2024 year in review
When I start to write my year-in-review post, the first thing I do is go back in Google Photos to January 1st. As I scroll through the year, it reminds me of significant milestones from each month. Being able to look back on a year and remember these moments is a big reason I write these posts every year.
What's immediately apparent is the importance of friends and family. These connections are the essence of life. They're everything.
I've been sharing my thoughts and reflections in a year-in-review post for the last eleven years. As a collective, these reviews describe my entire bootstrapping journey, both the breakthroughs and the struggles.
(You can read 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013 here).
This year's contemplations
What is this in service of?
Trying to ask myself this question more often:
"Is this thing you’re doing in service of the life you want to live?"
In last year's review, I talked more about the life I'm optimizing for.
The seasons of life
At 44, I've been thinking a lot about the seasons of life and how we navigate different phases of our journey.
My daughter shared this metaphor with me, where she describes three seasons of life:
Planting: This is when you're finding seeds, finding soil, and preparing the ground. This phase is full of anxiety: "Will this grow? Am I on the right track? Will this idea work?" Think about being in college or trying to find a good business idea.
Growing: Your seeds start to grow here, but tons of work is required: watering, weeding, and protecting plants from pests. There's still anxiety (bad weather), but you see growth, which makes you want to double down. This is like hitting your stride at work or seeing a business idea take off.
Harvesting: This is where you get to enjoy the bounty of what you've grown. Your storehouses are full of grain. It's a time of relaxation and celebration. Examples: your business is generating significant profits, and you have a flywheel running.
Life is a continuous cycle of seasons: planting, growing, harvesting. So, if you're in a harvesting phase, you're asking yourself: "What should I plan on planting next season?"
I started thinking about how these seasons show up in different categories of life: family life, fitness, romantic relationships, and work. Here's a table of examples:
When I use this framework, a few things come to mind.
Business: It feels like we're in a harvesting season with Transistor. It took some intense planting and growing seasons to get here, but now our growth, revenue, and team feel solid. But this past year, I have wondered what seeds I should plant for future seasons of my life. How should I be planning for retirement? How long will Jon and I run the business? (I think we'd both like to do this for another 5 -10 years, but 15? How should we be planning for the future?)
Family: With four kids from college age to mid-teens, my wife and I are straddling the growing and harvesting seasons of parenthood. Our role is shifting from active, hands-on parenting to more mentoring and supporting. We've been thinking a lot about what it will be like when all four kids have moved out.
Personal: On a personal level, 2024 has been a planting season. As I mentioned, I've been contemplating what I want from the next chapter of my life as I approach 50. It feels like I'm preparing new soil and considering which seeds to plant. I'm also aware that I'm in a transition period. The raw creative energy of my 20s and 30s is evolving into something different – what Arthur Brooks calls "crystallized intelligence."
Transistor update
Transistor, the podcast hosting business I co-founded with Jon Buda, continues to thrive.
Recently, someone told me, "I didn't realize how big Transistor is! You've got to tell that story more often." It's true! We serve over 30,000 podcasts on the platform.
This includes popular shows like Acquired, Diggnation, and Think Fast Talk Smart and branded shows from well-known organizations such as Kit (Convertkit), the US Government, and Magic: The Gathering.
We've just come off an incredible year, where we grew the number of podcasts on the platform by 32%.
The Transistor team has six full-time members: Michael, Josh, Jason, Helen, Jon, and me. We've organized ourselves into three smaller "duo" teams:
Customer Success
Marketing
Engineering.
This year, we brought Michael Green on as a full-time support engineer.
I met Michael at a local tech meetup here in Vernon. He started helping with customer support part-time in 2023, but it quickly became apparent that he needed to be a permanent fixture on our team. Having him answer tickets during the day meant I could focus more on strategy and growth. Plus, he's just better at serving customers than me!
As a whole, the tech industry had a hard year (with lots of layoffs). We feel lucky that Transistor's revenue has continued to grow, enabling us to hire more people.
New Transistor features we launched in 2024
This year, we shipped several significant features:
AI speech-to-text transcription. Automatically create a transcript for every podcast episode.
Create a podcast network and website featuring all your shows.
Embed your podcast episodes directly in Kit (ConvertKit) newsletters.
Easily add podcast guest credits from Bluesky, GitHub, and more
We have some cool stuff planned for 2025:
Bluesky auto-posting
Using Bluesky to power comments on your podcast
3rd-party tracking URLs (pixels) for ad campaigns
New monetization features for podcasters
Travel and events in 2024
This year, I did a bunch of travel, with several significant trips.
Los Angeles
I had booked some meetings before a conference in LA, so we took the boys (our daughter is in university). We did some family business planning (see below) and went to Disney.
Watching my boys run and play on the beach together as older teens was one of my highlights of the year. They grow up so fast!
Podcast Movement Evolutions
Next was Podcast Movement Evolutions, a smaller conference for the podcast industry. Highlights included meeting with business friends like Andrew Culver and Corey Griffin and seeing Marc Maron live (I've been a long-time fan).
Road trips with Marty
My oldest son planned to attend college later in the year, so he and I took several road trips together. The first, in the spring, was to visit family and meet my daughter on break.
For the second, we attended GameCon Canada together.
He and I are working on a few different indie game ideas, and we wanted to learn more about the industry. It was fun to connect with a whole different business category (very different from SaaS). After the trip, he decided to take game development at college and enrolled for the fall semester.
Podcast Movement DC
Starting in mid-August (after driving my son to college), I had a whirlwind of travel, starting with Podcast Movement in DC. This is the largest conference in podcasting. I was delighted to hang out with old friends there, especially Jeremy, Kelly, and Bryan Fittin.
But overall, this year's event had me feeling reflective (and a bit weary) about the podcast industry. In particular, YouTube's recent foray into podcasting seems to be sucking up a lot of the oxygen in the space and a lot of the "independent spirit" that initially drew me to podcasting.
At the end of the trip, I a meetup with some long-time MegaMaker members, which was a treat.
Chicago "Founders" Retreat with Jon
I flew to Chicago after the conference in DC to spend time with Jon Buda (my business partner at Transistor).
It felt like Jon and I needed this hangout time. We went out for food, took an architecture tour, and strolled the river walk. We also had time to talk about some big things in our founder relationship. The whole experience felt significant and more than a little sentimental for me! In Chicago, Jon and I launched the initial version of Transistor together in 2018.
Laracon
From Chicago, I headed to Dallas for Laracon. I hadn't been to Laracon since I spoke and MC'd the NYC event in 2019.
Honestly, my biggest reflection on Laracon this year was how dang happy I was. I couldn't believe how many friends I had there, how many old faces I'd missed seeing. I realized how many of my entrepreneur friends are in the Laravel community – and how much I missed hanging out with them. It also felt like Transistor had more customers at Laracon than Podcast Movement; I was just blown away by how supportive that community has been.
Transistor team retreat + Acquired live in San Francisco
The Transistor team and I flew to San Francisco for our annual team retreat and to attend the Acquired podcast's live show featuring Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, and Daniel Ek, founder of Spotify.
Transistor hosts the Acquired podcast, and we wanted to be there for Ben and David's big day.
Jon's wedding in Guatemala
My longtime friend and business partner, Jon Buda, had his wedding in Guatemala in October, and it turned into the trip of a lifetime.
Jon and Wendy's wedding was a blast!
Lorinda and I explored so many incredible places together and connected with fun people. The whole trip felt like adult summer camp, with all of Jon and Wendy's friends hanging out in the same town (Antigua). It was sad to say goodbye to everyone when we left.
What else happened in 2024?
Making bets
One of my goals in 2024 was to start angel investing.
I'd previously set up a holding company that regularly receives dividends from different investments. I wanted to use some of this capital to do some angel investing.
My first investment was in an energy-based startup in Vernon, BC. I've known the founder for a long time, and he's good at building companies that take advantage of government grants and partnerships with academic institutions.
My second investment was in RevGems, a platform I was already using for Transistor. It was an analytics app that showed you how much revenue you were getting from different marketing channels. I was (and still am) a big fan of the team. Sadly, the team members decided that they didn't have the energy and resources to keep pushing the project forward. This is a common reality in the startup world: life happens, priorities shift, and sometimes good products have to be sunset. The founders had other commitments (finances, family) that needed their attention. While it's disappointing when this happens, it's also a natural part of the startup journey. Not every bet works out, but that's why they call it 'betting.
I briefly considered taking a more significant role with RevGems to get it off the ground, but that led me to my next big realization of 2024...
Evaluating my responsibilities
I've been using Claude AI as a "personal life coach." To fill out its knowledge bank, I outlined all the responsibilities I have right now:
Co-founder and CEO of Transistor: my primary professional responsibility. In total, we have a team of 6 people. There are things that Jon and I are uniquely good at that drive the business forward (on the product development and marketing side). We're growing, and
Owner of Nerd North Inc.: This is the Canadian corporation I've had for years. It owns most of my projects (like MegaMaker, Meeps, SwagFan, and old courses). It's also the "family business" and employs my wife and four kids, who help with various tasks. The family uses the company to explore business opportunities my wife and kids are interested in pursuing (game development, buying real estate, video editing). We're hoping to release some games on Steam soon!
Co-owner of Cowork Vernon, a coworking office in downtown Vernon, BC. I run this joint venture through Nerd North and some other partners. It's been running since 2014. It's not profitable, but it gives us an awesome work environment and a sense of community.
The main organizer of the Geek Beers meetup. We have the event on the last Thursday of every month. Currently, this requires me to check with the venue to ensure our reservation works, send emails to attendees, and ensure it's listed on Meetup.com.
A parent to 4 kids: two at home (15 and 16) and two who are away at college (19 and 22).
A husband. We've been married since 2001, and after raising four kids, we're ready to spend more time and energy on our relationship. We've also been doing more trips together (just the two of us).
That's already a lot! While I occasionally have some time to pursue additional projects (see SwagFan below), I need to be careful about adding anything else to my plate. My priorities are: family first, then Transistor, and everything else needs to fit around those core commitments.
"You can't be the CEO of everything."
(It feels like this is a lesson I have to keep learning over and over again)
Travel is awesome, but not too much
The trips I took this year were incredible, but I overdid it.
I traveled too much in August, September, and October. It felt like I was traveling back-to-back, which overwhelmed me. This year, I plan to do fewer trips and space out my trips more.
SwagFan
One of my most rewarding projects this year was SwagFan. In my marketing work, I've found that giving away branded swag (t-shirts, hats) was awesome for getting folks to promote your brand but managing the process was cumbersome. Around the same time, I met Ferdinand, a recent CompSci graduate who was struggling to find his first dev job in a tough market.
I decided to hire Ferdinand for the summer to build SwagFan: a tool that would simplify the process of giving away branded merchandise through Printful. Despite never having built anything in Laravel before, Ferdinand completed most of the project in just six weeks.
The app lets companies create swag giveaway links, choose which products to offer, and have Printful handle the printing and shipping automatically.
What I loved about this project was how it served multiple purposes: it solved a real problem we had at Transistor, gave Ferdinand valuable real-world development experience, and demonstrated Laravel's strengths for building SaaS apps quickly. Plus, it felt good to play a small part in helping bridge the "pipeline problem" in the Laravel ecosystem by giving a junior developer their first shot at building something real.
I left Twitter
After being on Twitter since 2008 (gaining 40,000 followers and posting 50,000 times), I finally decided to delete all my tweets and leave the platform. The experience under Elon's leadership had become increasingly frustrating - terrible ads, spam everywhere, violent content in the "For You" feed, and the general degradation of what used to be my favorite place on the internet.
Fortunately, Bluesky emerged as a refreshing alternative. What started as a ghost town a year ago suddenly came alive in late 2024, with numerous indie hackers, bootstrappers, and Laravel developers making the switch. It reminded me of how Twitter felt in 2010-2012: genuine interactions, less performative posting, and a real sense of community. The platform's growth exploded, and through features like Starter Packs, I was able to quickly rebuild connections with people who matter to me.
This transition feels significant - not just because I'm leaving a platform I used for 15 years, but because it represents a fresh start. It's a chance to build a social media experience that's actually fun and social again.
Live music
Every year, when I scan through my photos, I always find myself appreciating the concerts I went to.
Here are a few highlights:
The Gorge – in August, Lorinda and I went to the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington to see Willie Nelson & Family, Bob Dylan, John Mellencamp, and Billy Strings.
NPR Tiny Desk Concert – at Podcast Movement, I was invited to attend a Tiny Desk concert featuring Lainey Wilson! I've been a long-time Tiny Desk fan, so seeing one live was an incredible experience.
Ideas, goals, and plans for 2025
Transistor. I want our focus this year to be "podcast monetization:" enabling podcast creators to make revenue from their shows. This includes expanding our Dynamic Ads feature set. I would love for us to climb higher on this list.
Business travel. Doing less this year! Currently, I'm considering these four big trips for 2025:
One podcast-related conference (either PM Evolutions in Chicago or Podcast Show in London)
Founders retreat with Jon
Transistor team retreat
Personal travel. I want to do:
Dedicated one-on-one trips with each of my kids
2-3 trips with just my wife.
Plan a big family trip that gets everyone together, probably on Vancouver Island.
More live music! Every year, when I scan through my photos, live music is always the highlight.
Family business: keep developing family business initiatives, especially some game dev projects with the kids.
Investing: I could see myself making 1-2 angel investments this year and maybe even purchasing a small property.
I am starting a new podcast with Brian Casel called The Panel, where, in every episode, we invite smart friends to discuss (and debate) the realities of building a business and career in tech.
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
Connect with me on:
🦋 Bluesky
💼 LinkedIn
🐘 Mastodon