2019 is here and at last I’m reviewing what I was able to achieve in 2018.

December was a crazy month, from a professional and personal perspective.

It’s been three years since I started publishing every year what my goals are, and sharing my vision of my ideal Lifestyle and the way I want to help startups. (You can see the entire story here.)

For now, more than just reviewing last month’s goals, I’m going to review the goals I shared in January 2018 on this blog as well as on LinkedIn.

The results are just incredible, and I’m now ready to take off with my desired lifestyle. In fact, my goal last year was to focus on producing online courses in order to support a lifestyle where I can travel more with my family, and where I can adapt my work to my lifestyle and chose a new place to live whenever I want.

First lesson learned: Online courses are not the solution! 

That’s the biggest outcome of this past year. People do not just want videos. They don’t have time for it and above all, they don’t know where to begin and don’t want to wast time finding the right information that they need. I learned it the hard way after launching several courses and investing chunks of time producing content that didn’t generate money.

The big unexpected goal 

Nevertheless, I found the solution to support my ideal lifestyle while serving startups in a very effective way! Inspired my many North American coaches and experts, I’ve designed a Coaching Program where I dedicate some time to my startup clients on a weekly basis. When I was doing some consulting, I always felt like I was providing a huge amount of value during the first hours. And the more I was working for my clients, the less value I was providing, becoming more or less like their part-time employee.

So instead of selling my time by consulting, I now provide startup clients regular checkups through Slack, Zoom video calls, group sessions with other startups, and quick one-on-one working sessions.

I simply focused on the format that allowed me to provide the best value and regular contacts with startups to monitor if there is anything wrong, as well as anticipate technical difficulties way ahead than what their CEO would. And of course, I combine my services with all the videos and templates I’ve produced (and keep producing on a weekly basis).

And that’s where the value is. People get the right advice at the right time, and would only devote the minimum of their time consuming the right video content to learn what’s important at the right moment.

Why it is a big unexpected goal

Because my coaching is 100% online, thanks to chats and video calls, I can now do it from anywhere in the world!

Coming up with this format in August 2018 led me to consider leaving the Aix-Marseille area here in France and install my family somewhere else, hopefully abroad. Obviously, having a home with mortgage and a family with kids make it a bit more complex, but I was already able to achieve the first step of this plan.

From a personal perspective, we we able to transform our home into an Airbnb place, and we had our first guest during the past holidays. Of course, we found a very effective agency that is helping us with it, and this will allow us to travel and live anywhere else, while generating some income. That’s the good news of having a house in Provence. 

From a financial perspective

Aiming a 180% increase in 2018 compared to 2017, I have to say that I’m far below my targeted results. I don’t have the exact numbers yet, but I think I’m just above last year’s results. Putting lots of energy on course production and testing the remote mentoring format during the first semester made me generate less income than usual. Hopefully, I can catch up during this last quarter of 2018. Finance management is definitely one of my weaknesses, and I’ll put in place an action plan for 2019 to better manage my resources.

Project	2018 results vs goals
Online courses	Result: I wanted to produce 6 online courses but ended up stopping creating new ones during the second semester. The available courses are:   – Startups’ Tech Challenges: From 0 to Million Users  – The Best Technologies for Your Startup – Startup Roadmap Definition – Selecting the Right Provider
Weekly videos	Result: In addition to the 44 videos in the online courses, I was able to produce 35 AskMyCTO videos in 2018. You can find them here: https://myctofriend.co/videos.
Blog posts	Result: While I’m developing the myCTOfriend brand, I also kept publishing new posts weekly on my personal blog. You can check out the articles here: https://outoftech.com/blog.
‘The Startup Without a CTO’ book	Result: This is really something I struggle with. The first ghostwriter who was helping me in the beginning of 2018 became unavailable. By the end of 2018, I restarted the project with the writer who helps me write the posts for the blog based on weekly interviews with me. Right now though, I feel I would need someone who’s already created a book. Or maybe I will dedicate a time to do it myself. It sounds so complex to me that I’m still having doubts about working on it. Maybe I’ll have a better vision in a few days after planning 2019.
Social media	Result: I’m not sure if I did a better job than 2017. I’m progressing slowly and I still see social media as time-consuming.

2018 in a few words

This past year was a revelation in terms of business models—from moving away from a consulting format to setting aside the online course model, to doing a remote coaching program that supports the lifestyle that I want. In the following days, I’ll devote some time to defining my goals for 2019 and plan what will be another amazing year.

P.S. While waiting for the 2019 plan, I’d like to let you know that I’m about to reopen the Coaching program for a few more startups. So if you’re interested in working with me, just apply here: https://myctofriend.co/onlinectoprogram/

Note: You can also find this article on LinkedIn here: https://outoftech.com/amauryonlinkedin