How I can help you
What follows is a mix of simpler and more difficult things you can ask me about for advice. This is not a list of services.
Table of Contents
- Software Engineering
- College Admissions Consulting
- Consulting
- Writing
- Sales
- Marketing
- Food
- Self Care
- Other
Software Engineering
- Understanding callbacks
- Understanding how to avoid callback hell by using named functions, and async.parallel/series for the rest of the cases.
- Learning what constitutes idiomatic node code (modularity, good abstraction, etc. Best learned via code review)
- Advising you on what modules to use so you get work done faster by using other people's code
- Coding conventions that will help you avoid errors such as uncalled callbacks
- Setting up / trying out browserify
- Setting up / trying out stylus
- As an inactive contributor to
mranney/node_redis
, if you have any questions it's likely that I can help (can tell you about distributed systems, what redis is good for, what the other nosql's are good for, and am slightly familiar with thenode_redis
codebase) - Learn to use git like it's easy — rebase, manage branches, take pull requests quickly, use git's reflog to undo a git command that went wild and screwed up all your work
- How to break into software engineering if you just learned to code
- How to run a software engineering intern program
- Good ways to recruit at Brown, both officially and unofficially
- How to value equity (hint: 0)
- How to figure out if a startup is good to work for
- How to negotiate your salary
- How all money is made on the internet
- How to learn to code
- How to make a two-sided marketplace with Paypal API
- How to use the Google Calendar and Youtube API from node
- How to choose colors for your site if you suck at color
- How to use a pull request checklist to increase the quality of your code
- How to use a deploy checklist for less risky deploys
- Whether you should read...
- Open Book Management
- Microsoft's academic papers about A/B testing
College Admissions Consulting
- How to get more students
- How to schedule workshops at local high-schools
- How to get a Yelp review taken down in under 12 hours if you're lucky
Consulting
- How to write a proposal
- How to ask for referrals (and when)
- How to get an amazing testimonial
- How to get your first client(s)
- How to get paid from day 1
- How to raise your rates
- How to organize and run your sales process
- How to choose a niche
- How to research a new service offering
- How to convince your clients that a roadmapping session is an important first step prior to custom engineering work
- How to work to work your best with a designer
- How to test your value prop with content marketing using "the problem post." also helps you do customer development
- How to do respectful professional intros
- How to give a good handshake
- How payment before starting work helps both you and the client be more successful
- Whether you should read...
- Managing the Professional Service Firm
- Book Yourself Solid
- How to Measure Anything
- Inc Yourself
Writing
- How to write great cold emails to drive calls with buyer/decider
- How to write a sales page
- How to write your resume
- How to write to your value and outcomes, not simply your action and movement
Sales
- How to do outbound sales with cold emails in a way that works
- Puppy dog sales technique (don't feel salesy on the call, yet still make a sale eventually if it makes sense)
- How to design a sales page by stealing from a massive list of examples
- How many times to follow up
- How to keep track of your prospects
- How to get anyone's email
- Whether you should read...
- Predictable Revenue
- Pricing with Confidence
- Barking up a Dead Horse
- How to Ask for the Moon and Get it
Marketing
- How to choose a good name
- How to position yourself in the space of alternatives to your product or service
- How to use drip campaigns
- How to get 17% more conversion on your AdWords with lots of effort
- How to improve your SEO
- Whether you should read...
- The Brain Audit
- The Positioning Manual for Technical Firms
- My Life in Advertising
- Positioning
Food
- How to make amazing steak
- How to make arepas
- How to take care of your chef's knife
- How to take care of your cast iron pan
Self Care
- How to get work done with a sense of accomplishment and eliminate multitasking by organizing yourself with a Kanban board
- How to give yourself a second brain with notational.net
- How to fix your hands if you coded too much
- Who to talk to for style advice
- How to know if you are getting mildly depressed
- How to know if you are sleeping enough
- How to know if you are drinking enough water
- How to decide what kind of lifestyle you want and work back from there to decide what you want to do with your life
- How to actually work out: join a class and make friends
- How to easily swallow vitamins
- How to not get razor burn, not cut yourself, and get a way better shave with a safety razor and proper technique
- How to not get cavities: no sugar/carbs
- Whether you should read...
- The Trigger Point Workbook
- Body by Science
Other
- How to buy a road bike
- What you should do to get your kid into Brown (where I went)
- How to not hate noisy parties
- How divorce is not so bad for your kids
- Whether you should read...
- How to Ask for the Moon and Get it
- How to Win Friends and Influence People
- The Black Swan
- Learned Optimism
- Fooled by Randomness
Send me an email about any of these, I'd be happy to discuss it with you.
Sincerely,
David Trejo