Code with Jason
Code with Jason
295 - Freelancing and Consulting with Wale Olaleye
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In this episode I talk with Wale Olaleye about finding consulting clients through referrals and word of mouth. We discuss the "hunting vs farming" analogy for marketing, simplifying your pitch, filtering clients with deposits, and how genuine community relationships lead to business over time.
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A Snail-Mail Newsletter For Developers
SPEAKER_05Hey, it's Jason, host of the Code with Jason podcast. You're a developer. You like to listen to podcasts. You're listening to one right now. Maybe you like to read blogs and subscribe to email newsletters and stuff like that. Keep in touch. Email newsletters are a really nice way to keep on top of what's going on in the programming world. Except they're actually not. I don't know about you, but the last thing that I want to do after a long day of staring at the screen is sit there and stare at the screen some more. That's why I started a different kind of newsletter. It's a snail mail programming newsletter. That's right. I send an actual envelope in the mail containing a paper newsletter that you can hold in your hands. You can read it on your living room couch, at your kitchen table, in your bed, or in someone else's bed. And when they say, What are you doing in my bed? You can say, I'm reading Jason's newsletter. What does it look like? You might wonder what you might find in this snail mail programming newsletter. You can read about all kinds of programming topics like object-oriented programming, testing, DevOps, AI. Most of it's pretty technology agnostic. You can also read about other non-programming topics like philosophy, evolutionary theory, business, marketing, economics, psychology, music, cooking, history, geology, language, culture, robotics, and farming. The name of the newsletter is Nonsense Monthly. Here's what some of my readers are saying about it. Helmut Kobler from Los Angeles says thanks much for sending the newsletter. I got it about a week ago and read it on my sofa. It was a totally different experience than reading it on my computer or iPad. It felt more relaxed, more meaningful, something special and out of the ordinary. I'm sure that's what you were going for, so just wanted to let you know that you succeeded. Looking forward to more. Drew Bragg from Philadelphia says Nonsense Monthly is the only newsletter I deliberately set aside time to read. I read a lot of great newsletters, but there's just something about receiving a piece of mail, physically opening it, and sitting down to read it on paper that is just so awesome. Feels like a lost luxury. Chris Sonnier from Dickinson, Texas says, just finished reading my first nonsense monthly snail mail newsletter and truly enjoyed it. Something about holding a physical piece of paper that just feels good. Thank you for this. Can't wait for the next one. Dear listener, if you would like to get letters in the mail from yours truly every month, you can go sign up at nonsense monthly dot com. That's nonsensemonthly.com Say it one more time nonsense monthly.com And now without further ado, here is today's episode. Wally, welcome.
SPEAKER_03Hey, thank you. It's nice to finally be able to do this and be on your show today.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, we've we've been trying to get this going for a while. It's it's great to finally be doing it. Um and I had a little bit of trouble saying your name. Uh it's a Nigerian name, right?
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so you and I talked before today, uh, and I shared with you that that I had visited Lagos, Nigeria before. Um, I used to work with this organization called Andela, and I went there in 2015 for like three and a half weeks to do some teaching and working with Andela is an organization, uh, for anybody who hasn't heard of them, uh, who, at least at the time, they would like find people in in Africa, starting with Nigeria. They would find people who they thought had an aptitude for programming and provide them with training and then put them on client projects. And it was kind of an agency model that was their business model, and then part of their business model was to have people like me who already were experienced um providing uh kind of holding their hand uh and and helping them carry out this client work. Anyway, that's what took me to to Lagos. Where in Nigeria are you from, Wally?
SPEAKER_03Lagos as well.
SPEAKER_05Okay. And when did you come to the US?
SPEAKER_03When did I come? I came to the US um in 1998. I um came here to go to college. Um I got a scholarship to uh Florida Tech University, and that's how I ended up in the United States.
SPEAKER_05Oh, nice. So you've been here been here for a while at this point. Um yeah, and what do you do for work?
SPEAKER_03So I um uh software consultant. I focus on the Ruby and Real Stacks. I work with founders to manage um their tech side of the business, Sax Founders. I'll I build and maintain their apps, and the goal is trying to handle all the technical side aspects of the business so they can focus on operations.
Where Clients Come From And How That’s Changed
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and this is a question that I always ask uh people who are in some kind of service business, because I think it's the most important part of it. Uh, how do you find your clients or how do they find you?
SPEAKER_03That's a really good question. Um but a lot of my clients come from referrals, people that I've worked with, um, talking about the the work I do. Um, and also just being um in places where the conversations are taking place. And that that has actually changed. I've been doing this about 10 years now. The way I find work, you know, it's kind of has evolved over time. I remember when um Slack was a new thing, and um, it was really nice to be able to hang out in different Slack communities and people talking about uh their Rails problems or they had a Rails emergency, and I did find some work that way. But even before that, we used to have the Ruby um on Rails email stuff if you remember that the Google email list. Um I think it was called Google Forums, and people would actually email on there when they needed help. And that was actually a really, really nice way uh to find work. Of course, that's no longer actively used. Um, and so finding where the conversation is taking place is um you know it's always changing. More conversations are ready these days. I've not really found a client there yet. So yeah, I would say mostly referrals and watermouth is what to stay consistent over time.
Hunting Vs Farming: A Marketing Framework
SPEAKER_05Okay, yeah, I'd like to dig deeper into that because like referrals and word of mouth, like there can be a lot more to that. Because it's like if if I want to, you know, the reason I I always ask people how do you get your clients is because I want to learn and and find out what they're doing successfully and replicate that. I'm I'm not doing freelancing or consulting now, but that's what I'm always interested in. Um and you know, if somebody just says word of mouth, that's that's not really replicable by itself. So I want to dig into that a little bit. And I want to um I want I want to frame it a little bit. Um so I might repeat some things that that you and I have talked about before today, but I I I think of marketing services as as falling into two categories, um hunting and farming. So you know the nature of farming is you plant some seeds and then you make your harvest in the fall. Um, but sometimes the weather's bad, you have a bad year, and your harvest isn't great, not all of your seeds are gonna germinate and turn into turn into something profitable, you know? Um and and it it takes a long time. You don't plant a seed today and then eat tomorrow. It it takes some time. Then with hunting, you can go out and kill a deer today and and eat today. Or you could go out and not see anything and go hungry. Um so the the the analog to that is like if I want to get a client right now, I can do some hunting, I can go out to like a meetup group or something like that, I can call some people I know and be like, hey, I'm looking for work, anybody I should talk to, all those various kinds of things. And if if I want to plant some seeds for the future, I can do some farming work, like writing blog posts, um doing podcast episodes, basically various forms of writing and speaking. And those things overlap sometimes, you know, like for example, you and I are talking right now. If if uh well, you know, you're you're a consultant right now, maybe it's the case that this somehow leads to business for you tomorrow, or maybe it leads to business for you five years from now. So this overlaps with like hunting and farming. So having having like laid down that framing, how do you think about all that stuff? Do you feel like that stuff maps onto the work that you do?
Referrals Done Right: Ask, Frame, Filter
SPEAKER_03Yes, absolutely does. It does map on to the work that I do. I mean, I I would say, you know, this just for me and just talking with different consultancies as well, um, and many of them are are larger, you know, it is it is a struggle uh trying to figure out a working system to find to find work. And this is a conversation I've had with with um with um many people. Um I I remember talking with uh Jim Remsick about this, and um I think the analogy he gave was um you know everything he's done has come from all the people he's worked with in the last you know 20 or so years. And he thinks of it like planting a tree, and it's just like this long process, and you just have to keep going through it and and um and eventually you you will get some fruits um falling down. Um but you know I um I do I when if you think about the hunting and the farming, yeah, I I do write content. I do write content um on LinkedIn, I do create blog posts. Um I've been doing a lot more of um speaking uh at advance locally. So yes, that does fall into the um the farming quite very when it comes to hunting. Yes, I have done different forms of cold outreach. Um uh whether it's cold email or cold LinkedIn emails. Um and uh I would just say that it's it does this are really challenging. I've I've had some contacts um from some leagues from those. Um I don't actually think I've made one sell from from that. Maybe I'm just not skilled at that. Maybe that's something I need to improve, but that's that's still an angle I still work on. When it comes to um referrals, a lot of the times though, it's it's not like the referral just on a com to you. You kind of you do have to ask for them. I do have to ask people I've worked with. Um for some reason, sometimes that feels wicked. Like, you know, you did good work, you know they like you. Yeah, and you like it's like you know, what are you doing? You know, why are you why do you feel afraid to ask? And and just getting over that, you know, and interestingly and amazingly enough, people that are working are very, very happy, you know, to to um to give me a referral um or ask someone. And um something else that I find is important um that I've been working on in the last few months is just framing what I do in a way that's simple enough uh to the general public. You know, as technical people, you know, we can we can get into, you know, it's easy to frame if if you if your framing is too difficult, then it's easier, it's harder for people to understand or refer to you. But if you frame what you do as simple, you know, um so when I'm talking to non-technical people, I don't actually talk a lot about Ruby RLs. I just talk about how I help founders, right? And that makes it easier as well for people to say, okay, do I know uh a founder? I got this from Alex Famouzi, I've been listening to him lately, and you know, he talks about you know, in your phone, are probably your leads are in your phone. So if you can if you can say something about what you do to someone, think of someone randomly your phone. If you can explain it to them, then you've simplified it enough that they can possibly you know find someone that they know that you can help.
SPEAKER_05Who were you listening to? Who said that?
SPEAKER_03I missed it. Alex Alex Homozy.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah. I have his book, like hundred million dollar leads or something. Somebody gave it to me as a gift. I haven't read it yet.
SPEAKER_03Um he has really nice um videos on YouTube, you know. That's a nice way to digest his content as well.
SPEAKER_05Okay, yeah, and that's tough. Like a lot of these like freelancing and consulting books. First of all, there's like a whole fake industry around all that stuff where there's people giving this like very dubious freelancing advice that just they pulled it out of their ass. They haven't actually done this stuff themselves, they're just telling other people they should do it, and then there's people buying this material who aren't doing anything, they just have like a fantasy of being a freelancer someday, and they participate in these uh groups and they buy these products and stuff like that, but they don't actually do anything. Uh, so it's this weird fake economy of people selling fake advice to fake freelancers. So I say that because, dear listener, you should be very wary of the advice in all these books. Um, and and the way a lot of these books start, and I'm not saying this is this is an example of that fake advice, but maybe it is. Um they say describe your ideal client. It's like, how do I know what my ideal client is, especially if I'm just starting, you know? Um and I don't know if it's actually smart to bias yourself arbitrarily in some specific direction. I think maybe it's smarter to lazy load your ideal client and be fairly agnostic and say, I don't know what my ideal client is. Let's let's um go out and get some clients and see what emerges. I don't know that that's the right answer either, because admittedly, I've never figured it out myself. I I I did consulting on and off over the last I don't know, since like 2012 or something. Um, and and in this most recent uh stretch of it for like two years, I kept waiting for a common kind of client and common kind of an engagement to emerge, and nothing ever did. Every engagement was totally different from the previous one, so I never figured that out. But like you say, you know, being able to explain what you do to somebody else, I think that's super important. Um, at the same time, I think it's super hard because in order to explain in order to explain what you do, you have to decide what you do, and that's really hard.
Deposits, Contracts, And Protecting Yourself
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it could be challenging, but you know, um here's something I heard uh uh recently that it's a formula for actually doing this or explaining what you do. And it's I help people X do Y so they can accomplish Z. So X are the people you know that you want to work with or that you work with, you know, at a high level in a simple way that people can understand for me that's founders. I just um I work with founders at different stages. Most of the founders I work with are already profitable, and you know, me trying to explain that they're profitable founders and all that, it's just making it too complicated. So I work with founders. Um X do Y manage tech. Right. Can I get more complicated than that? Yes, but I'm not going to. So that they can focus on operations.
SPEAKER_05Interesting.
SPEAKER_03All right, so that's I plug I plug what I what I've been doing into that formula um recently, and that's helping me simplify it. So when I'm meeting people, you know, at events, you know, and I say that, they seem to understand an idea of of what I'm doing, you know. But um, in the past, when I talk about, you know, I'm a Ruby Rose engineer, I help people upgrade and maintain their apps, um, profitable SaaS founders, you know, people like what's SaaS? You know?
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_03So they get stuck in the wrong thing. Oh, what's the difference between maintenance and and support? Like, you know, they're getting stuck. You know. Um, and because I what I'm just saying is what I really want from that is do you know any founder on your network? That needs help magic attack, and probably they do.
SPEAKER_05So um, okay. Um do you mind if I just throw politeness out the window for a minute and give you my unfiltered candid thoughts? So when I hear that, there's a part of me that's like, well, that's just gonna attract the worst kind of clients. It's it's just gonna be like I've I've had a bunch of these engagements before, and and I don't mean worst kind of clients as in like bad people, I just mean like not an ideal business situation. Um where it's like there's a solo founder who has a shoestring budget. And they've gone through like a rotating cast of developers in the past, and they just have a mess, and now you have to just do little little to-dos on this mess, so this founder who's who's not particularly technical doesn't have to deal with it. That would be my fear if that was my pitch. Has that been your experience or or have you had a different experience?
SPEAKER_03No, it's it's not been my experience. Um, you know, I think I mean it's the goal is to get leads, right? So when you get leads, they still have to go traditional filtering. But the goal is to be having conversations with people. Um yeah, that's the goal for me. Um and I've I've um I've always had those kinds of leads, irregardless of how I pitched myself. You know what I mean? So um I don't think that contributes to to it or or not, you know. Um but those conversations I I typically figure that out within an hour of talking with them. And um, and then I I just I I can know if I need to move on or not, you know. So it's just part of the business, I think.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's a good point. You can't ever control exactly what kind of leads are are gonna come your way. All you can control is how you choose to filter those leads. Yeah, okay. So, you know, the the thing that I don't uh like about those kind of work situations, which maybe it was clear from how I described it, is like I don't want to work with people who don't have very much money. It's like I would love to be charitable and like help people out who need help, but I'm I'm here to make money and I want to make as good of a living as I can. So if I want to make money, I want to work for people who have uh have the means to pay for stuff. Um and there's like signals, obviously. When you're talking with somebody, you can kind of tell whether they have a decent budget, whether they're gonna be paying attention to every single dollar and stuff like that. Um for you, what are the signals that you look for that tell you whether somebody's gonna be a good fit for you or not?
Shedding Clients And Thinking Like A Business
SPEAKER_03Yeah, um sometimes it's because I've done some kind of small engagement with them first and I've been able to see how that went. You know, um a lot of my clients come to me because they have some kind of immediate emergency with their with their web application. They may be having performance problems that they've not been able to fix, or you know, they may um need a upgrade or something like that. So doing, you know, there's there's a risk, right? Um, but I have really good contracts. Um I uh usually ask for a reasonable uh initial payment before I start work. Um I would say probably that's the best filter. I totally agree. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I'm so happy to hear you say these things. So, dear listener, if you're a freelancer or interested in freelancing, take note because the stuff that Wally just said is like some of the most important stuff you can you can hear, I think. Um so like there's people out there who like don't pay their invoices, people who are just not great to work with for whatever reason, they're like crazy or whatever, and you don't want to find yourself wedded to those people for life, you know. Um and you want to filter those people out in a way that causes minimal disruption to your life if you find out that it's not gonna go well. And like you said, you know, uh uh the best way to do that is to actually go through a sample of working together, give them an invoice, they'll either pay it or they'll not pay it, and you do a little project together, and uh, you know, it could go great, and then they still turn out to not be a great client. But if during that initial project they reveal themselves to be a crazy person or something like that, then at least you find that out when the stakes are low.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. Um I've never had anyone say no to me because I had because I asked for a deposit. Um there's a few cases where maybe I didn't, but in that in those cases, then I required that the first payment be done within two weeks. So I didn't put myself out more than two weeks, which was for me something I could tolerate. Just maybe from the conversations, I already kind of knew that this was probably, you know, I already kind of was able to establish trust. So I would never put myself out for more than two weeks. But I've been doing this um for 10 to 12 years, damn. I've never had I've never not been paid. I I think I do hear the stories. Yeah, but it's not happened to me yet.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, well, that is is good to hear. I'm happy for you. I can't say the same for myself, but I think you maybe have approached all that smarter than I did, at least in the beginning. You know, I I learned to do those same things that you're doing, but it it took me some painful experiences first. You see all these posts on um Reddit and stuff, it's like, hey, how do you get deadbeat clients to pay? It's like, eh, you kind of already fucked up. Like the way to the way to solve that problem is just never get into that situation in the first place. You got the you gotta vet the clients beforehand.
Building A Lead Engine And Why It’s Hard
SPEAKER_03Right. And sometimes relationships with your clients do start good, but then they start to deteriorate. So that's something to watch out for as well. Um so uh you have to be willing to acquire your clients if it's a bad relationship, yeah. Literally for the sake of your business. And I've had I've had a JDA once, you know, just you know, they it just it just wasn't um it wasn't no longer being mutually beneficial. There was you know they would make the payment, but they would complain about it, and you know, it's just too it was just going down a unhealthy round. You know what, let's just let's just end this, you know. You can find someone else.
SPEAKER_01And in the long run, you know, it it worked out better for me.
SPEAKER_03You know, I'm not sure if it worked out for them, but yeah.
SPEAKER_05I'm reminded of that Seinfeld episode where Jerry has a friend and he he breaks up with his friend. You haven't seen that, have you? I don't remember that.
SPEAKER_03I did spend a lot of time watching Seinfeld, so I don't remember that episode right now.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, there was this friend, he was like kind of an annoying guy, and Jerry sat down with him one day. He's like, I don't think we should see each other anymore. So yeah, I I've had to do that too, where I part ways with a client, and it's it's you know, one of those necessary, one of those difficult but necessary conversations. Um, one of my favorite authors in this area is is Alan Weiss. He wrote kind of his flagship book is Million Dollar Consulting, and then he has several other books in that same vein. I have a whole Alan Weiss section on my bookshelf over there. And he says that you should be regularly shedding your old clients because you should be continually growing and improving, and your your old clients at some point will no longer be appropriate for you, and you have to let those clients go to make room for newer, better clients.
SPEAKER_03That's uh definitely good advice. Yeah, I mean, I think um just when it comes to consultant freelancing, we really need to treat it like we're running a business. We need to have the business mindset. And that's that's one of the things that I've been working and developing more at this stage. The more you the more I take it like it's a serious business, the and that's why I listen to people like Alex and Mosley. They're not freelancers, but they they're people that run businesses and they have experience running real businesses, you know, that are way more successful than I am. All that's all we really are doing. If we take it like a run, if we take take our consultant as seriously like a running business, then we the the the things to do are already laid out. You just have to figure it out, right? But um, if we if we if as uh as as not that with that level of of seriousness, I think that that's also where we maybe fall on some of those common mistakes.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I think that's a great point, uh, treating it like a business, because it is a business. Um and and for me, it was like I tried to allocate at least 50% of my headspace to marketing. Because like I said before, if it and I really should say sales and marketing. So maybe 50% delivery, 50% sales and marketing. Because if you can get good clients, then everything else is figure outable. But if you can't get if you can't get good clients, then nothing else matters because you're you're gonna be kind of miserable anyway. So getting good clients is like the key, in my opinion.
Authority Through Speaking, Writing, And Events
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. And um, I thought, you know, for my conversations with other business owners, um, I I think some of us that are here we're here, people struggling with sales and marketing are usually those of us that work in this technical software space because really we are technical. We're not really maybe primarily many of us are not business people, but we're trying to run a business. But really, our core strength is our technical ability. Speaking to other people in other industries that are running businesses, here's a pattern I've noticed that the ones that are successful. The ones that are successful, they they've already solved their pipeline issue. Whatever that means for them in their industry, they actually have kind of an engine going where they have work um coming in. So I'll give you an example. I was speaking with uh uh an accounting company, and they what they do is they um they help retirees with their investments and with their retirement plans in their 401 case. So what they did was they hired someone that worked in HR, that had experience working in HR at multiple companies in the area, so had relationships with um these HRs of different companies. And so the HR departments would naturally send their employees to this company once they reach retirement age because it's beneficial for them to take them off their books. And so once the employees are retired, oh why don't you go to this company? So it's just a mutually beneficial partnership, and so they are constantly getting leads because we're always going to constantly hit this age bracket. And so they've solved that problem, and now all they have to figure out is is, like you said, the rest of how they want to operate.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, interesting. I that's another thing that I never figured out myself. Um I I had to give up on consulting because the money ran out, the the stream of clients ran out. It was kind of interesting. Um I'll really briefly share part of my story. Um early on, I sent an email to my email list of like 2,700 people, and I was like, hey, I'm offering consulting work now, and I sent them to a form that they could fill out if they were interested. And it was like, you know, your your name, what your business is, and and stuff, and I said, fill out this form, and we'll have a phone call, and if it sounds good, we'll move forward. So that's what I did, and I got my first few clients that way. And because that worked, I did that again some months later, and I got at least one more client. I did that repeatedly, and it seemed to work a little less well each time, which is natural because it's the list of the same people, you know. You're gonna kind of squeeze all the juice out of it at some point. Um, and then eventually it just like stopped working at all. Um and and in addition to that, I would have consulting leads come from from just other places besides my email list, and and not just passively, like I would go to conferences and stuff like that and and do speaking and writing and actively market myself. Like uh I don't know if I'd say aggressively, because that's not exactly the right word, but actively. I would actively market myself. Um, but the the leads became fewer and fewer over time. Maybe um, you know, this is this is the kind of thing where you will never know the root cause, but the the the market for programmers obviously has gotten significantly worse. And so that may well be a factor. But I I I don't want to make a cop-out and and take my personal failure and blame it on the economy. There's always a risk of that. Um, and you don't want to do that because then you won't learn from your mistakes. Um, but I also don't want to don't want to be too hard on myself and say that I'm sure it wasn't the economy because maybe it was. Anyway, whatever way it happened, I I ran out of leads, ran out of money, and then I went and got a job, uh, which I'm liking. That's how it went for me. Um so that that stream of leads, I I never did get that. Did do you have that for yourself? Like a specific source where there's like a stream of leads coming your way?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I um I don't have a I don't I've not been able to have this perfect stream of of uh of leads yet. Um so no, I've not been able to solve that problem. It's a problem I'm actively trying to solve. And and one question I do have for you is did you have a system in place or process or habit of asking those people that you work with for referrals?
SPEAKER_05No. No.
Why Relationships Beat Cold Outreach
SPEAKER_03So yeah, so if if we were to step back in time and do that again, maybe or for anyone else that's listening that's trying this, that's one thing um I know that um is a good practice. And um, you know, companies, organizations, they actually incorporate this into like their normal exit process. So if they know an engagement is ending, you know, whatever, they just kind of have this phone call, you know, um, where they have talk about, you know, what are the things that went well, what are the things that didn't go right, you know, like a one-hour phone call, they'll get testimonials from there, they'll turn the record into testimonials, case studies, ask for leads, ask for referrals, you know, anyone else like you, you know, at that high point where the customer is really happy, you know, they're happy to talk about you, you know. Um and so just making that as a regular pop of a process, you know, is super useful, you know. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's a good takeaway. Uh, if I go down that road again, uh that'll be something to think about as part of my sales and marketing strategy. Um so I I wrote down a little list as I've been talking. You know, we we talked about hunting and farming. Um and and I had this big question for myself uh starting right from the beginning, pretty much in 2012 when I when I started freelancing. Um, how do I get clients? And it was so hard to find the answer because a lot of these freelancing books are like, how do you start freelancing? Oh, set up a legal entity and get business cards and put up a website and stuff, all things that absolutely do not help you get clients. Um people teach those things because they're easy to teach, and I think they don't teach how to get clients because they don't know how. Um, but it took me a long time to find the answer to how to get clients, which is very simple, which is speaking and writing. Like basic in it that's my opinion, at least. Like everything that gets new clients comes down to speaking and writing, at least almost everything. And there's like a menu of options you can choose from. There's you can speak at conferences, you can speak at meetups, you can guest on other people's podcasts, or have your own podcast, you can do YouTube videos, that's a form of speaking. And then writing, you can write blog posts, you can write books, you can do an email newsletter. I myself even do a snail mail programming newsletter. Um, there's a lot of different kinds of writing you can do, and you can calibrate it to your personal inclinations. For me, I happen to be inclined toward all of it, and at least at some point in time, I've done all of these things, and I've even put on my own conference. Um, but not everybody feels inclined toward every single one of those items. Um, and I'm curious about you, Wally. Um, which ones of these, and you've mentioned some already, but which one of these do you feel inclined toward? Is there anything that you just feel like really comfortable doing where it's like, yes, I did that. I think this is my thing, I'm gonna do more of that. Curious about that whole picture.
Social Platforms, Civility, And Community Norms
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. Um speaking is uh very natural for me. So, yes, that's something that um that I I enjoy doing. I need to do more of it, um, and I need to do it more regularly, but yes. Uh I've also started uh in the last few months, um, and I was I was I've I've been organizing um meetups. And uh I got the suggestion from someone uh in Philly that wasn't in the tech industry. I attended a uh a walk that they did uh during Philly Tech Week in the spring. And I was talking to them about how I didn't have a connection with the local Ruby tech community. And how way before the pandemic, we used to have these wonderful in-person meetups. And they said, um, why don't you just do yours? Why don't you just run your own events? And it was like, I didn't even think about that. I didn't think I could do it. I didn't think I was capable. And um, so the first event I did was just before RailsConf. Um, I did a simplest possible thing following the suggestion that I got, which was just a walk, a walk and tour, um, right around the conference hotel uh for attendees. And it was fun. And um, so since then I've done uh other events locally and and and I do enjoy uh doing it, and it is a good way uh to to meet people, but all those things um that you said speaking, writing, if we put doing events, um what they do is they establish um authority, right? They establish us as consultants, as as authority figures, which is important because people want so how do people make this buying decisions, right? It's emotionally based, right? Right. They want they want the best person, they want what you're really selling. What are you really selling when you're selling consulting uh your services? A lot of times we think we're selling the technical services, that's really not what we're selling. What makes people buy is that we're selling confidence, we're selling know-how, we're selling the fact that we have conviction that we can get this work done, and that's what makes someone um use this money. And so they either see that from the body of works that we've done before, or they see that from the way we're approaching them, or the best way is if one of their friends tell them, you know what, I work with Wallet, he's so good. You should work with them. So now they're already picked they're already convinced, and so yeah, so now they know that you can do this. So, yes, I think you know that's another perspective of looking at it is how can you step establish yourself as an authority? Um, and and doing those things that you recommended are definitely really good.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah, you know, it it in a way maybe it would be nice if we worked if we lived in a world that was totally like fair and meritocratic, where you got hired just based on your skills, like your technical skills. Uh some somehow people could just know you exist and know you're good and you could get clients that way, but that's obviously like not how the world actually works. It works based, it it's almost like cronyism, you could say. Like, as I've gotten further into the Ruby community, and I know all kinds of people from the podcast and conferences, and I discovered that if you speak at conferences, you end up being friends with other people who habitually speak at conferences. And I've found out through that and consulting that like there's a whole just like network of people who know each other, and they're like all hiring each other because they all are like kind of friends, and it's totally not it's it's not like a people don't like put out a bid or something like that, like a government contract or something like that, and evaluate multiple options. People hire their friends, and they might even hire somebody not because they like it, doesn't start with like, hey, we need database help, let's go find a database person. It's like, oh hey, we know a database guy, let's hire that guy, and he can help us with our database stuff. Like it starts with the person they want to hire rather than starts with the need. I think so at least. Um and so, you know, it's like, is it good or is it right that the world works that way? That's kind of an irrelevant question because like that just is how the world works. And so the question becomes like, let me figure out the rules by which the business world operates, and then like get on the right side of those rules so that I benefit from the way that it actually works. And I say all that because it sounds like you're thinking along those lines too. Like by organizing a meetup, it gives you authority, like you say, it gives you status, um, and it puts you in contact, it gives you like a position of visibility, like you're it gives you a it opens a door to have relationships with with all kinds of people, and maybe even gives you gives you an opportunity to have relationships with higher status people, people with more like money and power and stuff like that, who have a greater ability to help you. That's how I think about all that, at least. Do you think about it the same or different?
SPEAKER_03Or absolutely um you are correct. Um, and but the interesting thing, uh this the secret sauce is you know doing those things without looking for some kind of immediate benefit. You have to really be altruistic and you know, realizing that you might have those effects, but not looking so much for that. And and yes, eventually they will come. Because if that's what you're looking for, you're going to stop throwing it really quickly. But uh, if you think about like farming, as you said, which I like that analogy, you know, um you might get a seed that germinates, but even if you don't get a seed that germinates, what is you need another reason, another why that would make you feel happy at the end of each day, each event, you know, um, or each talk or each blog post that you write, you know.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah, and I I've I've been sharing this quote a lot from Benjamin Franklin. If uh if rascals knew the advantages of virtue, they would become honest men out of rascality. And to me, that means that like the path to material success and the path to like altruistically helping people is a highly overlapping path. Um, and you mentioned Jim Remzik earlier in in the episode, um, and I think he's a great example of that. Um, he's he's told me multiple times about his mindset of genuinely desiring success for other people, something along those lines.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's that's what you see on his uh LinkedIn now, like his description of himself, headline.
Offline Matters: Meetups, Conferences, Real Ties
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so like by helping people without expecting anything in return, you're like planting these seeds of goodwill. It's um, you know, I believe in karma. I don't think it's supernatural, I think it's just the way the world works. If if you plant these seeds of goodwill, then it it can't help but come back and benefit you. And so even though my my target might be that I want to get a bunch of money and buy a Porsche, the the way that I do that is not by like being greedy and looking for uh transactional relationships and stuff like that. Like I want to have genuine relationships that aren't like even based on business at all. Because like it's a whole it's a whole fuzzy spectrum. Um and I just want to go out and like make a bunch of friends, like genuine friends, and we we know each other over the years, and then eventually something something happens. Um and and that's that's I think a good way to approach it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, and you know, people you know, we talked about the way the world works and whether or not it should work the way it does, but I think in general, you know, when it comes to business transactions, people want to work with people they're comfortable with. Not because they're trying to favor them, because they are making a calculation of a probability of higher success, right? Um in their mind, they're like thinking, well, if this person knows me, um, and I've known them for a few years, and so now if we work together, they're probably not just going to ghost me because we have another relationship, you know, or they know someone else in my network, right? So um, you know, so people making all these computations and probabilities in their in their mind, and and yes, um we all do the same thing. Sometimes when I try to understand how my clients work, I I I think about how I make purchasing decisions. You know, if I'm gonna hire a contractor to do work on a property, or if I'm going looking for a good mechanic, what do I do? This is the same, the same decision processes I make is what the same that's the same thing my clients are making.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Like, hey, do you know a good electrician? Who do you use for your not even do you know a good electrician necessarily, it's like who do you use for your electrician? Because you just want a safe bet. Like you don't necessarily need the best person, you just want somebody who's not gonna fuck it up, you know? And and so if there's somebody who has done work for a friend of yours and it was good enough for them to like be willing to hire them again, then it's like, okay, that takes away the risk, and I can go with this person with the security of knowing that they at least did a good enough job for this other person in the past. And yeah, it it surely works the same way in our industry.
SPEAKER_03Right. They don't need a PhD in electricity that's going to lay the wires well and make sure that there is no, you know, random current flowing. They don't care about that. They just want something that works.
Closing: Links, Meet In Person, Stay Human
SPEAKER_05Right. Yeah, and I mean, like, like thinking more about the like I I I really think it's maybe even more than a desire for gain, it's an aversion to loss. Yeah. And I'm just realizing right now, like, being part of a community, it's like everybody wants to maintain their standing in a community. And so if you like don't pay an invoice as a client, or if you're like a freelancer and you like ghost somebody and you don't do a good job, like that has the potential to hurt your reputation and your standing in the community. And so maybe that's a natural enforcer of better behavior than people working together who are are just individuals who don't share the same community.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. It's um you can be alienated or removed from that community because you have a bad reputation. You know, it's it's it's this is so interesting because it's making me think about just how people lived, you know, I mean, you know, all over the world years ago, and some people still do, in really in really, really small communities about 5,000. And the economics is completely different. Everything is based on your reputation in the community, and your your your status in the community is super important. And even some purchasing decisions that you need to make are based on that. Like if people already know that you have a habit of not paying people or not um doing good work, you would never get hired. And people sometimes have to leave or move out of those communities, right? But then also make a connection with that to kind of LinkedIn. If you think of LinkedIn, maybe changing now somewhat, but still maintaining something, you know, when you think about the social media platforms and all the conversations and how conversations generally degrade. Well, they don't as much on LinkedIn, and people seem to like usually be respectful and nice and polite for the most part. Why? Because the people looking at these messages are people that they work with or their siblings, you know, the mom. You know, they're connected with all those people that they actually have a lot of the times in life, real life relationships with, you know. So they are really careful.
SPEAKER_05I want to push back on that a little bit because I think that's often true of Twitter, also. Like I've seen so many Twitter blow-ups where it's like these these are like well-known people in the community just like going at it with each other, and it's like shit, this is like embarrassing. Um, but I think the different social media platforms have structures that incentivize different kinds of behaviors. Like, have you ever noticed how YouTube comments are generally positive? It's really interesting.
SPEAKER_03Yes, I have noticed that for the most part.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. Whereas Twitter is just like, and and Blue Sky, it's it's uh at least as bad on Blue Sky, if not worse. It's just so much negativity and just dunks on people and stuff like that. Um and and I think a big part of the reason is with Twitter, you have no moderation control over what happens on your own posts. If if I put up a post and somebody replies to it, I can't delete their reply because it's not set up so that it's my post with my replies. It's just somebody else makes another post that's connected to my post, and I don't have any power over that other post at all. Um and and there's the quote tweet uh feature, which they might as well call the dunk tweet feature, because it's always something negative, like, hey, look at this awful thing somebody said, and then there's the quote tweet. So they designed the platform uh in uh intentionally or not uh to incentivize these bad behaviors. Whereas like YouTube, for example, if I put up a YouTube video, it's my video, and I can moderate the comment so that if somebody puts something totally negative, I can just delete it. Um and and there's much less incentive to just like out of the blue like comment on somebody's YouTube and be like, you know, oh, so you're not saying anything in your uh Ruby tutorial about the Gaza genocide? Aren't you a terrible person? You know, like nobody's gonna come and say something like that, the kind of stuff that people say on Twitter all the time. And I think I don't know how LinkedIn works, but it's it's not more like Twitter, it's more like YouTube, I think, where it's like your post and people comment on it. I don't know if you can delete comments or whatever, but again, I think the structure incentivizes behavior.
SPEAKER_03Interesting. That's a good point. I mean, I've never really thought about that, but yes, I think that makes sense. So I would then ask you, how would you explain um how does Reddit fit into the picture? Um, I do know that on Reddit, um, I have gotten some negative comments on some posts. And I deleted the post, but I didn't think I don't think I was able to delete a comment. The person's comment was live. So that's one thing. But also one thing I've noticed on Reddit. Generally, people are seen like a platform encourages people to opinionate it and speak, you know, unfiltered, which in nice. So, for example, on the Rails Reddit community, people speak their opinion, but they still maintain a certain level of I think of respect. It's not like this negativity, but there's other communities, you know, um like for example the Philly community already, where they just it's just horrible. It can be really terrible.
SPEAKER_05Some of the things like the Philly community Reddit?
SPEAKER_03Yes. So there's a subreddit. Um, I think it's Philly or Philadelphia, one of those. Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, interesting. Yeah, on Reddit, people often behave like colossal assholes. Um, but that's not the norm. I think that's you know, there's certain kinds of people. I I have a habit that I like to do, which is like when somebody leaves like a really negative comment on something of mine, I go and look at their user profile and look at their other comments, and usually it's just like some bitter person who's just leaving like negative comments on everything. And I'm like, yep, that's about what I expected from that person. But I agree, like, my experience has been similar that there's a certain level of respectfulness. I think the voting helps because like you don't want your comment to be just like super downvoted for being an asshole for no reason.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and then there's obviously Yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_03Well, I except in some communities, you know, if if the people in that community actually appreciate that negativity, then they will upload that negative comment and then actify it.
SPEAKER_05Right, if they feel like it's justified criticism or something like that. Yeah, yeah, and then of course there's in-person um interaction, which is very different because you're face-to-face. And it's um, you know, people say things online that they would never say face to face. Um and I think, you know, even though maybe people don't like to talk about this, um in physical interactions there's always under the surface the potential for physical violence.
SPEAKER_03That's that's a factor. Um I do think that's a factor. Um I I I also I have some relationships with certain people where I I see them zoom on text and they say a lot of things, and then when I'm in person with them and they like the nicest person. Right. And sometimes sometimes, you know, it's because other people are always around that they respect when they're a mean person. Um, but I do think that there is something about being in person where the smile, the tone of voice, the looking into others someone else's eye. Um disarms. Doesn't always work, but it can serve as a you know.
SPEAKER_05Oh yeah. Um yeah, I think that's true, but also, you know, just to be like cynical or whatever, um like there there's an element of fear. Like, I wouldn't come up to you and start like insulting you to your face, because one, that just like uh biologically, instinctively like feels bad. It like feels bad to talk bad to somebody's face, um and and it creates an awkward situation, and surely it's gonna escalate. I mean, maybe it's not gonna escalate, maybe, maybe like you'll just walk away or something like that. But if I Go and start like ripping into somebody and insulting them, they might start doing it back, and all of a sudden everybody's heart rate is escalated, everybody has adrenaline pumping through their veins, and and and a crowd starts gathering, these two people are yelling at each other, and it's just an all-around uh very disruptive situation. And you don't want to go creating those disruptive situations for no reason. So I I I think um it's that element of I don't know if fear is is the is the right label, but like maybe risk.
SPEAKER_03I was thinking of uh as a there's too much risk of of something going wrong, and maybe we don't consciously think about it, but it's subconscious knows about it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's an aversion to violent confrontation, and I don't necessarily mean violent convert confrontation as in like a fight, but like two people yelling at each other, you could call that a violent confrontation violent confrontation, and people don't want to initiate that sort of thing. So I think that's what keeps every there's one thing that keeps everybody polite and civil with each other in person.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and there's these people who who the the these like um people who are who are interested in uh immortality, and there's this idea that you can like upload your consciousness onto a computer so you can live forever, and it's like no thank you. Like I cannot imagine a worse place to spend eternity than inside a computer.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's still in real life.
SPEAKER_05Right. Or or just let me die. You know, I'd rather die than live forever in a computer. Have have you been to the internet? I I don't want to live there forever.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I don't want that eat it. Yeah, it's uh quite a complete mess.
SPEAKER_05Um speaking of of getting off the internet, if I may plug something for a moment, um I'm I might have told you about this before, Wally, but but maybe not. Um I'm toying with the idea of putting on a small conference or unconference in Michigan in the fall of 2026. Have I told you about this?
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so it's it's starting to converge a little bit. Um, me and my wife, I think we've settled on Traver City, Michigan as the specific spot. Um and and we don't have anything more than than that nailed down sometime in like October 2026 in Traverse City, Michigan. Um, it's it'll probably be a small, intimate gathering similar to how Sin City Ruby was, you know, between 50 and 100 people is is what that was. This will probably be even smaller just because Traverse City is hard to get to, so that'll be a bit of a barrier for for people. So I'm I'm expecting it to be smaller, but that's not necessarily a negative thing, it could be a really nice thing because then you really get to know the people you're with and again get off the internet and spend some really nice time just having face-to-face conversations with people. And I'm I'm sure that um uh you've had some really nice um interactions and built some nice relationships through the meetup that that you've organized. Has that been the case?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Um, well, Wally, I hope that some way or another you and I get to meet in person again. We we've met in person before, but only very briefly. So hopefully we get to meet in person, go have some uh uh Suya and Joel off rice or something like that.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah, man, you bring back memories. That sounds that sounds great, and I do think all of us post-pandemic, we do need to spend more time in person together, and the isolation is deteriorating society, in my personal opinion. Um years ago, we talked about the loneliness epidemic, and we've seen a lot of infighting and disputing on yes, doing things in person, getting back to the core values as humans. I'm all for it.
SPEAKER_05I love it. Um, well, before we go, one last question for you. Anything you want to share so people can find out more about you online?
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. I'm on LinkedIn. Um, you can look up my name, um Wally O LA in Philadelphia. Uh, you could also um check out my company website, which is Railsfever.com. This has been great, Jason.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, thanks so much for coming on the show.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely.