My Dirty Little $ecret That I Never Share... - a podcast by Russell Brunson

I probably should share this secret more, because it’s the KEY to how I got started…

On this episode Russell talks about creating software using scriptlance and how freeing it was. Here are some of the important pieces of advice to look for in this episode:

• Find out how Russell discovered he didn’t have to learn how to code to make software.
• See what Russell’s first software product was and how he saved almost $5000 getting it created.
• And see what products are still available to help you when it comes to getting started on your business.

So listen here to find out how Russell got started and learned that he didn’t have to learn how to code to make software.

---Transcript---

What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson, welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I want to give you a gift that will simplify your life so much.

Alright so I want to tell you guys a quick story of how I got story, some of you may have heard this story. My very first idea, even pre-potato gun was an idea for a product called Zipbrander. If you go back to the way back machine and search zipbrander you can see the old sales letter and stuff. But I was super proud of it, it was a software, and I remember I didn’t know how to code software. And my first kind of mentor, the first person I was watching at the time was a guy named Armand Morin and Armand had a whole bunch of software products. I was like I want to make software like Armand.

So I bought the domain name Zipbrander, I knew what the software was going to be, and I was like, “Okay, I have to learn how to code.” So I literally went to my school and I changed my major from I don’t even know, communications to like computer information systems. I’m like, “I’m going to learn how to code, Zipbrander is going to be the greatest thing in the world, I’m going to become a billionaire from it.” I knew it was the thing.

And so I started doing that and after like the third or fourth day of coding class I was like, “I am not smart enough to become a coder. I’m screwed. I need to figure out a different path.” So then I remember reading a bunch of stuff that Armand was putting out. I was listening to all these tele-seminars back in the day. In fact, it was funny, I was hanging out with, at an event this weekend that I was speaking out, this little local Doterra event, and one of the people there was, she’s actually married to one of the wrestlers from my college wrestling team.

And she came up to me and she was telling me this story like, “My husband Casey.” And I’m like, “Oh I know Casey. Of course.” And she’s like, “He told me stories. He said that when you were back in college you guys would go on these wrestling trips. You guys would go and drive the vans that have like 10, 15, 20 hour drives to the wrestling tournaments and you’d be in the back with your headphones on, with your CD player, with the light glowing on your face.” She’s like, “He said you looked like a serial killer.” which is so funny.

Anyway, but that was me, I burned CDs of tele-seminars. It was pre-webinars, pre-videos. I burned CDs of Armand Morin, and Alex Mandosian, all these people back in the day. And I’d drive in my car and listen to these CDs in the back of the car like, “This is amazing listening to all this stuff.” And I don’t remember if it was a CD or if it was an article, but I remember Armand basically said that, “I don’t code my own software.” I was like, “Wait, what? I’m going to school to learn to code my own software.  I thought Armand was coding his own software.” And he’s like, “Nope. I went to this site.” The site he went to at the time is no longer here but it was Scriptlance.com.

So I was like, as soon as I got to a computer I went to scriptlance.com and it was this program, this site where you’d hire programmers. And I remember I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is amazing.” And in fact, let me step back. It was right before I learned that. I was like, “I’m not going to become a programmer. I know that now.  I need to hire a programmer.” So I went to Google and typed in programmer, and I remember there was the Google ads and I clicked on a programming company and I gave them the idea for Zipbrander and they said they wanted like $5 grand to build it. And I was like, “5 grand!” that was like more money than I’d made in my entire life combined at that time. To put that in perspective. I’d never had, I had a couple of jobs waiting tables, but had not made $5 grand in a year ever and it was $5 grand to make this thing.

So I kind of gave up on it. Fast forward now, I hear about Scriptlance. So I got to Scriptlance and I remember seeing, so you go and create a free account, it’s free, super easy, and then you post a project, and then people from all around the world bid on your project. And I was like, “What?” So I took the description I’d sent the people before for my Zipbrander. I copied and pasted it into Scriptlance, posted it, and within 15 minutes I had 30 bids on it.

I was like, “What?” and the first guy was like, ‘I’ll do it for $1200.” I was like, ‘What? That’s 1/5^th the price of the other guys.” The next guy was like, ‘I’ll do it for $800.” “I’ll do it for $600.” “$500.” And it went all the way down and then all the sudden this dude named Siprian from Romania said, “I’ll do it for $20” and I was like, “I actually have $20.” I think that’s all the money I had. I was like, ‘Done.” So I hired Siprian, I gave him the thing, I was like, “I have no idea if this is going to work or not, but it’s worth $20.”

So I paid the $20 to, and they put it in escrow, so I put $20 into Scriptlance, it’s in escrow, gave Siprian the idea and went to bed. I woke up in the morning and he was like, “Here you go.” I’m like, “What is this?’ and he’s like, “It’s Zipbrander.” I’m like, “What?” He gave it to me and I tried it and it worked. $20. And I was like, “Oh my gosh.” I was so happy that I literally gave him $100 bonus because I thought it was going to be $5 grand for this, I was trying to save up for it. I was going to go to programming school.

So I remember at that point I was like, “I never have to pay attention in school ever again. My job is not for me to learn how to become a programmer. My job is to get an idea and then hire a programmer.” What? And I went to scriptlance.com and it cost me $20 to get my first software product created.

Now, I tell you this because I remember I had a friend, Josh Anderson and Josh was kind of in the same business as me, we actually shared an office for a long time. But I remember I had like 4 or 5 little projects, I had created Zipbrander, Article Spider, 4 and 4 (inaudible). I had like 5 or 6 little software products I had created at the time, that I was selling. And Josh didn’t have a product yet, he’s like, ‘I’ve been studying internet marketing. I’m learning, I’ve been putting in 2 years just to understand this business.” I was like, ‘You should stop studying and just go create a product and sell it. That’s basically all this game is, create a product and sell it.” And he was like, “Yeah but…” you know, all these things.

So I remember one night I showed him, I said, “Let me show you how scriptlance works. It’s really simple, really easy.” So we went to scriptlance, and was like, “Here’s my account.” I’m like, “Just post, just post anything. Post something stupid. Post, ‘I need a logo for this thing.’ And pay them $20 for it.” And he’s like, “Uh.” So he did it, I showed him a walk through and he posted it, a logo for $20 and all the sudden bids starts coming. He gets 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 bids in like an hour. And he’s like going through, talking to people, meeting people in India, Romania and Pakistan, and all over the world who were working for super cheap.

He’s meeting all these cool people and he’s hanging out with them and I remember I was like, again, it was a basement apartment that I owned that our little office was in. So it was about time I had to go to bed. So I was like, “Well I gotta go see my wife.” Or go to dinner. I’m like, “I gotta go.” So I went upstairs and I closed the door and I was with my wife that night.

Anyway, the next morning I wake up and come down the stairs and I see Josh. And I’m like, “Oh man, you’re here early.” And he’s like, “No, I’m not.” I’m like, “what do you mean?” and he’s like, “I haven’t left yet.” I’m like, “What?” He’s like, “Dude, I did the logo, paid a guy $20, check out this logo it’s amazing.” I’m like, “that is cool.” And he’s like, “Then I posted an idea for this audio thing I had, and then this…” and he had 5 or 6 different ideas that he had been sitting on for years, that he’s posted them, and he’s had people bidding on them, and he’s like, “I heard this guy’s doing this, and this guy’s doing this.”

And he had like 5 software products in….happening, all over night. One of them was already done, and he’s like, “It’s already done.” And I was like, “Oh my gosh.” And I remember watching him and all his linkedin profile, or whatever it was. I can’t remember what it was back in the day, I think it was Rise was the business network. Anyway, he changed his name from like, Josh Anderson Internet Marketer, to Josh Anderson Software Developer.

And I was like, now he had the keys and he was running and creating thing after thing, after thing, after thing. And he was just having tons of success. And I watched him create software, after software, after software, and he still to this day makes software. But it all started with him just doing it once.

And I think a lot of us, we get so scared we’re like, “I don’t know how to do it.” And we never do it. So this is my thing that I want you guys to do. Scriptlance is not longer there, but the site that is there is called Freelancer.com, there’s other ones, Freelancer is just, Scriptlancer was my favorite. Back then it was Scriptlance, there was ODesk, there was Rentacoder.com, there was a bunch of those like that. Scriptlance was my favorite because they got bids back so fast.

Yesterday I was doing a project and I went to Upwork, or Odesk, or Upwork, whatever it’s called now and I posted it. And it’s slow and it’s expensive. So I went to Freelancer, which Freelancer I think bought Scriptlancer and I posted it and it was like boom. Within 5 minutes I had 30 bids, I picked somebody, the project got done before I woke up in the morning. So I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is so exciting.”

So I recommend this is what you do. I want you to just do it as a test. If you trust me on this, this will unlock yourself so much freedom. You can become a software developer, programmer or writer, whatever, by just doing this step. It takes all the hard work out of it. Just go to freelancer.com create a free account, go over there and post a project. I don’t care what the project is, make it simple, make it dumb, and do like $5. “$5 I need somebody to animate my signature.” Or “$5 I need somebody to whatever.”

In fact, I remember when I, the way I learned how to FTP was I posted on Scriptlance, “I’ll pay someone $5 to teach me how to FTP a file to my server.” Because I didn’t know how to do that, which now a days you don’t really do that, but back then someone had to teach me. So I paid him $5, he showed me how to do it and I was like, “Ah, I’m done. $5” And it’s just so simple and so easy and you get work done super cheap, but you’ll find out really quickly how freeing it. It’s like, “Oh my gosh, this is like actually the easiest thing in the world now.” Versus before where it’s like, ‘Ugh” struggling and frustration and all these things.

Anyway, I wanted to put that out there as a thought for you guys. Here’s a real simple, easy way to get something done. And it’ll unlock the floodgates for you. If you’ve never done it before in the past, it’s going to be a little scary. Ugh, its scary. Just like Josh, didn’t do it, didn’t do it. And as soon as he did it, it gave him the ability like, ‘Now I can create. Now I can be a software developer. Now I can…” whatever the thing is that you need to do.

So just do it. Do a test project, waste $10 on something stupid that you’re not even going to use, throw it away. But just do it once and then you’ll be like, “Oh my gosh, this is cool.” I just remember me the first time I did it, I was like, I met people in India and Romania and all the sudden I had friends all around the world because I had hired them on these sites doing all these projects for me. I remember just how cool it was to be able to do that.

So that is your task for today. Go to Freelancer.com create a project, submit something and just do it. Just see it once and I guarantee you’ll feel like the handcuffs have broken off your hands and you’re now free to create and do stuff for forever.

So that’s my assignment for you guys, hope you enjoy it. Appreciate you all and I will talk to you all soon. Bye everybody.

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