Why tutorials kept failing me

Hi Mailwal,

I want to tell you a quick story because I think you'll see yourself in it.

When I first started learning to code, I had two weeks of programming experience. That's it. Two weeks from a high school robotics class where I learned just enough to make a robot move when you flicked a lever.

But something about writing that code hooked me. So I switched my entire college major from mechanical engineering to computer engineering before classes even started. Big commitment for someone who barely knew what a variable was.

And then reality hit.

My freshman year, I was in an honors computer science class surrounded by people who had been programming since they were kids. They'd build the intro projects in 10 minutes while I sat there thinking "this is seriously magic right now, I have no idea what just happened."

I felt behind…

Constantly.

That feeling of "everyone else gets this and I don't" was pretty much my entire first year.

But here's what I figured out during those years of struggling, working internships where I had zero web development experience, and teaching myself at night after a full day of classes…

The hard part of learning to program isn't the syntax…

It's not memorizing methods or knowing which framework is hot this month…

The hard part is rewiring your brain to think like a developer.

Learning how to break down problems, connect concepts together, and build something from scratch without following a tutorial step by step.

Once that clicked for me, everything changed. And I realized that the tutorials I had been learning from were actually making it harder, not easier. They were either too long and filled with filler, or they'd walk you through building an entire project without ever teaching you how to think through it yourself. So you'd finish the tutorial feeling great, then open a blank editor and have no idea where to start.

That's pretty much why Web Dev Simplified exists.

I started making YouTube videos in 2018 because I kept thinking "I can explain this better." Not because I'm smarter than other teachers - but because I went through that painful process of learning web development the hard way, mostly on my own, and I figured out what actually works.

My whole approach comes down to something simple:

1. I explain a concept,
2. I show you how it connects to what you already know,
3. And then I give you exercises so you can build it yourself.

That's it.

No filler, no fluff, no 45-minute detours into stuff you don't need.

What started as Web Dev Simplified in 2018 has grown into a library of over 1,000 videos and multiple courses, helping more than 70 million developers on their web development journey. I've personally answered thousands of student questions, and I still do. A lot of those students have gone on to land their first developer jobs, get promoted, or finally build the projects they'd been stuck on for months.

That's what this whole thing is about for me.

So whether you're just getting started, or you've been coding for years and you're trying to level up or fill in the gaps, I built all of this for people like you.

Developers who want to actually understand how things work, not just copy code from a tutorial and hope for the best.

Over the next few days, I'm going to share some things with you that I think you'll find useful. For example - how to figure out the fastest path forward for wherever you are right now, and a proven learning system that has helped millions of people.

Talk soon,

Kyle

P.S. Just a heads up: I’m going to be sending more emails than usual this week. If you want to skip this email series but continue receiving updates from me in the future, no problem, click here.