Before I get to the current days, let me first introduce myself.
My name is Igal Ogonov. I'm 27 years old, and recently (around August) started my business - a (very) small web oriented Software Development business.
Guess I'llshortly (it's a bit longer than I expected) summarize my story up to that point first:
The few years til now
Around 5 years ago, I started freelancing on the side while finishing up my CS degree. Now, I'm from Israel, not from the US, so uni doesn't cost a fortune here, but my parents had just enough to cover a bit over that - if I wanted to maintain any semblance of living standards, I had to make up for that difference by myself.
As you might guess, work on the side didn't exactly helped my studies, and after a so-so year, I decided to take a year to work and save up, so that I could later finish my last year of study without distractions.
That year, I learned more stuff than anything and everything I learned in all of Uni. I could probably write a few blog posts about it, but I'll summarize it in a shorter manner.
Near the end of summer 18', I did finish my CS degree. It was actually a great choice, as you'll be surprise just how much useful stuff you can learn once you're free to:
Near the end of that year, I was going to start setting up my business, but around December, I did one last freelance job, which turned into an offer to joinf a small startup with a great idea, and some great people as the de-facto CTO ("Software Architect" was the official title, but you may guess who did literally everything, hiring and managing 3rd parties included).
I wont go into many details, but I did after some negotiation, I did take that offer, as part of the deal also included me developing the before-mentioned IOFrame about 50% of the time, and using it as a base for that startups MVP.
That MVP is what I've built, though I did build a different website for the father company on the way (used both as a way to train my recent junior, and create/test a few modules that got later used in the MVP).
Well, it was a yearly contract, and my contract was up in 2020, without us reaching a specific agreement regarding shares - even then, though, I stayed 3 more months for a very low base salary a and no additional shares to deliver a finished product.
By this point, I saved up enough to finally sustain my business for a year (once I started it), including my own cost of living, and that assuming I wouldn't get a single client.
That was just as the pandemic was starting...
More IOFrame Stuff
This is starting to sound like a post about IOFrame rather than an introduction, but due to the sheer amount of time invested into it, it's inevitable it appears at least this much (I did skip much of the stuff).
Before starting my business, I concluded I must finish the IOFrame documentation site. The reason for that was that, it being the main framwork on which I build my products, not providing a clear and comprehensive documentation (OUTSIDE of code comments) would instantly diminish the value of anything build on top of it by an order of magnitude - not to mention, the whole idea of it being Open Source (and the effort to keep it consistent, easy to understand, and well documented) is basically wasted without proper high level documentation.
And so, I set out to finish a few important modules for this site that weren't necessary for the MVP from earlier (the Menus and Articles modules, specifically - the latter proving very useful in general), which took quite a bit of effort on their own, then started building the site.
Once it was finished, I set down and sprinted through writing the documentation articles.
140 documentation articles of varying size and complexity. 2 Weeks.
I was completely drained by the end of it. Couple that with the fact I haven't renewed my Gym membership and haven't been to one many months, plus the general atmosphere, and you might correctly deduce I was completely devoid of motivation. For about 2 weeks, I was basically doing nothing, other than looking for a way to get that motivation back.
Enter Unscripted
Well, about time I finally get to something relevant to this forum, isn't it?
After a few days, I was looking at various book recommendations.
Mind you, I never read those scammy "JUST DO THIS TO GET RICH!!" books, as they are, from my tiny experience and a few friends' deeper experience, an utter waste of time.
I generally read informative blog series, sometimes listened to audio books on my way to work (ah, the time before remote - or, when I still had an office job). I read partly read a few good books like Give and Take by Adam Grant (free exposure, but he deserves it), but even then, if it's not an audio book, I usually just extract the essential points and just skim through the rest (even the best of them were just 400 pages of fluff wrapping 50 pages of sufficient to explain their core message).
Well, that one day, for whatever reason, I decided to give this sketchy book with suspicious title a try. I mean, a followup to a book called "The Millionaire Fastlane "? That's 99% some get-rich-quick snake oil, right?
Well, something about the message on the cover did catch my eye - I still cannot explain it, but something in it felt slightly different than similar books I've seen. And so, I decided to give it a chance, given that I wasn't doing anything better at the moment. And boy, did it surprise me.
Before I say everything else, I'll actually disclaim the following - it didn't contain any revelations. The first part (parts 1-3 in the book) largely dealt with certain bullshit "socially accepted" ways of life, which might be more ingrained in America, but are far more commonly rejected as the bullshit they are where I come from. The second part went into some basics about thinking of and running a business, as well as providing value.
Now, the above being said, the book itself was phenomenal. Sure, the first part is largely a rank - but what a glorious rant that was. It put concepts into words in ways I haven't even thought of, and did an excellent job of being an entertaining, none-tiresome read, while highlighting the sheer absurdity of some accepting social norms regarding "a good career" (god, this word always made me cringe in its common context, and the book does an excellent job of showing why).
The second part does explain high level concepts and basics, but does so in a clear, understandable, and still entertaining way. Oh, and that part about “Kyle”, the financial planner in the prologue, is so ****ing true. What great financial gains have you achieved to qualify you to give advice to others on how to "grow money"? I guess the reason this guy annoyed me enough to remember that specific part is because he is the perfect example of the SCRIPT. There are many other "Kyles" out there - professors who give advice on how to work in the industry despite not ever setting a foot there themselves, specific "serial entrepreneurs" (aka people who thrown their time and money on a dozen failed businesses) and "gurus" who never amounted to anything "dream paddlers", their main monetary gain coming from leeching off those buying the dreams, even friends and family saying "let me show you how to make all your dreams will come true" while living a life of mediocrity themselves.
But, I'm getting off topic. Let me just say, it was an amazing book - the only one of its kind I actually read start to finish. And, needless to say, it gave me just the motivation I needed to get back on track. For that, I thank you, @MJ DeMarco.
Starting my business, and why it this post was so long in the making
Time to explain my title. Actually, I should first note that my business has been registered since July, but it hasn't officially launched until November 1st (as the site was put on air).
Well, after reading the book, I finally found the motivation to take the next step, which was to create my business site - that involves graphic design, deciding which modules to use how, creating a few (well, one and a half) customized modules, and implementing it all.
Honestly, that was the also the time I joined this forum, as I was considering starting my online activity (not just promotion, but anything business related - like this very forum) while simultaneously doing the above. That's when I was going to write this thread, which was just shy of two months ago.
In the end, I decided to focus on that first, while lurking a bit more (on this forum as well as a few others).
It was the right choice, too, as I had to make a few extensions to IOFrame (finally adding support for stuff like Videos, fully supporting them in Articles, adding more modular extensions to allow using captcha, and much more). I also decided against hiring a part-time freelancer too early, and invested my own time into the graphic design (the site, the business card, email signitures, etc), which I'm quite happy with despite the time it took (pretty sure I cant link it due to promotion rules here, though I'll be posting the more unique parts on my new Reddit account in /r/graphic_design and the like in the coming weeks).
Well, all my social sites are up, finally hooked up and fixed everything, and the site is ready to go. Now comes the next phase, and many more after it - and I think I might share my progress via an [EXECUTION] thread, so if you somehow made it this far down - stay tuned!
My name is Igal Ogonov. I'm 27 years old, and recently (around August) started my business - a (very) small web oriented Software Development business.
Guess I'll
The few years til now
Around 5 years ago, I started freelancing on the side while finishing up my CS degree. Now, I'm from Israel, not from the US, so uni doesn't cost a fortune here, but my parents had just enough to cover a bit over that - if I wanted to maintain any semblance of living standards, I had to make up for that difference by myself.
As you might guess, work on the side didn't exactly helped my studies, and after a so-so year, I decided to take a year to work and save up, so that I could later finish my last year of study without distractions.
That year, I learned more stuff than anything and everything I learned in all of Uni. I could probably write a few blog posts about it, but I'll summarize it in a shorter manner.
- In the summer, I got into a pretty lucrative sales position. How is that related to programming? Well, it isn't, but even the base pay would be better than what I was making freelancing, and that doesn't include the conversion bonuses. How did I get such a position? Well, there was a round of interviews, then a week long course (paid, although minimum wage) for those who got through. Here, I'll tell you my slightly unclean secret - I might have oversold my shitty 2 week cold calling phone center gig I once did on my first Uni break as more than it was. To my defense, due the nature of the job, that itself could count as a qualifying attribute, and I was one of the two (out of initial 7-8) who passed the training course (which was actually another test).
I learned a hell of a lot on that job, but at the same time, I really couldn't go farther than the first month. The reason was - it was a Binary Options company. If you haven't heard of those, consider yourself lucky. Lets just say it's an extremely scammy industry, and my biggest success was actually an old man named Jankins (I still remember that name), whose bank even blocked his account to protect him after he "invested" in several companies like the one I worked for, including my conversion. I quit a day after. - After my sales work, I took some time learning HTML, CSS and JS basics by making a "business website" (although calling it that, compared to my current site, is like calling both Kobe Beef and regular store one - "beef"). That being said, it actually helped me in one of the interviews later - but most importantly, it helped me learn a ton.
- Another learning experience was to apply to as many interviews as I could, hoping to pass, of course, but always doing the maximum, and asking (technical) questions during and after the interviews, and later learning things I didn't know at the interview itself. I know, sounds like slowlane shit to some of you, but the process itself is actually a "fastlane", in a way - it's a very fast way to learn relevant technologies, or at least the basics needed to be competent. I still remember Closures to this day, even though let and const keywords eliminated most of their use cases shortly after.
- I did get to work for two tech companies. This was actually a defining moment, in a way. One company was great, very relaxed, I had a lot of autonomy to do whatever I needed, as the only other (former) programmer was the CEO who now had other things to do (that company would actually fit as a success story on this forum, even though it'll never be told). It was great, but at about a month after I started there, I had my driving license suspended for a month (something I really expected to not happen, but my cheap lawyer was pretty shit and I fell on a hard judge), and that job was basically 2 hours from me on a bus (less than 1 with a car).
- As it happened, I got a reply from an interview I had 3 weeks ago. That other company was a medium sized one, and a 5 minute walk from the train station (I myself lived close to one, too). As it coincided, I had to (without much joy, even then) explain the situation, and hand my 1 week resignation, while accepting the other offer.
On the surface, it looked good - a medium sized software company, in a pretty lucrative office with a sea view, and the people sounded pretty nice. There were a few red flags in the interview (very stupid trivia questions, clear lack of technical understanding from the CEO and COO who still tried to sound as knowledgeable as possible, a few more), but I was in no position to decline back then. Oh boy, what a ride that was.
Every story you heard about a soul sucking job in a huge mega-corp? Well, imagine most of that, but with a smaller corp which hardly has any resources to spare. I could tell countless stories about it, like the absolute garbage state of the product (maybe it had some good bits deep in the back, where I was not allowed to see, but judging by the rest of it - it's a big MAYBE), or that time I was asked to solve a problem, paired with my "mentor" (who basically answered a few questions Day 1 and helped me for 1 more hour on Day 2), proposed a solution, got told that "we dont solve it like this here", then watched him try different bad solutions until in the end (already way after hours) he did implement my solution, but then sold the delay to the COO as my fault (at that point, some other stuff already happened, so I didn't even object). Very soon, I expedited my firing, and that day, I felt better than I have in any day in the last months working for them.
The reason I this point is relatively long, is because it was here when I understood just how bad a product can be and still make millions, with the right salesmanship and wide surrounding support - or rather, perception of such wide support, of which must less is actually needed when software products are build properly from the ground up. So, there is no reason a smaller business with the same level of sales and perception, but a much better level of quality, wont be able to make at least a chunk of that, still being far more than enough to sustain its growth. That was probably the moment I truly decided to commit to the path I'm on today. - At that same year, I started working on IOFrame as a side project (hope this link doesn't violate any rules, I don't get any revenue from that site, and it doesn't even have ads or analytics). Now, as you might guess by the fact it now has a documentation site (even though I didn't invest much in the landing page design
), you can probably guess it did return the time investment, but back then, it was just a small project to see if I can make a small core framework to build websites without the endless bloat of Wordpress (or Drupal, as much as I love it), or the over-complexity of PHP frameworks like Symfony. Well, after around 3.5 years and somewhere between 2,000~3,000 hours, I can say it did partly reach its goal, but that's a topic for a completely different and full blog post.
Near the end of summer 18', I did finish my CS degree. It was actually a great choice, as you'll be surprise just how much useful stuff you can learn once you're free to:
- Choose the last year electives and a few of the overlapping MSc courses.
- Choose courses based on their actual value rather than how easy it is to get a good grade (as I honestly didn't care about my final grade at that point - surprisingly, that year was quite alright despite the course difficulty).
Near the end of that year, I was going to start setting up my business, but around December, I did one last freelance job, which turned into an offer to joinf a small startup with a great idea, and some great people as the de-facto CTO ("Software Architect" was the official title, but you may guess who did literally everything, hiring and managing 3rd parties included).
I wont go into many details, but I did after some negotiation, I did take that offer, as part of the deal also included me developing the before-mentioned IOFrame about 50% of the time, and using it as a base for that startups MVP.
That MVP is what I've built, though I did build a different website for the father company on the way (used both as a way to train my recent junior, and create/test a few modules that got later used in the MVP).
Well, it was a yearly contract, and my contract was up in 2020, without us reaching a specific agreement regarding shares - even then, though, I stayed 3 more months for a very low base salary a and no additional shares to deliver a finished product.
By this point, I saved up enough to finally sustain my business for a year (once I started it), including my own cost of living, and that assuming I wouldn't get a single client.
That was just as the pandemic was starting...
More IOFrame Stuff
This is starting to sound like a post about IOFrame rather than an introduction, but due to the sheer amount of time invested into it, it's inevitable it appears at least this much (I did skip much of the stuff).
Before starting my business, I concluded I must finish the IOFrame documentation site. The reason for that was that, it being the main framwork on which I build my products, not providing a clear and comprehensive documentation (OUTSIDE of code comments) would instantly diminish the value of anything build on top of it by an order of magnitude - not to mention, the whole idea of it being Open Source (and the effort to keep it consistent, easy to understand, and well documented) is basically wasted without proper high level documentation.
And so, I set out to finish a few important modules for this site that weren't necessary for the MVP from earlier (the Menus and Articles modules, specifically - the latter proving very useful in general), which took quite a bit of effort on their own, then started building the site.
Once it was finished, I set down and sprinted through writing the documentation articles.
140 documentation articles of varying size and complexity. 2 Weeks.
I was completely drained by the end of it. Couple that with the fact I haven't renewed my Gym membership and haven't been to one many months, plus the general atmosphere, and you might correctly deduce I was completely devoid of motivation. For about 2 weeks, I was basically doing nothing, other than looking for a way to get that motivation back.
Enter Unscripted
Well, about time I finally get to something relevant to this forum, isn't it?
After a few days, I was looking at various book recommendations.
Mind you, I never read those scammy "JUST DO THIS TO GET RICH!!" books, as they are, from my tiny experience and a few friends' deeper experience, an utter waste of time.
I generally read informative blog series, sometimes listened to audio books on my way to work (ah, the time before remote - or, when I still had an office job). I read partly read a few good books like Give and Take by Adam Grant (free exposure, but he deserves it), but even then, if it's not an audio book, I usually just extract the essential points and just skim through the rest (even the best of them were just 400 pages of fluff wrapping 50 pages of sufficient to explain their core message).
Well, that one day, for whatever reason, I decided to give this sketchy book with suspicious title a try. I mean, a followup to a book called "The Millionaire Fastlane "? That's 99% some get-rich-quick snake oil, right?
Well, something about the message on the cover did catch my eye - I still cannot explain it, but something in it felt slightly different than similar books I've seen. And so, I decided to give it a chance, given that I wasn't doing anything better at the moment. And boy, did it surprise me.
Before I say everything else, I'll actually disclaim the following - it didn't contain any revelations. The first part (parts 1-3 in the book) largely dealt with certain bullshit "socially accepted" ways of life, which might be more ingrained in America, but are far more commonly rejected as the bullshit they are where I come from. The second part went into some basics about thinking of and running a business, as well as providing value.
Now, the above being said, the book itself was phenomenal. Sure, the first part is largely a rank - but what a glorious rant that was. It put concepts into words in ways I haven't even thought of, and did an excellent job of being an entertaining, none-tiresome read, while highlighting the sheer absurdity of some accepting social norms regarding "a good career" (god, this word always made me cringe in its common context, and the book does an excellent job of showing why).
The second part does explain high level concepts and basics, but does so in a clear, understandable, and still entertaining way. Oh, and that part about “Kyle”, the financial planner in the prologue, is so ****ing true. What great financial gains have you achieved to qualify you to give advice to others on how to "grow money"? I guess the reason this guy annoyed me enough to remember that specific part is because he is the perfect example of the SCRIPT. There are many other "Kyles" out there - professors who give advice on how to work in the industry despite not ever setting a foot there themselves, specific "serial entrepreneurs" (aka people who thrown their time and money on a dozen failed businesses) and "gurus" who never amounted to anything "dream paddlers", their main monetary gain coming from leeching off those buying the dreams, even friends and family saying "let me show you how to make all your dreams will come true" while living a life of mediocrity themselves.
But, I'm getting off topic. Let me just say, it was an amazing book - the only one of its kind I actually read start to finish. And, needless to say, it gave me just the motivation I needed to get back on track. For that, I thank you, @MJ DeMarco.
Starting my business, and why it this post was so long in the making
Time to explain my title. Actually, I should first note that my business has been registered since July, but it hasn't officially launched until November 1st (as the site was put on air).
Well, after reading the book, I finally found the motivation to take the next step, which was to create my business site - that involves graphic design, deciding which modules to use how, creating a few (well, one and a half) customized modules, and implementing it all.
Honestly, that was the also the time I joined this forum, as I was considering starting my online activity (not just promotion, but anything business related - like this very forum) while simultaneously doing the above. That's when I was going to write this thread, which was just shy of two months ago.
In the end, I decided to focus on that first, while lurking a bit more (on this forum as well as a few others).
It was the right choice, too, as I had to make a few extensions to IOFrame (finally adding support for stuff like Videos, fully supporting them in Articles, adding more modular extensions to allow using captcha, and much more). I also decided against hiring a part-time freelancer too early, and invested my own time into the graphic design (the site, the business card, email signitures, etc), which I'm quite happy with despite the time it took (pretty sure I cant link it due to promotion rules here, though I'll be posting the more unique parts on my new Reddit account in /r/graphic_design and the like in the coming weeks).
Well, all my social sites are up, finally hooked up and fixed everything, and the site is ready to go. Now comes the next phase, and many more after it - and I think I might share my progress via an [EXECUTION] thread, so if you somehow made it this far down - stay tuned!
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