Looking back at 2019 and forward to 2020

Because this is the last week of the year, we're going to summarize what happened in 2019 and set goals for 2020.

Show Notes

This week, we wanted to take some time to reflect on what happened in 2019 and set goals for 2020. We created a series of questions that Rick and Tyler both had to answer. Here are the answers...

• What happened in 2019?
  • In our personal lives
    • Rick: Took 7-8 months of to figure out who he is and what his goals are, especially with his new marriage.
    • Tyler: Figured out a sustainable diet
  • In our professional lives
    • Rick
      • Figured out what he wants to do after leaving his previous job of 11+ years
      • Started LegUp Ventures which is a holding company for his various ventures:
        • GroupCurrent - Outsourced member management
        • Startup to Last - This podcast
        • RickLinquist.com - Rick's personal writing
        • LegUp Health - Reducing healthcare-related anxiety for people without job-based insurance
    • Tyler
      • Started the year working on a new project called Sparse which was abandoned in February
      • The rest of the year was spent on a major redesign of Less Annoying CRM which included two major new features: Custom fields and Outlook Calendar Sync
      • This was the best year for the LACRM product team
  • Biggest accomplishment
    • Tyler: Finally built a real product team at LACRM
    • Rick: GroupCurrent turned around the business model of their first client and got it to sustainability
  • Biggest disappointment
    • Tyler: Sales in the second half of the year were below expectations
    • Rick: Wasn't thoughtful enough about getting his wife's buy-in when starting his new ventures
• Looking forward to 2020
  • Personal goals
    • Rick: Get to a point where he and his wife feel comfortable having kids
    • Tyler: Get a dog
  • High-level professional goals / the theme of 2020
    • Tyler: Continue the product teams momentum and establish a rhythm of regularly shipping updates to LACRM
    • Rick: Calm growth. His life is calm right now, and as his ventures pick up, he doesn't want that to change.
  • Biggest worries / what's keeping you up at night?
    • Rick: Making enough personal income to be able to sustain his ventures
    • Tyler: Growth at LACRM needs to pick up eventually
  • Three specific goals for 2020
    • Tyler
      • Exercise moderately three times per week
      • Write code once per week
      • By the end of the year, average 50 paying users per month joining LACRM through the referral channel
    • Rick
      • Play more sports. He has an exercise routine, but it's boring and doesn't involve games or play
      • Be ready to start trying to having kids
      • Get distribution revenue from LegUp Ventures to $10k/month
    • Shared goal: Get this podcast to 250 subscribers
  • Make a prediction for 2020
    • Tyler: Starting a software business without venture capital will become much more mainstream over the next year
    • Rick: An all-in-one leader will emerge in the no-code industry
  • What do you want to read in 2020?
    • Rick: Too many to name, but wants to read a lot about emotions.
    • Tyler: The unicorn project and Obviously Awesome

What is Startup to Last?

Two founders talk about how to build software businesses that are meant to last. Each episode includes a deep dive into a different topic related to starting, growing, and sustaining a healthy business.