Welcome to the first email! Thanks for signing up.
I am looking forward to starting this journey. To be completely honest, I’m quite new to this and I’ll start with a flexible format. It most likely won’t be a weekly email or a monthly email, it’ll be a “whenever it’s ready” email. Mainly because I work best whenever I feel creative.
#Who am I?
I am Franck-Stephane, a recent 2020 Computer Science Graduate (2020). I am the co-founder and CTO of a Fintech startup for influencers called XPO App and I am the founder of a digital agency called semicolomn.io. Both of these ventures are relatively new so I am very grateful for the way these are going for me.
#Why am I starting this newsletter?
I am currently in the process of starting a youtube channel where I’ll go into much more depth and cover various topics. I’d like to use this newsletter to add extra information and resources hence, complement these videos.
I also receive plenty of similar questions on my Twitter and Instagram regarding my path to software development and entrepreneurship. I will also use this newsletter to drop in any relevant tip and advice I may have regarding these industries.
I don’t plan to write a generic “How to get into software development” type of post as a quick google search should do the job. I will mostly share my own experiences.
For context, XPO is currently valued at over £2m after our pre-seed round and Semicolomn recently reached a Monthly Recurring Revenue of £10k in less than a year. I don’t claim to be a genius or particularly smart, but I think that when you mix technology, design, creativity and business
Here is an interesting article on XPOAPP from last year.
#A few things I’ve learned since starting my journey.
Mix creativity and business
A lot of people are afraid of mixing the two but I think it’s probably the most important thing you can do. Why not turn something you love doing into a business, you’d be silly not to. At the same time, reinvest the money to enhance your creativity wherever possible. A lot of my money from Semicolomn is reinvested into the business and my (future) Youtube Channel. The aim for me is to be as creative as possible and produce high-quality content.
Learn the basics
Many people I meet always struggle to start as they want to learn the latest technologies straight away and build the most complex apps. It is very easy to fall into that trap (I certainly did). I would suggest focusing on the basics. Make sure you understand the fundamentals. This will be very useful when you encounter bugs or even when you go to a tech networking event.
Network like a thirsty dog
If it wasn’t for me doing all the networking events in London from 2016 - 2019, I probably would not be anywhere close to where I am. Here is a famous quote;
It’s not what you know, it’s who you know
Although there obviously are some caveats to that, it is very true. Network like your life depends on it. What’s better than networking at a local scale? network at a global scale. Use Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Clubhouse and TikTok. Show you work, share your successes and your failures. You will be grateful for what comes to you after being consistent.
#Some cool stuff
Random this worth sharing
codecademy.com - Excellent website to get into software development. Very user friendly and covers a wide variety of programming languages.
designcode.io - This is how I started building beautiful apps. Meng’s courses are great to build beautiful animations and interactions.
ui8.net - Great website to find inspiration for your next project. They’ve got very nice templates to use as a start
##Up next?
On my next email, I will share how I got my first client, which then led to the creation of semicolomn.
Feedback and Suggestions?
Please feel free to send any suggestions. I’m always looking for new topics to cover and I want to answer your most popular questions.