2024 year-in-review

It would be easy to look at this year by conventional metrics and see it as a failure. I made less money than I have in 5 years. I didn’t get a single paying customer for either of the products I worked on. I have fewer newsletter subscribers than I did at the start of the year.

But honestly, this year was the happiest year of my life and I feel like my career is exactly where I want it to be.

My stress was at an all-time low. I had maximum flexibility with my time, worked on what I wanted to work on, and spent lots of time with some of my favorite people. I started to get my confidence back after getting fired last year. I took plenty of time off for adventure.

Let's get into it.

What went well?

This year I:

• Built and launched a product all on my own (ChartJuice, a chart-to-image API with a no-code chart designer), relearning how to code in the process.
• Started working on a second product (MetaMonster, an SEO crawler that fixes issues for you) with my old partner Austin, one of my favorite people.
• Ran 3 product design projects through my friend’s agency (all profitable, all delivered on time, all work I’m proud of).
• Took a week off to hike the Foothills Trail with my dad.
• Spent a week in Montana and two weeks in Mexico City with close friends working part time.
• Ran a half marathon for the first time (I finished in 2:05 and had an absolute blast).
• Built a consistent workout routine, and reduced the amount of sweets I was eating.
• Competed in an adventure race with one of my best friends from Detroit.
• Came within one match of making it to states with the high school robotics team I mentor.

I count all of those as wins. I wrote at the start of this year that I wanted to focus on my relationship, mental health, and growing a new business while maintaining the spirit of adventure from my hike on the Camino de Santiago. I think I did all of those things this year.

I know I need to make more money eventually if I want to hit some of my personal finance goals (travel more, buy a house, save for retirement). But if I can figure out how to do that while maintaining the lifestyle and mindset I had this year, then I will have found the right way for me to operate long term.

What didn’t go well?

If there’s one big mistake I made this year, it was probably choosing to work on ChartJuice first over MetaMonster. I chose to work on ChartJuice because:

• I had some positive validation
• It was more firmly within my wheelhouse technically, so it felt like a better starter project as I was relearning how to code
• I had given up too early on products in the past, and wanted to test my product sense

But I also had reservations about the strength of the market, and my early user interviews with potential MetaMonster customers were really promising.

If I had gone with my gut and started working on MetaMonster, we might be farther along than we are now. But it was a valid test of my product sense (it actually confirmed that sense, while the test itself failed), and writing the code myself was confidence building.

I also had a few rough spots personally throughout the year. Nothing too concerning, just normal parts of life and relationships. But learned a lot from all of it.

Oh, and my friends and I also tried to go to a tulip festival, but global warming got there first.

What did I learn?

I solidified my process for scoping and designing brand new products. I’ll try to write about this soon. And I rebuilt my confidence in my product management skills.

I also solidified my process for validating early stage products. That’s on the draft list as well.

I relearned how to code. While I remain skeptical of some of the promises people make about the productivity gains you can get coding with AI, there’s no doubt that it drastically increased the speed at which I learned. And it’s a core part of my workflow when I’m writing code today.

I botched a pre-sale launch for MetaMonster, then learned a lot about the mechanics of a good product launch from Alex Hillman (and the content he and Amy Hoy created together). We talked about all of it in this podcast episode here.

I learned a lot about prompt engineering while working on a blog post (and product improvements) for MetaMonster.

I affirmed that I really do value flexibility with and control over my time.

I learned on my trip to Mexico City that I need a LOT of practice with listening comprehension, even if my Spanish is slowly getting better.

I learned a lot about myself and my partner, I think I’m a better communicator and better at managing my emotions.

One of the most helpful lessons I learned in therapy this year was to notice stories that have engrained themselves in my inner dialogue, and for each one to ask the two questions:

• Is this true?
• Is this helpful?

This simple practice has made a massive difference in my relationship with myself and others.

When did I experience moments of awe or wonder?

Reflecting back on moments of awe and wonder is one of my favorite parts of this process every year. It makes me feel so grateful for the life I live, and gratitude is something I’ve been trying to intentionally practice this year.

• Waiting for my dad to catch up during our hike on the Foothills Trail, and realizing that we are in the transition from him taking care of me to me taking care of him.
• Celebrating with my mom when we got off the trail.
• Seeing Glacier National park with my college friends.
• All of Mexico City. Eating at Maximo Bistro by myself on my birthday. Sitting down at the Lucha Libre match and feeling the excitement from everyone in the stands around us. The hot air balloon ride over the pyramids.
• Running the half marathon, feeding off of the energy of the crowd, having so much fun doing something that seemed so hard.
• Reconnecting with one of my good family friends from Germany.
• Giving out candy to kids on Halloween. I had so much fun seeing their joy.
• Seeing the northern lights on Drummond Island.

Goals

How did I do on my goals for 2024?

As they often do, my goals ended up shifting a little bit during the year. Here were my goals for 2024:

• Get a new business to ramen profitable ❌
• Go to couples counseling ✅
• Go to Mexico for a week ✅
• Go on a weeklong backpacking trip ✅
• Workout 3x per week ✅
• 12 new blog posts (11/12) ❌

I started with 3 goals around my mental and physical health and creative well-being:

• 10 pushups, 10 situps a day
• 10 minutes of writing a day
• 10 minutes of meditation a day

But after a few months I didn’t feel like these were doing their job. Doing 10 pushups a day didn’t seem to be doing much for my overall fitness, and I didn’t care as much about a daily writing habits as I did getting blog posts out. So I replaced them with:

• Workout 3x per week - a habit I successfully establish by the end of the year!
• Publish 12 new blog posts - I got close, but not quite. Counting this post and my posts on the MetaMonster and ChartJuice sites I got to 11. Truthfully, the goal was really about this site, but I’m counting the other sites anyway.

My two trips were both well worth it, and while they weren’t your traditional metrics-oriented goals I’m still really glad I was intentional about prioritizing them.

Maddy and I did make it to a couples therapist, which was a great learning experience, and something I’d like to do more of in the future. I think it’s a good move for any couple thinking about being together long term.

I didn’t get a new business to ramen profitability. At least, not a new product business. I did get there with my consulting work, but that wasn’t the spirit of the goal.

What are my goals for 2025?

My goals for 2025 are going to look much the same as 2024. This year was a success in my opinion, so I want to carry the positive forward and the goals I missed I still want to hit.

• Get product business to ramen profitable
• Go on 5 backpacking trips
• Complete 2 photo projects
• Workout 3x per week
• Journal or meditate every week

I don’t have a writing goal this year. I don’t think it’s as big a priority for me this year as building the product business is, and I think the product business will naturally lead to a lot of writing.

I’m bringing back the journal/meditation goal, and just setting it to a weekly habit for now.

The biggest changes are that I want to go on more backpacking trips, and I want to get back into photography.

Backpacking is one of the activities I enjoy the most, but I only went on one trip in 2024 so I really want to prioritize that this year. And photography is an artistic hobby that I have always loved (I minored in fine art photography in college and worked as a photographer for the student newspaper) but it’s something that I have lost touch with.

Overall thoughts

I’m really happy with how this year went. Like so many people I was scared to hit my thirties, and sometimes felt like I was falling behind my dream version of my life. But each year I know myself a little better, and I’m more capable and comfortable in my own skin.

My theme for next year is going to be continuing to do the work (on my business, relationship, and self) while spending more time on art and in nature. Work, relationships, nature, art. That’s what I want my life to look like.

If you enjoy these you can read last year's review or scroll through all of my year-in-review posts. And if you want to write your own, you can use my free Notion template to get started. I start with this template, and then turn it into a blog post (while keeping some things private).

Thanks for reading this far, and happy new year! I hope you find what you're looking for in 2025.