New Years Resolutions 2020
I figured this would be something fun to look back on. I also hope this can be useful for other new businesses who are just getting started.
One thing I knew all along is that getting started is the hardest part. Here are the reasons:
1) You don’t have any processes mapped out. Even if you do spend a good chunk of time coming up with a detailed business plan and some process documents, there is still a TON of revising and fine-tuning before your paperwork matches reality.
2) Team members are unsure of expectations. Especially with websites, there is so much work to do to make something that looks good and performs well. Coding, SEO, directory management, site-speed auditing/fine-tuning, marketing, etc. Because your few employees have so many hats to wear, it is not always clear who is responsible for what. Sometimes these awkward overlaps can result in duplicate work or even “skipped” work.
3) No one knows who you are. This translates to finding whatever jobs will pay you, and not all of them will be great. You will need to prove yourself before other businesses will trust you with bigger projects.
We worked hard in 2019 and have learned a lot. New Years is a great time to take a step back, find out what you need to work on, and commit to the change.
Alongside our personal resolutions, we have created a few business resolutions as well and are very excited about them!
So, here are our 2020 resolutions:
Outsourcing/hiring - We have really improved our efficiency over the past year. We have settled on and mastered our toolset, improved our scheduling, and our roles no longer overlap. That being said, a small team is a very finite amount of resources…and even with awesome efficiency, awesome talent, etc., there is really only so much grinding you can do before burnout sets in. For this reason, we want to offload some of the “shallower” work, such as scheduling clients/bills, non-technical SEO, directory management, etc. This will give us more time to “make the boat go faster” and focus our deeper talents where they are needed. We have also found some great paid tools that will help offload this work as well.
Grow Marketing — We have specifically gone very, very light on our marketing. We did this purposefully, as we wanted to focus on the quality of our products before trying to market them (I wish more people did this!) Now that we have plenty of experience producing quality, and have enough income to hire out and scale, we are ready to grow our marketing efforts. This mostly involves social media, but will also involve revamping our own website/branding. We have spent so much time on other websites that our own website needs some work!
Conferences/Community Involvement— We spend part of our scheduled business hours researching trends. We avoid getting tied up in every little new release or technology (blockchain, chat bots, etc.) but we need to be prepared to explain to our clients what we do and don’t include as a service (why you do/don’t need a blockchain application instead of a regular database) and at least be able to communicate with others in the industry. That being said, we have essentially maxed out on YouTube videos, documentation, etc. At some point, we would like to hear from others in the industry and the community, and starting building those relationships. Overall, just get out of our desks and get more involved!
Bigger Projects — We have been ITCHING, to say the least, to do bigger projects. So far we have been making websites almost exclusively. While it has been tons of fun, we believe our real value comes from building applications: portals, e-commerce sites, inventory management, etc. We have already started on a few of these projects, and are eager to find others that will have a big impact and give us a chance to use our talents to the fullest.
So that’s about it! We have had a great first year and are looking forward to 2020!
