The first Ruby on Rails web development contract I ever got, with zero Rails experience whatsoever, was for $85/hour. To get it, I sent out 80 CVs in 2 weeks.
The consulting gig I’m doing right now? I applied for dozens of contracts over a period of months, including even getting flown out to Zappos in Las Vegas recently, going through eight hours of interviews with various engineering teams — and ultimately got rejected.
I’ve written 80,000 to 100,000 words and over 70 articles on this blog. Not a millionaire yet, apparently. Still going.
Not counting consulting, I’m on my third business idea. If 80% of businesses fail, I’m getting closer and closer to shifting the odds in my favour.
I liked 199 girls on Plenty of Tweeps, before finally meeting the girl I now live with, the girl I will almost certainly marry. And that’s not even counting the hundreds and hundreds of people I’ve met from social skydiving.
The Numbers Game
No matter how hard you try, you are only going to get a fraction of the results you expect. That may sound discouraging. After all, a five percent return on watching TV with your partner at night, complaining about everything that’s wrong with your job — about how your whole department is just fucked — will not grow into an asset you can retire on.
But a five percent return on hitting up literally every single opportunity you can think of — five percent of 1 Yes, in spite of 200 Noes — five percent of using every second you are not working for someone else to build something that just might allow you to work for yourself — that, in my experience at least, is a gamble worthy of your entire force.
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You used your own dating service to find your significant other? That’s pretty darn sweet!
Hey, you can’t succeed if you don’t try, right??
The more attempts you make, then the greater the chance you’ll succeed, but hopefully you’ll be able to refine enough along the way to make the number of attempts to realize success smaller with each go-round.
@Barrett: That’s probably got to be the textbook definition of scratching your own itch!
“”Not counting consulting, I’m on my third business idea. If 80% of businesses fail, I’m getting closer and closer to shifting the odds in my favour.”"
The gambler’s fallacy at work ladies and gentlemen.
Just to clarify the comment above:
If your odds of success are 80%, and you gave 3 shots already, your odds of success next try are still 80% =P
Think about a five sided dice. Does it care that five did not come the last 3 times ?
(cool article, though)
Professor Opinion – I disagree. A roll of the dice or spin of the roulette wheel is independent of all others, so practice doesn’t help. Each time you try something in business, you learn something and improve your chances of success.
Interesting, last time I was looking for a job I played the “numbers game”. E-mailed everyone I knew in my sector, posted my CV in job boards, advertised myself in ruby groups from LinkedIn and Facebook, contacted recruiters… The best ROI came from a local ruby group though, 3 people interested, one of them wasn’t exactly what I was looking for and the other two made me an offer.
A couple of questions, 85 $/hour without rails experience? When was that? Sounds almost impossible now… You met your gf through twitter?
A good word for this: opportunity cloud – the intersection of interestingness and numbers.
Alas, I did not coin it: http://blog.opportunitycloud.com/2010/05/07/the-cloud-or-the-ladder-choosing-a-career-strategy/
“Your opportunity cloud is the sum total of all the positive things that can happen to you at one particular moment. It is what happens when you position yourself to be in a spot where good things happen. For example, exposing your skills on a blog, going to a mingle party, connecting with the right people on social networks, moving to a larger city, becoming good at pitching yourself or your product etc.”
Nice article Brad. It is crazy seeing new posts on this site, even though I just discovered it a few months ago.
“the girl I will almost certainly will marry.”
Congrats. Just as long as you wait over 2 years before you marry her though (if you want scientific evidence backing this up, 2 years is when all the intense chemicals in your brain [epinephrine] start to subside and the more relaxing chemicals [oxytocin] start to dominate)
But you probably already knew that :)
@Barrett / @kwame: Yup, the whole build-it-for-yourself thing is great insurance against entrepreneurial risk. Even though I’m not glowing in financial riches because of Plenty of Tweeps, I’ve definitely enjoyed a significant return on my investment either way. :)
@Jordi: Very possible. I usually use jobs.rubynow.com.
@AHA: I like the concept.
@TJ: I am optimistic either way. :)
I’ve heard it said that “I’m more successful than you because I’ve heard more no’s than you have.” If people treated life, and all of their pursuits like a sales game….I’m going to get X amount of yeses from asking X amount of people, I think most would be more successful. Great principles, and it’s been good to see you writing more, I enjoy reading your stuff.
Brad,
You have more energy than anybody I know.
Here’s what’s going to make you rich.
Bottle your energy and sell it.
Like they say – to double your rate of success double your failure.
Just came across your blog, great stuff. Getting used to failure is tough, but you especially have to get used to it online, where it’s so easy to start projects.
Without the barrier of entry online that businesses and careers have in the real world, the main thing you loose online is time. It’s amazing how tough that is to handle sometimes.
Am I just stupid or is it really impossible to see when you published your great articles?
For me it’s difficult to figure out the chronological sequence of all this stuff on your blog :)
I don’t know if I’m comfortable treating people as stastitics. Would I want a guy to think, “Eh, I don’t care about her. She’s just number 27!”
@Lonelychick:
What’s up, #17? Sorry but today I have a date with #219
Totally! Persistence will be the key to let the numbers play for you.
It really can be a daunting proposition, one of the ways I made it easier on myself was to find the joy in the attempt and not the result. Jeff Van Gundy touched on it while commentating the Lakers/Dallas Game yesterday. He was saying he liked to judge the merits of the shot whilst it was in the air – did it have a good arc, was it a clean shot?
If so, those are shots you should be satisfied in continuing to take.