September wrap-up | Jason's monthly newsletter
September wrap-up
My one goal in September:
Go all in and do well for my consulting gig.
And looking back, I think I achieved that. I prepared myself for the physicality of the consulting by taking self-care seriously, sleeping enough, taking long naps on rest days, eating well, eating more. And then committed my 100% to the consulting work. Feedback from the client had been pretty positive.
I also feel more relaxed and feel less burdened by expectations about growing my products. I like this. It opens up mindspace to have more fun, to take risks, and be opportunistic. That’s how I always preferred to work, and somehow it’s falling into place all on its own. Not sure what changed that led to this.
Overall I’m thankful for a fruitful September, with more opportunities on the horizon. Grateful for being provided for.
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Twitter stats - Sep vs Aug vs Jul
– Tweets: 929 vs 1402 vs 1293
– Tweet impressions: 240k vs 254k vs 183k
– Likes: 2.1k vs 3.1k vs 2.8k
– Engagement rate: 3.9% vs 4.2% vs 4.9%
– Profile visits: 36.6k vs 43.1k vs 38.2k
– Mentions: 996 vs 1726 vs 1441
– New followers: 211 vs 254 vs 141
– Link clicks: 140 vs 361 vs 203
– Retweets: 185 vs 258 vs 249
– Replies: 860 vs 1.3k vs 1.1k
– Followers: 4442
– Emails: 36 (↑4) subscribers
What’s interesting:
Big changes this month - I stopped posting my Lifelog essays and switched to 1 tweet/day, and couldn’t engage as much for 3 weeks due to my consulting project. Understandably, all metrics are down.
Pinned a new tweet to Twitter profile. Weird. Never felt emotional about pinned tweets… until now. I think it’s because it’s aligned to how I want to approach my social media presence from now on - similar to how I felt when I updated my bio last month to be more congruent.
Link clicks definitely suffered this month. I wonder if it’s due to stopping my screenshot posts from Lifelog? There’s value in posting those I feel (lesser trial sign-ups seem to point to that), but probably not everyday, and not every post. Posting selectively might work well, and within the 1 tweet per day rhythm. Will do that in Oct.
Questions continue to do well. It’s a new format that I only recently started tweeting weekly in the past 3 months, and it’s definitely working. Also helps with engagement, building relationships.
Learned something new about replies + likes > tweets, and wrote about more Twitter hacks I learned
Other Sept metrics
– Revenue:
Current MRR (all from Lifelog): $119 (↑$10)
One-off revenue: $351 (↑$6)
Total revenue: $470 (↑$16)
Total profit: $430 (↑$16) (excl. salary and consulting costs)
– Costs:
Heroku: $9/m
Table2site: $8/m
Carrd: $7.40/m ($89/y)
Domains: $16/m ($200/y)
– Lifelog
No new features nor fixes.
1 new subscriber activated… thanks Pavithren!
Got 1 new free trial sign-up this month
Stopped posting atomic essay screenshots since starting on 1 tweet/day. I should restart since that seemed to have an impact on trial sign-ups, but only post selectively.
Time for a review of Lifelog’s marketing approach.
Lifelog chat group at 27 members.
– Plugins For Carrd
Sold 11 plugins at $200 (↓$30) revenue. Sold 5 mobile navbars, 2 mega navbar, 3 testimonial sliders, 1 listings with filters & search plugin.
Had an epiphany about how perhaps the success of plugins could be due to me having opportunities to regularly help people. So helped even more people over email, Reddit, Facebook groups, Telegram group this month.
Telegram Carrd group at 38 (↑3) members.
Inspired by Components UI - this could be the roadmap for the future!
– Sheet2Bio
Received purchase enquiry for premium package. Created a page for free to let potential customer try it out before deciding.
– Cohort-based writing course for introverts
Put on hold to rest in June-July, and consulting gig in Aug-Sep.
New idea: This could be a top of funnel product for Lifelog.
– 5am creators
181 (↓5) total members now
Not re-started any tweeting or marketing for this group yet. Happy to let the daily engagement and organic chat continue for a bit.
– Keto List Singapore
Zero ad revenue (↓$43) this month.
Keto chat group at 119 members.
This site needs a refresh. Time to also break away from table2site.
Passed 3 years on keto!
– Outsprint consultancy
Continued with 1 post a day about design on LinkedIn (since Mar)
LinkedIn metrics: 926 (↑29) followers, 25k impressions + 358 engagements (based on past 28 days), 478 profile views (based on past 90 days)
Finished S$30k consulting project with non-profit helping low income families have better social mobility! Writing report now.
Met a government Ministry to talk about a potential project coming up to help a vulnerable group. (This came via exposure from doing a podcast)
Reached out to a previous contact to conduct training for a local polytechnic, with possible one coming in November. The epiphany that I actually do enjoy training led to this.
Got accepted to be on a panel of consultant experts (in public engagement) with another government Ministry.
High probability to conduct an ideation workshop with a government organisation to do service design for local public service centres.
Got connected to someone in the Prime Minister’s Office in Dubai (UAE) who’s interesting to learn about design thinking in government!
Just sold 2 x 50-card packs of career conversations cards = $140 (S$200). 83% margin on this if we exclude IP/content.
What IS happening?! So many consulting and training opportunities just showing up at the door… 😍 Am puzzled but relieved and grateful. It’s probably all plain dumb luck but some personal epiphanies/changes that could have contributed could be being open to training opportunities
– Sweet Jam Sites
Considering shutting it down. Was fun leveraging JAMstack/Stackbit but lost the sparkle since.
Can consider replacing this productized service in my portfolio with a Carrd equivalent
– Tech for good
2 monthly coffees ($5.45 each) = $10.90↓
Lost my first payment dispute from Stripe - paid dispute fee of $15!
Not much opportunities for pro bono tech for good projects since end of COVID.
– Sleep goals
Reviewed my 8h sleep goals. Verdict: Will continue as much as I can.
First time hitting 100% sleep score!
Experienced sleep hangovers due to sleep schedule disruption from consulting. But made sure I rested well - even took 2-3h naps the day after a tiring workshop.
– Health
Health is much better since the bout of weekly minor ailments in Jun and July.
Learned how to give my 100% but with self care had been a game-changer.
– Money
Nothing happening on my Mind My Millions Telegram chat group
Onwards to October!
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This post was first published on Lifelog - where I write daily and all my monthly wrap-ups: