This review will be a little different.
I will not review each and every to do item and see whether I managed to achieve my goals.
I will take a broader look at the last month and whole year went.
And also dive into some topics that are relevant to me.
Reflection on my startup
In December I did not manage to make any money with my startup.
I have been working heavy on SEO and creating content, in addition to doing Sales mainly via outreach on LinkedIn.
My impression is, my offer does not match my target audiences problems anymore.
When I started out during the summer of 2021 the switch to remote work and the challenges where fresh within many German companies and therefore I got into conversations easily and was able to close some deals.
At the end of the year several companies have worked out their own internal solutions, or they are using one of the many new remote working tools available.
One challenge I did not overcome, was getting a deeper understanding of the recommendations and strategies I created for the companies.
It was like I created a fitness workout plan, led the person to the gym and said goodbye at the door.
I would like to know how things are actually going on inside.
This takes up significant more time and money from a companies perspective.
Unfortunately I did not manage to overcome this obstacle.
Here’s how I could have done things differently
- Improve the way in which I communicate the value delivered to the client
- Not implementing a paid content website before at least one client has reliably agreed to signup and pay
- Upsell or resell on existing clients
- Find potential collaboration companies that add my offer to their existing client base
Freelance work
I sustain/ed myself by taking up contracted freelance work which is working out to pay bills.
Mindset
I am more than happy with the path I have chosen.
I know being self-employed is challenging and it takes time to create a stable financial basis.
My freelance & entrepreneur friends said it took them up to 5 years to have a good financial base.
I know I have to be patient, continue to work hard and have trust that things will work out somehow.
Social Media
For business purposes I have been using LinkedIn & Twitter.
Since December and especially in January I have taken a break from LinkedIn.
I have noticed that LinkedIn is a great platform to find potential clients, but it also had a negative impact on my mindset and motivation, as the algorithm seems to push successful, happy and shiny posts.
Don’t get me wrong, I am happy for each and everyone that has business success.
But, it skews my mental reality and does not motivate me.
Twitter on the other hand feels lighter and more fun, although I also tend to scroll through the feed without a goal, I do have the feeling the value I get out of the content is higher than on LinkedIn.
Which is why I am still using Twitter as a ways of documenting my journey.
Especially when it comes to Web Development.
Which brings me to my next topic.
Web Development
It’s crazy when I reflect on the fact that I created my first website when I was about 15 years old.
It was the clan website for a Counter Strike team me and my friends started.
After that I created a website for a friends father who was selling houses.
This led me to a job helping the wife of a friends tennis trainer create the website for their tennis team in dream weaver.
I did not know what Dreamweaver was and just downloaded it before the meeting and showed her things on the fly.
Looking back the last 2 were real freelance gigs in the Web Development space.
I was so much interested in computers, that I wanted to study media information systems, but ended up signing up for business information systems, as I thought my father would prefer me to do “something with business” rather than ”something with media and computers”.
This was in 2005 way before the current tech-boom.
In the past year I got back into Web Development by coding my own company website and some other little projects.
I noticed that it’s really fun to create web related products which I why I signed up for the Odin project in December.
I’m done with the Foundations Program and am looking forward to giving a shot at the JavaScript course.
2022 Outlook
I am no big fan of new years resolutions.
And know that I cannot create a masterful plan for 2022.
But one thing is clear to me:
I will continue the grind.
And continue to learn new skills.
And continue to work on business models.
And launch new products.
Which is why I will dedicate more time to learning to code.
For more real-life updates feel free to join me on twitter.