I am not a personal finance blogger. I am not really much of a blogger period. I am a designer, a facilitator, and the guy behind the scenes here at Yakezie. I like to think of my role here as the stage manager for a play, changing the set pieces and raising the curtain. An important role, but never seen. Except by the cast.
I am 24, live in San Francisco, work in Palo Alto, love photography, and have been married for a little over a year to my beautiful wife. I was born in Idaho, but I haven’t lived there since I was 13. I am a very typical nerd.
The context
I didn’t realize it until a few weeks ago when I started working full time at my current employer, SayNow, that I have not worked as an employee for more than six years. Since I started college, all of the money that I make has been from temporary work (college summer jobs) or consulting, and all that time I was my own boss. I’m not sure where the entrepreneurial gene came from, and I certainly didn’t set out to be independent; it just happened.
I moved to San Francisco 15 months ago, and while I did look for full time employment, I found much more success working for myself. In the Bay Area, Craigslist.com is huge, and I was able to get almost all of the work that I did through advertising my services, and responding to other’s help wanted posts. As a matter of fact, that is how Financial Samurai and I got connected. He needed some help with WordPress, and over the course of several months, we worked together on his site, tweaking, updating, and protecting it. When he made the initial Yakezie pitch to me, it was easy to want to get on board. I love building things and Yakezie was and still is a great challenge.
Silicon Valley
Wall Street in New York City is the “mecca” for anyone in the finance industry. It is ground zero for worldwide money, commerce, and trade. For a nerd, though, Silicon Valley is where much of what gets us excited happens. Google, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo, Oracle, and Microsoft all have strong presence here as well as countless new startups hoping to be the next big thing. I have been lucky enough to be a part of the action.
In October of last year, I responded to a post on Craigslist for a front-end web design position. The company was a small startup in Mountain View and I started working from their offices once per week. Over the course of the next few months, I began coming in every day, and I took on a much more prominent role influencing the design and direction of our products.
And then, the company got acquired by Facebook.
Because I was a contractor, not an employee, I was not part of the deal, but the owner of the company was able to connect me with some others who were looking for designers and, less than a week later, I was working as an employee for the first time in a long time at SayNow in Palo Alto. So here I am, working in the middle of the action. I never thought I would be here.
The Yakezie
Over the coming months, I plan to continue updating the Yakezie. I have a long list of new features that I want to code and small tweaks to make. But more important than my vision for the site are the features that you as a community, the members of the site, want to see us add and improve. I am on the site, forums, and behind the scenes daily. You guys amaze me with everything that you do and the community that has been created here.
But, even more than that, I am excited about the scholarship initiative. That is one of the coolest features of this site, and your generosity blows me away.
I am not sure if anyone is interested, but I have been toying with publishing a series of articles about how Yakezie.com runs behind the scenes from a technical perspective either in the forums or on my own site. It would cover our hosting, backup strategy, content delivery network, and how we are using WordPress for all of the features of the site. Thanks for reading this, and keep the comments and suggestions coming!
~Chris
After saying ‘hello’, join us for further discussion in the Yakezie Forums.
Great story. You really do play a huge part here and I’m thankful for all of the work you are doing. I’d love to read those articles about the behind the scenes. I love getting new ideas for my own site so I might steal a few :) Thanks again for al of the great work.
Feel free to take whatever good ideas you can see. I don’t even really consider it stealing…because 9 times out of 10, I got the idea from somewhere else too.
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Hey Chris, excellent work on the Yakezie site. I’ve worked a lot with (or in) software companies (just not as a developer) and I’ve seen teams of people working on a site and not have anywhere near as good a result as you’ve put together here.
And I’d love reading your behind the scenes technical perspective!
Chris, to me you’ve been like the guy at the switchboard of the Matrix. :) Very cool indeed. What I wouldn’t give to be in my mid-20’s working in the Valley.
I’d love to hear more of the technical aspects as I’m still getting to know WordPress and finding out what’s useful. As our blogs grow, I think than security and backing up information will be key for the members.
I’m glad that the universe divined for you and Sam to make a connection. Not only are we, the bloggers benefiting from your connection, but so will the individuals receiving scholarships every month. Thank you.
Thanks, and I think I like that analogy better as well. Perhaps I will change my job title to “The Architect” or “The Operator”. It has a nice ring to it…
Great stuff Chris! I like how you’ve managed to go out on your own and be an entrepreneur as well as find stability at an internet startup now, and work on Yakezie.com! Lifestyle blogger for sure! :)
You said something very wise and important to me several months ago which I really appreciate, and that is, “To treat everyone like a customer.”. That is the attitude that will take all of us very far if we adopt this philosphy.
I appreciate all you do and I believe all of us as a team will be able to really press forward, grow our own respective sites, and launch a wonderful and consistent charitable initiative!
Cheers
Thanks for your kind words, Sam.
Thanks Chris for all your hard work behind the scenes. Your work never goes un-noticed and we appreciate all the work you do to make Yakezie the best personal finance network in the world!
Chris! Thanks for writing this. I think it’s important for us techies to get our due sometimes. May I ask why you chose to work full time as an employee rather than keep with the freelance work?
Thanks for all that you do behind the scenes. I can’t imagine all the work you’ve put into it and I know it looks and runs great.
There are a couple of reasons, some practical, and some career minded. My wife was worried about the lack of health insurance coming from me, especially in the future when we start to have kids. She and I would like to have the option for here to stay home with them, and I would need to be making a fair amount more to afford self-employed health insurance for a family. So that was a more practical reason why.
Ultimately, though, I took the job at SayNow because I had hit a point in my web design career where I wasn’t being as challenged by the client projects that I was taking on. At SayNow, I am doing things with SmartPhone application design, web application design, etc. that would be much harder for me to get into on my own. These new and interesting challenges are what made me what to work here. Hope that answers your question!
Certainly does. I know my wife and I have struggled with those very same issues in the past. And ultimately, doing work that you feel challenged by and enjoy is the goal.
Hey Chris, thanks for this introduction! You’ve done a great job with the site! I would love to hear about the behind the scenes workings of this site, it would be a great benefit to me and I’m sure everyone else as well.
Thanks for all the great work you’ve done here, Chris! The site looks great and I know you’ve put a lot of work into getting it ready before the launch and working out the bugs afterward. Plus, you continue to add great features.
I enjoyed your story as well. It sounds like you’re in a great position to become extremely successful and it all comes back to your attitude and approach to work. Great job and I wish you the best!
HELL YEAH I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW THE BACK END STUFF! Its fantastic that you are living the “nerd” dream lol
You sir are a baller. That is all :)
Chris, you’ve done a great job with this site, it really is one of the prettier AND functional sites I’ve seen running on the WordPress framework. You’re to be commended for your superb work! I for one would also love to read about the behind the scenes – how things have been done. I’m only a pseudo-nerd, but I love reading about the nitty gritty details – even if it is beyond me!
Everyone, thank you very much for your very kind words. It looks like it is very unanimous so far that I should start writing some behind the scenes articles. So I will start to think about that.
Hi Chris,
You might be behind the scenes, but you are definitely not forgotten! You’ve really done a great job with the site, and I also appreciate the helpful advice and quick feedback whenever I have come to you with questions or concerns. “To treat everyone like a customer.” seems like a good philosophy to follow, and I think I can learn something from that as well.
I’m interested in learning more about what’s going on behind the scenes, so I look forward to those articles! :)
Absolutely, I really enjoyed the last update that was posted. I definitely look forward to the “behind the scenes” posts!
Chris, thanks for sharing your story! I love your enthusiasm for your work, and life!
Good luck, and I look forward to working with you!
thanks for all you do for us.
@Chris – I hear you on healthcare. I was surprised to learn that one gets full healthcare if one works just 4 hours a day at Starbucks. Apparently, there are a lot of min wage jobs out there which provide healthcare. It’s good to know as I and perhaps many of you want to someday go out on your own and have this naggin insurance concern!In N Out burger is another one! Whoo hoo.
Another good tag team is to have one spouse do the traditional job with HC, and the other to go out and be that entrepreneur while being on the spouse’s insurance plan.Anybody in this situation?
My wife and I are. She’s started her own business with a couple of partners while I’m holding down the full time job with family healthcare. It’s not totally provided, but enough that it makes sense. Although, at the moment, I’m working on something else that might precipitate us getting some health care somewhere else.
Congratulations on your new job, and health care, and welcome to the neighborhood from another mid-Peninsula dweller! I’ve appreciated your attention to the little quirks we’re coming upon as we use the new site and definitely appreciate the work that went behind getting the site up and running!
Nice to meet you!! Awesome pic, too!
Chris,
It was great to learn more about you! Awesome job on the site – it looks and runs great…thank you for making it happen for the Yakezie!
Count me in with the others who want to know more about what goes on “behind the scenes”! I’m always looking to learn and you definitely know your stuff!
You have been really helpful with any technical issues that I have had using the site. I think that a post on all of the technical aspects of launching a network like this would be great. Thanks!
Very cool! I would like to hear about the behind the curtain work too ;)
To my untrained eyes, it looks like the Yakezie site is mostly your code with the WordPress engine to manage the database contents. Awesome sir, just plain awesome!!!
Hey Chris,
I’m fine that you’re not a blogger. In fact, I’m happy you’re not or else this might not be happening like it is :). You’ve clearly talented and I’m proud that you are on our team. You’ve done great things over the last few months and I’m sure you will continue to do well. Great work!
Thanks,
Timothy
So grateful for your hard work and talent here on the site Chris! it’s certainly one of the best network sites out there – personal finance and beyond.
Hey Chris,
It’s really interesting to hear your background and read about the man behind all the techie stuff going on. You’ve got a really interesting story.
I’d love to not only hear some of the inside scoop of all the stuff you work on behind the scenes, but even hear more about your background and other projects you’re working on. You obviously do an amazing job because it sounds like worth of mouth is extremely positive about you!
Andrew
I would love to read more about blog technologies. I just started blogging a couple of months ago and it wasn’t easy starting from scratch. There are tons of information out there, but it’s quite tough to sift gold from sand. Thanks for working hard on Yakezie.
Yeah, there’s a whole deep sea of information out there. I definitely look forward to learning more behind the scenes stuff.
Chris, I work at a software development company so am surrounded by nerds. As a mom of a 24 y/o, your maturity, creativity and insigth is beyond your years.
Thank you for taking care of the hard part (along with Sam) in keeping the Yakezie going.
P.S. I am a closet nerd and would love to know the back end stuff!
Just a follow up to everyone who is interested in the technical behind the scenes stuff. I have gone ahead and posted in the private forums asking for questions that you would like answered by me about the technical stuff. Feel free to post there so that I can begin collecting my thoughts and hopefully better answer your questions! Here is the link:
http://yakezie.com/forums/private-everything-else/how-we-created-the-yakezie-a-new-series-from-chris-j
(Please note that the above link will only work for members of the Yakezie Private Forums. I do plan on publishing some things publicly as well)
Chris you have done an awesome job with Yakezie and are always super fast to fix things and make everyone here happy. It’s been a pleasure having you set all this up for Sam and us and it’s cool to get to know you a little better. Glad the ft job is going well.
Chris you are so talented and you have done an amazing job with Yakezie.com and Financial Samurai’s blogs- beautiful work.
PS you don’t look like a nerd! :)
Chris, I would love to get a behind the scenes look! As one who has been working in finance, economics, money management, investing etc. forever I know so much in those areas but next to nothing in computer design etc. As a 9 month old blogger, I am sooooo interested in learning more about that area! In fact, I would like to channel your information! ;) thanks for the informative insight into your background!
FYI, the post in the private forums is now live! Check it out here:
http://yakezie.com/forums/private-everything-else/yakezie-behind-the-scenes-part-1
Do you have to be invited in? Says Access Denied….
Hey Chris! Sorry that I’m a little late in reading your article. But, I wanted to thank you for all the hard work you do in putting the site together! It has really paid off!
Hey Chris, sorry your brush with Facebook wasn’t more lucrative for you! Definitely looking forward to reading more of your series of tech articles.
Thank you for sharing your story Chris! I’d really like to learn how things work back-end, and I am looking forward to your tech articles. :)