My javascript consulting experience (React / Redux)

Good day everyone. In March-April, it will be two years since I published small text books on React in Russian. Textbooks without water came out at a good time, and I received many visits, downloads, and “readers,” also known as different ip addresses.

Books plunged me into consulting in Russian. I would like to express my thoughts on this and hear your comments (both from those who advise and from those who seek help). I hope for someone this article will be the catalyst of the "help others and make money" reaction.

Too long, I will not read (tldr)

For 2 years I wrote 64 people. I spent about 300 hours of advising at a rate of 1300-1900 rubles per hour, plus I worked a lot of hours in outsourcing. I switched to a remote work format, continue to work on a new textbook.

Start

After the publication of books, people reached out to me with questions about their projects. To systematize this process, I added an announcement in each of the three books that I was engaged in consultations, reviews and interviews. He set a price tag of 1300 rubles per hour (the price regulator was the average price list of a tutor in Moscow).

What is 1300 rubles per hour? Not so little money for beginners. Therefore, all beginners read the tutorial for free. What can not be said about developers with a good income, who, apparently, was just waiting for the opportunity to consult with someone, sometimes anonymously.

The results of the stormy activities of the consultant are:

• raising the price tag to 1600 rubles per hour, and then to 1900, in order to reduce the number of applicants [1];
• love of consultation [2].

[1] - in fact, in dollars it is only ± $ 35 (if you take 1900), which is nice, but does not agree with the rates that top developers with upwork blow about. Anyway, this is not the most expensive hour of services, judging by Moscow. However, this is a serious price for the regions.

[2] - when I constantly heard people shouting: "Dude, I couldn’t solve this problem for 2 days, and we figured out an hour," then I just went to codementor.io with the question "how to get a library call" ( there was a problem with the uuid.v4 () generation from the node-uuid package). Several people responded, I chose the first one, and we solved the problem in 20 minutes, for which I paid $ 40. Twenty minutes! Hell, yes, I spent almost 2 days with this "mock" ... As a result, for myself, I clearly understood the savings.

He also noted the approach of the consultant: when he failed to solve the problem on the move with the help of his first strategy, he stopped the timer, together with me googled, came up with a solution, turned on the timer and finished off. The method was adopted by me.

I warmly recommend codementor.io (here you can see a list of mentors for JS Russian speakers).

I myself do not give advice on codementor.io, since the platform takes a part of the revenue itself, but I have enough current advice not to look for new ones.

Counseling problems in general:

• size of the Russian-speaking community. There are few valuable teachers, and the number of people willing to get help is large, but there are fewer of them than those who are ready to hear a speech in English;
• 1300 rubles per hour is the limit for many [3];
• We do not know the basics - we climb in React [4].

[3] - I don’t have data on how many applications there would be if I offered consultations with a lower price tag, but when switching to the 1600 and 1900 rubles per hour I lost about 30% of those who wanted to and eventually came to my schedule. I just want to add that I did not have time to help all people who were willing to pay 1,300 rubles! Now there are much more materials / courses, but the number of applicants has increased.

[4] - Everyone is familiar, is not it? Yes, and why bother, I myself actively used jQuery plugins in my time, although I could not say what the object method is and what is its property. Most of us didn’t study properly! I also try to fix this moment in the consultations: I send people to the documentation, make me read the basics on endlessly respected learn.javascript.ru.

Why are few good consultants

• I do not want to teach anyone, I like to write code.
• I want to learn, but consultations in Russian are too cheap.
• I do not have time to train others.
• I want to learn, but no one knows about me [5].

[5] - To find out about you, it’s enough to start helping others for free. Toster, stackoverflow (ru / en), vk.com groups, articles on habr, medium, etc. Stream video tutorials.

Why there are few good students

When I worked in the camp, the director said to me: "There are no bad children, there are bad counselors." I agree with him, although the children came across different. So it is with the students.

For the most part, all students are charged to work out their investments, but nevertheless they have to face the main problems:

• they don't know the basics (oops, repeat ... but it’s so obvious that everyone continues to ignore this rule);
• they do not practice on their project (do not do homework).

I have a favorite student, now a good friend. We were engaged in it during the time of "1300". He was a rubist, he learned the frontend. He worked on the project, everyone phoned and asked me about real problems. Bottom line: rapid growth, excellent results.

What is a great consultation

Most people immediately from the beginning of the consultation "fumble" screen with your project. This is a good bell. Real problems require real solutions. Such advice is productive.

This can be the end of this section, since all other components are commonplace: the student’s diligence and the teacher’s ability to explain.

Numbers. Money

Over 2 years, about 300 consultations were held. In my mailbox, I found 64 different addresses with a request for consultation. Not all of them grew up in a "paid phoned", some decided a couple of links / tips.

64 people - is it funny ?! I do not think. Firstly, there were 2 outsourcing whales among those looking for a consultation: I worked with one project for 2 months, and with the other - a whole year.

Secondly, consulting is “repetitive” sales. More than half of the people come for the second consultation. A third of the flow met in three consultations. A small part (I think, somewhere between 10-15 percent) students prefer to take as many consultations as they need. There are examples when people ordered a consultation a year later.

Sources of visits: most - books, much less - from the website toaster.ru, even less - thematic groups in VK.

Old textbook statistics

In my arsenal there were three manuals ( React, Redux , React-Router ).

For two years, the following numbers have accumulated (GitBook does not show beautiful graphics for more than a year, but if you pull the data on the API, you can find out the numbers for the entire lifetime):

New tutorial

Gitbook statistics showed flat graphs for one and a half years, but the library versions do their job, whatever the material. Remember how many times you made a dissatisfied mine and closed the tutorial when it was used outdated packages.

The number of materials in the native (Russian) language has increased. The choice has become wider. There is competition, but the demand is huge, so I’m working on a new textbook.

As reviews have shown, readers are waiting for more circuits and more tasks. Of course, everyone wants to have the packages as updated as possible at the time of publication. About such a need as the source code, it is silly to mention.

I’m not just working on a book that teaches how to develop by swiping the reader by the pen. I am writing a tutorial that will "teach you to fish," to do it effectively.

If you want to influence the final result, then I will gladly accept your help in the form of responses to the survey (the survey will take 3 minutes).

See you in the vastness of the new textbook.

PS To keep up to date, follow @MaxPatsiansky on Twitter or fill out the form with the tick "I want to know when the tutorial will be released."

PPS I also post news on the textbook, our translations, articles and announcements of free webinars on the telegram channel