When I was in my final year of university, I decided to start applying for jobs in the software development space.
I prepared my CV and began sending it out to companies. In those days, there was no such thing as LinkedIn, so all you had was your CV.
Unfortunately, the answer that I got back from all the companies I had applied to, was almost the same: “Unfortunately, you do not have enough experience for this position.”
Most wanted two years’ experience, minimum.
One day, in frustration, I asked one of the recruiters, “Where do you expect me to get experience from, if I don’t have a job?”
I explained to him that I was still in university, and could not get any experience without a job. Because that’s the place where you get experience, right?
The guy just shrugged his shoulders. It was pointless.
I hated this vicious cycle that I was caught up in – what I call the “vicious unemployment cycle”.
I couldn’t get a job because I didn’t have experience, and I couldn’t get experience because I didn’t have a job.
As much as I hated it, there was no way I would let that stop me, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I began reaching out to computer programmers for advice, and finally got in touch with a guy who I had known from my school days, who became a top-notch computer programmer.
He was happy to help. I took his advice on the matter, and he gave me some valuable guidelines as to what should be my course of action, and what skills I should learn, in order to get a job in the software development space.
He strongly suggested that I learn those skills, and to demonstrate them by building actual software projects of my own. Dummy projects. I jumped to it without haste. I bought tons of books and started to teach myself those skills.
In the meantime, I had to keep my family going. I was married with three kids time, and I had to keep the wheels turning. So, I took up teaching part-time.
In my spare time I applied myself diligently to learning the required software development skills. It was tough, but I kept my motivation up by looking at software development job postings, and paying particular attention to the salaries they offered.
Don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t doing this just for the money. I was truly passionate about computer programming – I’d been doing it since 10 years old – and I would have done it for free if I didn’t have to work for a living.
When I had built up some skills, I offered my services pro bono to a non-profit organization. I offered to build and maintain a website for them, to which they gladly agreed. I got to it with all the passion I had.
It was a very important project for me, because in building that website, it gave me a real-world pet project to work on – a place where I could apply the skills that I was learning from the books. That was so much better than a dummy project.
But more importantly, there were two other benefits: one, the website would become my portfolio piece, which I would reference on CV; and secondly, I would be able to get a recommendation from the non-profit.
The website turned out beautifully, and exceeded my expectations. To show their appreciation for my work, the non-profit began to pay me a monthly stipend for my work, which was an unexpected blessing – things were tight. Better still, that website is what finally landed me my first interview.
That was all it took. I aced the interview, and got my dream job in the software development space, and my life was never the same since then.
By my unpleasant experience with the “vicious unemployment cycle” left me very, very bitter. I could not stop thinking about the millions of people out there who experience the same unpleasant thing.
I knew there was a solution. I couldn’t stop thinking about it – how can I help people to break that vicious cycle by giving them the experience without a job? How can I transfer my skills to others?
I decided to open up a little school in my backyard, where I would teach people the skills that they would need to get into jobs – a finishing school of sorts.
I would take people with degrees in computer science, and then I would teach them practical skills to secure a job.
I worked for a few weeks researching and putting together a curriculum. I borrowed R25k from my dad, and fitted out our granny flat with computers and desks.
Finally, I put out an advert in the local papers. I was quite sure no one would come.
But people came. Dozens of people came. I was busy every evening, and on Saturday mornings too. My little business took off almost overnight!
Eventually, I was making more money in my backyard coding school than I was at work. Added to that, I found the pressure of working full time and running the school was a bit too much, and it was becoming difficult to juggle the two. I had to make an important decision.
Decision I made was the right one: I left my full-time job to focus full time on my business.
My little business was on its way.
With more time on my hands, I was able to offer more classes, attract more clients, and to basically grow my business. Eventually, I started to get more and more people who were school leavers, people who didn’t have degrees, requesting that I teach them because my fame and popularity started to grow.
While that was great, it posed a new challenge, because to accommodate school leavers, my school needed to accredited by the South African Qualifications Authority as an institute.
As long as I had people with qualifications, I didn’t have to worry about accreditation because they already had the piece of paper. But this new market wanted that piece of paper, in addition to the skills and the job readiness. And so, I got my business accredited, and I named it IT varsity. With a lower case “v”.
IT varsity grew and grew and grew, and it became a success. And today, when I look back at all the decisions that I made, all the right moves that I made to get to this point where I am, I feel very grateful. I feel grateful because I am doing what I love to do. I look forward to coming to work every day. I look forward to working with the people in my team.
And most importantly, I sense a deep feeling of gratification when I see my students graduating and going out and getting jobs or starting businesses.
And so, when you analyse my business in the light of the 6 Power Skills – and I’m going to leave this for you to do – you can see that in the story that I told you, that there were not one but at least three cycles of going through the six skills.
Remember, the 6 skills is cyclic. It is not one and done. It is not something you do once and all the problems are solved. It’s something that you go through around and around with each iteration of the problem, with each new problem that emerges, and you solve those problems.
I went through that cycle many times, for example, when I was trying to get my first job; then, when I tried to solve the problem of this vicious unemployment cycle; then when I was setting up my business; and then, when my business started to grow and we started to attract school leavers.
So that, my friends, is my story, and how I used the 6 Power Skills to make a success of my business. I wish I had this book back then.