If you are a good dev, with a good work ethic and some hustle this won't be that hard.
Although the "almost no experience" and "Started coding 3.5 years ago" aren't very congruent - you should really clarify that.
Here are two options for you:
1. partner with someone and develop a SaaS product. There are thousands of "business" people with no tech experience who have ideas and are looking for a technical partner. But spend a lot of time doing due diligence and make sure they really have done the market research, have customers lined up, and really know the space well. From my personal experience, this usually doesn't happen - they have an idea, get excited about it and want to find someone to work for free and build it on speculation. So be really careful here. BUT if you find the right person, this could be an amazing opportunity for you.
2. As others have said, work on sites like Upwork, and start building a portfolio. At $6.25 / hour (your $1k month goal) this is pretty low risk for the customer. Start with small projects you know you can knock out quickly - get the positive reviews and feedback, and raise your rates accordingly.
I'd be willing to help you with either #1 or #2 - get in touch if you are interested.
I find the "shoes with arch support" advise in the article to be horrible*
(*Disclaimer I am no doc, this is only based off what worked for me)
I spent years fighting plantar fasciitis, and tried every shoe, device, gimmick and (expensive) orthodic available. I spent $1000's on this, and my insurance companies spent even more on custom orthodics and docs. Nothing worked, and it actually got worse over time. I could barely walk some days, and traversing stairs backwards (this helped a little with the pain) was pretty common.
I assumed it was just due to a childhood injury on my left foot, and I'd just be suffering for life. But when my right foot got the pain ( only after using all the medical remedies and prescribed devices ) - I knew something was off.
A few years ago I heard about the barefoot running trend. On a whim I decided to try it (the barefoot part, not the running part, yet) and see what would happen - it would have been hard for things to get worse.
Fast forward to now - I have not had pain in years, lost weight (which also helped), and run 1/2 marathons and 5ks multiple times a year.
In my experience any arch support just helps lead to atrophy of the tendons, which cause the pain.
My remedy in a nutshell:
1. Before you get out of bed each day (and BEFORE you put any weight on your feet) stretch both feet (even if only one is having a problem). Grab your foot at the ball and pull back (gently, you're not trying to snap your foot). Hold for 60 seconds. repeat on each foot 2-3 times. Over time you can dial this back, but keep at it for a few weeks and you will notice a difference.
2. Stay "barefoot" as much as possible. Walk around the house barefoot, wear thin, flat shoes when possible (Nike Free, Vibram, Vivo, or any thin sole shoe without a big heel - normal sneakers suck)
3. Read Born to Run - it's a great book :-)
Hope this helps some. I suffered for years, and it sucks. Happy to answer questions.
you're right - this is not right for everyone. I wouldn't do it either - but 10-15 years ago, this would have been great for me.
But this is a killer opportunity, especially for someone younger who can live on the 5k and is not worried about family and mortgages yet.
This could be better than an MBA for many people who want to bring a real product to market.
Note: I have no context at all on the OP, so I'm making the jump that they have a strong business background and would not be flailing around once it was time to execute.
You're asserting that customer acquisition is easy and low cost. It's not.
For a product that can be built in 2 months (per the guidance here), it is going to take much more time to develop the sales and marketing and acquire enough customers to make it profitable.
I think this underscores why this may be a great deal for a (young?) developer with limited business experience. I learned a lot of hard lessons like this once I stepped away from an editor.
There is a option on the controls at the bottom (2nd button from right - 4 arrows, called change control mode) to 'fix' the mouse navigation direction.
Like the concept, and have been looking for something like this for all the baby photos.
Feedback:
- The checkboxes for DropBox vs S3 should be radio buttons.
- The hover text for Dropbox vs S3 should also work on the selection control (not just the text). It was not obvious how to find it. A little (info) icon on the end would be even better.
Add some more invite codes, and I'll get in there and send more feedback. :-)
Nice Concept. We're just starting the school process (4yr old), and I'm amazed to see all the use of tech in schools these days. When I was in school, we were lucky to have an Apple ][ in the library!
*Question: On your business model, are you hedging that paid classes ($9.99 / month) will just stay under 1,000 texts (Based on twilio .01/per rate) in aggregate and thus leave a little profit for you, or is there more to it?
If there is not more to it, it seems like the 'unlimited' could be risky (unless your unlimited is really like AT&T's 'unlimited' data plan :-) ).
A class of 25 students might encompass 35-40 devices (including parents). @ 40 devices 1 broadcast per school day is $8.20 cost to you. This does not include for responses, multiple sends per day, etc..
I know you've thought through all this, and probably have great answers, I'm just always interested to hear how others think about their price models. Thanks for sharing.
I'm calling BS (or at least poor research) on the story. I personally know 4 businesses that did groupon deals, and none of them got the money up-front. In fact one of them had the opposite problem, and it took several months to get the check (The account rep had apparently screwed up some paperwork, got fired, and it took a while to get straightened out).
Also, how would groupon even know what the check amount should be up front? I guess they have some history on how many deals they sell by type / geo at this point and could estimate, but it seems risky (on both sides).
Maybe groupon does advances for larger businesses or national brands, but I don't think they are the ones who would need to raise quick case.
The exact match domain 'trick' died in early 2011 updates. Prior to that I had done exactly what the article suggested - Exact Match Domain, 3-5 page site with optimized keywords, and boom the site would be on page 1 with no backlinks in 2-5 weeks.
Today this does not work if there is any competition at all for a word. (I've still seen it work for long tail terms with no competition).
Long story short - you need good content to rank well :-)