2024 Annual Review: Revenue, Wins and Learnings
In 2021 I decided to start publishing all the behind-the-scenes and ins and outs of my business here on my blog. I have been doing an annual review like this since then (and you can read all my monthly and annual reviews here if you’re interested).
This post is a summary of 2024 including a roundup of the revenue I made during the year, what I learned and some of my thoughts as we head into 2025.
Why I do these posts…
Basically because I believe in financial transparency.
When I was first starting my business I used to find these sorts of posts from other business owners hugely inspiring. They used to help me see what was possible with my business and gave me something to aspire to.
I also try and be a role model for other women (and particularly mothers). Lots of the business posts (like this one) that I have read in the past have been from men and I want to try and show women that it is possible to be a mother and a successful business owner.
You CAN have it all and do it in a way that works for you and your family.
Before we get started - if you are the sort of person who gets triggered by people sharing their revenue/income or things like that then this probably isn’t the right blog post for you so perhaps just jump out now.
Summary of 2024
Let’s start with a quick summary of the main things that happened month by month…
January
January revenue was $284,579.58
Wins/learnings/what happened:
Best January revenue month ever
Created lots of content = more eyeballs and attention = more revenue
1:1 Mum/son trips away with Caleb and Archie (Hugo can’t travel easily and needs two people to look after him, so 1:1 trip with him isn’t possible).
Hit 20K designers in my free FB community
Set up a personal ‘2024 bingo card’ tracking system to make my goals more fun to achieve. Added this as my phone lock screen so I see them all day, every day.
Wrote weekly blog posts
Family trip to Gerringong
Joined a new gym
Our new house build well underway
February
February revenue was $286,195.88
Wins/learnings/what happened:
Biggest ever revenue month for a February - just under an average of 10K per day
Created a new lead magnet and made lots of daily content
Crossed $8 million in total revenue (from when I started online side of my business in August 2019).
March
March revenue was $224,520.13
Wins/learnings/what happened:
Revenue continues to be strong and we have now been consistently over $200K months since September 2023. The aim for April is to continue this.
Did the ‘Stage Academy’ course with Vinh Giang after being marketed to about it on FB - very good course and learned quite a bit about presentation and story telling
Started a ‘story bank’ - need to build this out in detail and start incorporating more storytelling into my content
Started thinking about and researching other investment ideas - want to start making the money we earn “work” for itself.
April
April revenue was $247,010.53
Wins/learnings/what happened:
Remade my beginner SketchUp course after their launch of the 2024 version of the software
Remade the webinar/info session that goes with my SketchUp courses
Started remaking the intermediate SketchUp course as well
Holiday in Hayman Island with the family
Another strong revenue month
Consistent with daily content creation - as always
Got very sick with the flu for a week so was off the gym for 2 weeks, which I hate!
House still coming along but not finished - joinery is all in, lights are in, painting is nearly done, carpenter is doing finishing stuff. A few months more to go.
May
May revenue was $322,613.74
Wins/learnings/what happened:
Remade SketchUp intermediate course for 2024 and relaunched it
Reverse sale for SketchUp courses and put up the prices - this resulted in a strong revenue month of over $300K
Took a strong cash dividend out of the business (this helped pay for the house build and landscaping!)
Met with SketchUp Australia to discuss collaboration ideas
June
June revenue was $287,807.53
Wins/learnings/what happened:
Decent revenue month - but not as high as I would have hoped given the EOFY sale - start of the month was very slow (in comparison to other months this year).
Had a scary health event (nearly passing out) and had to call ambulance. Turned out to be likely related to having low potassium. They did a potassium infusion and I felt much better. Lesson: don’t drink so much water!!
July
July revenue was $210,669.94
Wins/learnings/what happened:
Ok revenue month - just tipped over $200K in the last days of the month. It’s weird as this now feels like a bit of a “bad” month even though getting over $200K back even last year would have been something I would have been thrilled with. Shows how thinking changes as the business grows.
The sales felt a bit rocky this month - not sure why. I was getting used to $10K days and these didn’t happen all that often.
Started posting on CLR page again - no pressure on this. Just a place to create stuff as I feel like it that people might find helpful.
Started talks with a business we may take a potential equity stake in.
Got the keys to our new house!!!
August
August revenue was $177,590.80
Wins/learnings/what happened:
Moved into our new house on August 2nd :)
Landscaping project started
Rocky sales month - first month this year that we didn’t hit $200K in revenue. Could be due to being distracted by house and other ideas I was having at the time. Hard to say. I also wasn’t as committed to my content creation on IG. I had been posting once a day, but normally posted twice a day. Did this make a difference maybe?
Meta also made some significant changes to their ad platform around this time - so we feel this also could have a part to play.
Decided not to move forward with the potential business investment we were looking at
September
September revenue was $166,405.16
Wins/learnings/what happened:
Another lower revenue month - things were really slow during this period and we weren’t sure why. Paul was working hard at getting the ads to run better. I felt like I had taken the foot off the gas with organic content creation and this likely was also having an impact.
Paul’s review of Meta ad forums were all saying that sales were slow for lots of people - maybe the political climate? Meta was also experimenting with using AI bots and lots think this is impacting ad performance for small media buyers (like us).
Decided to launch a new business with Paul - The Journey to Seven. Idea is to share how we’ve built TLDC and the ‘behind the scenes’ of scaling an online business to 8 figures (without staff). Spent a lot of the month preparing for the launch of this and the launch of our new program (a membership where we help others scale their businesses).
Landscaping project at our new house continued.
Hit 8 chin ups in a row :)
Decided not to eat any refined sugar during September to see how I felt - definitely felt a lot better!!!
October
October revenue was $389,424.62
Wins/learnings/what happened:
Launched our new business and program, Business Growth Accelerator (BGA). $211.1K launch!
Crossed $10 million in total revenue since starting my online business in August 2019. That’s now 8-figures (in just over 5 years). Massive achievement for a business I run pretty much on my own.
Launched a free 10-day email course as a lead magnet for BGA - I was very happy with the content of this sequence. Very high quality and helpful (in my opinion).
TLDC sales were still relatively low compared to earlier in the year.
Hit 30K members in my free community FB group for designers.
Strong focus on welcoming our founding members to BGA program and onboarding them in the best way we could (e.g. lots of small group welcome calls, new content being developed etc).
Was sick again for 2 weeks - lost fitness and strength while not at the gym. Annoying!
November
November revenue was $176,010.41
Wins/learnings/what happened:
Reached 200K Instagram followers :) Vanity metric but also a metric of hard work and effort over 10 years of being on Instagram.
Continue to struggle with sales for TLDC - not dire, but also not going in the right direction. Ads seem to be a core part of the problem so Paul doing a lot of research and changes to try and improve things.
Slow start to Black Friday sales - not terrible, but not at same level as last year - remainder of BFCM sales tip into December this year so BFCM revenue is split across 2 months for 2024.
Decided to close access to Business Growth Accelerator for the moment in order to help our founding members get results. We were worried that adding lots of new people would detract from the experience of existing members and wanted to think more about the best way to deliver this program before letting more people in.
Hit 10 chin ups in a row!
Booked a month long holiday to UK/Europe leaving Xmas eve!
Landscaping project is nearly done and looks amazing
December
December revenue was $223,940.77
Wins/learnings/what happened:
Revenue was still struggling a bit for TLDC. December boost was due to the tail end of the Black Friday sales and then running a short Boxing Day sale as well. Without those we would have had a poor revenue month. December is always a slow month though - so this pattern is normal (and this is a reason why it’s important to track metrics and look for patterns or deviations from patterns).
Paul still trying to fix the ads. He’s bought some extra software (something about the server side - whatever that means). Lots of forums are talking about how ads are doing terribly at the moment.
But this means I need a new focus on getting back to organic content and growth in 2025 - to spread the risk away from too much reliance on paid advertising platforms (that can change in a second a derail a business).
Hosted our Sydney based Business Growth Accelerator (BGA) members at our house for a meet up
Finished the year by being able to do 5 x 5kg weighted chin ups (with 5kg weighted vest).
Went to Byron Bay for a week
Had a small BGA member meet up in Byron as well.
Landscaping project finished - which means house is now completely finished!!
Left for our UK/Europe holiday on Xmas eve
Total revenue for 2024
Total revenue for 2024 was $2,996,688.09.
My goals was to hit $2.4 million, so definitely surpassed that goal. Annoyingly only a few thousand off hitting $3 million :)
Other stuff about 2024
I re-read all my annual reviews and realised that I have made huge progress in my business over the past few years. For example - this year I crossed $10 million in revenue which means I’ve built an 8 figure business in just over 5 years - all from ideas that have come out of my head, plus lots of hard work. This is an amazing achievement and I don’t often stop to congratulate myself about things like this (it’s not in my personality!!).
I almost didn’t this summary for 2024 as I wasn’t sure if I thought it was useful to write these any longer. But having re-read my previous entries I realise that these updates help me see how I am changing as a person over time and how my business and thoughts about my business are progressing. I also hope they are useful in some way to others as well (but honestly I mostly write them for myself and to document my own journey).
Despite having our best ever year (in revenue) I feel I was a bit lazy and unmotivated in 2024 and feel like I took my foot off the pedal in terms of work ethic and personal growth. I am always very hard on myself though :) - so this is likely playing a part in that thinking. I felt I started coasting and resting on the work and effort I had done in the past rather than pushing myself to grow and move forward. It’s probably OK to have periods like this - but I definitely feel more useful and productive when I’m performing at a level that I’m capable of. I don’t really feel that’s what I’ve done this year.
I need to go back to who I was a few years ago - trying to grow more as a person, push myself out of my comfort zone and do what I need to in order to grow my business. If I am not prepared to do that then growth will eventually stagnate, which I have seen a bit in the final months of 2024.
This year we built our dream home and that required a lot of work and effort on my part. I designed the entire house myself (well the interiors at least) and managed all the interactions with trades, decision making, selections etc. This was a huge project that took a lot of my time. But I’m really proud of the finished house we have created for our family (much of it paid for by the hard work I’ve put into TLDC over the years). The finished house is also now a substantial financial asset for us as well.
As I’m writing this we are in the middle of a month long dream holiday in UK/Europe. This has been such a wonderful family experience and Paul and I keep reflecting on how different this holiday is to the European trip we took about 25 years ago (when Paul proposed!). It’s made us reflect on how far we’ve come over the past 20-25 years in terms of what we’ve been able to build together (happy, clever and productive boys who are doing really well in life, the financial means to travel very comfortably and stay in amazing hotels, a lifestyle that means we can travel for a month and not have to do too much work or worry about asking for “leave” from an employer we don’t like!!). Very different to who we were as people 20-25 years ago!!
Looking towards 2025
I have set a massive stretch goal for 2025 of $5 million in revenue.
I very much doubt we will hit that but last year I only set a goal of $2.4 million, which I knew from the start would be easy to hit. As a result I think that goal was too easy and didn’t stretch me enough to take the action needed throughout the year to grow as a person and business owner.
If I have any chance of hitting the $5 million revenue goal then a lot will need to change. It will require me to rethink my business, think about how to develop new products that help my community (and provide additional revenue streams) and push myself to grow personally as well. This is a good challenge for me to have after feeling a bit lazy and unmotivated in 2024.
While I’ve been on our trip we have had a lot of long train rides between countries and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to move forward. I keep reminding myself of the phrase “what got you here, won’t get you there”. I’m still in the middle of that planning but I’ve got some great ideas for 2025 that I’m excited to start implementing once we get home from Europe at the end of January.
I don’t have many other goals this year as I realise I don’t do well with an overwhelming amount of goals. So I only really have two other main goals (besides my core business goal above). One for fitness/health and one for family.
Fitness/health - do 10 unassisted pull ups with strict form. This will require me to be better with my nutrition (so I don’t have to heave so much weight over the bar lol), stay on top of my mobility (so I don’t get injured) and achieve other smaller fitness goals along the way - e.g. stricter form on my current chin ups etc.
Family - go on more family trips and also go on a 1:1 (Mum/son) trip with Caleb and Archie again this year. Caleb will be 17 this year and will soon leave home. After that he won’t want to go on holidays with us any longer. I want to make the most of the time we have together before he finishes school and gets on with the rest of his life.
Thanks for reading and catch you in my next post :)
Clare x
Dr Clare Le Roy
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