From addiction to teaching web development courses

Brad Traversy is not only an inspiration for aspiring programmers; his story inspires anyone who has ever struggled and felt hopeless. Nowadays, you might know him as the web development teacher from his YouTube channel or his company, Traversy Media. However, life wasn't always rosy for Brad.

Traversy did not come from money; he couldn't play hockey as a kid because his family couldn't afford it. His dad was an alcoholic and drug addict. As a teenager, Brad struggled with social anxiety, which led to him using alcohol and weed to break out of his shell. His friends would get into opiates, which would lead Brad to try and become addicted to them. He struggled with opiate addiction from age 17 to 25. During this phase, he would get jailed a few times. He ended up with a 5-page criminal record, full of drug charges or stealing to get drugs.

Brad had his first kid around 25 and decided to make some changes. First, he gave up opiates. He always liked computers, so he attended community college for an Associate degree in Computer Science. After feeling that college didn't teach him enough, Brad started self-teaching himself more about web development. Due to his criminal record, companies wouldn't hire him.

Traversy decided to work around this by starting his own company and freelancing in 2007. The first freelance gig was a disaster; the client wanted a social network for artists, and the budget was $250. He knew the job was terrible but was desperate. The original requirements were too vague and kept growing; Brad would have to tell the client that he couldn't finish the project in a reasonable amount of time and didn't get paid for his two months of work.

Traversy would learn from his mistakes and only accept gigs he could finish next. As he learned more, he would take on more complicated tasks. A few years later, in 2010, he would post YouTube tutorial videos to promote his business. One video led to another, and Brad would become a full-time educator & content creator in 2016. He created his own online course platform, Traversy Media, which has spawned many courses on web development, JavaScript, Python, and other programming languages since then. He would reach 300k YouTube subscribers in 2018 and has over 2 million subscribers today in 2023.

While Brad was seeing all this success, he always struggled with social anxiety and impostor syndrome. Brad didn't have any programming or technical friends growing up, and he didn't look like a programmer, so he sometimes felt uncomfortable around other programmers. Traversy never let that stop him from continuing to program, teach, and make videos.

Brad Traversy's story is one of dedication, hard work, and passion for coding. He has said he traded his drug addiction for a coding addiction. He started learning to code at a later age, 25, and has risen to fame in the tech industry through his courses, despite a rough background.