How Learning to Code Kept me From Losing my Entrepreneurial Spirit
“Treat failure as a lesson on how not to approach achieving a goal, and then use that learning to improve your chances of success when you try again. Failure is only the end if you decide to stop.”
- Richard Branson
My adventure started while drinking Kilgore Stout on New Years Eve. This was the beginning of 2015 and I was leaving a 5 year career to launch a startup with cash saved from running restaurants, most recently the GABF Brewpub of the Year, Beachwood BBQ and Brewing. I had spent countless late nights outlining the app that would revolutionize the music industry and now with the best intentions and stars in my eyes I was taking the plunge.
I took the intricately laid out plan for the app to freelancer.com and started shopping for developers to build it. After making my way through a mountain of poorly written and boilerplate proposals I decided on a group based out of northern India. They offered a competitive price and were showing exponentially more personal attention to my project. We got to work immediately.
I would spend days talking to musicians and selling my vision from a shared desk at WeLabs, a Long Beach Co-Working space. Nights I would receive updates from the developer team on the progress of the app. Problems were clear after the first 30 days, the developers struggled with concepts I was introducing, modules were being improperly implemented, and the app was showing little-to-no forward momentum.
This got worse until I pulled the plug on the remote team.
I found a home with the team at Music Tastes Good, a first year music festival. The job put me in closer proximity to the music industry I wished to revolutionize. I stayed there working many different facets of the festival while attempting a strained effort to finish the app. But despite my best efforts the endeavor was failing and I determined it was time to throw in the towel.
Changing the music industry lost its allure, but a more important seed had been planted- to become a software developer.
I worked my way through multiple courses on Udemy: the Web Developer Bootcamp, The Complete Javascript Course and Learn And Understand Node.js.
Low on funds I took another job as the Head of Sales and Distribution at Brouwerij West as I worked my way through a version of night school. I spent countless hours at the computer studying while holding down full time work. When away from the computer I listened to developer podcasts as I sat in atrocious Los Angeles traffic.
About a year later, confident in my skillset I began work for Vinder, an early stage startup.
At that moment my entrepreneurial spirit found new life.
