Resume Livestream, Schusterian Products, Github Portfolio, Minimalist Entrepreneur

Schusterian Logic Newsletter - Week of October 30th, 2021

Oct 30, 2021

After my last Q+A event, I had a TON of requests for resume reviews. I love to do this sort of thing, but I think it’s even better to do this in front of an audience just so I can give live feedback.

So, I am going to be doing this live on Youtube. If you wish to have your resume reviewed, please drop a comment below with your LinkedIn Profile or a copy of your resume.

Future Of Schusterian Products

Hey folks! This is me talking to you directly from my newsletter. I wanted to spend some time chatting with you about what, exactly, my long-term plans for the Schusterian Brands are, specifically what products/services or monetization I’m considering.

I haven’t spoken about this significantly yet because, honestly, I haven’t decided what the right strategy is for the brand.

I got started in this work because I loved helping people in Bootcamps and wanted to make an impact on the Career Changer community. That journey started in 2019 and, since then, has only grown more intense. I love this and want to continue here.

I’ve had the good fortune to talk to mentor hundreds of folks over that time, but there is a lingering question that comes up at least once a week: what am I getting out of this? I can say that I’m doing this for the joy of it, but most people seem to understand that if this will remain sustainable, it should lead to some sort of product. One guy even accused me of being ‘sketchy’ (mostly joking) because he wasn’t sure what I got out of this.

I’ve put some thought into what I wish to do and I’d love your feedback. But let me start with this:

Where Do I Not See Schusterian Logic Going?

Paid Coaching: I love helping people one on one (I do at least two mentorship calls a week), but coaching has never felt like a sustainable model. It doesn’t scale well at all and most of the people I interact with don’t seem particularly interested in paying $150/hour for advice.
My Own Coding Bootcamp: I enjoy working with Bootcamps and there’s the potential I might join a major Bootcamp as an executive if the deal works, but I don’t see Schusterian being about creating another type of coding Bootcamp.

What Have I Considered As A Future Business Model?

“How To Enter Fullstack/CyberSecurity/Etc” monographs: One of the biggest challenges I see people consistently have with building a new career is that they lack the particular industry knowledge to transition. I’ve tried to solve this in a general way with the micro experience framework, but there are tons of specifics that I could go into for each vertical, and a lot of knowledge that be filled in for each group.
Micro Experience Workshop: While I don’t like the long-term coaching model, I’m more amenable to having a single-day workshop. Over the course of a full day, we could map out your entire career plan, give you very specific knowledge on the next steps for your career and allow you to make a massive change at that moment.
Online Courses: This one is kind of a no-brainer. For the right audience, more detail into how to make the change into a development role might be the exact right information to make the transition. I would see this being an extension of the micro-experience workshop, giving more details on how exactly to start changing.
Upgraded Newsletter: Currently, I like the newsletter and community I’m building here. I think there MAY be a place for upgraded information, such as more frequent Q+As, live discussions, and subscriber-only videos. But it’s mostly dependent on what the community wants and needs.

I’ll be experimenting with products over the coming months and have no intention of taking the foot off the gas for content creation. But I would love your feedback on what you think might be valuable to your career.

Building a Great Github Portfolio

I’ve been reminded several times in the last week about how a great Github repository can help sell you not just as a professional, but on of the best in your industry.

I chatted on LinkedIn about how a great commit history can distinguish between an amateur and a pro.

But recently, I got a chance to connect with Morgan Craft, who is something of a great Github Profile evangelist. I spoke with him on LinkedIn about what it takes to build a great portfolio and he had this to say:

For github profiles, I first recommend for folks to setup a readme like this -- https://github.com/mgan59
Then for their Repos, I go through a handful and start giving them tips on how best to document a repository. Again it starts with a Readme. When folks generate a CRA and leave a generic generated readme I tell them they need to replace it with something meaningful.
I'm also a fan of the 100-days of code and using it as a rubric to show you are committed to coding every-day. And again those are repos that have docs.

If you’re a developer and looking for that extra shine on your Github repository, I highly recommend getting your Github in order. You can check out Morgan’s Github here and see his website here.

Becoming A Minimalist Entrepreneur

I know that for this audience, most people want to enter the industry as a ‘real’ developer. And as someone who lived that challenge of not being considered real, I get it. Working for a company that gives you a salary specifically to code for them can be the long-term validation one needs in their life.

But as I’m getting deeper with this community, I’m realizing that many of the challenges my people face are not due to having a lack of opportunity, but not being able to see the opportunity right in front of them. They see the full-time role as the one and only way to validate their path and don’t notice the many smaller paths available to them.

And one of the greatest paths that may exist for you might be in building your own business or, at the very least, products.

It’s not as crazy as you think. Arteh (who I got a chance to interview last week) started his own freelancing business when he couldn’t find employment. Zach Bretz, upon leaving his Bootcamp, decided to work with his fellow Bootcamp graduates and started a full-fledged product in their free time. Aaron Hayslip created his own Bootcamp after realizing he could get a development job in Raliegh.

For this audience… especially for this audience… this is a path you should seriously consider, as it will widen your opportunities massively.

For that, I’ve been reading “The Minimalist Entrepreneur” by Sahil Lavingia. This is about as good of an introduction to casual entrepreneurship as I’ve ever read. It gives a step-by-step guide on how to move from community participant to business owner. It’s got some great ideas, and would highly recommend it. You can purchase it here.

First time here? Welcome! I produce content for career changers and other professionals looking to enter development. If you’re interested in curated topics for career changes, please subscribe to the newsletter:

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