This is one of the best years I’ve ever had, after a very turbulent time for the past 3. Yes, there were still some challenging moments, but overall I can lock back on 2023 as a time for a lot of personal growth and success.

I finished 2022 on a high having just made £10k in 2 months in leather wallet sales with my goal for 2023 to “keep the momentum” and to grow the wallet brand into something that makes £10k p/m. I finished 2023 without making any progress on the wallet brand, but 3x’ing my income, being at peace with being a freelancer and being much happier.

Client work / PodPanda

A client I’ve worked with for years, Uncensored CMO, decided to make the jump from audio only to in-person video recordings at the start of 2023 and asked if I make this happen for him.

This change resulted in a lot of extra production work and I quoted accordingly. This transformed my finances and the growth of his show. This effectively turned into my “day job”, as the funds and time commitment would justify it. This show has taken me on some cool trips this year, including New York, San Fransisco and Rio De Janiero. We’ve published 52 episodes this year and have seen hockey stick growth in listenership.

I also kicked off the year joining the Lemon Squeezy team to produce their podcast, Make Lemonade. It’s been very exciting to be part of a team that is so talented and growing so fast, more so having access to their CEO (JR Farr) to quiz him every week. We took a little hiatus in the summer while they went through the fundraising process (eventually turning it down to stay bootstrapped) but we’ve picked the show back up to produce weekly episodes. JR is more than just a client, he’s a friend and a mentor - I’m very grateful for that.

I’ve had a handful of other fantastic clients I’ve been producing podcasts for throughout the year, including Sparkloop’s Send and Grow, Flick’s Talk Social to Me, Benedicte Rae’s Data In The Wild and Charlie Ward’s Ramen Club FM. I even edited the first 3 episodes of Ben Orenstein and Adam Wathan’s Hackers Incorporated.

I’ve struggled to turn PodPanda into the productized service I initially set it out to be, but I’m at peace with being a freelancer producing some great shows - for now. Maybe in 2024 I’ll explore growing the business if it makes sense to.

Whitstable Craft Co

This time last year I was certain I’d make the wallet business my main thing in 2023. That definitely hasn’t happened, but that’s ok. It’s still technically been my second earner behind client work, but I’ve barely spent any time on it. Besides making wallets, fulfilling orders and putting a few tweets out it’s just been pootling along.

I still absolutely love this brand, the process of making the products and how it scratches my creative itch. So much so I’ve actually taken a lease on a workshop for the next year so I can explore the hobby a little more.

Notice how I said hobby? I’ve come to terms with this brand being a hobby that I make money from - a true side project if you will.

Does that mean I don’t want to grow it? Definitely not. Does that mean I have no goals and am just going to have fun? Absolutely. If it makes more money, it’s just a brucey bonus.

With the new workshop I do plan to spend every Friday afternoon exploring new wallet designs and making content for the brand. Let’s see if keeping it fun, but structured helps move the needle a little.

Indie Bites

At the start of the year I was considering selling the podcast, but Tom and Jon from Email Octopus suggested a year long sponsorship with payment up front.

This is one of the areas I fell most short this year. They agreed to pay up front but I didn’t hit the episode quota. Thankfully there were causes in the contract for this and the Email Octopus crew were incredibly understanding of my situation. We’ve tweaked the agreement and are continuing into 2024. Grateful to have them in my camp.

As for the podcast itself, it’s been a really great year. I’ve had my best ever downloads month and the show is growing steadily, despite the sporadic episode releasing.

Top episodes

  1. Rob Walling
  2. Bram Kanstein
  3. Colleen Schnettler
  4. Marc Louvion
  5. Ryan Gilbert

It’s no surprise seeing Rob Walling taking the top spot this year. He was personally my favourite episode of the year and it’s nice to see it reflected in the downloads.

I’ve found my sweet spot with the podcast interviewing more unknown indie hackers about a certain topic, or those that take a different approach to growth. I’m enjoying exploring the personal stories of people like Michael Christofides who is happy with his £2k p/m slow growth product, or Harvey Carpenter who took out a £20k loan to leave his job…

I feel the pressure of needing “whale” guests. Those with big audiences or huge MRR numbers. But the downloads show that people are just as interested in the unknown guests who are smaller. This is reassuring, but I’ll continue to experiment in 2024.

Finally, I launched indiereads.co which as fun weekend project showing the most recommended books from the Indie Bites podcast. It’s nice to remember how much fun it is to ship simple products over a weekend.

Personal updates

My mental health has been much improved and I’m really understanding how to deal with it. I still have bouts of depression that hit me like a brick wall, but I’m better at realising what causes it and how to still hit deadlines when I’m in a rut. One of my favourite episodes of the Make Lemonade podcast was talking about mental health and how to deal with it - it’s a lot more common than you might think.

I’ve mostly started working a 9-5 Mon-Fri week. Which is amusing given that was exactly what I was trying to escape when I originally wanted to become a founder. But it turns out I need that structure in my week, but I just wanted to do it on my own terms. I also realised being a founder isn’t doing exactly what you want all of the time. You’ve got to do some shit things and that’s just part of the job. The benefit is you get to reap all the rewards at the end.

For too long I was trying to “find my passion” and “do what I love”, but it’s just bullshit. Do what you’re good at, have as much fun as you can with it, realise it will sometimes be shit and spend all your spare time doing stuff that is fun and doesn’t have to make money (aka hobbies).

I still have 2 cats. They are both absolute legends and keep me sane when I’m feeling down. Alfie is little here while I write this.

I bought a new car and did two very fun road trips. One to Scotland with my sister and another to Ireland with my dad.

I refreshed my flat layout, switched my rooms and turned my office into a recording setup, replacing the podcast booth I made in 2022.

One thing I need to do better in 2024 is taking holidays. I’ve managed to go abroad a few times this year, but mostly for work. I went skiing at for the first time with my founder friends, but still worked that week. The one time I went away and didn’t work was a weekend in Lisbon with my friends. I came back a different person and realised how much I needed some time off. So all throughout 2023 I’ve not taken a single full week off - and that’s bad. In 2024, I’d like to take at least 2 full weeks off.

Hobbies

This is getting a whole section this year because I’ve started to take my recreation very seriously.

I’ve played Tennis for years and continue to play 2-4 times a week. I love it and will never stop. I’ve even played a little squash, badminton, padel and pickleball to switch things up a bit.

Towards the end of Summer I took up cycling again, something I’ve done for years but haven’t ever taken seriously. I picked up a nice new gravel bike and started doing some longer rides. I’ve struggled to find cardio I love, but cycling fits that bill nicely. I’ve entered some events for next summer and will continue to cycle everywhere. Let’s see how this goes in 2024.

I’m still taking film photos and loving the analogue process. I’ve posted some to jimbosfilm.com

2024

So, what do I want out of next year? I’d like to continue with this structure I’ve had for the past few months. Continue to hit client deadlines, grow indie bites and make some more wallets. I wouldn’t mind getting a new client or two to de-risk my main one.

Here’s the goals I set last year:

  • Build a daily routine - my best days are when I’ve managed to get up at 5:30 - still true, but failed. Making progress towards this so might find a way to make this happen.
  • Get weight down to 80kg - failed massively until the past few months. Almost 40% of the way there to this goal. Still a goal for 2024.
  • Work with 3 fantastic podcast clients (about $10k p/m) - success!
  • Scale Whitstable Craft Co to £10k p/m (side goal - have content production machine for TikTok every day) - failed, but not mad about it. Keen to make the second part happen in 2024.
  • Build a newsletter - tried briefly but no success. Still keen, might explore more.
  • Write more - nope.
  • Sell a project - nope.

For the first time in a while I’m not going to set any goals for next year. I’m going to enjoy the stability I’ve found and continue to work on my mental health and hobbies.

Directionally, I’d like to continue with my fitness journey, keep hitting deadlines, enjoy my work and write a little more.

So that’s 2023. It’s been a good’un. See you same place next year?

James