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Year 1 Business Review

2020 What a year! This was the first time I have taken the lead as Director for a business. While this is still a part-time endeavor, I’m building slowly for now but aiming big in the future. Maybe someday that will be us in the sailboat in the harbor! In this post, I’ll review the milestones we reached, which free and paid applications we used, what went well, and the lessons learned along the way. I’ll also share my focus for personal development this year and a few favorite family adventures. Enjoy!

Milestones Reached

My goals for the year were to build 6 websites, get our first paid client, gain new skills and confidence, and help at least 1 person we didn’t know previously. I am so pleased to say we reached all our goals while navigating this pandemic, months of job unknowns for my husband, another cross-country move, and homeschooling my kids. I did not always do this as gracefully as I would have liked to but I am learning to forgive myself and others quickly and continue taking steps forward.

No matter how small they seem at the time, all these small steps added up to a viable business, lots of new skills, increased confidence, and the ability to help others in a really meaningful way.

So here’s a quick look at our 1st year in business:

April: Launched Chef in the Wild website + Started building my Thorpe & Co. website

May: Launched Sisu Hopsiltality brand and website + Started Spruce Rd’s Shareworthy Design Course

June: Continued Shareworthy Design Course

July: Designer Boss Virtual Conference + Seville & the Sea brand

August: Started Coquette website

September: Launched Coquette website + Started Meg Summerfield’s CSS Prime Course

October: Packed + Moved to Minnesota from Santa Fe + Visited Idaho

November: Unpacked + Bought a 2nd snow shovel

December: Started writing blog posts + started shoveling snow (my winter workout plan)

January: Designed my Style Kit and Decadent Squarespace Template + Signed my 1st Paid Client

February: Designed my 1st Color Pallet Series, Registered my DBA + Survived COVID

March: Client Work + Non-profit Volunteer Design Consulting + stopped shoveling snow

Free + Paid Tools I used in Year 1

Last April, I finally invested in my Squarespace website and the free 1st-year domain + Google Workspace account. These are the essence of my online business and there would be none without them. Now as a Squarespace Circle member, I have a few great perks I get to pass on to my clients including an extended trial period and 20% off their first year or month’s Squarespace subscription.

I was already using Google Drive and the free version of Canva for quick graphics and paying for Adobe Illustrator for proprietary designs.

I’m not sure exactly when, but I started using the Grammarly Chrome extension and it has been invaluable to me as an instant proofreader!

In June, I was still struggling with writing some of the content for my site. I’d followed a few copywriters and learned a great deal but it didn’t seem to totally transform the writing for myself. That was until I virtually met Jess Jordana and started using her Promplates. I love the combinations of prompting questions plus a template to help you put it all together in a really cohesive and persuasive way. I will be using her full website bundle again when I update my website later this fall.

In November, I bought Tailwind Subscriptions on a Black Friday Sale. It took me a few months to really start to get the hang of using them. I was not a huge social media user going into my business so there is always so much to learn. My biggest takeaway so far is to be intentional with my time spend and be as consistent as possible every week.

At the end of February, I took the plunge and signed up for Dubsado during their 5-year anniversary sale. It’s been a huge game-changer in terms of organizing my client communication. It does have a pretty steep learning curve, especially if you are a CRM newbie, but I continue to learn how to customize it for my business. I love how professional and seamless it makes signing contracts and tracking and sending invoices.

In March, I opened my business banking account with Novo. I am happy so far especially with the ability to electronically deposit a physical check, as this was not a feature I initially thought I would need, but how my first client paid us. We had a little inconvenience right at the start as our first set of debit cards were defective, but they were replaced quickly and I have been pleased with their customer service has been prompt and very professional! I also love the reserve feature that lets me set aside fund like taxes. Currently, you can set up five distinct reserve funds.

Also in March, I went Pro with Canva. There are so many things it does quickly and easily. The Resize feature is hands down my favorite so far and this alone pays back the cost of the subscription in time saved! I also finally started a monthly subscription with Flowdesk and began my journey learning email marketing. I’m loving the beautiful designs and will be posting all about my Flowdesk journey in the months to come.

In April, I added started using the free version of Toggl to track how long tasks were taking me and long term how many hours I work on a specific project. I love the auto reports it generates for me and I am definitely more conscientious of my time now that I’m tracking it. I love the reminder to track my time every time I sit down to work.

Affiliate Links

These are the programs I use and am loving! If you are leaning toward using any of them check out the extra discounts below:

Year 1 Projects

Last April I was excited and nervous to finally and officially start my business journey. I wanted this for so long, but other things like caring for babies took priority for a long time. I am very excited to reflect on what we’ve been able to accomplish in our first part-time year. And is also super motivating to see where we’ll be a year from now!

So here’s a quick rundown of our projects in Year 1:

Custom Brands

Seville & the Sea
Thorpe & Co.
Sisu Hospitality

Custom Websites

Chef in the Wild
Thorpe & Co.
Sisu Hospitality
Coquette
Started Wedgewood Cove

Templates Built

Style Kit
Decadent

Curious how all our projects turned out? Here’s a quick link to our portfolio.

What Went Well

I feel like the biggest area of success for me personally was in mindset growth. I was quite anxious and had a lot of imposter syndrome to deal with. I often looked at what others had accomplished in the time since I started on this journey and felt honestly a bit jealous. I’ve always been over analytic and critical of myself as well as being a recovering perfectionist so just winging it is so hard for me.

Now, I can say I am confident in my abilities and so excited to see how we can help people take new steps in their own businesses. One of the biggest factors was leveling up my skills by taking on a project that was way out of my comfort zone. This stretched my perception of what I could accomplish and helped to lay the foundations of many systems that will be used in all my projects going forward.

Another aspect that went especially well was making small investments to make the business run more professionally and save time. I wrote about all of these above but just wanted to mention here that being intentional and strategic with these choices was key. I only added a few as time and money allowed and as the business needs arose.

Lessons Learned

One of my favorite lessons learned from this year was just a reminder of why I chose to specialize in Squarespace in the first place. You can create beautiful, fully responsive, high-converting websites that are easy to update without a computer science degree.

For a bit of time, I let myself become convinced that I would really need to increase my coding skills to be able to serve clients well. And yes, it will be helpful, but not so necessary to keep me from helping people now. In the big, stretching project I just mentioned, the only code I used was for making anchor links. I also only had to tweak a few minor things when I reviewed the design for mobile.

Another lesson relearned for at least the third time is that I am already an expert to the people I am serving, but I always have more to learn. I have been working on Squarespace for over five years now. I have learned so much over these years sometimes it’s hard to remember how far I’ve come and what it was like at the beginning of the journey.

I learned this best during my short season as a ballroom dance instructor. Sometimes I would be only a few steps ahead of my students but it was always enough to teach them something valuable and useful for their own transformation as an inspiring dancer.

Another place I learned this was my first role as a professional trainer. I was teaching new apartment managers about the company and all the things they needed to know and do in their new positions. I really didn’t like public speaking in high school and had made it through college and grad school having to give very few presentations. So the thought of standing in front of a classroom of people for multiple days was terrifying. Even more so knowing that some of them had years or even decades of experience.

What did I have to bring to the classroom—a lot actually. I took a collaborative approach and asked them to pitch in with their knowledge and experience. I offered a lot of specific procedures for this company and a lot of legal training and the why’s behind certain regulations. Because of this approach, I built relationships and came away from each session more knowledgeable and better equipped to teach the next one.

I take this approach with my business now as I am likely more of an expert in working with Squarespace than my clients, but I am excited to learn from and collaborate with them. Each project will challenge me and also offer me the opportunity to learn from their areas of expertise.

Personal Development

I really focused on two areas of personal development this year, increasing personal reading and exercise.

For exercise, I started the year strong by starting and finishing a 30-day workout challenge hosted by Betty Rocker. This combined, HITT, Tabata, yoga, and midset work. It was a great challenge and one I will come back to again later this year. Try Betty Rocker's free 30 Day Challenge. I also started being more intentional with walking at a pace that would elevate my heart rate (as most of my walks are meandering ones accomplished at a toddler pace, with short bursts of toddler chasing).

Somehow I managed to injure my foot again in early summer and had some unanticipated difficulties after weaving our fourth child so had to switch my focus back to yoga. This year I primarily followed one of my favorite at-home yoga teachers, Adriene, from Yoga with Adriene. I’ve been focusing on following her monthly yoga calendars. I love that this saves me a few minutes each morning from having to choose from her huge collection of free videos, narrows down my focus, and challenges me to try things that I might not have otherwise. Try Yoga with Adriene Calendars. I am still working on getting completely consistent with my exercise and hope to take it up a notch again now having most of my energy back post-COVID.

I’ve been working on my habit of reading for a few years partly for homeschool prep and partly just because you can learn so many interesting things and it stretches my preconceptions about the world and the people in it.

I try to have several categories in my reading stack now, which is immensely helpful as there is always something that fits my mood and energy level. This year I read books in most of the following categories: Bible & Devotions, Mother Culture, Homeschool Pre-reading, Seville’s Choice, Family Read-Aloud Selection, and Business, Design & Entrepreneurship.

Here’s a quick list of what I’ve finished this year:

Always reading

The Bible
Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Bradford Comstock

Mother Culture

The Home Education Series Vol. 1: Home Education by Charlotte M. Mason
A Lantern In Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich
The Home Education Series Vol. 2: Parents & Children by Charlotte M. Mason
The Black Pearl by Scott O’Dell

Homeschool Pre-reading
Abigail Adams Witness to a Revolution by Natalie S. Bober
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green

Seville’s Choice
Choose Your Own Adventure-Mystery of the Maya by R.A. Montgomery
One Day in the Prarie by Jean Craighead George
Sing Down the Moon by Scott O’Dell

Family Read-Aloud Selection
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
Wild Robot by Peter Brown
Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
A Retrospect by J. Hudson Taylor
Love’s Labor Lost by Shakespeare

Business, Design & Entrepreneurship
Help First by Chris Cooper
Profit First by Mike Michalowicz

You can read more about my most recent reading stack update The Book Stack: March 2021.

If you’re interested in reading something from the list check our Thorpe & Co. Bookstore.

Favorite Family Adventures

This year we didn’t get to travel as much as we usually do but we still made a few spectacular drives.

In May, we drove to Sandia Crest overlooking Albuquerque in the Cibola National Forest. It was a beautiful drive up winding mountain roads and a stark contrast to the desert on the other side. In New Mexico, the pandemic shut down was swift in an attempt to control the spread especially in the Native populations, but this also made traveling with kids (and formerly pregnant mamas) somewhat trying as restrooms available were only open in a few of the gas stations and Target. Sometimes these were hours apart.

In July, Ben took our eldest daughter fishing for the first time but learned that unlike everywhere in the Northwest, there are very few fish to catch in New Mexico. We also took another day's drive to Taos through Las Trampas and by chance saw the best-preserved example of Spanish Colonial Architecture in the Church of San Jose de la Gracia built between 1760-1776. Many of the earlier churches and other structures were destroyed in the Pueblo Rebellion of 1680.

In late August, we took a drive to Colorado to pick up a new to us Suburban. On the way home, we stopped in Trinidad and had our first meal out at a restaurant since the pandemic began. There is some really neat architecture here and it’s an interesting experiment on what legalizing marijuana and the respective tax collections and revitalization projects can do for a city. But at the end of the day, we decided it wasn’t on our shortlist of places we wanted to call home.

In October, we made the decision to send Ben on a long road trip to the Midwest for some job interviews. He was successful in securing a job and while he started and found us a new house, the rest of us packed up and prepared to leave Glorieta and the adventure camp that had been our home for nearly two years.

The kids and I took our last trip to the Albuquerque Zoo and Botanical Garden then headed to Idaho to visit family for the first time in nearly a year and arrived at our new home as Ben assisted with his third wedding of the pandemic and brought all our belongings to Minnesota.

In February, we took our first family drive in Minnesota to Rochester, home of the Mayo Clinic and Minneapolis for the first time. For the most part, we spent the winter enjoying the snow at the park across the street and shoveling the driveway.

In March the kids and I explored Big Island State Park, just down the way, and had a lovely time traipsing around and just being outdoors after battling COVID for three-plus weeks. It was refreshing and a bit muddy but a great park with lots of interesting logs (one with a striking resemblance to a dragon) and fort-building material for the kids to engineer. The second time we went the kids discovered this pretty impressive stick fort.

This year was nothing like any of us could have predicted but given the restrictions and added burdens I feel like we made great strides in our business endeavor and still had a few adventures. I hope we have inspired you to start or keep building on your journey. I’ll be sharing my 2 year business goals soon. In the meantime here are some of the blog post we’ve written this year:

Color Palette Early Spring Collection Series Posts:

Color Palette | Early Spring Collection ~ Painted Hills

Color Palette | Early Spring Collection ~ New Bloom

Color Palette | Early Spring Collection ~ Potomac Spring

Online Business Series Posts:

Building a website? 5 things to do before you start

How to use Square as your payment processor in Squarespace 7.1

Must use free tools for your 1st year in business: my top 3

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Hej! Thanks for stopping in! Sisu Site Shop is an online business strategy + custom brand and web design studio. We sell Squarespace 7.1 templates, offer VIP Days for brand + web design + Dubsado setups for small businesses including Artists, Educators, and Hospitality Professionals. We serve clients worldwide from our current home base in Montana. We help you start, organize, and modernize your business, brand, and website so that you can sell, serve, and stand out online. If you have a project in mind we’d love to learn more about it!

When you’re ready here are three ways we can help you:

1. Template Shop & Semi-Custom Website Design: Our custom Squarespace 7.1 templates provide a professionally designed foundation for you to build upon and customize! You can even upgrade to a semi-custom service and we’ll customize the template with your brand and photos.

2. Online Business VIP Day: Our Online Business Intensive can help you create a strategy, build a simple website, or knock out admin to-dos!

3. Custom Brand Identity, Website, & Automation Design: Truly elevate your online presence & processes
   for Squarespace 7.1 & Dubsado. We will partner with you to craft a brand & website you can’t wait to share!

We also have many tips and resources about strategy, design, and starting an online business. If we were chatting face to face, we’d offer you some tea and invite you to hang out for a while. Please consider this invitation to explore our site and learn more about our journey with the same intention!

When you’re ready to start your journey, build your business, and find your freedom, fill out our application to get started!

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