I started 2023 with a lot of excitement, and while I accomplished a lot I ended the year feeling a bit disappointed and reserved. It’s easy for me to make big plans and it’s a lot harder to look back and try to understand why things didn’t happen.
A Quiet Year
The two biggest endeavors of 2023 happened completely behind the scenes. I spent a lot of time and energy on a project that has been alluded to a few times but won’t be announced until later in 2024 and involves working with Jona and Claire of YACHT and also JJ and Roni at Telefantasy. It is one of the biggest projects I’ve been a part of, but working in secret feels strange for a publicly traded person.
The other big project relates to the Book Proposal that Kevin and I have developed, and while it’s been less active this year it remains something I am incredibly hopeful about and also could be announced in 2024. It could also completely fall apart, so it’s a bit of a gamble.
Neither of these projects provided me with much income, and I spent the year in a pretty frugal place hoping that something would happen, living on savings and mostly subsidized by the earnings of my partner. And when the writer’s strike greatly impacted our family situation it was clear I needed to find more steady income and not just pursue moonshots.
Accomplishments
I started out 2023 with a Preview of what I would like to look back on and have accomplished.
- ✅ Select and Implement New K5M Features
- ✅ Booked for KmikeyM Speaking Opportunity
- ✅ Take Advantage of New Opportunities
- ✅ Some Travel (TBD)
- 🟡 Pitched Project w/ D+C
- ❌ KmikeyM Shareholder Summit
- ❌ IRL Shareholder Poker Tournament
- ❌ Sold KmikeyM Book
- ❌ Additional IMDB Credits
- ❌ EGG Season 2
📆 Every month in 2023 I updated my Agile Resolutions and I’ll continue that for the coming year.
⏲️ Kathryn and I have been doing 3 Minute Review pretty regularly. We had a big gap this year that corresponds with when we were having hard times in our relationship, but this little daily podcast is part of our routine and it’s been fun to experiment with it.
🍽️ We also spent a month on Thick Quest where we ate at every restaurant on the main street near us in Atwater Village. This included a meal at Morihiro, the Michelin starred sushi restaurant. I’m looking forward to updating our list with the new places that have opened.
🛠️ The 2023 Build Week was a huge success, and I plan on testing out Policy Votes more in the coming year. Aaron and I have already been talking about ideas for a 2024 Build Week, but I’ll save for the 2024 Preview.
🍔 While Marcus and I never returned to EGG, and in fact will be officially shutting it down this coming year, I did start a new podcast: Hamburger Business Review. This was a really fun project to work on, but I also used a new process for launching it. First I ordered a pilot episode, which means Zach and I tested out the idea. Based on that I brought the pilot to the shareholders and asked them to approve a “season order” of 10 episodes. We added in a special Holiday Episode at the end of the year.
🍻 Alex and I also hosted two Guerrilla Happy Hour events this past year, one in Los Angeles and one in Portland. I expect this to happen again in 2024.
✈️ I was flown to Miami to join a panel as part of a “Human Capital” conference. This included some VCs who look to invest in creators as well as the Liberman brothers who were profiled in that weird New Yorker article.
🌲 I spent a lot of time in Portland this summer house/dog sitting for my brother, and started to experiment with short form video related to Hamburger Business Review. Unfortunately I got COVID again and spent a few weeks feeling awful when I was back in Los Angeles.
✊ Kathryn spent all summer on the picket line and I joined her when she organized an event with a cow one day. The strike was so weird, and so incredible, and I’m incredibly proud of her and how she threw herself into it.
Other Highlights
While my accomplishments were obviously highlights, there were a number of smaller moments that were really fun.
🥊 I used a boxing app and punched a lot in the beginning of the year but also it really cut up my hands. I think it would be fun to take a class when I’m making money again.
🐕 We got to spend almost a month with Tahli, and I still miss this idiot.
🏀 We went to see an ELAC basketball game (as seen on Last Chance U) and it was incredible.
🌷 Kathryn got the front yard redone and we had a superbloom.
⚾ Took Kathryn to the batting cages and she chose fast hardball and almost injured herself (I chose slow softball and had fun).
🪖 We went to the flight museum in Palm Springs and got to crawl inside a WWII bomber.
🚘 Drove up to Portland with some nice bike rides along the way.
💐 Celebrated my parents 50th wedding anniversary and got a florist to recreate my Mom’s bouquet.
🏋️♂️ Got to work out at Loprinzi’s in Portland for a month.
⚽ Bought myself the best seats to a Portland Thorn’s game.
🏊♂️ Swam in the Willamette river for the first time.
🪡 Kathryn got a new tattoo when we visited friends in Petaluma, CA.
⚽ Gene came to visit and we went to a Timbers v LA Galaxy game. We also went to an Angel City FC game. A lot of soccer this year!
🚴♂️ We got up early the day they closed the 110 freeway so we could bike it.
🤖 I got really into making AI generated images of Georgie. I spent a lot of time with ChatGPT this year doing all kinds of stuff. It’s pretty fun.
🧢 I made some HBR merch, mostly for myself, but also available for sale (vest, hat, and a mug).
🎄 Kathryn and I had our first Christmas together in Los Angeles.
Failures / Lowlights
The two big failures of the year was in my reading and in earning money.
📚 I read 40 books in 2023, 12 under my goal of 52. Usually I close out the year with a bunch of books and this year I barely read anything in December. I’m going to set my 2024 goal at 52 again.
💰 I was essentially unemployed for all of 2023. There were a few small projects but it was a terrible financial year and I need to fix that going into 2024.
Stats and Figures
- The share price has been really steady this year, and while it slopes gently downward it’s maintained a higher average than 2022.
- Other than the always active Policy Votes there was only one shareholder vote in 2023, compared to 12 in 2022.
I still have this spreadsheet of social media stats going back to 2011 but social media has turned into a real shit show and I haven’t been tracking anything but follower count. Instagram and LinkedIn are the two platforms that grew for me in 2023, but I need to determine a new social media strategy going forward.
More meaningful to me are the following:
- K5M User Accounts: +2.61% in 2023
- 2023: 3850
- 2022: 3752
- K5M Shareholders: +0.85% in 2023
- 2023: 1189
- 2022: 1179
Conclusion
In my 2022 Review I noted that most of the hard personal stuff had happened early in the year, but this year it has been mostly on the back end. So I’m ending this rather quiet year in a quiet place, wondering how excited I should get about 2024.
There was great experimentation with projects like 3MR and HBR and I have some ideas on expanding those skills and playing around with media a bit more. I’m hopeful for some big announcements in the coming year that will be the result of a lot of the quiet work of 2023.
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