Bootstrappers 2015 - A Year in Review
As I've been doing for the last 2 years (2013 Bootstrappers Review, 2014 Bootstrapper Review), here is the 2015 Bootstrappers Review. It's a round up of bootstrappers who bear all for your benefit! They open up their businesses for you to learn what worked and what didn't in 2015. Each review is also packed full of ideas for the year ahead so get ready to take notes and grow your business this year.
Edit: Many have asked me about my own year in review. In short, it's been both great and not so great. I hope to detail the trials and tribulations of the last year at some point but it has certainly been eventful: I shut down one company (even though it was making over $100K per year), started a side project with a long waiting list, met some incredible people, helped some friends with marketing and increased my consulting work in FinTech. On a personal note, some years are full of happiness and some of tragedy; most years are a blend of both. I hope your next is full of business success and personal happiness.
2015 Year In Review
Brennan Dunn
Brennan doubled his revenue compared with the previous year. That's a fantastic achievement from a solo founder who is hell-bent on helping freelancers make more money in business. Brennan also gives us some insight on his first conference [I was there and it was fantastic] as well as his plans for the future including another product, another book and a European conference!
2015 Annual Review
James Clear
James [whom I had the pleasure of meeting at Brennan's conference] takes his usual planned and prepared approach to his personal review. He goes through a) what went well; b) what didn't; and c) what he's working toward. From strength training to travel and marriage to writing, James makes himself accountable by publishing his thoughts on the past, present and future.
2015 Year In Review -Seven Figures, World Domination, Chaos, Time for a Mojito
Amy Hoy
The bootstrapping super-heroine broke the $1m annual product revenue milestone. A staggering achievement that she attributes to slow, consistent growth and investing in successful outcomes that she had control over.
2015 2014 Year In Review
Sacha Greif
Classic Sacha to do something contrarian - his review is based on 2014 and details some of his travels throughout the year as well as making over $300k from a programming book.
Year In Review 2015
Jane Portman
A thorough yearly analysis from the revered and ever charming, Jane Portman. Consulting challenges, book and podcast launches, travel and family traumas, Jane has done it all this year. It's a cracking read and ends up with some lessons that we should all pay attention to.
Year In Review 2015
Bryan Harris
Bryan's humorous look on 2015 with his bizarrely named Videofruit company. Bryan excels at building email lists and making decisions quickly and effectively. Bryan saw fantastic growth in 2015 with new a new addition to the family, increased team size and close to $1m in revenue.
Year In Review 2015
Christoph Engelhardt
My good friend, Christoph "The Bärchen" Engelhardt, has put together his usual humble interpretation of this year's successes and failures. Christoph highlights some veritable truths of entrepreneurship and customer success: it's hard; don't add items to your customers' ToDo lists. As always he details all the numbers, revealing his profits and losses before setting goals for 2016.
2015 A Look Back
Ryan Battles
With the launch of his financial tracking SaaS app, Harpoon, Ryan is 'living the dream'. Whilst income from the app isn't what he would like, freelancing and passive income has allowed him to have a lifestyle business for which he is grateful.
2015 in Review
Benedikt Deicke
I've only had the pleasure of meeting Benedikt a few times but one of my goals is to do it again in 2016! This is Benedikt's first 'Year in Review' post and he's totally transparent about the lack of new success with Stage, his CMS for bands. Whilst consulting went well, he values the community more than ever with his involvement in conferences, podcasting and teaching.
Contributed Systems: the 2015 wrapup
Mike Perham
A year on year revenue increase of 2.6x for Mike's business: job processing software for Ruby developers, has shown that you can make a great living as an open source software developer.
2015 In Review - 1 Year After I Quit Blogging
Nathan Barry
Nathan has seen explosive success in his product ConvertKit with MRR of over $100K. He has attributed that to doubling down on his SaaS app but has still found time to spend time with the family and start a few new hobbies. Another great read from the ever-charming Nathan.
Make Stuff and Be Happy
Justin Jackson
Justin's relentless pursuit of 'Making Stuff' continues. Whether it's podcasts or plugins, SaaS apps or membership sites, Justin is keen to experiment and to create. Justin has just launched his new side project, MegaMaker.
State of the Union, 2016
Paul Jarvis
A landmark year for Paul as over 10K members went through his premium Creative Class. Never content with being boring or mundane, Paul's newsletter is always entertaining and thought-provoking. His new product, ChimpEssentials has just launched and we're waiting for the announcement of his next project, his first SaaS app with Jason Zook.
2015 in Review
Rachel Andrew
As the brains behind Perch, her CMS product, Rachel still finds time to deliver regular conference presentations (26!) and run regular marathons (over 1000 miles in 2015!). The next year is focused on Perch and various course and publications around CSS.