So I was doing my traditional one on one coaching. And I loved it. In fact,
what actually happened was, I had set up a blockchain facility for fun. And when I set it up,
I had rented a warehouse along with a large number of people. And we were putting cryptocurrency
miners in their GPUs in there and a whole bunch of other cool technology, and we're having fun.
And one of the people that actually owned the warehouse that we rent said, Oh, my God,
like the interns, the students you brought with you are amazing.
He says, My son is going to graduate college in a year with a computer engineering degree,
what should you study? What should you learn? I want to be like yours. I said to my friend,
I said, Look, I'll do this. I'll train your son,
he could be one of my students. I said, your friend. So we set up a blockchain data center,
and you've never been charged me rent. I said, so I'm going to personally coach her son.
I said, here's what we're going to do. I said, I'm going to buy him the top three best selling
certification courses. And I reached at the top three best selling ones. And I bought all three.
I said to my friend, that I spend two to four hours ism every Friday, after my yoga
and physical therapy is done. And my friend was this Oh, thankful. Now something interesting
happened. The person I was mentoring called me back after three days, and he said, Mike, I set
up an AWS EC two instance in an AWS s3 bucket. And that was easy, but what are they? I said,
What do you mean, what are they he said, What is s3? And what is easy to watch this courses? Now
these were big name curses. And let me tell you, when I watched them, I was horrified. The course
was the name of the service and how to configure it. But it didn't tell you what any of it was.
And I said, What good is knowing the name of a service and how to configure it unless you want to
be a junior administrator, where basically all you do is click, click, click. Nobody could ever get
hired with that skill. And I went, Oh, my God, who would produce content like this, I was horrified.
So the first thing that I actually did was this, I said to this nice young man, I said,
you and I are going to write a book on passing the AWS Certified Solution Architect Professional,
he said we are, I swear, there's nothing out there. And you need to pass this exam. So
we're going to toss all that stuff. And we're going to create our own. And he says, okay, and
I said, Guess what else we're going to do? As soon as that book is published, we're gonna give it
away for free, because all these people that are charging for this horrible nonsense, are taking
people's money, and they're getting given them hope, but they'll never get hired. So let's give
him this free book and hand it out to the world. Well, we handed out so many of those free books,
fast, like 25,000, in a matter of a couple of weeks. So we did that. And
it was feeling a little better. And I made a couple of YouTube videos on how to get your
first cloud architect job. And whoa, within 24 hours, I had so many emails, could you do this?
Could you record a program? Could you teach it? And I said, if there's this much desire,
and I know what's out there, somebody has to save these people that have invested the last year of
their life doesn't need certifications, because they're never going to be hireable. So what I
did is I did a webinar one day where I talked about how to get your first pay your first job,
and I couldn't even finish the webinar, people were signing up.
I want this mic, I want this mic, creator program. So what I do, I took orders on that call. And I
said within two weeks, we're going to start the program.
So I had, you know, set up the first two weeks of the training,
people were in, people are signing up, we created the program, and our students were getting hired,
hired, hired, hired, hired, hired. And it was really exciting, because, you know,
I always wanted to create a program that I could give to anybody in the world that was basically
as close to free as possible. And what we did it I did as I took this 40 or $50,000 training program,
and packaged it to be sub $1,000. Because I knew that you know, an average Cloud Architect earns
about $600 A day and a good one with good leadership training can earn 1200, even 1800
with experience and capabilities, and I wonder to produce somebody that could take those senior
roles. But I want you to do at a price that anybody in the world could afford. We did it.
Now about 800 students. Every day, somebody's getting hired. This morning,
one of my students getting hired yesterday, one of my students getting hired and it's literally
sticking it's every day of the week. So we're super, super excited. So you know,
that's why I went from one on one coaching to this I saw was out there and there was nothing that was
going to produce results. Nothing that could get anybody I hired him, I felt bad for the people
that had spent all this time. I tried to watch these courses. And it was just sheer torture,
PowerPoint slides with links over on all your relevant and mostly incorrect content. It was just
terrible. So it did what we did. We're excited what we did. And now we've got an army of people
that are getting hired out there. And in some of the proudest moments of my life, where every time
somebody calls and says Claude hired brings me to tears. So it's been an exciting transition.
Our programs are unique and their focus, see 90% of the community is focused on certification,
let me just get you that certification badge. But here's the thing. Certification is nice,
and then it'll get somebody to interview you. But no one cares if you're certified if they
can hire you. They care about the following. They care about are you technically competent,
they care about can they trust you. They care about if you're a team player, they care about
your emotional intelligence. They're looking for your energy, your enthusiasm, your passion,
they're looking for your communication skills. They're looking for your ability to
go above and beyond and bring out the best in others. That's what employers are looking for.
So we focus on what employers are looking for creating that real competency, which is
different than certifications, is kind of like the difference between what we do in college and what
we do in the job. The college is very valuable. Well, the job is not necessarily what we learned
in college, but college gave us the foundation maybe taught us how to learn. And in the job,
we use those things that we learned. And then we learned 10 times more. So it's kind of like that.
But really, the key for me is what good is paper if it doesn't get you hired.
So our focus is 100% on hired hired, hired.
But our focus isn't just on hired. Our focus is on career optimization. See, here's the thing.
Individuals with greater levels of soft skills typically earn 30% more. Statistically speaking,
emotional intelligence is the best predictor of one loan for long term success. So in our content,
we're focusing on those things that employers really desire. The things that make you stand
out in the crowd or someone stand out the things that make employers say, I need to hire you.
So I studied interview tactics and trends for 25 years. And I started studying this because
I had no choice. I was in medicine. And I had to convince people to hire a network
engineer that had zero degrees in tech or zero background in tech, and I did a good job of it.
But I had to learn some special skills along the way. And I learned how to wow a hiring manager,
and how to interview. So we teach that. And I also learned that those that can negotiate
a higher salary earned more, and you know what that can have a long term impact on your career,
and your future job. So we added a salary negotiation module, because it was there.
We cheap the interview skills, because we're there. We're teaching leadership skills.
We're teaching emotional intelligence, we're teaching presentation skills, business acumen.
And here's why, when it comes to an interview, 50% of the person's interview in the tech world
is about how technically competent they are. But the other 50% Is everything else. And when
you've got someone that's brand new, and you want to give them a really great job, and not an intro
log job level job, they've got to be technically competent enough, but you can't get perfection out
of somebody without 25 or 30 years experience, we got to get them good enough. But the secret sauce,
the secret weapon to success is that leadership skills, communication skills, executive presence,
emotional intelligence, the things that make you so much more likeable to the employer. So if 50%
of your score is technical competency, and you get the 40 out of 50 on someone with good training,
and you get to 50 out of 50. On the other thing, the candidates average score is a 90, well,
maybe even 5000 people, getting anyone that's past a 65% percent is great and hard to do in
tech. So you can get 50% of it just by getting all those other things that no one else trains,
those expensive things to train, and only do the tech.
You're not halfway there. So we do both. We do all the factors, because it's a holistic system.
You know, people form relationships based upon lots of things. And players hire people based
upon lots of characteristics. So we teach all the characteristics that employers desire. And here's
the thing. Not only are we planning the season, getting somebody hired faster, but it all goes
back to the tenants. My manager said to me 20 years ago, he said, Mike, the difference between
$150,000 engineer and a $300,000 architect who is really more of an executive is executive presence,
communication skills, leadership skills, business acumen, presentations, skills,
so I teach all of those. And by doing that, our people get higher. Our graduates get paid a lot.
My graduates on average get paid between 103 Under $1,000 a year, based upon you know,
whether they're brand new or not, but here's the key, we're getting that. Now there's higher
salaries are impossible without soft skills, emotional intelligence and leadership skills.
So we teach it all. And that way our students have the best outcomes now. And two years from now,
five years from now, and even 10 years from now, they have all the tools for success.
Really, the thing is, why didn't it work so hard to make it low cost, it's
for a couple of reasons. I remember, in the beginning of my career, I had
to work 60 hours a week to go to college. And I did it. But it took a toll on me.
And I've had a lot of mental toughness training, special physical training, special martial art
training and a lot of mental toughness training. So I survived it. But it took a toll on me.
And I remember I wanted to advance and I did an MBA or I took half of an MBA program. And
literally speaking, it was like $50,000. And in the end, I didn't even finish the MBA program,
because I got a job offer that was so good, I couldn't refuse it, which had nothing to
do with the MBA program at all. But so I ended up stopping the MBA and getting that great job.
And in that great job, I started tutoring people. And I started tutoring people with very limited
means. And they started rising to the occasion. But I also started tutoring the people that I
worked with, and they were also there, but you know, for me, it was that. But really,
I feel like, I don't need to work. I'm very thankful for that case, I had a
really great career. And when I look around, and I look at what education is today, it is
just so expensive. You can get out of the school with $200,000 alone and still not even have a job.
And I have so many people that came to me, they've spent so much money, they're doing master's
degrees in cloud computing, and are not hireable because they're learning the wrong skills.
They're getting expensive certification courses, I have people that have spent $25,000. In a data
science boot camp, I have a student that spent $35,000 on a CompTIA Security Plus certification,
I felt so bad that doe we found a way to help him and help him get hired. But the point is,
is you know, there's so many people that are out there. And I know what it's like to come from
limited means it's hard. And I don't want anyone to ever not be able to get to the core of the
dreams because they can't afford the training. You know, I had dreams. And everybody has dreams. And
I love dreams. Dreams are where innovation comes from genes are where great things are
made. Dreams are how the world changes. But you've got to be able to get to your dream. So for me,
it's really important to make it valuable. And I have friends that laugh at me they say like your
courses worth over $50,000 Look at the salaries are your graduate Look at this. And I say yes.
But do you know the number of people that I helped get a job last year, they would have
never been able to afford this training? Do you know how many people that went from poverty to
prosperity this year. That's what makes me happy. That's why I do this. And that's why we charge
what most people would consider to be a ridiculous price for our program. But you know what?
Anybody that really wants to cover our program, anybody that wants to train
anybody that wants to become a cloud architect, can afford our programs. And because of that,
we are not a financial burden on someone, I don't want to be the program that when somebody is done
and they get the great job, they have paid $30,000 back. I had people offering me that,
hey, I'll pay extra more done. And I say no, I don't want that. I want to build your life,
I want to change your life, I want to enhance your life. I don't want to be a burden. And that's the
thing. You know, I spent a fortune on education, I have a quarter of a million dollar education. And
you know, I was lucky that no, my employers paid for some of it. And I got lucky that I had a great
job to be able to do that. But not everybody can. And I want everyone that wants to work
that wants to be a cloud architect or a cut engineer to be able to. And that's why I do what
I do. Because I love my tech career. And I don't want anyone regardless of their economic situation
to not be in a position to have the career of their dreams. So that's why I do what I do.
You know, I expected to create a program that was going to get people hired at it.
But I was just thinking it would be more transactional. People would come in,
they train, they be grateful they'd be hired. And that was what I was planning. And,
you know, that would have been great. But what I got was so much more. We had been around
for a little while and I had students that were just incredible. It was like a family.
That actually two of my students in the beginning of my program met with me in Florida.
And they said Mike, you know what's gonna happen when you have 10 times a student
I was like kind of left and said, you know, what happened. And you know, a month later we did.
And they had set up a communications platform called slack. You know, for me, I'm like a
phone person, I call people I text message on an email, and I don't use anything else. But
they were saying, we can use the slack thing, and people will talk to each other. And
I didn't believe it. But I said, prove it to me. If I can get creative family, if I can
get our students working together, interacting together being better, I'm in LA, he did. Well,
I heard one of those people, and he helped me run the company. And because it worked out so well,
and our students are doing so well, which I love, but really the community element.
I mean, one of my students get hired, they bring three of their friends,
somebody gets a job, and their friends help them in the beginning architectures to make
sure they're secure. Somebody's ready to pass an exam, and they all go on to the person for a week.
It's like the greatest thing ever. And I see my students and talk to students literally
speaking. We have a group of 50 people that are volunteering right now people in Africa to learn
cloud computing, and we're doing a completely free, and that's something my students are
doing. My students have written a book, which was given out free to help people in cloud computing.
So, you know, we're gonna be writing another book really soon that we're gonna give away completely
free. We're doing an AWS bootcamp next week, completely free. And people from all over the
world. They're like, Oh, my God, we're here and they're learning. And you know what? The people
that take our paid programs always get hired. But you know what the people that are watching on us
on YouTube, some of them get hired to when they send us message that said, Hey, wait,
we read your books, we came to all your free things. We watched every video you did every
LinkedIn thing. And guess what? I got my first job. Thank you. So really, it's how fast is
pleura freight around the globe? How many people are getting hired each day? How many people are
getting promoted each day? How many people have helped each other get to their goals?
We had last week and we have people getting together in Dallas and New York and Atlanta.
We've got a group getting together in England, another one in India. So you know, we've got our
students together, and it's such a magical family. I couldn't be more happy, more proud and we're
excited to realize this is where we've gotten to