Best of 2025 at your founder next door
Best stuff from 2025 & favorite end of year reflections template.
Hi, it’s Melissa, and welcome (back) to “your founder next door”, a weekly publication with stories and tidbits of my human journey bootstrapping eWebinar to $5m ARR. No BS, just straight-up truth bombs on what it’s like to build a company without an abundance of resources or friends in high places.
Here’s my year end round up of the most popular stuff I wrote this year, the best things I read this year, and my favorite year end reflections template with 19 questions to help you wrap up 2025 with a bow, and kick off 2026 with a bang. 🎉
Top 3 Substack articles:
How I guested on 99 podcasts for free in 2 years - Every bootstrapped founder should get on podcast marketing now.
How I went from chasing unicorns to bootstrapping - Why bootstrapping is better than raising venture capital.
The only way to live the life you want is to design it - My evolution from working 24/7 to intentionally designing all aspects of my life around maximizing happiness and enjoyment.
Top 3 LinkedIn posts:
It’s been 18 months since I’ve shown up here consistently. I’m finally ready to tell you why. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I couldn’t. - See this post
“I’m just looking to exit for $10m.” Says every founder. 🙄- See this post
I don’t do any live demos, we don’t have a salesperson. Yet, 5265 prospects saw our demo last year with a trial conversion of 11.6%. 🤯- See this post
Two podcast seasons I wrapped up:
ProfitLed Season Two - Our Journey to $1M ARR at eWebinar: profitled.fm
UnicornPrn Season One - unicornprn.com
Best things I read this year:
Get my favorite year end reflections template:
I’ve always found it more helpful to reflect on the past year than to set resolutions for the next one. There’s something special about closing out a year with a journal entry I can revisit in the future to remind me of all the things that happened. It’s become my end-of-year ritual.
Here is my favorite list of 19 questions you can use to do the same.
Get the template HERE!
Thank you for your support this year, and wishing you the best year yet in 2026! 🚀🥂
Till next time,
— Melissa ✌️
👋 If you enjoyed this read, would you please consider restacking it and sharing it with your audience?
This spreads the word and keeps me writing content that will inspire founders to keep doing what they’re doing, knowing they’re not alone.
Love the “no BS” framing. The podcast and no-live-demo angle is especially useful for scrappy teams distribution plus product doing the selling. Respect :)