Blog #40 Starting a Business: 1 Year In— 5 Things I Did RIGHT
From the day this is published, it will be one year exactly since Newtown Productions was born.
Starting a business was a challenge, but one I’m glad I undertook. It has been rewarding in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
In this post, we’re going to focus on the success stories—decisions I made that paid dividends. Celebrating the wins is an important policy for any business operator, a policy that gets lost sometimes in the never-ending search for success. So let’s celebrate the 5 things I did right in my first year.
Setting up a website—overall, I’m going to call this website a success. Traffic to the blog has been growing, and the website has created a sheen of professionalism for the business. It is also a useful hub for the business’ online presence—linking the Facebook, Youtube and Tiktok all together in one centralised location.
Here’s the big question: has it paid itself off? No, is the truthful answer. However… it has many uses, and I hope it will become more useful in the future and pay itself off sometime then. I consider the first year the growth stage, where certain (affordable) marketing tools lose money in the hope of growing the business in the future.
Learning new skills—it’s not a secret that the world of video is changing. Disregarding A.I. developments, there are still the implications of short-form video, the importance of engagement, where people watch, and more. Over the last year, I’ve learned about the world of short-form content, how to grab people’s attention, and how to run a business.
From captions to spreadsheets, it’s been a journey. Each drop of learning has become one more piece of data to add to the machine and opportunity to re-adjust.
Diversifying—going into the business, I was skeptical of how many columns of income were going to translate to the real world. Surprisingly, I wasn’t far off the mark—apart from one main avenue: Business Promo. This particular category didn’t pan out; it turns out there aren’t flocks of businesses waiting to pay me to create advertisements for them just yet.
Naturally, I had to diversify. I looked into my pool of natural inclinations, and found that I really enjoyed writing. So, I decided to finally write the fiction book I’ve always wanted to write.
This is just one example of exploring new avenues when times call for the need. There are many other ways to earn extra income, it just takes a little extra oomph.
Making in-person contacts—there’s something to be said about the real-world still, in 2026. Having attended a few networking/instruction type events last year, I made contacts. Contacts which may, in the future, turn out to be very important. You never know who’s going to be the key to helping you get rich, but it helps to meet a few people along the way and store them in your contacts/Instagram.
Scheduling and time management—through the art of scheduling, I have created more content than ever through a sustainable model. Knowing my own limits, I’ve been able to work on shorts, long-form content, blog posts, and now social media posts as well.
By didviding up my year into weeks, I’ve sectioned off blocks of time for each project and planned accordingly. Then came iteration—over time, I became more efficient and more practical, learning where my time is well spent and where it’s not.
Here’s a graphic of some “profit“, to inspire you!
Starting the business, I had a lot of unanswered questions, but after a year I’ve realised something: life goes on.
Things change when you start a business—you’re on your own, in the real world, trying to stay frugal.
But where there’s smoke, there’s also fire. Opportunities arise, like a chance to pursue ventures that you would have previously ignored. These ventures may end up being the biggest break you’ve ever had, so go chase them.
That’s all for this post.
I find this stuff fascinating, and I hope you found something useful too.
Thanks for reading. If you’ve any comments, let me know down below.
Good luck out there.
-D.C.