As of 2019, I decided to start building up a business again! First and foremost, I realize that I have to start getting my name out there. Because honestly…nobody knows who I am…
I have been building applications and developing software for 10+ years without the title (which I am happy to say is coming soon), sometimes as a hobby and sometimes for my work or through consulting services. I’ve always loved writing code. It calms me down and keeps my mind working. So in order to show off my skill to the world, I started live coding on Twitch at https://twitch.tv/brianmm02 (I’d love it if you could subscribe!)
Here are a few things I’ve picked up along the way;
1. Make a Plan
When I got started, I had a brief idea of what I wanted to do. I jumped into an online movement (if you want to call it that) called 100 Days of Code. It’s a pretty cool thing where a bunch of developers basically commit to writing code for 100 days and learning and sharing their experiences. So day 1, I sat down with a plan to write an app using VueJS, and immediately flipped to using React (because why not). So in the two days I did that, I actually did learn a fair amount about react. But I soon realize it was making me grow in a direction that I didn’t want to grow into yet. I love working with Vue, but still have a ways to go. And since I use Vue as my production front end, it made more sense to get more practice out of that. As of this writing, I am working on building a full blown CRM in Vue and posting it to my GitHub profile. Now that I have some direction, I know what I am going to stream about every time I sit down.
I also recommend building out some kind of hard plan, meaning on paper or digital form. I’m a huge fan of Trello, so that’s where I’m storing my tasks and info.
2. Make a Schedule
I’ve read that viewers like to know when you’re going to be live. My schedule with family and work is pretty hectic, so It’s been extremely hard trying to find time to commit to a schedule, but I have it down now. Wednesday nights around 8pm is when I’m targeting as of now. Who knows if it will stick to that, but Im’m driving forward and going to stick with it. I also made my family aware so they know I’m off limits for that hour. Getting your family or roommates on board is an excellent way to make sure you are not distracted during that time. I still hop on randomly, but that’s just whenever I have the time for it.
3. JUST DO IT
I put it off for a long time because I didn’t know how to do it or what details were involved. It was only until I decided to sit down on my computer and grind away at the config and setup that I finally got started. It doesn’t matter how much you ‘plan’ to do something. Action is the only thing that will change where your at and move you forward.
That also goes for the ‘going live’ part of streaming. Sometimes I don’t really feel like doing it. Too much going on or undecided on exactly what I want to talk about (see point 2). But if I just turn the camera on, it will come to me. I’ve had to do that on multiple occasions and I feel like those are some of my best videos!
4. Share, Share, Share!
Come on, you want others to watch you. If nobody knows what your doing, they wont have the pleasure of watching you make magic happen on the keyboard! Make a plan to share your videos out on all of your social media channels. I have a list of tasks to do before and after I stream to make sure I get the most exposure.