I launched stuff, I pivoted, I embraced new tech; but I also saw where the landscape of software entrepreneurship has changed, and made next to no revenue all year.

This is not what I’d hoped for, nor what I expected.

Coming back fresh from a year building a cabin should leave you limber, right? Ready to slay? Nope. I still had my skillset, but I had let my tools get a little rusty. The landscape had changed and external life influences destabilised me nearly all year.

But despite that, I think things went well.

AI now feels like a force multiplier.

The two start-ups and an email course I have ready to launch feel more viable.

I start 2025 less wrong. LFG.

Here’s a run-down of my year, as much for me as for you If you want to see my plan for 2025 it’s here.

Things that went well

Overall I consistently committed to labour, spending about 80% of my time developing and 20% marketing. While this might have worked in 2020, I don’t think we can do this distribution in 2025, not at least without master marketing skills I do not have.

• Work
  • Got back into my product-making groove, despite external challenges
    • Fully adopted Cursor/other AI tools into my workflow
    • Setup a repeatable github system for each project
    • Reconnected with kanban via Github
    • Days to MVP massively reduced (~3m at start of year to ~5d at end)
    • Rebooted lots of my old business systems, including tracking sheets, idea matrix, and overall business checklists
    • Retooled my brain to set myself up to catch grace. Used sales safari, rather than forcing startup ideas
    • Sharpened my ability to cull floundering projects
    • New camera setup (Sony Alpha 7)
    • 240hz monitor reduced migraines
    • Refreshed desk setup for focus & efficacy
  • Projects:
    • [Shipped] Rebuilt WoodyHayday.com
    • [Shipped] Rebooted Project Pages
    • [Shelved] BuildProfit.io built in the right vane, but shelved for now
    • [Shipped] BurnoutNutrition.com to get the concept out of my head
    • [Shipped] Built a micro bet – CoupleFlow for Telegram
    • [95%] Mobile app MVP in 5 days (2025 Q1 release)
    • [Ready] Built NicheReports (2025 Q1 release)
    • [In-hand] Drafted 25% of my new 1 year startup course (which pivoted into a new AI entrepreneurship challenge) – Profit Swarm .ai
• IRL:
  • Finished Cabin build:
    • Interior
    • 3.5m Ash Desk
    • Cladding
    • Welsh reclaimed slate roof
    • Stove installed, Custom heatshield (acid etched Henry Thoreau passage)
    • Compost loo started
    • Quad Port
    • Lots more, (thanks to Evan)
  • Makes:
    • Food Forest 3 planted
    • House finished (bathroom)
    • Trailer Mods
    • Garden steps x 2
    • Seagull defence
    • Saddle stool prototype
    • Garden beautification
    • Gym in garage started
  • 240hz monitor for migraines
  • Gave up smoking
  • Gave up gaming
  • Brought my truck back from severe chassis rot
  • Travel:
    • Hertfordshire x 3
    • Budapest
    • Tenerife
    • Cardiff
    • Visited my Dad plenty
    • Sadly missed a trip to Prague
    • Japan & Seoul with Bro
    • Christmas in Portugal
    • Fam in Fishguard
    • Friend meetups x 7

Things that didn’t fly

Failure is information, and I got a chunk of it out of 2024. But I’m happy; I still have runway and am now much more in my groove.

• Revenue – I made under $1k all year. I put this down to:
  • Me being out of the entrepreneurial groove
  • The software space moving on since I last started fresh (SEO, Launches, AI-built stuff, and just generally the now more frothy nature of the space)
  • Sales Safari + Re-matrixing ideas – out of practice, I chose suboptimal bets for ⅔ of the year. Startup brain is coming back slowly
  • External life effects destabilising me a lot
• Launches – the landscape has changed since I last seriously launched products ~6y ago. Launches, and indeed distribution, has evolved. I’m catching up with this curve in 2025
• SEO – this has changed to. Oh the good old days of grey hat ranking, (I owned spot 1-3 for ‘modified cars’ for years before). Managed some success towards end of year, but generally I needed a refresh of my skills again here
• Developing a week-in-out schedule – I tried splitting my week several ways, but in the end, as per history, I was just trying to fit too much in. I’ve let go of that assumption, and will be building a better, leaner weekly ‘system’ this year
• #buildinpublic – I tried to get involved in this movement on X, but I found that while there were some cool people around it, it has also become a bit of a copycat low-strike-rate minefield
• I refreshed my SLR with the intention to build on YouTube (maker videos and business stuff). I did use my camera a bit, but not at all how I’d envisaged. I hope to make more use of it this year, but it’s not realistic to balance small bets & maker stuff with my current state of health & household
• Scattered notes – I still have notes and writing scattered across Evernote, Notion, Telegram, Google Docs, various phone writing apps. This is an endless struggle between ADHD/ASD natures, but I do still believe I will find a system to match my nature, eventually
• I admit I got a little distracted by memecoins
• Migraines: I’ve made gratingly little progress overall, though I have found a balance where work is totally achievable; provided I regulate the plethora of other things I’d set myself to do IRL
  • Hospitalised for 4 days at one point
  • Tried a lot of therapies/pharma solutions this year, approached the bottom of the list of possible ‘cures’: Myofascia, Rimegepant, Pizotofen, Botox, etc. etc.
  • Have found a healthy balance with work by the end of the year though, work’s good now
• Alexander Technique drop off – I have started to notice the effect of dropping my routine AT lessons; bad backs that I have not had in 10y or so
• In the polytunnel: My old lemon tree is still plagued by Scaley bug, the peach tree by red mites, and the fig tree has rust. Otherwise the growing season is set to be very good in 2025

All in all I’ve had a great year despite all of the challenges. I’m very grateful to have had the runway and capital to recover my tools, travel with my peeps, and make some cool things.

I look forward to further refining my product building/launching loops in 2025; to less external knocks, more focus, revenue and stability.

I hope you have a great 2025!

P.S. If you want to keep up to date with my business adventures, and tool up your software entrepreneurship in 2025, Join ProfitSwarm.ai (launching soon).

Doubling back from my 2024 small bets post, I said I’d answer a few questions, so I’m going to do that here:

Is it possible to get iterative benefits while exploring disparate small bet models?

Yes, I definitely saw iterative benefits despite my small bets being a bit scattershot. I’d say there’d be more iterative benefits if the bets had been aimed more closely at one audience, primarily in the fact I ended up building a few different email lists/target audiences, which I couldn’t cross-sell to.

Technology wise, though, there are definitely stack benefits to building different models; e.g. I now have a good base to build mobile apps, telegram integrations, AI wrappers etc. that can be applied this year to a single audience.

Might it have been better to go all-in on a single idea?

I don’t think so. Mostly because my startup-idea validating brain was out of practice. I think all my ideas had merit, and to some extent it was my rusty processes which meant they produced only meagre returns.

I think being nimble and exploring a range of ideas was good for me to get my mind back in the game, to learn the new landscape, and to fully iron out the kinks from my workflows.

What code libraries/scripts did I build which will be useful going forwards?

Lots! Telegram, AI, Turnstile, and Stripe integrations. A nice new ‘domain for sale’ lander. I learned Flutter and Dart and built a decent MVP mobile app.

I suspect lots of these libs/scripts will be useful in 2025.

Did I hit my targets?

Nope. Not by a long shot, though I am fairly confident I know the reasons why, and am pivoting in the right direction. I don’t want to let my bias sugar coat the fact that I made next to no revenue, but I do think it’s rational I’ll get there in 2025.

Did I move towards a greater authenticity?

Yes, I think so. I’ve been doing this (software entrepreneurship) for most of my adult life, mostly successfully; it feels authentic and right. I started 2024 in a less authentic place than I ended it.

Having been working on the rock face all year I reconnected with that natural builder in me, saw that I can build well, fast. Most importantly for me I accepted that my aspirations were, as usual, unrealistic (to moon shot a small bet, finish building a cabin, plant a new food forest, sustain a nurturing family household, make stuff IRL, etc. all with chronic migraines).

By dialling back my aspirations, doubling down on this entrepreneurship focus, I hope and expect to make more progress in 2025.

Am I excited to carry on this experiment in 2025?

Yes! It’s my authentic self to be making new stuff to help others solve problems. I really look forward to launching, iterating, pivoting, and generally delivering good outcomes that produce win-win results.

Long live makership!

The post 2024 Year in Review first appeared on Woody Hayday.

This year I’m going to embrace my experimentalist side.

In this post I’ll keep a running log of my experiments (list below), which I hope will help remind me to stay dynamic with it – because in the end, life is an experiment

Experimental, by design

Look at this image:

This is an illustration I made using AI for my burnout post. It’s based on a concept I learned from Michael Hyatt at WDS 2014.

For me the two poles are unhealthy places. Too much drifting and I become depressed. Too driven, I burn myself out and become unwell.

This year I’m going to experiment by design.

1. To find new, healthier channels of expression, and revenue.
2. To have fun.
3. To learn things.
4. Because life is too short.
5. Because I’ve recently accepted that I am, by nature, an experimentalist.

Aims

My overall aim is to end the year with:

1. Healthy channel/channels of expression (for software and for making).
2. Revenue from these channels which will cover an abundant life (£10kpm).
3. A list of learnings, including handfuls of ‘failure’.
4. A smile on my face.

Experimenting with life’s format

I’ve started the year with a few experiments already. Firstly I’m testing splitting my working week (5ish days) in half and spending half building a new business (second experiment), and half making cool shit.

The actual ratio I wrote down is 40/40/10 – as in 40% time on business, 40% time making cool shit (aka productive play). 10% on life admin, and 10% downtime.

When I thought this up, lots of internal voices resounded.

• There’s no way you can make a living on 40% time, even as leveraged as you are.
• 40% time ‘making cool shit’ is just indulgence.
• Spread too thin – too many ‘priorities’.

Maybe these voices are right. Maybe they’re old voices I can let go of. I intend to find out by actually testing it. What I was doing before (working long biz weeks then filling in with making etc.) did not work.

The Experiments

So here’s my list of experiments for 2024 (updated at the end of 2024):

1. 40/40/10 time – Didn’t work, entrepreneurship needed more consistent investment in 2024.
2. Biz – Small bets – 2024 Entrepreneurial experiments post here
   • BuildProfit.io – A course and tools to teach software engineers marketing – Jan-Mar. First foray after being back on the tools. Early data suggests medium market interest, but going to finish it up to ease back into the swing of things and start the funnel forming. Pivoting.
   • Blogging & X – In progress – Didn’t allocate enough time.
   • BurnoutNutrition.com – A tiny warm-up project. Realised I needed to ease back into things; collecting together all of the burnout nutrition notes and scientific papers I’d read during my bouts of Chronic Fatigue. Shipped.
   • Project Pages – Reboot of an old plugin I had sitting in the stables. V2.0 brought it up to date with modern WordPress standards and added a lot of new features and improved styles. I spent a little longer than I’d planned for on this, but I’m now back in the groove. I also made a ‘pay what you want’ PRO version for launch, but pivoted that to $49py.
   • Niche Report – A platform for taking the guess work out of niche data analysis. A tool for entrepreneurs and marketing agencies to do quick, deep, niche research which produces a full ‘report’ on any given niche. At the start of a new business journey there are so many unknowns, Niche Report is a way to remove many of those unknowns in ~24h for a small fee. This will launch in January 2025.
   • Couple Flow – A 1 week MVP AI experiment – what would it look like if there was an AI relationship coach in your relationship DMs? I use this with my partner to improve the way we communicate. CoupleFlow is fundamentally a Telegram Bot plugged into various AI models to produce weekly/monthly check-ins for couples. Shipped.
   • More AI Exploration – {In the lab oven, due to launch Feb 2025}
3. Making
   • YouTube maker channel – Deferred.
   • Food Forest #3 – Planted.
   • Cabin in the woods – Completed.
   • Various other small projects, but then paused making in November, (trip to Japan, to focus down on entrepreneurial approach).

If you’re reading this and you’re curious, I challenge you to make an experiment this week, and share it below in the comments or tweet me how it goes.

[Update] You can read how 2024 went in my 2024 review.

The post A Year of Experiments first appeared on Woody Hayday.

Note: Since writing this original post I’ve collected all my thoughts on Burnout, Chronic Fatigue etc. into a single post, please read it!

To rest, to recover.

Last summer my overworking lead to burn-out, which spawned panic attacks – the strongest signal yet. Since then I’ve been hammering back “work” to a state where I can step away for a while. Work had got out of hand.

I built my business to allow me autonomy. I work mostly alone and everything I do is selected, optimised, effective. That’s what I tell myself. But even if I discount a half of my daily practice, (in case I am lying to myself), there still remains much good. I am not unhappy with how I have developed this path of mine. But I do want to pause. Even when things are good, we should rest.

When we build these vehicles, (businesses, careers, side-projects), we start out aiming for money or material wealth; for stability, to please a family member, or to prove something. If we’re lucky we see that these were shallow or base reasons, beyond which are truer motives that stand up more to rational rigour.

We re-actively “overfix” what has previously hurt most. Scar tissue is the default compass.

Course correction and containment is therefore essential. But it’s hard work. Society shouts at us through a gigantic megaphone – repeating; money is king, material wealth is the apex. Competition sits on one shoulder, ‘passion’ on the other, and these false gods do not let you remove your foot from the accelerator. They hunger for extremity, which leads to carnage.

But financial stability and autonomy are only one level in an infinite game. We must eat, but what then?

It’s clear: a tendency to overwork had snuck back into me. To avoid the emotion of tragic loss, I chased the logic of business and programming. To build up capital, to buy land, to save the world; I worked weekends. I bled business.

This worked, and it didn’t.

So now we’re going on a trip. A sabbatical. A mini-retirement.

I’m going to pay the overdue bill my body has been footing. I’m going to rest, to read, to rethink my machine. I’m not making plans, other than to build-in boundaries. I may come back the same. I may not. Either way, I’ll use this time as a reboot. I’m going to restructure, without any management consultants, and I’m going to come back stronger, smarter, and with poise.

It’s time to relax…

It’s enough.

If you’re a solo-entrepreneur or you work in a small team, it’s your job to decide when is enough. We are our own judges, editors, and managers. A high standard can be a great thing, but with it must come a balancing sensibility, else we are all doomed to fizz into burned-out shells.

Commit to labour. Produce things you qualify as good, through effort you analyse as worthy.

And then rest, to iterate tomorrow.

Update from the road 19th August 2017: I’m realising this isn’t just burnout, but a transition to a new way of being. It’s painful. It’s birthing. Check the project page for updates.

You can follow along with my progress on recovering from burnout on my Burnout recovery project page, or join my newsletter.

The post WA AFK ~ Rest & Recover first appeared on Woody Hayday.