Engineering

If your income can flow from any place on the globe, and you can earn your money on the Internet, the question for individuals and startup teams alike increasingly is: where do I go? In the tech industry the answer more often than not has been Silicon Valley. For many people and companies that is still true, says Sten Tamkivi, CEO and co-founder of Teleport.org, but it’s not a simple binary answer any more. “It’s more a question of when, and how often do you spend time in Silicon Valley?” he says. And of course, why?

Quality, cost, and opportunity, those are the key elements to consider when deciding where in the world you want to be when you are starting a career -- and starting a company. In this segment of the pod, Tamkivi relates his own experience as an executive at Skype, and how he thought about its global workforce and what made it work so well. He also describes what he’s learned from starting his own far-flung company Teleport.org, which is in the business of helping people decide where in the world the best place for their career and company is. 

a16z Podcast: Software and Overcoming the Randomness of Birthplace

Albrey Brown, is a Berkeley native who does not take ‘No’ for an answer. He was rejected on his first attempt to becoming a Hack Reactor graduate and went on to become a founder of Telegraph Academy. Most importantly, he found a love for teaching and is an educator that has completely changed the career trajectories for hundreds of students. Although he never graduated from college, he always knew that he was going to be a teacher. He grew up in a single family home where his mom raised him to become the man who he is today.

Key Points:
1. When you’re learning a new skill, it’s good to have resources (see below), but try to find someone to double check if you’re doing the steps “correctly”

2. Bootcamps need to be more accessible and there are resources like Telegraph Prep and Climb that are working to democratize this form of education

3. You’re always going to find another bug (another hill to climb, a new thing to conquer) so don’t be afraid of that. Take risks.

4. Mentorship comes through various channels. If someone invests time into helping you, the best thing that you can do is succeed.

SHOW NOTES (FOCUS ON THE  STEPPING STONES):
[1:12] – Albrey grew up in Berkeley, CA in a single family home with his mother and his aunt. He had no idea of what a startup was.

[3:15] Albrey’s mother got diagnosed with Cancer during his sophomore year and he took a couple of years off after he graduated high school (never graduated college)

 [5:32] Beginner Resources – What resources did you use to learn how to code? First, a mentor. Then, he started with The Odin Project and Learn Ruby the Hard Way

[6:35] What was your motivation to learning how to code?

[10:47] What led you to choose Hack Reactor instead of all the other bootcamps?

[11:52] How did you do with Hack Reactor’s Interview Process?

[15:10] Don’t let money stop you from acquiring a new skill – How did you pay for your tuition ($18,000)? When he passed his interview and got accepted into Hack Reactor he needed to figure out how to pay tuition. He had no more money and used a crowdfunding platform called GoFundMe to raise $18,000 in 30 days

[18:19] Tell us more about the Bootcamp Model as a new model for education

[19:06] What makes Telegraph Academy different from all of the other Bootcamps?

 [21:40] Take a Bootcamp Preparation Program if you are starting from scratch and need someone to guide you  

[22:22] What financing packages are available at Telegraph Academy? 

[24:58] What are some of the outcomes for Telegraph Academy?

[26:17] What do the demographics look like at Telegraph Academy? 

[29:00] How did you put this all together? He is a big advocate of taking the road less traveled. 

[30:40] What do you have planned for the future? Thoughts on education in general? 

[33:37] The Lightning Round
1. How would you get back to this point in your career if you were dropped into a new city with only $100? (assuming your food and shelter is taken care of)

Albrey: Become a Lyft or Uber Driver to get a car (here’s the Uber option), make money, learn about your city, and meet people

2. When you ran into roadblocks or struggles, was there any piece of music or a movie that you watched that helped you get over that situation?

Albrey: Always Be Closing by Glengarry Glen Ross

3. Looking back, what is one piece of advice that you would give to someone now that you’ve been through this journey?

Albrey: The best resource that you can have is a mentor

4. Have you been able to speak with anyone that Sponsored your GoFundMe now that you have executed on your promise to start a school?
Yes; His cousin Brian Tippens, who never told him what he did when he originally contributed. Now that Albrey reconnected with him after the launch of Telegraph Academy, he just realized Brian is the Head of Diversity

#1: Albrey Brown - Self-taught Engineer who founded Telegraph Academy to teach people how to code.

Emily Racioppi is an artist at heart. After talking to her dad, she realized that in order to be a successful artist you need to be your own brand so she followed his footsteps to become an Account Representative in the Sales Department at Cisco WebEx. Prior to that she was a representative at an infrastructure startup called Instart Logic. On this episode she talks about the different roles in sales, the interview process, salaries, the importance of on target earnings, metrics, and more!

Key Points:
1. When you’re in sales, you’ve got to be confident and competitive. Startups are pickier in terms of hiring people so there is no room for slacking.

2. In sales, you have to be a team player. There are times when you close deals on your own but there may also be other times that you need to work with different people such as engineers to get those deals done.

3. If you’re considering breaking into a sales role at a startup, do enough research about the company, their product, and their competitors. Ask questions about your role and how quickly that role progresses within the company.

4. As an inside sales representative, you have to be a closer. Take all the knowledge you have with you as a sales development rep, learn how to manage your time, and be able to qualify your deals.

SHOW NOTES (FOCUS ON THE  STEPPING STONES):

[1:05]  Growing up in Santa Cruz, California, Emily knew she wanted to come in the Bay Area due to its proximity to her family. She also draws major inspiration from her dad.

[2:04]  Being more artistic most of her life growing up and her dream of becoming a curator in The Louvre in France.

[2:51] The power of asking questions 

[4:13]  Emily shared her struggles of doing door-to-door sales and what she learned from them.

[6:19]  Factors for choosing the jobs she applied for: Location + Opportunities

[6:48] How to handle interview questions 

[7:48]  Qualities of a good candidate 

[9:04]  Emily’s advice on how to break in 

[9:42] Getting promoted from a sales development rep to an inside sales role

[11:37] What motivated Emily to switch over to a smaller company

[13:55] How Emily prepared for her interview process at the startup company

[15:37] How Emily dealt with frustrations and turning them into best practices

[17:34]  Crafting your pitch 

[19:36] Tonality is key

[22:45]  How to handle the interview process at a startup 

[24:25]  Resources to help you get ready for these types of interviews 

[25:01]  Knowledge is Power

[26:28]  How the salary/commission scheme works at a startup versus a corporate environment (On Target Earnings of $40-$60k for beginning sales role)

[30:47]  Key questions to ask as you try to break into a sales role 

[32:17]  What metrics are you evaluated on

[33:37] The next steps as you get promoted from a sales development rep (SDR) to an inside sales rep: Knowledge application, time management, qualifying deals, asking for help

[35:10] Emily’s plans for the future

[39:14] The Lightning Round

1. Imagine if you had to start over again and you had a $100. You get dropped in a completely new city, what would you do and where would you start?

2. Was there any music or movies or blogs that you read or someone that you talked to that you inspired to get through that frustration?

3. What is the one advice that you would give our listeners?

4. What is one thing that you fundamentally believed in that you changed your mind on after this process?

5. But is there any books that you’d be like, this is the best sales book I’ve ever read?

#2: Emily Racioppi - Sales Account Executive compares sales in startups vs. corporate

An East Coast native, Richard Purcell travelled cross country and courageously took the risk of taking an entry level job even though he was overqualified because it meant a chance to break into tech. Through persistence and overcoming objections, he landed his first tech sales job in Palo Alto at Medallia Inc. Currently, he serves as the Sales Director at Performance Horizon. 

Having a multi ethnic background gives Richard an interesting perspective on race and privilege. He firmly believes that talent is universal and opportunity is not. That’s why he co-founded Medallia Medley to help give access to opportunity to underrepresented talent.

#11: Richard Purcell - Sales Director who worked his way up from an entry level role

Shawn Drost is the Co-Founder of Hack Reactor, a coding bootcamp founded in 2012 along with his college friends Tony Phillips, Marcus Phillips, and Douglas Calhoun with the primary motive to set people up for success as software engineers. 

They envision themselves transforming higher education to be more transparent, accessible and outcomes-driven. 

Hack Reactor’s community involvement is remarkable as they continue to offer curriculum, volunteer support and training to their nonprofit partners in their conscious effort to bridge the gap between underserved communities and the tech industry.

#12: Shawn Drost - Founder of Hack Reactor

With a huge appreciation for writing and journalism, Elaina Koros majored in Government and English Studies while attending Georgetown University. Today, Elaina works as a Content Strategist at Facebook. During this chat, Elaina discusses the importance of building relationships and having mentors which helped her tremendously in getting an internship that eventually led to a full-time offer.

#13: Elaina Koros - Content Strategist who hustled her way into Facebook

After excelling at Goldman Sachs and top venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Preethi Kasireddy decided she wanted to leave “the best job in the world” to become a software engineer. 

In her blog post called Why I Left the Best Job in the World, she talks about why she left VC to join Hack Reactor in order to learn how to code. In this episode Preethi shares what motivated her to leave finance for tech, her incredible work ethic, her 5 am workout schedule, and the lessons she learned on her journey to becoming a software engineer.

#18: Preethi Kasireddy - How Investment Banker & a VC quit her job to became a Software Engineer

Rodney Urquhart grew up in a North Philly neighborhood ridden with gang violence and effects of the crack epidemic. After seeing people around him get involved with gangs and crime, he realized that staying in high school would result in getting arrested or shot. 

At 16, Rodney dropped out of high school and moved in with his grand mother. Being a high school dropout and having no college degree, Rodney had his fair share of companies casting doubt on his ability. But his willingness to learn and work well with others was what got him to create an impressive company portfolio including Comcast, Microsoft’s Yammer, and ThoughtWorks. He didn’t just want to survive, he wanted to thrive. 

Rodney currently heads the test infrastructure team at Slack. He is also part of a program called /dev/color, a non-profit organization that aims to maximize the impact of Black software engineers in the tech space.

#28: Rodney Urquhart - How a 16-year-old High School Dropout became a Software Engineer at Slack

For Michael Jay Walker, his career was more likely driven by the motivation to do what people thought he couldn't do, fearlessly working his way up the marketing ladder until a decision to take a passionate leap into the tech space. 

Michael got his MBA at Ross School of Business and took on executive marketing roles for large corporations such as Ford Motor Company, Kraft Foods, PepsiCo, EA, and Mattel.  

25 years later, he went out to co-found a mobile app startup and served as a Chief Marketing Officer and Operations Officer at a few other tech companies. He then decided to learn how to code at Dev Bootcamp until he was later asked to join the team as a Chief Academic Officer and Campus Director in San Francisco.

#34: Michael J Walker - How a Marketing Exec Became an Engineer at 51 Years Old

Realizing the need for a more rigorous and accelerated curriculum for software engineers, Nimit Maru founded Fullstack Academy. He also founded its sister school, the Grace Hopper Program, which is the world's first tuition-deferred coding academy for women. 

Prior to Fullstack Academy, Nimit and his co-founder, David Yang, graduated from Y Combinator. He also worked as a software engineer at Yahoo! and got his business degree from Wharton. Aside from seeing how the tech scene in the Bay Area and in New York differ from each other, Nimit has also seen how much coding bootcamps have gained credibility and recognition (especially among large tech companies) over the years.

#38: Nimit Maru - Founder of Fullstack Academy & Grace Hopper

The Breaking Into Startups Podcast is a platform where we feature stories of people who broke into tech from non-traditional backgrounds. Curious about how startups work, how to get a job without a degree or what technical and non-technical careers are out there? We have news for you - tech fields are booming and you don’t need the best technical degree in information technology to break in and get a six figure job in technology. 

Our podcast gives you an inside look at the most disruptive startups by sharing success stories of people from all walks of life, including college drop outs, professional and student athletes, army veterans, teen parents, corporate folks, investment bankers, consultants, venture capitalists who acquired new skills and found jobs in technology. 

Our guests attended coding bootcamps and immersive programs like Hack Reactor, App Academy, General Assembly, Dev Bootcamp, Flatiron School, Iron Yard, Tradecraft and more. After graduating they found well paying jobs in big time startups focusing on education, medicine, financial services, healthcare, AI, machine learning, automation, sharing economy and more. If you listen to 500 Startups, Learn to Code With Me, Twenty Minute VC, This Week In Startups, Startup Radio, Startup Podcast, The Tim Ferris show, Startup School Radio, Course Report or other tech stuff news, then this podcast is for you my friend.

#38: Nimit Maru - Founder of Fullstack Academy & Grace Hopper

Breaking Into Startups

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