I enjoyed 2022, it felt like the year flew by. Some highlights:
Business
The year in business varied wildly – from January having an article of ours go viral with thousands and thousands of visitors and signups to nothing again for a few months, almost thinking of calling it quits, re-evaluating our product, and pivoting a bit. Finally between the blog posts/articles picking up traction and the clicks on the website doubling every month or two we ended the year making about €4-5k per month. Our website traffic was at about 16.5k click-throughs per month, YouTube subscribers at about 450, and both also increased steadily every month. It’s a great feeling to have something finally sticking and improving every month. It was also nice to have been approached by some other companies who were interested in seeing if they could acquire us – while we are still much too small this is always a nice option to have!
Practice German In Berlin
I started a weekly meetup for people to chat german together which I ran over 2 separate months. I had over 25 people attend and about half of them were regulars who came every week. This massively helped me with my German and gave me confidence that I can just set up pretty much anything and it’ll be grand. Over 200 people registered and showed interest in attending future German practice meetups too which was good to see. I mainly advertised on Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit.
Hiking Group
Kept my hiking group going throughout the year – didn’t run any more 6-week blocks like I did in 2021 where I made people commit to 6 weeks of hikes at a time to get to know each other. Think I’ll go back to this format in the future as it worked well for the most part. About 30-40 regulars throughout the year we’re showing up (about 10-15 per week) but I struggled much more with retention probably due to the lack of the 6 weeks commitments. Did 1 weekend away with 13 from the group to hike the Brocken mountain (over 1,000m).
German Speaking
My german improved a good bit throughout the year – mainly due to my practice groups and speaking with my Tutor online. Did around 20 hours online and 40-50 with my practice groups. Able to use my german in most situations now and feel more comfortable using it talking to other Germans. Still would only say I’m at a b1.5 level though and my grammar is pretty terrible.
Health/Fitness
- Weight fluctuated between 95-100kg this year
- Ran 2 half marathons
- Hiked the highest mountain in Germany – 2,962m high
- Did a 55km hike race in 12.5 hours – much harder than I thought
- Week of walking the Camino route in France with my dad & uncle walked about 130km
- Over 71 weights sessions done – averaging about 6 sessions a month
- Over 500km run
Finances
The worst year for my finances probably ever – between stocks and crypto getting demolished due to rising interest rates(I’m down 80-90%) and basically having next to no income (bar a small bit from my websites and rental income). Now that we’re making a few thousand monthly the idea is that we start paying ourselves a wage sometime soon so hopefully I’ll be able to build up my savings again as they were demolished after 2.5 years of no employment.
Other
- Watching my brother racing at the world champs and celebrating with the Irish supporters there.
- Week of skiing in Austria in March ’22.
Goals for 2023
Business
- Grow the business revenue to 50k+ per month.
- Grow YouTube subscribers to 5,000+
- Grow website clickthroughs to 50k+ per month
Hiking/ German Practice Groups
- Grow the Practice German In Berlin to over 80-100 monthly regulars, at 4 different locations in the city.
- Grow the hiking group to over 25-30 people consistently showing up weekly. Run 2 more 6-week hikes with a weekend trip at the end.
- Grow the number of people who can help me run both groups so I’m only doing 10% of the work instead of 90% of the work. This is the main key to success here.
Health/Fitness
- Complete the berlin marathon (In September 2023), ideally in less than 4hours – my entry has already been accepted!
- Get down to sub 90kg
- Do a rock climbing course
- Do a paragliding/ sailing course
- Keep doing weights
German Speaking
Get my German speaking level up to B2 if I can. Join something where I can practice my German with only native German speakers. Like some volunteering program or coaching at a German rowing club or something else like that. I need to do something like that to get to the next level of German.
Prioritising
If I even achieve half of the above in 2023 I’ll be delighted with myself – In order of priority of the above it would probably be:
- Business Goals
- Hiking/ German Practice Group Goals
- German Speaking Goals
- Health/Fitness Goals
All I can hope is that I make it to 2024 in one piece and learn a bit along the way. Enjoy 2023 guys!