It has been quite a year. So much has changed since January. The world has transformed unexpectedly, our individual roles have changed along the way, and challenges have never been so clear to see.
Despite the increase in external stimuli, Awesome Website Guys made the deliberate decision to buckle down and focus. Focus on what’s at stake. Focus on the value we can bring. Focus on a future we can be even more excited about participating in.
As I look back and recall the blur of 2020, I find myself recounting the months of progress, the natural evolution, and the organic growth that occurred alongside the work we were doing. Because of that, I’d like to take a look back at our accomplishments by breaking everything down month-by-month.
January 2020
Just about a year ago to the day, we welcomed a new year without even knowing what the year would hold. While revenue and client count were still building momentum, the business took in the new year by making preparations for internal shifts and changes.
February 2020
I officially joined Awesome Website Guys on February 1st, 2020. My formal role within the organization was to take over ownership of everything, but I quickly found the most solace in the trenches of the work. Without changing too much too swiftly, I met with clients, got acquainted with processes, and most importantly, had the honor of meeting our Awesome team members.
March 2020
I almost wanted to skip over March. After all, it was a scary month for everyone. But by navigating the unknown, always choosing to do the right thing, and offering our support to partners that we felt might be in an uncomfortable situation, we found a way to turn such a catastrophic black swan event into a bit of optimism. These were our most pivotal moments of 2020. For that, the conversations I had with business owners are the accomplishments I am personally most proud of.
April 2020
In April, we started implementing changes to our processes. By this time, I had made the conscious decision to keep all of our work in the United States and was adamant that we could continue building upon our outstanding US-based team. We also launched our redesigned website.
May 2020
An unexpected growth opportunity presented itself to us in May. A Wordpress hosting company was having financial trouble and needed to figure out its future. That’s when we swooped in and offered to support their hundreds of clients on Flywheel. While it wasn’t the smoothest of processes, this “acquisition” did allow us to begin growing horizontally across multiple brands. We have since transformed TrulyWP into our own managed Wordpress hosting service.
June 2020
With all of our new hosting clients on our roster, we introduced our company to many agencies. This turned into the launch of our reseller and affiliate programs. We later launched our VIP platform and began planning for our own reseller services for agency partners. AweWP is still under construction, but even without that, we do have many TrulyWP customers in our reseller program today.
July 2020
In July, we switched our support system over to our VIP platform and continued supporting clients in whatever way we could. By this time, we were working on bug fixes, redesigns, and taking tickets without even billing for them. We officially rolled out our Awesome Flex Payment program to help struggling small businesses and startups pay for our work in a less stressful way. We also started donating monthly profits to effective causes.
August 2020
By August, I was deeply embedded in our business’s local community. Despite the relationships being constrained to remote conversations, our relationship with the Chamber of Commerce continued to grow. Due to this, we began talking about more ways we could help small business owners and the local community as a whole.
September 2020
Because of the above, we were offered multiple opportunities by Brunswick County Community College. For starters, we are now an educational organization set up to teach students Wordpress. But more importantly, the Small Business Center received pandemic grant funds to help bolster business owners. We were chosen to assist in the website building program, which then kicked off a few weeks later in October.
October 2020
October may have been our busiest month of the year. I say this because we juggled more projects than ever AND somehow managed to acquire another agency on October 1st. Our official purchase of Brand Chiro, which is a chiropractic website design and marketing service, was the first step in our infinite vision toward becoming a solution for specific industries under our larger Awesome Internet name.
November 2020
We were in the weeds in November. We managed to work on over 10 large website projects from the Small Business Center at once. For that, I am super proud of our team. We also seemed to really hit our stride externally. We forged new lead generation opportunities and continued to grow to meet the increase in demands.
December 2020
Across all of our brands and operations, we now have over 40 Awesome team members servicing over 2,000 websites in some capacity. All in all, I couldn’t be more excited about our growth. However, I am even more proud of the type of business we are growing into. With your help, we will continue on the path of servicing businesses because of the impact we can make on lives. With your assistance, we will continue to grow into offering better more relevant solutions for clients. With your support, we will keep trying to make the internet even more awesome.
As we look to 2021, this reflection on our monthly progressions has me feeling bold and optimistic. Because of this, we will be challenging ourselves to something I’m calling the “12 Months of Awesome.” Over the course of the year, in order to truly make 2021 extraordinarily better than 2020, we will be doing, creating, or launching something awesome every month of the year. That’s 12 awesome innovations spanning from January to December.
Stay tuned for more information about these releases, but we already have the first one scheduled for January. I couldn’t be more excited about it.
Thank you for your participation in all of our accomplishments this year. Like I always say, we couldn’t do this without you. For that, I am humbled and grateful.
Happy new year! Let’s make it another awesome one!