Professional Life
Revenue from my Coming Soon Plugin for WordPress grew by around 10%. I had intended on releasing another major plugin in 2014 but the rebuild of my Coming Soon plugin took a bit longer than I had thought. My goal was to 2x my revenue. Unfortunately, I missed it but the important thing is I know why. I focused this year more on developing than marketing and the numbers show. One of my other goals was to release https://www.sellwp.co a SaaS for selling WordPress themes and plugins. I spent the first quarter getting this product ready. I released it in a limited beta and got lots of awesome feedback. However, I quickly realized this would be a slow revenue ramp. I decided to halt the product to the public. My plugins were making more money and it didn't make sense for me to switch gears to a slow ramp SaaS since I still work a day job and have limited time. I still think this is a viable product, however. I get weekly requests wanting to know when it will be ready. 2014 was also going to be the year I quit my day job. Well, I'm still working a day job...What happened? We had another baby. My wife and I were blessed with my son in September of this year and I took 3 months off to be with him. During that time I evaluated whether I should quit my day job and or not and if it felt right. I decided that I wanted to get my other plugin out the door to see if I could replicate my current success. I wanted to reassure myself I was not a one-hit wonder. Plus I want more runway with another child. I attended two conferences this year. Pressnomics (WordPress Business Conference) and Microconf (Self-Funded StartUp Conference). I was honored to present an attendee talk this year at Microconf. [caption id="attachment_47" align="alignnone" width="300"]
2014 Microconf Attendee Talks[/caption]
Both of these are A+ conferences and I can't stress how much networking has to do with your success.
One goal I badly missed was blogging more. I can count on my fingers the number of times I've created a blog post. This is going to be one of my main goals for 2015.
Personal Life
This year was the first year in my family's new home.
I welcomed the birth of my son Jake Dylan Turner.
We're putting in a pool Clark!
My daughter is learning to ride a bike.
Also, I started jogging this year which was one of my goals from last year. I jogged consistently up until my son was born. I have been slacking a bit but plan to make it part of my routine again in the new year.
Goals for 2015
In no particular order here are my goals for the new year.- Blog more, I plan to post on this blog my experiments for obtaining my financial goals. Plus I plan to do more content marketing on https://www.seedprod.com
- I want to 2x my revenue either by creating a new plugin, growing my current user base, or a combo. I have a new sister plugin planned for release in January 2015
- Raise conversion rate over 4%. Right now my conversion rate is in the lower 3's. I plan to constantly be running an A/B test on my site to raise conversions.
- Hire someone to handle my support/dev or both. While I want to stay small, I do want to have a backup so I can freely get away from the business here and there.
- Start working out, using this app. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/for-a-7-minute-workout-download-our-new-app/ I was good about running this year now to add some strength.
- Spend more time with my kids. As I was setting out presents for my kids at 3 am on Christmas morning it really occurred to me this is a special time and I really want to make the most of it.
- Stop and smell the roses. I want to enjoy life more and not take any moment for granted. I work hard and sometimes get caught up in it all. I want to start taking every Sunday to disconnect from it all and spend time with family or friends.