2025 - What a year!
Looking back in the rear view mirror, tends seen as a negative or being stuck in the past. I don't believe so, by looking at the path you created this year, helps you make decisions on where you want to end up.
Year by the numbers permalink
- Blog Posts: 63
- Site Visits: ~5,900
- Github Commits: 764
- Made money online: [x]
- Top 5% user on LinkedIn (whatever that means)
- All the kids in school!
- Operator's Person of The Year
Podcasts (I was on) permalink
I was on 3 podcasts this year. I will be a guest on your podcast, just ask.
- Brain Driven Brands
- what started as a twitter chat about AI, turned into a great conversation with Sarah Levinger and Grace Clarke
- A Chat with Sanjay Jenkins from Replo
- Sanjay and I go back to 2018 coming up in the ecommerce space, this was a great chat catching up on what the last few years have been like for both of us. Trying to be more human in a very online and transactional space.
- Free Code Camp Podcast
- Now this makes me shake a bit. Free Code Camp is where I started my journey into tech. As a Janitor at my local hospital listening to podcasts during second shift (3-11:30pm)
Projects permalink
This project started from an episode of the Colin & Samir podcast with Jack Conte (founder of Patreon). They were talking about a Dashboard where you have to look at yourself and answer a series of questions about how you feel about yourself. This clip took my brain and melted it until I had to build this. This is the rough MVP, which got shared in a newsletter for e-commerce Operators. People saw my project work.
- Dashboard Affirmational in Laravel and Vue (incomplete)
This is the v2 of a daily affirmations app for a Pitch I gave to give a talk at Laracon US (I got rejected more on that below). There was a bit in the talk about believing in yourself to actually end up where you want to be, rather than following a path somebody else went down.
The Talk would have been my first conference talk, with the goal of inspiring people to follow a path they built, and really the journey and the friends made a long the way.
The project gives users the ability to take a daily selfie, give yourself a "Personal Net Promoter Score", and fill out a quick daily journal entry.
The idea is to keep record of what you did over the year so you can look back and actually course correct to where you want to go. The reason this project isn't complete, is because I'm so deathly afraid of a surprise hosting bill, or me messing something up and getting an S3 bill thats more than a couple bucks.
Sure, call it skill issues. But as somebody who is raising a family, I can't be having >$1k surprise bills for projects I'm not making money on. I can add a "Buy me a Coffee" Widget but still unsure if people will pay for it.
If somebody would love to give me ideas on how to set up the hosting so I don't have to get a second full time job, that would be great.
Project again from an ear worm on a podcast about dealing with client payments and wish there was a slider that made everything better.
Holiday's can be stressful for entrepreneurs when family asks "How's the business going?". To Avoid these awkward conversations and feelings like you aren't achieving your goals, show them the chart that goes up and to the right. Everybody loves a good chart!
- More blogs!
I wrote more than any other year this year. I took part in #Create30 from Matt Ragland which got me to write and hit publish on 30 posts in 30 days. Building that muscle of shipping constantly no matter what helped me rethink what is possible with this site. It helped plant seeds of ideas for future writings.
This started by when a friend showed me a chrome extension that auto scrolls your site, then gives you a video download of the scroll and gives you a whole bunch of other cool features. But the one missing was being able to do this for PDFs. So off I went on a weekend project. The project allows users to upload a PDF and auto scrolls and when it finished the scrolling to the bottom of the PDF, you get a nice little download showing the pdf. A great tool if you want to show off the contents of your Ebook or Case Study, to tease out all the content you have to share. I have some wonderful friends that have paid for this product.
Making money online feels incredible now to find more people who need this product.
Work permalink
What a busy year at KnoCommerce. A whole new UI/UX experience, countless new features and partnerships and cooler use cases. Some major features I got build this year.
Shopify Flow Trigger and Templates permalink
Allows Shopify merchants to be able to take survey responses and push that data to anywhere they need it. Their Customer Support Slack Channels, to adding specific customs to email lists based on a certain response.
Shopify provides merchants to build custom workflows to use KnoCommerce data better, we also offer templates for merchants to use a specific flow.
Saving the company about ~$10k/year by getting off our old workflow builder. (massive win)
Built Shopify Flow Triggers in a way that we didn’t need to tweak them at all for NPS touchpoints. Saving ~1 month of dev time if we had to do tweaks to Shopify Flow, and further savings for more touchpoints coming in the future. Build it right the first time saves you a ton of $$$ in the months to follow.
QR Codes permalink
- The ability to slap a survey into a QR Code, to collect feedback from customers out in the real world.
- In-person taste tests (CPG brand). You can capture the email of the taste tester, and get instant feedback on what they thought of the flavors they tried, and even reward the tester with a coupon for their purchase of the product.
- Throw a QR Code at your Point of Sale machine, to allow customers to give feedback about their visit in store
Lots of other cool features, and improvements done this year.
Rejections permalink
If you aren't getting rejected you are playing it safe. Having a loss/rejection on your record means you are trying. So here are some rejections
I got rejected for a written piece for a journal I would love to be apart of, and it stung a bit. Lesson learned though, learn how to pitch a vision!
Got rejected from giving a talk at Laracon US this year, the talk was about Dashboard Affirmational and using Laravel New as a new comer to Laravel.
I got a picture texted to me from two dads in CoderDads, they got to meet at Laracon US this year. Connections that I help build the bridge for with Coder Dads. That was enough to heal the pain of rejection.
Oh well, maybe next time. There will be a next time.
Podcasts/Live Shows permalink
I listen to set in set-in stone rotation of podcasts.
Mondays are for Shop Talk Show Chris and Dave have been the reason I have got into web dev in the first place.
Tuesdays are for Mostly Technical Ian and Aaron give updates on running their businesses and share thing about their family (apparently listeners hate those....)
Wednesdays are for Future Commerce. Great insights from Philip and Brian on all things Commerce, and the tag line "Commerce is Culture". (don't sue me).
Thursdays are for the The Panel. This live show on Youtube has made my Thursdays very enjoyable. Much like Mostly Technical with the "follow along" nature, and great insights on running a business. (I swear I'm working while listening!)
Fridays are for Riff and Refine Josh and Will talk about their week and what they have been working on. Will is building a DAW using the web audio API stuff (super cool), Josh is building stuff for Laravel and has dreams of building out a Keytiar! Only gripe guys, is the timing of the live show is miserable. Right during school pick up.
I listen to other podcasts regularly, but only if work and life allow it.
CoderDads permalink
This community has been near to my heart and I know I don't talk enough about it. We hit 300 dads in the group this year. All different levels of technical experience and most of them have a career transition under their belt like myself. Hearing stories from the community of dads going from working factory jobs, to being able to buy their families first home through learning to code and change their families lives forever through code and community.
In the new year, I'm planning on making more of an effort the community with office hours to be available for dads to come in and chat about what they are working on, and if they need somebody to listen to what they are going through.
I got a picture texted to me from two dads in CoderDads, they got to meet at Laracon US this year. Connections that I help build the bridge for with Coder Dads. Pretty flicking cool to know building the bridges for people to connect.
To think 300 dads have been apart of the community I helped start and support. 300 dads can do a lot to change the world, even if its making sure they are strong and caring for their families.
Over the years, these dads have become pretty close friends. I'd get coffee (oh we need the coffee) with any of them. This place became a spot for connection when I didn't have in person meetups due to my location and time. Heard countless stories of dads not having time to do networking events because of schedule of being parent.
I've had people approach me with ways to monetize the community, but as a dad that was making <$40k/year when this started. Charging dads who were trying to better the lives of their family through coding felt terrible. Maybe that makes me a bad entrepreneur, but I want to be the person that helps others be their best and $$$ shouldn't determine that. I will post and share projects they are working on socials, or send connection emails if they are looking for work.
The Gentleman's Email Thread permalink
Fun story about this was once again started to get off Twitter (didn't work). But a group DM thread turned into an Email thread with the boys. We all get so much email but we wanted to get emails we wanted to read. Emails slowed through out the year, but still a delight to see those names pop up with an unread email. Its rare these days to get excited about an email.
Music permalink
Started a Soundcloud this year. to try and get back to making some music. My guitar needs some minor repairs of course, but these are all done as rough drafts.
The idea of not worrying about 'perfect' has already been something I've tried to do. Hit Record, hit publish, and get the idea out of my head. Very low edits, I'll do it Live. Which gets a lot of mixed reviews in the creator economy. But in the age of AI I think thats good. Show that its a real human making the things.
Speaking of Music: here is my Spotify Wrapped playlist.
What's funny about this playlist, is you can tell most of these are songs listened to while working and providing me focus. I keep my spotify under lock and key so no child music to spoil the crafted playlists.
Friends! permalink
This year was full of calls with friends I've made over through the internet. Been more intentional about texting friends to stay off Twitter (its not working).
Note: None of these links are paid for. Maybe, next year they will be!
The following of friends and the projects they are building, in no order.
Aaron Orendorff
He puts so much thought and care into all the things he does. He is Chief Content Operator for 9 Operators. He shared my early version of Dashboard Affirmational v1 and 1,800 people from the newsletter checked out the project!
He once called me once at 8:30am ET, to ask about CSS not rendering in Mobile Chrome on iOS. Fun Fact, Mobile Chrome on iOS is actually Safari under the hood. The CSS feature was supported in Desktop Chrome and Andriod Chrome. Love being able to help people out with technical decisions.
Phillip Jackson
I'd say one of my biggest cheerleaders, when I got on a zoom call with him when I was still working in the ER back in 2020. He is building a gem of a media company. He is always down to chat and give advice when I need it! Future Commerce.
Adam Simone
Adam has been a major supporter for me while I was getting into ecom. Took a call with him in the hospitals cafe, to see if we could work together a TOP secret project. He builds incredible sustainable products. Turns out that was what became SMOOSH He also makes a zero plastic razor and other shaving essentials! LEAFSHAVE Go buy his products, tell him I sent you.
Jake Weber
A friendship started by following and interacting via TikTok. He is ambitious and as curious as they come. Always interested to see what people are building, and sharing what he is learning. He is building Printernet.
Will King
Will called me "The World's Biggest Hype Boy" on Guidance Counselor 2.0 with Taylor Desseyn this year. Feels good to have somebody notice I'm trying to build people up. Will's Site
ThoughtLessLabs
Friends from Twitter, who isn't afraid of shipping an app or idea when he has time. He has built a bunch of fun projects. but inspired by ThoughtLessCAD. He also live streams here
Sanjay Jenkins
Met Sanjay when we were both getting into e-commerce, and followed each other and stayed in touch. This year he had me on a podcast where we talked about the "being human while working in e-commerce". Being a Caring human, goes a long way. He is helping build Replo.
Sarah Levinger
Met Sarah while working together at KnoCommerce, she was marketing and has a strong background in customer psychology. Incredible insights coming out of Tether
Next year?! permalink
Now moving forward to where I actually want to be. I plan on opening up a couple slots on my calendar to do 1:1 calls with internet friends. I heard the term "Unoffice Hours" and fully believe this is the way to meet interesting/inspiring people. Keep an eye out for when I drop my calender link.
More side quests in the new year!
Wrapped permalink
Thats a wrap! Another massive win for my family is all the kids started school. I now have uninterrupted work time from 8:30-2:40pm. Doesn't seem or feel like a ton of time. It flies by everyday. A big change heading into the new year.
This coming year, I'll be trying to ship more side quests. Blog more, I want to speak at your events. I want to connect with more people in the new year.
Let's make it happen! Would love to hear from you.