23 YEARS WITHOUT A ‘PROPER JOB’ RACHEL WILLMER

THIS TALK IS FOR YOU IF…

YOU ARE WHAT YOU PRACTICE

So. What do you want to be?

WHO AM I TO TA L K ?

RACHEL WILLMER Freelance
DevOps
& Full Stack Engineer Co-Host of Edinburgh’s Turing Festival Keynote speaker:
DjangoCon Europe, EuroPython, PyConWeb Founder of Luzme

WHAT COULD YOU DO? Back To You…

PRODUCT? • Ebook, Course, Online Training, Wordpress Plugin • One-Off Revenue • No Support • Good for side-project or first project

SERVICE? • SAAS • Recurring Revenue • Support Costs • Better when full-time

PUBLISH • Blog • YouTube Vlog • Podcast

HOW TO MONETISE • Sale of book • Affiliate Commission • Advertising • Sponsorship • Data Analytics

SOME EXAMPLES

YOU CAN’T MAKE MONEY BY WRITING A BOOK No? Tell that to Sacha Grief & Tom Coleman $300k (in 18 months) Self-published via Gumroad

YOU CAN’T START A SERIOUS BUSINESS AS A SOLO FOUNDER • Peldi from Balsamic did. • Annual profits > $6m • ($2m two years ago)

YOU CAN’T DO THIS UNLESS YOU LIVE IN THE USA • Patio11 did it from Japan • (by the way, he’s amazing…) • (and now working at Stripe)

I CAN’T DO IT BECAUSE… • Yes. You can. • Let me introduce you to Jon Morrow.

JON MORROW • has Spinal Muscular Atrophy

• cannot move from the neck down • runs smartblogger.com , writes amazingly good copy, makes a ton of money, and has a lot of fun!

YES YOU CAN • OK to START SMALL • You Don’t LEARN Until You Start To Fail • Don’t be Afraid to THINK BIG • Choose B2B and Charge More • Choose The Customers You Want • Charge More (Yes Really!) • and above all… • START A MAILING LIST

Lessons Learned…

4 THINGS TO LEARN TO SAY •

4 THINGS TO LEARN TO SAY • I Don’t Know

4 THINGS TO LEARN TO SAY • I Don’t Know • I Need Help

4 THINGS TO LEARN TO SAY • I Don’t Know • I Need Help • I Was Wrong

4 THINGS TO LEARN TO SAY • I Don’t Know • I Need Help • I Was Wrong • I’m Sorry

ADD ONE WORD - “YET” • I Don’t Know … Yet • I Can’t Do It … Yet

YOU ARE WHAT YOU PRACTICE

So. What do you want to be?

ANY QUESTIONS? rachel@willmer.org Twitter: @rwillmer luzme.com