Accepted into Buildspace N&W S4

Buildspace gaudmire s4 n&w

Accepted into Buildspace N&W S4

You might be wondering…wtf is N&W S4?

Fair.

Check out the TL,DR or read the longer post at the bottom.

TL,DR

1. I have been accepted in to Season 4 of Buildspaces Nights and Weekends (N&W S4)
2. I need help getting there — are you keen? If so, scroll to the bottom to see the ways you could assist.
3. Follow me on my six week journey to attempt to take my idea for a fully cloud based algorithm trading bot builder to the next level.
4. Over the next six weeks, you’ll see me building stuff live on YouTube, get to participate in my product launches

Background

I first came across Buildspace when I was getting into Web3 — specifically Solana, the Rust programming language, and building Web3 websites. Back then they were a company where people built awesome, high-quality, interactive training programs.

I loved the experience so much, I added their accounts to my socials, signed up to their Discord and kept a close watch.

Build something you give a sh*t about

A few months ago, I started to see a bunch of traffic from Farza (check him out, he’s a really cool guy), the founder of Buildspace about a new direction they were going.

Recently, Buildspace pivoted to running what they call “A place to build something you give a sh*t about”.

Put another way, they have built/are building a multinational program where you can:

• Bring any idea you care about
• Apply to a season of Nights & Weekends
• Be involved in a program for six weeks to build and demonstrate your work
• If you are successful in this program be given a shot to demo your work and win up to $100k

So. About my update.

Since publishing my first series on connecting Python to MetaTrader 5, it’s fair to say that my life has changed radically.

On the work front, I am now working full time on developing algorithms, solving complex technical challenges for customers, and basically, building a business. It has been a wildly exciting time!

I started a YouTube channel, learned a ton about how and when to partner with people (and honestly, when not to), and then got so busy, I ran out of time to write or stream. Annoyingly this was after I’d developed an entire roadmap on a product I wanted to build.

At home, my wife and I had a baby. He is now six months old, and we both love him to bits. Wouldn’t change that decision for anything — but the impact on my sleep and work has been intense.

We finished renovating our house, and started an AirBnB.

I identified a problem.

As my Medium channel and YouTube channel gained popularity, more and more people were interacting with me. I started to notice a troubling trend in the comments and discussions I was receiving.

Many of my followers were spending 10’s of hours stuck on configuration challenges, not actually building algorithms. I would chat to people and discover they had spent 15–20 hours trying to get their system set up, and hadn’t yet built a single algorithm.

What a horrible experience.

It directly conflicted with my core mission to build “Beautiful technology that works”

Defining the problem

After several of these interactions, I got a bug in my spirit about solving these challenges. I am absolutely convinced that that technology should add value to our lives, not suck up hours of time and frustration.

After interacting with my followers to figure out what would help, I got some great suggestions.

1. Sharing my configuration
2. Enabling better / easier / more repeatable methods for data exploration
3. Sharing more actual strategies
4. Improving / creating integration with more exchanges

I discovered a Vision Gap

The thing that really struck me was what I call the Vision Gap. This is the space between the amazing thing you can see in your heart/mind vs the IRL challenges people are facing.

My vision. To make a way for anyone around the world to build crazy powerful trading algorithms. To make things like machine learning algorithms and AI not just theoretical, but EASILY ACCESSIBLE TO ANYONE.

IRL Challenges. “How do I get TA Lib to work on my Windows laptop”

Solution Mode

Something flipped in my mind. I realized that I was in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to solve the exact challenges people were facing.

In doing so, I might just be a part of creating something amazing.

Vision: Updated

Create a place where anyone with an internet connection can build algorithms using the advanced tools that professional traders use.

I believe this vision is not just a dream. It’s entirely possible.

Buildspace and Me

Pretty much the day after I realized this, I opened up my inbox to see a message from Farza. In it he outlined the N&W concept and shared that you could bring (_almost_) any idea and build it.

It felt like serendipity — but I was scared

Season 1

I’m not going to lie — I completely chickened out of going ahead the first time. I was bombarded with thoughts of failure, fear, and confusion. The perfect trifecta of vision-killing emotions.

Season 2

Then the second season came along. This one felt perfect for me. It was tech focused. I chickened out again.

Season 3

Then season three arrived. This one went so big — over 7500 people joined. As I watched the various ideas come through, I finally felt like I could have a crack at this. So many people with such diverse ideas and backgrounds. I thought “Maybe my idea could find a home here”.

Around that time, I was heavily stretched across work, my little son, helping my wife start her business and finishing off our house renovations. On an honest analysis, I couldn’t see how I would give this idea an honest shot. Family always comes first in my worldview, so with a heavy heart I gave it pass

Season 4

When season 4 arrived, it felt different. I honestly couldn’t explain it outside of my faith-based worldview, however, it just felt like this was my shot. It felt like the God I call Father saying:

“This is your moment. Take it.”

I mentally added the 8-Mile soundtrack to it. Lol.

So I did. I submitted my application.

I Got Accepted

To my complete surprise, I actually got accepted into S4 N&W. At 4am on a Friday morning, my time, I receive an email notifying that my idea was accepted. Kick off time was imminent.

Wow.

So here I am

Having being accepted, I’m now focused on taking this beautiful idea and making it a reality. I’ve got six weeks.

How You Can Help

I’m going to need some help to make this dream a reality. Help that can only come from people like yourself. Right now, in the initial planning stages, I’ve identified three area’s I’m going to need help with:

1. Testers. People to test my product as it’s developed.
2. Builders. There is a lot of code to be written. I need help with this — especially if you’ve got experience managing Github code bases, and implementing Test Driven Development.
3. Community Advocates. Trading and algorithm development works best when done together. However, it’s also important to create ways for algorithms to be developed that respects peoples intellectual property. I need people to help me build and moderate a community around trading.

How to get involved

If you’re keen to get involved and feel like you could help, please contact me on LinkedIn with the words: Let’s Build Together. Send me through a quick outline of what you’d like to help with and what you feel you can offer.

If you’re looking to test or build together, send me a link to a place you’ve publicly developed code. Your work will speak for itself, so don’t worry about developing a beautiful presentation.

Share, Follow, and Interact

A final way you could help me and support me is through my content. Sharing my content around, following my channels and interacting with my content helps me to know what’s working and not working.

All of this will mean a better product for everyone at the end.

Thanks everyone for even making this dream a reality.

James