A quarterly business review you're going to enjoy
A summary of what happened in Q1 while everyone was busy following the newest season of the MAGA saga, and Q2 plans because... I like to make plans, and you should too
We just wrapped up the first quarter of this crazy 2025, which means it's time for a bit of retrospective and planning.
For new readers, these quarterly posts are a way to keep building in public, sharing the progress of creating a sustainable solo business. They serve both as a source of inspiration for my readers and a source of feedback for me.
Let's have a look at Q1's main highlights and takeaways.
Back to the Future
One of the biggest and funniest updates from the beginning of 2025 is that I got involved with some time travel.
In January, I started a collaboration with Subito.it, a company I worked with for the first time in 2006/2007. A true blast from the past!
What's more, the time-travel component is even recursive.
I'm traveling back in time to help Subito travel back in time, hence the self-attributed title of Ctrl-Z/Cmd-Z.
And yes, in this time of anti-DEI crusades, I'm being deliberately inclusive by mentioning both Mac and PC key combos for undoing the last operation.
Take that, Donald!
For those unfamiliar with the context, let me decrypt what traveling back in time means.
In simple terms, let's say there has been a significant change in strategy at the company that owns Subito, which means a lot of the work done in the past 10ish years has to be undone in a relatively short time. This makes 2025 a complex puzzle for Subito, and here is where I'm supposed to come in and help.
The first quarter of this collaboration has been challenging, rewarding, and extremely fun. It feels very familiar to be back, though many things have changed since I've been there for the last time.
Additionally, having this contract for all of 2025 provides me with a level of predictability on the B2B side, allowing me to focus more on exploring and developing the B2C side of the business. I'm looking forward to the remaining 9 months of this collaboration and seeing Subito succeed in this challenging endeavour.
CTOBox going live
The second most important highlight of this first slice of 2025 has been going live with a private beta release for CTOBox1. What started as little more than a toying experiment during a period of unplanned abundance of time2 is now live in production with some 40+ registered users.
Since I opened up the tool for private testing, I've been evolving it significantly, focusing mainly on the Team Compass module, which helps you manage individuals in your teams.
I've received helpful feedback from the users testing it, and I've been having a lot of fun spending a decent amount of hours conceptualizing, designing, and implementing the tool.
As my job tends towards a fragmented schedule, coding and writing this newsletter offer great opportunities to fight distraction and context switching. They're excellent ways to practice Deep Work.
Besides, it's cool to see people use a product you've built entirely on your own.
If you missed the previous announcement or recently realized you'd like to try out a tool to become a better engineering leader, feel free to sign up for the waitlist here.
I regularly onboard cohorts of new test users. If you're curious about my plans for CTOBox going forward, read on until the Looking Forward section.
Coord going live
About one year after we started discussing the original idea with one of my clients, Volumio, we very recently released the first public version of the Corrd app. It's available for both iOS and Android.
It's been exciting to build a mobile app in a space I had limited domain knowledge of: music streaming.
As the Fractional CTO for Volumio, I have been dedicating between half a day to a couple of days a week to the project since we started working on it, and Q1 2025 has seen the private beta launch first, followed by the public release just a few days ago.
I'm proud of what the team achieved, considering most of us were working part-time on the project and came from different backgrounds.
Corrd's product is a different take on the traditional music-listening experience. It's exploring ways to give listeners back control while allowing them to discover new music more easily.
The stack is pretty sleek on the technical side: Flutter on the app, Golang on the backend, and gRPC as the communication protocol between the app and the backend and for intra-service communication.
It's great to see it live, and I look forward to seeing it grow in the upcoming months.
Slow growth in the community
An area where results were not meeting expectations (this is business language to say it sucks, without admitting it) is the Sudo Make Me a CTO Community.
In line with what I've been sharing in the past, while engagement is fantastic and retention is stellar, growth has been slow. I'm aware that most of it is probably due to my not investing enough energy in promoting and marketing it, but I still haven't cracked the nut on how to promote it better.
Still, every session with the community fills me with pride and joy3. I come away from them energized and willing to let more people discover this effective and engaging way to become better versions of themselves, personally and professionally.
Here is where the traditional salesman would use the proven formula, but don't just take my word for it; listen to what they have to say instead and drop a couple of punchy testimonials.
Guess what? That's precisely what I will do, but please take a moment to appreciate the honesty and self-awareness at play here.
Sergio has created an honest and open community of technical leaders. Many great people join the calls. Many companies face similar leadership challenges. So, what do I do next? How do I have this tough conversation? How do I handle this complex situation?
Sergio brings valuable insights and experience from his past leadership experiences. He adds depth to the conversation and is a great moderator and leader. He keeps the calls fun, engaging everyone and encouraging participation. He has built a community full of valuable lessons for my leadership journeys.
He has also mentored me through tough conversations and decisions. The community around his ideas is beginning to grow, and I see the human and technical conversations only growing.
That was Tim, and this is Ariel.
Being part of Sergio Visinoni's tech community has been an enriching experience. It’s a unique space where I’ve been able to learn not only from the insights Sergio shares but also from the collective wisdom of other members who face similar challenges.
Sergio's leadership and deep experience in the tech industry are truly inspiring, as he fosters an environment of trust and collaboration that encourages open sharing and growth. The discussions are always practical and engaging. The opportunity to interact with others, exchange ideas, and problem-solve together has been incredibly valuable.
And, furthermore, the external guest speakers bring fresh perspectives on key topics that are highly relevant to my role. This community has become a go-to resource for inspiration and support, and I’m excited to continue being part of it as we all grow together.
Both Ariel and Tim are real persons, very successful senior leaders, and executives who recognize the importance of not walking this challenging path alone. I'm convinced many more people would benefit from the same approach they're both taking, and you can do it risk-free today.
Go to this page for more information and to join the community. The next live call is scheduled for next Thursday, April 17th.
See what I've done there? 😁
Revenues breakdown
Those with good memory and attention to detail might remember that last year, about 94% of my revenues came from B2B engagements (Fractional CTO, Consulting, etc.). You might also remember that my goal this year is to increase the share of B2C revenues to gradually reduce the dependency on billable hours and shift more towards a recurring model.
The breakdown for Q1 looks promising. Besides overdelivering on the overall revenue targets by about 7%, this is how it breaks down into different revenue lines:
B2B Consulting and Advisory: 88,82%
Individual Coaching: 5,44%
Community: 4,65%
Other (Newsletter Sponsorship): 1,09%
There is plenty of good news in there. While the B2B side is still very healthy in absolute numbers, the sum of B2C services around the community and individual coaching represented more than 10% of the overall revenues, which aligns with this year's target.
🔭 Looking Forward
For obvious reasons, I can't disclose many details about the ongoing B2B engagements, but I'm happy to share plenty on the initiatives I fully control.
CTOBox public launch
I've started working on the second major module for CTOBox, which I call Career Architect. It focuses on helping engineering leaders define and—more importantly—use a robust and customized career ladder for their teams.
I've seen many startups and scale-ups lacking basic implementations of such frameworks, and as such, they tend to struggle with career development, promotions, goal setting, and compensation for members of their teams.
There will be many synergies between the Career Architect module and the existing Team Compass space. The ladder will provide a frame to help individuals set goals and follow up with them regularly. The tool is designed to make it easier for you to do the right thing so that you don't need to figure everything out the hard way.
Once the first iteration of Career Architect is complete (when is anything ever complete, honestly?), I plan to open CTOBox for public use.
I'm aiming for a freemium model, but the details of pricing and tiers are still being figured out. I'm sure there will be rewards for early beta users who helped me shape the product.
If you want to be one of them, sign up for the waitlist and wait patiently until I'm done tweaking a few things.
Testing paid campaigns to grow the newsletter
As this newsletter is the primary vehicle I use to build my reputation and market my products, I'd like to see it grow faster than it has done until now. At the same time, I refuse to go insane playing the social media attention game. I've done my fair share of it to confirm something I knew already: it's not worth it.
Some people deeply enjoy it, and I'm genuinely happy for them. The mental and emotional cost of making the algorithm happy and pushing emotional buttons to go viral is simply not worth it for me.
It doesn't align well with who I am and the values I stand for.
Been there, done that, not my thing.
Furthermore, my main contribution here is to write good content. It takes time to research, write, and edit every single piece. I'm convinced my time is better spent doing that than spamming social networks with shallow but salient takes on whatever is happening in the world.
One approach I will try out in Q2 is surprisingly simple: paid campaigns.
I'll test different types of paid campaigns to fuel the newsletter's readership and attract more members to the community.
I've long resisted considering this option as I fell into the common trap of thinking I could do it myself. Why pay someone else for it? The answer is simple: opportunity cost.
My time is better spent doing something else; the value of my work lies elsewhere.
And if that wasn't enough, some simple calculations based on my hourly rate and the amount of time it takes to build "organic" growth don't add up. They make as much sense as the numbers I've recently seen shared by an old crook on a blackboard.
As usual, I'll give an update on this experiment in the next quarterly update.
Experiment with ways to promote the Community
As I said, I'll experiment with sponsored links or paid campaigns to promote the community. I'm curious to see what the numbers will look like.
Besides that, I'm currently thinking of offering bundles of products such as:
Individual subscriptions to either CTOBox or the Community
A bundle subscription that includes both for a more convenient price
A premium bundle that offers a monthly one-to-one session on top of the above,
etc.
I'm not sure I'll have the time to go live with these in Q2, but I'll be doing some experiments to test the water. I'm always interested in feedback, so use the comment section below to share your views.
I also want to continue with the quarterly pay-it-forward initiative tradition that started in January 2024. Once more, I'm giving away two free seats for a 3-month membership to the Sudo Make Me a CTO Community. Applications are made via this form; the deadline is April 18th at 18.00 CET.
Even if not selected for the free seats, every applicant will receive a unique promo code to sign up for the community at a discounted price.
There is no reason not to apply at this point. Writing a decent application takes about 5 minutes, and 10 minutes for an outstanding one. Next time you're in a boring meeting, click this link and submit your application.
I'm sure you won't regret it.
If you enjoyed this
This newsletter is free, and I intend to keep it free forever.
Sharing it with others helps immensely in growing it.
Engaging with my professional services is a great way to ensure I can continue dedicating many hours each week to producing what I hope to be high-quality content.
Those services articulate around three legs:
Fractional CTO or Advisory roles for startups, scaleups, and established tech companies. Find out more on this page.
Individual Mentoring and Coaching for Engineering Leaders. Find out more on this page.
A paid membership/community for engineering leaders. Find out more on this page.
If your needs fall into a different category, such as newsletter collaborations or sponsoring, please reply to this email or schedule a free call via this link.
Here you can find the article in which I officially announced the private beta
September 2024 could be remembered as one of the shittiest months in this whole journey, if it wasn't that through that crisis a lot of new ideas blossomed. If you're curious about the details, you can read up more in this post from last year.
A tribute to a great song by a great guitarist, Stevie Ray Vaughan. Have a listen at it here:
Looks like you’ve been juggling unpredictable contracts and slow community growth while trying to keep momentum. You could try Loyally.ai to set up simple retention pulses and bundle incentives that nudge people toward staying. That would likely smooth revenue swings and make community membership feel more like an easy, habitual choice.