I hate starting a report knowing I’ve missed the last five months of reports, and I don’t want to make excuses for not sharing what’s going on in my business.
But I write these to be honest about where I’m at, and to be honest, we came out swinging this year and continued hitting R93K in January(R51K) and February(R42K), but under all of that, there was a storm brewing that I was not ready for.
The Storm That I Was Not Ready For
Towards the latter end of January, my last grandparent passed away, a family member got diagnosed with a life-threatening condition, one family member hurt their back and was in the hospital, a little cousin was in the hospital for a week, and I don’t want to disclose too much on each case.
The business suffered its own battles towards the end of February. My employee got a better job offer. One of my largest retainer clients is having a slow time in their business and has suspended their retainer.
In March and April, new business was dead quiet; we pretty much did smaller updates for some clients and hosting renewals. The combined income was R20 775. If it were not for some clients still owing us for Jan & Feb, we wouldn’t have got through those months.
I’ve mentioned mindset here before that sometimes things affect my mindset more than I would like to admit.
The Light at The End Of The Tunnel
I feel like I’m on the rebound at the moment. We ended May with R20K in projects, retainers and hosting. In addition, I won $500 at a networking Shark Tank event for our platform that we’ve been building over the last year.
In hindsight, my employee leave when she did was a blessing in disguise, as I wouldn’t have been able to pay her if she stayed. I also stopped using the co-working space as a result.
Also in January, we inherited a small sum, which we invested into our content creation setup, to slowly start bringing our content creation in-house.
My mindset feels clear again, and I have a game plan in place to get back on track.
What I’ve Relised in The Last Couple of Months
I’ve realised that I go quiet when I’m struggling, and if I’m honest, there are multiple places where I want to grow and get better, such as building my businesses, finances, Health & Fitness, Faith, relationships, and mindset.
So, for my personal life, I’ve built a Claude Projects with documents that help Claude know where I’m at in each area and where I would like to be, so it can plan with me and coach me through things with daily check-ins, journaling and coaching mode.
In addition, I’m building a project for Fosker Media, which will give it full context on our services, clients, content & marketing, sales & proposals, communication, etc., so it can assist with the operations of Fosker Media and help with marketing of the agency and help plan out clients' marketing.
I’m hoping these AI Operating Systems will help me achieve more than I can on my own as a solo founder and sole employee.
It’s Not All AI, It’s About Systems
As much as I’ve discussed AI, it’s not about that; my biggest lesson in the last year is that every business needs solid systems to scale further than if it’s all in the owner's head.
Other than financial reasons, this is the biggest reason I’ve not rushed out and hired a new employee to handle the extra work. I’m not ready to invest another 6 months in training someone to have them leave again.
This is where having solid systems will come in; it will allow me to plug them in with solid documentation and tools for building websites, content marketing, or any other function they need to perform. Having systems built out will ensure they require less of me and are more capable.
Some of the tools and systems I’ve been working on include two AI OS’s, our business conversational tools, such as Linkssi, our business link-in-bio platform, which features forms, mini CRM, and a booking system. In addition, we’ve built a chatbot system which I chat with to set up my clients' chatbots.
Next, I need to build out pre-built website sections, so website building becomes like Lego, where all that is needed is to select the right section and style it for that business.
What We’ve Achieved
Clients:
- Total clients: 66
- Active clients: 18
- Social Clients: 0
- Website Retainers: 0
Projects
- Websites Projects: 5
- Websites In Progress: 1
- Went Live : 3
- Web Apps: 1
Support/Operations
- Care Plans: 3
- AD Accounts: 1
- Hosting Clients: 29
Team
- Team: 1
- Freelancers: 4
This year has not been the best, but at the end of the day, it’s what you make of it. I’m not about to quit and give up because things are hard; instead, I’m going to double down and make the most of this second half of 2026.
