The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

Software-developer-turned-marketer in Korea

Left ium

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
50%
Feb 24, 2016
4
2
Seoul, Korea
Hello everyone!

I'm a software-developer-turned-marketer living in Korea. I tend to think quite unconventionally.
I look forward to meeting like-minded people on this forum. Let's motivate each other and help each other grow!

Please reply if you fit any of the criteria below:
  • Live in Korea
  • Interested in direct-response style marketing (a la Gary Halbert, John Carlton)
  • Have a question to ask me. All questions will be answered in detail! I intentionally kept this post short. Some things you might be wondering:
    • What's the deal with my profile pic?
    • How I jumped from software development into marketing.
    • What do you mean by unconventional thinking?
    • Why intentionally short?
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Pablo

DoTheWork
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
62%
Dec 30, 2013
13
8
39
Hey! Nice to see another developer doing something different. I do ask too why did you turn into marketing? How have you found the transition? Any advice on that, since I myself want to learn more, even tho I still like to focus on development mainly.
 

Left ium

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
50%
Feb 24, 2016
4
2
Seoul, Korea
Hi Pablo, my first international trip was to Guatemala. Nice to meet you!

Hey! Nice to see another developer doing something different. I do ask too why did you turn into marketing? How have you found the transition? Any advice on that, since I myself want to learn more, even tho I still like to focus on development mainly.

The short answer:

Although I still find tech/development more interesting, I think marketing is more powerful and more widely applicable. Since my area of interest as a developer is UX, the leap to marketing was not actually that big. In fact, approaching marketing through the lens of a UX designer is very useful for me.

Despite the similarity to UX, I must admit the transition has been a challenge. Although the direct-response style of marketing is the most effective (IMHO), most people prefer "image" marketing. So it is a challenge to find good, high-value clients. I have lots of people asking me to develop web sites or apps for them, but almost no one asks me to do their marketing. And when I explain the way I want to do marketing, most potential deals fall apart there. Although I can make more money with my tech skills in the short term, I am almost positive my marketing skills will be more valuable in the long run.

Tip: Usually when someone asks you to make a web site for them, what they are really asking for is help with their marketing: i.e. attracting more clients. It actually took me years to figure this out.

I will expand on the above when I find some free time! Since you seem to be technology-focused like I used to be, you may find it very enlightening...
 

michael40

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
37%
Dec 31, 2014
19
7
Seoul
Hiya. Nice to see a fellow resident of Korea here.
Hope all is going well with your business here :)

I am currently living in Seoul and teaching English at a University and in some PT positions.

Hoping to some kind of business from here eventually..



Sent from my SM-G900L using Tapatalk
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Ultras

Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
81%
Apr 14, 2016
27
22
Toronto, Canada
Hello everyone!

I'm a software-developer-turned-marketer living in Korea. I tend to think quite unconventionally.
I look forward to meeting like-minded people on this forum. Let's motivate each other and help each other grow!

Please reply if you fit any of the criteria below:
  • Live in Korea
  • Interested in direct-response style marketing (a la Gary Halbert, John Carlton)
  • Have a question to ask me. All questions will be answered in detail! I intentionally kept this post short. Some things you might be wondering:
    • What's the deal with my profile pic?
    • How I jumped from software development into marketing.
    • What do you mean by unconventional thinking?
    • Why intentionally short?

Cool I was coder as well but turned myself into internet marketing. Good to see you on the forum!
 

Alxander

Bronze Contributor
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
174%
Mar 5, 2015
228
397
26
Some people forgot to ask the questions so I will question them:

  • What's the deal with your profile pic?
  • What do you mean by unconventional thinking?
  • Why intentionally short?
  • :D
And a personal question, what made you switch?
I'm currently a developer too, but like to grow on much more stuff too (like entrepreneurship), some advice on how I could make the switch myself?
 

Left ium

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
50%
Feb 24, 2016
4
2
Seoul, Korea
I got busy with a project (and I didn't even realize I got more than one reply)... here are the belated answers!
  • Many years ago, when I thought branding was important, I designed my profile pic at the same time I came up with my online name. I wanted a unique name that described me that still had a short .com domain available. Full details here.
  • I am attracted to ideas that most people cannot even fathom and I question ideas most people take for granted. For example, the type of marketing I want do is direct response marketing, while 99% of marketing seems to be image marketing. Also, I can understand the argument that Hitler was a net positive for humanity.
  • I started making emails/posts as short as possible after I realized most people don't read everything carefully, if at all, especially for longer content. Of course, Gary Halbert would argue nothing can be too long; just too boring...
Finally, I switched from development to marketing as a simple optimization:
  • It is possible to start a business with just marketing alone, but it is nearly impossible to start a business with computer development skills alone. In order to sell your services, you must use marketing at some point.
  • Marketing (persuasion) has much wider applicability: any time two humans interact, marketing is needed. Resumes and job postings are actually a form of marketing. Knowledge of marketing helps you create much more effective resumes and job postings. Marketing can be used to make girlfriends (also known as "pick up"), etc...
  • Marketing gives you much more leverage and can create a much bigger impact than development.
Also, my interest in computer science was UX, but it was difficult to establish a career in UX. (Many UX positions actually prefer degrees like psychology, statistics, or sociology.) I got pegged as a software engineer and my managers couldn't even explain how to switch to a UX position even if the same company employed UX professionals.

Good UX is actually very similar to good direct marketing. You need to start with a good understanding of the user's goals and how they think. Interestingly, my marketing skills finally helped me land a UX consulting gig and get paid 200%-400% more than normal. (That's why I was busy!)

Advice for learning marketing:
  • I joined this board to participate in the Gary Halbert 30 day challenge. I highly recommend that. I found out the 4th edition of John Caples' book is actually better than the 5th and ordered a copy down thanks to this thread.
  • I also joined Sam Oven's most recent training: Consulting Accelerator. I've followed him since his Cashflow Consulting days and seen how he has evolved his marketing system to $10,000/day.



Some people forgot to ask the questions so I will question them:

  • What's the deal with your profile pic?
  • What do you mean by unconventional thinking?
  • Why intentionally short?
  • :D
And a personal question, what made you switch?
I'm currently a developer too, but like to grow on much more stuff too (like entrepreneurship), some advice on how I could make the switch myself?
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

More Intros...

Top