2016 in Review

The end of the year presents a natural opportunity for reflection on how things have changed and what we’ve accomplished, and after reading so many inspiring 2016 recaps, I felt compelled to compile one of my own. Diving into the archives of the past year has been a rewarding and occasionally uncomfortable journey (a sample of my thoughts during this process: what was I thinking when I wrote that blog post back in June, how many hours did I waste watching Netflix instead of reading, why didn’t someone tell me those sunglasses looked terrible). 2016 certainly had its ups and downs, but I’m a firm believer that you are destined to repeat the mistakes of the past unless you properly identify what behaviors you want to change. So here’s to 2017 being (yet another) year of growth and change.

“Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go.” - James Baldwin

Customer Success Highlights

Since this blog is about Customer Success 95% of the time, it seems appropriate to start with a rundown of what I’ve learned and contributed to the subject over the past 365 days.

Articles I learned from:

• “The one thing worse than a low NPS score” by Typeform (link)
• “95% Of Your Churn Should be Ignored. Here’s Why” by Chargebee (link)
• “De-Risking the First 90 Days for Your SaaS Customer” by Amity (link)
• “How To Create Competitive Advantage For Your Startup With Proxy Metrics” by Tomasz Tunguz (link)
• “Don’t assume new users want to learn how to use your product” by Chameleon (link)
• “Introduce process only as a last resort” by Yan Lhert (link)
• “2016 Pacific Crest Survey” by David Skok (Part I: link Part II: link)
• “Personas in Customer Success” by Trey Davis (link)

Favorite books I read:

• Losing the Signal
• Never Split the Difference
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Where my work was featured:

• Calendly blog posts: “Intercom’s Brooke Goodbary on Customer Success vs. Customer Support” (link) and “How 3 high-growth companies think about scaling customer success” (link)
• Inside Intercom blog posts: “The value of salespeople who don’t just sell” (link) and “The case for sales reps as project managers” (link)
• My post “Startups need to work smarter, not harder” (link) was featured the Medium publication Startup Grind- powered by Google for Entrepreneurs
• 11 posts on Medium over the past 11 months

Personal Highlights

As the type of person who loves to stay busy and be constantly challenged, I am always on the lookout for new hobbies and projects to keep my free time interesting. I decided to level-up a passion I’ve had for almost 10 years and completed a 200 hour yoga teacher training program over a 6 month period. It was a physically and mentally demanding process that I’m incredibly grateful to have experienced.

Skills acquired:

• Became a certified yoga instructor
• Started beginner Spanish classes
• Learned to meditate
• Continued to improve my letterpress skills

Favorite books I read:

• Red Rising Trilogy
• The Neapolitan Novels
• The Harry Bosch Novels
• A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy
• Ego is the Enemy
• Inside the Yoga Sutras
• Just Mercy

2016 by the numbers:

• 12 Medium posts containing 11,686 words
• 200 hours of yoga teacher training
• 19.5 hours meditating
• 142 ClassPass workouts
• 3,080,638 steps taken over 1,282.05 miles (via Fitbit)
• 62 hours toiled away in a letterpress studio
• 2 custom made letterpress polymer plates
• 19 beginner Spanish classes
• 34 fashionable boxes from LeTote

Best 9 photos from 2016:

A sincere thank you for reading my work this past year. I’ve learned so much from writing this blog and have been humbled by the feedback and encouragement I’ve received. To everyone who has made an impact on my personal and professional life in 2016 (you know who you are)- I don’t tell you enough how much your support means to me. As Jay Z says, on to the next one!