Let's start off the year right 🎉 - Sharing what I learned from 2018

Entering 2019, I want to make sure that you succeed with your goals.

I tweeted a thread of my three goals:

Knowing how I can execute upon these goals is key to my future success, and I wish that you do the same. What will also help me is to learn from my past-year mistakes.

🔥 How burn out led to my most successful year

It’s true, I burned out in 2018. In the article I wrote on my blog, I talked about the lessons that I learned in building my first SaaS of the year — an automated website host for podcasts called IronMic.

However, it did lead to turning 2018 into my most successful year. Why? I reached many big milestones, one of which was receiving my first few paying customers for IronMic. I also:

• Started uploading to my YouTube channel
• Launched a Skillshare course for beginning web development
• Read books by Daymond John and Gary Vee
• Launched IdeaScratch for validating ideas
• Redesigned my website
• Launched this newsletter

I want to do the same for 2019 in launching products and creating lots of content, but in a healthier manner. It’s hard to prevent burn out, but hopefully I can having learned the following:

1. Keep MVPs small 😩

Do not work on a project for 3-4 months, instead launch proof of concepts or core features to make sure that you get something out there in 1 month or less.

If you’re having trouble staying focused on your side projects, check out my tweet where people chimed in and Ethan’s answer on Indie Hackers where I think he hit the nail right on the head.

2. Lower your expectation 😮

I had extremely high expectation for IronMic, but I finally learned that success comes in many different ways. It’s good to have long term goals, but don’t expect anything out of your product launches! Be delighted when people give you their attention, and especially, their money.

3. Build in the open 🎊

What’s worse than working on a product for 3-4 months? Secluding yourself from everyone else, and not getting valuable feedback to keep yourself motivated throughout the process.

I joined a few communities last year that I took for granted until I finally realized this lesson. Here’s a few you might want to look into joining as well:

• The Digital Era - The first one I joined in June. Good for people starting out that need learning resources, but it’s more marketing and business focused.
• The Maker’s Kitchen - I joined this one in November and it’s by far my favorite one. It’s on Slack, but is easy to keep up with threads and I’m never afraid to share links and stuff I’m working on. More developer focused as well.
• Marketers Chat - Including this one here as well considering my good friend Leon Hitchens started it, but I love the idea of a “no BS” community for anyone wanting to learn and improve their marketing skills.

🤔 How will you start off 2019?

I hope to have provided some valuable material for you to kick off the new year, but I’m only getting started. This week, expect to see a new article and podcast where I talk more in detail about my personal website redesign, and the technologies/techniques that I’ve used.