So I’ve changed my focus for the thousandth time. I’m now exploring the idea of teaching Rails testing.

Let’s review what I’ve explored since roughly this time last year:

• Angular + Rails
• Landing page breakdowns
• AWS + Rails
• Shopify email marketing
• Job search skills for programmers
• Rails testing

Of all the things I’ve tried since ditching Angular/Rails, the job search thing was the most successful. I was able to get about 100 of my Angular/Rails email subscribers to follow me to that topic. I also wrote an ebook on the topic and sold more than zero copies. (I sold four more than zero copies, to be exact.) So why did I decide to move on?

In January I enrolled in 30×500 which was something I had wanted to do for a long time. My approach for going into 30×500 was to be totally neutral and not bring the baggage of any previous ideas or endeavors I’ve had. If going through 30×500 led to the job search focus still making sense, then great. If going through it led to working on something else, great. The important thing is that I come out with something that works.

A big part of the 30×500 process is research. You go to places where people talk about the thing you teach (“watering holes”) and find out what their pains are in order to alleviate their pains.

I decided to do my research at /r/rails, at least for starters, to see what I could turn up. I ended up uncovering a certain amount of pain around TDD/testing, which is something I have a lot of experience with. I’ve been doing Rails testing since 2011. Many of the questions I saw were things I could answer.

I started writing blog posts (“ebombs” in 30×500 language) about Ruby/Rails testing. To my delight and surprise one of my posts ended up getting featured in Ruby Weekly. Then I decided to email my list of 2,353 Angular + Rails and job search subscribers and basically say, “Hey, I’m only going to write about testing from now on. If you want to keep hearing from me, click this link. Otherwise you’ll be unsubscribed.” So far 154 people clicked the link. Combined with the 43 people who opted into my “Ruby testing micro-course”, that makes a total of 197 subscribers.

(Side note: I just remembered that I kicked off my Angular on Rails product sales with only about 300 subscribers.)

Here’s where I’m imagining going with the Rails testing specialty. I’m imagining that to make money from this I can do two things: 1) sell online Rails testing courses and 2) sell live, in-person Rails testing classes. These are arguably roughly the same service, just delivered two different ways.

I discovered not long ago, through a Twitter conversation with Wes Bos, that it’s apparently a common pattern for someone to buy a course and then request custom in-person training services. This was a real eye-opener for me. It means that, presumably, all the work it would take to market and sell a packaged Rails testing course would be along the same exact path that it would take to market and sell onsite Rails testing courses.

I’ve also recently realized that it would probably be a really good idea for me to speak at conferences. So I started applying to a whole bunch of conferences to talk about Rails testing. I even got a talk accepted but the dates ended up not working out.

My plans as of right now are to keep putting out educational material around Rails testing and to keep going through the 30×500 course and keep following its advice. I can’t emphasize enough how helpful it has been to be part of 30×500. It’s so nice to follow a path as opposed to try to blaze my own trail which I’m demonstrably not very good at.

Unlike some previous ventures I have no goal of getting to my first dollar of revenue as quickly as possible. I want to focus more on building something that’s genuinely good and helpful. I want to focus more on doing things right than doing things super fast.