Transparency feels important as you’re getting started with something new. We often see people on social media who broadcast the highlights of their life and wonder, “How did they do that?!”

So today I’m giving you a peek behind what’s been going on in my business as a first-time solopreneur and an ask for your help at the end!

Zooming out a bit, my three high-level business goals this year were to:

Let’s go into each of these and how I’m tracking.

In Q1, I made ~$10K. You can see the revenue breakdown and real numbers here.

In Q2, I 4x’ed that number and made ~$45K. This was due to a few factors:

This resulted in my first $20K month in May. If you want the full breakdown of Q2 revenue like I did for Q1, I’ll share more in next week’s newsletter.

In general, I made my $40K revenue goal for Q2, but my $150K yearly revenue goal is at risk given I need to generate another $40-50K of revenue per quarter.

In Q1, I hosted a few community events and a virtual panel with other creative entrepreneurs to chat about how they started their business. I also continued with this newsletter and posted consistently on LinkedIn at least 1x per week.

In Q2, I was strapped for bandwidth with all of my client work, and I did what I could to stay consistent, but LinkedIn numbers were lower.

I grew my newsletter to 256 total subscribers, a 61% increase from Q1. Compared to a 15% increase in Q1, this was huge! Open rate and CTR went down, so I’m experimenting with cross-linking more in this newsletter and putting more thought into email subject lines.

Not surprisingly, the top performing posts were when I was transparent about the money I was making.

I required readers to subscribe to read these ones, which led to 40 new subscribers in one day (👋 hello!).

My followers grew by 8% to 3,014. Compared to 10% growth in Q1, this was a slight dip but hey, I reached 3K!

I saw a ~50% decrease from Q1 in both reach and impressions because my posts didn’t go as “viral”, which makes sense given Q1 was the first time I was posting about leaving my job.

In Q2, my top performing posts were all about transparently sharing how things were going in my life, whether it be numbers, learnings, or projects I was working on.

My last goal has not been prioritized as much, and candidly, this is where I need YOUR help!

In addition to this newsletter, I’ve been offering free strategy calls, and it’s been great having so many 1:1 convos with folks who are on a similar journey.

I want to continue to build something aimed at helping aspiring and current solopreneurs but not sure what that is yet.

If this sounds like you, and you want to share your insights, I’d super appreciate it if you could fill out this quick form.

So many more thoughts to share that I need a part 2! Next week, I’ll share a breakdown of my Q2 revenue, learnings, and what I’m doing next.

What’s one word to describe your Q2?

I’ve been in the Bay Area this week and in San Francisco this weekend. Organized a little “Bonfire with Blackburn” in San Francisco with some old-time friends, and it’s always a good time seeing people when I visit!

If you’re an aspiring or current solopreneur, fill out this form to help me build my programs/offerings 💖