Online Communities: Bucketlist Bombshells vs. Skillcrush

Online Communities: Bucketlist Bombshells vs. Skillcrush

Online Communities: Bucketlist Bombshells vs. Skillcrush

Building a solopreneur career you can do from home or anywhere in the world can get lonely at times. Fortunately, you don’t have to do it alone! Hundreds of online communities exist, and today I’m going to talk about 2 of my favorites – Bucketlist Bombshells Tribe and Skillcrush Alumni.

The two communities have some similarities and overlapping topics, but with a different focus and style. I’ve been a member of Skillcrush Alumni for about 10 months as of this writing, and joined BB Tribe (formerly Globetrotting Girl Bosses) two months ago.

Platform

While Skillcrush uses Google Groups for their individual classes, after taking a blueprint (3-month course), graduates are invited to join the Alumni Slack. This was my first experience with Slack, and I love the platform! Everything is so clean and organized and searchable. It does set a business-like tone, but gifs and emojis are available to lighten the mood.

One of the downsides to Slack is that the free plan has a message limit. You can save resources and conversations within the community, but after a few months (depending on activity) they disappear. I set up a Zapier action to save messages to a Google Sheet when I star them in Slack to mitigate some of this downside.

BB Tribe uses a closed group on Facebook, a platform with which I am familiar and have had mixed results. The Facebook algorithms sometimes make it hard to find posts, but photos and videos are included more easily. They are also able to utilize live video within the group while Skillcrush needs to use an outside service.

Membership

Skillcrush Alumni are truly that – to be a part of the group, you must have signed up and completed (more or less) a Skillcrush blueprint. At a current price around $400 a blueprint, that is no small entrance fee, but they still boast nearly 1500 members! Not all interact on Slack, since joining is portrayed as an end-of-course bonus, but for me it is one of the most valuable parts of the blueprints. Because members have invested so much into starting a career in tech, topics tend to be more business-like and ask for specific advice. Questions generally are more intermediate or advanced.

BB Tribe is free to join, since part of its focus is to build interest in the Bucketlist Bombshells courses. It is a newer group, and recently grew by 50% (3000 members to 4500) thanks to a feature in Forbes. Much of the membership is more aspirational, and questions tend to be at a beginner level.

Side note: I was looking for opportunities to be a mentor within the Skillcrush group, but I wasn’t finding many since most members are at my level or ahead of it, since we all had completed blueprints. BB Tribe gives me more chances to help out, since I have knowledge from the Skillcrush blueprints that BB members may not have.

Bucketlist Bombshells courses also have their own individual groups, which are much smaller and focus more on class questions. I am a part of the newer two of the three.

Demographics

BB Tribe targets millennial women who want to travel the world and are willing to build a business that will allow them to do so. As an older Millennial, I feel a bit too old for the group, as most are fresh out of college or have only spent a few years in the workforce.

Skillcrush began with a female focus, which is still evident in its branding, but the blueprints are open to everyone and a small percentage of alums are male. It targets women in their 30s and 40s who are looking to make a career change.

Goals

Skillcrush wants to prepare you for a career in tech. While freelancing is a viable option and the best way to get started earning money with the new skills they’ve taught, a decent portion of the discussion in the Slack group revolves around resumes, interviews, and tech meetups. So this group is valuable whether you would like to get a remote job for a company or build your own business.

Bucketlist Bombshells wants to prepare you to earn money anywhere in the world. They focus on helping you create a profitable service-based business with skills you already know or can quickly learn. There is a strong urge to jump in with both feet, and they suggest staying in a low cost-of-living country when first starting out to minimize expenses as you grow your client base.

Interaction

Both groups are fairly active. Currently BB Tribe has more activity, thanks to the Forbes article, influx of new members, and ramp up to their once-a-year relaunch of their signature Work Online and Travel the World course. They also host weekly live coffee chats about important topics and interviews with other solopreneurs, with plenty of Q&A time. They have different sharing and challenge posts every week, and are doing a book group discussion.

Both Bucketlist Bombshells founders are actively involved in the group, and they have a great community manager. The vibe of the group is positive and upbeat, if a little naive. I hope that it keeps its same happy, anything is possible spirit as the group grows and matures.

Skillcrush Alumni has busy days and quiet days. Many members spend their time working on their own portfolios and gaining new clients, so they may only pop in occasionally with a question. There are monthly Alumni Hours, which offer training and information on different topics.

The company founder stops by occasionally, and instructors and mentors jump in frequently to answer questions. There is also an Ace program (of which I’m a part) where alums earn points for tech-related tasks, sharing Skillcrush posts and events on social media, and posting resources to Slack. The points are added up monthly, and winners earn prizes to help them on their tech journey.

 

I love both these groups and am so glad to have found two great communities for help and encouragement as I look to build a business!

What is your favorite online community?

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Introduction to Skillcrush

Introduction to Skillcrush

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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Bucketlist Bombshells: An Intro

Bucketlist Bombshells: An Intro

Bucketlist Bombshells: An Intro

I just started taking Bucketlist Bombshells’ Design Skills Course! While researching the course, I wasn’t able to find many reviews for it (since it is a newer course, that is to be expected). So I have decided to remedy that fact for other learners!

I’ll be walking you step-by-step through my experience with the Design Skills Course. I’ll be comparing and contrasting it to other courses I’ve taken (primarily Skillcrush‘s blueprints) and discussing its strengths, focus, and areas that need improvement. If this goes well, I’ll do the same with their Tech Skills Course, and maybe even their Work + Travel Course.

Since the Bucketlist Bombshells are all about helping you build digital skills that will allow you to work from anywhere in the world, I feel like they will be a great resource for those who want to Create Wherever! But this blog is all about helping you gain the freedom and confidence to build a passion-fueled life in any place you choose! So comment with your own thoughts, things you’d like to hear more about, topics you want me to address, and questions you have.

In addition, I’ll be sharing my own travel experiences, my journey toward location-independence, reviews of other digital courses and services, and vacation planning tips for fellow free-spirits on a budget!

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