Looking back at 2023 and forward to 2024

Startup to Last

This is our yearly recap episode!

Personal updates from 2023

• Tyler
  • Goals from last year
    • 🆗 Take more vacation and make up with with extra work off-hours work
    • 🆗 Renovate the house
  • Other updates
    • Found a band I like: Caligula's Horse
    • First time as an adult I feel good about my exercise routine
• Rick
  • Goals from last year
    • ❌ Get weight below 200lbs
    • ❌ Write a newsletter most Sundays (27 total)
  • Other updates
    • Built a new house and moved in
    • Had another baby (daughter)

Personal goals for 2024

• Tyler
  • Maintain exercise routine: 9k steps/day + 2 rucks/week + 200 pushups/week
  • Finish house remodel
• Rick
  • Rebuild daily exercise and writing habit
  • Be more present with family when I’m with them
  • Regular dates with Sable (2 per month minimum)
  • 4 vacations, with at least the next one scheduled at all times to look forward to

Professional updates from 2023

• Themes of the podcast
  • You can't optimize nothing (mostly applies to Rick)
  • Back to the basics (mostly applies to Tyler)
• Tyler
  • Goals from last year
    • ❌ Get back to decent growth: $36k ARR/ $3k MRR per month
    • ✅ Sense of urgency on the dev team. No more 2-week projects that end up taking six months.
    • 🆗 End the year with three major product wins
  • Other updates
    • Announced the price increase for legacy customers
    • ~3 new devs sort of. Dev team is feeling way better than ever before.
    • Improved money management
    • Coded a lot
    • Joined LegUp Health as a side project
• Rick
  • Goals from last year
    • ✅ Retain JD full-time for another year
    • 🆗 Double the client base again (~200 clients) - 160 clients
    • ❌ Build V1 of LegUp Benefits and generate $1K per month in MRR from it (3-4 customers)
  • Other updates
    • Tyler joined LegUp Health as a partner
    • Expanded services to group health insurance, and started figuring that out
    • Made it to $100K annual revenue run rate + profitability in December

Professional goals for 2024

• Tyler
  • Don't worry about growth unless something unexpected happens
  • Focus on customer delight: If you ask a typical customer whether LACRM improved in 2024, their answer should be "hell yeah"
  • Maintain stability related to the team, culture, etc.
  • Protect coding time. Should be averaging >1 full day of coding per week
• Rick
  • Get LegUp Health to $200K ARR
  • Apply Profit First Framework / Pay partner distributions, even if small
  • Get JD to his target compensation
  • Prioritize better at Windfall / leverage over optimization

Biggest worry

• Tyler: Our execution on the product side won't be enough to close the gap with competitors
• Rick: I won’t figure out how to prioritize and manage my personal health as I build a family

What we want to learn

• Tyler: How to code like it's 2024. Should be able to do everything the other LACRM devs can do with no blind spots
• Rick: Nothing specific. 2024 is about execution