A course for technical entrepreneurs by Michael Kennedy of Talk Python and Matt Makai of Full Stack Python.

Stretch goals

• [met] $2,000 - Funded, thank you!
• [met] $8,000 - Full text close-caption transcripts, thank you!
• [met] $10,000 - Pro video editor, thank you!
• [met] $16,000 - Double the deployment - PaaS and dedicated servers, thank you!
• [active] $30,000 - Top 3 businesses launched from the course featured on a Talk Python To Me podcast episode.

Many courses will teach you about the technology involved in building a web application. Fewer courses will teach you what it actually takes to launch that product as an operating online business. Python for Entrepreneurs is here to teach you both how to build your website and everything needed to make it a functioning online business.

The overriding goal of this course is to dramatically shorten your time from idea to minimum viable product (MVP) to running in production and accepting online payments from months to weeks or even a couple weeks in some cases.

When building an online product or web app, it's easy to focus deeply on the product, the market fit, design, and these types of things. When you finally have it finished enough to launch your first version, you'll find yourself hit with a wave of many unfamiliar technical tasks before you can actually go live:

• Accepting credit cards in a compliant manner
• Storing user accounts in a 'hacker-safe' format to keep your product out of the headlines
• Sending outbound email (e.g. as a user makes a purchase or resets their password)
• Collecting users' email for outbound email marketing (mailing lists)
• Domain registration and configuration
• SSL certificates and configuration
• Error logging and monitoring in production
• Deploying to cloud servers
• Configuring your cloud servers for scale
• Testing your website performance and making it faster
• Getting help via part time contractors so you can focus on product and growth
• And so much more

You will learn all of these in this course: How to build a data-driven web app and launch it successfully.

Once you launch, you'll need to turn your focus to areas that, as a technical person, you probably have little experience with. So we will also cover

• Design
• Capturing and engaging users 
• SEO basics 
• Growth hacking basics 
• Showcasing your products

You will learn to build and design your web app

This course will teach you how to build a data-driven web application in Python. We will:

• Build our web app with the Pyramid web framework, "the Python web framework that supports your decisions, by artisans for artisans."
• Create and connect to our database using SQLAlchemy, the most popular data access layer in Python
• Learn the core elements of web design including CSS and front-end frameworks such as Bootstrap.

What app will we build and explore?

We will start from absolute scratch: a new, blank web app. From there we will build the ecommerce site for my and your favorite fictional, tech-based rock band "Blue Yellow Rockets".

Here's a picture of the web application we'll build during the course.

A few things to note right from this screenshot:

• The design is catchy and feels pretty modern
• It has account management (via sign in / register)
• Credit card and ecommerce capabilities under the albums nav link
• Mailing list / subscription support via 'get notified' field

And that's just above the fold. It has all the features we've discussed so far and much more.

What is covered in depth

Estimated length: 15 hours
Average length of chapter: 45 minutes
Lectures per chapter: 5-10 video lectures

Chapters

• Success criteria & motivation
• Course setup and configuration
• Python language refresher
• PyCharm editor and IDE introduction
• Build web apps with Pyramid: Part 1 
• Intro to web design foundations (CSS mostly) 
• Build web apps with Pyramid: Part 2 
• Source control: Git & Github 
• Web design: Part 2 - CSS Front-end frameworks and Bootstrap 
• Databases from Python: SQLALchemy ORM 
• Capturing and engaging users: Accounts, mailing lists, and more 
• SEO foundations 
• Deploying to the cloud (with a deployments ebook to go along with the videos)
• Making money (credit card processing and business formation) 
• Getting help 
• Scaling up 
• Growth hacking basics 
• Showcase (of student creations) 
• Conclusion 

Each of the video lectures is supplemented by open source code so you can get hands-on with the material as we proceed through the chapters. In addition, the Deploying to the cloud chapter includes an ebook based on the Full Stack Python Guide to Deployments book, customized just for this course's content.

Who is this course for?

The ideal student for this course is someone who knows a little (or a lot) of programming and wants to launch an online business based around a non-trivial product.

For example, if you have always spent your time in middle-tier programming at a big company and you want to break out of that mold to launch a competitor to AirBnB, then you found the right place to start. That would be a huge challenge, of course, but it gives you the idea of who we have in mind.

If you don't know Python, pick the PYTHON FOUNDATION + ENTREPRENEUR reward to take both courses.

If you don't know any programming at all, you'll want to take a primer first. We recommend you back this project now at the PYTHON FOUNDATION + ENTREPRENEUR reward and take the free MIT course Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python. Once you've learned the core computer science ideas you'll be ready to dive deeper into Python with my two courses. 

Keep in mind, this journey you are starting is not necessarily (or even recommended to be) a leap before you look experience. You don't have to quit your job, build an MVP, and see if the market or VC community wants it. Even if you just want to build something small as a side business first, this course would be perfect for you.

Why Python?

A premise of this course is that you want build something special. While many web apps can be constructed from a wordpress instance and a bunch of plugins plus a premium theme, you won't really control that application.

You will need to make the changes and tweaks to create a truly custom web app that can adapt as you get customer feedback after launch or to new business models. We want you to have an application that you can build upon for a long time to come. This means you need a custom app and Python is one of the very best choices for this.

Pick and choose how you take this course

We understand everyone comes with a different background and might need something different to succeed. Remember, the overriding goal is to get you from where you are to launch as fast as possible. Towards that end:

     This course is designed for random access.

Let's say you already know Python web apps, but don't know much about front-end design or accepting credit cards. That's fine, save the time, skip the web and database sections, just go from intro to web design basics to the credit card section.

Already know web design but need the Python web exposure? Perfect: jump right into the Pyramid and Python parts.

What if I use Flask or Django or even another tech?

If you use another web framework such as Flask or Django, don't worry. Almost everything we cover outside of explicitly covering Pyramid itself will be very relevant to you.

For example, we'll use Stripe Checkout for credit cards. This is basically the same across all three frameworks. We'll use Mailchimp for mailing lists and email marketings. Again, it's "pip install mailchimp" and carry on the same way across all three frameworks, etc.

Concepts backed by visuals

While building apps and learning as you go is engaging, it can be hard to fully introduce a topic in that format. That's why when we hit a new topic, we stop and discuss it with concise and clear visuals.

Here's an example for when we will start working with Stripe and credit card processing.

Backed by real experience and success

Michael and Matt have built a number of online web applications and launched them to varying degrees of success.

Michael's businesses (the podcast, related website, and online training website - where you'll take this course) have done extremely well since they launched a year and a half ago.

The Talk Python To Me podcast has over 1.7 million downloads and sponsorships are sold out through 2016. The courses are popular and continue to attract new and returning students. You will get a deep look inside these two web apps. During the course, you'll see the internals, including source code, of how these apps work and some of the growth hacking techniques I've used to make them successful.

Matt's Full Stack Python (open source) project has helped over a million readers learn programming, web development and application deployment since it launched in December 2012. Today, over 75,000 people per month read Full Stack Python and contribute back to the project by submitting pull requests and opening issues on GitHub.

Matt also inspires and equips fellow Python and Swift developers as a Twilio Developer Evangelist via his technical tutorials as well as in person at conferences and hackathons.

And, of course, we've both tried a number of ventures that failed too.

As much as possible, we will bring this experience to this course. We want to help you learn from what has worked for me and what hasn't.

Who we are and why should you take our course?

Meet Michael Kennedy:

My name is Michael, nice to meet you. ;) There are a couple of reasons I'm especially qualified to teach you Python and help you launch your online business.

1. I have years of experience building online businesses (see backed by real experience and success section)

2. I'm the host of the #1 podcast on Python called Talk Python To Me. On there I've interviewed many of the leaders, creators, and founders in the Python community. I bring that perspective to all the courses I create.

3. I've been a professional software trainer for over 10 years. I have taught literally thousands of professional developers in hundreds of courses throughout the world.

4. Students have loved my courses. Here are just a few of quotes from past students of mine.

"Michael is super knowledgeable, loves his craft, and he conveys it all well. I would highly recommend his training class anytime." - Robert F.

"Michael is simply an outstanding instructor." - Kevin R.

"Michael was an encyclopedia for the deep inner workings of Python. Very impressive" - Neal L

Meet Matt Makai:

Hey there, my name is Matt Makai, thanks for considering our Kickstarter! I'm stoked to teach this course for several reasons:

1. I've been a professional software developer for over 11 years which has shown me how rewarding and empowering it is to create software for your own purposes.

2. In 2012 I started Full Stack Python as a side project to help junior developers on my team learn how to build web applications with the Python programming language. The course on this Kickstarter is a natural extension of what is provided on Full Stack Python, with step-by-step instructions so anyone can build their own application even without prior programming experience.

3. As a Twilio Developer Evangelist, it's my goal to inspire and equip fellow software developers. Even if you don't consider yourself a developer, it's absolutely possible to build what you want if you're willing to take some of your own inspiration and put it into learning from hands-on videos that equip you to code.

Time to act is now

Make today the day you decided to build the skills and experience you need to start that business that you have always dreamed about starting.

Join this Kickstarter right now.

Not only will you get an excellent course. You'll get the course at roughly 50% off the retail price and you'll get the satisfaction of helping build a powerful resource for the Python community.

We have a range of rewards to choose from. You can pay $39 to own the course, $59 for early access, and even a few rewards that come with 1-on-1 mentoring and coaching to help ensure you succeed.

Check out the rewards and help me bring this course to life.