Marketing to Coding - TL;DR Version
Before I get into coding, I’m about to publish a lot of posts about marketing, and I want to have this story to link back to.
The truth is, I hate marketing.
I didn’t always feel this way. I used to love it. It seems like just recently I loved it.
But I’ve been doing it for over a decade now and I’m just...bored.
I don’t want to do this any more.
Coding has always interested me, and I love music. I have a degree in video game design. I’m also fascinated by information security and privacy.
I want to switch careers and I haven’t quite figured out to what kind of coding, yet.
Before I switch careers I’m dumping all of my marketing knowledge here, for you.
I’m still struggling on figuring out what’s next for me, but I’m currently learning programming to build OSINT automations. I’d also like to learn how to perform algorave music, and “program” modular synths.
That’s the TL;DR version. Here’s the much longer version:
Marketing to Coding - The Long Version
Back in 2006 I wanted to be a writer, and spoiler alert, that’s basically what I became.
Actually let’s go back further.
Childhood
When I was a kid I wanted to be in a boy band.
Really.
This was the 90’s and I sang my heart out to Backstreet Boys and NSYNC.
Like, every day. Oh and Hanson. In fact I used to pretend as a kid that I was a radio DJ who played nothing but Hanson. Hah what a goof.
Anyway, when I was old enough to read I got really into books, particularly Goosebumps.
Don’t forget, this is the 90’s.
And that’s when I got really into writing.
I’m sure I told my parents I wanted to be a Backstreet Boy or something as a kid, but I guess I told my dad I wanted to be a writer and that stuck with him.
Middle and High School
I went through all of middle and high school saying I was going to be a singer in a band. That was all I wanted.
It was so known that people called me “Garrett Rockstar.”
Seriously. My mom even has a Christmas ornament for the tree that says it.
I also goofed around with coding web design, some light programming, and even some light hacking as a teenager. Music was still what I really wanted to do.
College
But, by 18 I had mostly lost faith in that. I started going to college and in my first college class, ENC1101 English Composition I, I got back into writing something other than poetry and lyrics.
After our first paper, my professor pulled me aside and said,
“Garrett, you have a voice. I implore you to keep writing.”
So, I did.
After another paper he said,
“It’s been a long time since I’ve looked forward to reading a student’s work.”
I went home and told my Dad and he reminded me that I had told him as a kid that it was something I wanted to pursue.
Dad was always pretty supportive of whatever I wanted to do (as was Mom, but Dad encouraged even the crazy stuff). Even when it was too expensive, he would say
“That would be cool to try that but unfortunately I can’t afford it.”
Looking back, all those expensive things I wanted to do probably wouldn’t have lasted anyway, so it’s a good thing.
Mom was always the voice of reason.
“Rock star isn’t a real job. You’ll need something to fall back on.”
“Writers don’t make much money until they have lots of books. You’ll need a real job while you write.”
I don’t know if she was necessarily wrong, but it definitely made me give up on both of those things as a long-term career path.
I kept them both as hobbies, but I started studying web design in school.
Learning SEO and Internet Marketing
At the time I was working at a restaurant and I hated that, so I started looking for jobs online and I found one on Craigslist that ended up being my first marketing job.
It was an SEO firm and they needed someone to basically copy and paste content.
A while back, that was how you did SEO. Just post content all around the web with links back to your “money site.”
The owner took me under his wing and started teaching me all about SEO and other parts of internet marketing. We’re still friends today.
I didn’t end up staying with that company, but I worked there for quite a few years.
Back To College
I was finishing up my AA when I got my first non-website programming class (don’t fight me about HTML/CSS not a programming language bs) and had a blast.
It was a Visual Basic coding class, if I recall correctly.
At that point I had to start thinking about my major because I needed to make sure my last AA credits were towards that.
Something I forgot to mention that is now important: I also joined the Air Force to be in information security but got hurt in training and sent home.
So, in college, that’s what I decided my major was going to be.
I did one semester of that stuff and loved it, but at that point I discovered a different nearby college had a video game design degree.
So, I transferred and did that.
Graduation
After graduating, I still only really knew one thing through and through: marketing. Plus, at that point, I had a lot of experience and had built up a name for myself locally.
People sought me out to do their marketing.
I’ve been doing that since.
That brings us to about a year ago.
I’m still doing the marketing, but I turned 30 a year ago.
And I realized I didn’t want to do this anymore.
Yet, here I am, still doing it because people still seek me out and want to work with me.
From Marketing to Coding - A Plan(?)
I’m currently working a day job doing marketing and PR for a non-profit (it’s not important which one; you’ve probably never heard of it). I also overlap with starting a privacy consulting and OSINT business.
As I’ve said earlier, I’m tired of doing marketing. I don’t want to do it anymore.
So, I called up the It's My Chance guys and told thanked them for the opportunity, apologized for any inconvenience, and bowed out.
Now I'm working on starting my privacy consulting and OSINT business, while learning programming to help automate a lot of my process.
I’m also going to keep working on learning to program algorave and modular synths.
I will share my journey learning to code automation and algorave music on Dev.to.
I’ll share information on privacy and security here on GarrettMickley.com.
And of course, as I said, I’m going to dump all of my marketing knowledge on Dev.to for you all first.
After all, it’s a decade of knowledge and experience that would be useless collecting dust in my head.
See you around :)
Top comments (4)
Always find your posts interesting and insightful.
I am currently in the process of choosing colleges and such myself and exploring into the adult world of work so found this post very interesting, thank you for sharing!
Glad it helped!
If you're looking to getting into programming, I'd suggest Python. It's where I started and is a great foundation to grow from and its widely used in the tech industry, even by the big players!
Thanks for the suggestion! I love Python and have been digging into it pretty hard lately. Glad to know I'm on the right track! I've also been playing around with JS.