Introduction to Skillcrush

by Katie Hart | May 20, 2017 | Digital Nomad Skills

Introduction to Skillcrush

I’ve mentioned Skillcrush on this site a few times, and it’s about time that I introduced you to this wonderful resource! Before I heard of Bucketlist Bombshells, or even much about this whole digital nomad idea, I came across Skillcrush, and it’s where I have invested most of my time and effort toward gaining digital skills so that I can build a business.

Skillcrush offers three-month online tech courses they call blueprints. Each blueprint focuses on a particular career path and has three three-week classes or apprenticeships (a few have a bonus 1-week class on Git). Different blueprints may have overlapping classes or build on previous classes, and they just started a new all-access membership with all classes.

I don’t remember how I first heard of Skillcrush. It was most likely a Facebook ad, or someone referenced the company in an article or on Twitter. I just know that around May 2015 I signed up to get their emails, which were full of great info and links to their blog.

One entire year later, after my finances had recovered from my trip to the UK, I signed up for my first Skillcrush blueprint, Visual Designer, and was part of that blueprint’s inaugural class. I then took their Front-End Developer and WordPress Freelance Developer blueprints, which I still need to fully complete. (Interestingly enough, those same three blueprints, in a different order, are now bundled together into their 9-month WordPress Bootcamp.)

Rather than focusing on the possibility of using tech skills remotely, Skillcrush trains women (and men) of all ages to be tech professionals. Alongside the solid instruction in coding and design are plenty of guidelines for working with teams, preparing documents correctly, setting up a developer environment, and doing things in the right order.

Side note: What my INFP brain tells me is the right order and what other people tell me is the right order often differs. That led to some frustration with a few of the challenges within the Skillcrush blueprints. I did rearrange a few things and skip ahead to a different section when I was feeling stuck, which helped. It was also very encouraging to watch a video of Adda Birnir, Skillcrush’s founder, as she tweaked and shuffled through code for a project, instead of the sanitized step-by-step process presented in the lessons.

Skillcrush does present freelancing as an option and the ideal place to get started, but roughly half of the courses’ focus is on getting a job with a company, often as part of a larger team so you can expand your knowledge.

The blueprints run about $400, or $450 with a three-month payment plan. While you have lifetime access and can work at your own pace, the blueprints are structured to follow a set schedule so that you can be at the same place as the rest of your class. It usually follows 3 weeks (Monday-Friday) of lessons and a 1 week break for each of the three classes. The extra week gives you time to catch up, and there is sometimes an extra project you can do as well. I generally found the first week to be very easy, the second to be more challenging, and the third to be very hard and time-consuming.

Concepts are presented and demonstrated in short videos, and explained in more detail with text and screenshots. Lessons have a few challenges, some with typing code directly into the class website, others done with outside programs and you upload screenshots or share links. You can interact with instructors and fellow classmates in a Google Group for just your class (all starting the same day with the same blueprint). There are also group office hours via video chat that you can join.

One of the best parts of Skillcrush is saved for the very end. After the three months are up (even if you haven’t quite finished all your classes), you are able to join the Skillcrush Slack alumni group. I’ll have more details about that in a future post, and will also compare it to the Bucketlist Bombshells community.

Bottom line, Skillcrush is one of the best and most thorough ways to learn tech skills. I’ll provide more information about the individual blueprints I’ve taken in separate posts!

What is the most important thing to you about an online course? What would cause you to choose one course over another?

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On Saying No to Clients

by Katie Hart | May 19, 2017 | Solopreneur

On Saying No to Clients

This week has not been a great one at my day job. (I was going to say 9-5, but I work 8-5.) And it has been almost entirely due to one customer making sudden paperwork demands that I have been required to meet.

Is there any benefit to me in meeting this customer’s demands? Not at all. I don’t get any bonuses or commissions. Yes, the company has a better chance of retaining this customer, and appreciates my efforts, but it has been a whole lot of stress for nothing.

This situation has really made me long for the days where I can be in control of my own business, and choose which client requests I will meet, and how much I will charge them for my extra work.

I’m not a person who naturally says no to people (though I am better at it than some people I know). But saying no to clients is a crucial part of any functional business. Otherwise, you will be overrun, overworked, and underpaid, as revisions and requests eat up valuable time and energy.

However, how do you combine saying no to clients with being a great team player and an asset to your client’s company? With boundaries and expectations.

A clear onboarding process and/or contract is vital to making sure your clients don’t ruin your life and business. Outline exactly what you will do for them, and set limits. If they want to exceed those limits, set a price tag. Because most of the time, you would be completely happy with the additional requests if they made you additional money. It’s not telling your client no, it’s saying, “Yes, if . . .”

Build an escape hatch. Imagine your worse possible client. How would you protect yourself if you had to work with these types of companies? First, you should build something that would make it so you won’t have to – a vetting process to screen out the truly incompatible, a non-refundable deposit to prevent clients that don’t pay, and a time limit so WIP projects don’t keep going for years.

Next, go through your workflow process (don’t have one yet? Write down all the steps you take for each type of project, and continue to edit and refine – it will be super helpful, I promise!) and think of how a terrible client could ruin each step. What could you do ahead of time so that won’t happen? Build it into your contract.

Yes, you will know more about how to set up strong contracts after you’ve dealt with a few difficult clients. But you can relate your other experiences to your business to think of possible scenarios your contract can prevent. Like with my experiences with my day job’s difficult customers. If a client makes a request that will cost me time and effort outside of the scope of their project, I want to be able to refuse it or charge them a fee.

Obviously, you are not going to want to nickel and dime your clients with constant fees. So one thing to do is build some buffer time into any contract, because there will always be unknown things that happen. If it helps, track that “extra” time, because little things can add up, and it will help you budget that in future contracts.

What is the worse experience you’ve had with a customer or client?

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On Quitting Your Job: Courage vs. Responsibility

by Katie Hart | May 18, 2017 | Confidence

On Quitting Your Job: Courage vs. Responsibility

I’m not quitting my job.

Not walking out. Not putting in my two weeks’ notice. Not saying, “Bye, Felicia.”

Not yet at least.

As a part of so many travel and freelancing/solopreneur groups, it seems like every day I hear about someone is quitting their 9-to-5 to pursue their passion, the open road, and creativity. This move is unanimously praised as the right thing to do, as a huge courageous step.

It is especially prevalent in the Bucketlist Bombshells Tribe Facebook group (one of my favorites), for several reasons. First, because the group is about both travel and building your own business. Second, because that’s exactly what both co-founders of the group did – quit their jobs and moved to Mexico (as discussed in their recent Forbes article)!

Third, because their target audience is millennial women. In particular, ones who can see themselves traveling the world, which says two things – their ties to their current location are limited (often they are single and don’t have children) and they have, or aspire to have, disposable income that they want to spend on travel.

That is a broad generalization that of course doesn’t apply to everyone in the group. It does, however, apply to me.

The main tie I have to my current location is my family (parents and siblings, along with their families). I am one of nine children, and my parents and all but two of my siblings currently live within a half hour drive. I rent a place with one of my sisters. My brother, sister-in-law, and their two children (who will turn 7 and 3 in July) live 4 minutes away.

While technology has made living apart from family easier, it still would be hard to be away from them most of the year, especially my nieces, who grow and change so quickly. It would also be difficult for the sister I live with to find an affordable rental on her own.

Shared living costs is one aspect of the responsibility I feel about keeping my day job – especially since I just signed a year lease. Even if I would spend most of my time abroad, I would need a space to store my stuff and a place to stay when I’m hear (if I was only coming back a week at a time, I could stay with family, but I’m guessing trips home would end up being a month or so, and I need my own space). $300/month wouldn’t be too bad to keep paying, since a storage unit would be $50-$150/month anyway. I would need to see how much I’d be home after the lease was up.

Another responsibility is my car. I live in an area where a car is needed to get around. Fortunately my car is fully paid for. I could perhaps get a sibling to cover my auto insurance costs in exchange for using the car while I’m gone, or severely reduce my plan, or even sell the car and use a rental whenever I’m in the area.

My health insurance is covered through my job, and I don’t have to pay premiums. But I have Hashimoto’s, a thyroid autoimmune disorder, so I need access to medicine and infrequent blood tests to monitor my levels. If I quit my job, I’m stuck paying for health insurance on my own. It seems like many younger millennials would be able to get back on their parents’ health plans (or perhaps they are already on them?) if they quit their jobs spontaneously.

I also have cash invested into my vacation in September. Plane tickets, some non-refundable rooms, tours, and long train journeys have already been paid in advance. I will be using 9 of my 10 vacation days for my work year of May 2017-May 2018, which means if I leave before spring 2018 I may have to pay some of them back. However, paying a couple hundred to quit my job earlier would not be terrible. Since I know this vacation will be pricey, I suspect that I won’t be able to save much for a transitional buffer until the trip is over.

I definitely would be leaving my company in the lurch if I quit suddenly, even with 2 weeks’ notice. Right now, the company has a skeleton crew, with many people doing multiple jobs, and I know my leaving will put extra work on the shoulders of my already overworked coworkers. I am, however, a bit frustrated with the company – I have been asking for 2 months to have a conversation about salary, and it hasn’t happened yet. Two months ago I was in the middle of a big project and my confidence level was high. Now I’m between projects, so my value to the company isn’t as visible, even though I have plenty of tasks I am still doing.

The bottom line of this discussion the fact that I need to be making money with my fledgling business before I even make plans to quit my job. I have too many responsibilities that need cash. Maybe these women who are quitting their day jobs don’t have as many responsibilities. Maybe they have a safety net of moving back in with their parents if things don’t work out. Maybe they have a nice lump sum in the bank.

Or maybe they have decided that it is time to be courageous.

I’m not there yet. Call it fear, call it preparation, call it realism, but I know quitting my job right now is the wrong thing. But I’m hoping the time will soon come when it is the right thing, and I can finally embark on my digital nomad adventure.

Bye, Felicia!

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Methods of Online Learning

by Katie Hart | May 17, 2017 | Digital Nomad Skills

Methods of Online Learning

To become a digital nomad, you need to be able to do money-generating things remotely. For some, they can use the skills they’ve already gained to jump right in. For others, they will need to learn new skills or brush up on some old ones. For everyone, the fast-moving world of tech and the ever-changing trends of design means that learning should become a way of life.

Fortunately, it has never been easier to learn things online! This training can come in a variety of forms, and some of the best online courses combine all forms for all types of learners.

Text

Not regulated to simply books, text can be found everywhere on the web, because the web was built in text. From ebooks to blog posts to email courses to intelligent chatbots – you can easily learn almost anything in text. It’s especially good for print learners (me!). One hidden benefit is that text is the easiest form to translate – so learning can reach people in any language! It is also great for bite-sized learning and learning in places where sound is not allowed or hearing is impossible.

Pictures

Worth a thousand words, right? Sometimes some things are just easier to understand when you can see a picture or a diagram. Great option for visual learners, but most often . . .

Text and Pictures

These two combine to make learning twice as effective, and for me, this is my favorite form of learning. I can’t always grab a pair of headphones and devote my whole attention to something. Also, having a text/pictures option is very helpful for trying to actually do a difficult task while you follow along – no need to pause or rewind, just flip between the screens or have them side by side on your desktop. Screenshots are a great use of images, and adding gifs (moving images) takes things to a whole new level. Great for text and visual learners.

Audio

This is one area of learning I haven’t explored much, since most of what I want to learn has a visual aspect. But podcasts are still immensely popular, and you can find great ones about almost every topic. Great option for commuters and auditory learners. I’m definitely not one, and since I can read faster than most people speak, audio learning feels very slow and I’m easily distracted.

Video

Currently, video is the most popular learning method, and sites like Udemy, Lynda, and Skillshare use it almost exclusively. It’s easy to see why – it works for most learning styles (some better than others, depending on the type of video) and for both complicated and simple subjects. It also feels more premium than other types of learning (since it can take more effort to create) and therefore people are willing to pay more for classes that offer a video component.

What type of learner are you? What is your favorite method of learning online?

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FileMaker Development

by Katie Hart | May 16, 2017 | Digital Nomad Skills

FileMaker Development

I have my day job to thank for reviving my interest in making digital things. My company uses a program called FileMaker for most of its day-to-day record keeping. I had never heard of this program before starting there, and since they were in the process of switching to a different system I didn’t use it at all until after I’d been there several months when they decided to switch back and update. Now I am the most skilled person in FileMaker at the company.

FileMaker was developed by Apple (which sadly means that, although there’s a PC version and has been for years, they have no plans to move to Android) and is a robust, highly customizable database management system. I’ve used a lot of different systems at my various jobs, but FileMaker is the first one (other than WordPress, which is a whole different thing) I’ve been able to dive into and modify on my own.

Most of my coworkers had used FileMaker for years before the failed transition to our sister company’s data system (with a DOS-like interface that made me feel like I was visiting the 80s). I was given some brief instruction on how to use FileMaker for various tasks, and since I had used many other systems in the past I was able to pick of the logic of the program quickly.

Two things rapidly accelerated my FileMaker experience within my first year using it. One, I found and asked the company to purchase an in-depth manual on the program, and I read that 900-page book from cover to cover. Two, I was asked to join in on discussions about upgrading the system with our outside development team.

Those discussions almost became an apprenticeship for me in FileMaker. Since I was the one using FileMaker every day for the exact functions we were refining, I would beta test any changes made. I understood the underlying logic of the system and my company’s requirements, so I was able to pinpoint errors. Often, the outside developers would remotely connect to my computer to make changes, generally while they were on the phone with me. I watched how they did things and asked questions. I made small design changes, then minor changes and additions to the system, and now have gotten to the point where I built a custom system for payroll for my supervisor.

I also dived into scripting for FileMaker, building off the JavaScript classes I was taking with Skillcrush. I created a printing script that saved our plant manager hours every month.

I’m hoping to use my FileMaker skills in the future remotely – connecting to clients’ systems and updating things as they need me to. Unlike Photoshop or HTML, FileMaker development is more of a unique skill to offer as a digital nomad – one that I am hoping will help me stand out and gain clients.

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