Willing to do anything for free
Hi everyone.
My name is Justin and I'm a 17-year-old kid trying to gain a sense of entrepreneurship and develop important skills to utilize in the future.
I don't know where to start- maybe working for one of you, free of charge, would help both me and you. I'm willing to do anything, it can be tedious or simple, for free. I'm an extremely hard worker and learn quickly. Although my skills right now are somewhat limited, I am a talented video editor with limited experience in Photoshop, hoping to develop more skills.
In school, I excel in all subjects, especially mathematics and writing, taking the most rigorous courseload and getting the highest grades. Please let me know if you're interested! My email is guo0201@dcds.edu-
I would be really grateful for an opportunity to do something for you, free of charge!
I think your ambition is great but don't get taken advantage of. If want some advice and mentorship along the way I would be happy to give info. Hopefully others here will do the same.
Thanks so much! I really appreciate the support of you and this community.
I second this.
In my experience in the insurance world I've seen companies take on "interns". It looks like this is just an excuse to hire cheap labour. I remember 2 interns that were asked to literally "put files back in the filing cabinet".
My approach has always been that the reduced salary of an intern is because they don't have much experience but they need to walk away from the job with experience and the ability to pursue their career. IMHO taking on an intern is taking on the responsibility of a teacher/mentor.
With that being said @justinguo, I have 2 startups, https://lakebed.io and https://hiring.cat. Lakebed is not progressing because I suck at sales. Hiring Cat is not an MVP yet. If either of those pique your interest email or Twitter DM me and we can chat about what you might work on and what I might pay you for your time.
What email can I reach you at?
Feel free to email me at sl [ AT ] lakebed.io
I'll shoot you an email. Lakebed is of interest to me! Let's discuss.
If you're willing to work for free than might as well work for yourself. Find a project that you're interested in like making an animation short film or something (doesn't have to have any money making potential) and put it out there. It will benefit you much more in the long run.
Thanks for your advice. The problem is, I just have no idea where to start. I know that you can really do anything you want, but it seems like I can't think of something.
What are your passions? What do you find yourself doing in your free time? Don't filter it by money or status or it being career-friendly. Can be playing video games etc.
I play some soccer, video games, editing obviously. I make music (beats) in GarageBand occasionally. I wish I could find more passions haha, it's all relatively basic.
That's totally fine! I'm way older than you and even I have a hard time coming up with things that stick out haha.
But it seems you have an interest in video editing and want to pursue something in it.
I like that you're aching to just get going because you're going to get ideas as you work rather than the other way around. Here are some things you can do to get the ball rolling and trust the process will bring you insights:
You can sell video editing services at Fiverr. Search around to see what the competition is offering and mimic the packages you feel you want to do. This way you'll gain experience and get ideas on where you can take this.
Take 1 to another level by offering a productized service (you can search IH to learn more about it). Basically offer video editing per minute for a fixed fee. Might make sense to niche down (edit podcasts, Saas product video demos etc) for better targeting and so you don't get crazy complicated asks.
Start a youtube channel. You can take one (or a few) of your other interests and put out videos about them (funny soccer edited clips like Ronaldo being angry at everyone etc). This could be a great way to build an audience. Often times they will tell you through their likes what you should double down on.
Hope this helps!
Thanks! I already have a YouTube channel making TikTok compilations haha and Fiverr is a little bit difficult to attract customers if you have no customer experience.....however, your second point is certainly up for consideration.... thanks once again.
You can look at VideoHusky for inspiration on the video editing productized model: https://www.videohusky.com/
TikTok is a great opportunity! Maybe you can do done-for-you TikTok videos? Client sends you raw video of them dancing and you do some editing magic for a 10-30 second clip? :D
Successful or not, you'll learn a lot by building out a product, launching it on PH and trying to generate sales.
That's a fine idea for TikTok- however, I'm not exactly sure if there's a demand for editors. I will certainly look into it though lol! Thanks so much
Hey Justin. My first piece of advice is this - never work for free. Your offer is generous but I fear you’ll just end up doing low value work that doesn’t benefit you. If you’re interested in entrepreneurship, the best way to start is to start. Contrary to popular belief, software development isn’t all that hard, although you will make some mistakes starting out. I suggest that you think up an idea for a software as a service (it doesn’t need to be a good idea, though that helps - something that could be marketed to software developers is the best target) and implement it. The worst thing that can happen is you learn to write a web app end to end, which is a pretty good worst case scenario.
Thanks for your insight- I'm sure you can see what I was trying to accomplish though. Because I don't know where to start, I'm just willing to gain experience for working for someone else. I definitely do see your point. Is there any particular skills that you recommend I should start learning online (e.x coding, if so, what type of coding)? Thanks once again for your help, I truly appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.
Do a simple web app with a react frontend using create-react-app and a node.js backend. There’s lots of free resources out there about these two, they both use the same language - javascript, and they’re both very popular. You’re only learning, so your idea doesn’t need to be anything special, and you don’t need to worry about your implementation being perfect or even very good - you’re just doing it to learn the ropes. Make something simple, like an app where users can create an account and then can make shareable lists of bookmarks, where each bookmark has notes and a star rating.
I have an idea, I just need to find someone who knows what they're doing. I think javascript is a great place to start. Do you know any good resources to start learning?
There are various free resources on both, but if you want a paid recommendation, Maximilian Schwarzmuller on Udemy is a very good instructor. He has a course on react and another on node, and many others. If you got access to his react course and nodejs course and followed along with those you’d have everything you need to get going. Check out udemy.com/user/maximilian-schwarzmuller
But wait for a sale! Udemy do sales all the time, you should be paying $9.99 for each course, not $100+
Thank you- I'll likely purchase the java course and learn when I have time and there's a sale!
Hey @justinguo
well you took a great approach at a good stage of life. I wish you all the very best.
you have to set a goal that what you want to do, & then you will get good answers or guidelines on how to execute the plan to achieve your goal. Let me know if I can help you with anything .. DM me on twitter
Thanks! Unfortunately, I don't have a Twitter. Do you have an email I can reach you at?
Hey check out my profile you will get the email
Hey, just popping in here to give some ideas.
First some words of praise for "taking action" - this is a good thing, it means you can keep doing it until you reach what you want. Knowing "you have a problem" (in your case "I don't know where to start") is again a good thing, it means you do have a place to start, which is to "work on your problem" - describe it, destructure it, ask everyone, read a lot about each part of it, "take action" on a lot of different subparts of your problem, imagine new ways you can solve it.
Second, HN is soon starting (in 7 days) Future Founders 2020, maybe give that a go ? https://www.startupschool.org/
Enjoy!
You could contribute to organizations. Recently I've found a project called 'The Ocean Cleanup',and maybe in there, you could apply as a volunteer. Since you're into video editing, maybe they will accept you.
And you might also wanna check out Producthunt, it's related to saas product and founder community. I found this platform pretty useful.
Also, I have an application idea that is related to music. I'm a developer (mostly web development), and since you're into music and design... maybe we could work together on this.
Thanks so much for your answer. I have an idea regarding music, Spotify in particular....contact me at guo0201@dcds.edu.
I have already sent an email. Not sure if you received it
I just replied to it. Thanks once again
Hey Justin! I run a nonprofit called bitproject.org. If you are interested in open source and helping out the community reach out! I'm on twitter at twitter.com/journeyer_ and my email is daniel (at) ucdavis.edu
I admire your hustle here. And yes, your marketing hook is "Free". But what else are you bringing to the table? What skills do you have? Coding? Any past experience? What problem are you going to solve? You need to find a niche and then serve that. I disagree with the opinions saying don't do things for free... a lot of internet businesses offer freemium services, and that is what you are doing. Start free, find a niche, then charge for it. Very common business model.
Unfortunately, I have some coding experience, but not enough to be useful. I have a YouTube channel which I grew to 1.2k subscribers in counting with over 500,000 views. I have an idea for an application, and I'm going to figure it out in my free time. Thanks for your advice!
I see a lot of people saying don't work for free, just work for yourself. I think its easy to underestimate how easy it is to be full of passion but with no real experience to point you in a trajectory. I think this a good post. It comes down to what this person can learn from an experienced organization or leader. I would take free work in a heartbeat, but I recognize i wouldn't employ them correctly plus it wouldn't be worth his/her while. Internships work.
Thank you for your answer!
Great attitude, I would suggest working on something yourself though. If you want you can shoot me an email and I can provide the best guidance that I can for you.
Sure! Thanks so much. What's your email?
You can get me at dgallo@getforgetmenot.com
You should be able to click on my profile and click the email icon also. I'm heading to sleep now, we can set something up for the next couple of days.
Hope you have thought about your longer term goals ? Sharing the same might help anyone to connect with you a project which will enhance your journey towards your goals !
All I know is that I want to do something business-related in the future. In college, I'll study and explore something business-related, and eventually, I hope to start my own company. But I feel like my view of my plans are far more general, and I need to start finding specifics in what I want to study and do for the rest of my life. This community has been really great so far in helping me! Thanks for your response.
Would help us out to show some video editing examples
Primarily, I worked with editing for a film class and for my friends. It's nothing serious, really- just working with skits and other things. However, I've been working with Final Cut Pro for about 3 years and know the software pretty well. If you're interested, please email me with some footage and state what type of video you want, I'll make a video for free to show you what I can do and if you'd like me to work for you! Thanks!
I have this youtube channel. It's all unedited videos. It would be great to have some compilation videos that point to other videos.
youtube.com/bettersheets
Gotcha! I checked out your channel and a few videos and notice I could do a few things for you. Firstly, I could create an intro for you, cut the clips so it's more concise, add background music to engage the audience a little bit more. I could also create thumbnails for you in Photoshop. In terms of content, I didn't really pay attention lol, I'm sure it's great quality though- I just looked at how the video was produced. Additionally, there are some other things you could do to gain more traction on YouTube, like making more specific and alluring titles. Your main audience is not targeting those who click on your video on the suggested or recommended, but rather through a specific search on how to do something in Google Sheets. Thus, you need to really increase the number of keywords in your tags and description to help bolster your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in order to grow your channel. Contact me if you're interested in learning more!
I got an intro already. Had it done on fiverr, Love it. but I don't edit any of the videos.
Why not make a top 10 most popular Better Sheets videos compilation? I can send you the premade intro. you can download the videos from youtube. cut them in way that makes sense for a compilation?
Just spit balling here.
I think I would make a compilation once the videos start gaining a little more traction. For now, maybe you can email me footage for your new videos and I can try my hand at editing and let me know your thoughts. Thanks once again.
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That would be excellent. What email can I reach you at? Thanks so much for your insight.
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