Every year I make a few fairly modest New Year’s Resolutions. I try to keep them pretty reasonable and have seemed to be able to follow through for the most part in previous years. When I look back on 2009, I’m pretty proud because it was somewhat of a transformational year for myself and my business.

At the beginning of 2009 my business wasn’t very diversified I was mainly making money from one TV / entertainment related site and two different advertisers. This was a big problem however because if one of these companies pulled their advertising I would have lost 50% of my revenue overnight. After quite a few sleepless nights, I forced myself to start 3 new sites / blogs in different niches in the hope of diversifying my business. Now going into 2010 I’m in a much better position than during the beginning of 2009 and now I can focus on expanding (getting an actual office) and bringing on some full time employees.

1. Start Hunting For an Office.
Right now I have some people working for me part time out of my apartment, which is OK but it doesn’t leave much room for expansion. So one of the things I need to do sooner rather than later is begin to hunt for an actual office that will allow me to bring more part time and even some full time people in. I’m hoping to get this situated around March or April and no later than the summer.

2. Increase Revenue 100% by Years End.
Now that I’m fairly diversified I plan on working to grow the revenue of these new sites and maintain the revenue of my existing sites. Although increasing revenue by 100% may seem like a lot I’m fairly confident that with these three new sites I’ll be able to do at least that by the start of 2011.

3. Hire Full Time Employees to Help With Day to Day Operations.
Although I have 25 or 30 writers working for me part time, I’ve really been putting off bringing on someone to manage the day to day operations for awhile now. This is almost a must for 2010.

4. Look into New Housing Options.
I’m pretty much completely out of room in my current apartment so I want to begin exploring some other options in 2010. I’ve been holding off on buying for awhile now just because I don’t really want to be tied down anywhere at this point in my life, however I figure if I do buy and decide to move I could potentially turn it into a rental property.

5. Volunteer!
Something I really didn’t get to do in 2009 and that I’m going to definitely make happen in 2010 is to volunteer with an organization to help people who are less fortunate than myself. Volunteering for me so far has mainly just been me helping people I know with their website and computer issues. So I want to take it a step further than this and just get out of my element. I have no idea yet which organization I’ll go with but instead of just donating money to charity I would like to take a more hands on approach. If you have any recommendations they would be very much appreciated.

Here’s to a phenomenal 2010.