Today Pybites turns 6 years 🎉😎
We could never have envisioned that our end-of-2016 “Python blog side project” would grow out into a fully fledged business serving thousands of people worldwide!
Here are 10 highlights / lessons learned from our journey so far:
1. Don’t procrastinate, implement
We had been chatting for many years about ideas and things we could do to add value, but on that 19th of Dec 2016 we actually took action.
Nothing counts till you implement!
Day 1-10 of Pybites’ existence was literally writing Python articles (scroll down), nothing more, nothing less 💪
We had to find our unique space and we did! 3 weeks in we saw an opportunity to launch code challenges, a niche that fit our practical learn by doing approach and we’d sensed as a fun and effective way to help Pythonistas in the space 💡
2. Be consistent
We kept doing the challenges consistently for a year or so. Oftentimes it was fun, but some weeks the looming (self imposed) deadlines made it feel like a grind 😅
However, we also saw that we were quickly building up a collection of valuable content that formed the basis of what was about to come.
When things start to feel a bit monotonous think about the compound effect: all your effort will accumulate over time.
3. Community
At the 6 month mark we started a Slack community because we loved the idea of bringing together passionate Pythonistas that shared our practical take on things.
This was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. You cannot do this alone. Bring together like-minded people and amazing synergies will happen 💖🌎
4. Look at trends
Browsing around we saw a lot of hype about the 100 days of code so we decided to jump on the challenge and not just code for an hour a day (as per the rules) but actually build a complete script / tool each day.
We took turns to make it somewhat manageable. This got us again more materials and traction (next point).
5. Get your work out there
As we were tweeting every day about our 100 days of code challenge implementation, the repo and our Twitter account received more of a following, including Michael Kennedy from Talk Python, which led to an interview on his podcast about our way of doing the challenge. This was around the 11 months mark.
6. Network / partner up
After this interview we got the opportunity to build a 100 days of code Python course. This course became quite successful and we later followed up with a second 100 days of web course ☕
7. Automate things
Around that same time, we also finished our prototype of our coding platform. Its initial goal was to automate the pull request submission for our blog code challenges (see 1.)
We kept taking this approach of building and scratching our own itch over the years which lead to more courses / products, exercises, our own open source org, and our own CMS and content reviewing systems, all in Python of course 😎🐍
8. Iterate fast and often
While we’re on our platform, we quickly realized that in-browser code evaluation would be really cool so we figured out how to evaluate submitted code against pytest serverless (using AWS lambda – more on the stack here).
Again, we would not have even gotten the idea if we did not solve the previous problem (blog code challenge automation).
Quite often you don’t know what problem you’re solving till you start solving it! Start soon, keep iterating ⚡️
The platform and its exercises have received hundreds of revisions based on real users solving them and it has grown into something unique and highly valuable, including being used in several school curriculums across the US.
9. Invest in coaching
End of 2019 we got a bit tired of the content space, people were getting results through our materials, but something was missing.
At the 3 year mark we were wondering how we could serve people better, become more valuable to the market (a powerful Jim Rohn question that is good to ask yourself from time to time 💡)
We invested in a marketing coaching program ourselves that taught us about offer building and how to effectively launch your offer.
This turned out one of the best investments we have ever made. Success leaves clues 🏃
You often don’t know what you don’t know, and working with people who have done something you want to achieve, opens your eyes to what is possible.
10. Nothing like 1:1 guidance
We launched our PDM coaching program early 2020 and have been growing it since 📈
We’re changing lives by working with people 1:1. We feel it’s the culmination of Pybites, what we worked so hard for over the last 6 years, and what we stand for value wise.
Surprisingly this involves a lot of mindset (soft skills). We talk a lot about this on our podcast 🎧, which by the way, we almost procrastinated on launching 😅 but has been very well received (iterate fast!)
If we had to sum up in one line what we’ve learned in these 6 years of Pybites it’s this: implement, get your work out there, constantly iterate and build a community around your mission 💪
We hope this blog post inspires you to do the same 📈
What’s next?
Great question. We always like to ask: “What’s next?!”
It’s clear from this journey that the coaching / working 1:1 with people is what we value the most and what gets people the best results. So doing more of that is a no brainer to us.
However we also see a big need in the space to more mindset related topics. So you can definitely expect more of that from us in the coming year as well.
This time of the year is great for reflection and refocus, coming up with new, audacious goals to tackle head on in the new year.
We wish you Happy Holidays and to a New Year full of action and implementation.
Good luck and reach out to us if you need any help. The best way is to send us an email to info@pybit.es – we read and respond to every email.
And last but not least, thank you all for supporting us in this amazing journey 🙏