It's the end of summer. A whirlwind of family trips, conferences, and barbequeues are coming to an end. And that reminds me of something.
I've been working for myself a whole year – where did the time go??
I've been doing this a year and I'd like to take in my surroundings. Poke my head up from my computer screen and see where I arrived after a year of work.
Cash
Let's start with the thing that keeps every business alive. Did I make money?
Well my revenue is about 92% of my previous salary. That's definitely enough to pay my bills but it's not great. No trips to Hawaii planned anytime soon.
However looking at one number is a bit misleading. Instead it's important to see how revenue has changed every month.
The light blue line is the trend line. And it's going up and to the right.
It's also important to point out the huge variability in running your own business. Even with 2-3 steady clients I had a down month with very little income.
Which is why I wanted to focus on growing my courses and I did just that.
First four months vs last four months
I grew my course revenue substantially. And without too much effort I was able to grow my affiliate income as well. That makes me a less reliant on the whim of a single client.
My Own Project
I also really wanted to create me own thing this year without the help of a publisher like my book publisher or Lynda. And I did that with Lift Off Summit.
It didn't earn a ton of money but I'm happy enough with it to run it again next year. And it also gave me the opportunity to try my first partnership with BobWP.
And all things considered it went really well. There's not quite enough revenue to justify a 50/50 partnership and there will be changes coming next year. But fundamentally the partnership went well. Motivating multiple humans is hard work. Especially when you can't pay them a regular paycheck.
Consulting
I've learned quite a bit about consulting. It's hard and it's a constant challenge to set expectations with clients.
Since I'm always doing new things I'm constantly running into challenges. I can solve these challenges but they might create friction between me and the client.
And I found that a lot of clients want near instant communication and I tend to want to go into my cave and come back a month later with the results.
I'll probably scale consulting at the end of 2017 and focus more on my own projects.
Revenue vs Profit
I should point out that I don't pay myself all of that revenue. I set aside a fair amount for taxes & expenses. Since I need to pay for my conferences, travel, new computer, etc. I have to set aside a decent amount. So my goal for next year is to get my revenue significantly higher than my previous salary so I can pay myself what I used to make.
At that point I can save up for that vacation, an electric car, or maybe even another property.