How to Become a Street Smart Developer – From Dropout to Selling his Company w/ Dennis Ivy [#144]

Post Content

On this week’s episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Dennis Ivy, a software engineer and prolific freelancer. He dropped out of college at 18 and taught himself how to build websites. He started his first agency, built and sold products, and eventually started teaching his skills on YouTube.

We talk about:

– Growing up in an immigrant family of 13 kids
– Dropping out of school and working construction before learning to code
– Figuring out how to get web development clients through trial and error
– Selling his codebase to his employer $61,000 and using it to fund his journey into teaching Python

Can you guess what song I’m playing on my bass during the intro? It’s from a

Also, I want to thank the 10,443 kind people who support our charity each month, and who make this podcast possible. You can join them and support our mission at: https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate

Or You can listen to the podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Be sure to follow the freeCodeCamp Podcast there so you’ll get new episodes each Friday.

Links we talk about during our conversation:

– The Bussard Ramjet theoretical spacecraft Quincy mentions as an analogy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard_ramjet

– Dennis Ivy’s React + Appwrite course on freeCodeCamp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-a-sticky-notes-app-with-react-and-appwrite/

– Dennis Ivy’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/dennisivy

– Dennis Ivy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dennisivy11

Chapters
0:00:00 Introduction and Background
0:06:00 Dropping Out of College and Starting a Locksmith Business
0:13:04 Accidental Client and Transition to Web Development Services
0:18:12 Using Google AdWords and SEO to Scale the Business
0:24:07 The Importance of Website Design and Optimization
0:27:22 Freelancing and Scaling Up the Business
0:29:53 Evolution to Better Website Builders
0:36:29 Creating a Culture of Learning and Collaboration
0:39:13 Scaling Up and Founder Issues
0:43:45 Transitioning from Freelancer to Employee
0:48:04 Building a Revolutionary Software System
0:49:53 Negotiating Ownership and Selling the Software
0:54:41 The Importance of Comprehensive Records and Legal Agreements
0:57:08 Opportunities in Lagging Industries
0:59:38 Technology as a Means to an End
1:05:10 Teaching and Creating Courses
1:08:39 The Importance of SEO Research
1:12:09 Efficiency and Scalability
1:14:11 Utilizing Tools and Resources
1:21:47 Finding Clients and Improving Search Engine Rankings
1:26:08 Networking and Building Relationships
1:30:54 Personal Accountability and Problem-Solving in Coding
1:34:59 Teaching Coding: Empowering Others
1:38:40 Family Security and Support Read More freeCodeCamp.org