When I started in the web dev space, I pretty much took any work I could get.
I sold my first site to a used car dealership. We just walked in, showed them a Wordpress template designed for dealerships and told them we could build this for them.
Miraculously, they agreed to $100 dollars for the site, and $50 a month for upkeep.
That first sale proved to me that doing business is simple, come up with a thing someone needs and trade that thing for money.
Until this point, I thought “doing business” had to be complicated.
Get a certifiable degree, think up a groundbreaking idea, find the perfect name, write a business plan, open a bank account, file an LLC, design a logo, order business cards, get some shirts, write a sales pitch, find clients, set up meetings, sell a website, build a proposal, more meetings, write a contract, then code a website from scratch.
Then, I thought you had to figure out how to wire money into the new bank account, send an invoice, wait 30 days, and finally, get paid.
After that, there’s all the complexity of withdrawing money from the business, paying taxes and the like.
Turns out, we could just walk into used car lot unannounced, show them a thing they needed, and collect cash over a handshake.
This experience opened a pandoras box of opportunity in my mind. This whole time I had been going to school to become a “Web Developer,” to establish financial freedom through external means.
All I actually needed was the skills and confidence in my knowledge to sell my ability as a product.