My wedding anniversary is June 14th, which is right around the middle of the year. My motivation to work hard comes quite a bit from wanting to provide a good life for my family, so I want to take this time of year from now on to reflect on my personal career growth. (instead of focus on goals like beginning of year or quarterly reviews)

Reflecting back last year, when I quit my job that I’ve worked at pretty much since graduation, that was a really big step. Working there was comfortable, had a great boss, freedom, etc.

But the business wasn’t growing very much, and I wasn’t growing very much. Along with the fact that I have no stake in the company, and I wanted to be an entrepreneur, staying there wasn’t the best thing for me and I took the leap.

June 2015 my goal was become a good programmer. Being able to write a basic app, start to finish with front end and back end, with database and everything. My long term goal then was to build a high-tech startup and make a big impact on the world. Maybe start a venture with some partners, build the app as the CTO, and grow it to a huge business.

Now June 2016, I’ve really moved quite a bit from that. Entrepreneurial spirit is alive and kicking, but I’ve come to embrace the ‘micropreneur’ way. I don’t want to build a high-tech startup that has 90+% failure, raise funds, grow it to 100+ employees, and have practically no life.

I want to work from anywhere, have highly sought after skills, being able to run my own businesses and generate enough profit to live a very comfortable life. Which is why I’ve really shifted focus to want to become really great at digital marketing.

I did get very proficient with software development, which should definitely be helpful with my goals too, in case I want to build a SaaS app or something. HKC is a good first example where I did build a software that people will pay money to use.

My wife and I have also really solidify our dream to move to Japan. We just love everything there, and we’ve really decided that we will move there one day. My wife’s job is language confined though (speech therapy), so my income will have to get substantially higher to be able to afford us to move there. My target now is around 6-8 years.

My basic blueprint now for achieving that:

• Become a great digital marketer and become locally well known as the expert, through blogging, teaching, seminar, etc.
• Being able to accumulate case studies, satisfied clients, referrals as a marketing consultant, which will allow me to work with bigger clients and increasing rates. Current plan to start consulting services around HKD 20-30K for 1-week consulting work for smaller businesses (around HKD100-500k monthly turnover), hopefully will move up to HKD 100K+ within few years (probably for businesses with HKD1-5M montly turnover).
• Build my own online business, probably either SaaS, ecommerce, info-product, or combination. With programming and marketing skills, doing things lean-startup way, should be able to test out some niches, use SEO and SEM to test the water, and find good ones to pursue. Hopefully will build some things that can provide HKD50-100K+ monthly income and don’t necessarily have to continue to consult. (consulting will really help increase my marketing skills, and provide good short-term cash, though so it’s a good stepping stone)

I’m confident in myself to achieve these things, and more. Will come back next year to reflect again on my growth, where I’ll be at, and where I’m going.