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How I Became the Fittest, Strongest, and Most Athletic of My Life at 41

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT

import { Image } from "astro:assets";

I'm in my early forties, yet I'm pushing my body harder and smarter than I ever did in my twenties. This has been a long process of experimenting, failing, adjusting, and learning what actually works for my body. I'm sharing my journey because a lot of people my age underestimate how strong, fast, and capable they can still become with the right habits.

Rebuilding Strength and Athleticism

I lift, run, jump, and flip every week. Today I'm sitting at a 235 bench, 325 squat, and a 375 deadlift for two reps. I hit all of these PRs at age 40. My standing backflip is consistent, my running front tuck is getting there, and I'm building toward more advanced tumbling like layouts and twisting skills.

My body composition and performance have improved in ways that still surprise me. I'm 5'9” and about 190 pounds with unusually high bone density. My standing reach is 86 inches and my vertical jump is around 29 inches based on touching about 6 inches below a 10 foot rim. None of this happened because of perfect genetics. It happened because I built systems, like my personal health checklist, that reward consistency and progression rather than intensity without direction.

Running for Longevity and Speed

Running has become one of the clearest measures of my fitness. I hit a half marathon PR of 1:51:17 at age 40 and a 5K PR of 23:16. My VO2 max sits around 45 and my resting heart rate averages 50. I'm chasing the kind of performance normally seen in elite 25 year old athletes and I've still got a ways to go, but I'm steadily closing the gap.

At the same time, picking up tennis this past year playing 2-3x per week changed my running more than anything else. My overall running volume dropped about 25 percent, and my average pace slowed down since I use running as recovery between tennis days instead of pushing for max speed in every session. The interesting part is that even with a lower volume year, I still hit PRs. It taught me that strategic recovery can sometimes be more powerful than grinding volume.

A Multi Sport Life

I'm not a specialist. Tennis, pickleball, gymnastics, running, and lifting all support each other. Tennis in particular has become a focus this year. I started league play and my USTA singles record is 6 wins and 2 losses at the 3.0 level which probably means I'll move up to 3.5 next year. Tennis gives me footwork and conditioning that show up in almost everything else I do.

Gymnastics builds explosive power and body control. Strength training gives me the foundation to jump high, flip cleanly, and move with confidence. Running gives me the aerobic base that makes multi hour training days possible. At 41 I feel more well rounded and capable than I ever have.

One of the highlights of the year happened outside of all those sports. Our men's team won the largest adult dance competition in the state in 2025, beating out teams of both men and women from studios across Minnesota. I threw a backflip in the routine and the crowd went absolutely wild. It was one of those moments where all the training, all the conditioning, and all the work on athleticism paid off in a completely different arena. A photo would say it better than I can:

<figure> <Image src={import("./_dance-flip.jpg")} alt="Flipping on stage at the ShowBiz competition at the Minneapolis Convention Center" /> <figcaption> Flipping on stage at the ShowBiz competition at the Minneapolis Convention Center </figcaption> </figure>

Recovering Smarter

My training only works because I treat recovery as part of the plan. Assisted stretching every Monday helps with problem areas like hip mobility and bridges. Magnesium glycinate and glycine before bed noticeably improved my sleep and even brought my cortisol levels down from the 15 to 18 range to about 8 in a recent test.

Lower stress, better sleep, and smarter scheduling have become more important than any single workout.

What I'm Building Toward

I like having clear targets. My goals for 2026 line up across strength, skill, and endurance:

Get so confident with back and front flips that I can do them almost anywhere, anytime.
Deadlift 405 pounds or more.
Run 600 miles for the year after falling to about 450 in 2025.
Break 22 minutes in the 5K.
Break 1 hour 45 minutes in the half marathon.
Nail a roundoff backflip and start back twisting on the trampoline.
Hold a 30 second handstand and work toward handstand pushups.
Get a clean muscle up.
Jump high enough to slap the backboard.

These goals give me something to anchor my training around and keep my mind focused on the long game.

Lessons That Might Help You

Here are a few things that have made the biggest difference for me:

You can hit personal records in your forties if you train with intention and protect your recovery.
Blending strength, skill, and endurance creates a compounding effect you can feel in everyday life.
Tracking the right metrics keeps motivation high and helps you see progress sooner than you'd expect.
Sleep quality is one of the strongest performance enhancers.
Consistency beats intensity when intensity comes without structure.
Make training fun with sports and skills that excite you. Play is sustainable.

Why I Keep Going

My kids see me flipping, lifting, sprinting, playing tennis, and jumping into new challenges with them. I want to stay the dad who can keep up. More than that, I want to prove that your forties can be a peak, not a decline.

If even one person reads this and realizes it's not too late to reclaim their athleticism, then the journey is worth sharing! 💪

A Decade of Frontend Masters: From Startup to Success at 40

Thu, 02 Jan 2025 08:41:07 GMT

import { Image } from "astro:assets";

As I turn 40 this year, I've been reflecting on the journey of building Frontend Masters. Looking back at my turning 30 post, I can see how four key skills from my twenties created the foundation for everything we've built in the last decade. What started as a solo venture (with contractors) has grown into something far beyond what I initially imagined.

The Foundation Years: Four Key Skills from My 20s (Two Decades Ago 😅) that Built the Business in my 30s

Technical Mastery: Building deep technical skills as a front-end developer from age 20-30 paid off tremendously. It helped me build a high-quality Frontend Masters platform that customers love for its performance and made communication with our technical audience much clearer.
Community Building: Speaking at over 60 conferences — and running conferences of my own — created lasting relationships with the world's best instructors, many of whom still teach on Frontend Masters today.

<figure> <Image src={import("./_google.jpeg")} alt="A teacher speaking at a Google conference that I organized" /> <figcaption>A conference at Google HQ that I organized</figcaption> </figure>

Content Creation: Writing 200+ blog posts became my most valuable career skill. I still write all the copy for the Frontend Masters website, course announcements, and newsletters, reaching over 500,000 people multiple times each month. Writing is one of the most valuable skills you can have.
Business Acumen: Understanding the importance of recurring revenue and LTV (lifetime value) early on was crucial, giving me the stability needed to plan confidently around hiring and growing the business.

Focusing on building a variety of skills early on in your career (especially writing), regardless if you have a specific vision of how they'll be used in the future, is one of the best investments you can make.

The Building Years: Ages 30-35

<div className="image-comparison"> <figure> <Image src={import("./_started.jpeg")} alt="Frontend Masters' humble beginnings in a strip mall location" /> <figcaption>How it started: Our first office in a suburban strip mall</figcaption> </figure>

<figure> <Image src={import("./_started-going.jpeg")} alt="Frontend Masters' current downtown Minneapolis headquarters" /> <figcaption>How it's going: Our current downtown Minneapolis location</figcaption> </figure> </div>

The early thirties were challenging as I worked to transition from a solo operation to running a company — while raising four kids! I remember the uncertainty of the future and how I'm going to make it work. My family depended on it working and that was a lot of pressure.

Building something bigger than yourself is a challenge to say the least. There are hiring challenges like investing money into a hire that doesn't work out, product challenges like continuing to produce the courses people love, and personal challenges like taking care of my family. Despite the difficulties, by age 35, I built the business into everything I dreamed of.

Credit is due to the amazing team we've built over the years!

<figure> <Image src={import("./_team.jpeg")} alt="Many Frontend Masters team members enjoying a go-kart racing event" /> <figcaption> Much of our team enjoying some friendly competition at the go-kart track </figcaption> </figure>

However, this success came at a cost to my personal health. I was putting every ounce of energy into the business and not taking care of myself.

The Health Adventure Years: Ages 35-40

At 35, while the business was thriving, my health had deteriorated - I even experienced bad back pain that would wake me up at night. I dedicated the next five years to improving my health, creating my personal health checklist and gradually increasing my healthy habits and activities. The results speak for themselves: my VO2 Max improved from 37 to 45, and I've received lots of compliments on my physical appearance. I know my wife certainly likes it! 🙃

This renewed focus on health has transformed not just my physical capabilities, but my entire approach to business and life. With increased energy and mental clarity, I've been able to tackle new challenges and push beyond what I thought possible. Here's what I'm most proud of accomplishing in 2024:

2024 Things I'm Proud Of

Physical Milestones

<ul class="accomplishments"> <li>Ran over 550 miles in 2024, which improved VO2max from 41 to 45 (measured by DEXA scan, the gold-standard for body composition and fitness assessment)</li>

<figure> <Image src={import("./_2024-running.png")} alt="Monthly running mileage throughout 2024" /> <figcaption> Monthly running mileage for 2024, totaling over 580 miles </figcaption> </figure>

<li> Performed standing back flips on stage, and even did one on stage in front of 1000+ people! </li>

<figure> <Image src={import("./_backflip.jpg")} alt="Performing a backflip on stage in front of over 1000 people" /> <figcaption> A backflip with the men's dance team at the Daytona Beach National Dance Competition </figcaption> </figure>

<li>Learned front flips</li> <li>Did daily cold plunges</li> <li>Incorporated HIT training (plyometrics to jump higher)</li> </ul>

Frontend Masters Milestones

Platform Improvements

Fully redesigned course player with interactive Q&A, downloadable certificates and course recommendations
Redesigned homepage with key quotes on teaching from our teachers <figure> <Image src={import("./_new-homepage.jpg")} alt="The redesigned Frontend Masters homepage featuring teacher quotes" /> <figcaption> Our new homepage design showcasing testimonials from our expert instructors </figcaption> </figure>
Enterprise SSO implementation — allowing larger customers more flexibility to manage their teams
Strengthened the entire UX and product design by integrating Kirrie, our product designer

Growth & Community

Launch of "Frontend to Fullstack" newsletter reaching 500k+ people with all the latest industry news
One year of our Boost blog with over 150 posts
Produced short-form videos posted on Instagram and TikTok which people love

<figure> <Image src={import("./_testimonial.png")} alt="Testimonial from David C. about Frontend Masters' high quality courses" width={650} /> <figcaption>Awesome quote from a customer</figcaption> </figure>

The benefits of prioritizing my health have rippled through every aspect of Frontend Masters. With improved energy and focus, I've found myself making clearer decisions, having more patience in challenging situations, and bringing a more balanced perspective to leadership.

Lessons Learned: The Importance of Hard Conversations

A common question on a major birthday is "What advice would you give to your younger self?"

My biggest piece of advice to my younger self would be to face difficult conversations sooner. I've learned that life is limited by the number of hard conversations you're willing to have. I used to avoid conversations like having to fire someone or approaching a family member to try to resolve a conflict because I wanted to be liked, but I've come to understand that being decisive and direct isn't just about personal growth - it's essential for effective leadership.

Your team needs to know where they stand and where the company is headed. Clear communication, even when it's difficult, builds trust and momentum. While these conversations might be uncomfortable and sometimes result in tears or tough decisions, they're crucial for building an excellent business and creating a better life for yourself and your family.

2025 Things I'd Like To Do

While 2024 was amazing and it's going to be difficult to top, here's some things I'd like to do in 2025:

Physical Development

Recently, I added HIT workout plyometrics to jump higher — I'd like to be more consistent with them (this is my favorite workout which kills me) in order to journey towards touching the rim of the basketball hoop at 5'9"
Started up weekly Tennis with my tennis partner and he's kicking my butt 🤣 — I want to continue to improve
Ran 585 miles in 2024 along with a half marathon in 1:51:55 (8:32/mile) — I want to run even more this year and beat that time
Continue with gymnastics/calisthenics and learn new skills like round off back flips, 360 back flips, hand stand push ups, muscle ups, and more
Already this is a massive list, but I'd like to learn to swim better in order to someday do a triathlon
I've limited my alcohol consumption to ~2 drinks per week — I want to continue to reduce that to ~1 drink per week (only on dates with my wife)

Family & Business Goals

I've got big ambitions for Frontend Masters — we plan to expand our core offering in a big way. I want to continue to empower our team to do more, hire and grow the team, and continue to grow the community around Frontend Masters
Show up for my kids in their school when they need help, show up to their sports games, and be a good role model for them
Prioritize dates with wife, walking, running, playing pickleball, dancing, and activities with her
Deepen connections with my family and find a way to connect with friends more often

Happy new year everyone! 🎉

Bootstrap or VC? My Startup Advice

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 08:35:55 GMT

import { Image } from "astro:assets";

Over ten years ago on Feb 14, 2014, Todd Gardner reached out to me for advice on his startup TrackJS.

He had a lot of questions, ending with:

What do you think? When is a product mature enough to end free service? Do you think support costs will go up? Should we focus on mindshare or revenue? I know you've got a ton going on. We appreciate any thoughts you can share. ~ Todd

Hey Todd,

You know who I am and how I can be very opinionated while having your best interest at heart. I recognize other paths DO work for other people, but I'm a very opinionated guy so I'm going to paint things one way based on my own experiences doing startups here in Minnesota. You can feel free to call BS on me in any of my opinions.

<figure> <Image src={import("./_jurassic-park.jpg")} alt="Hold onto your butts..." /> <figcaption>Hold onto your butts...</figcaption> </figure>

We are considering ending the beta of Trackjs and transitioning into paid service. This allows us to test our business model and begin focusing more on customers that value our service. We can use what we learn here to iterate our product and messaging and hopefully grow.

My opinion here is that you simply cannot go to paid fast enough. Charging from day one by putting up a less-than-ideal product to get a small pool of people who will give me candid feedback through the build cycles is usually the best route because people who use things for free are completely different from customers who actually pull out a credit card. It separates the hobbyist from someone who actually needs your product enough to actually pay for it. Typical free tier to paid tier upgrade percentage is 1-2% (or less). So if you have 500 free users, you can only expect 10 of them to be customers... TOTAL. Dropbox was 4% which was OFF THE CHARTS. Look it up and do some research on it...the numbers are all out there on this. There are benefits to free, but it's hard to make free work for you unless your numbers are crazy high OMG GROWTH.

Today, none of us are fulltime. We add features as we can and do our best to support customers--and I think we've done a great job so far. But we are concerned about higher expectations for a paid service and more operations time. We're uncertain that we could continue to grow to the revenue needed to go fulltime with the extra obligations required.

You will all burnout if you don't see money coming in the door. Success breeds success and money bring validation and customers who rely on you for their business needs will fuel your development in ways that free users will never. Even a small amount of money $100-1000/mo is fuel to build on top of. I've burnt out with all my free products (even ones with hyper growth).

When you charge, the people who pay for things will take you seriously, give you feedback based on their real business cases and give you their credit card from the beginning of the relationship. You'll receive much more targeted feedback once you start charging. vs people use products for free they give you 1000 "what-if" scenarios and it's hard to distinguish what is really important. It doesn't cost them anything to give you feedback. That's bad. But, if you have a few customers paying and none of them are asking for features x, you know feature x isn't really important. What not to build is much more than half of the battle. With feedback from free users the noise is coming from everywhere and you don't know which feedback is real feedback from people who have business needs.

1 person's feedback who spent $100+ is more important than 1000 people who've paid $0. -- When they've paid it's awesome feedback vs when it's free users it's a bunch of theoretical feedback.

We're also concerned about hampering growth. We're growing at about 10 users/day right now and we are getting a lot of great buzz. The market for this is hot right now and a lot of people are talking about it. If we stay free, we could position ourselves as the error tracking solution, grabbing as much mindshare as we can.

The "hyper-growth" strategy is for VC-backed startups. Even kickstarter, who has raised a ton of money and has funneled $600M in backed-projects and has $6M in revenue, is STILL operating at a loss. These companies play by totally different rules.

For a self-funded startup, I don't think free user growth is real growth...it's $0 in the door. Figuring in that you'll only convert 2% of free users into paid users, means you aren't actually growing very fast right now.

Free is hampering growth more than it is helping you because living in theoretical-value-land is not healthy for anyone. I've been in board meetings... People thinking things are worth more than they actually are and that's not healthy. Knowing the real value of the business and building from there changes the whole dynamic by setting up proper expectations. You need that to keep motivation in check with reality. If someone effects real growth you will see that by the numbers. Right now it's anyone's guess.

We're considering approaching VC's again with our current situation and exploring outside investment. But we're cautious on the amount of equity they would demand, the constraints they would put on our personal incomes, and the amount of time it would take just to run down the deal.

VC's will have you give up 30% out of the gate and have you swinging for the fences. If you want to move out to the bay area then go for free growth. Otherwise if you want to stay in the midwest you should ring the f'ing cash register. Clay Collins (Lead Pages) raised $5M recently here in the midwest, but he had $50-100k+/mo in revenue. And the only one person in the midwest that raised big money without having income...and he's famous.

Swinging for the fences free-user growth is simply not a midwest game.

We're also considering validating our business model in simpler ways. Perhaps introducing a "donation" option in our beta, where customers could voluntarily chip in a monthly cost to help fund the growth.

I created the most used piece of JavaScript in the world and made $400 in donations...total. I've talked directly with people with MILLIONS of YouTube views who received roughly the same amount. My experience is that donations simply don't work...unless you are 1) donating to save someone's life or 2) specific end-goal that's tangible (like kickstarter).

What do you think? When is a product mature enough to end free service?

**A product is mature enough when people will enter their credit card and after adopting your software it won't blow up their business. **Your product is ready... charge for it... Now!

Do you think support costs will go up? Should we focus on mindshare or revenue?

"Going for mindshare" is bad unless you experiencing HYPER RAPID OMG growth...which, sorry to say, but you don't have. 10 users/day is not hyper-rapid growth. That's peanuts for a free product from a VC's eyes. But if you got 1-5 users per day entering in a credit card and paying you, that's got the inner workings of being able to support 1 or more of you full-time working on software soon that you are passionate about in short order.

Here's the awesome part! ..You guys have the perfect business to be self-funded -- a software product that delivers value while people sleep without you having to touch the product...but in order for that to be a reality you need to learn how to charge money and get real revenue in the door. It sounds like you've never done that before or are just afraid of charging money. It's ok..I have had that same fear of charging to get money coming in the door. It means you'll have to face real reasons why people reject it. Your fears well-reasoned and very real. But once you learn to charge you no longer live in fantasy land of 500 customers. It will be much, much less than your expectations when you actually start charging, but it's an important step you need to face sooner than later. Real credit cards are hard to argue with. Free users are worthless.. "BUT MARC >_< these are REAL customers I talked to them!" but did you give them a credit card form? No? Well then, they aren't customers. Saying "I will pay $500/mo" and actually paying $500/mo is totally different and triggers completely different psychological pathways. Only then will you get what they really think.

I know you've got a ton going on. We appreciate any thoughts you can share.

I'm happy to talk over skype, over the phone or in-person about any of these things. I hope I didn't offend you or set you back in any way. These are just the things I learned from 14 years of startups and 50+ clients and 10+ startups I actively advise.

It's going to be really painful to put up a credit card form because you will no longer be able to fantasize. But instead...you will have a real business (eventually)! And that's waaaay better than bragging rights. Especially when you all have a salary and get to work together for real and not worry about next month's paycheck. It's MUCH better than investor money which runs out. I feel way better now with 6 figures coming in yearly from products than when I was at $0 dreaming about big money with thousands of free users consulting my ass off. Paid is the way to go, but it's way more painful than doing things for free...but only temporarily.

Wishing you the best Todd!

📵 Going Phoneless

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 08:35:55 GMT

import { Image } from 'astro:assets';

<figure> <Image src={import('./_disconnect.webp')} alt="Disconnecting from the Phone" /> <figcaption>Worker Man Disconnects from his Phone</figcaption> </figure>

The Day I Lost My Phone

One day, my kid bumped my phone off a ledge, and it shattered. It was clearly an accident, but "Oh no! There's no way to get this fixed out here." Not in the remote location we were at.

But I was on vacation after all! A week without a phone won't kill me:

<figure> <Image src={import('./_costa-rica.jpeg')} alt="Vacation Destination" /> <figcaption>Vacation Destination</figcaption> </figure>

It was a blessing to be more fully unplugged during that time. My wife was happy I was always present in conversations rather than thumbing through Instagram.

It wasn't fun to pass the phone back and forth to take photos, but it was an excellent reminder to be present. I didn't have to worry about my phone dying, getting it wet, or dropping it. I didn't have to worry about it at all.

Do I Need a Phone?

Over time, I thought... do I need a phone at all? Maybe the things I "needed" my phone for could be replaced with a smartwatch or by simply opening my laptop a few times daily? (instead of pulling my phone out of my pocket 2,000 times 🤪)

Is it possible to live modern life without a phone?

The Elephant in the Room: Photos

The big thing I missed was capturing moments of my kids and family with the camera. For that, I just purchased an excellent pocket camera. It should fit in my pocket or backpack, and I can take it out when I want to capture a moment. I'm still determining if I'll get used to it, but I will try.

What About Notifications? Aren't They More Annoying on the Watch?

Simple solution:

<figure> <Image src={import('./_notifications.jpeg')} alt="Shut off notifications" /> <figcaption>Turn off notifications for the watch</figcaption> </figure>

Turn as many notifications off as you can! I only get notifications for texts and calls. I don't need to know when I get an email, Instagram like, or Twitter/X mentions. I can check those when I want to.

2FA Codes

I can still receive SMS messages, but it's better to use an app for 2FA codes. I use 1Password and Authy, which allows me to get codes from my laptop or even on my watch if needed.

Things I Successfully Replaced with an Apple Watch

I purchased an Apple watch with a cellular connection to see how far it can take me. To set up an Apple watch and log into most apps, you must link it to a phone, but it has been mostly a one-time thing.

Texts & Calls

You also need to pay for a cellular-connected watch to receive text and make calls. I've also started to use voice dictation for texts since it is impossible to type on watch, which isn't perfect but is good enough.

Controlling My Smart Car

Modern cars have phone apps that allow you to start your vehicle (important for winter since I'm in Minnesota), lock/unlock it, and drive. I found an app enabling me to do all this from my watch.

Music & Podcasts

Both Spotify and Apple Podcasts work on my watch and car apps. I can listen to music and podcasts without my phone.

Navigation

I can use my car's navigation system or my watch. I just discovered that the watch has integrated maps and Google Maps.

Fitness Tracking

Using my watch for tracking runs and workouts is excellent. It's so much better than using my phone.

Apple Pay

I linked my credit card to Apple Pay and could buy coffee and groceries with my watch! Most restaurants take your card back to pay, so I'll still need to bring my card with me. But it's cool to pay with my watch when I can.

Things I Can't Do on My Watch

No Social Media (Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, etc.) – Though I Can Access from My Laptop

Less social media is a net positive and the main reason my life has improved since ditching a phone. These are primarily time-wasting apps; when I want to waste time, I can now do things I want to do rather than thumbing through nothingness.

And if I need to access social media (sometimes I need it for work or want to connect with friends), I can do that from my laptop.

Can't Deposit Checks

I use fully online banking for personal and business purposes and rarely need to deposit checks (at most, it's a few times per month). So I'll have to pull out my phone from storage for those times. It will be fine, but it would be nice if these apps were available from my laptop.

Can't Scan QR Codes

Some restaurants have gone paperless and require scanning a QR code to see the menu. You can still access their menus by going to their website from a laptop, but I could borrow someone else's phone in those situations.

Then, my Car app required scanning a QR code to log in. I brought my phone out and could do this as a one-time setup, so it's okay. But this could be a problem if it reoccurs when I'm out and about.

No Mobile Hot Spot

I can't use my watch as a mobile hotspot or laptop when I'm somewhere with bad/poor wifi, which can affect my ability to get some work done when I'm not in my office or home office. Most of the time, I shouldn't be working these times anyway.

A common situation is when there is downtime in between my kids' competitive sports during the week. I'll replace this with writing, a book I've always wanted to read, or podcasts. But if that doesn't work, I might buy a mobile hotspot to throw in my backpack for backup. We'll see.

The Main Driver: Reducing Stress

In all my health research, reducing stress is a significant factor in living a long and healthy life. Stress is a killer, and I've found that my phone is a substantial source of stress. It's a constant source of distraction, and it's always in my pocket.

Reduced stress is the main reason I'm trying to ditch my phone.

Conclusion

I'm now more present in the moment. I'm not constantly checking my phone for notifications or mindlessly scrolling through social media. I'm more present in conversations with my family and friends. I'm more present in my work. I'm more present in my life. We'll see how long this lasts!

2023: Backflips, Business, and BBQ

Tue, 02 Jan 2024 08:35:55 GMT

import { YouTube } from '@astro-community/astro-embed-youtube'; import { Image } from 'astro:assets';

Happy New Year! Here are some highlights from 2023.

<figure> <Image src={import('./_grabanski-family-jump.jpg')} alt="My Family 2023" /> <figcaption>Family Vacation in Florida</figcaption> </figure>

Our kids are 4, 7, 9 and 11 now! It's really important we get to spend a healthy amount of time with them, and I'm grateful to the team at Frontend Masters for making that possible.

My Work Updates: Frontend Masters Highlights

I can't believe I've run this business for over ten years! Our first workshops were in December 2011. We've come a long way since then! 😅

Here are some end-of-year highlights:

We increased royalties for our authors by 50%. It is a considerable ongoing expense increase (and a bit scary). Many of our teachers live off their royalty income through us primarily now, so they certainly appreciate it!
We significantly improved the platform through new search functionality, self-service team management functionality, and new login/registration flow.
We launched a new course format that is quiz-based. Folks enjoy it, and we plan to record more like it!
We hired our VP of Learning at the end of 2022, and this was his first full year, and he crushed it. We also recently hired a Lead Product Designer and leased a new expanded office to fit our growing team.

Launched The Frontend Masters Podcast

We launched The Frontend Masters Podcast this year, and it's been a lot of fun! We've had many of the teachers on the show (13 so far), and it's been an excellent way for them to share their stories.

You can listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

Fun Team Events

We had a couple of team events this year. I hosted a BBQ at my house, we went go-karting, and we are doing a company retreat in Costa Rica in January 2024!

<figure> <Image src={import('./_gokarts.jpeg')} alt="Team Gokarting" /> <figcaption>Team Gokarting</figcaption> </figure>

Customers Watched Nearly 1 million hours of Learning Videos on Frontend Masters!

Those many hours impress me since they're focused, dense learning videos. There is no clickbait or fluff. It's all very focused time spent learning.

Exciting 2024 for Frontend Masters

Next year, we will continue hiring for critical roles, investing much into written content, building more features for enterprise customers and teachers, and more. And we already have nearly half the workshops for next year booked, so it's looking like an exciting 2024!

Our Mission is:

To educate and empower more people more deeply. We equip people with the mastery to use tools to turn their dreams into reality.

We've made significant investments in 2023, and I'm excited to continue this mission to help more people learn and grow!

My Personal Update: The Health Journey Continues!

I've followed my health checklist for a few years as closely as possible.

The First Backflip

One of the most significant accomplishments in 2023 started during a blizzardy day at home. I couldn't get to the gym, so I sent some backflips in my basement 😄. I had been training them for about six months, but it was the first time committing to flat ground.

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I have since done more flat-ground backflips, but they still need to be clean and consistent every time. I'm still working on them!

Giants on the Strap Bar

I've been working on Giants on the strap bar for a while now. I'm getting more consistent.

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Completed Two Half Marathons

This year, I finished two half marathons and ran over 300 miles for the year!

<figure> <Image src={import('./_elm-creek.jpg')} alt="Elm Creek Half Marathon" /> <figcaption>My First Half Marathon</figcaption> </figure>

<figure> <Image src={import('./_running-stats.png')} alt="Running Stats for 2023" /> <figcaption>Running Stats for 2023</figcaption> </figure>

I've attempted to get into running for the last five years, but it had yet to work until this year. This year, I ran primarily for enjoyment and not to push myself on every run. That turns out to be what turned the corner, and sometimes I like running now!

Hiking Trip to Oregon

One of the year's highlights was a hiking trip with a friend (Chris Coyier) in Oregon. We hiked over 15 miles daily and even jumped in an alpine lake!

<figure> <Image src={import('./_cascade-mountains.jpeg')} alt="Cascade Mountains" /> <figcaption>View of the Cascade Mountains</figcaption> </figure>

<figure> <Image src={import('./_oregon.jpeg')} alt="Oregon Mountain" /> <figcaption>Me and Chris Coyier on the Hike</figcaption> </figure>

I Quit Competitive Videogames for a Year

I've been a gamer my whole life and have struggled with playing too much when I have many responsibilities. Over a year ago, I threw my gaming computer in the closet, and it's been there ever since. I have mixed feelings about this since I love games, but with four kids, a business, and other health goals, I've not been able to find a healthy balance with them.

The only games I play now are with my kids. I'm hoping to find a healthy balance in the future, but for now, solo games don't fit.

Some Goals this Year

Ditch My Phone

Overall, I watched too much YouTube and Instagram and just too much phone use in general.

A blessing in disguise: my daughter accidentally broke my phone, and I haven't used my phone for almost two weeks. As a result, Life is better now, so I will attempt to go without my phone for a while.

How will I accomplish this? I'll buy an excellent pocket camera for photos and videos. Then I can text/call from my computer or watch — I'll see how long I can go without a phone!

Release the Family Videogame ... Finally?

The family videogame is done (enough) and works on iOS and Android. I'm trying to find a good way to wrap up and launch it.

Exercise and Skill Improvements

Overall, I'm happy with my progress in gymnastics and running. Even if it's mostly muscle, I have an issue with being too heavy for what I want to learn in gymnastics, so I need to dial in my diet.

Here are some overall goals for the year:

Add HIT workouts (bike, rower, etc)
Add some weight lifting (legs primarily)
Add split squats, Jefferson curls, good mornings, and nordic curls
Continue flexibility
- hips
- shoulders
- back
- legs and hip flexors
Running – match or exceed last year
- 300+ miles
- at least two half marathons
Gymnastics
- backflip (consistent)
- front flip (consistent)
- round off tricks
- front/back layout
- front/back handsprings

There's a lot more than this, especially with the business. But I'll leave it at that for now!

Wishing you all a happy and healthy 2024! 🎉

2022: 🥗 Focusing on Health & Record Amount of Workshops

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 10:35:55 GMT

import { Image } from "astro:assets";

Happy new year! Here are some highlights from 2022.

My family is growing up. Our oldest turned 10! 🤔 To say it's got me thinking is a bit of an understatement.

55 Workshop Recording Days in the Frontend Masters Studio!

Frontend Masters content recording came back really strong — our teachers killed it this year. We recorded some fantastic workshops this year, and we have so many courses to release throughout the start of the year.

Some projects we launched this year:

Upgraded course recording quality to 4k quality.
Ran the community sale, a record sale month, where we launched User profiles and a Discord community.
Released a new onboarding system with a super smooth billing system and a new team’s ability to manage their licenses.
Migrated 100% of our back-end to Go. Bye-bye, legacy systems!
Hired our Senior QA Engineer, who pioneered releasing a new customer feedback system. Thanks to it, we’ve been able to address hundreds of issues across our course library.
Deployed video streaming closer to our customers in major locations such as Berlin, Mumbai, Singapore, and Rio de Janeiro.
Rebuilt and upgraded our workshop recording space in Minneapolis, MN, for better A/V and faster editing.

➡️ This year, we have too many goals and projects to list, but one of the higher-level ones is to expand our team in a few key areas.

Coded TodoMVC in Modern JavaScript

I wrote TodoMVC using modern JavaScript. It became a popular project with over 700 GitHub stars. I addressed feedback as it came up and learned a lot through the project. From there, I built examples of app architecture, performant DOM updates, TypeScript, and some UI components.

➡️ This year, I’d love to tackle another project with a “vanilla” approach — maybe something like the Movies app.

Created a Personal Health Checklist System

This year I did a ton of health research to set up a system I can live by to live a healthy life. I distilled all that research into My Personal Health Checklist that a world-renowned longevity doctor, Dr. Brad Steinfield, reviewed.

➡️ This year, I want to continue adhering to this while revising and expanding it.

My First Full Year of Gymnastics

My montage of the year went viral on r/Gymnastics! 400+ upvotes and tons of positive comments and DMs:

It's clear I'm inspiring folks to get out there and do awesome stuff in their 30s and 40s.

Lots of progress; here’s my list of things I learned this year ✅ versus the milestones to improve to ➡️

✅ Max ~27" vertical ➡️ 30"-35" vertical
✅ Max ~12-15 seconds handstand ➡️ 30+ seconds consistent
✅ Front flips ➡️ higher and consistent/comfortable on flat ground
✅ Backflips ➡️ higher and consistent/comfortable on flat ground
✅ Did giants on the high bar! (w/grips) ➡️ consistent/comfortable giants without needing grips
✅ Pistol Squats (w/40 pounds counterweight) ➡️ Pistol Squats with no counterweight
✅ Increased mobility from yoga and assisted stretching ➡️ Progress towards splits, palm on the ground forward folds, and proper back bridge, too many to list
✅ Tuck press to handstand ➡️ Free-standing handstand push-ups
✅ L sit 20 seconds ➡️ L sit pull-ups
✅ Max bar hangs 90 seconds ➡️ Keep improving grip strength
❌ Muscle ups ➡️ Get it this year
❌ Run under 8 minutes per mile for 4 miles ➡️ Get it this year

➡️ Overall, I want to continue this journey and keep progressing daily! Also, a significant addition to my routine that I want to incorporate is 🥵 sauna and 🥶 ice baths.

I am excited to continue! Follow along on Instagram if you’d like: https://www.instagram.com/1marc/

Videogame Progress

I found an excellent programmer and artist for the family game. It’s progressing nicely, and every kid we’ve had play it loves it, but to take something like this to production is a massive project.

I’m a product guy with no experience in the gaming industry, so although I know what makes a great game, and I love how the game is turning out, I honestly don’t know exactly what I’m going to do with it the game in terms of marketing and roll out.

➡️ The game seems perfect to sell to something like Apple Arcade or Netflix Mobile Games. If y’all have any contacts or advice for me here, let me know.

Family Trip and a 8k Tough Mudder

There's certainly things I'm missing like a family trip to Florida (below is a photo of me and my son doing handstands on the beach), a hiking trip up near Ely, and doing the tough mudder 8k (finishing photo below) — but you can only fit so many things in before you have to hit publish!

🥂 Cheers to 2023! I hope you this year is off to a good start for you! See you on Twitter & Instagram.

💪 My Personal Health Checklist

Mon, 11 Jul 2022 11:48:09 GMT

import { YouTube } from "@astro-community/astro-embed-youtube"; import { Image } from "astro:assets";

Updated June 2025

Consult your doctor on the best course of action for you. This checklist is primarily for my reference, but hopefully, sharing it can help you, too.

Nothing here is meant to be revolutionary. It is a checklist to browse and remind yourself to make better and healthier habits. I use this as a reference to ensure I regularly incorporate these items into a healthy life.

Eating Healthier

Prioritize protein and eat lean meat, fish, eggs, and nuts. Very few people get enough protein. Aim for 0.8g of protein per pound of body weight.
Avoid processed foods — anything in a box or on the shelf, as well as processed meats — to reduce overall sodium intake and the fillers and other additives that come with them. Avoiding processed foods means you'll generally eat more nutritious and less calorie-dense foods.
Walk or do some simple exercise afterward to aid digestion and restore blood sugar levels.
Limit alcohol or remove it altogether – it's a toxin. Here is my favorite podcast episode on it: Huberman Podcast Episode 86: What Alcohol Does To Your Body, Brain & Health.
Drink more water. Usually, a good rule of thumb is at least 2L per day, but it could be more depending on your weight.
Eat slower. Being in the present moment while eating can prevent overeating and help with better digestion.
Eat more fiber and vegetables.
Berries are high in antioxidants.
The less sugar, the better.
Include omega-3-rich foods (fish, nuts, seeds, etc) in your diet.

Exercise

Aerobic capacity (V02 Max) is the strongest predictor of future health. Train VO2 max by maxing out your heart rate for four-minute periods through sprinting, rowing, HIT, or other intense, short-term cardio activities.
It's essential to strength training necessary to build and maintain muscle mass. Building muscle is much more difficult than keeping it, and your ability to create muscle declines significantly over age 40. Build muscle when you're young!
Aim for at least 10,000 steps per day. I was surprised to see how tight the data correlation is between daily step count and all-cause mortality:

It's critical to prioritize daily walking!

Mobility is essential, especially for people who work on a computer all day. Daily stretching or yoga is helpful for maintaining range of motion.
Rebounding / Jumping on trampolines is great for your joint and ligament health.

Self Care

Sleep 7-8 hours per night; it's best to do this at the same time every night. Make sure your room is dark and a bit cool. Change your pillow at least every two years to avoid the build-up of dust mites, etc. Silk pillowcases prevent wrinkles. Finally, some studies suggest that Melatonin ~2 hours before bed helps you get higher-quality sleep (but I currently don't do this).
Brush your teeth daily and get your teeth professionally cleaned every six months. I was surprised that lousy mouth health is associated with an increased risk of heart disease.
Breathe through your nose primarily, especially at night. Flonase can help keep your sinuses clear. I started using nasal strips, which seemed to help me breathe through my nose.
Regular sauna use is linked to significantly lower rates of cardiovascular issues and related deaths.
Take ice-cold showers and, even better yet, ice baths. Minimally, it has been shown to increase your mood and decrease inflammation.
Interacting with animals has been shown to decrease levels of cortisol (a stress-related hormone) and lower blood pressure.
Learn to breathe and meditate.
Avoid toxic chemicals and single-use plastics.
People with a sense of humor live longer. And people who are optimistic live longer. Be optimistic and laugh more!

A meta-analysis from 6 prospective cohort studies (n=181,709) found that patients with a more optimistic mindset were at lower risk for all-cause mortality (HR 0.87, 95% CI 0.82–0.92). Less worrying, more living 😀✌️ (source)

Supplements

Unless you take care of the basics like sleep, exercise, managing stress, and diet, supplements will help very little. Most people should skip the supplements early on and use that money to hire a trainer and learn to lift weights.

Overall, I get as much nutrition as possible from food and have deprioritized supplements. However, I take a few supplements daily to get enough of the basics.

Get your blood tested to determine what nutritional supplements you should take. Universal supplements challenging to get enough of in modern society include, but are not limited to:

Creatine
Psyllium husk / Fiber
Collagen Peptides
Vitamin D
K2 MK7
Zinc
Omega 3 / Fish Oil
Magnesium and Calcium

Here's a video from a doctor on the supplements he takes:

Things I Do to Stay Healthy

Keeping Tabs on My Overall Health Data

Measure weight with a smart scale at home regularly. If you track daily, you'll likely see trends over time.
HRV is a predictor of overall health. 0-50 is unhealthy, 50-100 is ok, and 100+ is healthy. You can see trends in your Apple Health app (I wear the latest Apple watch). If you want the most accurate HRV data, you'll need to get a chest strap like the Polar H10 and use an app like Elite HRV.
Professionally test body composition, VO2 Max, and RMR through DEXA or BodPod. I do this every 6-12 months.
I do a blood panel through Inside Tracker every 12 months and take the recommendations to a doctor for review. I also do a blood panel through my doctor every 12 months. I'm looking into other services that also have a doctor review the panel, like Function Health or Life Force.
Monitor blood pressure, aiming for 120/80 mmHg. I use the Qardio Arm to monitor my blood pressure, and I find it's lowest right away upon waking up in the morning.

As mentioned, I'm looking for trends with this data over time. My weight can vary by 7 pounds depending on when I ate, how much water I drank, etc.

Blood tests are super accurate but can also change a lot. For instance, once, I had issues with my white blood cell count in one test, but it turns out I was just in the early stages of getting sick. To verify, I took another blood test three weeks later when I was over the sickness, which showed healthy results.

Exercise

This is going to sound like a lot, but I added each of these activities one by one until I reached a level of conditioning to handle this much. I started with simply walking and then progressed to adding one more activity at a time.

I walk over 10,000 steps per day (last year's average was over 13,500). I use the Apple Watch to track this. My rule is to walk or run for 30 minutes per day.
Adult gymnastics class twice per week.
Tennis once per week.
Dance once per week.
Running 2-4 times per week.
- In 2023, I ran 350+ miles &mdash, a record for me since high school.
- In 2024, I'm already at 500+ miles and set all my running records.
Calisthenics: pull-ups, front lever, back lever, dips, leg lifts, handstands, handstand push-ups
Plyometrics. I follow this workout, but warning: it's very intense.

Diet and Supplements

Drink 1L of water in the morning and drink 1-2L more daily (2-3L total).

I mix supplements into two cups of low-sugar Chobani or Oikos yogurt, add almonds and walnuts, and toss in some blueberries.

Multivitamin (I take Micro Vitamin)
Creatine 5g
Collagen Peptides + Hyaluronic Acid (skin and joint health)
Psyllium husk / Fiber (more fiber, the better)
Fish oil

Eat more vegetables! Here's a picture of grilling recently where the only unhealthy thing on the grill is the bacon around the asparagus

I do not any special diet. No Keto, intermittent fast, or anything.

General Health

Sauna 4-5 days per week (finishing with a cold plunge)
Brush and floss daily
Apply full-spectrum SPF in the AM

Organizing Thoughts

Obsidian for taking notes
Blinkist to go through non-fiction books and take notes to improve my life
Sharing notes through Discord communities of like-minded people

Final Thoughts

I'm now almost two years into developing and following all of these items. I've collected feedback from people that I'll try to consider and incorporate in the future.

What did I miss? Tweet at me @1marc.

Ode to My Business Advisor Matthew Dornquast

Tue, 11 Jan 2022 00:35:55 GMT

I met Matthew Dornquast when he was speaking on July 24th, 2011, at the Bootstrapper's Breakfast in Minneapolis. Back then, I was just a few years into building my software development consultancy and had big dreams for it.

Matthew was sharing his stories working at Fallon and building his consultancy. I loved his stories. One story was of a $10M project for an airline company that significantly affected their stock price. I realized this man was years ahead, maybe even decades ahead of where I wanted to be!

After hearing him speak, he was kind enough to lend me an ear. I explained my dreams of building this consultancy with the best people in the world on big projects. He goes, "Ok, so you want to work on client projects with your friends, that's cool; we used to do that." Even after attempting to rephrase what I was saying to make it sound more grandiose, he still wasn't buying it. He saw right through.

It was then that he dropped the statement that would change the path I was on entirely...

"Even if you build the most amazing software for another company, you don't own it, and it won't be maintained or fulfill your ultimate vision for it. The only way to build something you're truly proud of is to build a product and sell it yourself." ~Matthew Dornquast

With that piece of advice, he changed the direction of my life. He was speaking from tons of experience. He went from coding software for clients to building his own software, CrashPlan. I needed to listen and change directions.

Over many months, I came to see a new vision in education. It paved the way to create what I now run, Frontend Masters.

I offered him an advisory position in my business which he gladly accepted. We met somewhat infrequently, maybe once per year, over the last five years about my business, but his advice was always incredibly thoughtful each time. He took time to pay attention and dig in. We played tennis and even texted about geeky hobbies, life, and our kids from time to time …even up until just a week ago. 😢

Matthew, I honestly wouldn't be where I am today without your honest advice over the years. ❤️

My condolences to his wife and kids – so sorry for your loss. He was a brilliant man. RIP Matthew Dornquast, I will miss you!

2021: 🤸 From Gymnastics to Game Design

Tue, 11 Jan 2022 00:35:55 GMT

import { YouTube } from '@astro-community/astro-embed-youtube'; import { Image } from 'astro:assets';

Happy New Year! 🥳 Glad 2022 is here.

Here are some interesting things from 2021!

⛵️ Wind Back in My Sails Through In-Person Meetings

Working 100% remote with a team a love wasn't cutting it for me. I just felt too disconnected to lead the company effectively.

We started having management meetings and one-on-ones face-to-face (just one day per week) and that has re-energized me in incredible ways! I feel like I got my old self back, and I've been pushing hard to grow the business. 🕺

The business has been doing well, but it's clear that we need to build out the team further this year. Hiring and growing the team will be a big priority, and how we handle it will significantly impact the future. As the business is doing great and introducing new team members adds life and vitality to everyone, I'm very hopeful.

🎮 Started 2021 with Mario Maker 2 Speed Running

With January freezing and not getting out much due to the pandemic, why not start 2021 off with a Mario Maker 2 speedrunning competition? 🤪

I finished 464 out of 123k+ competitors! Who knew I was still good at Mario:

🛶 Canoe Trip Down the Mississippi

Towards the top of my list of memories from this year, my good friend Scott and I went on a four-day canoe trip this summer. It was amazing.

A reminder if you're reading this to get outside! It's super good for your mind.

🎨 Video Game Concept Design with the Kids

We have been dipping our toes into video game design with the kids. Taking the kids' drawings and ideas as a basis for creating a videogame is super fun.

Then sending those drawings to a professional artist to make custom art:

Here are some more "final" art concepts cleaned up:

Here's another drawing of a bunch of monsters I love.

Then the artist makes them into actual characters!

I'm looking forward to making the game, but I know it will be A LOT of work.

Excited to kick this project off and start programming a simple version of the game, but as you may know, learning Unity isn't going to be easy! Projects like this die all the time; my goal is not to let this one. It has to become real someday.

🤸 Gymnastics

About six months ago, I started going to an adult gymnastics class at the same gym as my son. He loves it since he gets to wave at Dad, and we are both learning a lot of the same things (yes, I'm learning the same things as a 7-year-old does, ha).

With hard work, I was able to land flat-ground front flips!

I posted a montage of 6 months of progress and posted it on r/Gymnastics – and it hit the front page, and the comments were super positive! Check out the video montage of my first six months of Gymnastics – starting at age 37. 😝

I have some goals here:

✅ Front Lever
✅ Back hip circles on high bar
✅ Hand stand (I can hold one for 5-7 seconds)
Front Flip -- almost there! (check the video linked above for progress)
Pistol Squat
Muscle Up
Back bridge
Hand stand for 30 seconds
Running 4 miles until 8 minutes per mile
Giants on bars!
Wall run backflip? 😝

🥽 VR & Making YouTube Videos

My VR hobby YouTube channel crossed 200 subscribers (happy with it since it's just playing games). I only posted eight videos this year, but I branched out with some other games.

The channel is growing pretty well lately, too, with the increasing adoption of VR in general:

The main new games I've found in VR are Stride (parkour-like mirror's edge) and a top-down strategy board game called Demeo, which is super fun to play with friends and colleagues.

Here's my latest video:

🔥 Real Fire Pit!

Finally, we built a real fire pit into the backyard, which was great to still be outside in nature during cold days. I'm enjoying it!

I wanted to include more things like messing around with drones, trips to the climbing wall, and making cherry pie...but you can only fit so many updates into one post before you have just to hit publish. Cheers, and I hope 2022 is off to a good start for you and yours!

2020: 🥽 Going Remote and Diving into Virtual Reality

Sat, 02 Jan 2021 19:04:56 GMT

import { YouTube } from '@astro-community/astro-embed-youtube'; import { Image } from 'astro:assets';

Here's a 2020 recap, but first Happy New Year! 🥳

Going Remote (and Recording Remote)

In March, the whole world changed. Everything became uncertain as we had to pivot to going remote as a company. We managed through it amazingly well as a team and did incredible things pushing our abilities forward.

We rebuilt our entire recording process from scratch and created a remote video kit we can ship to instructor's homes or set up in remote locations:

We used this kit to set up in Denver and San Francisco. It's so cool to have a toolkit to set up anywhere! 🏔🏙

It's clear we're not going to work in-person anytime soon, so we have to adapt and learn how to hire remotely as well. I can't believe we're growing through this period, but we have overcome challenges and continue to grow. Thanks to Aisha, Joumana, Brent, Krista, Lanie, Tanner, Jon, and Ken. I'm super proud of what we've accomplished together as a team! 🤩

🏃‍♂️ Running More Over the Summer

Along with going remote, I realized I'd be spending a ton of time around my house. At the beginning of the summer, I was running 4 miles regularly – managed to clock in nearly 300 miles ran throughout the summer.

🥽 Finding Virtual Reality

But I knew winter was (eventually) coming and needed something to do indoors. Last winter, I used an exercise bike, but upon browsing around, I found streamers on Twitch and YouTubers sharing their Virtual Reality workouts and getting up to high BPMs.

See this video, for example, where she gets up over 160bpm playing a videogame:

It was time to buy a super-fast computer and a Valve Index and go all in! Pistol Whip turned out to be the game that rocked my world (shown in the video). I could play a game while sweating and getting a great work out in shooting and dodging bullets! SO, so fun. 🥳

Mixed Reality Videos on YouTube

If you watched the video I linked to above, you'd see the real camera footage puts you inside the videogame. The first time I saw this, it blew my mind! 🤯 I grew up watching "Nickelodean Arcade," where people were put in a videogame in a rudimentary way and thought it was the coolest thing ever. We can now put ourselves in a videogame, and I believe it is the coolest thing ever!

Here's the mixed reality studio I built for it:

I've been making videos and learning a ton through it. Everything from capture with LIV software to equipment and video editing. Now have a whole channel of videos shot in Mixed Reality on Pistol Whip VR:

Here's an example of my latest video:

I had to learn all sorts of skills to combine educational stand-ups with gameplay footage. Super fun. I'm learning a lot and having a TON of fun with it!

Setting World Records in Pistol Whip VR

Not only was I having fun with Pistol Whip, but I realized I was getting good at the game. Very good. To the point where I ended up getting all the world records on Hard in Pistol Whip as of December 17th:

I'm having to defend my title with people challenging me and beating my records occasionally, and so far, I've held them off. But we'll see with a busy work and family life if on nights and weekends I can keep squeezing enough time to keep them all! 😉

Streaming on Twitch

After setting up the studio and making YouTube videos, I realized many top players in various games tend to stream their attempts on Twitch. A lot of people into the game like watching others play to pick up and share tips. Or just for entertainment. I started trying my hand at Twitch and talking through gameplay as I game.

Experimenting with Twitch this last few weeks has been a blast! Quite a few people have shown up to watch me play videogames, and I just got the email to be a "Twitch Affiliate," which is crossing some metrics. The last time streaming was so much fun, so I'm going to try to stream at least once per week if I can find the time.

Onto 2021!

Reviewing my goals from last year's Turning 35 post still holds. One of my goals from last year was to find an active hobby. VR was a big ✅ success on that one!

I want my family to learn the skills to pursue their dreams, continue growing the business, and continue reconnecting with my parents and extended family.

PS It's super sad, but my nephew got in a horrific accident earlier in the year that ended his life (he was just 16). I tried to write about this, but I don't have the words. Michelle, Dustin, and Morgan, if you are reading this, I think about you all and Dylan often. RIP Dylan Falling... ❤️😢

2019: 🤗 Turning 35, Reflecting on the Last 5 Years

Tue, 31 Dec 2019 22:00:18 GMT

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This summer (2019) our new baby girl arrived. Now my family is full – we now have four kids! 🤩🤗😱

This is a follow up to my turning 30 post, where I reflected on previous years, ~2010-2014. This article will reflect on the last 5 years, ~2014-2019.

Finances and Feeling "Safe"

Finances and health are two things that stick out more than I would have expected. They cause all sorts of cascading effects on the rest of your life if you don't get them right.

If the business isn't healthy financially, then the team doesn't feel safe. The same goes for your spouse and kids. Everyone wants to work for a financially healthy business, and it solves so many relationship problems when the family is stable financially as well.

So with that, I do feel like I've taken massive steps in getting my finances straight between 30 and 35. See my personal finance checklist to see some of the steps I've taken to ensure my family's financial future.

Back when I wrote that "turning 30" post, I was working multiple jobs and barely able to afford a $1,200/mo apartment in the suburbs with one vehicle. But this year alone, the business has donated like four times my salary from 5 years ago to non-profits teaching people to code and open source projects through Open Collective! 😮 This is a direct result of the business crossing into being debt-free and profitable since 2018.

I cannot believe I've been an entrepreneur for nearly 20 years now. Feels like it shouldn't have taken this long for me to get here. But I'm here now, and honestly, it feels pretty good!

Physical Health

I've been struggling with staying healthy and remaining in good shape over the last 5 years. I'm pretty sure people see me as a pretty fit and healthy person from the outside. I lift weights every week and remain active through that. But I don't always view myself as healthy. I shift between being in great shape by working out and watching what I eat, as low as 14-15% body fat, but then when things get stressful, I eat my way back up to ~20%.

Over the next 5 years, I hope to be a lot more consistent with my physical health.

Mental Health

The highs of entrepreneurship are very high, and the lows are very low. The same with being a father as well. Put them both together, and personally, there are more challenging moments than I would like to admit!

But at the end of the day, the results are amazing. With my kids, there is absolutely nothing like seeing your beautiful children together as friends...

They get to live their whole life together. It's incredible, and I couldn't be more proud of them! 🤗

Temporary Happiness vs. Long-term Fulfillment

Along these lines, I've been thinking a lot about happiness vs. fulfillment. These last 5 years especially, I've put long-term satisfaction over temporary happiness. The mission, "Educate more people, more deeply," is what I work for and towards every day. It gives purpose to work, so instead of working for personal happiness, I work to serve that broader mission.

Focusing on this mission of education brings me a sense of immense fulfillment, way beyond doing "fun" work at every moment would. I chose to do "fulfilling" work first. And when there happens to be cross-over between "fun" and "fulfilling"... it's magic! ✨ I hope I can find more of those moments over the next 5 years.

Company Culture: Work-Trips to Costa Rica

Living and working in Minnesota, the winters get very harsh cold. We've been working in Costa Rica together in mid-January to offset that for 3 weeks.

It was on the beach in January, where we took probably my favorite family photo ever (my wife was pregnant with our baby):

We also plan to work from somewhere exciting in the Summer as well. These are work trips, not vacations. So we set up a condo as our office to work on special group projects and get out of our day-to-day mindset into a different, more collaborative mindset in an inspiring location.

Building the Team, and Being "Mission-Focused"

The main thing I've been focused on since 2017 for the company has been building a fantastic team. From them, all things stem. There is no way you can be part of a bigger mission without a team that works together in a cohesive way towards a shared set of goals.

Currently, we are 9 team members with 2-3 working on contract in a regular capacity.

Reviewing Goals from Over a Decade Ago

Looking at mid and long-term goals from 2007, I did pretty much everything on that list. Wow ...that really was 13 years ago!

There are a few main things I wrote that stood out to me:

"Make enough residual income to pursue personal projects."

My personal project is my business right now. I could sell the business and go after passion projects, but I can't think of a better company than the one I currently have.

Even if I could make more money as video game streamer, drone flyer, or something cool...would I want to? What is out there that would be worth giving up this business. I can't think of anything, so I'll continue to run the company for the foreseeable future! 😀

"Have family and kids a higher priority (time-wise) than work."

Surprisingly, I can focus a lot of time on my family despite running a growing business. This is the result of having a great team and a solid customer base.

I was able to take nearly two months at a very reduced capacity to focus on my family when we had our fourth kid this year. This was HUGE for my wife and kids to have me around so much this summer.

Fulfilling Dreams from Decades Ago!

I've created nearly everything I set out to do from my teens and twenties...yet I'm 35, so I've got many years to grow and expand on those dreams. 🚀

The business does a great job mixing social good with capitalism. We've trained a ton of people, we've released a free bootcamp, we've donated money, we pay our teachers well, we offer great benefits to the team, and even on top of all that the business provides me the ability to be there for my family if they need me.

Looking to 2025 and Beyond

Before celebrating too much, though, there's so much more I need to do in life. The next 5 years are about scaling the capitalism side of the business to provide more resources for the team, while also balancing that with doing good for people through education.

I'm not one to really set specific goals, but I do like to write some general ambitions down to take a snapshot of things rolling around in my mind. These will be pretty vague and high-level, but here are some things I'd like to do over the next 5+ years: (in no particular order)

Some Professional Ambitions

Go from the current ~10 person team we have, to building an even more excellent mid or large size company. This should be a blog post in itself since it consists of scaling the culture and structure of the company to support more people, scaling the existing product, scaling working with teachers, creating new products, etc.
Create means of getting out my straightforward views on capitalism out through a more personal format like a podcast or YouTube channel.
(Potentially) Invest financially or at least advise some engineers who can become leaders of great companies.

Some Personal Ambitions

See more of the world. I planned to do way more travel in my life than I have, but I haven't found much room for trips in such a busy and compact life.
Get some hobbies that involve core strength and stretching. These could be something like Yoga, Jiu-Jitsu, Gymnastics, Indoor Skydiving... or something! I lift weights, but I don't think I can keep it up in my 40s and 50s the way I currently do.
On the personal care side, I need to be more vulnerable and develop closer relationships. I want to foster warmer relationships and friendships. I realize this might be nearly impossible to do more of with small children, but as they grow older, I need to develop a circle of fun and supportive people.
Give my kids and wife more opportunities to grow and pursue their dreams. I know, this one is super vague, but it's worth mentioning because just like the team and customers at work, I want to give those closest to me the ability to pursue their dreams, likely that will mean me giving up something on this list at least temporarily.
I've been rebuilding my relationship with my parents, I'd like to continue that and extend that to restoring relations with extended family as well.
Eventually, it'd be great to be financially free to the point that I don't need to work, can retire any day, and my family will continue to be provided for.

"Don't Screw It Up!"

Not screwing up the good things I've got going is probably the biggest goal, lol. 😂 We'll see if I can continue to build while also tackling some more of these items over the next 5 years! 😄

💵 Personal Finance Checklist

Sun, 23 Jun 2019 23:30:30 GMT

This year I've went through many personal finance resources. The best book I found is Ramit Sethi's.

Here is all the advice I've taken and distilled into a simple checklist:

Pay Down High-Interest Debts, First

Credit Card debt is super evil. Get rid of it before everything else — you can't make more money in the stock market than credit card interest rates.

Maximize Tax Advantaged Accounts

The most important thing for your future is to take advantage of money growing in the stock market in a tax-advantaged way.

401k is a tax-deferred account, your money grows tax-free until you take it out after you retire.

There's currently a $19,000 limit to how much you can defer from your paycheck throughout the year. Then with employer matching and profit-sharing can get you up to $56,000 per year...ask your employer what is possible here to maximize your benefits!
Roth IRA is the reverse of the 401k, you get taxed before you put into the account, but the total grows tax-free. If you're over a certain income level, you can't use this directly, but you still can contribute up to $6k/year through what's called a "backdoor Roth IRA" conversion.
529 is an education savings account similar to the Roth IRA in that the money grows tax-free, but you can only use the money for approved education expenses.

Minnesota also has a tax incentive for putting money into your 529 account.
HSA is a health savings account for if you are on a high-deductable health plan. It's tax-free to defer the money into this account and you can use this money for your deductable or any other approved medical expenses.

Optimize Checking & Savings

Find a checking account with no minimums and no fees. I picked Charles Schwab because it's online-only and convinient, and has all the services I could ask for without the fees. They will even reimburse ATM fees!
Find a savings account with no fees. I chose the Capital One 360 Savings account. It only has 1% interest compared to their Money Market Savings which has 2%, but there's no fees.

Maximize Credit Card Rewards

As long as you setup your credit card to auto-pay the entire balance every month, there's no reason not to use credit cards for every purchase. They're much safer to use than Debit cards, since if you get your card stolen you just call them up to get your money back and they'll send you a new card.

For daily purchases, use a cash-back card. I use the Alliant Cashback Card which currently gives you back 2.5% of every purchase with no limits.
If you travel a lot, many people recommend either the American Express Platinum or the Chase Sapphire Reserve to get more points. I use one for business and one for personal to keep expenses separate. This is a game changer, since I collect a ton of points and book my family's flights on points.

Negotiate Monthly Bills

All of these can be negotiated or find lower rates:

Car insurance
Home insurance
Cable bill
Phone bill
Student loan rates

You can use a tool like Truebill to gain insights and they can even negotiate many bills for you for a fee if you don't want to do it yourself.

I saved over $2k/year just by making a few phone calls!

Grow Your Money

If you manage to have excess money beyond a savings and tax-advantaged accounts, then your next option is the stock market (or crypto, lol).

I am not good at stocks, so there's an "85% solution" called a Target Date Fund. I put my money into the Vangaurd 2055 Target Date Fund, which rebalances your money for you in exchange for the mutual fund fee.

I'm also looking into working with a Vanguard financial advisor, which charges a small percentage in order to better manage your money. Also, note that if you're going to work with a financial advisor, they charge you a wide range of 0.5-2% fee of all your assets to manage them. My current financial advisor charges 0.5% for 401k and IRA...make sure you avoid the ones that charge 1-2%.

Monitor Your Credit

I use Transunion credit monitoring for ongoing monitoring. You can also use Annual Credit Report, but I've read MyFico is better (though not free).

Avoid Mortgage Insurance When Buying a House

If you don't pay at least 20% down on a mortgage, they'll stick you with mortgage insurance (PMI). This is throwing money away in porportion to the size of your mortgage. And even if you pay down the principle faster, many mortgages won't let you remove PMI before 2 years. They can also charge you early PMI removal fees depending on your mortgage agreement.

Keep Your Money Safe

Use a password manager like LastPass or 1Password so that you aren't reusing passwords across financial sites.

I'm still learning everything I can on this topic... so please let me know on Twitter if you have any other tips!

2018: 💻 Coding A Lot More (Even as a CEO)

Fri, 18 Jan 2019 18:51:47 GMT

import { Image } from "astro:assets";

In 2018, I managed to write a lot more code – 2,129 commits total.

Much of this code was on the new FrontendMasters.com website, where I wrote more about the new Frontend Masters website here.

Features I Coded in 2018

Here's a list of some projects that I led or was a major part of – documented here to remind myself of how much code I wrote and how much I still love coding. 😀

Learning Paths — We put all our courses into a cohesive order according to peoples' learning goals. There was also a fun SVG progress widget I built from scratch which was a blast to code!

Video Annotations - One issue our users were having was keeping the code in sync with our courses. So we addressed this by popping up git commands and code snippets within the player. They're super helpful. Was a blast to be able to take a stab at and get out to the public – this has been on the roadmap for years!

Bootcamp Website – The largest project of the year was putting together a two-week bootcamp to take beginners from nothing all the way up to having autonomy and taking control of their learning. By the end, they were able to code their own projects. I built a sub-website around this project.

Course statuses — An issue with updating courses is that people were taking the old versions. We added this status indicator at the top of old courses to make sure old courses are pointing to the updated course.

Static Pages SEO Revamp – Our build process takes markdown content files and puts it in a data format for Hugo to generate the static pages. I revamped that build process to spit out more SEO-friendly pages, and increased our search traffic by a non-trivial amount.
Promotional Websites - Every spring and fall we have a new theme for promoting the things we're building. We launched an updated iOS app and a new Android app (which I had nothing to do with), but what I did do was build both of the sub-sites for the promotions.
MarcGrabanski.com – Moved this site to Gatsby! The code is up on Github. The most difficult part of the migration was getting the old WordPress posts into a proper markdown format. I tried to hire some help on Upwork...but that didn't go so well. I did write an importer, then from there I clean up the remaining items with some pretty intense regex. Nice to have a blog again... I couldn't get myself to write when it was on WordPress. 😂

😍 Loving Code 15 Years In

Super grateful to the team for affording me the time and space to write some good code for the company. I realize as a CEO, I may not be able to keep writing code over the long-haul, but damn is it fun when I can get a chance to!

We're only two weeks into 2019, and I already revamped our Gulp build process...starting the year out strong! 💪

2018: 📈 Debt Free & Profitable

Fri, 21 Dec 2018 16:39:09 GMT

import { Image } from "astro:assets";

Building a "Dream Team" Environment

Most of what I've been thinking about these days is continuing to grow and build an amazing team.

Some things teams need:

To be an active contributor to something bigger than yourself, and connect to the overall mission of the company.
To be growing each day and be surrounded by people that are encouraging you to grow.
To be in a financially secure environment.

That last one, "financially secure" has been an issue in the early days... even until early 2018. The team needs to feel secure and stable if they're going to view working at the company as a viable career option – and not just a temporary gig to add to their portfolio like many job options out there.

Becoming Debt Free and Financially Stable

Frontend Masters was incredibly expensive to get off the ground. On top of the normal labor costs that software companies have, we also had:

Video and production equipment
A physical office space to record workshops and host 10+ attendees
Pay speaker and appearance fees
Long production cycles to produce the final product (this means the pay-off on the investment isn't immediate)

On top of all of this, the business is subscription-based, and a subscription is a more difficult purchase decision for a customer to make vs a one-off product. It can take a long time and effort to gain enough subscribers to get over the fixed costs it takes to run the business.

I'm Happy to Report We're Financially Stable, Debt-Free and Continuing to Grow

I've carried a lot of debt since I started the business for the reasons listed above. But the growth was always out-pacing the amount of expenses, so I planned that at some point, we'd cross the gap of profitability to be able to support our current efforts.

Forgive me for this terrible over-simplification of a sketch:

This chart shows 2013-2018 at a very high level

<span style="color:#489EE1">Operating Expenses (blue)</span> <span style="color:#EA3B2F">Debt (red)</span> <span style="color:#A7CF58">Revenue (green)</span>

It was stressful carrying the debt around, I'm not going to lie. 😱 Having a mountain of debt while getting married and starting a family is not a good feeling. Many companies get VC money for this reason.

...but on the other hand....now we're debt-free, bootstrapped, and profitable. ✨ And no one can tell us what to do or not do while being financially independent!

2017: 🏙 The Year I Built a Team

Thu, 28 Dec 2017 02:33:54 GMT

import { Image } from "astro:assets";

2017 was the year I built a team of amazing people

We are small, but incredibly effective. The 7 of us – 5 full time and 2 contractors. We are all focused together on one mission together: improving the state of (professional) education. We are all working together on Frontend Masters, where 50+ teachers share their experiences and knowledge with tens of thousands of software developers, making an impact on their careers and their life's path.

We Moved to Downtown Minneapolis!

We moved towards the top of one the the most beautiful buildings in downtown Minneapolis in RBC Plaza. We signed a 6 year lease. We moved downtown to open up our workshops to everyone in Minnesota (not just the south suburbs) and have an inspiring space for both teachers and students to learn and grow.

Thinking Daily on Building a Team Last year (2016)

I had a team of 15-20+ contractors doing a variety of tasks. Everyone was great, but I realized that in order to go to the next level, I needed to find a few all-star people to take a holistic view of the company and make fundamental changes to the business every day. I needed to put 100% of my focus and money on building a team. Focusing daily on building the team and learning what makes a great team is where most of my brain cycles have gone this year. Very happy about the results so far -- time well spent!

The Magic of a Team

It feels magical to have all of us using the fresh parts of our day working together innovating and pushing the product forward. Everyone now is on vesting schedules owning part of the business and sharing in the vision of the company. I no longer have to repeat myself getting contractors onboard and the team is full of energy and excitement towards moving everything forward. We've been at this for over a year together now and doubled the revenue of the company putting us in a stable financial position to launch off of in 2018.

Looking Back: Hiring Contractors

In the Early Days Our needs were seasonal – we recorded workshops only 3 months for the first few years and didn't need ongoing help. Hiring contractors, even if they were expensive, cut costs and helped me retain equity over the first few years while I proved out the product. Over time though as the business was proven out, contractors became much more expensive to hire ongoing than having a tight, focused team working together day after day.

Starting a Business: Choosing Contractors or Employees

To start, you choose either:

Hire employees and give them quite a lot of equity to join you to de-risk the business in the early-days.
Pay contractors a premium.

Contractors just have to trust that you'll pay your bills in order to work with you. Your job, in the early days, is to de-risk the business and prove that your product works in the market. You either have to give employees a lot of equity, or pay contractors a premium. I chose to work two contract jobs in order to afford to pay the contractors and retain equity in the business.

Transitioning Away from Contractors to Vested Full Time Employees

In 2016, the business really started to take shape. I was able to afford running workshops for most of the year. But there was this sinking feeling when I was paying top dollar for multiple years hiring a team of contractors but wasn't seeing any big changes happening in the business to move us forward. Contractors were good, but also were happy to do "the same old thing" for years and get paid a premium without actually changing anything in the business underneath the hood. There were no fundamental shifts or innovations coming from a team of contractors, so I needed to transition to vested employees.

Overview of the New Team! (Hired Late 2016/Early 2017)

We hired a CTO who has replaced most of our old broken systems that were hacked together in the beginning of the company to figure out the core product. We have a really clean foundation now to build and innovate on top of. There is one main system left to replace, and once done will open up tons of new doors for us for innovating on the new system.

We hired a Chief Product Offer who has completely revamped our production process and rebranded the entire product.
We hired a VP of Publishing who has been pushing forward on marketing campaigns and social media, getting us up to speed on production, planning out the new season of workshops, bringing in new teachers ...and more!
We hired a VP of Video Production to make our awesome story videos, promo videos and course video production. He's been able to shoot high quality shorts and process a ton of video with an awesome look and feel.
Our Lead Front-End Engineer (working on contract nearly full time) who has actually been with us for over 5 years. He built the new video player UI experience from scratch.
We have a Lead of Customer Success (working on contract nearly full time) who onboards new customers helping them chose the right courses for them and taking care of any support questions.
I have been learning my job as the CEO. In the early days of a company it means "Chief Execution Offer" meaning you pretty much have to do everything. As we've been hiring people who can cover areas better than I can, I get to defer decisions to them and discover my new role. I view my primary objective as making sure the team, customers and teachers are all happy. That takes a variety of shapes throughout the days, but as long as those three parties are continually happy, the business continues to grow. That's our entire team! 7 people running a multi-million dollar company. Well, it's us and our network of 50+ amazing teachers.

Improving My Health

In 2015 my metabolism started to drop and I went in to measure my body composition. 28% body fat! Embarrassing to me since I was skinny all of my life. I tried running a lot but it didn't seem to help. Eventually I got a trainer and started lifting weights twice per week. In less than 6-12 months I got down to 17% body fat and was able to deadlift 375lb and squat 285 multiple times. Pretty happy with that. Overall I've shed around 30 pounds of fat and put on like 40 pounds of muscle. Pretty dramatic change in body composition. All I'm doing is lifting weights twice per week for about 30-45 minutes, but it's made all the difference in the world health-wise.

Crypto Currency

I got super fascinated with crypto currencies this year and started investing about mid-way through the year. It's something I've been on the sidelines about for 5 years but decided to finally dive in head-first. I'm excited that you have a trust-system built on mathematics, and how that can change the fundamentals of how we exchange money and code applications.

Onward!

In 2018 I'd like to:

Business: Grow at least 2x again by trying out marketing experiments and making major innovations / breakthroughs on the core product. We need to focus a lot this year on growth and innovation. Ideally growing out the team by at least 2-4 more people.
Fun: Plan out some group activities for my extended friend network to meet each other. In 2017 I setup a 15 person paintball outing that was a ton of fun. I need to do more of this type of thing!
Family: Plan out more vacations and key fun things I want to do with my family. I haven't been great at planning in advance for family stuff. I'd also like to re-connect with some of my extended family.
Health: I'd like to get back down to 15% body fat and continue to grow lean muscle mass in a sustainable way where I can keep in shape for the longterm.

Cheers and thank you all so much for the support and love! I really feel like a lot of people are cheering us on to continue to improve how we can better learn professional skills.

🏙 Starting Frontend Masters

Wed, 14 Sep 2016 20:30:56 GMT

import { YouTube } from '@astro-community/astro-embed-youtube';

The team captured the story of starting Frontend Masters (~6 minutes) -- enjoy!

Go check out the discussion on Facebook!

2014: I quit consulting and went full time on my business

Fri, 26 Dec 2014 16:07:52 GMT

This is the year I quit consulting. I put all my eggs into one basket in order to be building something lasting which increases its value over time. It was one of the most difficult years for me because for the first half of the year I was consulting while trying to bootstrap the business (two full time jobs). And not like other years where I was only consulting a little bit or working on the education business a little bit -- no...this year I was working full on both.

2014: Turning 30

Thu, 27 Nov 2014 08:41:07 GMT

import { Image } from "astro:assets";

Turning 30 has been interesting. I've been a full-time front-end web developer since '04-05. That's 10 years! But now honestly although I still do front-end dev I feel like I'm more of a CEO than anything now -- that's a recent development in the last 6-12 months.

Front-End Web Development Career

From 15-18 I was in IT. I saw a huge opportunity in writing and creating software that goes out to many. That's what I ended up doing web development and writing. I started web development full time around age 20.

I felt as though I was doing the most important job I could. I was looked down upon, but knew what I was doing was important and I wanted to learn the most I could despite that fact. - My response on Quora

Blogging

My blog reached millions of visitors. 2010 (age 26) was the height of my blogging career with 1.5M unique visitors that year.

I quit blogging around that year (re-birthed this year '14) in favor of creating a company. Writing became my life for a few years and it was hard to do anything else. In retrospect since I had built up a huge following I should have created info products, but that wasn't cool in '08-10. Info products have only become a trend in recent years.

I stopped having things to write about in '10 favor of going out and having more life experiences. Now I feel like I have more to share (if I only took the time to write). So hopefully I'll share more on this blog next year.

Speaking

I spoke at around 60 conferences in my 20s. I learned a lot from that. Basically it comes down to doing a ton of research and distilling potent points into an interesting to watch, 30-50 minute presentation.

I feel like I've done well honing in on this skill -- even though I'm not the best / most interesting speaker, I got in the top 10 rated talks of one of the more important industry conferences. So that says something. I've come a long ways from 2007 when I started speaking. I distilled my knowledge in this top 10 speaking tips article.

Family

I now have a wife and two kids!

Honestly my kids are a huge part of my life now. Having kids changes you. I no longer can dink around with projects that don't have to lead anywhere. Throwing away work now feels irresponsible. Either I should contribute something important or go home to my wife and kids who want me in their life.

Business

I've been an entrepreneur for about 15 years now. I've only had one full time job and that was for less than two years. I even wrote a guide on self-employed software development.

In my mid to late twenties I had a dream of recurring revenue solving a lot of my cashflow problems. I've done that now. I don't think about money day to day even though I probably should since the business still has it's rough parts, but instead I consider the future and what's best for the structure of the business. I now think about what's best for my customers and improving the core product.

Recurring Revenue is King

Honestly having customers paying you every month for something has been the most liberating thing ever. I've done a lot of things. Consulted and made several companies millions of dollars, but the cash was fleeting.

Now as I contribute to something it just provides more and more value for my customers. Building up something big has become an obsession and I'm finally feeling like I'm running instead of running in circles.

Business has growth over 400% last year and I hope to do at least 200% increase next year. It's now bigger than even my biggest months running my consulting business.

VC and Acquisitions

I've been distracted by several companies asking to buy my business. Actually, three offers at this point now... but in the end investment and acquisition discussions has just been days and weeks of unproductive distraction. I just need to focus on building a better business.

The Future

Now let's look at what's on my mind right now and into the future.

Health

I'm still reasonably healthy when it comes down to it, but I've definitely gained a good 15 pounds over the years. If there's something I think about daily now it's that I want to be healthy and live a healthy lifestyle. Especially for my kids to have a role model and a healthy father.

Unfortunately I feel like I'm far from my health goals. I need to find something that works for me. I did Jiu Jitsu for a while but fell off of it. I'm really bad with committing to things and being consistent.

Spirituality

My early 20s were pretty much filled with spiritual experiences. Prayer, active in the church, bible and hitting the streets sharing my faith and experiencing what God has to offer. I wish I could do more of this today. Maybe someday I'll get back to it, but for now it still shapes my thoughts tons and I do take time to pray and meditate daily.

Moving?

I'm still renting here in Minnesota and I feel like I'm stuck here. I've built a business here and I'm afraid to pick up and move it even though I do consider it a fairly mobile-friendly business. We checked out some other states, but I just don't want to move too early and take risks when things are working pretty well now.

We'll see where I end up. I want to move but I think we'll stay here for at least another 6-12 months while my wife finishes her degree.

My Kids

Ultimately I think the majority of my future will be centered around what's best for my kids. I still haven't fully realized the impact this will have on my life since my kids are only 2 and 3 months...but I can already see it impacting my future decisions.

Business

I'd like to grow a very large business in the next 20-30 years. Even if it's not at scale in 5-10 years I'm not too worried about it. I'm honestly not even sure why I want to create such a big business. I kind of hate money but I just feel like it's my duty to bring the best education to the world in a scalable fashion and money is a measure of the scale of it.

So far my business is off to a strong start. Showing numbers and growth I've impressed potential investors, mentor networks and etc...but I haven't felt compelled to take investment or move forward with changes like that yet.

Excited

Overall I'm super excited about the future! In five years I hope to be in a different location that inspires me and my wife, be healthier, have awesome kids who are in an education program they love and be taking plenty of vacations amongst building the business bigger and bigger. ;-)

Cheers! And here's to 30!!

Momentum is King

Tue, 24 Jun 2014 01:12:51 GMT

import { Image } from "astro:assets";

Likely many of your projects have died due to lack of keeping the momentum going and growing. Momentum is precious. It's the life force. Learn to manage momentum and harness it. By doing so you will drink of it's sweet nectar of glorious fuel for your project to grow. Momentum is the most precious ingredient that keeps moving projects, companies, weight-loss, or whatever your goal is forward.

Look for the Little, Daily Wins

The best advice I have to build momentum and do great things is to look for the little successes and build on them. If you see a little success, keep it going!...for god's sake, keep doing more of that thing and keep those little successes growing! Little, no scratch that, even tiny itty bitty successes build up into BIG things. String together those tiny wins and you'll see something big starting to grow.

Don't Switch

In my life I've had so many things I started. Some of them started to see success. Even with success piling up... as soon as I switched -- it died (even if slowly).

Moving away for large periods of time to focus on other things absolutely kills momentum. By switching focus, you pretty much killed the previous project with a horrible death. You'll notice when you come back to it the wind is gone, or the wind is dying out. The myth I used to keep telling myself when switching projects is that I'll, "get back to later". It never happens...once you quit, you quit! Then you'll be staring back at that thing in a "what if" scenario.

Learn to Bury Your Old Projects

Once you lose momentum from switching, it's hard if not impossible to get it back. That old fire is hard to rekindle. If the fire is out, you might as well bury that old project. Even if you spent years of your life on the project like I have on some projects. Sometimes I look back on them today and say, "well, what if I just went back to that thing?!" Well, there was a reason I stopped...right? And if it was my best idea ever, I probably wouldn't have stopped. On shark tank when people get up on stage with an old idea they haven't touched in years they don't get funding. Rarely, if ever, will a shark ever do anything but a licensing deal with someone who pulls out something old. They'll take the technology and license it to a bigger player rather than trying to build a business with it. The momentum is gone, so they view it as something dead they might be able to squeeze money from through licensing.

Learn to just kill those old projects and don't play mind games with yourself that you'll get back to them someday. Trust me, it'll relieve so much stress in your life if you stop having so many thing you think you should focus on (including old projects). Learn to just focus on the project at hand.

Snowball Momentum

So what's the reason I like focusing on one project at a time now as opposed to 3-5 at a time like I used to? Working on one project/mission is all about snowballing momentum. What do I mean by that? Well, once you get a small snowball moving forward it picks up other snow and becomes a bigger snowball...and if you keep it going...well, it could could become an avalanche!

The bigger project starts rolling up things underneath it and the whole thing continues to grow bigger on that combined momentum.

Momentum is King

Managing momentum is probably one of the biggest tricks to keeping things going and something you need to learn to harness to fuel you to achieve your dreams.

10 Things I Wish I'd Known About Giving Good Tech Talks

Tue, 25 Mar 2014 22:07:05 GMT

import { YouTube } from '@astro-community/astro-embed-youtube';

My last talk was given at Fluent conf, one of more premiere JavaScript and web development conferences out there (created by O'Reilly, curated by Peter Cooper and Simon St. Laurent). My talk was rated amongst the top 5 talks at Fluent...but I wasn't always good at speaking.

Here's some reviews of my latest talk...

Well presented, tight focus and good examples. A+ presentation!

This was a really good introduction into the potential SVGs can offer. Having just started using SVGs myself, this session was very informative.

Excellent overview of SVG with some great demos illustrating its power as a format.

Whirlwind,yes. Awesome? Absolutely! Great samples, demos, and emphasis of why you want to use it.

Plus many more reviews, personal emails and love on Twitter! But it wasn't always this way.

Here's what someone said of me in 2009...

Marc wasn't very engaging and really looked like he didn't want to be there.

Wow...that's really bad! So how did I go from getting a terrible review like that in 2009 to be in the top 5 out of 70 talks?

Here's my top 10 tips I wish I would have known...

1. Motivation -- Why Speak at All?

The first decision you have to make is whether you want to speak at all. Speaking isn't something you decide to do because you want to become famous. Maybe that's some peoples' motivations and fine, good for them. But for me, it was deeper... I felt responsible and that it was my duty to start talking because the topics that were important to me were mis-represented or under-represented.

The purest form of speaking is a fire that wells up inside you that you must share because you feel people need to hear it. Those are the kind of talks I like to hear...ones of personal importance. But whatever your motivation is, you need to have some motivation that carries you through the times you trip up.

You will have times that you get scared and start looking down at your feet, but once you overcome it you may get to speak a message strongly that people need to hear and kill it on stage and do lots of good for humanity.

2. Choosing a Topic -- Popular or Important?

Some topics that are popular aren't important to you. And some topics that are important to you aren't popular. It's a vicious cycle that you'll experience as a speaker. The talks that draw big crowds and get great reviews are in the intersection of popular topics that the speaker is deeply interested in (and likely known for).

Speaking on Popular Topics

There is a million talks on a particular insert framework/library right now...if you want to speak on that framework/library you might get a packed crowd because of the topic and that's fine, but are you giving them something new or different or are you just echoing what everyone else is saying?

It's fine to be part of the echo chamber but I don't feel like it's what we really need right now. Try to speak on something that's important to you that you feel is under-represented. Your talk could very well be that popular framework/library, but try to pick some angle that is important to you that you feel is under-represented.

Speaking on Important Topics (That Aren't Overly Popular)

That's ok to speak on not-so-popular topics! As long as you're very passionate about the topic.

My SVG talk at Fluent was super highly rated but was not overly popular in terms of attendees. Maybe 100 people showed up, but other talks had 150+ or more. The tradeoff of having less attendees was ok with me since this was a super important topic to me personally.

I've been building web interfaces on top of SVG for most of my time for almost 2 years now! It was a topic I felt passionately about and a technology that I felt that was under evangelized. This made me poised to bring a new perspective and deliver it boldly which I personally think is what people need at tech conferences.

3. Attendee Mindset -- People Aren't at Conferences Just to Hear Talks

People are at conferences to: hang out with industry friends, meet new people, take paid time off work, etc...and there's multiple tracks, sponsor booths, free snacks, twitter, facebook, etc. There's plenty to distract people away from the actual talks themselves. Don't trick yourself into thinking that people are going to listen to everything you say.

You should embrace the mindset of people attending your talk and respect it. They will only have enough focus to listen to a few main points and you must deliver these few points strongly and clearly (maybe even a few times) or else your message will get lost in the ether of distraction.

4. Breaking Distraction -- Pull Them in By Starting with a Bang

As I mentioned above, people are in a default state of distraction. You have to pull your audience in in the first 2 minutes. I didn't realize this at first...but the first 2-5 minutes can be the most important part of your talk. It sets the pace for the audience and sets up expectations of what your talk is about for the rest of the time.

My personal opinion is that in about 2-5 minutes people determine whether or not they are going to listen to you or just read Twitter and email the rest of the time.

So here's the things you MUST do in the first 2-5 minutes.

Greet them warmly with a loud, bold voice...for introverts like me this is hard.
Tell them why you are amazed by your topic or why it's important to you. Because if it's not important to you...why should they listen?
Show them what's possible with a quick flashy demo or screenshot which adds to why they should care.
Finally...DO NOT shrink up...tell them what you're going to cover with your head tilted up and your arms open.

Body language matters more than you think when speaking. Although it might seem more humble to look at your feet and talk in a normal voice, no one wants to listen to that. People want you to make your points while they can hear you clearly and see your face and feel invited to the conversation by seeing your arms open and palms up. There is research behind this hands open and palms up stance, but I'll let you do that research on your own.

This first 5 minutes must be a very polished part of your talk. Read it out loud through 5-10 times... shift your slides around until that intro flows out like butter.

5. Inspire and Introduce -- Don't Teach Too Much

I wish this wasn't true, but your job at a conference is to introduce and inspire, not (primarily) to teach.

Don't believe me? Look at this keynote by Scott Hanselman. I don't really learn anything or know what his point was really, but he entertained every step of the way and people loved it!

Most people would rather be wow'd, entertained, made laugh, etc than taught (especially during keynotes). I really, really wish learning was the primary objective at technical conferences, but it's not. It's entertainment!

But what if you aren't entertaining? I'll always lose this battle... because I'm not very entertaining, but I can teach in a way where people enjoy listening. Just make a few key points about why the technology is important and how to get started learning it. Let me say that again. Make a few key, important points. You can't go into painfully deep implementation details unless you can wrap it in an entertaining way for those not able to follow along with you.

6. Practice Out Loud

I wish you could just wing it, but that couldn't be further from the case. You need to run through your presentation out loud more than once. You'd be surprised how many times that slide is in a weird position or you meant to say something but you forgot to...or any number of things.

7. Engage, Engage...for God's Sake...Engage!

Look at the audience, smile and speak louder! Know your points by heart and make them boldly. No matter how enthusiastic I think I'm being. When I watch the videos later it looks like I'm about 3 notches lower key on the video. I keep telling myself..."Wake up!" But while I'm speaking I don't feel that way at all. I forget which actor said it, but he said "people want 3x of you on camera, not your normal self."

Also, make sure to look at and embrace the people who are giving you their full attention. For some reason playing off them and looking at them draws me deeper into my own talk. It's a bit weird of a tip maybe...but it works. If you see that people are paying attention to what you're saying, it's easier to feel more comfortable about delivering the points you are making.

8. End 5 Minutes Early

If you have a 30 minute talk, end in 25 minutes. 40 minute talk? End in 35 minutes. MINUS setup time. A lot of talks start late, so beware that you may lose as much as 5 minutes in the beginning of the talk for setup and waiting for people to filter in. Don't push up against the timelines of the talk. Make sure to end about 5 minutes early to respect peoples' time. The moderator may extend your talk for questions but that's up to them. People appreciate talks that end 5 minutes early, but hate talks that go 5 minutes late. Don't be that guy or gal!

9. Treat Every Talk Like Your First Talk

So let's say you've given about 5 or more talks. Starting to feel comfortable? ...don't! You can't just "wing it" because you've given the same talk before. It takes practice and focus to knock it out of the park again and again. Every speaker I know has given the same talk at two different conferences and one went great and one didn't. Usually the one that didn't the speaker was feeling confident and like it was going to be a breeze. Speaking never is..

10. Have Fun!

Finally, have fun. This is your time to shine and speak what's on your heart, whether it's a crowd of 10, 100 or 1000+! It's a big responsibility and can be really scary, but it's important you get out there speak what's important to you!

Finally...My Talk

Why Some Smart People I Know Don't Become Succesful

Wed, 01 Jan 2014 07:15:23 GMT

This article is for all of my super smart friends. You're so damn smart -- I've told you how awesome I think you and the solutions you've built...they're amazing. You have so many awesome things on your hard drive you built that it would blow the world away if only they knew. You created Facebook before there was Facebook and PayPal before there was PayPal. But recently I've heard you ask, "how can this junk software out there be so popular?"...why are all these people who are no more intellegent than me, more successful? I'll try to do my best to explain to you why...

You Pre-Maturely Optimize Your Software to Cast a Wide Net, When There's No Fish

As developers, we optimize our solutions to cast the widest net as possible. We want everyone to be able to see our work so we make things work back to old browsers and cast a wide net. But the reality is that even if your amazing software is accessible, people won't use it by default! They don't care about your software. They lived yesterday just fine without your amazing solution and they'll live fine tomorrow. You have to make them care by showing them why it's important.

This is the default state of the world:

var World = {
  people: 7203469811,
  peopleWhoCareAboutYourSolution: 0,
};

You have to do something to make World.peopleWhoCareAboutYourSolution greater than zero.

You Don't Start with Delivering Value to a Small Amount of Users First

In business things actually work almost the exact opposite as casting a wide net. Business starts with resonating greatly with a very small segment of the population. The internet has created more niches than it has mega corporations. And on top of that, almost every software mega corporations started so niche they have almost laughable stories.

Groupon? Group-buying coffee and pizza at a local pizzeria.
Facebook? A network for connecting with fellow Harvard students.
Twitter? Let people know what you ate for dinner.
Kahn Academy? Started with a guy in his closet teaching his extended family Math on YouTube.

So many companies seemed laughable because they made a solution for such a small segment of the population. Almost none of it was ever made for a big audience.

It's simple solutions with big hooks that win. Crawl before you walk! It's ok...it really is.

 var mockup, mvp, feedback, idea;
 product = Object.create(Product);
 product.createMockup("Totally inane thing few would care about.",
  function(mockup) {
    mockup.announce(World.friends);
    console.log(World.peopleWhoCareAboutYourSolution.length); // 10
    product.build(mockup, function(mvp) {
      mvp.announce(World.peopleWhoCareAboutYourSolution);
      console.log(World.peopleUsingYourSolution.length); // 5
      // Now we're getting somewhere!
      feedback = mvp.getFeedback(World.peopleUsingYourSolution);
      mvp.iterate(feedback, fn...);
    });
  });

You Aren't Honest With Yourself About What You Want and Go Ask for It

I remember in my teen years wondering why guys who were complete idiots or not even good looking got girlfriends. Well, the solution wasn't that they were pumping iron -- it was that they just asked. That's really it. You'll have 100% of a chance of failure if no one hears you are looking, and whatever % chance of them saying "yes" means you could end up with a girlfriend...or maybe even a wife / life-companion for life! BTW -- I'm happily married. It works.

You need to get comfortable asking for everything... feedback, money, help. Not comfortable asking? You need a partner who is.

The more people you ask, the greater your chances are to get people to get feedback, people to use your solution or...perhaps...even find customers who love your solution!

var prospects = [],
  sales = [],
  feedback = [];
function ask(type) {
  product.ask(type, person, function (response) {
    if (response.sale) {
      sales.push({ amount: amount, customer: person });
    }
    if (response.feedback) {
      feedback.push(response.feedback);
    }
  });
}
// Marketing
for (var i = 0; i < people.length; i++) {
  // some people might give you their email or +1 you
  if (people[i].likes(myProduct)) {
    prospects.push(people[i]);
  }
  // ask for sale right away to get feedback!
  ask("sale", people[i]);
}
product.iterate(feedback, function () {
  for (var i = 0; i < prospects.length; i++) {
    ask("sale", prospects[i]);
  }
});

You Aren't Being the Change You Want to See

Here's the final kicker. Let's say you don't want money, or fame, or fortune, or anything like that! That's fine. But let's get real deep right now...

Are you being the change you want to see in the world or are you hoarding your treasure?

If you go to a conference and find yourself complaining there aren't any good talks...create a new talk and submit to call for papers!
If you look online for a solution and can't find one so create one for yourself...open source or productize it!
If there are no companies you'd like to work at...create the ideal company you'd love to work for!
Can't find a blog you'd like to read...create a blog and start writing what you want to hear!

Find people who will enjoy what you've made. It will change you to see people enjoying your creations.

The hardest thing in life is to be the change you want to see. It is what separates truly successful people from people with hollow and shallow form of success.

Your Guide to Surviving Self-Employed Software Development

Tue, 31 Dec 2013 07:22:47 GMT

As 2013 comes to a wrap I wanted to take a moment to draw out some thoughts from my experiences being self-employed for 5 1/2 years as a user interface developer by trade.

Please keep in mind this article is written specifically for developers.

Use these lessons learned to help you survive self-employed software development.

If You're Going to Have a Partner, Make Sure they Can Close Sales (signed with check in bank)

I had a few startups fail while being self-employed. The main startup that failed I was partnered with a guy who wanted to build software for the rental industry. I built out a listing engine, a search engine and an ad platform based on what he said we needed.

What convinced me to close down the startup was after attending a sales meeting with him. I was really disappointed with his ability to get someone in the mindset of making a deal. It dawned on me: over several years my partner had lots of software at his disposal but couldn't turn it into paid contracts and money coming in the door. He was always asking me to build something more...always making excuses why people didn't buy. Turns out that he was good at prospecting, but couldn't get signed contracts and checks in the bank.

Lesson learned: If you partner with a sales person make sure they can close deals and get signed checks. If they are always looking for you to build something more than run the other way. Good sales people can sell with a couple screenshots.

You Can Stabilize Income and Maintain Freedom with Long-Term, Part-Time Contracts

When I first started out I took a 20 hour per week contract for 6 months. This gave me enough income to strike out on my own while stabilizing my income. I could then do whatever I wanted with the other part of my week which I used to start my first major startup.

There's been many times where I've taken 3-6+ month contracts with selling only part of my week. At times it wasn't at my ideal rate...but it always gave me consistent, "no hassle" income similar to a full time job would.

Lesson learned: Taking a long-term contract part-time can give you some consistent income while you can focus on other things.

Land Work at Higher Rates Through Building a Niche Skill and Trust

There is an infinite amount of work at a certain price. Once you go over that price, people cringe unless you are exactly what they are looking for and are referred to them (implicit trust). If you want to land contracts at 2-3x your peers, than you have to A) have a niche you target and be proven in filling that niche. B) be recommended for the specific job (then they don't questions price).

Try to take jobs where people are looking specifically for you. You must build a very specific skill-set that people trust you and you are known for. Clients pay high rates without question when they trust you and know you will deliver...especially when there is a lot of upside for them.

Lesson learned: Anyone who is "shopping around" isn't looking for you. Try to get in the position where you only take work where you are recommended as the person for the job. If you can get in that position, you can name your rates.

Deal with Being Overbooked by Increasing Rates and Focusing on Less

There is no better way to damage your reputation than being overbooked. I have hired 30-40+ contractors and also with myself being a contractor, I can tell you one of the most common problems of self-employment is being overbooked. Being overbooked is a terrible thing, but it happens almost more than not with independents.

It probably means one or more of these things if you are overbooked:

You aren't charging high enough rates.
You aren't being selective enough with your time.
You don't have enough savings to feel secure.
You have too many things you are trying to focus on.
You are a "yes man (or woman)" who just cannot say no.

This has happened to me many times -- since I'm an entrepreneur and not just a contractor, my ventures cost me money. If I spend too much money on my ventures than that leaves a gap to fill. That gap is filled by taking on too much work and sometimes over-extending myself.

Raising my rates, taking on less work and focusing on less projects has helped a ton with this...but I'll admit it's an ongoing problem. Balance is tough.

Lesson Learned: Taking on too much work is going to almost always be a problem as an independent, but it can be mitigated by raising rates and turning down work that isn't exactly in your sweet spot. Keeping "six months" of savings is a general rule of thumb for contracting.

Control the Type of Work That Comes In Through Being Very Specific About What You Do

In order for work to come to you that matches that description, you have to declare exactly what you do. If you say you are a "PHP web developer", people will come to you with PHP web application work. If you speak at a conference about it, that's what you become. You can't just waffle around as an independent and expect to land good work at solid rates. You have to know and declare who you are to the world and that's the type of work that will come to you.

Lesson learned: You control what type of work comes to you by declaring to others what you do.

BONUS tip: It can help to niche yourself down with "for real estate agents" or etc. Where you have built up software they can use in that niche. Many of my friends' product companies started by focusing on a niche and building software that is applicable to that specific industry.

Double BONUS tip: Instead of saying you're a "PHP developer for real estate agents" it's even better to state the value that you add rather than the technology you use. "I build software for real estate agents to close more leads" is even better.

Give People Value While You Sleep

I used to be confused by product companies who wouldn't even take $7000/hr if you offered it to them to do your project. Why? Because...they have products where their efforts are multiplied and distributed across all their customers. Every hour towards their own business has an ^n multiplier effect, whereas consulting is an hour-for-hour or project-for-project exchange.

I made companies boatloads of money through this multiplier effect (charging $xxx,xxx and they make hundreds of thousands or millions off my work ongoing). It's great that the multiplier effect allows you to continue to charge your previous customers and have consistent work, but that's not having it work for you directly.

You need to have something, anything, that people can buy while you're not at a computer -- that's truly a product. An e-book, an iPhone app, a web service...anything with a credit card form and a service people get value from while you're asleep. Use the multiplier effect of doing the work once and getting an ^n return on that.

It's the only real way to leverage the digital age we live in and why huge mega companies like Google, Twitter, Facebook and etc exist.

Lesson Learned: Build something, ANYTHING, with a credit card form that in exchange delivers value while you are sleeping. By focusing and adding value to a product, you can deliver value exponentially.

Build in a Feedback Loop Through Charging Early Instead of Dreaming Up More Ideas

Frequently I've gotten so caught up in the idea that the software we were building just didn't hit the mark on launch. There was a disconnect from the idea to adoption of my software.

Companies made millions off my work...but why were my companies failing? It wasn't the idea or the software. It was customer adoption and building in that feedback loop with customers. I wasn't clearly articulating the need and getting people to pay earlier on.

Now I charge from day one on my products in order to hone in on their actual needs and letting customer objections to the sale advise where to focus in product positioning. The feedback gained from real, paying customers is what leads my product efforts now. If people express a need or common objection -- it's time to focus in on solving that.

Lesson learned: Charging from day one and getting feedback on objections to the purchase helps you improve your product positioning and hone in on the actual need.

Challenge Yourself to Do More with Less by Constraining Your Time

I used to be able to play around with my time and money way more than I do today. Too much time can be a bigger problem than being constrained on time. Self-exploring and side projects are fun and can teach you a ton...but it can also be irresponsible when you have people that rely on you for their livelihood.

Having a family has been critical in cutting out a lot of the extraneous work I did that didn't apply directly to things. In general, I think that's really good! All the work I do now I feel is directly applicable rather than "might be applicable someday".

I try to now do in 30 hours well what I used to do in 50-60+. Sure, I focus on less things now but I feel more productive now with less hours to apply towards my work.

Lesson Learned: Constraining your hours forces you to focus on what's important.

Master Thyself

The final point I'll make is that since you are self-employed, you have to decide what to do with your time. There isn't someone there to say, "hey you, do this".

I will argue that it is MUCH easier to be full time than be self employed because it's easier to be told what to do than deciding what to do for yourself. You have to be responsible for yourself, your time, your food, your family...everything.

Deciding WHAT to do is much harder than you'd think, and that's what you have to do EVERY day you wake up and look at the sun. The very reason why people want to be self-employed is the very thing that is most difficult about it.

Lesson learned: Self-employment is about knowing yourself...mastering what it is to be you and having a framework to make decisions of what you do with your time. It is about learning to apply YOU to the outside world on your own terms. And it's much harder than you'd think.

Good luck and Godspeed! :-)

2013: Slides, Videos and Articles

Fri, 27 Dec 2013 04:02:03 GMT

import { YouTube } from '@astro-community/astro-embed-youtube';

In 2013 I gave 7 talks, 3 videos and wrote 4 external articles (...and tweeted 3,516 times). I spoke at: Fluent Conf Online, JS Day Italy, Minnesota Developer's Conference, Clockwork JavaScript, MinneBar, MN Web Design and JavaScript MN. Most of the talks I gave were local to Minnesota because my wife and I had our first baby and I want to stay close to home. :-)

Talks I Gave in 2013:

Slides on Matrix Transforms, SVG, jQuery Mobile and Paid vs Free Content

CSS/SVG Matrix Transforms - contains demos on matrix and matrix3d proprieties the low-level transform API.
SVG and RaphaelJS - introduction to SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) and overview of RaphaelJS. Also includes some other projects in the end.
Introduction to jQuery Mobile - Web Delivery for ALL - talk covering the benefits of the jQuery Mobile project.
Free vs Paid Content - covers the death of my personal free work and how I'm building in sustainability into my efforts now.

Videos I'm in from 2013:

Videos of my talks on jQuery Mobile and SVG as well as a Q&A with jQuery Team Members

Introduction to SVG and RaphaelJS - video of my talk on SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) and RaphaelJS API.

Video of my talk covering the philosophy and reasons for using jQuery mobile.

Hangout video covering questions and answers all things jQuery with Karl and Scott LIVE with questions asked by Frontend Masters members.

External Articles I wrote in 2013:

Backbone.JS Rendering Perf, 5 Reasons to Use jQuery Mobile, Paid vs Free Content and Why I Choose Front-End Development

Backbone.JS Rendering Performance - article I wrote advocating batch DOM rendering on requestAnimationFrame for high performance rendering.
What I learned from building a career driven by an "everything should be free" idealism - article along the lines of the talk I gave on paid vs free content.
Quora answer to "Why did you choose a career in front-end or back-end development?

Entrepreneurs are Dead, Long Live the Hacker

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 06:21:06 GMT

import { Image } from "astro:assets";

Society is moving at an unprecedented pace. A year ago I didn't have the word "Android" in my vocabulary but now I use an Android phone every day. Entrepreneurs of yesterday have to wake up to this new world and realize that the rules have changed. Entrepreneurs suddenly, "cannot find good talent". Meanwhile, hackers don't need idea people when they are the idea people.

Inside the Hacker's Mind

The job of the hacker is to turn ideas into reality and breathe life into the idea. Without the hacker, the entrepreneur (idea person) is dead -- if hackers have their own ideas, they don't need the typical "entrepreneur" and instead become one. CEO of companies like Etsy, Github and Facebook are all examples of this. This has created such an environment that many entrepreneurs come to me and ask, "Where are all the developers, it is really hard to find good developers these days." I am forced to tell them the brutal reality: "They don't need you anymore since they'd usually work on their own ideas, so you better be able to prove you can close sales and have the cash on hand to hire them to work on yours."

Hackers Thrive on Progress

The biggest way to interest a hacker beyond money is through providing opportunities to progress in skills. Hackers need progress daily (I'd also argue all of humanity feels this way, but most certainly hackers). Hackers need a project, or five, to hack on to improve their abilities. If you are a business owner, give hackers ways to experiment and own the success of ideas. Entrepreneurs have only one option for thriving in today's new society: become a hacker or find hackers and give them liberty to try out their ideas and progress.

"Are You Rich?"

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 01:37:44 GMT

import { Image } from "astro:assets";

I wrote this article looking out the window of the cheap bedroom I'm renting, while thinking about how I planned to dump significant amount of my business's profits into creating a conference that is free for everyone. It turned into a whopping success in terms of everyone getting great education and having a good time. If you are curious what I am talking about read coverage of the event.

Choosing Against Profit

Even though I know how to profit and am good at business, I chose not to profit from it this time and instead lose money and lots of it. I can honestly say I did this out of pure intentions without expecting anything in return. Already many good things have come of it, but one thing I know after creating the event is that the world needs more good, genuine events. We plan to do more of them.

"So you must be rich.."

In my life, I've had offers to do things that would seem to be the better option because it would keep the $ in my bank account. But honestly, I'm not on this earth to make money. I have dumped every dollar out of my bank account in good faith several times because I believe it is the right thing to do. Money isn't my mission. My bar for success isn't money so you will see me spend money in ways that go against the rules of capitalism. I am simply trying to understand principles that make up a good person and I am trying to be that. Even if at times I have negative numbers in the bank account I am already rich in many ways.

"Negative $ but Rich? ..huh?"

Even though if you look at my bank account it shows some negative numbers, I believe more than ever I'm already rich. I can make financial decisions and could chose at any moment to not have those negative numbers exist, but what I build in peoples' hearts and minds is more important than my temporary pain, or profit. The fact that you are even reading this says something. I'm rich in passion to do things I love to do. I fully expect rich people to be jealous of the intangibles I have. A healthy relationship with a woman who loves me very much, a job I feel very strongly about and am good at, and connections that can bring together amazing results beyond if you tried to do the same things with cash. If I can position myself to promote good content, good people, good work, good clients, good projects and good faith that will be a job well done. Not measured by how much $ is in my account because life itself is fragile and temporal to be measured by such things.

"So..are you?"

In terms of actual dollars I am certainly not rich...but in terms of the fact that my mind, skills, knowledge and wisdom are desired by many and at any time I could decide to build something that is very profitable if I feel strongly about it then by that standard I have millions of intangible assets. The team I have working with me is full of valuable skills and is growing into a large network full of amazing people. The skills and the team around me is a bigger bank account than anything I've ever possessed in my life. Entrepreneurs I've talked to, even well funded ones only can dream of what we are able to create together without needing money from anyone. We have the power and choice to do things that very few can do. We can create profitable relationships or even give away our talents for the greater good if we so desire, what we do is our choice. That, my friends, is being rich with something far more valuable than gold itself.

Developing Value Stronger Than Money

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 21:34:55 GMT

import { Image } from "astro:assets";

Increasingly people think I'm rich so this is in a series of articles that I've drafted to break down my concept of value and wealth to open up a path of discovering what real "rich"ness really is. Even though I am not rich financially (though people think I am), I've talked to many who wonder just how I am able to make the moves I do. Let's get started...

Encountering Money

The first time I encountered a significant amount of money was when I was 16 and even though I was making far more money than anybody around me I still felt, "stuck". I realized then that with more money comes more responsibility and not necessarily anything to do with freedom.

Just a few days ago I had a three-hour long call with a guy who had made $325k in three months. But, he felt terrible in the middle of it from the physical stress and pressure and that was not what he could or wanted to do long term. Depending on what kind of system you set in place to make money the results of your hard work can result in less happiness and freedom.

Abandoned Money for Wisdom

If I would have stuck with the first business I created I may have had much more money than I do now, but I wouldn't have had near the skills, knowledge and wisdom that I've accrued over choosing this route.

Crafting Your Career or Business Around Value

When crafting a business or a career you really have to think about the entire picture throughout a lifetime. The goal in life shouldn't be net money earned because if you live for money you can easily end up building systems that can enslave you instead of set you free.

Delivering Value for the Benefit of Humanity

Ultimately my suggestion through this article is to build your career or business in a way that gives others back more than it gives you. People say if you charge $1 at the door and deliver $10 of value you will be rich. I would go further and ask the following: ** Do you actually like giving the $10? ** Do the people working for you enjoy working towards giving that $10 of value? ** Is the $10 going to affect society in a good way?

In business, it is an exchange of value and I think developing businesses and careers around the concept of putting value on the table really opens up your options as a human being. My goal is to be incredibly idealistic while simultaneously succeeding (my terms of success are different from most, will explain in another article). I believe I've done this on many levels with MJG International and the feedback from the conference we put on at Google HQ, Day of JavaScript on Mobile was indication that you can do amazing things for people while not requiring an entry fee. The conference was wildly successful in all ways I measured the success which didn't include dollars.

Idealistic Thinking

Build a business or career in terms of how much value you can create not just financially but also use other metrics important to you like knowledge, happiness and progression. This change will really open up a new light into the way you approach your career. If you approach every new situation in terms of what can you add instead of what you can subtract I guarantee that you will find out that you receive much more rewards throughout the entire life-cycle of your career.

2010: Reflecting on my Career Path & Looking Forward

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 05:32:03 GMT

import { Image } from "astro:assets";

The most reliable way I know how to improve the future is to learn from the past. If you don't like your past, change your ways. If you do like elements of the past, learn from them and do more.

First, I'm going to do a recap of the past. Then I'll share about what happened this year.

Foreword: Informational Rags to Riches

I grew up in and still live in Minnesota. It is not a land of startups and progress. Growing up here I titled Minnesota the "technological black hole" even though these days Minneapolis is actually pretty progressive.

I think it has put me at severe disadvantages growing up in a small town and living in a state that doesn't "rejoice" over the things I care about. I didn't find out that the internet existed until I was 13 whereas others my age were using them since probably age 6-8. We were years behind the curve.

$50/hr Down to $10/hr by Choice

Once I found the internet I started enjoyed fiddling with computer hardware in my basement I ended up making $50/hr by age 16 building computers and setting up networks. When I lost my love of hardware though I saw more opportunity in the web. When I graduated from college I was making $10/hr, but even still I knew it was the right decision.

Java or JavaScript?

When I moved to Minneapolis I was the lowest paid person in the company. I worked in frontend development even though others (highly paid salary people) told me what mattered was Java.

Creating Richness

I've decided on many routes in life that people reject. There is no shortage of people who will tell you how you can live your life better or different. You have to decide for yourself and never make a decision based on other peoples' opinions solely. Get the facts, strive for them about yourself and the world around you. A life filled with intention and principles is a life worth living, regardless if you are rewarded for living that way or not. I am not rich but I am rich in spirit. I likely will be rich in the future but ultimately the richness needs to be in creating richness inside others.

If I would have followed the logical path according to society and those with more experience I wouldn't have had the opportunities I will describe in my recap.

(2007-2009) Recapping

2007 - year of developing lots of open source, got featured on Ajaxian and spoke at the first jQuery camp.
Goals as of 2007 - I set goals in 2007 and by now I've accomplished most of them like learning rapid web application development, speaking at conferences and creating a web conference in Minnesota. I haven't gotten to the long term goals of supporting myself with residual income, but other than that I would say pretty much all of those goals are done while persistent goals are still happening. =)
2008 Goals for MarcGrabanski.com - all of the important goals here I've accomplished like making my website reflect my personality and writing the articles I wanted to write.
2008 Leaving JWT Minneapolis - I quit my full-time job in order to start my company. I learned tons about business structure and employee roles...worked on teams and met many amazing people. Many of the recommendations I've received are from that job.
2008 Reflection - After much debate, I decided not to work as a contractor for Mozilla and instead got some local clients...I figured Mozilla can get whomever they want. It was a good decision as it turns out the local company I helped is now set to be on the Inc 500 list and has almost 20 employees up from when I helped it was just two interns and an internet marketer with a mission. I was interviewed by Google and YouTube tons of times, but then realized I wanted to be independent which turned up clear through all the interviews. It was great to find out more of what I actually wanted.
Summer 2009 - My startup Rent Update was launched. I also got started on another startup that has a few angel investors. I turned my work with jQuery UI Datepicker v4 into a more high-level project called Calendar Engine. I learned a diverse set of web application frameworks and languages through working on client projects. I did lots of work with Ruby on Rails. There was a few open source projects on CakePHP that I started and worked on.
2009 - I did some international speaking and got engaged. I was working on building my consulting company further.

(2010) I Learned to Teach!

This year I found out just how important education is to me. I took roughly five months without pay to learn how to teach. Education is deeply seeded in me in a way I never thought it did. I'm talking here about the principles of disseminating information, not being a professor. Being able to communicate understanding to others is something that is helpful in almost any situation in life.

It is education that moves, motivates and helps people do what they thought was impossible. Education lets people experience the success of forward progress. It is education that marked 2010 for me. Regardless of how little I produced during that time or how scary it seemed to not make money when opportunity cost was high I still did it. It really doesn't matter because I felt I needed to do whatever I can to learn how to teach. I needed to take the time to learn how to educate.

I decided to do a pilot launch I called a prerelease which is some the educational footage I shot. It showed me that there is demand since I sold many copies of an unfinished product while getting nothing but great feedback! I meant to finish it by now but I am obsessed with getting better and better at education so apparently it will take me a lot longer to fuel the obsession into a completed product. There is so many ways to teach and I have to find my own style. I have even greater visions and dreams for education in 2011.

(2010) Open Source

I stopped working on calendar engine and instead built jQuery Date on top of the jQuery globalization plugin. It is a base component for the new jQuery UI Datepicker Lite I've been working on.

(2010) Speaking

I did some more speaking this year, namely getting to give an all-day tutorial session in Israel which was absolutely amazing. Here are some places I spoke:

jQuery Summit 2010
Evening of Canvas, jQuery and Node.JS in Minneapolis, MN
Epicenter in Dublin, Ireland
jQuery Conference in Mountain View, CA
MinneWebCon in Minneapolis, MN
Ruby MN User Group in Minneapolis, MN
Israel Internet Association Web in Tel Aviv, Israel
Evening of jQuery and HTML5

(2010) Creating Conferences

I created a few events this year which was a new thing for me. All if the five evenings I've held it so far were focused on HTML/CSS/JavaScript with all seats filled! The last event was 100 people with 30 on the waiting list.

I'll be doing more conferences like these in 2011, likely in other states than just Minnesota.

(2010) Consulting Company

I focused on landing projects as a team instead of just freelance and therefore we've had a record month this month with multiple people now using MJG International as their main source of income. I'm working on transitioning and expanding the company's processes to accommodate more people and projects in parallel.

(2010) Podcasting

My love for understanding why people do amazing things has led me to start doing some web development podcast interviews. Consider this a philosophical adventure as much as a showcase of developers' work. It also helps me learn from people even more. I think this project is a win-win for me and the person I interview. It can only be a good thing and I hope to do more of this in the future.

(2011) Goals - No Particular Order

Improve my ability to foster and create highly collaborative and creative teams.
Create conferences around the nation (eventually internationally). Planning is underway for a JavaScript on Mobile conference.
Turn my startups (all three) into profitable, self-sustaining companies.
Continue to learn to teach through e-learning and live online courses.
Turn MJG International website into something that represents the company instead of just something I created in one day.
Learn the principles of buying businesses and make strategic purchases.
Teach, teach and teach!

Why Aren't More Developers Building Businesses?

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:56:26 GMT

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Every good developer has their own independent visions, but even when visions line up developers chose to build independently instead of together. College students don't seem to have this problem, but anyone seasoned in their career will only work for money or so it seems. The risk is gone, the emotion, the drive, the opportunism to create something new that drives new businesses goes away. Instead it becomes all of us making money for other people which is much safer.

Businesses Require Money to Exist

A business does need to make money to survive, so maybe we just don't have financial literacy or what it takes to hack it building software that makes money? Maybe we don't care about that so we just all work in safety coding open source together despite wanting our 9-5 time back.

Developers Working Together to Build Businesses

Here's a question that I've often wondered: What would it take for great developers to be inspired working together building their own business? Why be restrained by someone else's business mandating your salary rate, your hours, your office and ultimately your life? What would it take for us to work together for a common goal and build the companies and the lifestyle we all dream of?

Becoming a Great Web Developer

Tue, 11 May 2010 08:36:32 GMT

Being a great web developer is not something you just "fall" into. It takes time, perseverance and an ability to sift through information like crazy to find out exactly what you want to do it and what the best way to do it is. Software always changes, so being great in a sea of changes is about creating the changes and improving yourself, first.

We web developers learned from each other how to be web developers. Blogs have been our weapons to build things on the web. Sure, there are a few books to teach us things here and there. But that isn't where we get our primary source of information. There are great resources for tactical information on certain topics, and certainly we need this (like CSS Tricks). But often they don't't teach you the why.

In order to become a great web developer you have to know why you are building. Is it for fame and wealth? Probably not, otherwise you wouldn't be a developer. It is probably because you want to learn knowledge and improve as a person your ability to create. People who want to be rich might become rich, but it isn't because they are a great developer -- it was because they know how to sell. Don't confuse the two.

Assuming you do want to be a great developer and not a sales guy, let me ask you this question.. Who do you want to be "great" to and what are you willing to do for them? Once you pick who you want to give to -- your peers, a company, a certain interest group, etc are going to be the targets of what you do for them. Why is it that the best developers in the world come from, and participate in open source? I learned a few things about creating a great open source project by giving and sharing my code. Create and give. Give because you received. Give them something back. This is how it works. There was a Russian man who turned down a million dollar prize for solving a math problem. His pursuit was solving and giving information. Being great is not about wanting to be great or rich, it is an iterative process of learning tactics, but then mixing tactics and creating new things and then taking the time to teach them to others.

We have a few names we all know, like John Resig. Why is he still a leader and why hasn't jQuery crumbled like most other projects? He keeps giving. You still see his code getting checked into the repository and projects keep coming together and people still use those projects today. These people are filthy rich, but we definitely know their names. They are great developers fulfilling the needs of developers and allowing us to do much more with our time.

To be a great developer, you need to create, learn, create. You can't be great at development without creating things and constantly improving yourself. You have take action in anything you do in order to have weight behind your words. One thing I realized last month is that if I ever let money or peoples' praise and/or criticism kill my ability to teach what I've learned, then I've lost the battle.

I'm going to teach lessons learned, and I encourage you to do the same. If you teach and show your coworkers and superiors things, you will become respected more in that company. The more you teach other developers the things you learn, the better you will become as a developer. Be a talker only because you are a doer, never let them go in reverse order.

Remember, teaching and becoming great has to do with what you contribute and give to others. It has nothing to do with who you want to be. Being great developer is in direct proportion to what you create and give to the world.

"Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant" - Jesus

Commonalities of Success and Wealth

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:21:09 GMT

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Introspection and reflection on the last few years of being a "balls to the wall" entrepreneur, I've studied and found a few commonalities of successful people and the ability to accumulate wealth. Of course, I'm generalizing the word "success" here.

Successful employees and entrepreneurs do what they love doing, or at the very least, something they feel makes an impact and difference in the world around them. Focusing on the part of world that they are familiar with, not detached.
Successful businesses are started with people who have passive income elsewhere. Their owners do not draw large salaries.
Successful managers will listen to the employee as a person, and get to know what drives them. They are genuinely interested in the advancement of the employee. They carefully vet new hires, the chain is as strong as its weakest link. Wealthy people continue to build assets, things that accumulate money without requiring them to sit in a chair and work, and eliminate liabilities such as expensive homes, cars, and other things that squeeze the fruits that assets create. Doesn't matter what the real estate professional tells you, your house can take money away from you... it is not always an investment.
Successful entrepreneurs start with customer desire, or their hatred / frustration. People are not going to buy luke-warm companies, employees are unhappy at luke-warm companies and customers do not want to buy luke-warm products.
Successful open source developers are either incredibly frustrated with what exists, or they are just playing around, having fun and learning all the time. Success is persistent. It never gives up and over time will remove all obstacles. It is a consistent learning and pivoting.

Achieving is temporary, it is not the same as success. Do not confuse wealth and success. Wealth is the ability to build assets and minimize liabilities. Success reaches beyond this, it is a reflection of the condition of the soul.

2009: Consulting & Speaking

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 20:26:46 GMT

import { Image } from "astro:assets";

Since this website is dedicated to documenting my career, I figure I'd better take a look at the last 11 months which have been quite inspiring. The company I started now has a strong team and we are ready to swing for the fence next year. We have gained 20+ clients, with 30+ projects which all have been delivered on time and on budget. Way better than I thought.

MarcGrabanski.com

Although my blogging and open source work has slowed down while trying to boost my company, that has not stopped website readership from growing. We are up to 119,065 visitors last month with 62,946 being unique.

More Speaking

I spoke at more events this year. I especially enjoyed the short-notice trip to Dublin, Ireland.

jQuery Summit 2009
jQuery Conference 2009 in Boston, MA
Epicenter 2009 in Dublin, Ireland
MinneWeb Con 2009 in Minneapolis, MN
Twin Cities Web Design 2009 in Bloomington, MN

Technical Editor

I technical reviewed Dan Wellman's book on jQuery UI.

Startup Companies

Aside from my consulting company, I own shares in two startup companies. One of them launched a few months back, it is a rental listing and search engine called Rent Update. Another one is a firefox extension that talks to a web service I built.

Spring of LIfe

I used to be so addicted to things I could not possibly be useful to society. I had a life-changing experience back in 2004 and I'm starting to open up to sharing the source of my motivation and strength. The source that has led me to make this website, share with you any knowledge I have, and provide everything I can for my clients.. Jesus. but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." "John 14:4 I feel "life" springing up inside me every day and even the most simple things in life take on extraordinary meaning.

2009: Summer Projects

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:16:52 GMT

import { Image } from "astro:assets";

Here is an update on the status of my projects as of 10 months ago.

Rent Update: launched public beta! We are now walking property managers through sign up for their free listings and gathering feedback. The product is about 2 years in development, but still in the user-testing stage. I'm sure I'll make a big announcement article and promote the product when it starts humming.
jQuery Datepicker v4: turned into Calendar Engine, an ambitious project intended to fix problems with the native JavaScript date object and give you access to internationalized calendar functions in straight-JavaScript (no jQuery). It works with Gregorian and Persian calendars so far, but I want to build a calendar and datepicker on top of it to showcase its abilities.
CakePHP jQuery Integration: tried to iron out some of my thinking through a JavaScript RFC for Cake 1.3, but I still have a ways to go. I'm tossing around so many ideas that I haven't solidified something actionable.
Carcassonne Online: with the new things in webkit/iphone this could be a very interesting browser-based game, but I've put the project on hold for now until I feel inspired to learn what's new in webkit.
Family Reminder: will be built on CakeCal and Calendar Engine, so I need to finish those open source projects before I get to this application, on hold for now.
Open Ad Sense: on hold until I get momentum behind this project, maybe next year.

New developments!

Launched my consulting company's website, MJG International. Showcases the network of people and some work we've done.
MarcGrabanski.com - broke one million visitors in under a year! 1,043,421 since late July '08.
Learning Ruby on Rails because of doing a UI on top of one of my client's projects, fun so far.
New startup compan deals with organizing and sharing content on the web, this one is interesting because they are both paying my company and giving percentage of equity based on the performance of the project. Exactly the type of contract I've been trying to get.
Sat down at the table with business owners around Minnesota, prepping them and selling them on a new e-commerce platform that I've been planning for years. This one will be huge because I know how it will run, we just have to work out the specifics financially to get development underway. This one is very exciting for both local businesses in Minnesota and me.

On a personal note, I'm engaged! She's now enrolled in college in Minneapolis, the added financial burden just increases my motivation to make the business run stronger.

Lessons Learned from the Worst 6 Months of My Career

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:30:25 GMT

In the last few years I have shared many triumphs and positive things, but now I am going to pull from a chapter in my life that was dark to pull out lessons learned and expose the story about this company I worked for. Early-mid 2006 was the worst 6 months of my professional life, but it didn't start that way.

How It All Started

The owner was excited, seemingly honest and downright cheerful and optimistic to work with me. He landed his first website job building an e-commerce store and needed someone to develop it. Sure, I wasn't entirely equipped for the job but I took it on. He took the risk for a very tiny sum of money and we worked on it together day and night for about 400 hours to get it done. During this time, he yelled and swore at me for losing a few hours of data entry. I should have heeded that warning and not continued working with him, knowing that it would happen again in the future. But none-the-less, I liked the work I was doing so I continued onward.

How I Got Stuck in the Job

I really liked the guy, trusted him and we continued to take on more website jobs. I definitely saw an anger issue in him through this time, but hey - who doesn't have problems? I enjoyed the work, but figured I could not get another job doing website design in the area because it is a small area and I didn't have any kind of name for myself. I continued to work and try to get better at my job. Meanwhile, I was not making enough to pay rent and going into debt ($10/hour job, even though I had finished 4-years of schooling at $28k/year).

The Tyrannical Man Shows his Colors

I was happy with the location, but became more and more unhappy with my job as the outbursts of anger and rage moved from me, to the other workers (also hired for dirt cheap) who were yelled at (including profanities) until forced to quit. One of the workers shared with me how he became so depressed that it spread to the relationship with his wife. He finally got a job elsewhere, took it and got the heck out of there. I didn't blame him, but for the time I was stuck for the aforementioned reasons.

Learning to Listen to Grievances and Anger

After my co-workers quit from the job because of the owner's raging outbursts, I was the only one left. Why was I still there? Because I thought that by staying there it would making me stronger. It did. By hearing a list of grievances against me each day for a few months, I learned to tell truth from a lie and not get upset. This was a great skill to learn. It isn't that I wasn't listening to him, it was just that I didn't agree with what he was doing to me or how he ran his business. Even so, I sincerely checked myself to see if I really was a screw up, because his shredding comments got through to the deep parts of me. This guy once wrote out an 8 page summary of grievances against me, at one point even mentioning that I was"poisoning the well". "Crazy", I thought. "I couldn't be such a horrible person as this man describes me to be". After a few months of realizing that I was truly well-intended (hard to do when words are so harsh) and knowing full-well that I was trying hard as I could (given the circumstances) - I knew it was time to leave.

How I Got Out

I put my resume on Monster.com and within a week was hired at in agency in Minneapolis, MN. The new job was a great move, a wonderfully refreshing experience filled with positive reinforcements and triumphs. Really, you can't get much more of a [high", after such a low. People always wondered why I was so happy and working so hard. I have testimonials to prove it.

Positive Outcome

In the Midst of Working for a Nagging and Angry Boss Through the hard times you have the potential to grow in the midst of it, and this experience was no exception. For all those caught in a destructive working relationship with your employer I just want to give a few words of advice:

Try to honestly seek out if the bad things they are saying about you are true.
Sort out truth from a lie, and use it as leverage to be a better person. No one will be more honest about your weaknesses than someone who is violently angry at you, even though any grievances will be amplified beyond truth.
Keep your head up, learn to deal with it and then get a new job. It will be a great one.

Final Note

Regardless of how difficult this was for me to write about such a deeply negative experience. It is hopefully worth it for you, my readers to learn from and certainly my personal health to finally get this out there. Keep it real, yall.

Negotiating Good Contracts for Startup Companies

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:30:24 GMT

I was writing about my own startup companies, then found Ryan Carson's post on "building his web applications".

Here is the part of the post I found particularly interesting, the contract:

Elliott [the developer] will receive 10% of monthly revenues, after the expenses listed above. If he launches the site on time (3pm April 20th), this will increase to 15% (hat tip to Natasha on that idea). When the site hits $25,000 monthly revenue (excluding VAT), his take will increase to 25%.

His monthly cheque will be determined by a snapshot of the revenue on the 1st of every month at 9am.

If the app is sold, Elliott will receive 10% of the cash price, after lawyer and accountancy costs.

I build web applications so I can relate to Elliott here as well as many of you (my readers). The only difference between me and Elliottis that I own the company who knows all the people to hire and how to get it done. My company is called,"MJG International"and establishes these type of business partnerships.

Carsonified Wins, Elliott Loses (mostly)

Before I rip apart the Carsonified contract, I want to say quick - Ryan Carson, if you are reading this thank you for sharing the information, it serves as a good example to work from. And certainly I am not accusing you of being dishonest - I just don't agree with the contract.

Now here is my opinion on the Carsonified-Elliot contract. I'm not sure why Elliott would build the product for no money and 10-25% of the application under certain performance terms. I think this is a really bad contract completely in the favor of Carsonified. Here is why it sucks for Elliott:

Carsonified has no risk . They are covered legally and don't have to pay the labor, all the risk is on Elliott's shoulders.
Carsonified can expand and change the contract of the product as much as they want and Elliott is still pressured to get it done by a certain date to keep his larger percentage.
Carsonified doesn't even have to pay for support costs after the product is launched, because Elliott has to answer support emails within 24 hours.
Carsonified gets at least 75% of the revenue , Elliott is the one taking the risk here and gets just a slice of the revenue.
Carsonified owns all code and intellectual property -- Elliott owns nothing when it is all over but a cut after expenses.

Wow, talk about getting kicked in the butt by a contract. Carsonified gets all the cheese for having the idea and negotiating the contract. Good work negotiating, Carsonified!

How To Negotiate a Good Contract

Now I'd like to share with you how I negotiate a contract. When I say,"you"here that means you as the developer. Assuming you want to go on these ventures.

Chose a partnership with business who care about you and you care about their product. This is tough in a for-profit world, but I've managed to do it. There is an over-abundance of companies with ideas and a shortage of developers who can actually accomplish it - know that as leverage to negotiate a fair contract.
If you build it, you should own everything that doesn't apply specifically to that project. You need to build products with reusable code so you can start other companies. You can even open source engines from it, like Ruby on Rails did.
Require money up-front enough to get you by. Creating good web applications is tough, real tough - even the simplest things can become complex when you consider everything it takes to create something that will be really worthwhile. You may not be able to do this until you have a fair amount of success under your belt.
Get at minimum 30% of the revenue of the tool if you are working for free . I do 30% plus an initial 2 months of operating capitaldepending on the project, but again - that is because of experience.
Get a lawyer you trust to review the contract before signing. They will remove language that doesn't protect your rights.
Create a startup company for the product that is it's own company, as a subsidiary of the company you are working with and get 30% stock in it. That way if the company is sold, you get 30% of the selling price.

That is all off the top of my head. Because I've been through this I feel it is my duty to protect the on-the-ground workers who can actually finish products. Once I get good at executing and have a lot of successes under my belt, I'll probably take more like 70% of the product instead of 30%, since the only thing the company partnering with you is doing is have the initial idea, which is important - but everybody has ideas! Execution of the idea means a lot, especially in web development.

Let me assure you that I value the business partnerships I make and their ideas. The contracts I've made so far have been fair and everyone has been great to work with! I hope you all reading this can have the same.

Be fair, don't be square. You rock, peace all.

2008: Acheiving Freedoms

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 23:23:40 GMT

2008 was a year of embarking on a journey towards personal freedoms in my career, which although was scary at times, paid off in spades.

Attained Freedoms

The following freedoms are available to me, that I didn't have at the beginning of this year:

work from home remotely
hire people I trust
create my own applications
work as much or little as I desire and still get paid for it (as a contractor)
take time out to eat, read and pray (during the work day)
spend more time doing things outside of normal work like go to conferences, spend time with my girlfriend and go on vacations

Assets VS Liabilities

Attaining these freedoms became incredibly important to me late 2007 when I realized I was building someone else's assets. I realized that if I stayed the course I was headed down, I would end up dependent on that next pay check to pay for the liabilities (things on credit) just like those surrounding me. I needed to break out of the system and forge into new territories.

It would have been a cold day in hell before I launched any major start-up companies while working for someone else - working nights and weekends. Not to mention I became border-line depressed working so much. Instead, I decided to cut my (client) work week down to 24 hours per week to allow the rest of my week to build applications that make my business into an asset-driven company (I'll explain later).

Breaking Into Contracting

In April of 2008, I pinged a few companies to see if they would hire me for 24 hours per week, remotely to cover my living costs. After casting the line, I got a few offers. I ended up turning down a job offer working on the Firefox Addons theming engine (which I was grateful for the offer!) to work for an internet marketing company in Duluth, MN. Why? My #1 reason for turning down a job with Mozilla is, Silicon Valley doesn't need anymore high-level talent. Silicon Valley takes away much of the great talent (poke at Dave Dash of delicious.com) we have here in Minnesota.

Instantly Respected Names VS Local Business

The bottom line is that I want to work for local companies and grow them, without a company name that demands respect attached to my name. It is for the same reason I went to a small college - The College of St. Scholastica, who has heard of that? Strengthening the computer science program was a high priority for me, as it most certainly will be in the future.

If you work for Google, you have "Google" attached to your name for the rest of your life, and instant respect. Some people want that, I don't. My attitude is to do it the hard way from the ground-up and not bank on others' success. I learn more that way and get only the respect I deserve. Yes I was interviewed by Google, many times over. But it was in the process that I came to some of these realizations.

The Unexpected

Not everything went perfect this year. My first startup company will launch in the first week of January, which I wanted to launch exactly one year prior. It turns out that launching a (good) startup takes thousands of hours or work and investment. You just can't put in that kind of time unless you own your own business and have flexibility (without pulling in investment dollars). So far I've spent 1800+ hours of my time and a pile of my own cash to hire awesome talent to help me with the tough parts. I might argue this isn't a downfall, but it was mostly just unexpected.

I had to give up my seat on the jQuery UI development team . It was just too hard to generate revenue, launch startup companies and program open source at the same time. Datepicker was just consuming way too much of my time and I had to give it up. Though, I did review a book that is coming out soon on jQuery UI, so that was cool.

Reflecting on 2008 Goals

The goals I've made in the past have been fairly lofty, but all-in-all it is good to make them once and a while. As I've found out, it is incredibly hard to hit software development goals because things change and your focus can shift. It is hard to stick out projects to the end in this dynamic profession, but if you do stick it out you may get big rewards.

I've met more amazing people this year, and have continued to grow past work relationships stronger ( thanks, Twitter ). I know things will continue in the midst of the failing economy because I work with great companies who have strong client-bases. Each company has been chosen wisely.

Looking Forward

2009 will mark the pursuit of creating assets, jobs and reliable tools. Assets are things that have value without you being there. They generate (or hold) value without you having to attend to them. The rich generate assets and the poor and middle class generate liabilities (car, house, tvs, etc) and pay lots of taxes.

But this year isn't all about money. 99% of the time I talk about my career because this is what my website is about, but the secret sauce to my success is that I have a deep spiritual life that fuels and inspires me each day to be the best I can possibly be (and beyond).

So Happy Holidays everyone! I'm hoping you have a great 2009.

2008: Projects

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 01:08:04 GMT

I have decided to pour all of my resources and energy into getting four rather demanding projects done before the end of the year. This big end-of-year push has had a lot of thought behind it, which I wanted to share with you and document here on my blog.

The Projects

Of the four projects I am focusing on getting done, two are consulting jobs and two are my own start-up companies. With the start-ups, I have partnered with businesses to help define the products and they will sell them when the products are released to the public.

The Plan

My focus in November will be on consulting. Consulting is a great way to get temporary cash flow, through which I will be using to hire people to work on my startup companies. I will have a total of four contractors working for me in November.

The Logistics

UI skills are the most important for my consulting work, and CakePHP skills are most important for the startups. In case you are wondering who is working with me, here is a list of them and brief description of each:

A developer that is a highly seasoned professional and core developer of CakePHP, he will be working on a startup in CakePHP.
A developer that is a master of databases and does a lot of work with CakePHP, he will be working on a startup in CakePHP and on documentation
A developer that is great at UI and CakePHP, however he will be consulting with me focusing on UI (jQuery/JavaScript/HTML/CSS) with me and has been for quite some time.
A developer/designer who is good at a diverse amount of things, working with UI, straight PHP and some CakePHP. He will be working with me on UI consulting projects. Though the above isn't 100% finalized, I am confident they will be joining me in these last two important months of the year - all of the projects fun to work on.

The Goal

It is my goal to have a company with products, partnerships and consulting. So far it has been working out brilliant and I only expect the great work to continue. This will be a wild two months that I'm hoping to propel those working with me into a great 2009.

Consultant Agency Off and Running

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:42:49 GMT

I have been operating as a small consulting agency for my clients lately. Here is what has been happening:

Client seeks out my work.
We begin a working relationship.
Client needs more work done, so I find another worker.
I remain point of contact, but bill client for worker's time and my time to get more done.

This is pretty simple, but works out well. The client only needs to go through one channel of communication does not have to worry about the work getting done, because I can hire up for what the client needs.

The truth is, most clients are not able to find the right people to work with. Since I have worked both in corporations and also in open source, I know a strong network of people. This also saves the client overhead of finding the right people for the job. They can rely on the work that I will deliver.

This has been a great shift of focus and I am privileged to be providing people jobs through my clients while being able to deliver more work than before.

Four Types of Web Developers, Which are You?

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 07:12:48 GMT

After years of working with developers and observing motivations - it seems I've somewhat generalized people into a few categories.

Please don't balk if they aren't 100% accurate, since everyone is different it is hard to generalize - but this shows the general trends I see of paths people follow when developing for the web.

Type A:

Developers for Developers The core of the coding world. They have philosophical debates about code with each other.From this group of people came all the programming languages ( C++, PHP, Java, Ruby, etc). If they have any people skills at all you will see them leading conferences and in the lime-light. Otherwise you can find them in password protected MIRC channels and in the deep dark caverns of corporations where no business person has ever step foot.

Type B:

Developers for Client-Developers They build plugins, frameworks and tools for themselves and fellow developers. The focus is on developing bits of reusable code to accomplish client work more efficiently. In the marketplace some are self-employed, yet most of these people occupying full-time positions as team leads (or normal developers who exceed employer expectations). Their philosophical debates are found to be mostly around what are the best tools to use, but also on how to write the best code. Community activity is high - as most have blogs, comment regularly on blogs and attend conferences.

Type C:

Client-Developers These developers use out-of-the-box software packages and slightly modifies them to get client work done. Their focus is on doing what the boss or client tells them for the day. May listen to podcasts, or participate in community lightly via blog comments or in-frequently posted to blog hosted at Blogger.com. Will only attend a conference if it is local and 100% paid for. In the marketplace you will find them working 40 hour weeks. Prime motivating factor is family and job security.

Type D:

Developers for Money These people are hack'n'mash, "developers". You will find them grabbing dreamweaver or any WYSWYG tool to, "make a million" via affiliate programs and any idea they can get their hands on to make money. Visit their sites and see all types of ads - link ads, popup ads, pop-under ads (though some are finding smarter methods). Products are being sold because they understand the human condition and feed desire into a sale (conversion). What type of devleoper are you? I am definitely type B.

Response to Full-Time Employment

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 09:39:24 GMT

I received a request for employment from a company who had gotten funding and was trying to assemble an, "all star team" (I made the above logo for fun). Most of the time I do not respond, but in this case the person hiring took so much time crafting the email that I decide that I needed to email back. My response was largely canned, but at least I took the time to respond:

I am currently not seeking full-time employment, however I do consult for agencies that know my work or have worked with me in the past. I find that working relationships are most beneficial if the agency has had experience with my work, because they are able to accurately judge my abilities. Typically, I am sought after for prototyping and user interface development. My rate is ___ per hour.

He then responded with a line of questions regarding why I was only open to consulting. Here was my response, which I think sums up a lot of where I am at in my professional life:

Employer: Thanks for the reply. May I ask why you are not open to full-time employment? Do you prefer consulting work?

Marc: Consulting allows me the ability to work from home and keep working for agencies to a minimum. I try to stick to 24 hours of consulting per week, allowing the rest of my time to be dedicated to personal projects. My projects are worth their weight in gold, more valuable to me than the fleeting cash that I get from consulting. That said, I still need to pay bills and I do love to do client work when it suits my talents and abilities.

Employer: One thing to mention is that we could talk about giving you the option to do consulting work on the side, while being a full-time employee of ours.

Marc: I tried full-time employment with working on side projects and got burnt out, so this is not an added benefit. Full-time employment is too demanding on time. You only have so many fresh-thinking development hours in a week. My opinion is that if you do 60+ hours in a week, than a lot of that time you weren't spending on pressing your abilities to the maximum - not only do you end up having no life, but you most likely wasted a lot of time with clouded thinking. The goal here is efficiency and making time as effective as possible.

Employer: We need an all-star team to turn our company into a multi-million dollar enterprise and we think you could be a great asset to our team.

Marc: Thanks again for considering me for your all-star team. As far as making a company into a multi-million dollar enterprise... I have worked with fortune 50 companies (UnitedHealth Group, HSBC, 3M and Ford) and have seen them make millions off of my work, which is a reason that ultimately led me to go off on my own as soon as I could.I am happy to make people money, but the fact is that if you are full-time, then your rate is pretty much set and you don't have the time to dedicate to creating your own ideas.

Employer: Will you consider it with the right pay? Let me know.

Marc:I do not consider full-time to be an option right now because it limits me from doing the projects that I feel the need to create.

Overall the goal is to create ideas, and full-time employment doesn't allow me to do that at this point in my life.

Ode to JWT Minneapolis

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 07:23:03 GMT

Note: The company is now Mirum Minneapolis. In the past it was called JWT Minneaplis, then RMG Connect, then Digitaria. 😅

After working for JWT Minneapolis for two years, I would like to take this moment to wrap up what I've learned and pay them some due respect. For those of you wondering where I've gone from JWT, I moved on to being a consultant and to start my own business building web applications.

Note: My experiences at the Minneapolis JWT office may not reflect that of the broader organization of JWT. This article is based on my personal opinions and is not sanctioned or endorsed by JWT.

Business Structure of JWT Minneapolis

The biggest takeaway from my experience at JWT was structure. From a high level, this is how the office was broken down into roles and responsibilities on the production side of the business:

Account Executive: Makes initial relationship with the client. Gets contract signed, presents RFP response, on-going client contact.
Strategist: Interviews the client to find out their goals with JWT services, big picture people. Decides on a product and vision to pursue with JWT.
(PM) Project Manager: Estimates hours, creates project plan and lays out project time-line. Becomes client contact for anything project related.
(BA) Business Analyst: Defines business requirements and use cases.
(IA) Information Architect: Creates wire frames based on the business requirements.
Copywriter: Writes copy for anywhere the client and IA deems it necessary.
Designer: Creates templates and style guides for project based on wire frames.
Developer: Takes all artifacts and creates the finished product.
(QA) Quality Assurance: Checks everything to assure final product matches all artifacts signed off by client (content, design, wire frames, use cases, etc).
Analytics: Ongoing tracking shows user trends and how to make the product more effective.

While at JWT, I had a chance to work with all of these core groups of production people, aside from the account exec and strategists. I was always so interested in how each of these roles interacted with each other. I would walk the floor throughout the day having brief conversations with coworkers to understand this structure more. It was fascinating to me and I always enjoyed learning bits about their expertise. All too often people don't realize that each one of these roles requires a specific and refined skill set.

Important takeaway from a developer's perspective: If a developer sits down to develop an application without having the understanding and principles of each role, the developer will have to undergo an amazingly complex road of twists and turns. Even if the product gets completed, it will most likely lack the cohesiveness and polish that having these roles provide.

If the proper time was given to each task and none of the steps were skipped, developing the final product based on these documents was a breeze. The structure always left for an enjoyable experience for me, because I always knew where to find the answers to my questions depending on what artifact I was looking at. Sure, there was a lot more,"social"overhead by tracking people down, but the end result was never a shot in the dark. The client always knew what to expect.

Overall

I had no complaints about JWT Minneapolis internally as a business. Some benefits of my experience there are worth noting:

JWT paid me fairly for my experience at the time and the job market in Minneapolis, MN.
I learned to meld artifacts from all different practices into one cohesive product.
JWT subsidized my trip to a web development conference in Boston, The Ajax Experience 2007.
I was able to grow my abilities by researching during down times.

There are so many words I could say about my last 2 years working with JWT Minneapolis, but I think I'll stick to the above for now. Thank you to everyone I worked with!

LinkedIn has many recommendations that I received from coworkers at JWT Minneapolis through LinkedIn

Interviewed by Google

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 10:59:14 GMT

Part 1 (Series)

I got interviewed by Google and was turned down. I never expected to interview with Google because it was not something I sought out. I love where I work, but you can't say "no" to an opportunity to entertain the idea of working with Google. An internal developer over there saw my work and said I should work there, so I sent over a resume and got interviewed. Even though I didn't get the job, it was a good experience and really tested my convictions of where I am at in my career. In the interview I botched the technical interview badly.

That is what happens when you have no formal education in your area of expertise. I don't know inheritance in JavaScript because I have never seen it in any script I've ever looked at. I learn by doing. I don't know SOAP, REST or any other acronyms that I don't use at work. Another question I was asked was the difference between DTD and Schema. I didn't have an answer for that either. Oh well. The part that went well was the interview with a developer. They said I would be going to conferences and helping other developers learn their APIs. I do that now with jQuery and CakePHP. I answer questions, emails, etc about their APIs - I spoke at jQueryCamp and soon I'll be speaking at CakePHP Fest. He asked me how I would go about solving certain problems and I think that went well too.

I realized that I would like to do more teaching and explaining - I need to get more tutorials on my website and do some teaching sessions at work. What had me worried for a bit is how much would be taken away from my work with open source and building client applications. I like building applications for the marketplace at work. I think I would miss that.

Lately I've had some big successes with projects and I want to make sure it continues. All-in-all it was a nice little trip for a while to be considered by Google, but I'm glad its over with. I get to do all the things that I enjoy right now where I work so I have nothing to complain about.

Part 2 (Series)

As many of you know, I was interviewed by Google two more times. Once as a UI Engineer for Gmail and once for a web developer position at YouTube (Google owns YouTube). YouTube actually sent me out on a plane to San Francisco, but I was turned down for both positions. Let me explain how this played out...

UI Engineer at Gmail

The phone interview for UI Engineer was for a position on the gmail team. The person who interviewed me asked very heavy JavaScript questions. One question went like this, "How do you profile JavaScript"? So I told him about Firebug for Firefox and Drosera for Safari, that was fine. Then he asked me, "How do you profile JavaScript in Internet Explorer?" I had no idea so he responded with, "The JavaScript date object, outputting the date and time with each line of code executed". Wow, manually profiling JavaScript with the date object? - I wouldn't have thought of that, nor would I do that unless for some drastic situation. Aside from the heavy JavaScript questions, I think the interview went well and I gained more insight about Google.

Web Developer at YouTube

The phone interview for YouTube went great. I was interviewed by the lead web developer and was interested to find they have less than 300 people there at the moment. He asked me a lot of JavaScript and CSS questions. This all went fine, and I got along with him very well. So they sent me a plane ticket for an on-site interview. I took this opportunity to visit people I know at Google as well. The Googleplex is a pretty crazy place, seemed like Disney world for work. But, after being there for a few years the mystique of it all wears off and it is just an office to them. Free food and cafeterias made it seem a little reminiscent of college days. I even got a little jealous at one point. The on-site interview was enjoyable. What was interesting to find out is how everything is based on self-motivation. You set your goals, you set your time lines. This works with very motivated people, but wouldn't work in the general working world for obvious reasons. In the end, the reason I was given for not given an offer was being, "library dependent" (aka jQuery). This got under my skin a bit, because I don't think it is true. I understand how they thought this because I talked about jQuery a lot and am very involved in the community, but jQuery is used to get stuff done faster - not as a crutch. 4 of my 6 open source projects are without a library... but don't need to go any further.

Wrapping Up My Experience

I'll take free plane flights to Google any day. I was glad to meet the people I met, and to see the inside of Google was a good experience. Sounds like things aren't over quite yet with Google, but once again I still have a great position at RMG. Cheers!

2007 was an Incredible Year

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 05:11:37 GMT

This year has been an incredible year on the career front. I literally can't believe how far I've come from last year. To put things in perspective, it reminds me of back in college when I was was failing calculus and then buckled down and learned the entire semester's worth of calculus in an 18 hour stretch of time, receiving an "A" on my final. This year has been like that. I can't remember a single year of my life that I have learned so much as this year. Thank you to everyone who has helped make this possible, thank you.

Some of the this year's career highlights:

I met a lot of great people where I work at RMG Connect. I got to lead UI development on some pretty big projects, and was the third to receive our internal company, "Rockstar" award.
I launched this website 8 months ago (late April), all of it being hand written 100%from scratch. Since the launch, it has received 300k page views and grown to 15k unique visitors a month.
I learned how to successfully code open source projects - helping thousands of developers around the world is worth its weight in gold.
I gave two presentations at jQueryCamp, held on the Harvard campus.
One week I was featured on Ajaxian and Smashing Magazine (jQuery Calendar), sort of an epiphany that people are noticing and really do care about what I do.
To top off the year, my code is now being used by Google.

Looking Forward

I have goals and a plan for this website in 2008. I have so many things I want to do it is crazy, but I just need to keep things into perspective and it will be another stellar year. Thank you for watching, reading, helping and supporting me. Without the help and contributions of others I wouldn't have much, so thank you again. Here is to another great year in the horizon!

Career Goals as of August 2007

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:27:00 GMT

Recently, I started the employee review process at work. Sure, there is the normal "rate you out of 5 stars" form, but I was intrigued that they have a process for employee development. "Do you have specific career goals in mind that we can write down to monitor your career development?" We are to write down our career goals and make action items to achieve them. The following year we are graded by how well we meet those career objective. Interesting...but how can I answer that question? I will answer it with a list of things that are broken down into categories.

Short-Term Career Goals (Now to 6 months)

Educating myself on Rapid Application Development with CakePHP.
Support open source projects, specifically CakePHP and jQuery.
Develop a complete web application including: table relationships, user authentication, custom analytics, user groups, custom components, secure validation, custom user interface elements
Speak at the jQuery Conference in Boston.

Persistent Career Goals (Daily)

Write more readable and compact code.
Become a better leader.
Become a better follower.
Educate those around me.
Keep in contact with other open source developers.
Continue to educate myself on a daily basis even on days I don't feel like it.
Press on when things are hard because I will probably learn an invaluable lesson from it.

Mid-Term Career Goals (6 months to 5 years)

Speak at conferences worldwide about my area of expertise.
Manage a team of developers.
Contribute to a technical book.
Hold a web conference in Minnesota.
Implement more efficient development processes across entire corporations.

Long-Term Career Goals (5-10 years)

Have sufficient residual income coming in to pursue personal projects.
Have family and kids a higher priority (time-wise) than work.

Strengthen Your Weak Passwords

Sat, 05 May 2007 17:49:00 GMT

How I'd Hack Your Weak Passwords raises some great questions about internet security. I remember the day when people didn't run anti-virus on their computers which allowed someone to hack your computer in a matter of a few minutes. People learned very quickly that they need to install some form of anti-virus so they don't open back doors and lose all of their important information. Today, I believe we are in the same era in the area of logins and online identities. We can login into our insurance policies, bank accounts, social sites, etc. Places where if we let access of a predator in it could potentially mean devastation to credit as well as personal lives. In the coming years people will realize that they actually need to have numbers and characters in their passwords. Hackers are getting smarter, not dumber.

"...people just don't care about all this until it's too late and they've learned a very hard lesson."

Buckle your seat belt, keep all valuables out of your car, shred your documents, don't give out personal info online and now learn to use strong passwords. I am going to take my own advice now and start changing my passwords to something crazy. Maybe it will be fun?

Developing a Timeless Skill-Set

Sat, 05 May 2007 17:32:00 GMT

Note: This post is from sometime before 2007, but it still very much applies today.

The place I've been striving for is a place where I can use the proper tool for the job. Each programming language has their strength. Here are your average development languages and their common strength:

Behavior and Animation = JavaScript
Functionality = PHP, ASP.NET, Java, Ruby
Information = HTML, JSON
Styling Information = CSS
Media Delivery = HTML5

What if you had a web application that needed to do all of these things...as is common the case ? You need a team of developers that can communicate very well with each other.

Typically you have someone who is of each individual expertise. You have the flash developer, the back-end developer, the HTML/CSS developer, etc. You have defined roles for each area, but I've always wanted to break that mold and be a developer that sees what is happening in all areas, from the inside-out. Someone who can develop no matter what new technology comes out or no matter what is the best tool for the job.

I want to develop work that takes advantage of the best of each platform. When new technologies change, I want a skill-set that is timeless and able to learn and utilize whatever is best for the job. I think by learning a diverse amount of technologies you can develop a timeless skill-set. You then don't have to worry that you will be left in the dust by some revolutionary technology. Thats the goal of being a jack of all trades. To be useful in any situation and to possibly create things that no one else will think of.

5 Things I learned from Coding Open Source

Sat, 05 May 2007 17:20:00 GMT

1. Create a solid foundation.

When you release a piece of code to the open source world, make sure it is commented and nicely formatted. I was under the impression that I would release a piece of code and people will just use it. Not so, they actually interact with your code and modify it to their needs. When you release code to the public, if you comment it well and make it easily extensible you will be amazed at how other developers augment it.

2. Treat your community well and watch your project grow.

Make sure you give users a platform to speak off of. I did this with comments on the demo page. In open source, the community you are a part of is the lifeline to a better project. If you respond to users and fellow developers, they will help you out a lot. jQuery calendar went from having a basic feature set, to having 25+ customizable options and 10+ languages. Could I have done that alone? No, and that's the beauty of open source. I can release something and if I have a solid foundation and a community to fuel it then it will grow.

3. If your code becomes popular, prepare for tons of bugs and feature requests.

At first, it was really cool to get any response at all on my code. I was instantly fixing, updating and supporting my users. After a few months the code became more and more popular. I eventually got overwhelmed with emails and comments. Now I could literally spend three full work weeks tracking down and catching up on the comments on my jQuery Calendar plugin alone. I decided I need to shut down my comments and direct all traffic to jQuery's bug tracking tool. At least now it will be categorized, organized and more efficient. I think comments were a really great starting point because people could make comments without having to register or go to a new location to comment. But at some point I need to have a life and that involves making things easier for me, the developer.

4. Test your code in browsers you don't care about.

Make sure your code is tested in Safari, IE6+, FireFox and Opera or else you will never hear the end of it. Maybe you don't care about one of those browsers but I guarantee someone will complain because they use it as their primary browser.

5. Don't expect money, you'll get paid in other ways.

I've talked to open source gurus and they don't get many donations, so you probably won't either. You will get paid in other ways. Sometimes you need to do things because you are passionate about it rather than expecting to get rich. There is more to life than being rich.