Author: Cheptiony Mutai

  • 4 Types of Freelancing Job Offers You Need to Think Twice Before Accepting

    Do you keenly look into details of a Freelance job offer before accepting? Have you ever regretted after accepting a Freelancer job offer?

    In this blog post, I share with you 4 types of Freelancing job offers you need to think twice before accepting.

    With the competition in the Freelancing industry becoming fiercer every day, it’s very tempting to accept any job that comes your way. In fact, getting interviewed after bidding for a job is becoming harder with more qualified freelancers joining the bandwagon.

     This thus means that if you get a chance to be interviewed after sending your bid, the chances of accepting the job you will be offered afterwards is high.

    So, how do you vet a freelance job offer before accepting? Remember, by accepting the job offer, you are responsible for any consequences that follow which include;

    Handling Poor Communication

    Some clients will hype you just before hiring you then go silent after hiring. They will promise to provide additional information to help you complete the project only to end up not communicating. Such behavior is truly heartbreaking and a total waste of time.

    You Ending the Contract Out of Impatience

    If the client does not provide you with all the required information to complete the contract, the only option you will have is to end the contract and refund the money deposited on escrow. Your freelancing sites’ support team will encourage you to communicate directly with your client in case of any dispute arising.

    Being Badly Reviewed

    This is the last thing any hard working freelancer will expect. If you have a high job score for delivering great service; one bad review will hurt your score. This is something you need to avoid at all cost.

    Client Refusing to Pay you the Full Amount Agreed

    This only applies to fixed type of contracts. Usually, it is based on agreement and is broken down into small milestones paid upon completion of a given assignment.

    All of these and more are the consequences of accepting a job out of excitement and not doing your due diligence well. Success in the freelancing industry is very dependent on your ability to look keenly on what you are being offered. Here are Four characteristics of jobs you should reconsider when you are offered;

    The client is Insisting that You use a Specific Software and You are required to Buy it

    Now, you will not know this until you check the software pricing. In most occasions, when you compare, the amount of money the client is offering, it is equal to 60-80% the cost of the software. This means if you accept the job, you will take home 20-40% of the pay. Unless, the client is offering to pay for software license, you should decline such job offer without event having a second thought.

    The Client is Requesting Your E-mail and Skype Address

    This was normal 3 years ago, but now things have changed. You can keep all your communications on the Freelancing site you are attached to. What happens is that, after you are done with the interview, they will ask that you communicate with them via e-mail and Skype. Some will even propose that you work with them directly and F**k the freelancing site that connected both of you. This is very risky depending on the Freelancing site you are using for two reasons; one, you will be violating the terms of service which discourages communication outside the freelancing site and two, you payment will not be protected. If the client fails to pay, your freelancing site will not be responsible for it.

    The Client is Interviewing More 10 Other Freelancers in a Row Under the Same Job

    When posting a job; the client is required to be specific on the number of freelancers he/she is looking to hire. In this case, you will find that the client is interviewing almost everyone and looking to hire only one. While some are genuine with plans of hiring, most of them will hire a number of the freelancers and deposit a small amount in escrow for each. When the freelancers deliver the first draft, they pay full amount to the one they like and dismiss the rest. If you are among those dismissed, you will feel wasted even if they pay you the small amount they had deposited as a milestone on escrow which in most occasions goes through a dispute.

    The Client is Not Sure of What They Want And They Want You to do Something for Them to Gauge

    This may work out at the end. With that said, be ready to do the donkey job. The client will only approve your work if they like it. So you may have to develop many drafts (if it was a video your were creating) to show the client. This is a good thing for a new freelancer, but not good for someone who has been in the business for long.

    And that is it.
    If you need help to create and produce professional screen-cast video tutorials with a professional voice over, let me know here.

    Until next next time, bye bye and take care.

    Follow me on twitter @cheptiony 

  • How Clients Are Changing The Way They Search and Hire For ‘Videography Services’

    Internet has completely changed the way people do business worldwide. People can buy and sell services to anyone across the globe.

    This transformation has affected all businesses; and videography/video production has not been left out. There is a huge shift. 

    As per BBC Research, the digital photography market is growing at 3.8% and its value was estimated to cross $100 billion in 2018.

    Early adopters are the ones ripping profits out this change while late adopters are struggling to fit in.

    These changes in many ways has negatively impacted the economy. Many traditional type of businesses are closing down on a daily basis because of one reason; customers no longer walk in to their offices and shops to buy their services.

    In this blog post, I share with you the strategies Videography clients are now employing when looking for video services and where you need to go in order to meet them.

    Searching Online

    The way people used to look for a videographer 5 years ago is not the way they do now. They prefer the easy way..which is searching online. It means that if your presence online is not that serious, your prospect will not take you serious.

    Your presence online is determined by the way you Brand yourself. First, you need a website, with your own domain e.g www.techtubestudio.com. It must be well designed with your own company’s images in it.

    This is how you make your first impression online before you meet with the actual prospect. But this is not all. It’s just the tip of the ice.

    Checking Your Ratings on Google My Business

    With Google leading as a search engine-and Google my business being their product, it follows that having your Videography business listed on Google My Business is the good idea. This is where people rates and reviews your business.

    As a result, you get a chance to appear on the first page of Google. You will most probably receive an inquiry call if you have a website and your business is listed on Google my business. But that’s not all. Internet is evolving every day. With more and more people joining, the competition is becoming more fierce.

    So, how do you keep your business sustainable if you get one or two enquirers a week with no one ready to commit yet? You can only survive if you have an advertising budget.

    But if you are depending on organic Traffic, you have to work more harder to get clients. As I write this post, there is a big shift now taking place and most videographers are not ready for it.

    Videography Clients are Hiring Freelancers and Agencies

    Well, believe it or not, companies are moving from dealing with companies to dealing with agencies and Freelancers. Freelancing is taking over. With this said, videography and video production jobs are now done by freelancers remotely. Freelancing sites like Upwork have simplified the process of hiring freelancers with specialty in a given skill.

    By simply posting a job, one can get many Freelancers applying for it. And in 3 days, they will be ready to hire one. One advantage of this is that, the client is able to offer bit sized assignments to gauge Freelancers skills before committing them to do a bigger project.

    Expanding International Businesses Can Hire ‘Freelance Videographers‘ in any Country Worldwide

    This is one of the biggest reasons international companies are using Upwork and other Freelancing sites to hire. Let me give you a scenario. Let’s say Uber-which is based in Amsterdam- wants to do a TV commercial targeted at people living in Nairobi Kenya. They don’t have an office yet in Nairobi. So because of trust and security that Upwork offers, they post a job saying that they are looking for a videographer in Nairobi to film a story according to their storyboard. They receive 10 applications. And they settle on 2 since they have two scripts and they want to do 2 commercial videos for split testing purposes.

    The funds are held on escrow until they job is completed. Uber pays the freelancer once they are happy with the delivery. Because of the time saved, the Freelancer is paid well and gets a 5 star review.

    Bonus Point-Value Addition

    Videography and photography business is changing it’s face. It’s now more of ‘value addition’ rather than actual shooting of videos and photos per se. Camera’s that come with smartphones are doing a better job. So as a videographer, what value can you add to videos already recorded to grow your revenue? That’s the question you should be asking yourself. 

    On the other hand, what value can you add to existing photos to make them good and get people paying you for them? That is where the money is now. 

    Did you learn something from this article? I know you did. Leave your comment below and sign up for new post updates.

    Until next time bye bye and take care.

    If you need help to create professional Screen-cast videos, let me know here.

    Follow me on twitter @cheptiony

  • How to Create Youtube Icon and Channel Art For Your Business in 60 seconds FREE

    People start their YouTube Channel with just the passion to share information. That’s it. As a ‘creator’ with passion, you will want to make your channel look attractive with the least amount of effort.

    The first thing you will need is a channel icon and art. In this post, I will share with you how to create both in less than 60 seconds for FREE. Once done, you will be able focus more on being ‘creative’ with the videos you share.

    Ready? Let’s go.

    Step 1: Go to www.hatchful.shopify.com

    Click on get started.

    Step 2: Choose your business.

    Click on ‘I don’t see one’ if you don’t see your business category and click next.

    Step 3: Choose your visual style.

    I like ‘youthful’ so I will choose that. I recommend you pick one that speaks well about your business. Click next.

    Step 4: Enter your business name.

    If you have a slogan, which is optional, enter it. Click next.

    Step 5: Choose where your logo will be used.

    For this case, It’s social media. Click next. Wait for your logo to be generated.

    Step 6: Voila! Your logo is ready.

    Pick your the logo you like from the list and sign up to download. The logo will be sent to your e-mail.

    Upload the ‘YouTube profile image’ for as your you-tube icon.

    For the channel art, I recommend you use the same logo but on white background.

    To do this, open the transparent logo on Adobe photoshop. Create a new template with dimensions 2560×1440 pixels. Have the background white.

    Drag the logo to the template you created and have the logo centred. Save it as PNG.

    Upload the new image as channel art. And that is it.

    If this was helpful hit the like button and leave a comment below.

    Until next time, bye bye and take care.

    If you need help to create professional step by step manuals for your software and video tutorials to show users how to navigate through your software or App, let me know here.

    You can follow me on twitter @cheptiony

  • Tuxler VPN Review

    We are living in a age where everything online is customized according to a specific market. This is where a VPN comes in handy. For instance-in an e-commerce site- there might be a high demand for one product in Africa and no demand at all in US.

    As a result, some products may not display in some countries where demand is low. The website URL will be the same, but at the end of the URL, after the forward slash, it will indicate your country based on your IP.

    URL

    So how do you go about this if the product you are looking forward to purchase is not displaying in your country? 

    What if you are a video producer and one of your prospects wants you to create screen-cast video tutorials specifically for a particular country answering the Q&A?

    The answer lies around Virtual Private Network (VPN). You can unlock access using a VPN

    Now here comes the problem, how can you differentiate between a secure and non-secure VPN? It’s simple, giving it a try. With hundreds if not thousands of VPN’s out in the market, downloading and trying each VPN is a lot of work. 

    Besides, one of them may leave traces of bugs in your computer in the process. 

    In many occasions, I have found myself downloading a VPN, using it, and uninstalling it immediately after accomplishing my task. 
    But for the first time, I have kept one of the free VPN’s I recently stumbled upon.  

    What surprised me was the VPN’s speed. Of all the VPN’s I have used in the past, both free and paid, none of them beats this one when it comes to speed. It’s called Tuxler. Here are 5 reasons I recommend Tuxler VPN

    Speed 

    There is nothing exciting like a VPN connecting to a selected server at a lightning speed. If you are used to a buffering one, you will be shocked when you first install Tuxler. There is no unnecessary pop ups on your browser.    

    No Several Ads Requesting You to Download an Additional Software

    Normally, when you download a free VPN, during the installation , you will find several ad’s requesting you to either download an anti-virus or another software related to the VPN. This is not only alarming that bugs may be coming along with the installation; but you are left prepared for more disasters like computer crashes and more. 

    Residential IP’s 

    Most VPN’s do not offer residential IP’s of a given country. With Tuxler, you get this. You have over 70,000 residential IP’s to choose from every-month. You get all this for Free. 

    Security

    How do you differentiate a secure and non secure VPN? It’s simple. Non-secure VPN’s have several pop ups when not in use. Also, some will cause your computer to slow down. You experience non of these with Tuxler. Their terms are very clear and straight forward. 

    Tasks 

    If you sign up as an affiliate, they regularly post tasks which you can claim and accomplish for dimes. You earn points when you accomplish a tasks. You can use the points earned to purchase premium version’s of the VPN

    Lastly, they don’t hard sell on you on e-mail. They let you make the decision when using the app. Isn’t it great? 

    Go try out for free here. If you like it, Come back here and share your experience. 

    That is it from me.

    Until next time, bye and take care. 

    If you need help to record professional screen-cast video tutorials, let me know here 

    Follow me on twitter @cheptiony 

  • Be Kind to Freelancers And They Will Give You Their Best

    Before you hire any freelancer, there are many things that you look at. Among them are; communication response speed, skills, budget e.t.c. This thus means that, the moment you make that decision- you know the kind of person you are hiring.

    So the question is, why address them rudely when you had done due diligence before hiring? What makes you stop communicating with them the moment the send you completed work?

    Most freelancers work independently. They are their own motivation. When you hire them, the look up to you for kind words. You are among the people who understand what they do and is willing to pay for their skills. Since what they do is their passion, they will give it their best. You just need to treat them well.

    With that said, human is to error. They will mess up a little in some things.

    Here are 3 common things that demotivates a creative freelancer and how to correct them. Freelancers will love you for this.

    Clarity 

    Lack of clarity in your response to freelancer is discouraging. For example, let’s say you are giving feedback on a video; and instead of pointing out on a specific minute in the video, you just generalize things. You will confuse them. Even though they may have an hint on what you are pointing out, you will be giving them a lot of work. Moreover, some freelancers are shy to ask for more clarity.

    Remedy:  When you provide your feedback, add a note in your e-mail message asking the freelancer to confirm if they understand everything in your feedback. This way, if they don’t, they will confirm. Don’t delve broadly on problems in the video or design, also, mention what you like. This is what a freelancer will want to hear as well.

    Communication 

    You communicate well and promptly before hiring. Now, after hiring him or her, you go silent. You take days to provide your feedback. Know-days, freelancers are organised and have schedules. Your delays will hurt their plans and schedules. Also, their motivation and creative flair on your project will be lost. If you respond after 2 weeks, they will have to remind their-self what your project was all about a fresh.

    Remedy:  Try your best to give your feedback within 1-2 days. This will not only motivate the freelancer, but it will also, give them room to prioritize your work. When you communicate promptly, they will give it their all.

    Payment Approval

    So, the freelancer has delivered the final video/design and requested for payment approval. Since you are happy with the output, you forget to approve the payment for the work done. Getting paid is critical to freelancers. If you don’t approve the payment, it may take up to 14 days for the system to automatically approve the payment. While some Freelancers may follow up on the payment, they will take this as a neglect from the client. And next time you hire them, they will take your work lightly.

    Remedy: Release payment ASAP once you confirm everything is completed. This will bring a smile on their face. Besides, they will long to work with you on your next project.

    You can do many things to inspire your freelancers to enjoy doing what they do. As a client, you are a mentor. You help them as they help you.

    Take a step today and appreciate them for the good work they are doing:-) You can buy them Pizza or barbecue as bonus.

    That’s it from me today.

    Till next time, bye bye and take care.

    If you need help to create and produce professional screen-cast videos for your software or app, let me know here.

    Follow me on twitter @cheptiony

  • How to Sift Through Many Applications When Hiring a Freelancer

    When you put out clear requirements for the job you are offering, you will get several applications. So, what makes many freelancers to apply to your job post?

    With more and more experts joining the freelancing business,  the competition is becoming fiercer.

    Before I delve into today’s topic, here are additional things that makes many freelancers to bid on your offer.

    NOTE: Only clients who have been hiring freelancers for a long time can quickly tell an honest freelancer and one who is not.

    Budget

    It’s obvious, freelancers want to be paid well for the service they are rendering.

    If the requirements are clear and your budget is good, many freelancers will apply to your job post.

    Timelines

    If you need the project done quickly and you indicate when you want the project delivered in your job description, any available freelancer will bid. Freelancers see this as an opportunity to make a quick buck.

    Non Disclosure Agreement

    Serious freelancers love to sign an NDA. This is a binding contract and it means that, if anything happens, you are in discretion to decide not to pay the freelancer.

    In this case, you attract serious freelancers. At the end you will have hard time selecting the one to work with.

    There are other many other additional things that will alter the number of applications like Freelancers level of experience, payment method verification and more.

    So how do you sift through many freelancers bidding on your contract? Well it starts with your job posting. That’s where you set the rules.

    Eliminate Freelancers Who Haven’t Followed Your Bidding Instructions

    Not all the freelancers who apply to your job post read the post itself. Instead, they copy and paste generic cover letters.

    There is nowhere in the cover letter that they address your needs. Usually 10-20% of the applicants fall under this category.

    Correctly Answered Questions

    If you had additional questions that you needed freelancers to answer in order to qualify, check on them thoroughly.

    Make sure that they are correctly answered. You will find some who their answers do not match with your requirements thus you should eliminate them from the list.

    Honesty

    Only clients who have been hiring freelancers for a long time can quickly tell a honest freelancer and one who is not.

    Look thoroughly between the lines of their cover letters for honesty.

    Most of the honest guys will for instance not exaggerate timelines or what they can deliver and what they can’t.

    Review their Ratings

    This is only applicable to long term freelancers as new freelancers have no ratings. Reading their reviews will tell you the kind of personality the freelancer is.

    Some may have good cover letters, portfolios, but have poor history regarding to meeting timelines and delivering the actual project. No one likes such experiences.

    Check Their Location if it Was Part of Your Requirement 

    While some freelancing sites will help you on this, not all of them will do. If you were looking for a freelancer within a certain city, you can then look into this and eliminate those who do not fit into the criteria.

    Budget 

    Once you have all the requirements met, see how much each of the remaining freelancers are charging you.

    Focus on the ones who fit within your budget. This way, both of you will be happy working together.

    At this point, you will be remaining with few freelancers, and you can now start shortlisting them.

    Always aim at hiring a freelancer for a long term. You can achieve this by hiring a few of them to do a trial project then narrow in to one who has the best characteristics you are looking for.

    Looking at this in a long-term perspective will give you time to focus on the most important things in your life.

    That is, it from me today.

    How do you sift through the list of freelancers applying to your project? Share it in the comments below.

    If you need help to create and produce professional screen-cast video tutorials for your software or apps, you can request a free quote here.

    Until next time, bye bye and take care.

    Follow me on twitter @cheptiony

  • 5 New Ways to Make More Money Online As a Video Producer

    Producers who have been in the industry long enough, will agree with what I am about to share with you today in this blog post.

    Video production has evolved over time. When I started as a producer back in the year 2010, I only knew videography and video editing.

    In this blog post, I share with you how to make more money by breaking down video editing and production components and offering each one of them as an independent service. 

    If you are creative enough to produce a captivating video, then, you are also creative enough to write the same script. You just need to believe you can do it.

    Clients will love you more if you can go an extra mile and provide a professional voice over. Find ways that you can get the voice cheaply from freelancers and have your client pay more it.

    I recently learnt this. More and more clients are in need of Subtitling service. It can be for a movie or video intended to be viewed in a different language. YouTube has integrated Google translate on their video player so that you can watch a video in any language.

    You can charge between $10-100 per video depending on your clients budget and video duration.

    Every video producer know how to use graphic design software’s like Adobe Photoshop  or Adobe illustrator. You can propose to design a nice custom thumbnail for your client and charge them $5-50 per thumbnail. The rates you charge is up to you. If you haven\’t done this before, here is the best way to get started.

    There are many other things you can do to make more money as a online video producer in 2019.

    If you need help to create and produce professional screen-cast video tutorials, let me know here.

    You can follow me on Twitter @cheptionymutai

  • 4 Temptations You Should Avoid At All Cost When You Hire a Freelancer

    Like the Lord’s prayer ‘...lead us not into temptations, but deliver us from evil..\’ the following temptations that comes along with sub-contracting or hiring a freelancer to work on your projects (or some of your projects) should be avoided at all costs if you find yourself falling into them.

    If you are someone enterprising, and you deliver great work, then satisfied clients will refer you to their fellow businessmen. At the end of the day, you will have a lot of fulfilling projects to work on.

    Obviously, as a client or an enterprising freelancer with deep knowledge in video production, you will be determined to find a fellow freelancer with the right skills to help you out.

    Here are 3 common temptations that may cost you time and reputation. Each time you notice them, remember the Lord’s prayer and take action.

    Everyone loves to pay less for more. Now, bargains comes with a price in the freelancing world. On the other hand, experience will teach you a lot. For example, you will know the best bargain for a certain service. New freelancers may quote lower prices promising to deliver the best.

    Others will use other peoples video examples to convince you. You will know this during the interview. Don\’t ever be tempted to hire someone cheaper hoping to make 10X profit out of the project. 90% of them will surprise you with lower quality work. That\’s the last thing you will want to hear.

    Freelance entrepreneurship can be very demanding. You are after making more sales and profits. Focusing on making more profits within a set period of time can cause you to push whoever you hire to speed up the production. This is dangerous. Creativity and inspiration to create compelling videos requires time. Give them time to utilize their creativity in order to produce quality work.

    First, this is unprofessional. In the project you hired for, you are the team leader. For this case, you should take your time to thoroughly review the video and request for changes where necessary. Usually, the first draft require many revisions. Ask the contractor to make these changes. When you are happy and confident enough to share your work with the client, do so. This will save you a lot of heartache. Besides, the clients will view you as someone professional.

    A bad review by a freelancer can hurt you chances of attracting high quality freelancers in future. Set your standards through your communications with them when you hire. Don\’t let them drag you to their problems. E.g some freelancers have a tendency of complaining about one thing or another after you have hired them. Don\’t let this get into you. Remind them of what your initial contract with them says. Be very stern. This will make them respect you as a client and deliver extraordinary service.

    And that is it from me today.

    There are many other temptations you should avoid at all cost when sub-contracting work to a freelancer. Do you know of any? Share it with me in the comments section below.

    If you need help to create and produce professional screen-cast video tutorials, let me know here.

    Till next time, bye bye and take care.

    You can follow me on twitter @cheptionymutai

  • 5 Ways to Positively Deal With Irritating, Slow & Unresponsive Clients

    If you are an organized freelancer, you know how disappointing a client who is slow to respond can be. They share their feedback after a very looooonnnng.. time. If you are a video producer, you will be tempted to think that they are experimenting with the video you produced for them first, before providing you with their feedback.

    Others will provide their feedback 3 weeks later and expect you to act on them ASAP. Such client behaviors will mess up with your priorities as you will need to shift your attention to their request first.

    And after you submit the corrections, the same client will go silent again and weeks later, they will respond with more request for changes. Honestly, such conduct is unfair.

    Over time, I have dealt with such clients and here are five ways to manage it without loosing your motivation.

    Set Your Rules

    Base the rules on your experience overtime. Rules will vary based on the job that you do. Apply them based on the conditions that your client sets. For example, you will not use the rule of delay when the client has clearly stated that they want their work completed within a set period of time. Unless, they surpass the deadline without any reason, you can then use them.

    Your penalty has to be reasonable. Something that your client is happy to accept. For example, I usually charge extra $50 if the client provides his/her feedback later than 7 days. This is unless the client explains in advance that there will be a delay in feedback. Client knowing that there is a penalty will speed up his/her review process.

    This works only after the client is happy with the first video review and wants some minor changes. Also, the period it takes the client to provide their first feedback review is a good indicator. Most freelancing sites automatically releases payment within 7-14 days. At the end, even if they take 30 days to respond, you will have the full payment with you.

    Only do this if your efforts are futile. The support team will message them and advise them to contact you. In most occasions, it works.

    Some clients do not delay intentionally. They may be dealing with a big team and thus delay. Tell them the effects of them delaying. For instance, if you are working with a voice over guy like I do, the working terms you have with them may not accommodate delays. e.g The V.O guy may give me a 2 days revision window period.

    And that is it from me today.

    If you need help to create professional screen-cast videos, let me know by requesting a free quote here.

    Until next time, bye bye and take care.

    Follow me on twitter @cheptionymutai

  • 5 Promising Artificial Intelligence Tools For Freelancers

    Is artificial Intelligence(AI) simplifying your Freelancing business or are you scared that it will replace your skills? You don’t have to be worried at all. Instead, you need to embrace it and look at different ways of using it to grow your business.

    At the moment, there are several AI tools out there. In order to remain relevant as a freelancer, you need to enhance your existing skills, build your personal brand and view AI as an aid not an hindrance.

    Here are 6 Promising AI tools that you check out and try.

    Calendar

    Calendar harnesses the power of machine learning to give you smart suggestions for when, where and how your meetings can take place. The app is still in alpha mode.

    SpinnerChief

    What this app does may scare many writers who write original content. Not only is able to generate hundreds of new articles in minutes for you, but also in one click it can rewrite articles to a very high level of readability and uniqueness because it uses the best natural language analysis and artificial intelligence techniques to understand your articles in the same way as google does.

    EveryPixel

    This is a search engine for stock images powered by AI. You can filter your search to show only FREE images.

    I started using it this year and so far so go, it is serving me well. The downside of this app is that it does not show videos.

    Logopony

    An awesome logo for your business is just a few clicks away with logopony. By entering the name of your business and a slogan, the app will generate several logos so that you can choose the one you like and customize it.

    Smartertime

    Smartertime is an intelligent assistant to measure, analyse and improve your time use. Currently the app is available on Google playstore and the iOS version of it is still in Beta.

    There are many other AI tools out there being developed. Do you know of an AI tool you think other Freelancers can benefit from? Please let us know by sharing it on the comments below.

    If you need help to produce professional screen-cast video tutorials, you can request a free quote here.

    Until next time, bye bye and take care.

    You can follow me on twitter @cheptiony