Leveraging an online audience to find work - Samuel Okoro

00:00

I don't really want to make programming videos online. I've tried that. I've done. I'm realizing that I want to be on the other side. I want to be a full time engineer.

00:16

How did you find work at Gumroad?

00:17

So my work at Gumroad has been mostly me posting on Gumroad and then managing my community on Gumroad. So I have 33 active users on my platform, or maybe I should say purchases of my course. I built a course on Gumroad, in 2016, I think. That was when I got started with React Native. I got started posting videos of React Native on YouTube, just for my portfolio, but nobody else was doing that at the time.

00:53

And so what I found was a bunch of other people that were trying to learn React Native were contacting me, trying to get my help. So what I decided to do was just create a course, put it somewhere. Gumroad just stood out as the number one place to put it. I posted on Gumroad and yeah, the rest is history. Everything's been working out pretty well.

01:18

Yeah. What was the spark that made you create that first video and want to share your product management and knowledge with other people?

01:28

I had met this entrepreneur, very famous entrepreneur called Gary Vee, in New York City. And he basically ended inspiring me through his webcast. What I did was I created an app that looked that resembled Snapchat in React Native, just to prove that it was possible, it could be done. And then I did it on YouTube and just to put it on my portfolio. And that's how it started.

01:56

Has producing content for other people helped or hindered your own work.

02:03

It's made me a better engineer. I understand the ins and outs of working with a team, first of all. I wouldn't have gotten that opportunity if I hadn't been able to produce for other people. It's made me understand the technology as well.

02:19

I had to take on challenges that I would normally not have even looked at, like maybe programming challenges in Kotlin, or maybe programming challenges with OTT, over the top video streaming. React Native. Yeah. So that stuff has helped my programming, but it's not really directly helped my private stuff. So what I've been trying to do more recently with my private portfolio is move it more towards project management and less on the programming side. So I don't really see how that's helping, but it's paying the bills, I guess. So there's that. I don't think it's really helping lot that much.

03:06

Why are you pulled in a project management direction rather than the direction that you kind of naturally coach?

03:17

So I've been reading this book called 'Software Engineering at Google' and they say that, so they say that project management is not for everyone, but if you feel a calling to it, then you should definitely try it out.

While I was entertaining those students, I mentioned earlier for my government course, I was also entertaining clients, right? They were asking me different client type questions. Like what's my onboarding process look like? How can I assure like an MVP at different stages? If I were to say this MVP is worth this much at this stage, how would I be able to justify that later down the road? And I was fascinated by that stuff a little bit more than the coding. I don't really want to make programming videos online. I've tried that. I've done, I've made over 50 programming videos online and I don't really want to do that.

04:21

What I enjoy about posting online is my portfolio, like editing my portfolio, adding to my portfolio, allowing people to get to know me. A lot of people nowadays, when they reach out to me, they're like, "I enjoy doing your resume". "I enjoyed reviewing your portfolio". I wanted to be part of a an experience.

04:38

Have you always contracted?

04:39

Yeah. Well, I've been trying to switch to full time for a little while now, but I've still been getting approached by U.S Companies. It's U.S Companies that always want me to contract because they see something.

04:56

And I don't know. They see something, that may. They think that their project doesn't require a long term developer. And if they see something in me or something. I don't know.

05:08

Wow.

05:08

But it.

05:09

How have you picked up so many different contract jobs. Tribe Labs, HD interactive. Where do they come from?

05:16

Yeah, it just comes from applying. Some, my earlier jobs in 2016, 2017. Like FameLab, great John street, the jump. They came to me because of my YouTube posting.

05:29

So I, that was, I was code approached by a couple of those guys. There were a few that I didn't take on beause. Nigerian, like I mentioned earlier. I don't think I'm allowed to work full time for a U.S employer just yet. Until I qualify for one of the special visas.

Do you think you would've been able to find work in the same way, had you not had that online presence?

05:57

In 2016 and 2017, I don't think a lot of people were hiring React Native developers. And that was where I decided to hack it down, specialize. Especially because I don't have U.S Citizenship. So I was in the U.S at the time. And when I applied to jobs, I get pretty far down the line. I interview, I interview again and then they realize, "Oh, he's not a citizen, so we need to talk to our lawyers". And it's a long process. And they're like, "oh, we don't really, we don't really want to go through all this".

06:34

I wonder whether remote work will now change this and companies like Deal or Remote.com that enable companies to be able to kind of land inside the jurisdiction of whatever country that person is in. It wouldn't necessarily help. For example, if you were in Arkansas again and you were in that location, because naturally then the U.S Government would, you'd have to go through that visa process. But if you are in Nigeria now and a U.S Company is able to use Remote or Deal where they have a local entity that they can hire you through. I wonder whether that will make a difference to removing some of those obstacles in the future.

07:19

Yeah. I've used Deal in the past. So I don't know if I should be encouraging people that work with me nowadays to use deal.

07:28

Well on the company side, I think it's about, I mean it depends which one you use, but they're roughly about 500 pounds per month per person to be able to go through that legal entity that they've set up in whatever country. And there are some countries still that they don't support. So it costs the company a bit more money, but legally speaking, what they don't have to do is go through a visa ship sponsorship process. For example, we're going through a visa sponsorship process at the moment to be able to sponsor people in the UK at court and it's costs 30,000 pounds in total. And if you include all of the legal fees to go through that process.

08:09

Wow.

08:09

Which is a lot of money.

08:11

Yeah.

08:12

But if you were to use Deal or Remote, and let's say that we were hiring you and your in Nigeria, it would cost us about 500 pounds a month. But we would be able to do it legally.

08:28

Yeah.

08:29

It's odd how, if you were here, it would be more difficult. But if you were further away, then it would be easier. One of the things that I guess must have come up through your experience, helping others is not just enabling them to write, React Native code, but be able to coach those developers to some kind of employment. How have you gone about doing that?

09:04

When I went down, to create a course in the first place, it took so much out of me and you're usually alone for these sort of things. A lot of people don't realize this, but I was, I was on my own and I had to be off this course.

09:21

And after it was ready, it wasn't for me. It was for all these people that had been on my comments and my email would been asking for it and yeah, I gave it to them and they were free to use it. However, they weren't meant to use it.

09:39

There are so many people who are envious of your situation, where you're able to kind of have that side hustle, do the thing on your own terms. Not have to deal with other team members and kind of carve out your own path, but it sounds like, you don't necessarily want that and actually work means something else to you.

10:03

Yeah. I can definitely see why some people will be jealous of what I have with the, what the courses and the Gumroad. I mean, I guess it's like the grass is always greener, right?

10:16

I, if I hadn't done the course or the Gumroad I might be in a position where I would be saying, "hey, maybe my life would be a lot easier if I was one of these people who could teach". But now that I have done it, I'm realizing that I want to be on the other side. I want to be a full-time engineer. I want to be improving my portfolio on the side, doing things that make it impact that way.

10:48

What lessons do you think you've learned by teaching others that help you in your job search now?

10:52

I guess the ability to understand people's perspective. I've gotten feedback from people that has encouraged me to keep doing what I'm doing and I've gotten negative feedback from people as well.

Ben Henley-Smith

11:08

It keeps you chipper, probably keeps your feet on the ground. Has that heightened sense of self-awareness made any impact in any particular area?

11:20

Some reputable coding boot camps. I'm being invited to speak and yeah, it's just adding to, it's fueling the fire. All these different things add up.

11:35

Yeah. Thanks so much taking the time to break down your story, Samuel. I've loved listening to, love learning about your story. And I think it's really rare that someone is able to like taste both sides of that equation. You're able to have both the grass on one side of the hill and then on the other. I've loved learning about what you've taken from that experience. So thanks so much, man.

12:11

Yeah. Thanks man. Thanks Ben.