S4E1: How to Create a Successful Mobile App With Mark Price

This episode was transcribed with the help of an AI transcription tool. Please forgive any typos.

Laurence Bradford 0:06
Hey listeners! Welcome to the Learn to Code With Me podcast. I'm your host, Laurence Bradford. Before we get into today's episode, I just want to remind you that you can get the Show Notes for this episode and every other episode at learntocodewith.me/podcast. And if you enjoy the show, make sure to subscribe on whichever podcast player you listen on. And if you're feeling particularly generous, a review would be awesome too.

Laurence Bradford 0:34
Xojo is a development tool for creating native apps for desktop, mobile, web and Raspberry Pi. Xojo offers lots of resources to help you get started learning modern programming. Learn to Code With Me listeners get 20% off with the coupon Learn20. Try Xojo for free at xojo.com/learntocode. Xojo is spelled like XO-JO.

Laurence Bradford 0:57
Full Stack Academy is a leading coding boot camp that helps great people become great developers at top companies like Google and Facebook. Visit bootcampprep.io to get a $500 scholarship to Full Stack Academy's beginner coding course called Boot Camp Prep.

Laurence Bradford 1:15
In today's episode, I talk with Mark price, a mobile app developer, top Udemy instructor, and now CEO of Dev Slopes, a learn to code startup. We talk about how he got into tech and later mobile app development. What defines a successful app in today's world, and how he began teaching online and ultimately starting Dev Slopes. If you enjoy this interview, you might want to check out Dev Slopes. Dev Slopes is Mark's learn to code startup, which you'll hear more about in the interview. At Dev Slopes, you learn to code by building real world apps and games. This means you can really retain what you've learned and build an impressive portfolio within weeks. If you want to check Dev Slopes out, please consider using my special affiliate link, if you end up joining, I'll get a tiny commission for referring you and this will go towards the cost of running Learn to Code With Me. That special link is learntocodewith.me/dev slopes. And that's spelt like D-E-V S-L-O-P-E-S. Thanks.

Laurence Bradford 2:26
Mark price is a mobile app developer and entrepreneur who's built over 57 apps for iOS and Android. He's also the creator of a top selling online iOS course on Udemy called iOS 11, and Swift 4: From Beginner to Paid Professional. You can check that out at learntocodewith.me/udemyios11. That's all one word. Moreover, Mark is the CEO of the learn to code startup Dev Slopes.

Laurence Bradford 2:55
Hey, Mark, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Mark Price 2:58
Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having having me here. I'm super excited.

Laurence Bradford 3:01
Yeah, me too. I really appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to come on and chat about everything you're doing at Udemy and Dev Slopes. It's all really exciting. But first, is there anything that you would like to add to that introduction before we get into the interview?

Mark Price 3:16
No, that's that. That sounds perfect. That's right on spot on.

Laurence Bradford 3:20
Okay, great. So I kind of want to go back in time a bit and hear about how you first got into tech.

Mark Price 3:27
Yeah. So this is a it's a really good question. And I relate this story a lot to my students, but it was 2007. I mean, before that, as a kid, I did games and mess around and fiddled, you know, like any kid does, but really, in 2007, I was a regional manager at a drug testing company, you know, but like, like now where we tested drugs, like, no, it was like, we were testing people for drugs, like, you know, they would go to prison, and if they wanted to get out, you know, and stay out. They had to, you know, pass these drug tests, and so we'd be like, taking in 2000 people a day, sometimes filling out their names or paperwork on a piece of paper. And you know, I was going insane. Like, I can't do this. And I didn't know anything about programming or tech or whatever. But I just, I couldn't stand this problem anymore. So one day, I'm just like looking for solutions. And I heard about this thing called Microsoft Access. And some, okay, it's like a database UI thing, I'm sure whatever. So I went in. And I didn't even know what coding was, at the time. I was reading, you know, Visual Basic for Applications, this book, but I didn't even know it was a coding book. I just knew that's what you needed to do to get this thing to work. So my life could be easier. And what I ended up doing over the course of two months was building out this entire system with Visual Basic for Applications in Microsoft Access, where people would come in to the desk, and they put a thumbprint down on a biometric reader it would pull up their identity and then they would do a digital signature in the process to signing so when it went from like, like five minutes a person to like 15 seconds and then it started on a database and records and we were able to give that to you know, the the courts and stuff like that and, and then all of a sudden, once I had that out, other companies started wanting to pay To build that same thing, and even then I didn't, I didn't even realize or claim that I was in tech. I just, I just started doing it. So that's kind of how it all began.

Laurence Bradford 5:07
Wow, that's really cool. And what a big change from what you're doing today. And I have to ask, how did the word get out? It sounds like what you're doing was super niche. Yeah. How did the word spread about this?

Mark Price 5:19
Yeah. So there's, you know, like any industry, like they, you know, people know each other, and businesses know each other. And, and so, you know, as I built that up, and you know, other companies would come in and see our process because their student on paper, too. They'd be like, Oh, my gosh, I did do this and like, well, this guy built it and my you know, my bosses didn't know it was coder tech. And, and then soon, they would contact me, my boss didn't care because he's not into that business. And so I would just, I would just contract out and build these same similar systems for for other companies. And it was this kind of word of mouth is how I guess it how it always works and networking, even if I wasn't doing it on purpose.

Laurence Bradford 5:55
Mm hmm. Nice. So, of course today, you're teaching iOS Is Android also things related to unity 3d games? When did that start to happen? When did you get more into the mobile app development?

Mark Price 6:10
Yes. So, you know, when they when the iPhone came out, you know, like, a few months later a year later, I can't remember, you know, they, you know, they opened up the App Store, in fact, so people were cracking apps with their secret, you know, you know, backdoor, you know, App Store. And so Apple's like, Oh, we should make money off this. And they opened up the app store to everybody. And then one day, I'm reading this article, right, you know, a few months after App Store launched, and this guy from Sun Microsystems Oracle, I'm not sure what they were called, at the time I don't know when they actually made the change. But all of a sudden, like I saw this article where he made like a million dollars overnight, creating this little tank launcher game, you know, this I shoot game where you shoot tanks at it, you know, rockets at each other, like the like the old school games. And he did it like in a month while he was doing his full time job. And I'm just like, Oh my gosh, I gotta do this. And you know, the app. Gold Rush like, like, you know, the dollar signs lit up in my eyes like anybody else's, I guess. And so I immediately jumped in and still not not knowing anything about programming, just grab books and stuff because I just wanted to build the apps. I just I just wanted to do that. And so that was like in I think, like 2008 or something or two, or Yeah, late 2008 I think it was. And so I just grabbed books and started figuring things out.

Laurence Bradford 7:24
Wow. So you were like, really one of the very early people to start building iOS apps?

Mark Price 7:28
Yeah, yeah. From that from the very beginning. And yeah, when when things weren't as elegant and cool and hipster as they are nowadays, I guess.

Laurence Bradford 7:35
Yeah. So when you were doing this in 2008, and getting apps in the app store, did you have any that were like really successful and had a tons of downloads or maybe even made, you know, great, good profit on,

Mark Price 7:48
You know, I made a bunch of apps, you know, they weren't wildly successful. I probably made like $10,000 off various various apps that I that I published at any given time. In one particular case, you know, I developed this app, it was called make a snowman. And the goal was just to have this incredibly perfect like maker app where you can drag, you know, little characters and icons and things and build little scenes and stuff and put a lot of like, love into it. And anyway, I had it for like $1 99. And then, like, a few months later, I made it, you know, for free with in app purchases. And of course, at the time, those websites that track the paid to free were really big. And so they sent out an email and they got like 250,000 downloads, which was really cool. Really cool for me. So I have a bunch of apps like where I wanted to make lots of money off the particular apps and that never happened until I started really changing my thinking of you know what it really is an app and and what does what does being successful with an app really mean but so yeah, no, no one hit wonders. No, Flappy Birds. No, you know, No, none of that kind of stuff. No Tiny Wings. You know, I really rocket. It was a, it was a lots of failures, Lots of fun, lots of failures. But yeah,that's kind of that's kind of how it all happened.

Laurence Bradford 9:07
Yeah. And I mean, you were learning along the way, right, as you kept building all these new apps, I learned a ton, which obviously is very useful nowadays with everything you're doing and helping others learn. So that's really, it's all really great.

Laurence Bradford 9:21
Okay, so this was the 2008, you were building these apps on the for the App Store and iOS. Also, side note for you. And for also the listeners. I am not a mobile app expert. I've never built a mobile app. I have an iPhone and I use apps all the time, but I'm not familiar with like the process that goes into it. So I'm definitely going to be asking some more beginner level questions. In this. This is super high level, but from the early days back in 2008, to today with iOS development in particular, what are some like huge things that have changed and stuff maybe he's just so different today than it was early on?

Mark Price 10:03
That's a good question. You know, in regards to the technology itself, to be honest, you know, I'm not allies, there's no extreme changes there. There's gradual changes in regards technology, obviously, we have new features, and things like that. But I will say the biggest change, or changes surround the ecosystem itself, how apps are perceived, you know, how they were presented in the beginning, you know, in the very beginning, people would launch apps for $10 $20 $30. And, you know, and now that's smartphones, you know, are becoming more and more in people's lives. It's, you know, they do everything on their phones, you know, and so because there's so much interaction, the prices have just, you know, driven down. And now, you know, the notion of, you know, if you have an app, that's not a game, it's nearly impossible to put up from price on if you plan on making money because everybody demands the ability to try things out before they buy. And so the whole this the ecosystem itself, how apps are made, you know, you know, you don't If anyone was to tell me, Hey Mark, I want to build apps and try to get that one hit wonder and make millions of dollars. You know, I would tell you, I would give him a long speech, but I would tell him to rethink your thinking, because that's not what apps are successful these days. You know, that's less than 1% of the apps that are out there. And and, you know, really apps apps have to be treated completely different this way. When you're launching something does a new audience times have changed? So those are the biggest changes have come in my opinion.

Laurence Bradford 11:25
Yeah, that's all really interesting. And earlier, before you mentioned something with like, the success of an app or what defines the success of an app? Could you elaborate on that a bit?

Mark Price 11:37
Yeah. So, you know, we, so at Dev Slopes we have we have over 200,000 students now. And, you know, so I get lots of questions. And, you know, like, how do I make a successful app? I want to make successful apps like, Well, what does that even mean to you? Okay, because here's the deal. You got to think about the user first, what does the user want, a user doesn't want to come into an app and tap ads. Like, that's what you want. You want to put ads and get a million people to tap in your ads. But isn't that what the user wants? A user wants a utility, a user wants Ease of Access, you know, easy things easy. And so what is it? What makes a successful app? Well, first, if you thinking of your user, the user always comes first. What kind of experience do you want to deliver to them in the most perfect way, and then figure out a way because your app is so good to convince them to, you know, to give you the money to spend money or to do the actions that would generate the revenue. So that might, that might not even be having in app purchases is my point.

Mark Price 12:32
You may have a whole business, like you may have a software as a service business, where you do different things, but you made an app that is so useful for the product, that people pay you maybe on your website or something else, like you know, well, my point is, apps need to be treated like businesses nowadays, in order to be successful, which is whatever you define a success, but you know, getting a million users, that doesn't mean anything if they won't stay in the app more than 30 seconds, right. And so you know, we've in the past We've said, Oh, downloads mean success, money equals success. Well, there's so many things involved in there, or maybe even just launching an app for the success of your portfolio building something that you know can help you get a job. it it's it's really dependent. But what success is not in my opinion anymore is launching an app and hope that it gets 10 million downloads and makes $10 million. You know, like, that's, that's like the lottery. It's it doesn't happen that much. And and it's not worth the risk of you know, of spending your time with that hope, and then getting discouraged. So, you know, that's kind of what I mean, when I talk about success.

Laurence Bradford 13:32
Yeah, I love that. And I love what you said about the utility for the user. As you are speaking. I was just thinking really quick about what app right now am I logging into every day? Am I finding a ton of value from and it actually has nothing to do with the app itself? It's more so the role to play in my life and that's meant, so I've gotten into a really big like personal finance kick lately, and I log into mint all the time to look at like my daily spending. And my transactions and everything. And that's moved it to my friend screen. And that's how much I'm using it. So, yeah, I really loved your take on that, that it's really what it's bringing for the user. And I also loved what you said about how the number of downloads shouldn't determine the success of the app. Because if they're downloading it, and just using it once, and they never come back, you know, does that really make it successful? And that reminds me, you you maybe know this, but there's a statistic that I heard not too long ago about. It's like some percentage of apps people download and actually use once and that's it. I think it was even more than like, 50%.

Mark Price 14:39
Yeah, that that. That's right. And it's probably less than that. And another statistic is users now are only downloading up to a maximum of one app per month, zero to one apps per month. And so we really have to start thinking about you know, how to make apps like a lifestyle, you know, maybe it makes more sense to integrate like something with slack. things that people are already using, versus trying to get your app like out there. You know, you have to you have to you have to make it a part of life. So people aren't downloading apps every day like those days are gone. is gone. People want, just like the mint. There's like you explained, that's what people are looking for.

Laurence Bradford 15:16
Yeah, yeah. And I, in the first time that I think most apps on my phone I use very rarely and then just certain, there's just certain ones. I definitely log into every day, a few then probably multiple times a day. So yeah, it's all it's all very. Yes, interesting stuff. And I liked that stat too. And I can relate to that about downloading zero to one app per month on average. I feel like I can go through a kick were back the personal finance thing. I've maybe downloaded like three personal finance apps in a day. But then that was probably it for the month and I'm usually not download new ones. In fact, I'm trying to get rid of ones that I don't use anymore.

Mark Price 15:52
Yeah. And that's why the experience makes right that's why it matters so much not even think about downloads like what kind of experience can I give him the first five minutes you know, it's So someone will download my app instead of mint or whatever, you know, so that's exactly right.

Laurence Bradford 16:05
Awesome. Okay, so moving forward now with you and your experience. At what point did you start teaching online?

Mark Price 16:14
Yeah. So, um, so going back to when I started learning, it was it was the worst experience ever. Okay? learn, learn, learn to code was not a thing. You know. In fact, if I even said the word code, I'm a coder back then I would have been flogged for saying, like, inappropriate phrasing, you know, like, it's just, you know, in 2007 during those times, like, yeah, there was some books, right. But, you know, they were written by computer science, you know, professionals, like not very hands on stuff just very, very hard to read. And even my first job, right, I just, I remember engineers, I got my job. And you know, I don't know how I got it. I got it though. And all these guys had Computer Science degrees and they would make fun of me like when I didn't know stuff and like looked down on me because I was self taught and so on. It was, it was insanely, insanely hard.

Mark Price 17:03
And so my point is, I went through all of these things, or these years, and I learned what works and what doesn't work and all the pains that developers go through and the imposter syndrome. I know, I've been there every step of the way. And it still happens today, you can go on Reddit for five minutes, and, you know, come back crying, you know, so. So, with with my teaching, like I, I just, you know, I started teaching in person and helping people out, and in boot camps, a boot camp. And I just, even then I felt like I could do so much better, and really help people who are going through the same thing I went through, you know, in a much more effective way. And that's how the whole idea of dev slopes and launching courses and my first course I launched was on Udemy. And that's how that all came to be.

Laurence Bradford 17:48
Do you remember what year that was when you launched your first course?

Mark Price 17:51
Yeah, it was my first course went live on Udemy in September of 2015. And over the course of a couple more, really Just less than 60 days to become one of the top selling iOS development courses on the internet.

Laurence Bradford 18:05
Oh, wow. And what iOS version was that at the time?

Mark Price 18:07
Yeah, that was iOS 9.

Laurence Bradford 18:09
Okay, so iOS 9, your app back in 2015 became one of the top ones as your first course. Well, that's, that's like a great confidence boost. Have your first, your first course be a great success?

Mark Price 18:21
Yeah, you know, the funny thing is it, you know, I had all these failures. And it wasn't just app failures. I had, you know, I had consulting, start consulting businesses, where we build apps for people and you know, they made good money and stuff, but it was stressful, and those businesses failed. And, you know, I even had apps on Good Morning America. And like, I mean, I've been in apps and business like, and they just kept failing and failing. And, you know, and I just think it's funny because it was like the App Store Gold Rush. And then I think back to like, the actual Gold Rush, you know, like an 1849. And everybody lost money on that everybody except one group of people, which was the people who sold the tools, like you know, the axes and the pans and all this stuff. And sure enough, you know, after all, my family And everything else it was it was teaching how to build apps and how to do it the right way that actually was the thing that that picked up. So was I, you know, I was surprised but like almost kind of wasn't surprised because I just gone through all this this junk these last years and like I just felt like I finally had a message to send and, you know, and they had a lot of passion behind it. So I think that's why it why it turned out.

Laurence Bradford 19:23
Sit tight podcast listeners, were taking a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors.

Laurence Bradford 19:30
Xojo was a cross platform development tool for creating native apps for desktop, mobile, web and Raspberry Pi. With Xojo, you really can write just one version of your app, say on a Mac, click a button and have a completely native Windows version two. Xojo lets you abstract yourself from specific platform details so you can focus on what makes your app unique. All apps have completely native controls, even if they weren't developed on that platform. Just use drag and drop to create your user interface. In one language to program the functionality, Xojo was perfect for people who aren't programmers by trade, but who learned to program to make their jobs easier. Users also include a fortune 500 companies, commercial developers, it developers, hobbyists, and students. Anyone who wants to build apps faster, Learn to Code With Me listeners get 20% off with the coupon code Learn20. Try Xojo free at xojo.com/learntocode.

Laurence Bradford 20:32
Full Stack Academy is a leading coding boot camp that helps students become great software developers and get jobs at top tier companies. Full Stack's advanced software engineering immersive course gives you the skills you need to launch your dream career in tech, with a cutting edge curriculum and supportive educational environment. Full Stack has helped graduates get jobs at companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook along with many others. Full Stack software and engineering immersive is taught on campus in New York City and Chicago and is accessible from everywhere through full stacks remote, immersive. Go to fullstackacademy.com to learn more. Full Stack Academy, making great people into great developers.

Laurence Bradford 21:20
Yeah, cuz there's a lot of time. It's from when you first began learning since 2007 to 2015. That's like seven years. So you did a ton in between. And, of course, you're one of the most popular instructors on Udemy. You now have dev slopes your own company that is producing courses. Did you have any teaching experience before that online or in the classroom?

Mark Price 21:42
You know, I want to when people ask me this question, I want to kind of give them hope that they can get into teaching stuff, but it's honestly like teaching and just helping people like verbally and being able to communicate is kind of one of my base skills, you know, being able to effectively present information and you know, basically you No, there's two types of teachers as teachers who teach because they know something. But then there's the teachers who teach for understanding, which is what you teach, brings understanding to the person and until that understanding that is there, you're actually not an effective teacher. And so, you know, I just, I made a really big focus focus on on doing that. And, and, you know, I will say I, so I did, I did go out two years. So my life when I was aged 19 to 21. And I served an LDS mission. And so I was like, knocking on people's doors for two years straight. And so yeah, I've talked to like thousands of people. But, you know, it's, you know, it's just, it's just one of the things that, that I do, and I still do that today in my company in training and stuff and helping people understand. So yeah.

Laurence Bradford 22:44
Yeah. So you think that that experience maybe made you a stronger communicator, or it was all it was always something you were just naturally good at?

Mark Price 22:53
Yeah, kind of natural. And I like teaching people you know, some people don't like some people don't like teaching at all. And so, you know, I have, I've spent time on it. Nothing formal though, right? Just, you know, when people need help you just you you help them and and you teach them and, you know, maybe it is maybe there is a gift to it. You know, I've worked with engineers, the ones who look down to me who when I would ask for help, they just they couldn't communicate and principle effectively. And so I'd be left frustrated, they'd be left frustrated, you know. And so there's definitely some rhyme and reason to teaching for sure.

Laurence Bradford 23:27
Yeah. So jumping ahead, just to your background and what you've been doing. So you began teaching in 2015, you had an iOS 9 course on Udemy. It was a massive hit right away. You have 57 courses now, on Udemy. Correct?

Mark Price 23:45
No, that was that was how many mobile apps I built in the past. Yeah, on Udemy. I think we have like, I think like 15 and then with Dev Slopes all together, I think we have like 45 courses available.

Laurence Bradford 24:01
Okay, so now you have 45 courses today, that's Wow, that's a ton. When I'm looking at your path, it you went into teaching online and then, which is very entrepreneurial In my opinion, you know, teaching courses for you to me, but now of course you have your own company. What gave you the idea to start that?

Mark Price 24:19
Yeah, so the interesting thing is, um, I kind of I kind of had a plan. So, I had this idea when I was teaching at the boot camp, you know, my classes were the most well attended had the highest amount of students getting jobs. And, you know, I approach to this company, I worked for the boot camp, you know, and I proposed doing this online thing. And I remember at one point, the the CEO told me, he's like, well, I don't think there's a future in online education. And I just like that was it for me, I was like, Okay, well, I clearly don't i don't agree with that for sure. And I personally don't think boot camps are the future either. I think it's you know, an intermediary thing from the you know, from the hundred thousand dollar computer science degree. And so I had this idea, it's like, well, what if I could take the things that I'm really good at, like, take a take a course that is so hands on that it gets you where you want to be in the fastest amount of time possible. But okay with, but while teaching the most important things, the things that employers are going to look for the things that mattered the most, but throwing out the things that may not matter, you know, like, I'm not going to teach a brand new person, you know, big O notation, or I'm not going to teach them how to make their own, you know, array, data structure from scratch, because that doesn't get you to the zero to 60 it we'll learn those things after.

Mark Price 25:37
And but then I also had to say to say, I want to do it my way, like the way I teach people like and I want to put it in a business plan. And my way of teaching is very, you'll have to watch a course sometime, but it's very in your face, like YouTube style. We make jokes, but like, by the end of the course, you feel like your family, you feel like we're best friends. And when we are we're chatting in the community and stuff. So I had this idea, you know, very in your face YouTube style teach the way I want it, I don't care what anybody else says, I, people have been telling me what to do forever, I'm gonna do this the way I want to do it, which is a little fun, a little edgy, a little more edgy than some people would like. And, and then, so I made a course around that it's like, if this works, I'm going to build a company around it, and we're going to build we're going to build what I think is the most effective way to teach people how to code. And so then I've launched that course on Udemy and I just I, I worked like crazy work like crazy to make that first month successful. And the first month it did it made like $8,000 which was you know about this the salary I was making my job so I quit my job and and then I just went on on faith and energy that we had something here and then it was just me so me and myself that I had something here and and then just push it or put the business plan that company and as money kept coming in, I started reinvesting it and hiring the right people. Which by the way, are all foreigners Students, which is really cool. And, and that's kind of how that's how it kind of came to be. And it's just, it's gone. It's gone down the path that I had hoped it would go down.

Laurence Bradford 27:09
Wow, that's so exciting. And I had no idea that you were working full time when you started dev slopes or even when you were, or even when you began teaching the Udemy courses.

Mark Price 27:21
Yeah, it was, it was crazy. So I was teaching, I was working full time, full time job, you know, 40 hours a week, whatever. And, and then, you know, I was teaching I was teaching how to boot camp to is a lot of teaching going on. And I remember I wanted to create, I needed to create this 40 hour course and why 40 hours because well, the other big competitor on Udemy, whose course I was personally trying to, you know, to beat out, like had that many hours. And so I remember, I would I would work like crazy, you know, I get off at 5pm and then i would i would work and record and do all these things till like three in the morning, four in the morning and then I get up at six They get ready for work and go repeat the process. And so like in a month and a half, like I ran off for like two to three hours asleep and got that first got that first course out, but I, you know, I've done this before, you know, having my own companies and you know, anything short of crazy sacrifice, you know, doesn't yield the results you're looking for pretty much in every single case. And so I kind of had, I gotta have faith that it would it would go if I if I was committed to it like that it would go but it was it was insane amount of work so insane that my my wife, I asked her if she wouldn't mind taking all the kids to my mom's house like, which was like six hours away. No, it was like 12 hours away. So I could just have the household to record because you know, your kids running around and things like that. And, and so they did and they went up there and AC broke. It was 100 degrees out in the Mojave Desert in California where they were. And it just it was a big sacrifice for everybody. So yeah, I guess I kind of glossed over that. But it was, it was definitely a lot of work.

Laurence Bradford 28:56
Yeah, that definitely sounds it sounds like it but it's great that you Got to. I mean, you said, Put your other job and now you're focusing, like wholly on Dev Slopes, right?

Mark Price 29:07
Yeah, that's right. We that's that's that's all we do every single day we got eight people now would, which is super awesome. And again, they're they're all former students with their various backgrounds and skills and every day this is this is what we do helping students helping them change lives get jobs, and it's very, it's very, like super interactive hands on like we talk to our students and community members every single day there's we have chat rooms, we this, we're just completely injected in in learning to code and helping people helping people learn to code at a very personal level.

Laurence Bradford 29:41
So I'm interested in you said before, there's like 200,000 people on Dev Slopes.

Unknown Speaker 29:47
Yeah, so we have 200,000 students between Udemy and Dev Slopes. Yeah.

Laurence Bradford 29:53
Okay. So on. I think maybe I'm not super fond with the community aspect on Udemy so on Dev Slopes as far as managing community of that size, and even if it's, you know, less than that, and Dev Slopes regardless how, like, how do you handle that? Because I have a Facebook group that has, I believe, like, 14,000 people right now. And that's hard for me to handle. So, wondering how you can, like, what are some tips if you don't mind for managing so many learners?

Mark Price 30:22
Yeah. So you know, what's interesting? So, I remember in the beginning on Udemy, you know, they had some discussion forums where you would post a question, and people would demand an answer. And they would demand they would demand an answer, because that's the way the format was, and I was like, This isn't gonna work. And what about when I'm sleeping? You know, like, what am I gonna do? And so like, right from the beginning, I was like, I gotta have a community and so I created a chatroom on Discord. And it just grew. I mean, we probably had, like, 100,000 students in at any given time up to this point, and, and it started getting busy, right, and you'd have you have the spammers and other people and people who needed help and the first thing I tried was, you know, bringing on teachers aides, people who, you know, had either completed courses and progressed and they would help out other students. Right. But then what was still happening was it was still the notion of I posting an answer question and I demand an answer. And, you know, I'm like, that's not really community that we want to we want to promote it. And so eventually, I did away with all that and I basically came out and just made it known that you know, there is no help here. This is not a place where where you can expect help. This is the place where you come to get help you interact with their students, you network, you help them they help you.

Mark Price 31:34
So it's a community now it's a community where people are helping each other. And once I set that standard, you know what the stress is mostly went away of people like demanding and being frustrated, or people getting in arguments and stuff. Because now like everyone is very community focused. And so like when someone comes in and starts trashing, like dev slopes or a community, you know, sometimes people, people, some of the more old school computer science fellows out there, you know, they're still a little angry at this. whole, you know, code movement and you know, they don't call me names they'll say, you know, Mark price and his team of programmers, you know, and you know, this stuff like that. And so when people come in the chat room like that, it's crazy because not like the the community's like guys, DevOps changed my life, you need to knock it off, like I have a job now, as a dev, so anything you say here doesn't matter. And so anyway, that kind of energy has now been like injected into the into the community. And it's now become like self self perpetuating. We have some mods who like, make sure there's no you know, swearing and things like that. And we ban people from time to time and do very bad things. But as of right now, it's it's kind of managing itself because of that community aspect.

Laurence Bradford 32:37
Ah, that's awesome. So you so like the moderators are former students or existing students that were like active really active or something?

Mark Price 32:44
Yes. We call them super fans. But the former students who have just done gone on to do great amazing things. And because we're so you know, we're so engaged with the community like you can't if you go to like another Corporation, like someone that one of the big learn to code schools out there that have millions of dollars or whatever, you know, you're not, you know, let's say they changed your life you have no way of giving back right you're done you know there's there's nothing you can do that does slopes like, I just got a job this is amazing well now they're still learning they're back with the community with the same people they were just interacting with before they you know, before they got that job and so now they're super motivated to help people and change their lives and like the education is perpetuating it just people want to give back. And so all the time people come to us, hey, I want to be part of this, I want to be a moderator I want to do anything I can to be a part of this and and then we do things for them, you know, if they help people that will help will help write recommendations on LinkedIn, you know, will will help them as well too. And this is kind of how it's worked. Nothing overly formal, but it's been working so far.

Laurence Bradford 33:43
Nice. Well, I have to take some of those tips and apply it to my own. It's I mean, it's it's quite different. It's it's serving a different purpose. It's not associated with courses or anything, but it's all really good advice. Thank you for sharing. And speaking of advice, I'm sure you have a ton that you can give to beginners. Learning how to code. But what are some basic things that you could suggest to someone who's just starting out and just taking this first step and teaching themselves?

Mark Price 34:09
The first thing I get? This is the number one question of course, we get asked. So the first thing is, number one, don't ever, ever compare yourself to other developers. Someone is always going to be better than you and someone is always going to be faster than you. That's that's not what you need to focus on. You need to focus on on you. And the reason for that is companies, startups, people who hire people who are willing to pay money for developers, they're not looking for the absolute best developer in the world. They're looking for you. So if you focus on you, that's the most important thing is they focus on other people you will, you will get discouraged. Number two is learn every day, but code every day too many students spend too much time researching and watching researching and watching but never executing you know, so you gotta you got to learn every day whether that's reading tutorials or or watching A video or, you know, studying programming reference guides. But then you also have to do the hands on thing until your fingers are touching the keyboard, you haven't, you haven't really done anything, in my opinion. And one more thing. Number three is, you've got to, you've got to create a project, okay, you've got to find something that that you can be passionate about. And if you don't have ideas, you just pick a project you pick, you pick something like on the App Store, I'm gonna build an Uber clone or something like that. And what you do is, you know, you do your learning and coding, but then you also work on your project. And when you work on a project, you do whatever it takes to figure out how to solve the problem. That's how I learned that's how that's how the people learn the fastest is when they have a problem to solve. And they need to figure out how to solve that particular problem. Because if you're just following a tutorial, it's only going to retain so much so you got to find a project and be working on it throughout your learning process. So you can solve problems on your own. And that's when the that's one of the things to retain. So those are the top three things that you should tell people.

Laurence Bradford 35:57
Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing. And thank you again, Mark. coming on the show.

Mark Price 36:01
Yeah. And this is great. This is this is this is good stuff. Really good stuff.

Laurence Bradford 36:04
Yeah, I really loved everything you share. And finally, where can people find you online?

Mark Price 36:10
Yeah. So you can of course, email me at marketdevslopes.com. I'm super open for advice and things like that. But devslopes.com we have a we've integrated intercom chat systems. And so you can actually get a hold of any one of our team members at any given time of the day. We try to be there 24/7 and you can literally chat with us real time and we'll help you out point in the right direction career advice, where to get started. Everything in between just dev slopes calm and just you can reach out there.

Laurence Bradford 36:35
Awesome. Thank you.

Mark Price 36:36
Yeah.

Laurence Bradford 36:43
I hope you enjoyed our conversation. The Show Notes for this episode can be found at learn to code with.me forward slash podcast. If you're listening to this episode in the future, simply click the Search icon in the upper navigation and type in Mark's name, which is more Mark Price. If you liked what Mark had to say you might want to check out Dev Slopes or his top selling Udemy course iOS 11 and Swift 4: From Beginner to Paid Professional. You could find Dev Slopes at learntocodewith.me/dev slopes, and his course at learntocodewith.me/udemyios11. Thank you so much for tuning in to the first episode of Season 4. I'll be back with another episode next week. See you then.