2020 Annual Review

 

You can consume this year's review in three ways. You can watch the video version, listen to the audio version via my podcast, or read the written version below.

 

At the end of every year I do an annual review and usually publish them too (like I did in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2018).

And yes, I'm finally publishing this review in March because I took time off during Christmas break and played Playstation. That's the honest truth.

The year before last, 2019, ended up being one of the biggest years of change or growth I’ve had since I started working for myself full-time because of SwitchPod’s Kickstarter launch and having our first child, but I didn’t make the time to create a public annual review. I could blame it on having a two month old baby with colic, but really I was just taking any extra downtime then to catch up on sleep or urgent work after starting to ship SwitchPod worldwide just two months earlier.

But 2020 was a YEAR. Actually it felt two to three years long.

What started off as a normal year with plans to continue traveling for my video client work turned into basically staying home for 10 months straight. My wife and I took the pandemic and our potential exposure very seriously (because of her past cancer surgeries and her parents living nearby) and thankfully we haven't lost anyone we know to COVID-19, but it has majorly disrupted the lives of many, us included.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

I’ll try not to mention any of the major world events from 2019 like the pandemic, the U.S. election, racial injustice, and more but it was definitely a harder year to stay focused on work and different events did impact my year financially, socially, mentally, and more.

It makes me think back to 2008 and how in a way I took that economic downturn as a sign that I needed to choose myself to take care of myself, not rely on a company or economy to make sure I have a job or be in control of my income. I worked hard in college to get a job when I graduated with my two bachelor's degrees in May 2008 right before the recession.

A few months into being a full-time employee I saw friends, coworkers, and family lose jobs, never land jobs, and be financially stunted. I also saw the company I worked for (Boeing) announce they were laying off up to 10,000 people. This made me start learning about entrepreneurship, how to make money online, and personal finance. I pushed through to get my MBA right away. And overall, it made me not just trust that a large company would take care of me for 40 years and pay me a pension at the end.

Because I took the risk and left my day job with solid pay and cushy benefits in 2011, I was able to build up the skills, connections, and multiple income streams that let me survive and even thrive financially in 2020 when the world was completely upended by coronavirus.

If last year was rough for you and you felt out of control, try to use that as a wake up call for taking control back in your own life from whoever you've given it up to.

Okay, I think that's enough preamble. Let's dive in.

What I "Do" for Work

Right now I am running three different businesses day to day.

  1. A physical product business (SwitchPod)
  2. A client service business (Caleb Wojcik Films)
  3. A digital teaching business (online courses, YouTube, podcast, etc.)

1. SwitchPod

Let's start with SwitchPod since that has been the biggest change to my work lately. Since launching the Kickstarter campaign in January 2019, I'd estimate SwitchPod has taken up 50% or more of my time spent working. Some weeks more like 80%.

2020 had some major projects for SwitchPod:

Other than those larger projects, I spent my time reaching out to retailers to stock SwitchPod, fulfilling orders to Amazon and other existing retailers, marketing through social media, partnering with creators and companies on promotion, working on the less exciting admin bits (finances, taxes, legal, etc.), and handling customer support.

It really isn't the type of business that I can let go more than a day or two without working on because systems will start to fall apart or customers and retailers will get upset by slow response times, etc.

I think of it more like a garden I have to check in on every day. Some days I'm just pulling weeds or watering some things quickly. Other days I have to completely till the soil or plant a bunch of seeds which takes all day.

I'm really proud of where the business is at. Could we be selling more units? Always. But the business is lean, very profitable, and has a lot of potential to grow. More numbers later.

2. Client Services Business

In 2018 and 2019, my main client Smart Passive Income (run by Pat Flynn who is also my business partner on SwitchPod) accounted for about 50% of my service based business. The other half came from me flying around the U.S. filming courses and events for start-ups, authors, and more.

In 2020, SPI and Pat made up the majority of my client revenue. I wasn't able or willing to travel due to COVID-19, work inquiries slowed down, events were cancelled, and more. However, we did do some editing on some previous client projects that had been pushed into 2020.

The timing of becoming a father a few months before a worldwide pandemic meant I was able to be home more to help my wife with our daughter and not travel at all.

Adjusting to the new reality of not traveling for work was actually quite nice. And financially I'm grateful that the timing of when SwitchPod could start paying me through a monthly salary and quarterly owner draws helped to more than off-set the decrease in other client work in 2020. This is the power of diversifying income streams and why I'm glad I've worked to set up so many different ways I make money.

Project wise what we worked on for SPI was:

Having a steady client on retainer is a lifeline to a client business that is more prone to ups and downs. Even having just one can be the difference between making payroll one month or missing it. I highly suggest you try to pitch and convince clients to work with you monthly with a retainer.

3. Digital Business

I started 2020 all gung-ho with plans to make 1 video a week, 1 podcast a week, and 1 course a month. That didn't happen...

Let's break down what I made and learned in 2020.

My Podcast

Content wise I was most consistent with my podcast in 2020 and released 25 episodes. I started the year filming the episodes, even doing in person 3 camera interviews for a month before the pandemic locked everything down. Eleven of the podcast episodes I did in 2020 have video versions.

For how much I enjoy having long-form conversations with friends and guests on my podcast, the results just aren't there for the amount of effort they take to produce. Planning questions, setting up equipment, editing, publishing, and more take anywhere from 5-10 hours per episode and when they get less than a thousand audio downloads each or are viewed less than a thousand times on YouTube, I can't see myself continuing to do it with the limited amount of capacity and extra work time I have. It sucks to say that, but it's the reality.

Just look at how 16 podcast interviews on my channel have performed 100x worse than 19 non-camera product reviews when it comes to views and revenue last year.

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I would maybe do an audio only podcast if someone else hosted it with me or I was getting more downloads. I've considered doing my podcast live on YouTube to see if getting guests & listeners on live would help grow it more, but I think lack of consistency and not having a more specific niche for the show other than "whatever Caleb wants to talk about or whoever he wants to have on as a guest" has hurt growth of the show.

Right now having a podcast is just something I have to put on the shelf and leave there. In 2021 I may do a few episodes here and there for fun, maybe as livestreams on YouTube first.

My YouTube Channel

I published 21 videos on my YouTube channel in 2020.

Another extremely sporadic, inconsistent year of publishing videos.

I can't imagine what it is like to follow me online on social media or YouTube.

  • I go weeks or months without posting anything.
  • I don't mention or tease what I'm working on so everything is a surprise.
  • There is no cadence or consistent release date or time.
  • Topics are all over the place.

Despite all of this, the YouTube channel made more money last year than any previous year while getting less views than any of the previous four years. Videos upload in 2020 only accounted for 8.5% of my revenue from Adsense and 4.6% of my views. So it really pays to have a backlog of videos ranking in search. My most popular video was about how to look better on a webcam from 2014. (See: pandemic + more zoom calls = views.)

In the following chart you can see a list of how many videos I published on the left and then the per year stats to the right. (Note: These are stats that happened in that year, not cumulative. So the subscriber numbers are "new" subs that year.)

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When I initially starting making YouTube videos in 2014 I was only making videos about things I was interested in or had recently bought. Podcasting gear, cameras, editing software, etc. There weren't as many people talking about those things on YouTube back then. Now I feel like by the time I get around to making a video about a product or topic, multiple people have already made something similar.

I know my perspective and reviews on specific Canon cameras tend to perform well, but honestly I'm just kind of over talking about gear. I have "enough" gear and technology that allows me to do work for my clients or make high quality videos for myself. I rarely care when a new camera, lens, microphone, light, or piece of software gets released and I don't watch many videos about them, want to purchase them, or envy people that have them anymore.

I'm planning to just create and publish YouTube videos about whatever I want since doing that would at least excite me enough to make them on a consistent basis and the other 193 videos on my channel will still live there making passive income from ads.

I'll need to separate how a specific video is performing from my feelings though, as it is quite discouraging to see videos getting less views than I'm used to when they aren't served to or clicked by my audience since they will be different than what they expect from me or doesn't line up with why they subscribed to me in the first place.

I'm much more interested in things other than video production and now spend my free time learning about other things. The categories of topics I plan to cover via YouTube videos include:

  • money & wealth — beyond the basics of personal finance or getting out of debt, covering things like early retirement, investing, etc.
  • productivity & habits — how to stay focused on what will give me the biggest results in the least amount of time working (especially now that I'm a parent) and covering tools I use like Notion & Things
  • stoicism & mindfulness & essentialism — being happy and content with now instead of striving to get or have more, living a simpler lifestyle, etc.
  • solo entrepreneurship — showing more of what it is like to run multiple "small" businesses while increasing revenue & profit without scaling up staff, expenses, or stress
  • creator tools & tech — basically what I've been making videos about for 7 years, covering equipment or software that helps with content creation

So if you see me start to make videos about random things unrelated to video production, it's because the few thousand dollars I make a year from YouTube are not enough to keep me from treating it more like a hobby than a necessary part of my businesses.

I am going to start treating my YouTube channel more like a playground, have fun with it, share more behind the scenes than I have been, and just see where it goes. (This decision is partially influenced by the trio of books by Austin Kleon: Steal Like an Artist, Show Your Work!, and Keep Going.)

My Online Courses

I released one new course last year, Camera Basics for Filming Videos, and got a second one filmed and edited that launched in January 2021: Audio Basics for Filming Videos.

I definitely hoped to release more than this, so I'll be working to release a couple more courses in the first half of 2021 (specifically updating my Premiere Pro course this spring and making a lighting basics course).

From 2015 to today, my course sales have made up 55% of my digital revenue (with advertising making up 15% and affiliate income bringing in the remaining 30%), so it is a big portion of how I make money from my content.

I've sold over $100,000 of online courses since 2015. Even saying that out loud is crazy to me and I'm very grateful to all of my students for choosing to learn from me when there are so many different ways and places to learn online nowadays.

But at the same time I don't feel like I've ever really "cracked the code" for selling online courses like a lot of my clients, friends, or peers have. I don't have large launches, sophisticated funnels, or even an evergreen marketing or sales strategy.

A few reasons why I think I haven't been able to sell more courses are:

  • Not consistently releasing content for my audience to trust me and prove my expertise.
  • The courses aren't "unique" (you can learn similar things from other places).
  • No evergreen sales system like webinars, ads, etc.
  • I really don't push them or try to sell them beyond the initial launch.

I've always considered my courses to be things I make during "bonus" downtime and they bring in "bonus" money, but I do feel like my courses could help a lot more people and in turn, bring in more money. This is a code I'm still going to work to crack but I'm proud of the results over the past 7 years.

2020 Numbers & Metrics

Here's a breakdown of the hard numbers & metrics that I track.

SwitchPod

  • Units Sold in 2020
    • SwitchPod = 5525
    • Ball Head = 4092
    • Phone Adapter = 685
  • Total # of Retailers = 16

YouTube

  • 21 New Videos Published
  • 1,245,660 Views
  • 49,100 Subscribers (+5,374 in 2020)

Podcast

  • 25 New Episodes Published
  • 26,727 Downloads

Website

  • Email Subscribers = 7,621 (+103 net increase)
  • Pageviews = 169,707 (down -10.4%)
  • Users = 112,569 (down -13.5%)

You'll see that I really don't get that much traffic to my website, grow my email list much each year after churn, and my podcast doesn't get many downloads. My digital efforts just don't get the results that they could, but when we talk finances, that part of my businesses still brings in a decent amount of income so I still continue to focus on it.

Why I'm Sharing Revenue Numbers, But Not Expenses

I share the following financial numbers for the following reasons.

  1. For myself to look at year over year to chart my own progress instead of comparing myself to anyone else.
  2. To inspire the someone like me from 6 years ago that just risked leaving a job to start their own business.
  3. To inspire someone like me from 10 years ago that still worked a desk job at Boeing and didn't know what kind of business was possible to build.
  4. To show how diversifying your revenue streams and running multiple styles of businesses can help you break through a potential earnings ceiling and survive major economic downturns.

Now, why am I only sharing revenue, but not expenses?

In year's past I've shared more detailed financial information including expenses (like in my 2015 & 2018 reviews), but I won't be doing that this year. Without diving completely into the details of what exactly I pay myself, my contractors, and in taxes it gets really convoluted. And honestly, I'm not sure I really want to be sharing THAT much detail about my finances publicly anymore.

I'd be happy to talk generally about how much my business spends each year on things like accounting, applications, recurring services, and other "spend money to make money" line items, but to simplify things this year I'm going to leave out expenses.

Just know the numbers listed below are BEFORE expenses, taxes, gear purchases or sales, paying my editor, tax write off, and so much more. The numbers below do NOT equal how much money I "took home" last year.

Another quick thing to note, the SwitchPod revenue is what was paid to me as an owner and manager of the company, not the top line revenue of the entire company. (I'll break that down in detail more later.)

2020 Revenue

Client Revenue = $ 173,934.30

When it comes to revenue, there was actually a big dip in my client income because inquiries slowed down and I couldn't safely travel like I normally do to film. I'm still really happy with this number though because when you combine it with the digital revenue I can pay for a full-time editor on contract, overhead costs, and my base salary and payroll costs for the year.

Digital Revenue = $ 31,446.49

Here is a breakdown by category.

  • Advertising = $ 8,734.73
  • Affiliate Income = $ 12,147.61
  • Course Sales = $ 10,564.15

The digital business stayed pretty flat revenue wise overall compared to 2019. This "online business" has a lot of potential for growth considering how little attention it gets compared to the other two businesses, but I need to find the right balance of what to work on and how to maximize revenue from it.

SwitchPod = $ 147,725.00

Thankfully, this was the first full year SwitchPod shipped orders to customers and retailers, so there was profit in that business to pass through as an owner. Due to the amount of work it takes to do customer support, product development, retailer management, social media, and more I started taking monthly guaranteed payments to run SwitchPod day-to-day. The number above comes from the monthly payments plus the quarterly owner draws that Pat and I take four times a year.

The top line gross revenue for SwitchPod for 2020 was $685,012.39, so being able to withdraw ~21.5% of that amount directly feels great and means we have solid profit margins at the current scale of that business. The number above does not include cash left in the business, owner draws Pat took, or any of our expenses. We are taking substantial draws since we're treating this company as a lean cash cow at the moment and we are not reinvesting every dollar in advertising, staff, or scaling it up to try to build a billion dollar business and exit.

TOTAL GROSS REVENUE = $ 353,105.79

Again, this is not how much money made it to my personal checking account in 2020. There are so many expenses, taxes, contractors, subscriptions, fees for operating businesses in California, office space, and more that eat into this top line revenue number.

This also doesn't count all of SwitchPod's gross revenue like I mentioned above, just the portion I personally withdrew or was paid by that LLC. If you add up SwitchPod, Clients, and Digital income my businesses had over $890,000 of gross revenue in 2020, but I'm a co-owner in SwitchPod, so I'm only counting my portion for the above.

I might share my expenses for certain things in the future, but to be respectful of not disclosing how much I pay others, what my co-owner earns, etc. I'm leaving it out of this review. Okay, hopefully that is enough caveats.

What Went Well

1. I grew SwitchPod into a very profitable & lean first full year. This is the catalyst for a bunch of the other things that went well below, so I'll start with it first. After reinvesting all of the money from our Kickstarter campaign (roughly $365,000 after Kickstarter fees and failed payments) into manufacturing costs and stocking up on inventory in 2019, 2020 profited off of the groundwork we had laid the years prior. We launched a second and third product as accessories (ball head and phone adapter) and pushed hard to sell what we'd made via email, social media, connecting with retailers, partnering with affiliates, and more. I really have tried to keep the company as lean as possible though to increase profitability. I do as much in house as possible (including packaging design, product photography, website design, marketing videos, and more). Building out all kinds of creative abilities and talents over the past decade allows me to do things myself and not have to hire other people or contract out help on key projects. We are also continuing to grow only organically. We don't currently pay for advertising or influencer marketing. We'll keep SwitchPod lean for the foreseeable future while still investing in developing new products.

2. I paid off all outstanding debt. Going into 2020 we still had some personal debt outstanding from past medical bills, student loans, and living above our means. Mainly due to the financial success of SwitchPod, we were able to be completely debt free for the first time since 2010. I talk about this in more detail during podcast episode 96, but it actually felt really weird to finally be debt free again. For too many years we had been carrying balances (sometimes small, sometimes large) and it became our normal. The mental weight that has been lifted since making those last payments is indescribable. I started being a better boss to myself and felt less guilty during my non-work hours. It is really odd that 2020 was the year we became debt free, considering the world was turned upside down with the pandemic, but thankfully all the hard work I'd put in the previous 5 to 10 years growing my business had us in a good position to persevere during COVID-19 without needing a PPP loan or anything. We're now aggressively saving money each month for a house, the eventuality of replacing 16 year old cars, retiring early (hopefully), and more.

3. I didn't travel for work during the first full year being a dad. One thing that I felt like was keeping me from having kids was how much my work required me to travel before 2020. In a normal year I would fly a dozen times or more for client projects, a few times to attend events or retreats, and more recently I'd visit factories overseas and warehouses for SwitchPod. All this time away would put additional pressure and workload on Jen. I always thought I'd HAVE travel this much to make a living, but 2020 happened and I didn't travel at all for work, which meant I got to be home every day to see my daughter grow up over her first year and beyond. I'm going to try to limit work travel as much possible for at least the next few years.

4. I started "playing" again. I used to play a lot of video games. In high school and college I probably played around 15-30 hours a week. It was how I hung out with or stayed in touch with friends growing up and also was just a hobby of mine I enjoyed in the evenings. But since I started running my own business in 2014 I have mostly "retired" from it and skipped owning a full cycle of consoles. During lockdown and partially due no longer having the guilt of debt anymore, I picked up a Nintendo Switch. It ended up being something I could do while my colicky 4 month old napped in my lap for two hours in the late afternoon to give my wife a break. Bringing gaming back into my life was a way to distract myself from the outside world, but also to reconnect me with old friends. I started using Tabletop Simulator to play board games virtually with friends from high school, Jen and I played Switch online with some friends, and overall it was just a hobby to have when we couldn't really leave home. I missed playing games and plan to keep them around at a healthy level.

5. I walked over 700 miles. Once our daughter was through the colicky newborn phase and the pandemic lockdown began I started going for a 2+ mile walk with her in the stroller and Pippa (my dog) every morning. And I mean... Every. Single. Morning. As of writing this I'm at 335 straight days of "closing the rings" on my Apple Watch and walking 2 or more miles a day. Sometimes I listen to a book or podcast, other times I just listen to the ocean waves and talk to Odette.

6. We went to Cabo. Right before lockdown in February 2020, the three of us went with Jen's family and my mom to Cabo. The flight there and back timed well as I was able to bounce Odette in my arms for the duration and she slept or barely cried during the flight somehow. (This was still during peak colic). Odette was still only 4 months old, so her short cycles and relying on naps and feedings every couple hours were a different kind of "vacation" than we were used to, but it was still a blast and not knowing at the time that we'd be stuck at home for the next year or more, I'm glad we went.

7. I read 19 books. I mainly consumed audiobooks purchased through Audible or borrowed them from my library via the app Libby. I kept a good habit of listening to books instead of podcasts (most of the time) on my walks. I've also been trying to branch out beyond the business or money genre I've mostly been reading the past decade. Some of my favorite books I read last year were Greenlights, Skin in the Game, Shoe Dog, Talking to Strangers, The End is Always Near, Sapiens, and Stillness is the Key.

What Didn’t Go Well

1. I didn’t release content consistently. I say this in every annual review. I haven't yet been able to keep a constant publishing cadence other than when I first started blogging in 2010 when I published a new post every day for 50 days. Success in this to me would (at a minimum) mean releasing one video every week on the same day and time. Ideally more and more often, with better performance than I have been getting on videos, but I'm trying to just focus on what I can do or create and let the results or performance happen out of my control.

2. I struggled to get SwitchPod into physical stores or add on as many international retailers as I'd hoped. The timing of the pandemic starting just months after we got our first batch of inventory wasn't great. Part of my plans for growing the business included getting our products into physical big box stores and being stocked by retailers in countries around the world. Everything getting locked down really put a pause on orders from new partners. Thankfully people kept buying through our Shopify website, Amazon, and our other existing retailers. We did make progress with some big retailers I hope to get orders from in early 2021 and added a handful of international retailers in 2020 too though. Success in this for 2021 would mean landing at least 10 more international retailers and 2 big box stores.

3. Lifting weights. Blame it on our gym closing due to COVID-19 if you want, but I didn't lift weights as much as I wanted to or should. I was in a good rhythm in January and February of going to the YMCA with Jen and doing the power lifts I enjoy (deadlift, bench press, back squat, overhead press, and barbell curl). We then got a pair of adjustable dumbbells (after scouring the internet when everyone else was) and put together a small home gym. Once we got all of that setup I lifted weights 14 times in July and 10 times in August, but fell off the routine after that. Success in this would mean lifting weights at least twice a week.

What's Next in 2021

In year's past I've written out what I planned to do the next year, but since we are already 2 months into 2021 and I've already done extensively goal planning for the year privately, I'm not going to share too much here, but my main goals are to:

  1. Keep growing SwitchPod (more units sold, more retailers, more products developed)
  2. Deliver on projects for Smart Passive Income (courses, YouTube content, etc.)
  3. Have fun with my digital business (videos on different topics, launch a couple more courses)
  4. Keep a healthy work-life balance (daily walks, gaming with friends, weight lifting, only work 9-5)
  5. Save additional money (avoid lifestyle creep, stay out of debt, invest for retirement, save for a house)

Let me know if this review was helpful for you. Or if you've done an annual review yourself and have shared it publicly, I'd love to read it. Just email me or tweet me and let me know.

I hope your 2020 went well (all things considered) and 2021 is already looking to be even better.

Cheers,

Caleb Wojcik

 
Entrepreneur / Business, My YouTube Videos, My Podcast, FreelancingCaleb WojcikAdvanced / Professional, Annual Review