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I can’t believe that I nearly completely forgot about this – but as of a day or two ago this blog is officially a whole year old. Join me as we take a short trip down memory lane and see what’s gone on in the last 12 months, and where I plan on taking us for the next 12! Hold on to your hats, it’s going to be a big one!
A Year Ago
The only picture I could find of the first version of this site.
Almost exactly a year ago I was working for two complete morons who had absolutely no idea what they were doing with their company – and I’d had enough. I spent my last two weeks of employment building this blog, meeting up with friends to give me advice on working for myself, and getting incorporating Lyrical Media as a UK Limited company – before walking out of there and setting up on my own as a new member of the self-employed.
That means that as well as this blog being a year old, I have now also been in business, by myself, for a full year. If the statistic that 80% of businesses fail in year 1 is true, then I would say I’m doing ok!
Today
Well the company that I stopped working for are doing worse than ever, one director muscled the other director out of the company, lost 50% of all the rest of the company’s staff after I left, and has just relaunched the site with a truly awful web1.0 design. Given that they’re in their 5th year of business now and they’ve yet to break even, I’d say that’s pretty poor.
Mean while, I haven’t turned into an overnight millionaire, and to be totally honest with you I haven’t even been living the “high-life”, it’s been a lot of hard work – but it’s also been totally, totally worth it. In the end my year 1 salary ended up being 80% of what I was making at my job before I left it.
I think the most significant thing is that it doesn’t feel like it’s been a year. In the past I’ve always managed to get really bored of any job after 6 months – pretty much without exception. This time though, it feels like I just started out a couple of months ago, and on the whole things are still on the up and up – so they can only get better!
Tomorrow (and the next day)
So what’s next? Well, I’ve learned a lot about myself and about business in 12 months, and while my ambitions have largely stayed the same, my goals have changed a little.
Here’s the thing: I’m good at what I do, I know I’m good at what I do, and I can’t stand being commissioned to do some work and then having to hand-hold a client all the way through the process because 1.) they don’t know what they’re doing, and 2.) they won’t trust me to do it. Unfortunately what i’ve discovered over the last 12 months is that most clients fall into that category.
Don’t get me wrong, there have been exceptions – all of my work from overseas and from major corporations has been absolutely amazing, I think my main contact at Virgin Atlantic knows just as much about design as I do, which is both awesome and extremely motivating – she really “gets it” and it’s genuinely a pleasure working with her.
On the flip side though, all of my local-business work has fallen into the “don’t know, won’t trust” category – which I’m totally not interested in dealing with.
On that basis 2010 is definitely going to be an interesting year to say the least. I don’t intend on working with any local businesses at all, and I fully intend on turning down any local business enquiries that I get. I want to work with people who are really good to work with, because if I end up hating the people I’m working with then what was point of starting my own business in the first place?
Aside from that I also plan on exploring some other sources of income… but more on that another time. There’s plenty to do in year 2 of running your own business, and I’m only just getting started.
The Stats
I think at this point the tradition is to run through a list of various stats that a blog has built up over time, so if no one has any objections, that’s what we’ll do!
In the last 12 months of existence, this blog has managed…
- 76 posts
- 1,250 comments
- 7,000+ prevented spam comments
- 100,000+ visits
- 650,000+ page views
- 65+ gigabytes of bandwidth
- $266.25 advertising revenue (only started ads in Sept)
- $1,000 (est.) of paid writing work elsewhere
- $20,000 (est.) of referred web design work to Lyrical Media
The most popular posts were:
- How to Kill Your Business: 30 Day Payment Terms, which received 110 comments and 8,000 page views
- The World’s Best Web Designers Are Unknown, which received 104 comments, and 15,000 page views
- Getting Creative: Moo’d Cards, which received 90 comments, and 10,000 page views
Final Notes
Finally, I want to thank every single one of you who has ever left me a comment. Quite frankly if it wasn’t for you then I probably would have given up a long time ago.
If you’ve never left a comment but you’ve still been reading my stuff then I thank you too, and really genuinely hope to “meet” you in this year – in fact why don’t you email me right now and say hi? I promise I don’t bite. Much…
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Happy birthday dude, keep it up!
Well played mate, you deserve every success as you’ve certainly put in the effort.
On the downside you’ve made me feel bad because *you* put in the effort ;D
Congrats on your blog’s 1 year birthday.
I’ve definitely had quite a few of the “don’t know, won’t trust” type clients. However, I don’t find it to be a local or global issue.
IMO it’s directly related to budget. The clients who have the bigger budgets tend to be more professional and trusting of my expert opinion. Those that are on tight budgets tend to micromanage, play designer, and their project suffers because of it (whether they care to realize it or not).
You do stunning work, and deserve everything you’ve earned for yourself in the last year. Keep it up, and I can’t wait to see what you get up to in 2010. Happy Birthday.
Keep us posted.
Hey Lawrence! Thanks so much for the comment, really appreciate the kind words :)
Congrats on you accomplishments so far ! And as always, good stuff.
Congratulations – blog posts are something I really need to concentrate on.
thanks for some great articles and inspiration pal. so glad i stumbled across your site 12 months ago.. believe me when i say that when i have a shitty day at work i read your twitter feed and catch up with the blog/site and it reminds me how much i want to do what you’re doing and gets me a bit closer to taking the plunge!
thanks again pal. here’s to another 12 months :)
Mate, makes me so happy to hear you say that, cause I used to do the same thing when I was working full time and reading a couple of other blogs. If there’s anything I can ever do to give you a hand when it comes to going-it-alone just give me a buzz :)
Congratulations on your first year, John! I think you’ve done a tremendous amount of great work (both with your client projects and the input and advice you provide to the design community). All the best for your second year! :-)
Brilliant work, John!
It’s been great to read all your blog posts as you go, and chat to you, and even do some work with you during your first year.
Looking forward to lots of exciting things in 2010, mate :)
Congrats John! I’ll have you know I’ve been following you since you took the plunge lol.
Well Done!, must say that I feel the same about local businesses. I try to only work with clients that actually need to make a living from their website. That keeps more room for conversation and budget.
Keep up the good work. Your posts have given a lot of inspiration and motivation to get my own projects off the ground!
All the best for the future.
Thank ALL of you for the kind words of encouragement – I really really appreciate it :)
Your blog is an inspiration to many of us so just keep doing what you do, writing that stuff you write and we’ll sit here and keep on reading ;)
Have a good 2010!
“I don’t bite…much”, dude no offense but really even a little biting is going to make things a bit weird for me.
Well done on the first year! The blog has definitely become one of my regular reads over that time, keep doing what you’re doing
Thanks Toby! I’ll try to keep the biting to a minimum for you ;)
Congrats on your success, just recently started following your site and it has been an inspiring and motivating experience. Keep up the good work.
I’m glad to see your first year as a freelancer was successful. From personal experience I know how difficult it can be some times, especially with the admin side to things, and that is the exact reason why I packed it in and decided I’ll stick with employment for the while. You can’t beat the freedom of working for yourself though.
I owe you thanks for your part in the new Rawkes. Following you on Twitter and seeing how passionate you are about blogging reminded me how much I enjoy writing about the industry I’m in and ultimately got the Rawkes redesign rolling. I’m still getting to grips with a posting schedule but it’s fun to write again and that’s all that matters.
It was a shame I missed you at dConstruct last year, would’ve been nice to meet you. I’ll bug you for some blogging tips when we finally bump into each other. =p
All the best for the year ahead, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens.
Thanks Rob! We definitely should bump into each other at some point – are you going to DIBI this year? I still want/need/plan on getting you in for that interview on this site too :)
No DIBI for me. I actually didn’t know what that was until I Googled it! Still unsure if I’ll be at dConstruct this year either, I’m a poor student and have no employer to take me this time.
I’m ready and waiting for when you get round to planning that interview. ;) Likewise, I think 2010 will be the year I get some collaboration on Rawkes if you’re still up for it…
Congratulations John! I’ve only recently discovered your site, (it was the posts about the Moo cards that did it) but I enjoy it, and I wish you all the best for the next 12 months, and beyond.
Happy Birthday John,
Congrats on this awesome milestone – good luck, keep it up