I hope you had a great time during the holidays, and that you took some time off to relax with your loved ones.

A new year might not mean much, but it is a good time to step back and reshape our strategy. Once more, I have followed through with my annual task, and I’m sharing with you my entire strategy for 2018.

Working as a solo entrepreneur is not always easy, and the best feedback we can expect actually comes from our own network. So if this article speaks to you, stimulates thought and conversation, or if you find it useful (or not)… just let me know.

The end goal

Usually, I talk about my vision and I was pretty detailed in last year’s plan when it came to my long-term goal. To make a long story short, I want to help thousands and thousands of entrepreneurs build tech startups. And I want to do it in a way that allows me to appreciate each and every day that life gives us.

The era we live in is just great. As entrepreneurs, we can travel and live wherever we want, we can even do almost whatever we want. And I feel like we’ve never had the opportunity to be so free… Free to work the way we want… Free to work with whomever we want…

I’m totally confident that my work will serve a large number of startup founders, whether it’d be from the paid or free content I offer.

Business is the priority, until we are able to have the lifestyle we want. After that, everything we do is about finding some sense in this life. How can we contribute to the world, making use of the assets each of us already have? How can we impact more lives? How can we make the world a better place to live in?

I have my personal goals like sailing around the globe, enjoying my free time, and above all, never stop learning and expanding my comfort zone. But what I truly believe is that we can contribute to the world in a very meaningful way. And that’s exactly what my 2018 plan is all about: an outstanding roadmap to startup success.

To be honest, I’m actually really anxious while writing this right now, knowing that I’m going to share it with 2,000+ people… But that’s just the way I do things. I put myself in an uncomfortable situation, a challenging situation, in order to reach higher goals. Sounds familiar? Well, that’s how we thrive in the startup business.

So to make it simple… the end goal in 5 years will be:

• Fewer consulting/mentoring sessions
• Producing best practice videos on startup growth
• Investing in a few startups
• Travelling
• Still enjoying every single day of life
• But also making the world a better place to live in by contributing or even starting meaningful initiatives like helping thousands of kids get the education and learning environment they deserve. I think of everyone in our world as a gift, it’s just a matter of stimulating people and getting the best out of them. I want to enable others to feel the same way.

Overwhelming 2018 goals

In 2017, I recorded an increase of 30% in my turnover. This 2018, I want to reach an 80% increase! Sounds insane, doesn’t it? I’ve worked hard to put a system in place to reach those goals, and sometimes I feel that it would be a reward for all the preparation and the work that I’m about to do in 2018. No matter which way it goes, I’ll be as transparent as I’ve always been with you and will let you know throughout the year how things turn out.

Pure transparency

I’m fully ready to be crystal clear about my achievements and my failures. Sharing them with you every year in the last three years was a good start, but I want to go further… So let’s do it on a monthly basis. As a friend, partner, client or contact, I will make myself accountable for everything I do. I’ll also be sharing if I fail on a few goals—as I said, I prefer to be 100% transparent—as opposed to only sharing my successes and hiding my failures. So, be ready to receive these email updates every month to let you know how things are going: successes, failures, and learned lessons. It’s another way to help you learn things about growth and continuous improvements.

So 80% increase, how is that possible?

An 80% increase means 180% of my actual income, so let’s split it in percentages.

The first 100% by consulting: I feel like I can maintain the same consulting income while dedicating only 2 days per week on it. It’s just a matter of having a well-systematized Production process.

The next 80% by creating online courses: This is where I failed in 2017 and where I will succeed in 2018, thanks to the lessons I learned the past year. This is where the Challenge is, so I’ll place my focus here.

Reaching this kind of result means being able to make almost 300 sales by the end of December. With an average of $220 per sale.

So to reach that goal, I will dedicate a minimum of 8 days per month to online production and promotion.

• Website + promotion video: 2 days a month
• Book writing: 2 days a month
• AskMyCTO videos: 1 day a month
• Course production or promotion: 3 days a month

Production goal #1: 6 new courses

The production process I built in 2017 allowed me to produce an entire paid course in 3 working days. So my challenge is to produce a new course every 2 months while still creating free content weekly.

Now this is where you can help: are there topics that you want me to address as a startup CTO? Are you struggling with something in your startup? Email me and I will do my best to produce content that will hopefully solve your problem. We can also jump on a Skype call together. I’ve made 3 time slots available for you each week for these free calls. (Whenever you want, you can book a Skype meeting with me here: myctofriend.co/callme.)

Production goal #2: The book “Launching a Startup Without a CTO”

Some of you might remember me talking about an e-book project in 2016. This project eventually became My CTO Friend, the online platform that I hope you’ve already checked out. But now it’s time for me to come back on board that book project. Having developed a successful writing process for my blog posts via interviews, allows me to create more written content easily and quickly. So, the book is actually a lot more doable now.

Production is not enough, communication is more than required

This is, again, an area where I have lots of improvement to do in 2018. My focus this year is to establish a system that will make me stick to my goals. So here are the top promotional ideas I have planned for 2018:

AskMyCTO: The FAQ video

Doing good work offline is not something I was able to share enough online. While testimonials are the classic way to show your expertise and customer satisfaction, I feel like I can do a lot better by involving not only clients, but any startup founder that may have a question to ask, and give them the opportunity to share it with the community.

So, starting February, I will produce a weekly video series where I answer questions about real startup project challenges, and share their business concept and website. And of course, my answers won’t be simple one-liners, but more like full processes to follow to overcome those challenges.

Every startup has difficulties, and they can surface at any stage. Being transparent about our challenges is just another opportunity to attract people who can help solve the issue. So if you are a startup founder and have a challenge in mind, which I’m sure you do, please share it with me here: myctofriend.co/askmyctoform.

Being active on social media

Out of all my goals, this one is easily the most challenging for me. Having the habit of keeping track of almost every minute I work, the concept of social media is very far from this productivity mindset. But for better or worse, that’s where people are, where they are easy to reach, talk to and get to know. I don’t know exactly how I’m going to tackle this, but I will definitely be more active on social media this year.

Keeping in touch with you

Last year, I almost didn’t communicate with you at all. This year, I will make sure to catch up with everyone by setting in place monthly updates for you, weekly updates for My CTO Friend members and Out of Tech subscribers, and a better onboarding process for new subscribers showing how they can take advantage of all the great content that is readily available on My CTO Friend.

Clarifying and improving my personal brand

My personal website OutOfTech.com is already 2 years old, and a little refresh wouldn’t hurt. I will remove everything about consulting (word-of-mouth is fortunately enough to make a living) and besides, that’s not an activity I want to focus on anymore.

Instead, I will make Out of Tech all about my personal brand, keep publishing weekly blog posts as well as my monthly “Growth Records.” I will also replace the clients page by a reputation page where I will share some testimonials from people I’ve worked with. Differentiating my personal brand from My CTO Friend makes the latter ready to welcome other CTOs down the road who will produce their own courses so that My CTO Friend will be able to offer quality content across more varied topics and niches.

What can you take away

I’m devoted to making startups grow, almost ready to do anything to make it happen!

I have systematized processes and set them in place to help many more projects digitally, instead of through direct consulting.

I’m available for quick chats, since talking with you also help me produce content that is more relevant to you and your business: myctofriend.co/callme.

I can even answer your questions in a clear and detailed mini course! You just need to request it here: myctofriend.co/askmyctoform.

I’ll make myself accountable to you, and update you on my growth and on My CTO Friend’s growth as well. You can follow it on LinkedIn and soon on the OutOfTech.comBlog.

Finally, what you can take away is that I’ve already produced tons of free videos about founders’ challenges, and have two very detailed and valuable courses that you can check out:

1. myctofriend.co/roadmap This free course is nothing about promotion, it’s a very practical course to help you build a successful roadmap.
2. myctofriend.co/selectingtherightprovidercourse And this one is a step-by-step guide on how to find the right provider for your new endeavor as a startup founder.

Talk to you soon and I wish you the best year you’ve ever had. Take care and build great startups.