I want to tutor programming remotely. My goal is to get my first paid client by 13/04/2020

Hello WF

Background

I have been going round in circles trying to figure out a suitable "SaaS" or digital product idea. I have been looking at more of the startup-like material on this, looking at product, distribution, pricing, what problem am I solving, who will buy, do they care, what is the MVP etc.

I have learned a lot of amazingly useful ideas around testing if my idea sucks.

The problem is that I have got fed up reading and thinking and trying to find the nebulous 'idea' that doesn't suck. Fed up, I have seen what I am missing, and I have decided to do something that will put me in closer contact to people with problems that I can solve first.

The Goal

The goal is to tutor people online on programming. Since I have been programming way way too long, this should be something I can help people with! I haven't definitely decided the sub-niche yet but I am leaning towards helping with Javascript and React. There are a lot of people these days looking to learn those topics and are struggling digesting course material from online courses.

To do this I am going to:

* Create a site with a home page that presents the offer.
* Create useful, insightful blog posts that demonstrate my knowledge, and gently nudge people to the home page to see what I offer.
* Promote those blog posts in channels where learning programmers hang out.
* Offer services direct in forums that allow "for hire" type threads.
* Do what i am dong now! Talk about it in a number of places where I can give updates, and if people want to be tutored they can PM me on those places and I will probably offer discounts to these kinds of communities. (Hint Hint!)
* Read up on tutoring best practices. I have helped people at work learn stuff, but not formally tutored someone.

Timeline

I have given myself a generous timeline of 1 month to:

• Complete the tasks above
• Get a paid customer

This might not sound too ambitious! So why is the goal so small?

As someone who does Scrum at work I believe in making unpredictable goals not to stretching, so that you can complete what you commit to. I think psychologically this is better than setting up unrealistic goals.

By contrast setting a goal of getting to $10k side income a month in 4 weeks would just feel silly. And if I were setting a programming goal I'd be more ambitious because I am much more experienced in that field than marketing and copy-writing.

Thanks for reading!