Hello all. What a year. It's been a funny one for many reasons, not least covid continuing in the way it has but my life, in the words of the Fresh Prince, got flipped turned upside down.
I thought it would be as good a place as any to do a 2021 retro as a lot of it is Cheezus, but also a lot is not. Bear with me.
This year my Wife and I separated after 10yrs together. It was tough leading up to that, when looking back, as I lived in my home office for the whole year. Mentally it was a really tough year for 9-10 of those months. I don't blame anyone for the breakdown of our relationship. A relationship is two way. We both played parts in it, and were clearing miscommunicating for some time leading up to that day. We probably wanted to before, but felt the stigma and pressure of the kids not to. It was the best thing we could have done. Without dwelling on the past, I spent a lot of time reflecting, learning about me and trying to grow, so it's been a huge personal growth year for me.
The downside of this though, was the attention spent on other things. In my relationship, I was never really "allowed" to spend money on things like Cheezus. It wasn't a priority for some, but for me it was. The end result was wanted, without the risk/cost and work. I am happy to put those things in and so because of that, post separation I have pushed things forwards nicely.
Alas, whilst I didn't spent greatly in the year on development, I did put time in each week to make sure the social side of things was covered. With some weeks where I just couldn't do it, but for the most part I was consistent with getting things done.
App users grew from this time last year 10x
So regardless, I'm pleased with the work done. Every metric grew nicely.
The above development work has been planned, paid for and is now underway. I would have liked it done by Christmas (big cheese time) but it's coming anyway. I know what we need to do and it's getting done. Sitting down with some of the guys in the new year to sort out plans for next steps and what it means. Certain people (CMO) has not pulled any of their weight (I feel they should be covering social tbh not me, but it's always me) so I will be having discussions with everyone and outlining my expectations for the new year and 2022. I want to set out with clear expectations and objectives. Make things properly set and official. If people want to be a part, go for it, if not, no problem.
Cheezus wise, given the circumstances as well as how busy work has been as well, I'm very pleased with growth. Next year I am very excited for what's to come. Hitting 10k users would be a massive thing, which I'd like to do.
Other things:
Fulltime Job - I don't know what I expected here, but it's been very frustrating as a place to work. I knew how dysfunctional it was, I've contracted there long enough, but I'm such a **** I always think things can change and it was an exciting chance to make a difference in Product. Which I love. I found it's not been the case and spent most of my time frustrated. It gave me some confidence in what I do though, so it's been good in that sense and while I haven't achieved anywhere near what I'd have liked to, I made progress in educating the masses. I also realised they don't own me. They pay for some of my time, but outside of that, it's my life. I made that very clear to my boss who thinks contacting me on my holidays is acceptable and so no doubt have ****** some people off, but life is too short.
The job market is really very good at the moment and in my time off in December I had two interviews for interesting companies as fully remote jobs (head of product and head of product operations). One very well known blockchain company, been round since 2017 and a series B company doing some really interesting stuff, looking to IPO in the next 3-5yr, so interesting options. Talking to them both more in the new year. Either way, I will never let work control and dictate my life as I have in the past.
YouTube - Some of you will know I have a YT channel where I do my endless projects (yea yea I know, I know) and the main reason I set it up was to keep myself accountable to my projects. It wasn't supposed to be anything serious. I then posted a "short" which was when they were brand new. It was a 10s clip that I edited from a news website I'd literally just seen of a guy in pants ice skating in amsterdam on the frozen river and falling in. I thought nothing of it. We had about 2k subs at the time.
It "went viral" and I hate that saying, but it really did. It keeps going to this day. This was posted in March and as of this post, has 82.7m views, has got 2.4m views in the last 48hrs and 65k in the last hour. It seems to pump up and down all year... this has taken our subscriber count from 2k to 43.3k - mad.
Shorts at the time and for a long time didn't make you any money, so that 80m meant nothing. They changed that last month in France and so it's started to make money. Due to that though, I started recently posting more shorts. There is an audience there and they're getting very decent (not 80m decent but you know) views, so I figured I'd keep creating consistent content across our instagram/facebook/ tiktok (I hate that platform but hey) and YT shorts. Making sure the content was more inline with our car sort of stuff.
At the same time I earned enough in YT rev this year to get a better camera than my phone and figure if I can start to capture that audience with our general YT videos, it could be healthy money wise. I know people with channels with around the same sub count but higher views on general content, who make 2,5k a month. I post anyway, it's about time I made it better. Content, production, editing. I'm going to start to make an effort. If this could pay for my projects... 
I need an R8 is all I'm saying.
This year I track prepped (kinda) the C1, redid the whole inside of the Taxi (which I LOVE) and has it's seats being recovered in Feb! Which will finish off the inside. Test drove many cars. Bought a RR Sport, modded a RR Sport, broke a RR sport 
, kicked back off with trying to get my S4 back on the road (which has some ace new things!)
Without this push of YT, I'd not have done half of this. Or had so much fun on quad bikes and go karts with the kids. It's been great.
Other Business Activity - My 7yr old launched her first business this month (
https://byharper.co.uk) not promoting, you're not my audience, just for you to see
She loves making bows and hair stuff. Her hair is so damn long and gorgeous, she's a star. She loves making it and I think must have got something from me as this wasn't the first time she wanted to sell things. It started with lemonade, then her "art" but we were the only buyers. I told her doing it at home wasn't good. Setup a site and she's done more sales in her first month than I ever have
granted it's only in the hundreds, but it's very very good. She is using the money to buy different materials for hair bands, soft bows and scrunchies. We're picking it tonight. I'm trying to automate some of the making process with my plotter, so we can keep churning things out.
Zach is 14. He's wanted to make clothes for ages, so I bought a screen printing press. With school and all things going on we never had time to sort it all out (he has been preparing for his GCSE equiv) - So over December holidays I chatted with him and we've created a whole plan. We have a room in the basement, which is like 5mx5m or something, that just has a lot of my wife's baking stuff ALL ******* OVER IT! She won't box it up and take it, so him and I will do that and set that room up as the printing room. The press we have is a cheap one so we want to keep things simple. He has some test shirts and ink, we have the screens and the stuff to print on them. Now it's setup and testing. We have an idea for a really catchy brand. It's actually really good. More will come on this but we own the trademark in a few countries
our aim is to get to the point we can buy better equipment to start. See how it goes from there.
General - I never really put much thought into the house. It wasn't something that I did, it was always my wife. However, having had her leave and me be here, I felt a bit lost. I didn't feel at home in my own home. Coupled with me trying to find myself and workout what I needed and who I was. It was a good time to combine it all as one. I have completely redone downstairs. Have a absolutely lush baby grand piano, that I rebuilt in 3 days. I built myself a telecaster, have new lights and lamps all over. I have bought all the things needed for me to make a mammoth dining table, as well as custom metal TV cabinet and coffee table. I'll kick those off in the new year too. I cannot wait for the next phase of changes. The place is really starting to feel like me. Which is very comforting and I love it.
Today I put up these:
They're not what most would have, and that's fine. I love them. I picked these three and they're in that order for a reason. It starts with ambition, it takes hustle, but more than anything you need gratitude for every single thing in your life.
Closing:
I'm truly grateful for where I am in life right now. I am grateful for the journey I am on and the journey I have been on in this last 12 months. I have learnt to be honest and open with my kids about how I'm feeling. I am open about not having all the answers and making mistakes. I have learnt that happiness is nothing something you strive for, which I did for many years. It's not a destination, but it's the little things you find joy in every single day. I love learning about myself and my needs and putting trust in myself to push for things I believe in.
I will always push things to the max. I will always take on too much, but by god I'll give it 100% on every single thing I do.
So much love for people in here and on OcUK. Those who support my threads, those who merely follow them, and those who reached out when I was struggling. I am truly grateful for so many great people.
I hope you can find some light in what has been a strange year as I have. I'm not setting resolutions, I'm just going out to continue to grow and continue to find joy in the small things in life.
Ross xx
Just need to keep pushing everyone 
