Quarterly Review: 2026Q1

KPIs

Here's what the numbers looked like at the end of the quarter:

The biggest story: making a living from my own business.

In September 2025, I voluntarily cut off unemployment money (Arbeitslosengeld). I've been paying myself €1,500/month since. It still feels surreal, and I'm so grateful I've sustained this for over half a year now.

It's not much yet, but I've reduced my lifestyle costs enough that it's comfortable. And more importantly: it's growing. Revenue has gone up roughly €1,000 every quarter. About 30% quarter on quarter, if I'm being finance bro-y about it 😏

I went all in on the core program.

Up until November 2025, I was taking custom engagements: a positioning session here, a half-day interview workshop there, whatever came up.

This quarter, I cancelled all of it to focus entirely on Brave New Job.

It's scary to turn down money. But the focus really is worth it. I save so much time and energy not having to decide on and create custom engagements. I earn 10x higher revenue literally (it's €350 vs €3,000). Everything I do compounds for this one thing.

I'm building a skyscraper, not a strip mall.

This was the most disciplined quarter of my life.

I set goals based on real baselines and constraints, not wishful thinking. I tracked KPIs on a physical whiteboard. I wrote consistent weekly updates. I actually did the stuff.

And I still missed all but one goal (cash collected) – by about 50%!

Even if I "failed" at 6 out of my 7 KPIs, I am still better off having them – and staring at them on my whiteboard every single day – than not having them.

Setting goals and tracking progress is fundamentally an intention and direction-setting exercise. It's not doing a Bataan Death March toward a fixed destination.

This is why it's worth doing them even if I 1) don't achieve them, and 2) want to stay open.

This is not about being rigid, or even achieving goals. It actually helps me be better at being open and spontaneous. When I have that great new idea, I have a direction and a plan to evaluate against. Is this better than what I'm already doing? If yes, I adjust. If not, I stay the course.

Without goals, I'm just a boat lurching through the middle of the ocean.

My biggest breakthroughs weren't on my goal sheet at all.

My stated goals were revenue, LinkedIn posts, and sales calls. And yet the three things that made the biggest difference came from outside the plan:

1. CMF Hypothesis + Listening Tour — made my positioning exercise more robust, the networking strategy more targeted, and my clients' results more likely. None of that was in the original plan.
2. Marketing Strategy — led to a viral post, which led to 20+ sales calls, which gave me the confidence to raise my price by 33%, from €2k to €3k.
3. Joining Opny — still early, but I genuinely feel a €100k run rate is within reach this year.

Discipline matters, and so does the ability to recognize and act on what wasn't in the plan. Often, while executing, I discover better ways to achieve my goals. Sometimes, I learn that what's achievable is bigger than I dared to plan for. Both happened this quarter.

After all, the moment I set my goals is the moment I know the least about how to achieve them.

Lessons Learned

• These things feel unproductive compared to 'just doing it', but they are absolutely worth it: 1) thinking through my goals and strategy, 2) writing weekly status updates to nobody, 3) tracking KPIs on a physical whiteboard.
• Discipline doesn't come from pushing harder. It comes from getting my conditions right: stable finances, protected energy, and a lightweight system.

Next Quarter's Goals

KPIs

1. €18k revenue – €3k x 2 clients x 3 mos
2. 1h/client/week – Baseline: 1.5h/client/week

Projects

1. Clarify ICP and offer
2. Build structured client journey
3. Create new group program resources