Real Talk

Really excited to share this new career app we've been working on at Tiny Hearts in collaboration with The Learning Partnership (a non-profit). Most sources of career info are riddled with myths and outdated advice. We're looking to change that with the Real Talk app by crowdsourcing BS free advice for students. The Real Talk app brings together the best actionable advice, tips and resources from young people who have been there and done that. We've profiled hundreds of young professionals – everyone from professional YouTubers, Drake’s full-time Barber, engineers at Facebook, designers to acrobats and accountants. For example if you're thinking about getting into Community Management who better to learn from then someone like PH's @bentossell :) You can find more details via our blog > http://blog.tinyhearts.com/th-bl... Interested in paying it forward and being featured in a Real Talk profile – fill out this form > http://www.realtalk.careers/form

Fantastic Robleh! I am curious about the reasoning behind going with a native app vs. a web app

School and career choices, is something I struggled with a lot with when I was growing up. I sucked at being a good student. I hated my teachers. I hated my parents. And I hated being forced to learn, what people thought I should learn. Because of that, I completely shutdown. I didn’t do my homework. I handed in tests, completely blank. I once spent an entire year of english, totally silent, never doing a single stitch of work. So at 15, my parents decided to send me to California, to work with my uncle for the summer. He owned a construction and design company. I dug holes, hammered nails, and when the opportunity arose, I helped him draw and design for new projects. I did that every summer till I was 20. I gave up every single summer, to work 3000 miles from home. No friends. No fun. I slept in half built houses like a squatter. When I finally got a job in design, it was for a small woodworking company on Long Island. I hated it. I was fired. Then I got a job in design for a robotics company. I hated it. I was fired. Then I got a design job at a stone fabricator. I hated it. But I didn’t get fired. That’s when I started to learn. I left that job on my own and moved out of my parents house. I started gambling for a living. I played golf, chess, cards, pool, anything I could bet on to pay the rent. I didn’t hate it. The stress was terrible, but I was free. I was on my own, doing what I wanted. I stuck with it till 2006, when out of the blue, the owner of one of the largest facade companies in the world, called and asked me to come work for him. I quit gambling, went back to work in design, and helped add to the Manhattan skyline. Buildings I did will stand for the next 100 years. But guess what. I still hated it. I was good at it. But I didn’t love it. I loved art. I loved drawing. I loved being creative. But once again, I didn’t love being told what to love. What to draw. What to create. I thought money would make me feel better. I walked into the boss's office and said I needed a raise. He said ok, how much? I said 100%. I wanted my salary raised by 100%. Guess what? He gave it to me. Happiness, right? No, I still hated it. 3 years into that job, my brother asked me if I wanted to start a software company. We began work on our service in the beginning of 2009. I stayed at my day job for 4 more years, while our platform morphed and changed, into something that made us a great living. Design wasn’t my true calling. I still don’t know what is. But here’s what I do know: When I was failing community college, and my father told me to take every civil service test I could get my hands on, I knew he was wrong. I knew I was meant to be something other than a bailiff. Parents think they know what’s best. The problem is, they know what’s best for them, not you. Everyone is different. Everyone takes their own amount of time, to figure out what they’re meant to do. When I quit that design job, at the stone fabricator, here’s what I told myself: I was going to be whatever the fuck I wanted to be. And when I became that, I would be the best I could at it. If I became a hole digger, I would try to be the best hole digger on the planet. If I became a nail hammerer, I would try to be the best nail hammerer on the planet. If I designed facade systems, I would try to be the best designer on the planet. I knew that if I did that, the money would come. I knew If I did that, I would be happy. So that’s what I’m doing, and that’s what I'm becoming.

I love it - finally, some digging into the mechanics of how people get into their roles...what would be cool is if interviewees could also do a simple scoring of how much of the outcome was attributable to luck, smarts, hard work, or other basics like that...sometimes people are simply well connected, or lucky, and beat out the smart or hard working, or the other way around, but it would be neat to see a little "I got here with X percent luck, X percent hard work and X percent school and study"

Real Talk is a fantastic idea Tiny Hearts team. I wish I had this while I was in college, but glad it came along in time for me to share with my youngest sister :) @robjama - I am curious about your network development strategy. It looks like you're taking the shotgun approach to see what sticks rather than cultivating niche industries. Is there any concern with not specifically targeting certain industries to start that your engagement within each individual industry or profession will be too shallow to truly development a robust community? Are you seeing certain professions really grabbing ahold of using this platform while others are struggling to provide a equilibrium for supply and demand?

What a wonderful idea. I've had the opportunity to mentor a few folks and was alarmed at the gap between what they read/learn online and in their schools vs the ground reality of the career they are interested in and this would definitely be a refreshing way to get real perspectives for them.

This is a worthy problem to solve. @robjama I interviewed the founder of Pathsource for my podcast and we talked about helping career paths @pathsource. (episode 169 of The App Guy Podcast) I'd happily connect you both (if you like) because you have a lot of synergy in your projects. A virtual coffee chat over Skype could add real value for both of you. :-)