2020 in review

This is a quick roundup of what happened in my life this year. What I’m happy about, and what I want to do better next year.

Achievements

Work

Made more income (from service) than all the previous years. Secured a safety net for the next 2 years.
Built 4 new projects: a website about bags, my first iOS app, a platform for gamers and a SaaS about climate I’m about to release.
Started getting advice and meeting new people with The Family.
Pulled the plug on projects that couldn’t work and required customer service.
Made a bunch of great stock investments during the Corona dip.

Life

Bought and converted a camper van.
Lived surrounded by good vibes and made dozens of new awesome friends.
Although I basically haven’t attended any class for the past 2 years (mix of hacks and circumstances) I’m officially a college dropout and won’t ever have to think about it again.
Spent 5 months and 8.000 km road-tripping by van and motorbike, visited 6 awesome countries.
Lived in a Taoist temple in Taiwan.
Read ~20 new books (1/2 were fiction for a change)
Improved significantly my surfing level in the Canary Islands.

Failures

Failed to attain 2000$ monthly profits on a project.

In retrospect, there’s nothing surprising with my mindset of building² , and this will be the focus of 2021 with Fresh and new projects.

We attained good numbers with BattleBuddy (2000+ users, +$10k revenues) and if we play our cards right, 2021 will be promising. (Or not, will be a make-or-break).

My new product, Fresh Offset (with help from Mathias @ The Family) is one of the most promising project I’ve worked on.

I’ll force myself to actually sell it, instead of pathologically switching to a new project next month.

Can’t wait to see how it does.

Failed to become fluent in Mandarin.

Achieving conversational level in Chinese was one of my objectives for 2020.

I started studying Mandarin with a mix of apps, flashcards and watching Chinese TV shows but I hit the harsh reality on my trip to China and Taiwan: I didn’t focus on tones, and nobody understood me.

The original timeframe of getting to a conversational level in 6 months was maybe too ambitious but I’m not giving up.

I’ll keep going in 2021 and will get lessons with native speakers to actually practice real-life talking. Might try Gwoyeu Romatzyh .

I also started learning German. Learning languages is awesome.

Failed to stay off social media

My attention got hijacked substantially this year, although it improved toward the end.

My new rule concerning social medias is 100% creation 0% consumption, but harder said that done.

Objectives for 2021

Finally pass this 2000$ profit milestone from products.
Change from 95/5 build-sell ratio to at least a 70/30 ratio.
Completely remove the distraction of doing freelance/consulting: I’ll continue increasing my rate until I stop getting clients.
Get to a conversational level in 2 new languages.
Share more about the journey. Write more. This is hard for me but important.
Most importantly keep having fun and being astonished by life :)

Let’s double up.

Godspeed.