--- title: What I've achieved in 2016 date: 2016-12-27 tags: life tldr: Looking back on the awesome things that's happened to me in 2016. --- Last year, I decided to look back[1] on everything I've learned/achieved and it was a great reflective experience. So, here it is again for 2016! ## Became a father to a newborn I was already a dad but I've never experienced taking care of a *brand new* life. I was worried that my son wouldn't like me and other silly non-sensical things like that. In reality, it is *super* challenging at times but he's a happy boy who has no problem falling asleep in my arms. And biting me. And farting on me. Needless to say, he's super comfortable with his papa. 😁 📸[Ian Asher and I][IMG1] ## Moved all my projects to GitLab After running my own email server for half a year, I wondered why I was *still* paying GitHub for private repos. What they c̶h̶a̶r̶g̶e̶d̶ used to charge didn't make sense so I set up a personal GitLab instance[2] and I couldn't be happier. I have unlimited private repos for *$40/month* (my server has *4GB of RAM* and *60GB of storage*). Because you can never be too sure, I have backups enabled for *$8/month*. ## Moved all my email to Mail-in-a-Box Just like with GitHub, I didn't understand why I was paying Hover $200/year for hosting my email when I *already* had a Mail-in-a-Box[3] instance hosting one[4] of my them. Thankfully, it's relatively easy[5] to add multiple domains to the same box. It currently costs me *$10/month* for *unlimited* email accounts versus $200/year for merely 10 (my server has *1GB of RAM* and *30GB of storage*). ## Released a SaaS product I buy a lot of books on Amazon and never get around to reading them. That wasn't the case with The 7 Day Startup[6]. After reading the book (it was a quick read), I was super motivated to bring an idea (I sat on for about a year) to life. That idea was BeachfrontDigital[7], a domain portfolio management tool. My market focus is quite niche, it's for people who buy multiple domains from multiple registrars. The problem I am solving involves keeping track of all your domains and renewal dates. Some TLDs also renew 30 days before expiration and I intend to include this kind of information in V2. I've gotten some great feedback and I look forward to enhancing the service in 2017. Related to releasing BeachfrontDigital, I learned how to use Feathers.js[8] more, used MongoDB[9] and mongoose[10] for the first time, and in production (I love them both now), and other back-end web development things. I'm a firm believer that side projects are key to learning new things. Your day job most likely won't challenge you to try drastically different things from what you're used to, which can stifle your personal growth. ## Hosted my first pop-up shop My clothing brand WEÖM[11] had a pop-up shop in one of WeWork South Station's conference rooms. Along with my friend Angel[12], we had fun collaborating on 2017 collections when we weren't chatting with people who stopped by. It was a *great* learning experience! In the time since, I've decided to transition/rebrand WEÖM to become a space-centric lifestyle brand instead of being *just* a clothing brand. There's still a lot of work to be done, but look forward to visiting the new world I'm building around it! 📸[Bridget rocking the signature snapback][IMG2] ## Had my first interview Revision Path[13] is a weekly interview podcast, Patreon[14], and Slack group[15] that I've been a fan of for quite some time. The host, Maurice Cherry[16], likes to interview people on the come up doing interesting things. So, imagine my surprise when he asked to interview *me*! We tried recording while I was in my apartment but houses in Massachusetts are old so my microphone was picking AM radio signals. 😒 I wasn't hearing that weirdness but Maurice is in Atlanta and was hearing ads for Harvard, lol! Long story short, we had to reschedule and the interview will be out in January. *Great* way to start off the new year! ## Published my first module to npm My module is called `hexo-render-sass` and I made it before realizing that similar modules exist…oh well (it doesn't help that the official Hexo site[17] fails to list Sass plugins on the site). It was another great learning experience and it took away the mystic mumbo jumbo I associated npm modules with. You can find it here[18]. ## And that's it! I'll end this post with my best nine Instagram photos of 2016, according to Lip Inc[19]. 🕸 📸[My best 9 Instagram photos of 2016][IMG3] --- [1]: https://2016.dsgn.io/thoughts/post/what-ive-achieved-in-2015 [2]: https://paulwebb.software [3]: https://mailinabox.email [4]: https://thenetwork.email [5]: https://mailinabox.email/maintenance.html#multiple-domains [6]: https://www.amazon.com/Day-Startup-Learn-Until-Launch/dp/1502472392 [7]: https://beachfront.digital [8]: http://feathersjs.com [9]: https://www.mongodb.com [10]: http://mongoosejs.com [11]: https://weom.space [12]: https://www.instagram.com/angel_garc [13]: http://revisionpath.com [14]: https://patreon.com/revisionpath [15]: https://revisionpath.herokuapp.com [16]: https://twitter.com/mauricecherry [17]: https://hexo.io/plugins [18]: https://www.npmjs.com/package/hexo-render-sass [19]: https://2016bestnine.com --- [IMG1]: https://🔥.pixels.wtf/blog/image/2016/what-ive-achieved-this-year-a.jpg [IMG2]: https://🔥.pixels.wtf/blog/image/2016/what-ive-achieved-this-year-b.jpg [IMG3]: https://🔥.pixels.wtf/blog/image/2016/what-ive-achieved-this-year-c.jpg