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Core Value #9:
Experience comes at a cost

“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer.”
-Randy Pausch-

This thought, which is more like a lesson that life has repeatedly given me, is basically about considering the cost of the time it takes to learn anything. The approach is based on taking each stumble as a learning experience and giving value to the road traveled even if it appears to be a road of failures. In this sense, a failure is not the one who has many failures but the one who does not learn from them, since by failing you can gain a lot of experience (sometimes even more than by succeeding).

If experience comes at a cost, it makes no sense to pay for it multiple times. On the contrary, we should try to minimize as much as possible the cost of the experience while maximizing the learning. That is why it is also important to give value to the experiences of others (which do not have to be our own experience but can certainly save us a cost in our own experience).

This way of seeing and analyzing has helped me to make important decisions such as whether or not to move from a place. When you have been living in a place for a while, there are many things in which you gain time and save money: you know the fastest ways, where to buy everything, the best areas to live, the prices you have to pay, the best times to do everything, etc. All this information is based on your experience and is something that takes time to accumulate. Moving to another place, for example, should consider the cost of accumulating that experience in a new place (although obviously, there are things and situations that weigh more heavily, such as our happiness, health or safety, which may well tip the balance).

This also has taught me to place value on the work of others as well as my own. That is, how long it would take me to have the experience and knowledge this person has and how much I am saving in hiring him or her, not only in money but in time. Perhaps months and often years or decades.

As I have commented in another post, for me the most valuable thing is time and over the years I have learned that saving me time is much more valuable than saving me money.

Obviously I would love to have all the time in the world, maybe then I could learn all the professions and have all the experience in the world but not only do I not have all that time but I also know that many professions I would not like to learn, no matter how much time I have.

Luckily, every individual is different and everyone likes something different (unfortunately, not everyone does what they like). But since experience comes at a cost, I prefer to pay the cost of experience with my time on things I like and enjoy doing.

So I ask myself, what is the cost of experience that I am willing to pay for with my own time and what is the cost of experience for which I prefer to pay for the time of others. The cost of expertise almost always translates into time and money (gaining expertise takes time and paying someone for their expertise costs money) and this cost must be calculated and taken into account when making decisions.

For example, this service that this person or this company is selling me, How much would it cost me to get their expertise in terms of time? And in terms of money? And based on this, is it worth it to me to pay for this service?

A friend once told me a story about someone who came to fix his air conditioner and gave him a rather high quote, which my friend accepted because of the urgency he had and that the technician was someone recommended but the job took the man less than 5 minutes. My friend asked him why so expensive if it took so little time and the man replied: “I do not charge for my time, I charge for my experience”.

This anecdote totally validates the title of this post because, How long would it have taken my friend to repair his air conditioner by himself? How many manuals would he have had to read? Surely he would have had to learn about electrical systems, cooling plates and who knows how many other things and even then, this is only theoretical knowledge. He would lack the experience to be sure of what to do and how to do it so as not to hurt himself or end up damaging the equipment. It may have cost him less money at the time to hire a less experienced person, but it may have taken that person more time or even the repair or diagnosis may not have been done properly, so it may have cost him more money and time in the long run. And taking all this time and risks into account probably the repair price would not have been expensive at all.

The man in question does not charge for the time it takes him to do a repair but he does charge for the time it took him to have all that experience (there we can also see the market value, among other factors).

That is why, many times, paying cheap is paying twice and doing it yourself is not always the best option (unless it’s something you enjoy and have time to learn or don’t have the money to hire someone but doing it yourself doesn’t compromise your safety or the safety of others, of course).

That said, if you are going to repair an air conditioner, it is usually in your best interest to call an experienced air conditioning technician. If you’re building a house, you’ll want to call an experienced construction crew. If you have car problems, you’ll want to take it to an experienced mechanic. And if you need a website, you’ll want to call an experienced web developer ;).

If this is the case, I am a web developer with more than 7 years of experience and I specialize in conversion-driven SEO. It is something I love, I am passionate about and I enjoy spending my time doing, both for my clients and to keep studying and keeping up to date with the latest developments.

In this way, I better understand the value that my experience brings to my clients. In the time I save them and the money I make them earn, improving their positioning strategy, conversion rate and overall traffic strategy, thanks to my expertise.

If you have a conscious business or want to create a purpose-driven project and you are looking for an experienced web developer, please do not hesitate to contact me.