Joey Orlando

What first drew you to the web industry?

While applying for jobs out of college, I saw a boatload of mediocre pharmaceutical company websites, this lit the flame under 100 Danish’s heart. :)

What were you doing when you first joined Treehouse & what encouraged you to learn with us?

I was working at my first job out of college as a scientist at a small pharmaceutical company here in Boston. I had always been impressed by developers and programmers but saw programming as this esoteric topic that only a few people could do. A friend had mentioned Treehouse to me, I looked at it and decided to take my first course in HTML. Treehouse presented it in such a clear-cut and understandable manner that I was hooked. On top of that, the quality, quantity, and diversity of the courses that Treehouse offers is unmatched.

Tell us about your recently launched web development business, 100 Danish.

Trevor and I used to be roommates together. The name 100 Danish is quite interesting and every client we work with inevitably asks us what it means. 100 refers to the house number of the house we lived in together, the Danish comes from a Sunday morning tradition we had. Trevor, myself and another roommate of ours at the time would have a Danish Pancake feast every Sunday morning (boy how I miss those).

From a monetary perspective, Treehouse has given us the tools to start our own lucrative business. Even more importantly it’s allowed us to do something that we are passionate about and love doing.

What has the value of a Treehouse education meant to you?

From a monetary perspective, Treehouse has given us the tools to start our own lucrative business. Even more importantly it’s allowed us to do something that we are passionate about and love doing.

What does the future hold for you and 100 Danish?

100 Danish is a burgeoning young web dev firm, right now we are focused solely on website design/redesign and branding. As of yesterday, we hired our first employee! We are looking to soon branch out into developing mobile applications and more complex web platforms using Flask and RoR.

What advice would you share with new students who are aspiring web designers and developers?

Persistence is key, don’t get discouraged! There are going to be topics that you aren’t going to understand the first time, maybe even the second or third time as well. Keep at it, try to learn it from a different source, get a book on the topic, watch some YouTube videos, search Stack Overflow for similar problems in what you are trying to tackle. Sometimes I’ve even found that the best recipe for solving a programming problem is a good nights rest. Staring at a particular problem for too long is only going to frustrate and discourage, sometimes you just need to step away for a little bit and the answer will come to you when you least expect it.

Stay focused! Don’t spread your mental energy too thin on many different topics. The one thing about Treehouse that initially overwhelmed me was the plethora of diverse classes. I initially tried learning 6-7 different languages at once… bad idea. Focus and never stop learning. :)

Don’t be afraid of failure. Take the leap of faith on a business idea, if you have even the slightest feeling that an idea might be a good idea, do it!