Episode 53: Review of 2015 and Looking Ahead to 2016

In this episode we take a look back at 2015 and talk about whether we met our yearly goals, both professionally and personally. We also talk about what our goals will be for 2016. This episode focuses on our year in review and our year to come, so the talk about code is a bit light.

This episode is sponsored by WP Ninjas. They are about to launch Ninja Forms 3. The 3.0 update is a major overhaul, and they have a new blog series called Discover 3 which is a video series that shows all of the new features of the plugin.

Over the holidays, Brad took some time off to be with friends and family. His parents live on one side of the province, and his wife’s parents live on the other side, so there was some driving time involved. Pippin also shut business down for about 5 days and left the autoresponder on.

A Look Back at 2015

Pippin’s goals met

Went from one to five full-time employees

Added two new active contractors to Affiliate WP

Merged teams for Affiliate WP and Easy Digital Downloads

45% revenue increase

Sold off Easy Content Types –to Themeisle

Pushed out 3 versions of Easy Digital Downloads 2.2, 2.3, 2.4

3 Major versions of Affiliate WP

4 Major versions of Restrict Content Pro

15-20 new extensions for EDD

Numerous extensions for Affiliate WP and RCP

Happy about growth and happy about health and wellness of the team

Worked on challenging the team to take health seriously

Pippin’s goals not met

Offload tasks like project management stuff.

Brad’s goals met

Hired 3 full time employees in 2015, after hiring two at end of 2014

Starting to hire again at end of 2015

Slow revenue at first, recovered in March, up 81% overall

Launched WP Offload S3

Set up health and fitness Slack channel

Brad’s Goals not met

Free up more time for creativity, concerns about letting project management tasks go

Amazon SES plugin not done

Blogging more. Goal partially met, which led to tripling traffic. Content marketing is not dead. Goals don’t have to be completely met to see improvement

A common goal for both of us this year is health and wellness. We are being smart and wanting everyone to do well. We are also using tools like a fitness slack channel, fitbits, and exercise and fitness apps. We plan to focus more on this area in 2016. Brad is doing fun things like using the Zombies, Run app. He also has a blog post about his team’s struggles to stay healthy while working from home. Pippin’s Easy Digital Downloads team is meeting for racquetball.

Brad 2015 Personal Goals

Yoga found version that works for him by Sean Vigue

He bought Sean Vigue’s book Power Yoga for Athletes

Went to Mexico for the first time

Doesn’t take vacation, so in summer decided to schedule a tennis match if it’s a nice day

Pippin 2015 Personal Goals

Taking his health more seriously, high metabolism, kid who could eat anything, things have slowed down a bit. Last few years, spend more time at the desk. Needs to take a proactive role in staying healthy. Needs to do more. Walking, running, biking. More for next year.

Went to South Africa–Flying with kids, travel early, travel frequently

Brewing beer. He loves sour beers, it takes 8 months to 4 years to brew sour beer. He got to drink a Flanders Red he started a year earlier, which reminded him of patience and willingness to wait and do great things in end.

2016  Pippin

Brew sour beers that take several years, helps to appreciate patience

Continue With Staying healthy

Get up to running a ½ marathon

More long distance biking

Travel to two or more new countries

Blog more for Affiliate WP

2016 Brad

Start keeping daily journal. He doesn’t want to write by hand, but doesn’t want to get on the computer in the evening. He’s trying a tablet with bluetooth keyboard.

He’s adopting Derek Sivers mantra, Hell yeah! or No! from interview with Tim Ferriss

Go to Costa Rica

In 2015, business growth and staying healthy and travel were a common theme. 2015 worked out very well, and we are looking forward to 2016!

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