2012 Wrap Up – Highlights & Lessons Learned

 

2012 is just hours away from ending. This years been unbelievable for me! I wanted to take some time out and write a post showing people where I was a year ago today and how far I’ve came.

 

 

Along with that, I’ve learned a lot of lessons this year that has truly changed my life forever. Without further ado, I’m going to start by sharing the highlights of my year in a time line format.

 

 

Highlights

 

1 year ago from today, I was working day and night with my partner to get ready for the launch of StatFuse. We didn’t end up launching until February 1st, 2012 but it was months of hard work and anticipation almost coming to a close. It’s unbelievable to look back how far I’ve grown as an entrepreneur and human being since that time.

 

 

Below are some of my basic highlights throughout 2012 in a highlight format:

 

January 2012 – Made my first business trip with my partner to Las Vegas.

 

February 2012 – Launched StatFuse and learned about the true power of the press.

 

March 2012 – Saw StatFuse grow in beta faster than any of us imagined.

 

April 2012 – Began working on my second startup company, Vintelli.

 

May 2012 – The first online article featuring me was posted, was a great experience.

 

June, July, August 2012 – I launched my personal website and blog. I got unbelievable exposure for myself through the media and was able to start a successful consulting business.

 

September 2012 – Launched Vintelli and got great feedback from businesses.

 

October 2012 – Joined a few startups as a consultant (launching in 2013). Wrote and published my second book, The Pursuit of Passion.

 

November 2012 – Made a trip to Chicago to speak (for the first time) at the CEO conference. Had an amazing time speaking and sharing my internet marketing strategies with college students around the world.

 

December 2012 – Did my first two radio shows and was featured in print on a local newspaper in my area. Made immense progress in my next project that plans to revolutionize the coupon industry.

 

 

Lessons Learned

 

They say it’s great to learn something new everyday, but this year I’ve truly felt like I learned 10 new things a day. Out of everything I learned, here are my top 10 lessons learned about entrepreneurship and life this year.

 

 

1. Build Products For Customers, Not Yourself

 

I read a book called Customer Development, which essentially tells you to build products that your customers are willing to pay for. As easy as that sounds, I really neglected the people paying me money and wanted to do it my way. However, that’s very wrong. Survey your customers and GIVE them what they want!

 

 

2. Stay Simple

 

When launching StatFuse, my partner & I wanted to make sure we gave students every single feature in the world. However, we lost focus on what our vision and goal was. Some of the most successful businesses such as DropBox, FourSquare, Twitter, etc had razor-sharp focuses and kept things VERY simple, which has led to their success.

 

 

3. Never Stop Branding You

 

As important as your businesses brand may be, I truly believe your brand is even more important. Businesses usually don’t last for more than 3-5 years, but individuals last much longer. This year, I learned how important your own brand is and that people buy from you.

 

 

4. Give Without Asking In Return

 

When I first started my company at the age of 17, people had convinced me that you had to charge for everything you did. If someone came and asked me a question, I put a price tag on it. This year, I learned that I loved helping people for free (up to a certain point, ofcourse) and this was one of the main reasons I started my blog!

 

 

5. Be Passionate About Everything

 

I have a lot of businesses that have shown interest in using me for my consulting services. However, I usually work with less than 15% of the individuals that reach out to me. Why? I don’t believe that I can do a good job helping someone unless I’m truly passionate about their business and goals. Thus, I’ve decided to never work for someone or something unless I’m all-in.

 

 

6. Make Money, Grow Money

 

As a young kid, I’ve always loved fast cars. Once I became an entrepreneur at the age of 17, I couldn’t wait to make money and buy fast cars. Thankfully, I didn’t make enough money to buy a fast car because that would have been a HUGE mistake. I learned that the only way to truly become wealthy is to grow money when you make it!

 

 

7. Have A Plan

 

As crazy as it sounds, I didn’t really have a plan or roadmap until this year. I had startups and I loved entrepreneurship, but I didn’t really know where I was going. It was great to sit down and spend time mapping out a long-term plan.

 

 

8. Have Time For The Important People In Your Life

 

No matter how much you work or how busy you may get, never forget the important people in your life. Family, friends, and loved ones should always be at the top of your priority list. Always make time for them!

 

 

9. Ideas Don’t Mean Shit

 

Seriously, I used to be extremely fixated on ideas. I would have great ideas and think I was already rich without taking any action on it! Not only that, but I was scared to tell anyone because I thought people were going to ‘steal it’. Fast-forward to this year, I really learned that the greatest ideas fail because the execution sucks.

 

 

10. Never Stop Meeting People

 

This year, I went all out networking. I went to mixers, conferences, and events all over the place to meet new people. Each event I went to, I developed new connections that really benefited me. I developed new friendships, partnerships, and clients by just putting myself out there!

 

 

Conclusion

 

2012 has been a great year, I really grew and progressed further than I had imagined. However, 2013 is going to be much crazier than this year. In my next blog post, I will share my BIG plans for 2013.

 

 

photo credit: Philipp Lücke via photopin cc