radio came about. In 1919, phonographs had a revenue that was three times that of pianos. [6:50] It took from 1877 to 1919 for phonographs to start taking over for pianos. By 1933, two-thirds of all households had a radio. In 2013, 30K pianos were sold. Steinway, the major piano manufacturer stopped making pianos in WWII and made coffins. [7:21] What came out of the demise of the piano is the music industry of today, whether online or radio. It took 50 years for the changeover to happen. [7:51] Kodak was in the business of film, not cameras. In the 1990s, Marc worked in an IBM briefing center when Kodak came in for a briefing. Kodak knew they had a problem with the coming digital revolution. They were not sure how to make the transition. Kodak created the first digital camera in 1975. [8:58] The problem was, Kodak didn’t see why anyone would want to see their pictures on a TV screen. So they didn’t do anything with it. By 2001, 26 years later, Kodak was number two in the digital camera market. Marc had one of those Kodak digital cameras. Kodak lost $60.00 on every sale. Kodak declared bankruptcy in 2012. [9:44] The digital image revolution was the creative destruction that took down Kodak in less than 40 years. [9:55] There are all kinds of things that happened as part of the digital image revolution and the demise of the photographic film industry. [10:10] Adobe, Canva, JacquieLawson.com, Steve Coyle Photography and many more are examples of companies created by the digital image revolution. [11:19] Amazon was founded in 1993. Amazon’s business was selling books. It took 18 years to put Borders Group out of business. Things are accelerating. Amazon introduced Prime in 2005. Marc has a Vitamix blender. One Sunday morning Marc broke the glass container. He had a replacement by 5:00 pm from Amazon. [12:27] Amazon is having incredible impacts on all retail. Sears, JCPenney, and JoS. A. Bank are three examples of companies hurt by Amazon. The number accelerates. Fulfillment by Amazon allows anybody to sell online. Last week, Jean LeFebvre explained her offering, Wardrobe Jazz, on Episode 148 of the podcast. [13:11] Marc has a friend who has two products he sells on Amazon. One is a set of gym gloves and the other is a wrist strap for weightlifting. He sources all of his products out of China. [13:59] OnlineSellingExperiment.com is a competitor to the Amazing Selling Machine. They teach how to sell on Amazon. Marc learned about Online Selling Experiment from Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income podcast. Online Selling teaches retail arbitrage for buying things on clearance and selling them competitively online. [15:33] Amazon has created all kinds of opportunities, besides destroying retail. [15:47] Marc takes a moment to talk about the Career Pivot Membership Community, which continues to help the approximately 50 members who are participating in the beta phase of this project to grow and thrive. [16:06] Marc reads a member testimonial from community member Mark: “Wondering what’s next? You want meaningful work and more freedom to pursue what matters most to you in your second half of life? Since joining the Career Pivot Community, I’ve found like-minded people in a similar path. [16:25] “Marc Miller is a master at creating community and meaningful connections. This has been encouraging and informative and a confidence booster. If you want to go further and faster, join Career Pivot.” [16:39] This is a paid membership community where Marc offers group coaching, special content, mastermind groups, branding sessions, Slack channels, and more importantly, it’s a community where you can seek help. Please go to CareerPivot.com/Community to sign up to learn more. [17:00] The iPhone was created in 2007. We used to buy cameras, maps, and newspapers. We used to search for keys. Marc uses the Tile to find his keys. We used to have to carry insurance cards. Now, Marc has his State Farm app on his phone. [17:48] You used to have to buy a TV and buy cable. Now you can get TV directly on your phone with services like SlingTV. Also, Marc can answer all the questions his wife asks him just by “Googling.” We used to have phones on the wall. We now have Skype on our phones. [18:20] We text one another. The most-used app among Marc’s gringo expats is Whatsapp, which is an app for calling and texting without connecting to a phone network. The iPhone and smartphones have changed the world so much. [18:50] Think of the number of products that have been destroyed. Think of the service jobs that have been lost. Now you can order your Big Mac® on your phone. New industries are being created. Social media brings interconnectedness. We now have the Internet of Things, including the Tile and the Ring doorbell camera and connected apps. [19:52] You can now create audiobooks and other forms of audio. You can have a podcast like Marc, on iTunes (Apple Podcasts). Marc will use ACX to make an Audible audiobook from Repurpose Your Career, third edition. [20:22] All of this has accelerated. Are you scared or excited? This will affect you. What can you do about it? 1) Attend an industry conference every year. 2) Listen to industry podcasts. 3) Get online training. [21:16] Marc has attended the National Career Development Association Conference, several Birkman Conferences (because he is a Birkman consultant) and Podcast Movement. Marc plans to go to the 2020 Podcast Movement conference. Why attend conferences? You need the face-to-face contact with people to keep up with trends. [22:07] Marc either stays at the conference hotel at a discount or at a hotel within walking distance of both the hotel and a Whole Foods store where Marc picked up dinner and the next day’s breakfast of yogurt and fruit. [22:47] Podcasts are a wonderful way to keep learning. There is usually a podcast for your topic of interest. If there really isn’t, why don’t you start one? There are many places to listen to podcasts. Marc’s two favorite financial podcasts are Roger Whitney’s The Retirement Answer Man and Alworth Financial’s Money Matters. [23:58] Marc also listens to Buffer’s The Science of Social Media, Problogger, and Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income podcast. [24:16] Online training is not expensive. Marc gives examples such as MOOC.org, and EDX.org, Udacity, General Assembly, Skillcrush, LinkedIn Training, Coursera, Skillshare, and Udemy. Anyone can put up a course and sell it on Udemy. [25:21] You need to be attending industry conferences, listening to podcasts, and taking online training. If you do not, you could very easily find yourself in a career disaster area. Marc wrote an article on Living in a Career Disaster Area based on two clients who saw their careers blow up in under five years. [25:54] When you start looking at career pivots, look for jobs that have ‘legs.’ Ask yourself if industries will survive because creative destruction is killing so much. Listen to Episode 143 with Russ Eanes. Russ got hit with a double whammy in the business of religious publications. Religion is in decline, and publishing is in decline. [27:08] Russ got really tired of laying people off. There are just so many times you can lay off a friend before it really takes a toll on you. [27:30] Hopefully, you now understand that have to manage your career, your skill sets, and where your industry is going. Creative destruction will continue to accelerate. Where is your career going and where is your industry going? If you can’t answer those questions clearly and confidently, the chances are you will be a turkey! [28:20] Pick up the book Repurpose Your Career third edition and this presentation is essentially found in one of the chapters in it. Marc hopes you enjoyed this episode. [28:45] The Career Pivot Membership Community continues to help the approximately 50 members who are participating in the Beta phase of this project grow and thrive. [28:52] This is a community where everyone is there to help everyone else. Marc is recruiting members for the next cohort. If you are interested in the endeavor and would like to be put on the waiting list, please go to CareerPivot.com/Community. [29:13] Marc invites you to connect with him on LinkedIn.com/in/mrmiller. Just include in the connection request that you listen to this podcast. You can look for Career Pivot on Facebook, LinkedIn, or @CareerPivot on Twitter. [29:24] Please come back next week! Marc will be back in Mexico! [29:32] Please support this podcast by going to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer. [29:43] Marc thanks you for listening to the Repurpose Your Career podcast. You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-149. [29:56] Please hop over to CareerPivot.com and subscribe to get updates on this podcast and all the other happenings at Career Pivot. You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, the Google Podcasts app, Podbean, the Overcast app, or the Spotify app and a lot of other places!

On today's episode I'm interviewing Adda Birnir, the founder and CEO of Skillcrush, a leading online tech education company with a mission to empower women to learn the digital skills they need to enter high-paying and flexible careers. Adda is passionate about making tech and flexible careers more accessible and inclusive to all. She was named one of the 30 Most Important Women in Tech by Business Insider and she has served over 18,000 students from 127 countries with Skillcrush.

This week we had the opportunity to chat with Adda Birnir, Founder and CEO of Skillcrush. Skillcrush is a leading online education platform specifically orientated towards women in the tech space, with courses in programming, design and much more. A fully distributed team from the beginning, Adda had some great insights into the scaling a remote team, culture and what it takes to build a business! We covered a variety of other topics including leading a mission driven business, how to hire the right people, technical education and much much more. Adda has an interesting back story from beginning her entrepreneurial adventure in the depths of the 2009 great recession, to building an original product (hint, it's probably not what you think) and evolving the Skillcrush community to a team of 20+ people helping thousands of students find careers in the tech space. What struck me most about Adda is her passion for the day to day of building a business and her love of constant improvement. I hope you enjoy this half as much as I did! Be sure to check out Skillcrush's Ultimate Guide to Getting a Remote Job You Love handbook, found here: https://skillcrush.com/go-remote Also, check out skillcrush.com and follow Adda on twitter at @addabjork

After trying out variety of different jobs and markets, Adda Birnir, CEO & Founder of Skillcrush, taught herself how to code and design and decided to get into the tech world. What started out as her side project to find a better way to teach women technological skills turned into Skillcrush, her rapidly-growing company. This week, we talked to Adda about how she got started, finding long term opportunities, job stability within the entrepreneurship world and corporate world, as well as the importance of staying customer-focused. Adda also talks about her inspirations and what helped her stay on her feet when starting out as an entrepreneur along with how she took being laid off as a massive opportunity.

After trying out variety of different jobs and markets, Adda Birnir, CEO & Founder of Skillcrush, taught herself how to code and design and decided to get into the tech world. What started out as her side project to find a better way to teach women technological skills turned into Skillcrush, her rapidly-growing company. This week, we talked to Adda about how she got started, finding long term opportunities, job stability within the entrepreneurship world and corporate world, as well as the importance of staying customer-focused. Adda also talks about her inspirations and what helped her stay on her feet when starting out as an entrepreneur along with how she took being laid off as a massive opportunity.

When Skillcrush founder and CEO Adda Birnir got laid off from her job at a digital ad agency, she decided to follow the money and discovered a lucrative business she did not even know existed. Her ability to leverage events like South by Southwest and understand how to make tech education appeal to women have driven the phenomenal growth of her startup.  For more information, visit the show notes at http://www.bobbirebell.com/podcast/addabirnir

Build a website in just 5 days (even if you're not techie) at www.free5daywebsitechallenge.com Already have a website? Take the Free "Jumpstart Your Website Traffic" marketing mini-course at www.jumpstartyourwebsitetraffic.com Leave a Review! So, I don’t think this will come as a shock to anyone that knows me personally, but I’m absent-minded. I have a terrible memory. I can’t leave the house without having to come back inside at least once, often twice to find my keys or my phone or my laptop charger. I’m awful at simple math, not because I’m not smart, but because I’m impatient, not wanting to take the time to really think it through. And when it comes to anything tech, my attitude is “try it and see what happens.” And I accept that’s who I am. Sure, I’d like to improve, because I often create more work for myself, which on one hand is totally inefficient, but on the other hand, I often learn quite a bit when I have to fix something that I’ve broken. And that’s why I know so much about WordPress!! But about a month ago, all of those qualities culminated in one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. More on that later. Unlike the big stuff, like my decision to leave my day job and take my side hustle full time, I typically don’t carefully consider the outcomes of my decisions. I just decide and get to work. And that’s what I did with the latest launch of my Web Designer Academy this fall, my proven step-by-step system for people that want to turn their web design and coding skills into a profitable business when they have no clients, no portfolio and a severe case of imposter syndrome. Let me pause here and say that even if you’re not interested in building a web design business, like the majority of people in the WP+BFF’s community, there’s a lot of actionable info you can pick up from this experience, so if you’re not a wannabe web designer I invite you to keep on reading!! It was never my intention when I started this business to ever teach anyone else how to do exactly what I do. But last fall, my BFFs Sara and Cristina over at One Woman Shop had recommended me to their friends at Skillcrush to do a presentation on how I built my WordPress business for one of their online summits. If you don’t know who Skillcrush is, they have a product called the WordPress blueprint which teaches people who want to become web designers how to actually CODE WordPress from the ground up. Thankfully I have an amazing business coach, Vicki Fitch, who when I told her about this opportunity, gave me a vision of how I could leverage it for more than just exposure. Our plan was to invite attendees to a free webinar that expanded on how I built my business with WordPress and affiliate marketing, and on the survey signup page, I would ask them what 3 things they struggle with the most. I had about 300 people sign up for the webinars, and I put them on a separate list in my email marketing program – and almost all of them filled out the survey. By the way, I would have never thought of doing that on my own. I would have presented on it, put that on my list of cool things that I did to build my credibility, and moved on with my life – and that’s why I think everyone should have a coach – because we have so many blind spots that we can’t see. What I’ve earned from that one suggested has given me a significant return on my investment in coaching. The information I got back from that survey was so enlightening! It was like I had hopped into a time machine and went back to 2014 when I felt the exact same way those 300 women felt – like a total imposter who didn’t know enough to say I’m an expert. Two more topics emerged from that survey – how to overcome imposter syndrome and how to build credibility when you’ve never built a website for a client before. Um, yep, been there, done that, got the t-shirt! So after reviewing this information, Vicki convinced me that it was time to coach others on my expertise on how I actually built this business. How I flipped the traditional freelance web designer model on it’s head and ended up with amazing clients (more than I can handle at times)! I was more confident about this offer than anything else I’ve ever offered before. So we took the information from the survey, turned it into a 3-part live webinar series and offered it to the Skillcrush people, and I shared with them my experience of how I was able to overcome imposter syndrome and build credibility and actually earn money with WordPress while working full-time and without having to have clients. And then at the end of that webinar series, I invited people to join a live, 12-week group coaching program where I’d pull back the curtain and teach them exactly what I’ve done to build my business. My content wasn’t created at the time I made the offer, but I knew exactly what I was going to teach, and I felt very confident that I could provide TONS of value to anyone that wanted to learn what I was teaching. I knew that if they implemented the steps I was sharing that they’d recoup their investment in the program fairly quickly. I knew it because I’d done it myself, and I’m not special. I just take action. So before I tell you what happened, let’s talk pricing for a minute. My pricing structure was $1049 for early-bird signups – people that took advantage of the offer right away on the webinars, $1197 for people that missed that early cut-off, and then if people took advantage of a payment plan, they paid a little more than if they paid in full up front. For something that didn’t even exist. Just for the promise that I would teach it to them. It takes a LOT of trust for someone to open up their wallet and give you a thousand bucks for a promise to show them something, and I spent a lot of time building that trust. And being on that Skillcrush webinar gave me a lot of credibility also. At the end of the live webinar series, I had 6 amazing women join the coaching program. From an email list of 300 people, I earned roughly $6000. Or to put it another way, for the 12 weeks of work, I earned an extra $500 a week, or $2,000/month. Are you starting to see the possibilities here? Some of the women chose to move through the content at their own pace while others chose to be on the live sessions and participate in the group coaching calls to get their specific questions answered. We held a live class every Wednesday, and then office hours to answer questions on Monday. I love doing the live group coaching. Seeing people change their mind about their skill set and what they have to offer is really rewarding. I built relationships with my students, and I’ve even hired a couple of students that were major action-taking go-getters to do some projects with me! But weekly group coaching takes a ton of time, and I still had a full-time job, so as I was creating the content and presenting it week by week, it was always with the intention that it would be offered again as pre-recorded sessions with live office hours. So when it was time to launch it again, I named it the Web Designer Academy instead of the WP+BFF Group Coaching Program, hired a copywriter to help me tweak the sales page and sales emails and hired a graphic designer to help me design the sales page. I think I invested about $1000 in those two items. In the spring of this year, I invited anyone on my 5 Day Website Challenge list to get on the Web Designer Academy list, sent the three free pre-recorded webinars via email, and followed it up with a launch sequence that directed anyone interested in the program to a sales page. I didn’t do any live webinars that time – it all was pre-recorded and sent via email. Now I knew for sure that there were interest and value in the program, and I knew how much time it took to run the program, I updated the pricing to $1997 for base access (which didn’t include the live office hours), $2397 including office hours and $3497 for office hours plus lifetime access to office hours and additions to the program in the future. I was scared to raise the price, but I believed in the value of the program, and I know that people can make much, much more than that if they implement what they learned, so I just went for it! And after taking advantage of fast-acting bonuses, 7 amazing people paid between $1500 and $2400 for the program – for a total of over $11,000!!! That launch was the one that was the tipping point for me making the decision to leave my job at the end of the year. That showed me that my expertise is valued and that I’m able to generate substantial income from it. I had 2 people take advantage of the group coaching component, and while I loved our sessions together, I feel like I missed out on interaction with the rest of the group. My favorite part of this program is helping people overcome their own limitations and hurdles and helping them see things differently, and a Facebook group just doesn’t cut it!! I want to make sure people get results, and while I can’t do the work for them, I can certainly help them over the hurdles that are stopping them from progressing! So here’s where it gets interesting… And maybe I got a little cocky, I don’t know. You’re my BFF, you tell me I had planned to launch the Web Designer Academy again this fall. I decided to do it a little earlier than planned, at the beginning of August, due to my insane work schedule and travel plans. I also decided that I wanted to run Facebook ads to grow my email list for the launch. I figured that if a list of 350 could generate $11,000, with a list of 600 I could maybe hit $20,000! So I invested about $1200 in Facebook ads targeting women between the ages of 25 and 40 who have an interest or a job in web design, and also targeting specific Facebook pages of entrepreneurs like Chalene Johnson and Marie Forleo where I hang out to find people that need WordPress help, so I know other people like me are hanging out there too! With Facebook ads, I grew my list up to 695. If you’re keeping track of the math there, I paid about $3.50 per person added to my list. That’s actually very, very expensive for a Facebook ad. Not a great return on investment from a business perspective, but if you’re one of those people that came from Facebook and you’re reading this blog post, to me you’re awesome and priceless and I’m glad you’re here Anyway, I sent everyone to a landing page to sign up a for a free video series, “How to Start a Freelance Web Design Business” which was my introductory webinar series, and on the thank you page, I asked the same survey questions, just to make sure that I was covering the challenges this new group of people who came to me through ads. And as I predicted, yep, they all indicated that imposter syndrome and credibility were huge barriers to them taking the leap to chase their dream – so I knew that these people would be perfect for the Web Designer Academy (and that I did a good job on my Facebook ad targeting). Finally, I changed the pricing to $1997 for base access, no office hours, $2997 for office hours and $3997 for Lifetime Access. I offered some fast-action discounts to sweeten the deal, and I also offered a monthly payment plan this time, just in case… Here’s where it all started to go wrong… Remember when I told you I’m absent-minded? I didn’t think my whole launch sequence through from a technical perspective. I thought I did, but I should have had someone double-check my work. I’m having flashbacks to high-school calculus class right now… Anyway. I used the same campaign as I had in the spring, so people that had already run through it didn’t get added to it again and they missed the initial email sequence. Thankfully a bunch of them emailed me to tell me, so I quickly cloned the whole sequence, created a new tag for everyone and dropped them all into the new sequence. Thank goodness I’m techie and knew exactly what to do to fix this, but I feared I may have damaged my credibility by not following through on what I said would happen. Strike one. Then, remember how insanely busy I said I was when I launched? Well, so was everyone else I knew because it was Back to School time. “I feel bad for my friends, and I’m kinda glad I don’t have to deal with that,” I remember thinking… #duh!!! If my sisters and my BFFs are going through back to school insanity, it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that my community would be too!! Ain’t nobody got time to watch a 3-hour video series or the budget for a $1997 course when they just had to buy a bunch of new clothes, school supplies and pay a ton of school fees! Strike two. And then the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done happened… This one is a combo of absent-mindedness and living my life on autopilot. The new thing I did this launch sequence is to add a Facebook live lesson as the fourth broadcast where I would recap all three lessons and invite people to join the Web Designer Academy. I promoted this Facebook Live throughout my launch sequence. I created a Facebook event and invited people to RSVP. I took the day off work to prepare for going live at 3PM EST. I found an awesome new tool call BeLive.tv which would let me do a Facebook Live using my laptop to screen share and toggle back and forth between me and my presentation. I was going to totally rock this final live broadcast, and I was going to get at least 12 more amazingly awesome people to enroll in the course and I couldn’t wait to meet them! So I sit down at my desk, throw on some of my favorite Buxom lip gloss and press the “Start Broadcast” button and I just dive right into my presentation. First thing I notice is that attendance is super-low. I had about 70 people say they’d be there live, and I’m seeing two people on, one of whom is my business coach. That’s okay, I think. Just keep going. People will join. Then I see an old co-worker say hi. Cool, I think. She must follow my business page. So I’m just to the point where I’m going to talk about how much it costs, which already has me feeling weird because it’s the most expensive thing I’ve ever sold… (and just as I wrote that I realized it’s not true, I’ve sold websites more expensive than that so let’s put this on the list of things to work through with my biz coach…) …and my high school band director says hi in the comments. And that’s when it hit me. I went live on my personal facebook page!!!! Are you freaking kidding me right now??? I totally got nervous (my face actually turns red in the video), I botched the sales piece and finished it as fast as I could. One, I’ve never publicized my side business on my personal page and I felt totally like a fraud Did my high school boyfriend just see that? Why am I friends with him on Facebook? I really need to clean up my friends list… (add that to the list of things I need coaching on). Two, I didn’t show up for the people waiting for me on my business page!!!!!!! It’s like I was speaking at a conference, walked into the wrong room and starting giving a presentation while the people who were there to see me were in a different room like “What the hell? Where is she? Flake. No way I’m giving her my money.” Strike 3. So I message Vicki, my biz coach, and tell her what happened. If I didn’t have this support system, do you know how discouraged I would have been? I mean, seriously, I would have probably told my boss that I was going to just stay at my day job. I’m not even kidding, I might have rescinded my resignation and stayed right in my comfy little comfort zone. Here’s what Vicki said: Perfect accidental marketing goldmine… Also known as just freaking be yourself, imperfections and all!! Don’t not try because you might feel embarrassed! Don’t pretend like these things don’t happen! Don’t quit if you do feel embarrassed! (And by the way, all my friends had really nice things to say about that presentation even though they didn’t know it wasn’t for them.) I’m human, I make mistakes, and I still know my stuff when it comes to using WordPress to build a business online. So despite all of those hurdles, this time, I had 3 amazingly awesome women join the program using my payment plan option (hi guys!!!!) and I immediately recouped my investment in Facebook ads. And what I learned from this experience? Priceless. Did I meet my goal of 12 students? Nope. Am I disappointed? Nope! I’m totally grateful for any opportunity I get to inspire someone to take action toward their dreams. And I can’t wait to see what my latest round of students do! I sent a survey to everyone that didn’t buy asking them why they chose not to enroll, and that was also extremely enlightening. I got feedback from only one person that I had damaged my credibility due to those mistakes. Perhaps more people felt that way, and guess what? I’m okay with not being “for” those people. Because I’m never going to be perfect and I’m always going to make mistakes, but I’m also always going act in integrity and admit them and fix them. The two biggest reasons people didn’t buy were timing and price. Did I price it too high this time? Based on previous sales I know people are willing to pay that much, but this time, the three enrollees used the payment plan. I’m using that feedback to be more creative with the pricing and meet people where they are while still selling the program for what it’s worth. And as far as timing is concerned, I’m also playing with that. I’ll be testing out launching it as two tracks, one marketing and one development, and making an always-open course without a live-coaching component. If you’re on the Web Designer Academy mailing list and wanted to join but the timing or pricing wasn’t right for you, you’ll be getting more info the next iteration of the program in the next couple of weeks. So what I want you to take away from this experience is: Survey your dream client and see if what you want to offer is in alignment with what they need. Consider offering your program in a small group format and create the content for an on-demand course during the live course, it’s a big time-saver. Test different pricing structures and course formats. Timing is key. It’s okay when things don’t go as you planned them as long as you learn from it and keep going. Just be your-freaking-self, imperfections and all. Don’t hide, whether that’s hiding your side-hustle from your personal social media or hiding that you screw up from time to time. Thanks for being my BFF!!!

Adda Birnir is founder and CEO of Skillcrush, an online tech education company that helps students make a career change into tech. Prior to founding Skillcrush, Adda worked as a developer, building web applications for companies such as the New York Times and ProPublica. In this episode Adda Birnir tells us why we must always be thinking about our customer’s problems and how we can solve them. Adda also talks about her transition into a tech career from a liberal arts degree and how it inspired her to start her company, Skillcrush. To find out more about this episode, visit the show notes page at www.itcareerenergizer.com/e58

In S2E3, we fall hard for Adda Birnir, founder and CEO of Skillcrush—the online coding school with a heart. While coding bootcamp programs tend to talk about turning students into rockstar programmer gods, Skillcrush focuses on using tech to build a fulfilling, creative, and sustainable career. And the message is working: after some early ups and downs back in 2012, Adda has taken the business from a fledging idea to a stable, profitable, and growing company of 35 employees. And she’s here to tell us all about it. > At some point I decided that I wanted the business to survive and I was going to figure out what it would take for it to survive and do that. And that really meant sort of letting go of kind of any idea I had about what the business was going to be. > > —Adda Birnir, founder and CEO, Skillcrush Listen in for a super-real convo about: Bootstrapping a business instead of raising venture capital How to bounce back when the bank account runs dry Why women are flocking to Skillcrush to learn technical skills—while most bootcamp programs struggle to attract them Building pay equity into the heart of how Skillcrush runs Making sure you don’t end up hating the company you built Plus: Friend dates, cheese plates, and ordering as many desserts as possible Vocab swaps for “crazy” and “guys” (for more ideas on this one, check out this article from The Establishment) Morning people: are they a fuck yeah! or a fuck that? Sponsors This episode of NYG is brought to you by: Shopify, a leading global commerce platform that’s building a world-class team to define the future of entrepreneurship. Visit shopify.com/careers to see what they’re talking about. CodePen—write code like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript directly in a browser and see the results as you build. CodePen is giving away three free PRO accounts to NYG listeners. Enter at codepen.io/nyg. WordPress—the place to build your personal blog, business site, or anything else you want on the web. WordPress helps others find you, remember you, and connect with you. _ _ Transcript Sara Wachter-Boettcher [Ad spot] This episode of NYG is brought to you by our friends at Shopify, makers of great tools that help entrepreneurs around the world start and grow their businesses. Shopify started with just a few people obsessed with personal growth. Now they’re a team of more than 3,000 with offices and remote workers pretty much everywhere. What’s next? Oh, just redefining the future of entrepreneurship. If that’s interesting to you, visit shopify.com/careers to see what they’re working on [music fades in, plays alone for ten seconds]. Jenn Lukas Welcome to No, You Go [music fades out], the show about being ambitious—and sticking together. I’m Jenn Lukas. Katel LeDû I’m Katel LeDû. SWB And I’m Sara Wachter-Boettcher. KL Today on the show we’re talking to my friend, Adda Birnir. Six years ago she developed and launched an online coding course and has since built a thriving company around it. We talk about the early days of starting a business; how to decide when and if you need financial help as a startup; and we dig into what the future of working in tech might look like. But before we get to that, can we talk about our co-host date we just had? JL We can definitely talk about this. So, last month was my birthday, and I had the chance to go out with these two lovely ladies. And it was so awesome, we went to dinner, and drinks, and then dessert, and then we went another place for more dessert [laughs, others laugh]. SWB It was my favorite part about our co-host date. KL We know—we know how to do dessert. We know how to like do a night out. Clearly. JL I think that is definitely true. And I—I think that, don’t get me wrong, I love this podcast, and hanging out with you during this podcast, but I really loved hanging out with you over dinner, drinks, and dessert times three. SWB I was soooo happy to… get out and just kind of have fun with both of you because I was thinking a lot about this like we’re all busy and have so much different stuff going on in our schedules, and we all have like other work to do that’s not the podcast, of course, right? And so it’s really easy for like the only social time we have with each other to also be podcast time, and then you realize like… all we do is work on the podcast. And as much as—you’re right: I love it. Like I love doing it—I wouldn’t do this otherwise. But then you’re like, oh wow what used to be friend time is also now work time. And then you’re like, oh what happened to like just having friend time with my friends? And so I think that’s really cool that we sort of were, you know, making that time and I think we gotta make sure that happens more often. [2:29] JL A lot of us are so lucky to be able to have found friends that we can work with which is so cool because you’re just like doubling down on awesome time spent together but I—we—I keep coming back to this: this balance thing, right? And trying to figure out how to remember that… [under breath] I don’t have to remember that you’re my friends, I do know you’re my friends [laughter]. KL Do you remember why we fell in love? [JL laughs boisterously, others laugh along] JL The next Nicholas Sparks book! [Laughs] No, You Go: a Love Story. KL Yeah, yeah, exactly [chuckles]. JL But I think it’s—we all keep coming back to this balance thing, finding that balance. So, I don’t know, just going out to dinner with you all just reminded me (not that I forgot, I promise I didn’t forget) but just like, again, that this is the reason I think I love this so much is because I’m doing something I love with friends that I love. SWB I also love having like a cheese plate and not also talking about whether or not we can sign a sponsor, or what we’re going to do for the upcoming episode, or how many downloads we got this week. Like that was a pretty good cheese plate and also we didn’t have to talk about the podcast. Which, like, I love the podcast but that doesn’t mean I want to talk about it all the time. I love work but I don’t want to talk about it all the time. JL That’s true. KL Yeah. JL We did talk about one thing about the podcast which was that we should bake this in every time we finish the season: a No, You Go…Out to Dinner [all laugh]. SWB Yeah, I mean, totally! I love this idea that we work that in as sort of like these celebratory moments. And like a season is little; like we’re talking 10 episodes at a time right now. That’s what we’re, you know, that’s what we’re calling a season. And it’s not like we’re, you know, doing these like major milestones, but it’s like these little mini markers that like, “Yeah! We accomplished something and that matters!” JL And I really like it. I mean and I think scheduling stuff is ok. And we’ve talked—and we’ve talked about this before with guests, right? I mean I know last week with Carmen, Carmen had mentioned, you know, how she’d scheduled weekends off. And, you know, to have that specific time booked. And, you know, and Lara Hogan has talked about how she likes to celebrate with donuts, and I think having these things that you specifically whether you mark them on a calendar or they become habit or routine. Something that really reminds you to keep celebrating these victories, these friendships, these professional milestones, anything that you want to love, to really celebrate that about yourself, some way or another. It can be something small, it can be something big, whichever fits into your lifestyle. [4:50] KL I love that and I’m so glad we did that, and I can’t wait til the next one. Something else that I really like that we’re doing is, you know, just working on improving ourselves a little it and part of that has been, you know, this new thing we’re going to do with the vocab swap. And I just thought, like let’s check in on that a little bit. So, vocab swap is something that we are starting because we realize we were saying things like “you guys” a lot or, you know, things like “we’re going crazy” about something, and we just—we wanted to change the way we were talking and just be a lot more aware of those things, and learn more about how to practice that a little bit better. So h—how do you feel like it’s been going? JL I feel like it’s been going well. I’ve run into a few hiccups here and there. For “you guys” I’m really good if I’m typing: I can type “y’all” or “folks.” But it feels weird for me to say “y’all” or “folks” out loud. The face I’m making right now [chuckles] is like mmm. It just doesn’t roll off my tongue that well. So, I don’t know, are you—are y’all saying something else? KL I also find that if I simply just take a beat and say “you” because that can apply to a group of people. If I’m not sure or like don’t feel comfortable saying “y’all” or “folks” or, you know, whatever, I like saying “friends” or “pals” [yeah][mm hmm]. I don’t know, just kind of thinking of all those different ways you can kind of experiment. I had a hard time with it, too, and then I was like, “I think I just need to force myself to say it,” and then it became a lot more comfortable. SWB I think that a lot of time like other things sound weird in our heads [yeah] because we’re not used to them, but they don’t actually sound weird. But I think, you know, something I—it depends on the context, right? Like so at the beginning of a conversation if you’re like introducing yourself or, you know, you’re saying hi for the first time, it’s like—I sometimes find that something like a “hey everyone” is more comfortable for me [yes yes] and then in conversation if it’s like, you know, “What do you guys want to get for lunch?” I find myself not saying that anymore because I find it’s pretty comfortable to say like, “What do you all want for lunch?” Not a y’all but like, “What do you all want?” KL Right. Yeah. SWB I found that those—those are the ways that it tends to work for me I think most of the time. JL And then the other one for me, you know, we were talking about substituting “crazy” for things like “wild.” So, “I’m wild about that.” And I love that, but then I ran into something like, what about if I’m saying, “This drives me crazy.” [7:24] SWB Yeah, so I mean that’s an interesting one, right? Because what you’re implying there is that this is making you mentally ill. And that’s kind of like what you mean, right, when you say that but it’s not really what you mean, right? And so for a lot of people it feels like that’s making light of people with actual mental illness. And so, you know, it’s hard to just swap out a word there. It’s like you kind of need to change up the whole phrase [mm hmm] so that you’re not—because if you say some other word that’s a substitute for crazy, like, “This is driving me nuts,” you’re basically saying the same thing [mm hmm]. So—so we started brainstorming some potentials [laughter]. Ok, so, “That makes me frustrated.” That’s a—that’s a good baseline one. You can use that pretty much anywhere. JL Totally. SWB What else did we come up with? JL Uh, “This really grinds my gears.” SWB [Laughs] These get bad so quickly [laughs]. KL “These really—really get my panties in a bunch.” JL [Laughs] Uh, “This makes my blood boil.” SWB “This really rubs me wrong.” [Mm] Meh [laughter]. JL That phrase, “Rubs me wrong,” rubs me wrong [laughter]. KL “That really… steams my mussels.” [Laughter] SWB Is that a thing?! [Laughter] KL No!! [Laughter][Music fades in, plays alone for two seconds, fades out.] Thanks to our sponsors SWB [Ad spot] Have you visited noyougoshow.com yet? Well, you should. Because that’s where you sign up for our brand-new email newsletter, “I Love That.” And guess what? We made that site with our awesome sponsor, WordPress. We love them, too. WordPress gives us tons of flexibility, so we can add whatever features we want easily. You can even use it for ecommerce. Whether you want to add a simple “buy” button, or have a whole online store, make your site your own when you build it on wordpress.com. You don’t need to do the coding or design. WordPress customer support team is there 24/7 to make sure things are [kisses index and thumb] chef-finger-kiss good. Go to wordpress.com/noyougo for 15 percent off any new plan purchase. That’s 15 percent off your brand-new website at wordpress.com/noyougo. We’re also hyped to be supported this week by CodePen, a powerful tool that allows designers and developers to write code like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript directly in a browser and see the results as you build. It’s like a big, virtual sandbox where you can learn new skills, show off your work, get help, and more. Not only is CodePen an awesome community but they’re also doing this awesome giveaway. They’re giving away three free Pro Developer accounts. Enter to win at codepen.io/nyg by answering just one question: What do you love about CodePen? And if you don’t use CodePen yet, you can still win. You just need to tell them what you’re excited to make first. So check out CodePen today and enter to win one of those three free Pro accounts. Visit codepen.io/nyg. That’s C-O-D-E-P-E-N dot I-O slash N-Y-G [music fades in, plays alone for two seconds, fades out]. [10:16] Interview: Adda Birnir KL I know my way around HTML and CSS because of one person: Adda Birnir. She is the founder and CEO of Skillcrush, the online coding school with a heart, which she’s built from the ground up over the past six years. Adda helped me learn programming languages, but more than that, I felt confident after learning something new, which is amazing. She’s helping thousands of people learn to code so they can make a living doing work they actually love. Adda, I’m thrilled to have you on the show. Welcome to No, You Go. Adda Birnir I’m so thrilled to be here! KL So let’s just get into this: how did you launch Skillcrush? AB We started, you know, in April of 2012 and basically at that point I had been working as a developer for probably about two years or so, and was kind of interested in this idea—was a moment in which startups were really hot, and it was like right when a lot of those incubators were sort of coming out. And it was kind of like everyone had a big idea and I was like, “I want in on this too!” So I was playing around with some different stuff with some friends of mine. At the time I was—I was running sort of a very, very small design/development shop with a business partner who became one of the founders of Skillcrush, and we were kind of experimenting with different ideas around apps and services and stuff like that that we could offer people. And we’d actually had one that had totally flopped and that had been a really good lesson for me because it was definitely one of those things where instead of starting with a problem and a customer, we started with a solution so we were, you know, there’s kind of a typical startup thing like a solution in search for a problem. And therefore I wanted to do everything with Skillcrush totally the opposite way. So we actually launched the first like first thing where we put the Skillcrush name out there was just a newsletter that we launched, and we launched it at South by Southwest [SXSW]. And by launched at SXSW, we put like an email form signup on an iPad and like walked up to people at SXSW and [laughs] tried to get them to buy it with an email address. So that was the first sort of genesis of Skillcrush in the form that it is today. [12:23] SWB What did you tell people at SXSW? Like what did you tell people they were signing up for? AB Basically the kind of like hypothesis or like the question that we were trying to answer for ourselves was: would women buy a product that was about technical topics if we positioned it in a much friendlier kind of way? That was kind of like the scientific experiment we wanted to do. Our hypothesis was that it’s not really that coding, per se, is unattractive to women, it’s that the way in which every other, you know, major university, education, everything outlet talks about it is the problem. And so if we repositioned it in a much friendlier way that seemed a lot more relevant to women’s lives, would they be willing to buy it? And our thought was if we can’t get women at SXSW to buy it, we’re screwed. Right? Like this is—this is definitely like the early adopter audience, and what we sold them, and by “sold,” again, it was for free with an email address. But what we sold them was a tech word of the day newsletter. I think. And it was like, every day we were going to define a new tech term in like a fun and interesting way. But I’m sure our pitch changed a lot, I’m sure, person to person, because we were literally doing direct sales person to person. KL I—I remember that newsletter. I mean, I signed up for that and I remember thinking like, “This is such a great entry point.” So, I don’t know, it—it worked. AB I got Katel! KL [Laughs] Yeah, exactly. So in the early days, after you grew sort of from making just that newsletter, you started doing these tutorials… what were those early days like creating all those tutorials? And like you—you yourself were at the center of this brand and kind of giving the lessons. Like what was that like? AB It was just a lot of work [laugh]. I mean it was like… I would literally—I mean I think that’s sort of every founder when they start, right? It’s funny for me to think about now because there’s people who’s like full-time job it is to video edit for us, for example. Whereas I used to write the content, do the video, edit the video, upload it to the site, code the site, you know what I mean? [KL laughs yeah] It was just like every single part of it. Yeah, I mean—I mean honestly like I think I am somebody who happens to be—like really enjoy that aspect of it. I mean I love Skillcrush and what it is now, but like I miss those early days. I miss the days when I could like have an idea… you know? Run through the entire production cycle and have it up the next day. That was super duper fun. It was also like soul crushingly like… you know like the weight of like, “Is this going to work?” You know, “Am I deluding myself?” Like all of that stuff was really, really hard. So, you know, it’s a—it’s a give and take. [15:05] KL Did you always feel like you were the kind of person who would start a business? Like, when did you know that you were that person? AB I… discovered that I was the type of person to run a business probably like four or five months into running my first business when I realized. I mean I really had to like have a heart to heart with myself and be like, “You know what? I’m running a business.” Because what had happened is that I had basically been doing this job, I was working at MTV at the time, and I really didn’t like it. And I met this friend who became my business partner and she had run a freelance—she’d basically been like a solopreneur kind of freelancer, sole proprietor, before that as a designer. And she was basically pitching to me that like I could be the developer, she would be the designer, and we could take on bigger projects together… And I was basically like, “I’ll do anything but stay here.” [Laughs] So I was like, “Sounds like a great idea. I’ll do whatever you say. You seem to have a vision.” So I did that and then I like had that—I had some sense that we needed to incorporate the biz—the whatever it was that we were doing. Again, I was not thinking about this as a business. And so I did all this research into co-op business models which is actually like a thing you can incorporate as. And I had this like fantasy that we were going to be this cooperative, and I was doing all this research about what that meant and like all this stuff. And then eventually like it just got to this point where I was like, I just dug myself, like really dug into some rabbit hole, and she was like, “We just need to make an LLC and be done with it.” I was like, “Ok, fine!” And that was kind of the moment at which it dawned on me that like this was a business that we were starting. Skillcrush obviously was very different. When I started Skillcrush I had already run a business for two years, and gone through a lot of the things around like incorporating, and, you know, hiring your first person, and then, you know, what does it mean employee, contractor, like you know—health insurance—like all of that stuff which is its own big learning curve. SWB Adda, when you started Skillcrush did you kind of go all in right away or were you still doing client work and kind of doing this on the side? Like how did you spin it up into what it is now? AB Yeah, no, definitely not going all in like right away. I started, you know, we were doing—we were a design and development consultancy, effectively, so we would you know build websites for clients for hire and so that, you know, luckily it lent itself really well to this because we kind of were—like we had a workflow that sort of accounted for a lot of different projects and moving them along at the same time. So it wasn’t so hard to like slot in a personal or a sort of, you know, more of like a pet project for us. But so we started off that way. We did apply for an incubator. So that was helpful for us for a number of reasons: they gave us some money, which was great. And then, you know, sort of allowed us to dial down the client work and really focus for awhile. I think it also was, you know, at the time like I think it was like a lot of validation for us—which, looking back on it, I don’t really think that getting validation from like any sort of incubator or investment really means very much, but at the time it did. You know, like, I guess what I’m trying to say is objectively, it’s not like they really knew that we were, you know… going to work out as a company. But I think just having anyone tell you that this is a good idea and then put some money behind it like obviously is really helpful and encouraging at that moment in time. So. [18:21] KL Yeah. AB That was super helpful. And then we actually got a follow-on note from another investor so that gave us a little bit more runway. But I will say, like, we burned through all that money and then literally had negative dollars in the bank account and had to like figure out what the hell to do with ourselves [laughs]. So then we went back to doing client work. So it was definitely like it was a long road. Like I… went full-time on Skillcrush in the fall of 2014. So that was like over two years after we had batted the company. SWB That’s really interesting. So… so yeah something that we hear about a lot is when people start talking about, you know, running a startup, they’ll—they’ll immediately launch into… how they went from an incubator or whatever into, “Ok when we got our Series A,” and, you know, “Going for our Series B.” And did you kind of stop going down that investment path or did you continue once you went past the incubation stage? Can you tell us more about how that played out? AB Yeah so we did basically an incubator, which was $25,000, which is kind of traditional for an incubator. Then we did a convertible note, follow-on investment, which was basically like we just got—we got handed a $50,000 check and we didn’t even have to ask for it. But convertible notes, for those of you who aren’t familiar: basically they’re debt that will convert at the point at which you raise more money. Meaning that it’ll convert to equity. So it’s like you owe $50,000 on this timetable, but the idea is that instead of having to actually pay that back you raise more money. Like a Series A, for example. And at that point it converts to equity instead of being a debt. So we basically got a total of $75,000, and we used that to sort of fund the initial creation of our product and at that point we got ourselves to a point where we were making money but very little money. It was like $5,000 or something like that which, Katel, that’s probably like, you’re probably like one of the first dollars in the door [laughs, KL laughs]. KL Yes! AB [Chuckles] But yeah, so, and, you know, I think at the time like we were like, “Oh $5,000, that’s awesome.” Like, “Next month it’ll be $10,000, and then $15,000!” And instead it was like $5,000, then it was like $4,000, then it was like $3,000, and then we were like, “Oh no! This is a disaster.” And that was the point at which we had to, you know, just out of necessity, had to go and start doing other work to just make a living—I mean just to pay my rent. But in terms of the whole question of like whether or not to raise. You know, honestly this is something I fought with my co-founder about a lot, and I think she would be comfortable with me saying this. One of my co-founders I think kind of like basically left because I effectively refused to fundraise at that point, and the reason I refused at that point was I really didn’t—I just didn’t know even where to begin with that. Like I didn’t really know what I would do with the money if I raised the money. I didn’t really know what potential there was. I mean for me, this was so new at that point in time. It just wasn’t something I felt comfortable doing or wanted to do and I also think like that there was an extent to which like I had this sense of like, like, “I have a lot to learn here.” Both like myself as a person but also just like in context of this, like is this a viable business? What is needed for it to be a viable business? What does it look like? What needs to happen? [21:31] AB [Continued] And I think I just didn’t want kind of the pressure that bringing on more people would bring into it. So yeah, so I didn’t raise money. And then later on when I got to the point where I could’ve started to answer those questions, it kind of felt like the same thing, except for now I like was more knowledgeable, like I felt like I didn’t want to make promises I couldn’t keep. I—it was growing really organically, and it was growing at a high rate, but not at a sort of venture-backable high rate. And at that point I didn’t need the money, like I—we were profitable. So I just kind of continued to grow it like that. SWB I ask about it because I feel like so often when we have any conversation about a kind of tech-related business, nobody seems to understand that like… this is actually one potential path you could take. It’s almost like people have forgotten that since, you know, like people have been starting businesses by doing work for money [chuckles] for a really long time, and then it’s like, all of a sudden, it’s like everybody collectively forgot that, and assumes that what you have to do is go out there and get, you know, large amounts of funding and that it is all about raising capital, and then having to make those people happy. And so I—I really like, you know, looking at what are other ways people do this kind of thing? And then, how does that change what you offer, and how you offer it, and how you choose to grow? AB I don’t regret anything about what I’ve done. I mean I will admit, just for full disclosure, I did raise money from an angel investor in 2015 and the reason for that was that at that point we were making a lot of money but I also had a lot of costs. It was making it hard for me to invest as much as I wanted to in growth because, you know, I think as a young company, like it’s really hard to sort of build up the cash reserves that you need in order to feel really stable. So at that point I did take on some money just to sort of have some more cash in the bank, and allow us to continue to invest in the growth of the business. But… running a startup business, like I have—it’s really keeps you honest and I think that I can’t imagine like even for me now like having more money in the bank like it does fundamentally change the way you make decisions. And sometimes at some points in the business I think that’s like ok and appropriate if you know what you’re doing. But early on, I mean you’re literally just spending blindly. Like you have no idea what to spend money on, or like you just—you don’t know how to do anything. I mean you don’t know how to like spend your time or money, and that just lends itself to spending money on things you shouldn’t be spending money on. And it’s not that it’s impossible to like raise money and then do it right, but I think that it’s impossible to bootstrap it and not do it right, right? Like you can’t do it for very long if you don’t do it right. So it like really, really forces you, in such a healthy way I think, to know what the hell you’re doing—or to learn really fast. [24:16] SWB Right. There’s no pile of money sitting around that you can misuse— KL Exactly. SWB —because it’s not there [giggles]. AB Exactly. Yeah. It’s like I mean and you feel the pain. It’s like you’re looking at negative dollars and you’re like, “[Choking sound] What am I going to do to get myself out of this?” KL [Laughs] Yeah. You feel the effect right away and you have to make a decision to turn it around and—I mean the—I don’t want to say the cool thing is, because sometimes it doesn’t turn out to be cool but, you know—an interesting thing is that when you make a decision to try something else or something new you also get that feedback like right away. You’re like, [chuckles] “Ok this is working. Keep doing that.” AB Yeah. And granted like it only works for certain types of businesses and there’s other types of businesses that it’s very difficult and stuff like that, but I am really thankful for the experience, I’m really proud of having gotten through that. And I think Skillcrush is a much stronger company today because of that fact. So I definitely would recommend it. That said, though, like, listen: it’s true, nobody give you a—you know like I was profitable, like, I don’t know, maybe my third year in business or no, my second—or whatever. My first, my second full year of business and like nobody gives you a parade for that. And then you raise like a Series A and everyone’s like, “You’re amazing!” So like, I don’t know… I get it. KL That’s totally true. SWB It also seems to me like that’s sort of part of the problem [AB yeah] with like the tech industry and sort of like, what it chooses to celebrate and not celebrate. and what kinds of incentives that gives people. [25:40] AB Yeah, I mean listen: if we want to get real cynical, I think the tech industry is premised on like wealth consolidation, and like, what are you rewarding at the end of the day? Like some VC invests a bunch of money and then sells the company. Who is actually benefiting from that, right? Like I don’t—I don’t know. So yes. So I think there’s like some fundamental problems with what the tech industry and what our world values. I could not agree with you more. SWB Well, totally. You know what, though, I don’t think—I mean—I don’t actually perceive that as cynical, or maybe I don’t know maybe I’m just cynical, but I perceive that as being sort of like celebrating other ways of doing things. And, you know, like speaking of that, I’m actually really curious. I mean you kind of went around building the business a little differently than what some other people in tech might’ve done, but also the message and the sort of positioning of Skillcrush has been pretty different too. I mean you mentioned that when you mentioned the SXSW launch and sort of going up and trying to make it approachable for women, and I’m wondering if we can talk more about that. Like, how do you see Skillcrush as being different than other code bootcamps or academies and things like that that are out there? AB So [sighs]… I—it’s funny. I had an interesting conversation with a founder of another bootcamp and he was basically asking me, like, how do you—you know, because I think a lot of the other bootcamps struggle to attract women. And like our audience is 80 percent women. And we’re, you know, we’re literally enrolling hundreds of women a month. So it’s like they’re not not there, and they’re not not interested. They’re interested. And it was just funny for me because I was sort of like, “Oh it’s so simple.” And at the same time, like, you’d have to change everything about what you do. I think—like I can tell you how we do it in a million different details and sort of how we execute on it, but I think fundamentally it’s that the mission of our organization is focused on this audience: it’s women who are looking to make a career change because they want to make more money, have more flexibility, be more creatively, you know, fulfilled in their jobs. And we believe that by empowering them with tech skills, it’ll give them a lot more opportunities they don’t currently have. And we want, you know, to help them sort of make that transition. So then what that means is that like… we start everything from that premise. Like I mean we actually literally have a persona and she has a name and everything is like, “Is this what she would want?” Right? Does she want this class? Does she want this color? Does she want this design? Does she—like would she resonate with this imagery? Like so it’s just like it’s completely baked into every aspect of how we run the company. And—and I mean I would go as far as like to a certain extent like—I mean [sighs]… this is where like the persona and me I guess get a little conflated but like [chuckles] you know the company also is sort of—we want to build the company that would be a company that she would want to work for. Right? That is—that sort of does right by our people in the way that we think that like, you know, they should be done right by. So yeah it just… it’s just how—it’s the air we breathe. [28:32] SWB I’m thinking about even just a really tangible way that this plays out. You know I was taking a look at… how you talk about Skillcrush like on the website and I was looking at the reviews that you have, and I was noticing the difference between… what I see there versus like what I see on like a lot of these kind of bootcamp sites which is a lot of those feel so sort of like aggressive, like that you get out and you’re immediately this like coding rockstar who’s going to get this six-figure salary and I think, you know, that may well be true for somebody who comes out of the program, too, that they’re going to end up getting a great salary, but there was a lot more message of like, this very achievable feeling of like, “Yeah, I was able to transition into a job in tech doing support and then I was able grow that from there into this bigger position,” and it feels a little bit more like realistic? Maybe. Or a little bit more… just not—not so aggressive in that—in that like super… domineering way. AB Yeah I mean I think there’s a lot of culture in tech that I really struggle with, which is very much about virtuosity and [exhales sharply] sort of extreme technical ability, extreme, you know, you want to be the best coder ever! Who knows like the most languages! And like so fancy, and have like a really tight hierarchy of like what technical skills are valuable and which ones are not valuable. And fundamentally that is not a message that resonates with our audience. Like if we were like, “We’re the single best, most advanced, most intense place to learn Python,” like our audience would not come to us because that’s just not what they’re looking for. And I think like that is a huge distinction that I think differentiates us from everyone else basically, and I think that’s kind of what you’re speaking to. And I will say, too, like (and this is anecdotal) but like we do have male students and we also will get a lot of male students who will look at our programs, and it’s so funny because like… it’s so different in talking to them. And they tend to be much more interested, like they’ll really like hammer on our customer support of like, “What languages do you teach?” Like, “How do you teach them?” “How updated are they?” “What version are they?” Like all this stuff. And that just isn’t, you know, with our core audience it’s much more about what you can do with it rather than like kind of like how hardcore and how like legit are my skills going to be when I walk away from this program. And like, we still are legit. And like teach awesome stuff but, you know, that’s kind of not necessarily like our number one value proposition. SWB Yeah I like this idea that—that there’s lots of ways to do tech. Like there’s lots of ways to work in tech and like, sure, you might be the kind of person who wants this like super intense kind of thing but… there’s so much work to be done in tech and there’s so many interesting problems to solve that like you don’t have to be that person to find like a really cool career in the field which I like—I like that that message is coming through. I love that so much. AB Yeah I mean I think again, you know, fundamentally like our audience is not sitting around being like, “The most important thing to me is that I work in tech.” That’s just not what they’re motivated by. Like they are motivated by, you know, having a career that is more fulfilling to them in like, you know, in lots of different ways. Whether that is that it’s creative and flexible or that they make more money, I mean whatever, you know, that can mean a lot of different things for a lot of different people. And kind of the role that we’re playing is saying, “Listen: like tech is not even like a career. It is the career,” you know what I mean? Like it’s—it is the world we live in. And the more empowered you are from a technical perspective, the more choice you’re going to have, and the more options you’re going to have, and the more power you’re going to have, frankly. And this is kind of that moment. Like it’s like the industrial revolution or something, it’s like if you don’t sort of get on the bandwagon now, like there’s just a—there’s a lot to lose, potentially. And so, you know, we’re trying to—you know, trying to sort of bridge that gap. [32:25] KL Yeah. That makes so much sense and in making tech, you know, and sort of this whole world more approachable for women do you—do you like ever worry that they’ll, you know, what they’ll encounter in the culture when they get there? AB If I thought that the only that you could take advantage of the skills that we’re teaching you is to go work at a tech company, I think I would feel a lot more conflicted about what we do. But from my perspective like and, you know, and I say this partially from my own experience and also from, you know, just what I have observed and also just, you know, reading lots of data on jobs and where they’re moving. Like I don’t think that the only way that tech skills is useful to somebody is like to go work in the tech industry in sort of traditional like quote/unquote like “development” job. And I have major concerns about people who go do that and I definitely like would caution anyone. I mean, you know, and to go in with open eyes. Like I think—and I think [sighs]… it’s complicated like obviously I want women to have those jobs and I want more women to be in those roles but I also think fundamentally like, you know, it’s the big, I don’t know, you know, I’m just going to throw out some names here. Not to just single out any single company but at the end of the day I really do fundamentally believe that it’s like Google, and Apple, and Facebook, and all those, and Uber, like they’re the ones who have the most to lose by not diversifying their workforce and I don’t want to promote an idea of a like—I don’t believe in the idea that like… we should be begging them for jobs or begging them to like—like I fundamentally think that what’s amazing about the internet is that it really does democratize and distribute the power in a way that is kind of unprecedented in human history, and I’m about like distributing that power, and I don’t necessarily think that anyone should feel like they’re at the whim of some, you know, sexist tech company’s culture. KL Well, speaking of that like what [exhales sharply] what could change there in terms of I don’t know, like, this industry and those people just being, you know, better at supporting more diverse folks coming into it? AB Honestly, like I don’t know that I’m always like the best person to comment on this. I mean I can tell you like the things that we think about in terms of like how we create our company to try to combat bias, you know? And from a structural perspective: it’s hard. Like I get that. You have to do things that are not sexy. Like, you know, a big thing we did was institute these salary tiers where we really kind of worked really hard to equalize people’s salaries, and not—it doesn’t mean everyone makes the same amount, but like sort of create really strict standards of how we divvy up salaries and decide on salaries. And I mean I think it’s super sexy, but like from an individual’s perspective it’s not. It means you can’t, like, maximize your salary at Skillcrush. Like that’s not something that’s going to happen to an individual because we think about it from like sort of the collective perspective. So I think, you know, it’s about really reexamining the values of what these companies are going after. [35:18] KL Yeah totally. AB And that’s hard. SWB I’m so into this idea of like thinking about it from the collective perspective, I mean if you are working in a traditional environment where nobody is thinking about it from the collective perspective, like obviously you kind of gotta like… get yours or whatever. Like that—that ends up being like a mindset you have to get into to survive there. But if you are in a company where there’s this collective feeling in where you do have a sense that people are in it together. I think that you can approach situations totally differently. I love that. AB Yeah. I mean I think the thing is like from an employer’s perspective like everything is collective actually, right? Like I—like, you know, and this is based in my actual experience: like if I negotiate with someone and they negotiate an extra like $30,000 for their salary. That’s $30,000 dollars I can’t pay someone else or pay another like three people or whatever or raises I can’t give or bonuses. Like there is—it is a zero-sum game. I don’t have endless amounts amounts of money and I guess what I became really concerned with personally was pay equity, which I think is what you’re addressing, right? Like when you don’t have standardization and you don’t have pay equity then yeah, you should just basically try to get everything you can for yourself because like otherwise you’re just a sucker [laughing]. It’s like getting the short end of the stick. But I just, I mean like, I’m like whoever would think that that would create like a good structural outcome? KL Yeah. SWB Right, like, that’s more about like how do I—how do I like… exist in this environment or this culture in this system that is not like actually designed in any sort of healthy way, versus what would a system look like that was actually, you know, going to be like positive and good for people. And those are such fundamentally different questions that I think maybe we don’t spend enough time like parsing out, like, the difference between those things. [37:10] AB Yeah. Absolutely. KL So we were reading an interview with you where you talked about how you get out of a rut, and part of your answer was sometimes you, quote, “Must surrender and trust that you won’t feel so uninspired forever,” and we—we just really loved that like, you know, getting caught up in the idea of forward momentum and I think so many of us do that. That, you know, that kind of like unrelenting [laughs] you know push that you feel. Like how, I don’t know, how do you—like how do you deal with that? AB I think step one is always acknowledging it, right? Like I think that it was a big revelation for me just to be like, my role at this company has really changed, and I don’t get to be the person coming up with all the big ideas all the time. You know, and I really miss that, and I don’t—I don’t really have a solution for it. It’s been really helpful for me to talk to other people. Like I have a mentor who sort of gave me warning. He was like, you know, like, “You know like when you get up to like 30 to 50 people,” and we’re at 35 right now, he was like, “A lot of founders wake up and realize they hate their [laughing] lives and hate their companies,” because it’s just this, like, weight. It’s like all the fun parts are drained out of it, and like now all you do is like bureaucratic stuff, and for a lot of people that’s not why they got into the business at all. And that can be a real challenge. And that was kind of a warning he gave me and, you know, I don’t hate my company, but it was good for me to sort of have some warning that that wasn’t—that was like very normal. KL Yeah some perspective that you’re like, “Ok, I’m not the only one going through this.” Well, ok, so we’ve got one last question because we know we’re running out of time. But so, what would you tell someone who is considering building their own company or, you know, starting something new like that? AB It’s really funny because I feel like I do get asked this question a lot and I meet with people and it’s funny because it’s like I feel like I’m always like there to rain on their parade. And that’s so not what I want to do [KL chuckles] because I’m like, “No! You absolutely should go for it. It’s awesome.” So I—let me start by saying that: like you should totally go for it. It’s totally awesome. It’s completely—I think something that’s really important for people to understand is like there is a method to the madness. Like there is a way to make it much more likely that you will succeed. You know? It’s not just luck. And then, you know, and then to rain on your parade: I would say that like, you know, fundamentally—and this is something I say to people and they don’t like, but I will say it anyway—you at some point have to decide whether you are more attached to running a successful business or more attached to like realizing the vision that you had for your business. And in a perfect world and actually like I will say for myself like Skillcrush exceeds my expectations like by like a factor of like, you know, 25. Like it’s—I’m so proud of the company I’ve built and the product and there’s so many aspects of it that I couldn’t have even—like that I literally just would never have known to do, and that are so phenomenal. And like going on that journey has been, outside of like marrying my husband, the best thing that ever happened to me. But I think that like it’s successful from a business standpoint because at some point I decided that I wanted the business to survive and I was going to figure out what it would take for it to survive and do that. And that really meant sort of letting go of kind of any idea I had about what the business was going to be, and really base it on, you know: what was the problem? Who was the customer? And how was I going to solve their problem? And I think when I say that to people like they hear it as me telling that their like baby’s ugly or like they need to throw out their baby or whatever which I understand why they see that way but I really believe it’s about like letting go of like your vision of your baby, and like trusting in the process to like bring you an even better baby [laughter] and like I don’t know how much longer I can stretch this baby analogy but uh—but I just—yeah. I just think that like you—it’s like being in business is—like to really, really fundamentally be in business, it’s a lot of like really, really painful, hard choices that in the end, I think if you like come at it from the right perspective and don’t just like become a diet pill company or something like that, it will lead to like a much better outcome than you could’ve even imagined on your own. But I think it’s a very humbling process. [41:30] SWB Thank you so much for being on the show! This has been sooo interesting, and helpful, and thoughtful, and I am so glad we could have you. AB Yeah, no, it’s so good. No, thank you! [Music fades in, plays alone for two seconds, fades out.] Fuck Yeah of the Week KL So it’s time for one of my favorite parts of the show: The Fuck Yeah of the Week. Jenn, can you tell us what that is? JL I can, Katel. How about fuck yeah, mornings! Question mark?!? SWB Ugh!! Are you sure?!? JL I’m not sure. But I am sure and I’m going to try to be sure. I’ve been trying to dig into more about this whole morning-people thing that I’ve been hearing so much about my whole life. And I—I’m not so much a morning person, and I—right now I’m not an anything person because I’m sleep deprived and with a one-year-old, the mornings are the nights, and it’s all the same. But even before that I only dabbled in and out of being a morning person, but I feel like I’ve always had that pressure to like want to be a morning person. You know? I get it. It’s great. Sunshine. Do a bunch of stuff. It sounds amazing. Right? Like get stuff done before work, enjoy the coffee, there’s so many things about the mornings that are awesome, right? There’s so many things that like, fuck yeah, mornings! But there’s still something about the mornings some days that you get up and you’re just like, “Ugh! Mornings [laughs].” So I’ve been trying to think about how to more fuck yeah, mornings! And one of the things I read recently that I really liked was that… when you get up instead of being like, “Ugh, you know, I didn’t sleep well,” or, “I’ve got this thing to do.” Instead ask yourself: what am I looking forward to today? And I love that, so the other day I got up and then I said to myself, “I’m so looking forward to seeing my friends today,” and when I like reframed the morning like that to then think about the positive things that were coming up, it completely flipped the script. So it like switched how I was going to look at the rest of that day and all of a sudden I was like… “Fuck yeah, morning!” [43:36] KL I like that so much. I—I think of myself as more of a morning person than like a, you know, a night owl, but I still find it like over this winter it’s just been, you know, extra hard getting up and it’s dark and all that. But I always love like the first coffee [mmmm]. And there’s something about it that like always gets me—I’m just like, “Yes, if I can just like get to that, it’s all going to be good [laughs].” JL Something I started doing a few years ago was not waiting to get to work to have my first cup of [KL yeah!] but making sure that I woke up and had that cup of coffee at home. So that like I could really enjoy it and didn’t feel like I was rushing all around. So I’ve always made sure, even like with changes in schedule, that I have at least 15 minutes to enjoy that cup of coffee and have that be my time. KL That’s so funny. That reminds me of—and this like a while ago but my sister at one point I—I just like hadn’t realized that she did this, and she was like, yeah, you know, she and her husband would like—they would go get out of bed, make coffee, and then get back in bed, and drink the coffee in bed and just like sit there for 10 or 15 minutes like enjoying coffee! And I was like, “That sounds amazing!!!” I was like, “Oh my god. Why am I not doing that?!?” SWB You should’ve all seen my face when Jenn said that she realized that she didn’t have to like wait till she was at work to have the first coffee [laughter] and I’m like, “I don’t understand. How did you get to work?” But like how did you move your person from your home… ? [Laughter] But anyway so like ok, there’s that. But also I really think like—I don’t think of myself as a morning person necessarily. Like I can drag myself up and out for something early when I need to and occasionally for like an early workout when I don’t think I can do it later or something like that, but I kind of like to, you know… wake up a little more slowly and like not have to talk to anybody right away [laughs]. Like I don’t have to be a morning person, necessarily, to still say like, “Oh! But I can find some joy in what’s coming up that day,” right? Like you don’t have to transform yourself. You don’t have to wake up smiling, you can still be kind of dragging ass, but you can also say, like, “Ooh! What do I have to look forward to today?” And I’m—that’s a habit that I want to start getting into so that I don’t go into the day like with that general sense of dread and [laughing] foreboding and instead identify something good that I’m looking forward to that day. And if I don’t have anything to look forward to at all that day, then maybe I should take a moment in the morning and come up with something because— [46:04] KL Yeah! SWB —like if you don’t have anything coming up in the day that you can be like, “That’s going to be good. That’s going to be my time,” [inhales sharply]… maybe that’s the problem… maybe it was never the morning’s fault. KL Maybe we can all learn to love mornings. JL You know this is like what we’ve talked about before where sometimes you just like—like with salary numbers in one of our previous episodes we were saying, you know, if you’re going to go in for a salary negotiation, keep saying the number that you’re going to ask for until like you sound confident in it. So maybe if I just keep repeating over and over again… “Fuck, yeah, mornings! Fuck yeah, [laughs] mornings! Fuck. Yeah. Mornings!” Until I really really believe and then it will happen [laughter]. KL I believe it. Fuck yeah, mornings. SWB I’m a little unconvinced but I’m going to say—I—I’m going to say, fuck yeah to taking a moment to think about things I’m looking forward to on any given day because: fuck yeah, I like looking forward to things. KL Yes. JL Fuck yeah! SWB Well, I think that wraps up this week’s episode of No, You Go, the show about being ambitious—and sticking together. NYG is recorded in our home city of Philadelphia, and produced by Steph Colbourn. Our theme music is by The Diaphone. Thanks to Adda Birnir for being our guest today. Be sure to check out “I Love That,” our new, biweekly newsletter. Sign up at noyougoshow.com/ilovethat. And if you like what you’ve been hearing, we’d love if you’d give us a review on whatever podcast app you use. We’ll be back next week! See you then [music fades in, plays alone for 30 seconds, fades out to end].

In today's episode, we're talking to Adda Birnir, the founder, and CEO of Skillcrush, a leading online education platform that helps people learn valuable tech skills - whether that's to transition careers, launch a freelance web development business, or to start building your own products.

I don’t know about you, but I cringe at the thought of having to commute. The traffic, road rage, not to mention having to find parking… it was enough to make me throw in the towel 7 years ago!   Since then I have been managing remote teams around the world, and as I continue to scale my team I learn best practices from companies who have been doing it for longer than I have like Olark.   But, I know there are a lot of people out there who just don’t know if they can do it.   Maybe you’re one of them. You worry if you’ll be productive, able to communicate effectively and fit into the company culture.   One of my employees, Meghan Burgain felt the same way about a year ago. She had a number of reservations having never worked remotely before.   In today’s Build episode, Meghan and I are going to dive into some of these reservations, how you can get over them, and of course the wonderful benefits aside from working in your jammies ;)   You’ll learn:   The tools and processes to use to stay productive and on top of your projects and tasks How to handle working across multiple time zones How to communicate more effectively with your teammates across a number of channels How to train new hires when you can’t sit right next to them How you can cultivate a great company culture across continents   Here’s another great source to check out on managing your day-to-day when remote working, from our friends at Skillcrush.   Build is produced as a partnership between Femgineer and Pivotal Tracker. San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA.   Transcript for Remote Working: How To Succeed In Your First Remote Working Position    Poornima Vijayashanker:        Hey, guys. I'm hanging out here in beautiful Bordeaux, France, and taking you behind the scenes this week to show you what remote working is like at Femgineer. If you've been on the fence about taking a remote position, stay tuned for a number of tips in today's *Build* episode.                     Welcome to *Build*, brought to you by Pivotal Tracker. I'm your host, Poornima Vijayashanker. For the past seven years, I have been managing remote teams around the world for my startup as well as other companies. Today, I'm joined by Meghan Burgain, who is the mother of twins and expat who lives here in Bordeaux, France, and is Femgineer's community manager. For the last year, Meghan has been working remotely and she's going to share some of her favorite tips to help you get over any reservations that you might have when it comes to taking on a remote position. Thanks for joining us, Meghan.   Meghan Burgain: Thanks for being in France, Poornima.   Remote Working Reservations   Poornima Vijayashanker:        I know a year ago when I approached you about remote working, you were on the fence. Let's talk about what some of your reservations were.   Meghan Burgain:     Yeah. My education and a lot of my experiences are in education. I was actually a teacher before I moved here. I was a little concerned about getting up to speed, getting trained at Femgineer. That was one of my concerns was getting trained.                     The other one of course was that Bordeaux is nine hours ahead of San Francisco. I knew that there was going to be some difficulty there. Would I have to stay awake at night to get all of the work done or not? Those are my two concerns.   How To Handle Time Zones When Remote Working   Poornima Vijayashanker:        While you got over the hurdle and joined the team, I know there was that first hiccup that you had where you missed a meeting due to the time zone. What did you learn from that experience?   Meghan Burgain:     Time zones are really tricky. I learned that basically communication is paramount, especially when you're working remotely. You need to be explicit, very clear, search for the clarification, ask the questions that you need and really just be polite when you're dealing with people through email. With chat, it can be difficult to maybe misread something so just to be polite and that avoids 90% of the issues.   Poornima Vijayashanker:        Then you eventually got over that and learned a number of things over the last year. Let's start with the first thing that you learned.   Recommended Tools And Processes To Stay Productive As A Remote Worker   Meghan Burgain:     Right. The first thing I learned basically was the importance of the tools that we use. Being that we're not in proximity, we use the tools like Trello and Slack. Trello is great because obviously for communication you can see who's doing what, if it's done or not, but also allows for transparency. You can see the bigger picture: what we're focusing on at Femgineer, what the priorities are, and how that should affect how I prioritize my own tasks as well.   Poornima Vijayashanker:        Now, I know another thing you've learned that is even though we're a remote team we still do weekly check-ins where we sync up. Walk us through how weekly check-ins have benefited you.   Meghan Burgain:     Weekly check-ins are really important. In startup plans, especially, products change, priorities change, and the weekly check-ins really help me, us both I feel, to stay focused and to stay in the same page working towards the same goal.   Training New Remote Hires   Poornima Vijayashanker:        Now, I know the third thing is that you were concerned about training, getting trained, training other people. I know as we've scaled the team, you had to train others. How have you gotten over that hurdle?   Meghan Burgain:     It's funny that that was one of my reservations and that's actually something that I've been doing at Femgineer. Well, I've realized that training someone via Zoom or Slack, it's not that much different than training someone in person and, in some cases, can actually be better because we can record the training and use it in the future which is what we've done a lot. I've also been relying a lot on our handbook.   Poornima Vijayashanker:        What's our handbook?   Meghan Burgain:     Our handbook is basically a recipe book for anything that's recurring at Femgineer so whether it's daily or just a certain time of the year, if it happens more than once, it's in the handbook. It's outlined. There's helpful tips and there are links to any outside resources that we might need.   Remote Working Benefits   Poornima Vijayashanker:        Great. Walk us through what a typical day is like for you.   Meghan Burgain:     A typical day I wake up. We get the girls ready. Send them off to daycare. Then I have the majority my day to do the daily tasks that I need to get done, answer emails that came through to do all of my tasks. Towards the end of the day, when the States wakes up, I'm able to schedule phone calls, have meetings and that sort of thing. It's where I base the first part of my day, I didn't have any of those interruptions. I was able to just do whatever I wanted at my own pace. At the end of the day, I have all the things that I need to interact with people. Then I do my to-do list for the next day and it's off to get the kids.   Poornima Vijayashanker:        Nice. It sounds like you have a lot of flexible hours.   Meghan Burgain:     Oh, yeah. Well, for sure. I have deadlines just like anyone else, but I do have a lot more flexibility with how I get those things done.   Poornima Vijayashanker:        What do you think are the key benefits that you've experienced by remote working?   Meghan Burgain:     You mean besides being able to work anywhere in the world and in my own kitchen and in my own sweatpants?   Poornima Vijayashanker:        Yes. Those are great benefits, by the way.   Meghan Burgain:     I would say that the biggest benefit of working remotely is that I've really been able to find a work-life balance that works well for me. I'm able to not only be there for my kids and my family but to provide for them as well. I think that that's just an invaluable thing. It's a win-win.   Remote Company Culture   Poornima Vijayashanker:        I know for some folks out there they might be on the fence about remote working because of the culture. They might feel like, oh, it's isolated or distant. How have you managed to manage that?   Meghan Burgain:     I could see how it could be lonely. You don't have someone just next to you to talk to or whatever but I haven't felt that way and I think to go back to the weekly check-ins, that that's really one of the reasons is that we do get that face time. Also we have Slack which we can talk to all of our team members. I would say when it comes to the culture and the team feeling, you get what you give. It can be tempting in any working relationships, especially in remote working, whenever you find someone that's available within your timezone to just ping them with the 20 questions that you have or to ask a hundred things of them. But, I would suggest to all of you that the first thing that you do to someone should really be to ask them how they're doing, to find out what their interests are. It goes a long way towards creating the spirit and creating a team.   Poornima Vijayashanker:        Building a rapport maybe through a water cooler channel on Slack.   Meghan Burgain:     Yes. Yes. That's what we have.   Poornima Vijayashanker:        Wonderful. Well, thank you, Meghan. This has been really helpful. I know our audience out there is going to benefit from these tips.   Meghan Burgain:     It's been my pleasure.   Poornima Vijayashanker:        Wonderful. Well, that's it for today's episode of *Build*. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive the next episode where you'll get more helpful tips like this.   Meghan Burgain:     Ciao for now.   Poornima Vijayashanker:        Ciao for now.                     This episode of *Build* is brought to you by our sponsor, Pivotal Tracker.                     Hey, guys. I'm hanging out here in beautiful Bordeaux and I'll just start again. All right.                    In today's Build episode, we're going to talk to you about ...   Meghan Burgain:     Remote working.   Poornima Vijayashanker:        Yeah, I know. I forgot what I should introduce you before I ... I think I do need to. OK. Take two.

There's an informal movement among tech companies to practice a new brand of radical transparency where they share everything from their revenue, costs, and even salaries, with everyone inside—and at times outside—the company. The hope is to give employees more information, and a greater sense of control over themselves and their work. In this episode, we cover how we practice transparency at Skillcrush and speak to tech CEOs Josh Pigford and Bea Arthur to find out what it's like to bare your (company's) soul to the world. Bottom line: If you're looking to change careers, you should demand transparency wherever you land next. You deserve it.

Today's episode is with Adda Birnir. A bit of background on Adda and her company—When Adda founded Skillcrush in 2012, she did it with one specific mission in mind: to give students the technical skills they need to enter high-earning and flexible careers. She’d spent the four years prior doing work in media that wasn't particularly interesting, and she noticed that some of her colleagues seemed to have it completely made. While Adda sat chained to a desk doing rote tasks, this group of mostly men had flexible schedules, the ability to work remotely, billed super high rates, and actually seemed fulfilled by their careers. They also had job security—something Adda definitely didn’t. She wanted in on whatever those guys had. It’s not a shock: They had tech skills. Adda taught herself to code and Skillcrush followed soon after (but not without a number of bumps along the way). A lot’s changed since then: In the last few years, Skillcrush's revenue has grown 4X and our company size has increased by at least that much. Her career transition certainly changed her life, and without a doubt changed the lives of our students who can now also make major career changes.We discuss:Her career transitionsHer thoughts on running a company that's 100% remote—they're on multiple continents, in almost every time zone ANDHow she navigates cultural differences and experiencesResources Mentioned In The EpisodeSkillcrush's website: https://skillcrush.com/Podcast: https://skillcrush.com/hit-refresh-podcast See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In our series premiere, we’ll talk about how technology has made it possible to radically restructure what the modern workplace looks like, and how making changes to how we work is one of the most effective ways we can make the tech industry welcoming to more people. I’ll start with Skillcrush’s story of going completely remote as a way to find our balance, and then talk to Annie Dean of Werk to get into the bigger picture around workplace flexibility—especially as it relates to advancing marginalized people in the tech world. Finally, we’ll come back to my own team, who will talk about the reality of remote work, including how they fight its biggest downside.

In this episode of the DREAM. THINK. DO. podcast, Mitch Matthews talks with Adda Birnir, CEO and Founder of Skillcrush, an interactive learning community teaching total beginners web design, coding and other marketable digital skills. Students are using their skills to pursue entrepreneurship, freelancing, part-time and even full-time jobs.  They talk about career pivots, dream jobs and how to surround yourself with the right people!   Listen To The Podcast:   What do you do when you get laid off from your job? You look for jobs. But when it happened to Adda Birnir she took a friend's advice and only spent a set amount of time each day looking for jobs and used the rest of her time doing something productive. To be more specific...she taught herself computer coding and it started with a book she bought at Barnes & Noble.  She devoured the book and then she started experimenting.  She read some more.  She built a website.  She took a class.  Then she built another site.  She kept going and eventually pivoted and launched a new career.  Adda went on to build sites for organizations like the New York Times, ProPublica and MTV! Adda took all of her experiences teaching herself to code and turned it into a SKILLCRUSH.com - a thriving learning community where anyone can acquire skills in web design, coding and all things tech. In this episode, you will… Learn strategies for adapting to changes and setbacks Hear the common denominator about those co-workers that seem to “have it made” Gain insight into how you can acquire marketable skills Figure out how to “pivot” into the career YOU want   Episode Resources: Skillcrush.com Check out The Hit Refresh Podcast on iTunes MitchMatthews.com/148 DREAM. THINK. DO.

How do you turn an idea into a business? How do you grow a business on the side of your day job? How do you increase your revenue by 4X in a few years? All questions I ask Adda on our special interview.   We chatted about how to get into the tech industry and how she started her business on the side of her day job. There was so much good stuff!    There was SO much good stuff in this interview!! Highly encourage you to listen. My favorite part was that you need to be a painkiller not a vitamin!

Have you ever heard of Soccer Tots?   In 2011 I hadn’t either.   It’s where you take little kids and they jump through hula hoops, run around cones, occasionally kick a soccer ball and sort of attempt to listen to their frazzled looking teacher. (Think; Pre Soccer)   I was supposed to leave midday on a flight for work and it didn’t make sense for me to go to the office so Alyssa suggested that I come watch Soccer tots.   I showed up at 10am in the middle of the day, not at all knowing what to expect.   One of my kids kicked a goal in the cones that were set up over 20 feet wide which made it nearly impossible for them to miss   He turned and saw that I was there in the room and started shrieking with excitement!   “Daddy did you see me get a goal” (He looked so happy!)   It was right then that I realized I HAD to figure out a way to be able to have the flexibility in my work to be able to be around.   NOT just for the big things in life (school musicals, family birthdays and weddings), but also the little things too!   I hadn’t realized what I was missing out on.   After that I became fascinated by the possibility of working remotely.   That was years ago and since then I’ve negotiated flexible and remote work for myself and helped many other people get jobs or change careers that allow them to work remotely!   We’ve had a lot of people come to us in the last few years that are also interested in doing the exact same thing.   For this reason we brought on Adda Birnir, the CEO of SkillCrush.com, to discuss remote work on the podcast. Not only does her company work entirely remotely but also they teach people (especially women) to code (which is one profession that is incredibly flexible)   If you want to learn how to make remote work possible for you check out this blog post and the podcast here!   On the podcast today, we talked about… What it’s like to work in a remote workforce The lack of diversity and representation in the tech industry How couples negotiate the dynamic between career and relationship The factors that set up a remote team for success...or disaster Adda’s favorite secret vacation spot in Iceland   (We covered a lot of ground.)   Plus in this blog post we go through step by step the process we use to help clients get to remote and flexible work in their current jobs OR new careers!

Hit Refresh is a podcast coming soon from Skillcrush—an interactive learning community that teaches total beginners the tech skills they need to get into better, higher paying careers with real mobility. Talk to you soon!

Interested in returning to work with flexibility and a high paying hourly wage? Adda Birnir wanted both and saw the opportunity in coding. She learned to code and realized she could help others get there too. So she founded Skillcrush, where anyone can learn to code, and tells her story to Après CEO Jen Gefsky. You can code too!

Adda Birnir is an entrepreneur and the founder of Skillcrush, an online coding school that offers a curriculum tailored for women who don't fit a typical 'coder' profile. Students are working moms, retirees, and mid-level workers who seek new career opportunities that once seemed impossible. Entrepreneurs intuitively seek disruption in their work. But as Adda has learned, personal disruption has a way of finding them first and visiting often. Show Notes: https://whitneyjohnson.com/adda-birnir/

[shortcode-variables slug="subscribe"] Find the Right Biz for You Series (Part 5) One statement I hear often is: “I want to start a business but I’m not sure what I want that business to be”. If you have that same feeling, you are in the right place. With these first several episodes of this podcast, I am walking you through this process of discovery to help you find the ideal small business for you. In Episode 001, we discussed the importance of conducting a self-assessment (and how to do so). In Episode 003, I talked about the various business styles, how to generate business ideas and gave you some tools to help you determine your own ideal business. Along the way, in Episodes 002 and 004, you heard interviews with people either reinforcing the discussed concepts or sharing their own experiences. If you haven’t heard these yet, I encourage you to go back and check these episodes out. Wouldn’t it be great to make 2017 the Year of Your New Business? In this episode, I am providing my top 10 list of online businesses for people on the move. I created this list initially as a blog post for Sisters in Sports, an online community for wives of professional athletes and college/professional coaches. I am the wife of a college basketball coach and, in the last five years, have lived in five different homes in three different states as a result of my husband's job. I've loved every (almost) minute of this adventure, but also found it took its toll on my work.  There are many other wives/partners in athletics in the same boat – maybe in jobs they couldn’t keep or having their own businesses they could not maintain. Although we hear regularly about professional athletes and big time coaches making six or seven figure incomes, the reality is these people make up a minuscule percentage of this workforce. As a result,  it is still important for most partners to contribute to the household income.  As I was creating this list, I started thinking about how these businesses apply to many more people outside the athletics world. These work for anyone who is on the move – military spouses, for example – or anyone who likes to travel and wants to take his or her own business with them.  These are proven, profitable online entrepreneurial ideas that allow you to be your own boss and work on your own time. The Top 10 Online Businesses for On-the-Move People 1. Virtual Assistant Most virtual assistants work on a freelance basis, performing many, if not all, of the functions of an executive assistant: • Preparing attractive presentation materials • Formatting business correspondence, contracts, and proposals • E-mail management • Travel arrangements • Managing social correspondence This work may be performed from the comfort of your home with just a computer. Non-urgent work usually may be performed on your own schedule. If you move, it makes no difference to your clients. You may begin developing this business immediately by: • Reaching out to people you already know who may be in need of this assistance or who may know of someone else who could use this type of help. • Working for someone else who runs his or her own virtual assistance service. Typically, these businesses have clients already or have inquiries coming to them regularly so they need skilled, reliable people to do the work. • Sign up to perform work as a freelancer under an online service such as Upwork, Freelancer, or Thumbtack. 2. Graphic Designer Are you skilled at designing or creating: • Logos and brand identity products? • Business and advertising products such as: brochures, business cards, postcards, website and social media banners? • Graphic designs for clothing and merchandise, such as mugs, hats, and t-shirts? • Book or magazine illustrations, invitations, and greeting cards? • Labels for beverage, food, or retail packaging? Use those skills online, from wherever you are and whenever works for you. Like virtual assistants, you may hang out your own online shingle or go to work for an already established online service such as 99 Designs or Fiverr. These provide great ways to fine-tune your skills and begin receiving testimonials that will lead to more, higher paying work. 3. Bookkeeping Do you love to work with numbers, charts, and spreadsheets? Are you the person who has to balance their checkbook to the penny? Online bookkeeping may be right up your alley, especially for small business owners abhor this these types f tasks! Knowledge of accounting software such as Quickbooks, Freshbooks, Sage, and Zoho is important to have or to be able to learn quickly. 4. Website or App Design Even if you do not already have web or app development skills, but think you would enjoy doing this type of work, there are several online programs to help you learn and get you started in business such as Skillcrush and General Assembly. 5. Online courses or eBooks If you are an expert at something, people likely would be willing to pay to learn from you. There are several resources for learning to create these online products. My favorite is Flipped Lifestyle. You’ll learn valuable tips and resources just from reading the blog or listening to their podcast. 6. Social Media Marketing Do you have a difficult time pulling yourself away from Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram? Have you noticed how prevalent advertisements for businesses and organizations have become on these sites? Many small businesses and non-profits are looking for people who have the time and ability to create and execute their social media marketing campaigns. 7. Online Reselling I recently found a treasure trove of posters and basketballs signed by famous professional athletes in our basement. These go back to the days when my husband use to run camps for these athletes and would end up with more signed products than he knew what to do with. With my husband’s OK, I posted a number of these pieces online at eBay, sold them all within two weeks, pocketing enough income to pay for our Christmas gifts and travel. Online services such as eBay and Amazon reselling are terrific for selling gently used or collectable products. Many individuals have created a business from this. There also are apps for selling locally, similar to Craigslist, but a bit safer with a verification process. I’ve been using LetGo to great success. Facebook Marketplace is another local online resale outlet to check out. You would be amazed at the number of people who have developed their own profitable business by reselling their own goods and products they’ve found at garage or estate sales. 8. Etsy Sales Speaking of online selling – if you have a talent for creating handmade goods from pillows to hats to candles, even furniture, Etsy is the world’s largest independent marketplace for selling your products. Visit the website to get an idea of the wide variety of products offered by people there. 9. Freelance Proofreading and Editing Are you one of those people driven crazy by misspelled words or poor grammar when reading books, articles, or advertising materials? This may be the perfect income-generating online business for you. An excellent resource for learning the ins and outs of starting and growing this type of business is the Copywriting and Editing for Dummies book. In fact, when researching any of these businesses, check to see if there is a related “for Dummies” guide. These books are written by top experts in their fields. The content is presented in a fun and easily digestible way. 10. Online Translation and Transcription Service You may have lived in more than one country and learned more than one language. Have you considered using those language skills to assist others? There is a growing need for this type of work by all sizes and types of businesses, government entities and non-profit organizations. Services such as One Hour Translation and Gengo can get you up and running almost immediately as one of their translator/transcribers. * * * * * Put this information to work for you. Check out some of these ideas if you see one or more that appeals to you. If you would like more information about how to find your ideal small business, please help yourself to a free copy of my eBook: "Passion to Prosperity: Finding Your Ideal Side Business". Although it was written with side businesses in mind, the process for determining your own small business is very much the same. Ask Your Questions or Share Your Feedback In the comments section of these show notes. At the Scattered to Streamlined Business Coaching Facebook Page Personally, by email at cwhitesell@scatteredtostreamlined.com Please Connect with Me At my business website, Scattered to Streamlined Business Coaching Join the Scattered to Streamlined Business Coaching Facebook Page Connect with me personally on Facebook and on Twitter Subscribe, rate, and review in iTunes Disclosure This post may contain links to products or services with which I have an affiliate relationship. Any  commissions or bonuses I receive from your actions on such links go to support the continued production of this podcast.  

We talked about thinking like a programmer, Skillcrush, Maptime, learning communities, why maybe user interfaces _should_ make you think, the gaps in our metadata, human stories, and how to break and remake the library world for the better. I couldn't have asked for a better opening guest.

When Adda Birnir was laid off from her job at a high-profile media company in 2009, she noticed that most of the people in the technology department were spared, which got her thinking about the value of their skillset. She began teaching herself basic tech skills, including how to code and build a website. But for Birnir, becoming “tech-literate” was not just about job security – she saw that teaching men and women outside the tech world how to creatively harness tech tools could help them advance their careers in any field. And so, in 2012, she launched Skillcrush, an online series of courses designed to help others – especially women – learn how to code, design a website, and build a digital portfolio.(Via NBC news) In this episode, Adda shares her personal story in details: From the moment she got laid off to teaching herself how to code and then going on to launch a successful tech company in a male dominated. She is definitely our #TechWomanCrush! With her self-taught tech skills, she’s worked on building sites for the New York Times, ProPublica and MTV. She has been named one of the 20 Women to Watch in Media by the Columbia Journalism Review, one of the 30 Most Important Women in Tech by Business Insider, and been featured on the BBC, Fast Company, and Mashable. If you need a little inspiration or extra motivation this week, then this episode is for you! Adda is the definition of a self-made successful tech entrepreneur and her passion for what she does will make you want to go after your dream career. 

Online coding bootcamps like Bloc, Thinkful, and Skillcrush offer convenience and structure without forcing you to quit your job or move to a new city. But not all online programs were created equally, so which one is right for you? Find out the answer from our panel; plus, find out how you can get exclusive discounts and scholarships to a few of those online coding bootcamps; all this and more on Episode One of the Course Report Coding Bootcamp Podcast. http://coursereport.com

Adda Birni, Founder and CEO of Skillcrush, talks with us about the “trough of sorrow” and how she fought and clawed her way to significant month over month growth in revenue. We also chat about the blind spots of tech in silicon valley and the opportuniti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Deepina Kapila is a technologist at the University Texas Austin and a teacher at Skillcrush. We talked about finding a path in web development, her first website, and much more.

Adda Binir is the co-founder of Skillcrush an online learning platform. We talked about getting fired, learning to code, community, and much more.

Startup entrepreneur and computer coding evangelist Adda Birnir talks with Caroline and Cristen about feminism, why women should learn to code and how she started Skillcrush to teach coding to the female masses. Media files Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers