Like you, I was once in the same position. Extremely poor, I literally hand drew business cards and cut them out of cardboard and walked around the city to hand-deliver them. This helped as someone eventually gave me a chance, but I'm sure it's because he felt sorry for me. I had no experience and learnt how to code from making free photo copies of the pages in the visual basic 6 book at the local public library.

Where I'm from (South Africa), internet was expensive and not accessible to all at the time.

Some advice for your situation:

- You are at the bottom, your only way from there is up - this is something to be excited about.

- Fake it until you make it. When meeting potential clients, talk the talk and do the walk later.

- You'd be surprised at how many SME's need IT services and don't know it yet :) You can simply walk in the door and have a chat to them.

- Put your ego away and always be aware that in order to eat, you need to sell. Selling is actually pretty simple if have a bit of confidence.

- Look after your laptop with your life, it's your key to getting out of your situation.

- If you can write code, it most likely means that you can solve problems logically - this doesn't only apply to coding, figure out where you can use that and make a bit of money.

- Don't be afraid of charging for your time. Poverty is also a mindset, as soon as you realize that, you are one step closer to getting past it.

- Just ask for help. You are not alone and most people will be sympathetic when they are asked.

- You don't need to prove yourself to anyone in order to survive, simply do what you do best and the rest will follow.

Goodluck! S

It costs $11.99.

What?? http://screencast.com/t/iJFhd4WBn2

I'd have to say Ruby, GIT, Heroku and Postmark.

there is an open source alternative: http://hbase.apache.org/

In a previous experience, I found that companies hired me without even glancing at my CV or portfolio after I started my development company.

There was some level of pre-created trust purely because I had a business operating in the field.

It's not hard to put a nice looking website together, choose a business name and start operating on the side.

It might make it easier for you too.

Goodluck!

I would say a great developer should have the followed waxed:

1. Accurate time estimation & communication skills

2. Not suffer perfectionism

3. Know where to find the right answers

4. A good understanding of general programming concepts and when to apply

5. Ability to write code in a way that it's easy for future dev to understand

6. A good understanding of tasks other than programming and how they all fit together in a business environment

7. A good dose of enthusiasm - things can get tough, how are they going to deal with it?

I'll end my comment by saying that you won't know the extend of the damage caused by a bad developer until it's too late.

Thanks! I've fixed that line on the site.

We've spoken to quite a few people that sell digital products online through various channels - most of them were looking for something similar. We also have the need for it ourselves.

But I guess time will tell.

Oops, thanks! Fixed

Definitely a valid point, we are currently working on a feature that allows you to sell outside of Twitter, like on your blog and website etc. Thanks for the comment, really appreciated!

Stick with your niche, social networks and the ability to sell on them should be your unique selling point.

There are many other service providers for selling digital goods via your blog or website.

Having it as an option or integrating with one of these providers might be a good idea.

Other than that, maybe for Facebook/new social networks I would recommend partnering with a landing page software provider.

Great idea, keep up the good work.

thanks for the great feedback!

I think https://www.trustfabric.com/ does that.