Hey friends!
Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Makers newsletter. đ
First and foremost, thank you so much for being an early supporter. My goal is to help you overcome challenges in creating for the internet. The internet is the single greatest source of opportunity and income and I aim to provide a toolkit and insights so you can leverage it.
I want Makers and my work to help facilitate conversation and to share learnings from this awesome community of creatives, entrepreneurs, and makers. But to do that, I need your help! Anytime you see something insightful, boring, wrong, or if you have any other feedback, let me know by replying to this email. Iâm happy to feature you in the next edition!
Now, letâs get to the good stuff!
What Iâve Been Up To đ
I moved to San Francisco from Los Angeles recently. SF is a fascinating city with massive pedigree and massive issues. It's hard when weâre faced with suffering, but we can all do our best to make things better for ourselves and others. For ex. I carry extra snacks to give to people experiencing homelessness.
Iâm taking a fantastic writing course called Write of Passage, taught by David Perrell. Itâs taking my writing to the next level and fundamentally changing the way I approach online content and learning.
Iâm also experimenting on the side with growth hacking, the science and art of growing a product.
Blog Update
Over the last few months, I've revamped my blog and started sharing more through writing. This mere act has already started to pay off in more opportunities from places I didnât expect.
One example is a one reader enjoyed my content and reached out. They offered me the opportunity to write a new development bootcamp curriculum. In another case, a colleague read a blog post and now I have an opportunity to feature the post in the Credit Karma engineering blog.
I suspect more opportunities will arise as I invest more in my writing.
For fun here's a comparison of blog traffic between October 2019 and November 2019.
Recent Ideas & Posts đĄ
How to Become a Software Engineer
According to Stack Overflowâs Annual Developer Survey in 2019 which surveyed 90,000 developers, most U.S. software engineers reported a +$100,000 salary. In addition to this fantastic pay, itâs not uncommon for tech companies to offer engineers a mix of flexible work schedules, cushy office perks, free lunches, and remote work, in addition to health and financial benefits.
You've heard enough about the good salaries, catered lunches, remote work, and job opportunities. How do you become a software engineer?
đ Read the rest here
What I'm Enjoying đŻ
I'm relistening to my favorite episode of the Tim Ferriss Show podcast, Episode #136 with Naval Ravikant.
Naval is the founder of AngelList and an investor in Uber, Twitter, Wish, Postmates, Yammer, Gumroad, Lever, Disqus, and many more. He is like a philosopher, entrepreneur, and computer scientist rolled in one. In this episode, Naval dives into recommended books, happiness hacks, and observations on education and technology.
If we can be healthy, happy, and ambitious, we can conquer the world and avoid burnout.
A few of my favorite gems from this episode:
I actually think happiness is the absence of suffering. It comes from peace. That comes from being careful about desire, judgment, and reaction.
Happiness is a choice, and it is a skill, and you can dedicate to learning that skill and making that choice and telling people about it and working on it. You can slowly but steadily over the course of the years make yourself happier.
When youâre on your death bed, when youâre on your last day, youâd give up every dollar in the bank for a few days, another hour, another minute. Money has a very steep discount rate as you get older. You just realize as you get older that it matters less and less and less. Outside of the bare necessities, which unfortunately most of the world is still struggling with.
The fact that you can listen to this podcast on an iPhone [...] means youâre already better off than a lot of people.
Guard your time. Itâs all you have.
Thatâs a wrap
Thank you for reading the first version of Makers. đť I'm so excited for you to see what's coming down the pipe, and to start building this community of awesome creatives and makers like yourself.
Have a fantastic day and wonderful Thanksgiving holiday đŚ
Until next time,
Nick Nish
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Got a question, have feedback, or see something insightful, boring, or wrong? Let me know by replying to this email! Iâm happy to feature you in the next edition.