I'm 19 so the bar for "impact on my life" is relatively low, but probably choosing to cold-email a bunch of startup CEOs whose emails I guessed at the start of 2019. It got me my first SWE internship, which helped me get full-time positions afterwards.
I was halfway through college (I was an econ major) and had hired somebody to build a website for me. Immediately upon paying them half of the invoice, they fell off the face of the earth and never shipped a line of code.
I was left cash-less and code-less.
I decided to teach myself how to program so that I'd never need to be that dependent on somebody.
I watched hours upon hours of YouTube, audited a handful of CS courses at my university (UVA), and, after about a year, I had become a decent iOS developer.
As school neared an end, a mutual friend pitched me on a startup idea he was working on. I agreed to build the MVP, joined him as CTO, and our startup went on to have a $50M+ exit a few years after I graduated.
Hugely impactful decision.
I'd probably working some finance job I hate if I hadn't made that decision.
Three come to mind rather than one. Deciding at 13 I had to learn how to make video games. Having the guts to ask out my future wife at 19. Deciding in my 20s I would no longer allow myself to be tormented by bullies/events of the past. I’m 36 now. I’m happy I made these decisions, huge impact.
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[ 0.21 ms ] story [ 17.6 ms ] threadHow many email addresses did you try for each CEO ? I'm guessing the most common one is firstname.lastname@company.com ?
The formats were usually firstname@company.com for most of them, but firstname.lastname came up a few times.
Then boss reprimanded me, but another company read my blog post and hired me.
Turned to be the best job of my life.
I was halfway through college (I was an econ major) and had hired somebody to build a website for me. Immediately upon paying them half of the invoice, they fell off the face of the earth and never shipped a line of code.
I was left cash-less and code-less.
I decided to teach myself how to program so that I'd never need to be that dependent on somebody.
I watched hours upon hours of YouTube, audited a handful of CS courses at my university (UVA), and, after about a year, I had become a decent iOS developer.
As school neared an end, a mutual friend pitched me on a startup idea he was working on. I agreed to build the MVP, joined him as CTO, and our startup went on to have a $50M+ exit a few years after I graduated.
Hugely impactful decision.
I'd probably working some finance job I hate if I hadn't made that decision.