July 28, 2007

---

Interview #8 - Randy Schmidt - BubbleBee.org

Randy Schmidt is a recent full-time freelance web developer working on his soon-to-be-released project, BubbleBee.org. Kudos to Randy for making the big jump(although somewhat unexpected) to pursue his startup!

1. For those of us who are unfamiliar with you, could you briefly describe who you are and what you do?

My name is Randy Schmidt. I graduated from Drexel University in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in Structural Engineering. I currently live in Lansdale, PA and working as a freelance web developer.

2. Can you give a little background on how you went from structural engineer to Rails programmer to entrepreneur?

I had never really used a computer until I went to college in 2000. My roommate was majoring in Computer Science and he helped me get started playing with web sites but I didn’t get seriously interested until about 2002. I was working for the Delaware River Port Authority and one of the projects I worked on had a web interface to monitor the Commodore Barry Bridge. I fell in love with having information accessible from anywhere and from then on started absorbing everything I could find about web development. I felt limited by just HTML and CSS so I started to play with PHP and MySQL.

At that time, I was mostly learning all of this to work on different ideas I had but I was having trouble being organized with just PHP and no framework. That is when a friend of mine suggested I take a look at Ruby on Rails because it was gaining popularity. That was about 2 years ago this August and the start of my love of using frameworks, but more specifically, Rails :-D. I think I have always had an entrepreneurial mindset but only now am I around the type of people (independentshall.org, junto.org, etc) that make being that way…OK.

3. As a sole entrepreneur, it’s sometimes hard to commit to invest large amounts of time learning something new. What thing or things have you found to give you the most bang for your buck?

Finding tools that are “popular” and have a good community around them is key. Being popular means there is a lot of documentation about how to accomplish different tasks and the community can help you connect what you want to do with how it should be done. Also, if there is a “preferred workflow” for the tools you are using, you should stick to that because you will spend less time figuring out the tools and more time using them.

4. What are some of the most important lessons you’ve picked up along the way?

Just jump right in and start making something and get feedback as fast as possible. I haven’t been the best at practicing that but in a recent project (icanhazcheezfries.com), I came up with an idea at 21:00 and I forced myself to have a release of it by 16:30 the next day…no excuses. It didn’t have all of the functionality that I would have liked but I set a doable scope and a deadline and stuck to it.

Another thing is it is all about the people…which is hard for me because I am a bit of an introvert. No matter what you try, you can’t do any project or startup or whatever ALONE. You need to know people with complementary skill sets because you can’t learn or know everything yourself.

5. It can be pretty stressful working a day job while pursuing a startup. Were there any times when you wondered if all the stress was worth it? What got you through it?

I can’t really say I got through it because I got frustrated and quit the day job. I’d say the most important thing when attempting to have a day job and start a website is to figure out the absolutely smallest set of features and set a deadline for releasing it. That helps you have a milestone in your sights and helps keep you from being discouraged. It also helps to have a supportive wife or girlfriend.

6. What advice do you have for people thinking about taking the plunge and ditching their day job to pursue a small business or startup?

Have all of your ducks in a row. Make sure you have enough money to last a few months. Create your business legally while you are still making money. Network like crazy. Spend more time doing than planning.

Good luck Randy! We’re looking forward to watching BubbleBee launch!