how to be a shopify developer

all right fastest way to become a,Shopify developer in 2022 this time,we're going to be focusing on the three,stages of going from zero to your first,few thousands in projects then how you,can get to a consistent 10K per month,and how you can take it from there if,you want to scale this into an agency or,service business doing a million per,year or more in Revenue so the stakes,are high and if you're new here my name,is Jan I personally went for mechanical,engineering to freelancing and also,worked as a developer in Germany's,fastest growing Shopify Agency for about,two years and nowadays we're running a,boot camp where we have our students,Master these first two stages all day,long five days a week so I honestly,think the following roadmap is going to,be really good and it can save you a,bunch of time by,just avoiding the same mistakes that I,did and if you would still like to get,some more personal guidance after this,video then there's going to be a link in,the description gets you to a type form,you can answer a few questions about,yourself and then I will just send you,an email telling you exactly what I'd be,doing or what I'd be focusing on if it,wasn't your situation sounds good,awesome so then let's have a look,alright so then stage one you're,starting from absolute scratch and you,know nothing about coding yet but you,want to make the first few thousands in,projects,the few things I'll be focusing on here,would be a learning the technical Basics,and we'll go over these here in a second,then after that b immediately start,applying for the first simple project,the projects at your level of comfort,and yes they exist just got to know,where to look for them and then C you,want to do it fast because yeah first of,all none of us have unlimited motivation,So the faster you can build up some,momentum get your first results hear,great feedback see the websites you're,building the better because it just,drastically reduces your chances of,quitting and then yeah second I mean,obviously it's also important to get,paid because we all need income to,survive but especially in the beginning,the highest leverage you have or the,most valuable thing you have really is,your time and the sooner you're able to,go full time in on this like on your own,schedule doing work you truly enjoy with,your undivided attention that's when,your learnings and your income as a,developer gets to a much higher level,for the very first time and there's a,different important thing on each of the,stages but for the first one yeah it's,definitely your time and undivided,attention So the faster we get there the,better okay now in terms of the,technical skills my recommendation would,be to start with HTML and CSS and you,don't have to be a Master with this but,up to a point where you understand how a,website is structured maybe you can,build a small section or a small landing,page you know how to create a layout you,know how to arrange containers so very,foundational things like that the next,thing I would then learn is how to work,with a platform and if we're talking,Shopify development obviously that's,going to be Shopify but the reason here,is very simple because if you compare a,completely custom built website where,like 100 is custom code everything is,built from scratch with the Shopify,based website you will find that 60 is,already taken care of by the platform so,these are things that every online store,needs things like payments customer,accounts login systems security,card system things like that,another 20 can then be custom configured,these are things like products,collections setting up a theme setting,up shipping zones things that have to be,adjusted on a per client basis encoding,is only needed for these last 20 so,these are things that are not included,per default or if you want to make some,very Custom Design changes but the main,benefit here is that you don't have to,learn all of programming at once you can,just focus on that tiny bit which is,required for these 20 and I think a,solid understanding of HTML and CSS will,already get you quite far beyond that I,also still think eCommerce is a great,Niche to get started with because for,example if you build an online store you,do some work your client sells more of,their products they make money and,therefore your services are directly,valuable to them and it's always a good,thing if the value you create can be,measured to some capacity because then,it's also easier to charge adequate,prices in return alright so that's it,for the technical side of things and now,how do you go about applying for the,first simple projects first of all I,think you should build yourself a,portfolio website so this is where you,present yourself as a freelancer you,present the skills you have as well as,the services you want to offer and here,are also some tips ideally have a video,or at least a photo of yourself just to,be more relatable main call to action,should be to get in touch,I have a contact form,State the services you want to offer and,then also ideally have some demo,projects related to the services you,want to offer yeah please don't put your,here's my JavaScript calculator kind of,thing on the website,your clients don't want a calculator I'm,sure they have one so yeah should be,e-commerce related and if you've spent,the last few weeks learning I'm sure you,have a few things and if not you could,even build some projects specifically,with that intent and then just replace,them over time with real world work that,you do okay now with that in place we,also need to find a way to get in touch,with potential clients and there are,different strategies depending on your,personality so for example you could,start on your personal Network and ask,friends and family or even post your,portfolio page on your socials because,maybe you already have a friend who,might need your help that would be the,easiest you could also look for,e-commerce or Shopify related meetups in,your city just go there talk to some,merchants in person and also grab the,free snacks so there's every reason to,go there you could start answering,questions on Facebook groups or on the,forum for free and the next thing you,know is people will ask you for,follow-up projects I think answering for,free also takes off the edge a bit,because no one expect perfect quality if,it's for free but you would still get a,feeling for the feedback you get and,then thereby build your confidence you,can also try to use freelancing,Platforms in the beginning I would,recommend upwork if you have a,professional looking profile there and,you also communicate well that's a very,predictable way of getting your first,clients or you can also do some direct,Outreach to business owners with maybe,very outdated websites and then propose,to help them with a remake so I would,recommend you just pick the one or two,that you like best and then stick with,them and in the process you will learn,so much about sales and marketing how to,present yourself how to communicate how,to write emails what to say on a call,how to price your projects and in the,beginning you will also yeah it's very,likely that you will under bid some jobs,but that's perfectly cool because you're,still learning but now it's at least,paid learning Hands-On on the job,instead of just memorizing things,alright now what I've seen counters of,times now is that when people get to the,3K per month Mark they tend to get stuck,and now the question becomes yeah how,can we surpass that how can we get to,the next stage how can we get to a,consistent 10K per month and earlier,when we talked about how in the,beginning time is the most valuable,thing you have because it's kind of,proportional the more time you put in,the more you learn the more you make,um now it's a different story because,yeah unfortunately we can't just repeat,that process forever you can't always,put in 10 times more work and then get,10 times the results you will you will,run out of time pretty quickly,um so yeah now we have to find ways to,apply some leverage the question is no,longer how can I put in more time the,question is how can I make the most of,my time and since at that point you've,already proven your problem solving,abilities I think the only things you,should be focusing on are better pricing,and better clients and we can even break,it down if you want to make 10K per,month that's 2300 per week and if your,hourly rate is 35 then you would have to,work 65 hours per week but if your,hourly rate is 100 then you would only,need to work 23 hours per week and so,that shows how pricing can give you very,high leverage on your time,and at that point it might be a good,idea to look into some pricing,strategies maybe you want to experiment,with ongoing support packages maybe,fixed pricing for your projects so you,could charge 2 300 3600 maybe 5K for a,store setup instead of billing by the,hour so yeah you might want to look into,how to structure proposals and different,pricing strategies now as for better,clients that mainly means they can,afford your services so here I'd be,looking for more established Brands I,think they should make at least multiple,five figures per year in Revenue so that,could be something like 60 or 80 000 per,year or above and that's mainly because,these companies want to grow they have,some money to invest and interestingly,enough oftentimes it's also easier to,work with someone who wants to go from,80 to 100 000 per year than it would be,to work with someone going from zero to,their first 20 000 although it's the,same absolute difference but the one,starting at 80 might already have better,work ethics they might have some,marketing skills they might have worked,with other developers in the past and,then they deliver assets faster and it's,just a more professional work,relationship and then also given that,you've been working like for a while now,you should have some reviews,testimonials case studies projects and,then we make it way easier to get in,touch with these Brands now so yeah main,things to focus on in this stage would,be better pricing and better clients and,if you're currently struggling with that,make sure to fill out the type form down,below I might have some ideas here as,well,all right now you have access to good,clients your pricing is great how do you,take it from there and build this into a,business doing a million per year in,Revenue this is where it gets really,interesting and I think in order to make,that three different components have to,come together first of all your offer,then sales and marketing and some,component of fulfillment slash customer,support and in terms of your offer I,think now is a good time to specialize,because the easiest way to make a,million in revenue is not by doing many,different things it's by doing one thing,or very few things and then repeating,them over and over again and you can,actually calculate how many times you,have to do a thing and that will also,back up my point why it's important to,specialize in a second but first let's,have a look at the numbers and break it,down so if you want to make 1 million,and total sales and you have an offer,that's worth one hundred thousand you,would only need to sell this to 10,people if you have an offer worth ten,thousand then you would need to sell,this to 100 people,if you have one that's worth 5K it would,be 200 people if it would be 2K it would,be 500 people if it would be 1 000 then,you would need to sell this to a,thousand customers and if you have a,very low ticket offer maybe something,like 50 bucks then you would need to,have 20 000 customers per year or if,we're looking at a software it might be,50 per month then you would need to have,1600 active users now this might be very,different for everyone but personally I,feel very comfortable creating packages,in the one to five thousand dollar range,because that's where I feel I can,provide a lot of value for the money,people spend and also two three four,maybe 500 customers that seems a lot,more doable to me than let's say twenty,thousand and personally I also don't I,don't have much experience in the,Enterprise range I don't even know how a,sales cycles look exactly but yeah as I,said this might be different for,everyone and also depending on your,background okay now given you want to do,something three four five hundred times,per year I think at this stage it's all,very likely that you will need a team,and that's the type of Leverage you can,apply at this stage so in the beginning,it was putting in more time than it was,better pricing to make the most of your,time and now it's deploying some Capital,to bring in other people and thereby,creating even more leverage the problem,though at this stage is that usually you,can't afford the people who are straight,up better than you so you might bring in,people who are a bit less experienced,and then you have to provide some,training for them documents processes,give them structure and manage the team,so this is not freeing up your time you,will only be able to get more done and,that's also why I think it's so,important to specialize because it's,just way easier to create these,structures processes documents if you,only have one or a few things to focus,on and it will also help you to become,more efficient you can become really,good at the one thing you do and thereby,create better results for your customers,get more testimonials reviews which also,helps with marketing and it's way easier,to get to know your ideal client diet in,your marketing message so they're,actually tons of benefits to,specialization at this stage then the,last variable that we haven't touched on,yet is the marketing and sales pipeline,so this is people hearing about your,offer for the very first time and then,also the process of converting them into,a customer I mean two three four five,hundred customers they have to come from,somewhere but there are only a handful,ways to do this,um the only ones I could think of were,organic content paid advertisements,affiliate marketing outbound and,referral I might be missing something,here but these were the ones that came,to mind and you can just pick one of,these and then build your sales process,around that to establish the constant,flow of leads that you need and these,were the three variables your offer,marketing and sales and fulfillment,slash your team and that's it anyways,that's it for today's video we've seen,the three stages and what to focus on at,each first it's learning the basics and,being able to go full time then it's,better pricing and better clients and,then it's building structure building a,team and specialization I really hope,you can use is roadmap and actually,spend a lot of time thinking about these,things and as I said if you need help,check out the type form Link in the,description advice is always going to be,for free and we only sell the,implementation that is if you need help,with putting things into action or want,more personal guidance and yeah really,hope you find some value in that have an,amazing rest of your day I'm going to,catch you the next one peace

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