I applied for the Codetalk program out of pure frustration.
Years ago, I had the idea to create an online marketplace where Indigenous artisans could post their authentically made designs and creations online and sell to a global market. It proved to be easier said than done.
I studied entrepreneurship, wrote a business plan, obtained some capital to create the site… and ran into a brick wall. I was (attempting) to create an e-commerce business in a small city where most marketing agencies were creating small Shopify sites for other small businesses. Back then, it was unheard of to create a massive platform from scratch. We looked at Shopify, Squarespace, WordPress, and more, and finally settled on piecing together a WordPress site.
The first agency did an amazing branding package for me and failed on the marketplace. It looked pretty but didn’t function the way it was supposed to.
The second agency tried and failed again. They updated some of the original site, added a few extensions, and this time we were able to get items posted in the Artisans dashboard and actually selling. It required a lot of back and forth between myself and the Artisans, and it was a complete mess on my side of things. Items were able to sell, however, but it could definitely be improved.
The third agency attempted to create a new website from scratch, and it also barely worked. It was still a lot of back and forth to get items listed and sold, and it was an overall headache. I was about to give up on the idea of a marketplace completely when the agency partners split, and one of them came onboard as part of my small business team. He was able to build a solid marketplace that was by far the easiest and most attractive site to date.
Through it all, I bled capital. I obtained small business capital through a variety of loans, savings, business competition winnings, and grants and sunk all of it back into the site. The majority of it went to pay developers, and it was frustrating to see them receive the funds and then to have the website(s) continue to fail. There was always something that needed to be fixed, and it always came with a price tag. I was also one of their smaller clients, so my needs were always on the backburner, which led to extended wait times for myself and my artisans.
I used to sit in coffeeshops and pick at my website myself. Through the power of YouTube, I was able to learn smaller WordPress tricks and could soon update various assets, add new forms and events, and piece together things myself. I ended up deleting a huge chunk of code once and had to get my agency to do a reset, but that was part of my learning curve – and yes I had to pay them to reset it.
In 2019, I closed the website down. The dream remained dormant for years as the pandemic happened, and we moved to California from Canada. As we settled in and created a life here, I realized that this was where I wanted the next chapter of my life to play out. My kids are thirteen and fifteen now, and it’s time to get back to being who I am again, and thats an entrepreneur.
Learning to code will give me the freedom I need to start creating a new website that I’ve been developing in my mind again. I remember how excited. I would get when something actually worked in the old site and how great it felt to not have to rely on someone else to do it for me.
My old website helped me grow as an entrepreneur. I won fourteen business plan competitions to earn the capital to make it happen. I was also the first Native American venture to be accepted into the Canadian Technology Accelerator in its history—I flew back and forth to Boston every two weeks for the entirety of that cohort. I received numerous business awards and accolades, including the CCAB national Indigenous Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and I spoke at dozens of incredible conferences, summits, reserves and communities.
To me, learning web development equals freedom. It equals the opportunity to create what’s been living in my mind for the last three years. It equals the journey of becoming a Native in STEM once more and the chance to become who I am once more.
A few weeks ago I heard a quote by Desmond Tutu that stuck with me: “There is only one way to eat an elephant: one bite at a time.”. That quote resonates with me as I prepare to take some of the first bites of my website/elephant. My plan is to complete the Codetalk program at the top of the class and to make the most of every opportunity and networking that comes my way as I go through it. This is why I’m so excited about the beautiful world of web development—because it holds my future.
Leave a Reply