I am the eldest son of two political refugees from Somalia. They immigrated to the U.S. to avoid a civil war. I was blessed to be born and raised in San Diego, CA.  My dad has always been an entrepreneur to provide for my siblings and I. He’s done everything from owning a restaurant to selling cars. My role, even from a young age, was to bring in customers. Initially, I passed out flyers and eventually I learned how to create events on social media. I did whatever it took to see my dad succeed. The one thing he always instilled in me growing up was to keep learning. This

A few years ago, my dad retired and my mom fell ill. This was a difficult time in my life because I was the oldest of four siblings; therefore, the responsibility of providing for the family fell on my shoulders. I decided to drop out of San Jose State University and started working full-time as a security guard. It was during this time that I created the 4-Year System that would take the place of my formal education at SJSU. I am truly blessed to live in a time when I can access knowledge from credible sources online and from the comfort of my home. After thorough research of the economy and trends, I decided I would do a deep dive into four skills that are in demand over the span of four years. I eventually decided on digital marketing, business development/sales, data analytics, and data science.

Year 1: Digital Marketing

I chose digital marketing because understanding growth has always been a passion of mine. I’ve always wondered how startups can have humble beginnings then turn into worldwide phenomena. During this year I learned about the Facebook, Google and Linkedin ad platforms. I also studied different schools of thought in the marketing world. Individuals such as Billy Gene, Russell Brunson, and Everette Taylor provided me with tangible lessons about this world and I am forever grateful for their help. During the second half of this year, I began to run ads for charities, family friends and anyone that needed help getting their word out there for free so I could gain experience.

Year 2: Business Development and Sales

Soon, referrals started pouring in for my social media marketing services. During the second year, I created my own marketing agency called Uptown Digital as my main source of income. I realized that I needed to learn how to develop and implement growth opportunities for other businesses and my own.  I created a repeatable process for social media marketing that used Facebook and Instagram ads, Acxiom for targeting and Clickfunnels for creating sales funnels and tracking performance. One issue I ran into was pitching my services to prospects so I joined Sales Bootcamp where I learned how to create a value proposition and how to structure my sales process.

Year 3: Data Analytics and Visualization

While running ads for small businesses, I realized that I was creating large amounts of data from my marketing campaigns. The main goal for Year 3 was to understand my data and pull valuable insight from the ads I ran. After doing some research, I found Tableau was the industry standard software for data analytics and visualization. I took a course on Udemy called Tableau: A-Z that showed me the power of the software and provided real-life examples to explore. I learned how to tell a story with data and how to make it compelling. This was probably the most enjoyable topic I learned about and I look forward to using these skills for the rest of my career.

Year 4: Product

I stumbled into the world of product after a few months of working at a startup as a Growth Manager. I kept asking questions about how we would build various initiatives and fell in love with taking concepts from RnD to revenue. My former Head of Product molded me into a Product Manager and I am forever grateful. Product Management is similar to the captain of a ship without the authority of a CEO. It taught me how to use empathy as a superpower and guide a team to success.

Designers design.

Engineers build.

Product Managers communicate.

Outro

If the blockchain will allow me, this is a live post and I will be adding new skills every year. None of this would be possible with Lynda.com, Udacity, Coursera, Facebook Blueprint and various other online communities. I plan to develop this 4-Year System into a free online course for individuals from non-traditional backgrounds that also believe in education but don’t have the choice of learning in a classroom setting.

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