It was amazing 2024, on to 2025
Let's see how we did in 2024: Subscriber count, ARR, top articles and many more!
🎁 Giveaway: Course “Senior Engineer to Lead: Grow and thrive in the role” 2 3 full scholarships are now selected!
Instead of just 2 scholarships, I have decided to give away 3 full scholarships worth 600$ for January's cohort of the course!
Important to mention: There has been a thorough selection process and every submission has been read. The selection was done by a third party based on the answers provided. This was done in order to be objective as much as possible.
The people selected are:
I will reach out to you on LinkedIn next week to ask for more details and enroll you to the course.
For everyone else, who can reasonably afford the course, I invite you to enroll normally here.
P.S. I expect to do similar giveaways in the future, so If you haven’t been selected for a scholarship this time round, feel free to apply again.
Let’s get back to this week's thought!
Intro
It’s been a really amazing year 2024 and I couldn’t be happier with it. It’s been filled with many upsides, which I’ll share with you today.
I’ve set up the goals to be very optimistic in purpose, so that if we can get even close to them -> that would be an amazing achievement. And we did!
Let’s take a look at the goals I’ve set up for 2024.
My goals for 2024
I’ve noted down my goals for 2024 in last year’s article and you can find them here: Amazing year 2023, on to 2024 (paid article) alongside with achievements from 2023.
Here were my goals:
Let’s see how we did!
🟢 100k+ subscribers
We are now at 99k! We went from 33k subscribers to 99k - tripled the subscribers in 2024 🤯
Even though we technically haven’t achieved 100k (we still have 2 days though!), I am marking it as done because I am amazed we came that far (very optimistic goal).
🟢 Keep learning and improving the way I write weekly
Learned a lot from writing articles every week and with so many collaborations that I did.
Build up the consistency, which turned into a habit (we are now 110+ weeks of consistent newsletters every week - haven’t missed a week).
In October, added an additional article every week (for paid subscribers).
Improved my process of creating articles, especially in collaboration articles, there are clear guidelines and constraints in place so that every article has the right structure.
🟢 Continue to keep adding more benefits for paid subscribers (more templates, guides, other)
Added 7 additional templates and guides.
Added 2 new Learning Tracks: Productivity and Become product/business minded
Added 💰 Special Deals for paid subscribers where you can get special deals (discounts) on personally curated courses, resources, newsletters + many more that I find very valuable and highly recommend
Added a second newsletter article per week on Wednesday for paid subscribers (from October)
🟡 E-commerce store (Q1 2024)
The store is live here: store.eng-leadership.com It was a bit after Q1 2024, that’s why I am marking it as yellow.
🟢 Online course
Successfully launched Senior Engineer to Lead: Grow and thrive in the role and already did 3 cohorts, which all had more students than the previous one. I am already excited for the 4th one - January’s cohort of the course!
🟢 Continue to grow on LinkedIn and also put focus on other social media platforms like Twitter (X)
Grew on LinkedIn by more than 2x and on Twitter (X) similarly. I also added Bluesky to my list of social media platforms.
🟢 More collaborations and podcast appearances
Many collaborations on my newsletter and also other newsletters + many different podcast appearances, live events, workshops and speaking at conferences.
🟡 Aspirational goal: a book (63 articles already are equivalent to 2-3 books)
I’ve started to think about the book titles and added some rough drafts, but haven’t yet fully committed to it as I am prioritizing this newsletter and the course. I am marking it as yellow since it was an aspirational goal.
Growth from 33k to 99k subscribers
I didn’t imagine it being possible to reach 100k, but we are there. With a few days left till the new year, it will get to the wires!
Paid subscribers growth from 237 → 917
My goal for 2024 was to get to 500-1000 paid subscribers. We went from 237 to 917 → 286.9% increase 🤯 which is amazing! Thanks to everyone being a paid subscriber 🙏 I really appreciate you!
ARR growth from $16.2k → $65.6k
The ARR of the newsletter grew by 304.9% and the trend is continuously upwards, which is really exciting and I couldn’t be happier with it! I am really excited to see what 2025 will bring.
Overall gross revenue of the newsletter, sponsorships and course in 2024
Newsletter paid subscriptions (monthly + annual) and sponsorships: $76.9k
Course Senior Engineer to Lead: Grow and thrive in the role: $51.3k
Combined: $128.2k
Best month → November, $25.2k
Interesting statistics of the newsletter
3.5M+ views combined in 2024 (main sources: email, Substack app, Reddit, Google, LinkedIn)
521k views in the last 30 days
193 different countries (subscriber countries) are reading the newsletter
242 other newsletters are recommending Engineering Leadership
115 weeks of consistent weekly newsletter articles (did not miss even 1 week!)
33% open rate of emails
Top 10 newsletter articles in 2024
Based on various stats (views, engagement, open-rate, etc.). All paid articles.
Context-switching - one of the worst productivity killers in the engineering industry (collab with Eugene Shulga)
Why your job search is failing as an engineer or a manager (and how to fix it) (collab with
)Perfectionism - one of the biggest productivity killers in the engineering industry (collab with
)Engineer’s guide to convincing your Product Manager to prioritize technical debt (collab with
)Become the engineer everyone wants to work with (collab with
)From laid off to hired: A Software Engineer’s guide (collab with
)
Newsletter collaborations in 2024
I had the pleasure to collaborate with 19 great professionals on creating the articles for the newsletter.
I highly recommend each and every one as they all showed immense professionalism and knowledge.
Here is the full list of collaborations:
The importance of forming opinions in the engineering industry (collab with
)From Tech Lead to Team Lead (collab with
)How to prevent burning out in the engineering industry (collab with
)How to have a top performing, healthy and active day as an engineer or a manager (collab with
)Perfectionism - one of the biggest productivity killers in the engineering industry (collab with
)Engineer’s guide to convincing your Product Manager to prioritize technical debt (collab with
)The importance of having a career growth plan in the engineering industry (collab with
)Become the engineer everyone wants to work with (collab with
)Growing from engineer to Staff engineer and thriving (collab with
)Why your job search is failing as an engineer or a manager (and how to fix it) (collab with
)The importance of data when making decisions in the engineering industry (collab with
)You have an AI product, how to get users? (collab with
)12 ways to become a CTO (collab with
)How to become a Fractional CTO? (collab with
)From laid off to hired: A Software Engineer’s guide (collab with
)CPTO: A role every company should consider? (collab with
)The whole University IT system stopped working 😱 (collab with
)3 main soft skills a Tech Lead needs to develop (collab with
)LinkedIn guide for engineers and managers (collab with
)Why engineers hate meetings and how to fix it (collab with
)
Thanks to everyone for sharing their insights on important topics!
We are now a community of over 54k on LinkedIn
Stats for this year on LinkedIn:
524 posts (60% increase from 2023)
8.9M impressions (183% increase from 2023)
45.8k reactions (95% increase from 2023)
14.4k comments (49% increase from 2023)
3.6k reposts (35% increase from 2023)
Growth from 24.5k to 54k followers (120.4% increase from 2023)
Public speaking events and conferences
The Modern Leader, Ljubljana, SLO (May 2024) - Presentation of my journey and growth on LinkedIn and the newsletter.
Plato Elevate conference, San Francisco, CA (June 2024) - Hosted a roundtable with engineers and leaders from companies such as Google, Meta and Bloomberg.
C3 festival, Amsterdam, NL (June 2024) - Hosted a workshop for 100+ attendees called: From Senior to Lead: Grow and thrive in the role.
Infoshare Katowice, PL (November 2024) - Presentation with the title: Stop learning programming languages and start building credibility.
Live events, podcasts and guest articles
CTO Insights: Leadership & Business Mindset with Gregor Ojstersek - Live event with
From engineer to CTO - LinkedIn Live with Adelina Chalmers (no recording available)
Building a Successful Career in Software Engineering - Live event for Google Developer Groups Prishtina with
, , (no recording available)Conversation with Gregor Ojstersek on Byte Venture - Youtube video with Sitesh Pattanaik
Become the engineer everyone wants to work with - Live event with
How Fractional CTOs make huge impact on 30% time - Live event with
The Real 10x Developer: Multiplying Impact by Empowering Others with Gregor Ojstersek - Podcast episode with
The Path from Senior Engineer to CTO - Guest article for
newsletterInterview with Gregor Ojstersek - Guest article for Exceptional Engineering Newsletter (no link available)
My 3 main learnings from this year
Consistency and perseverance
If you do what you say and you do it for a longer period of time → good things will happen. Good results take time and there are a lot of ups and downs, that’s inevitable. You need to learn and understand what works and what does not.
The mentality is very similar to being good at video games. You need to learn the META (Most Efficient Tactic Available) and do it consistently for a longer period of time, that’s how you get better.
I see new newsletters starting regularly, but I don’t see a lot of them after 6 months or 1 year still consistently publishing unfortunately.
Betting on myself has always worked out well for me and it will this time as well, I am sure of it
After 11 years of consecutive full-time roles and growing from engineer all the way to CTO, I’ve decided to not pursue another full-time position in October this year. So far, it has shown to be a great choice.
I enjoy working with multiple companies and people (as an advisor, Fractional CTO, coach/mentor) and I am prioritizing the focus on improving this newsletter + the course and it has paid dividends.
We went from 625 → 917 paid subscribers on the newsletter from October to today, which is a 46.7% increase.
And we’ve been able to keep improving the course and increase attendance in every cohort.
Focusing on too many things at once, won’t give great results
Newsletter, course and LinkedIn → these were my main focuses for this year. That’s why I didn’t pursue other platforms like YouTube. I believe I would be spreading my focus on too many different things.
Have laser focus and make sure you really get to know the platform that you are working with and understand the ins and outs and how to get the most out of it. I believe that’s how you achieve the best outcomes.
Just putting your energy all over the place in many different things, might get you results if you’re lucky, but most of the time it won’t in my opinion.
Once you get a hang of the platform → put your focus on additional, that’s the approach I’m advocating for and my personal strategy as well.
Goals for the next year
150k - 200k subscribers
1500 - 2000 paid subscribers
100k+ LinkedIn community (let’s try! I’ve teamed up with
on this goal)Continuously improve the newsletter and look for ways to provide additional benefits
Continuously improve the course and look for ways to improve the experience further
1 new product in addition to the newsletter and the course (book, course, something else)
Continue doing live events, podcasts, guest articles
Continue speaking at conferences and events
Expand on 1 other platform outside of LinkedIn, X and Bluesky and look to provide value there as well
Last words
It’s going to be an awesome year 2025, I can feel it! I am already excited to start the year at the pace where we left off and focus on continuously improving in all areas.
Thank you for your continuous support 🙏 I wish you an amazing start of the new year 2025!
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Whenever you are ready, here is how I can help you further
Join the Cohort course Senior Engineer to Lead: Grow and thrive in the role here.
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Want to work with me? You can see all the options here.
Get in touch
You can find me on LinkedIn or X or Bluesky.
If you wish to make a request on particular topic you would like to read, you can send me an email to info@gregorojstersek.com.
This newsletter is funded by paid subscriptions from readers like yourself.
If you aren’t already, consider becoming a paid subscriber to receive the full experience!
You are more than welcome to find whatever interests you here and try it out in your particular case. Let me know how it went! Topics are normally about all things engineering related, leadership, management, developing scalable products, building teams etc.
It has been such an inspiring journey, Gregor.
What I like the most about your newsletter is how human-centric it feels despite the topics being on the tech world.
Amazing year, journey, and numbers, Gregor! Keep rocking! 🚀