$250k, personal growth, and my plans for 2024
My businesses just hit $250k for the year.
Hey friends,
I hope you’re all doing well and ending your year on a positive note.
It’s been a good few months since I sent out this newsletter. The truth is that back in August I wasn’t in a good place and simply didn’t have the mental bandwidth to sit down and write this newsletter.
My agency was in a tough position dealing with a wave of challenges and growing pains. The good news is we got through it and became stronger as a result.
In this edition of Coffee + Revelation I’m going to focus on 3 themes, a high-level summary of the performance of my businesses in 2023, some key lessons I’ve learnt this year, and my plans for next year.
My first $250k year as an entrepreneur
In November my businesses passed a combined $250k in revenue generated in 2023. This was the first time in my entrepreneurial career having generated multiple 6-figures in revenue. I’m really proud of this accomplishment, especially since I made less than $50k my first year working for myself back in 2018.
December is in “orange” since its not over yet. The figures listed for December include what’s been collected and what I estimate we’ll collect before the month is over.
As you can see in the screenshots above, projectBI (PBI), my agency, generated the majority of the revenue. 2023 was the strongest year ever for the agency.
I’m really happy with the performance of the software products under Hawkeye Ventures.
As a reminder, Hawkeye Ventures is my holding company which technically owns projectBI. Under Hawkeye Ventures I have 3 SaaS products, PulseBanner, Meet Slack and Project Echo. In 2023 PulseBanner and Meet Slack generated over $30k which is a great result considering the following:
Project Echo is currently generating less than $100 a month.
PulseBanner experienced massive churn this year as a result of changes to Twitter’s policies and API.
Meet Slack was acquired in June.
I expect to generate at least $50k from SaaS in 2024.
We’re working on a new SaaS which I’ll talk more about in future editions of this newsletter.
What contributed to projectBI’s growth in 2023?
There are three main factors which resulted in projectBI growing from around $168k in 2022 to over $230k this year. They are:
Large annual contract with a fortune 700 client —> I had the pleasure of working with a very well known brand on an annual contract that was worth mid-5 figures.
Strategic partnerships and more time in the DTC market —> As time goes on more and more of the DTC space are learning about projectBI. This has helped with driving more business our way. I also strengthened our relationship with some key partners who have sent us some amazing clients. This has helped me increase our pricing and move further up market.
Adding a strong account manager to the team —> The most impactful thing I did this year is adding a strong AM to the team. This hire has helped free me up, more than doubled our capacity and helped me pave a direction for scaling the business.
What have I learnt this year?
So much of my time is spent either pushing on tasks, or thinking about the future that I almost never reflect on the past.
Thankfully we have a holiday period at the end of the year which naturally slows everything down and frees up a lot of time and mental energy. This means that even crazy future-orientated people like myself have the opportunity to stop and look over our shoulders at the outdated versions we left behind, and reflect.
This year has been full of personal growth and key lessons learnt. I’m going to highlight 2 which have really moved the needle for me.
Lesson #1 - Small, specific changes over massive shifts in attitude
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat with a pen or paper, or with Notion open on the computer, and wrote up a super ambitious plan to completely change how I operate on a day-to-day basis. This usually happens on a Sunday after the guilt of not being productive enough during the previous week and a lackluster weekend catches up with me.
I know deep down that I’m not reaching my true potential so I have these periods where I psych myself up and draw up a plan to transform into “David Goggins” over night. This never lasts and without fail I’m back to my previous “mode of being” less than 48 hours later.
What I’ve found works best for me is making a small change which improves a specific aspects of my life. Once the habit is formed and I’m sticking to it consistently, I make another small change.
Let me give you an example.
For most of my adult life I’ve had this horrible habit of binge eating junk food on the weekends. It would be especially bad if I had a bad week.
I’ve eliminated this bad habit from my life completely by a) setting a rule for myself to not bring junk food into the apartment, and b) I use a great habit tracking app called HabitKit for tracking my progress.
These small changes compound and provide value to my life on a daily basis.
Now that I’ve identified this approach as being the method that works best for me, I don’t need to bother exploring other approaches. I can just focus on using it to better myself on a consistent basis, and as a result see more gains in less time.
Lesson #2 - The importance of focus and the 5 stages of Entrepreneurship
The most important business lesson I learnt this year is the importance of focusing on one thing. All the credit for helping me make this breakthrough goes to the amazing Alex Hormozi (see his video above about this concept).
Now it might seem super obvious to just focus on one thing at a time but its connecting the emotional pain of pushing through the “Valley of Despair” and the importance of “staying in the game” which is what I was missing.
Alex helped me realize that the reason we need to stay focused is to help us get through the “Valley of Despair” as quick as possible and fight off the desire to jump to something else.
The reason I started my holding company and to shift into software was because I was deep in the “Valley of Despair” trying to work out how to scale projectBI. By simply not quitting and staying in the game, I’ve inched myself out of the “Valley of Despair” to the “informed optimism” stage.
I’m starting to connect all these dots to form a clearer picture of how the game needs to be played. This is very exciting and energizing.
2024 - A year of scaling
Now that I’m out of the “Valley of Dispair” it’s time to take things to the next level.
My main goal for 2024 is to get projectBI to the “Platinum Zone”.
The “Platinum Zone” is just a term I coined for a point in time for the agency where the profits are maximized under a small team.
We’ll reach that point once we’ve got around 6 retainer clients being managed by 2 account managers.
At this point I’ll be able to pay myself a nice salary ($7.5k a month) and still have tens of thousands in profit after tax that can be funneled into the holding company, or used to grow projectBI.
I want to reach this point before I consider putting my foot on the gas and taking the business towards 7-figures.
2023 was an intense year of grinding with too many late nights and inefficiency. I want 2024 to be different. There will be a lot of hard work but I want to feel like I’m working on the right things to move the business to the next level. If I’m still QAing broken data pipelines and writing SQL at midnight on a random Wednesday night in 6 months, I’ll have failed.
The main constraint for us reaching the “Platinum Zone” is on the marketing front which will be my main focus in Q1. I’ve reached this point with minimum focus on marketing so it’s going to be a challenge for me to build the machinary to guarantee that I have a constant flow of quality leads. I’ll make sure to cover my progress on this front in future posts.
In addition to reaching the “Platinum Zone”, I also need to build up significant cash reserves for the agency. A lot of our profit this year went towards aquiring my 2nd acquisition, Meet Slack.
Once our cash reserves are better and I’ve significantly improved our lead gen capabilities I’ll start looking for another strong account manager.
Once we’re at the “Platinum Zone” our MRR will be between $35k - $45k.
Another very important goal for me in 2024 is to step out of day-to-day client fulfillment. I’ll still operate as the chief strategist helping to support the team and providing value to clients, but I want to be 100% done with client management and project management. Once I’ve added a 2nd account manager to the team I’ll be able to take that step.
My travel plans
I don’t really make long term travel plans but I do have some travel-related goals for 2024:
Visit a key client and some partners in the UK —> Aiming for either Q1 or Q2.
Visit our US clients, and meet the new account manager face-to-face —> Q3 or Q4.
I’ve been meaning to visit Mexico City for the last 2 years. I’ll hopefully pull the trigger and visit the city sometime next year, probably in Q3 or Q4.
Spend most of the winter in Europe. I’m leaving Asia soon and plan to be in Europe for part, or all of Q1.
Here’s to an awesome 2024.
Thanks for reading.
Justin