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Going to keep this short and sweet, I realized I care about being a clear communicator. Which is quite the change if you read some of my babble from previous years on the forum. 
That being said, I'm here to provide value to anyone I can help as well as participate in the community once again. This time as a more mature, clearer thinking individual.
2015
I originally joined the forum in 2015 as an action-faking wantrepreneur (there I said it). You'll be able to see in quite a few of my posts and comments that I was bit with the bug to create software because I read techcrunch articles (lol) in-between personal training sessions.
2016
I spent most of 2016 action-faking as well (as you can see, I'm highly self-aware now). I wound up losing $15,000 (ouch) trying to outsource a software to be built by an overseas development company (in India). I had no clue what I was talking about and it led to me getting taken advantage of. I originally blamed them for this which led to the path I'm on now. But thinking back it was ultimately my fault.
2017
Still doing odd jobs, I realized that if I was going to succeed at software as a mid-20 something year old with no resources, I had to learn to code myself. Just to clarify, no resources literally means zero resources. I took the final bit of money I had saved from personal training and went all in on learning to code. I joined a coding bootcamp. I studied my a$$ off for 8-14 hours a day. I'd typically only leave to eat food and hit the gym (Many days I was in flow - days and weeks would blend together). I started in August of 2017. Financially my account always hovered between $10 - $200. At this point I was picking up just enough personal training sessions to pay my bills and have the time to dig deeper into learning code.
2018
Try having $24 in your bank account for months at a time... It was wearing on me fast. In March of 2018 I decided it was time to start applying for jobs. I got rather good with code by this point. Ruby, Rails, Javascript, HTML, CSS (full stack) if you're wondering. I was building software projects from scratch for nothing more than practice to prove I was good enough to hang.
March 2018 - Began applying for jobs.
April 2018 - Bank account overdrafts to -$54 I decide I've had enough of this shit and begin looking for jobs I'm in more control of while applying for engineering roles. I took a job as a door to door solar sales rep in the middle of April. (I've always been comfortable talking and selling from earlier jobs I had as a supplement sales person at GNCs)
May 2018 (ALOT happens here) - I get offered an interview for a full stack engineer position. I schedule the interview for May 21st (I can't forget the day for a reason you'll soon find out). At this point I've been on the solar sales job for 4 weeks. I made $4k by this point and I wasn't drowning in the negatives (woohoo!). May 20th my dad passes from a long battle with skin cancer (only 57 y/o - huge awakening - ouch). Monday May 21st, I get the call for the interview which at this point I forgot entirely about since I was on the phone making plans for his funeral. I tell the interviewers what happened and if we can reschedule for that Wednesday (they were understanding, we rescheduled).
I interview that Wednesday, wait 3 weeks and eventually get a call that I'm being offered the job. Full stack engineer position. I was due to start end of June. I took the you're hired call from the bathroom of the offices of the solar job I had. LOL. I left the solar job the same day I started the engineering position. Making approximately 12k in 11 weeks. Bye bye negative account balances for good.
End of 2018
Saving diligently, typically 70% of everything I make from engineering job. I wound up leaving 2018 with $20k in the bank + $15k in cryptocurrency investments (BTC & LTC. I believe heavily in this as a technology. It's not entirely speculative, though somewhat it is. I had a good way of judging my risk:reward on this to back up why I'd invest so much compared to what I had in cash).
Mid 2019
Was promoted to lead engineer, managing a team of 6. Pay raise came with it. I still continue to save 70%. On top of that, I've been taking freelance work like a savage. I left 2018 with 20k in cash and 15k in crypto. Leaving 2019 heading into 2020 with savings and freelance earnings. I should be sitting on a $180k-$200k nest egg ($20k difference based on 1 project I may or may not land in coming weeks)
Why bring up the numbers?
This is important for me to mention so I can hopefully inspire someone who thinks they're stuck in some shitty situation and there is no way out. I went from not knowing how to code to buckling down and becoming really good at it. I had reality smack me in the face when I watched my dad pass at 57 before him even getting to enjoy anything in life. You too can go from negative account balances to getting far ahead in just a short time.
I've come a long way from when I first introduced myself on this forum and it was all a long journey which was honestly sparked by @MJ DeMarco and I'm still grateful. All these years later and I still recommend MFL & Unscripted to anyone who asks "What should I read?".
My Plans Going into 2020
I've finally got all the skills necessary to actually build virtually any kind of software I want from scratch. I've partnered with another software engineer a couple of months ago and we started building a SaaS in the appointments/bookings/payments space. Huge market. Should be ready for launch towards end of 2019.
I'm also working on another project which I'm currently building solo (no plans to partner on this one). Instead of having $ MRR goals it will have monthly traffic goals. It combines two of my skills (first being engineering, second you might be able to read about in my initial introduction post if you care)
So to sum this up
2015 - Mid 2017 - Lot's of action faking.
Mid 2017 - Mid 2018 - Going hard on learning code (bank account range -$54 to $200)
Mid 2018 - Engineering job, saved my a$$ off. Average 70%, sometimes even 80-90% of pay.
Mid 2019 - Huge leap in net worth (though haven't hit the fastlane yet, I feel I'm certain I'm going to in the next couple of years with my software engineering skills and $ saved up)
2020 - I intend to be focused entirely on my own softwares from here on out. My day job is pretty killer right now. I do not trade time at 5:2, It's more like 3:4 and fully remote.
In 2020 I'll be focusing on the 2 softwares I mentioned above while scaling back my job to either quitting because quite frankly I've finally saved enough to not need it and focus on my own ventures or I'll scale back the time requirement even further maybe 2:5 fully remote and continuing collecting the paycheck while I scale up software businesses.
I may ask questions about certain strategies just to learn how to best deploy some money. I've been contemplating starting in RE just to get rid of that expense. Maybe getting a 4-plex. I'll be around reading the gold and notable threads related to this.
1 Final Request
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I've come back to the forum with the intent on helping others in anyway I can because I'm so grateful for what I've learned from MJ's books as well as others on this forum whose content I've read over the years @Vigilante @Fox @Andy Black @Lex DeVille @biophase @MTF @James Fend @SteveO - if I forgot anyone I apologize. There are a lot of you who've had some kind of impact on my thinking over the years.
Thanks again.
That being said, I'm here to provide value to anyone I can help as well as participate in the community once again. This time as a more mature, clearer thinking individual.2015
I originally joined the forum in 2015 as an action-faking wantrepreneur (there I said it). You'll be able to see in quite a few of my posts and comments that I was bit with the bug to create software because I read techcrunch articles (lol) in-between personal training sessions.
2016
I spent most of 2016 action-faking as well (as you can see, I'm highly self-aware now). I wound up losing $15,000 (ouch) trying to outsource a software to be built by an overseas development company (in India). I had no clue what I was talking about and it led to me getting taken advantage of. I originally blamed them for this which led to the path I'm on now. But thinking back it was ultimately my fault.
2017
Still doing odd jobs, I realized that if I was going to succeed at software as a mid-20 something year old with no resources, I had to learn to code myself. Just to clarify, no resources literally means zero resources. I took the final bit of money I had saved from personal training and went all in on learning to code. I joined a coding bootcamp. I studied my a$$ off for 8-14 hours a day. I'd typically only leave to eat food and hit the gym (Many days I was in flow - days and weeks would blend together). I started in August of 2017. Financially my account always hovered between $10 - $200. At this point I was picking up just enough personal training sessions to pay my bills and have the time to dig deeper into learning code.
2018
Try having $24 in your bank account for months at a time... It was wearing on me fast. In March of 2018 I decided it was time to start applying for jobs. I got rather good with code by this point. Ruby, Rails, Javascript, HTML, CSS (full stack) if you're wondering. I was building software projects from scratch for nothing more than practice to prove I was good enough to hang.
March 2018 - Began applying for jobs.
April 2018 - Bank account overdrafts to -$54 I decide I've had enough of this shit and begin looking for jobs I'm in more control of while applying for engineering roles. I took a job as a door to door solar sales rep in the middle of April. (I've always been comfortable talking and selling from earlier jobs I had as a supplement sales person at GNCs)
May 2018 (ALOT happens here) - I get offered an interview for a full stack engineer position. I schedule the interview for May 21st (I can't forget the day for a reason you'll soon find out). At this point I've been on the solar sales job for 4 weeks. I made $4k by this point and I wasn't drowning in the negatives (woohoo!). May 20th my dad passes from a long battle with skin cancer (only 57 y/o - huge awakening - ouch). Monday May 21st, I get the call for the interview which at this point I forgot entirely about since I was on the phone making plans for his funeral. I tell the interviewers what happened and if we can reschedule for that Wednesday (they were understanding, we rescheduled).
I interview that Wednesday, wait 3 weeks and eventually get a call that I'm being offered the job. Full stack engineer position. I was due to start end of June. I took the you're hired call from the bathroom of the offices of the solar job I had. LOL. I left the solar job the same day I started the engineering position. Making approximately 12k in 11 weeks. Bye bye negative account balances for good.
End of 2018
Saving diligently, typically 70% of everything I make from engineering job. I wound up leaving 2018 with $20k in the bank + $15k in cryptocurrency investments (BTC & LTC. I believe heavily in this as a technology. It's not entirely speculative, though somewhat it is. I had a good way of judging my risk:reward on this to back up why I'd invest so much compared to what I had in cash).
Mid 2019
Was promoted to lead engineer, managing a team of 6. Pay raise came with it. I still continue to save 70%. On top of that, I've been taking freelance work like a savage. I left 2018 with 20k in cash and 15k in crypto. Leaving 2019 heading into 2020 with savings and freelance earnings. I should be sitting on a $180k-$200k nest egg ($20k difference based on 1 project I may or may not land in coming weeks)
Why bring up the numbers?
This is important for me to mention so I can hopefully inspire someone who thinks they're stuck in some shitty situation and there is no way out. I went from not knowing how to code to buckling down and becoming really good at it. I had reality smack me in the face when I watched my dad pass at 57 before him even getting to enjoy anything in life. You too can go from negative account balances to getting far ahead in just a short time.
I've come a long way from when I first introduced myself on this forum and it was all a long journey which was honestly sparked by @MJ DeMarco and I'm still grateful. All these years later and I still recommend MFL & Unscripted to anyone who asks "What should I read?".
My Plans Going into 2020
I've finally got all the skills necessary to actually build virtually any kind of software I want from scratch. I've partnered with another software engineer a couple of months ago and we started building a SaaS in the appointments/bookings/payments space. Huge market. Should be ready for launch towards end of 2019.
I'm also working on another project which I'm currently building solo (no plans to partner on this one). Instead of having $ MRR goals it will have monthly traffic goals. It combines two of my skills (first being engineering, second you might be able to read about in my initial introduction post if you care)
So to sum this up
2015 - Mid 2017 - Lot's of action faking.
Mid 2017 - Mid 2018 - Going hard on learning code (bank account range -$54 to $200)
Mid 2018 - Engineering job, saved my a$$ off. Average 70%, sometimes even 80-90% of pay.
Mid 2019 - Huge leap in net worth (though haven't hit the fastlane yet, I feel I'm certain I'm going to in the next couple of years with my software engineering skills and $ saved up)
2020 - I intend to be focused entirely on my own softwares from here on out. My day job is pretty killer right now. I do not trade time at 5:2, It's more like 3:4 and fully remote.
In 2020 I'll be focusing on the 2 softwares I mentioned above while scaling back my job to either quitting because quite frankly I've finally saved enough to not need it and focus on my own ventures or I'll scale back the time requirement even further maybe 2:5 fully remote and continuing collecting the paycheck while I scale up software businesses.
I may ask questions about certain strategies just to learn how to best deploy some money. I've been contemplating starting in RE just to get rid of that expense. Maybe getting a 4-plex. I'll be around reading the gold and notable threads related to this.
1 Final Request
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I've come back to the forum with the intent on helping others in anyway I can because I'm so grateful for what I've learned from MJ's books as well as others on this forum whose content I've read over the years @Vigilante @Fox @Andy Black @Lex DeVille @biophase @MTF @James Fend @SteveO - if I forgot anyone I apologize. There are a lot of you who've had some kind of impact on my thinking over the years.
Thanks again.
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