- What's up, Trainiacs?
So, 2018, it's about to come to an end.
As we've been doing for the past little while,
we are taking a trip down memory lane
and what I've been doing just recently
is thinking back to what were
the goals that I set over 2018,
what did I want to accomplish over 2018.
So I went back and I watched the video
of my goals for 2018 that I shot this time last year,
and we're gonna see how I did.
Alright, sounds thrilling, doesn't it.
(upbeat music)
Alright, so we are all Christmasy up in here.
I don't know if you noticed, but we've got
the green Philips Hue and it's kinda subtle,
but we got red right across there,
so festive, I'm just, I'm just that kind of guy.
Alright, let's look back on 2018 and see how I did.
Well, I gotta say that we have taken a couple
of very serious left turns over the course of the year.
However, it's been an amazing year at the same time.
Rolled with some punches, learned a few lessons.
The couple of left turns were, A,
I started and stopped the Trainiask Podcast,
and I learned a very important lesson that,
as we're trying to grow this, that it can't just be
all things to all people all the time.
We can't stretch ourselves too thin because,
from that standpoint, if we just keep doing more
and more and more and more, we're not gonna be good
at anything, so I had to stop the Trainiask Podcast
even though it was starting to get upwards
of 2,000 downloads an episode times five episodes a week.
That's a lot of downloads, and it was really
good interaction, but it was also taking away from
some of the things that we're starting to look at.
It was not allowing me to research
the Triathlon Taren Podcast, it was also
then kind of taking away from what we were building
with Team Trainiac, like if people are paying
to have my help on Team Trainiac, but they can also
just get an answer from you if they submit a question
to the Trainiask Podcast, it was just
too many things, and we had to simplify.
In addition to that, I can't show the video anymore,
I can't even go like, hey, it's up here,
because the old developer that took the first crack
at the Team Trainiac platform created a privacy claim
with that video, and it got taken down, unfortunately.
That was probably the biggest lesson of the year,
and looking back on it, like, what would I do?
I don't know, I'm not a software developer,
I'm not a software company, I had
a guy that I thought I trusted.
I don't know, maybe when he came to me
and made some offers, do some background checking.
I don't know, I caught a lot of flack
for how I dealt with it on the internet,
but what do you expect, like I'm going into a business
that I know nothing about, I'm gonna make
some mistakes, and I made some mistakes.
However, the new platform is miles better
than what would have happened with that original developer,
way better, it's gonna be amazing.
Early January, looking at a little bit of growth numbers,
give you some context, YouTube almost doubled.
I think we had 27,000 subscribers when we rolled over
to 2018, and we've got about 24,000 more,
I've got I think 52, in between 52 and 53.
Instagram basically doubled, just under 31,000,
and the podcast grew to being, if you haven't heard this,
you might not have heard this, I don't really talk
about this, but the Triathlon Taren Podcast,
it's the most highly rated and ranked triathlon podcast
in the world on Apple Podcast, did you know that?
I didn't know if you knew that, I rarely talk about it.
And we get about double the downloads.
Where we were getting at the beginning of the year
somewhere in between about four and 5,000 downloads,
now we're upwards like seven to eight.
Getting some really cool guests,
been a crazy fun year with the podcast.
NTK is most of the talent because
she does the editing and asks
the good questions, and I just try not to swear.
Now soft stuff, we've also kind of established ourselves
in the industry, I mean, we're still not,
I think, a regular name out there.
We did have to fight a little bit with IRONMAN
to get media accreditation, because
they didn't really know what we were,
but then once we got in touch with them
and sort of explained what we do, and then more
of the people around IRONMAN who knew what we do
lobbied for us, they're like, yeah, Taren's doing
really cool stuff, then we got media accreditation,
and then we got media accreditation again
in Kona, and we go to conferences now,
and apparently people know about us.
We go to industry events and people know about us.
We make requests to have people on the podcast,
and they're like, yeah, I've heard about you.
So whereas in 2017, going to Kona, we were keeping busy,
but a lot of the things that we were keeping busy doing
was just trying to meet people, because they didn't know
who we were, and they were apprehensive about meeting us
and taking time out of their schedule for us,
whereas this year, we are busy because
of all the obligations that we already had lined up.
We couldn't fit everything in, and they were incoming.
It was totally different, it was really cool.
In addition to that, when we were in Kona
in 2017, few people reached out, said hi.
This year, 2018, we met so many
new friends, that was really cool.
Now let's get into some of the goals that I had for 2018.
Number one, I wanted to create a free resource
for you every two months, I believe in 2017,
right at the end, we had three free resources.
That means that by the end of the year,
we would have had nine, we got nine,
we got more than nine, we got lots.
From that standpoint, we grew the amount of people
that have downloaded some sort of
a free resource, a training plan,
a learn-to-swim program, a strength training program.
25,000 people have done that, whereas
we had about 5,000 at the end of last year.
Knowing that we have helped that many people for free,
and get into the sport, and train more intelligently,
more efficiently, not just beat themselves into a pulp
with hours and hours upon training,
but do it really smart, that I really like.
Next, race schedule, it was not as busy as I had hoped.
I wanted to do a race in March, do maybe two races
in July, and then peak for Half-IRONMAN Worlds.
Didn't do the March race, I was still banged up,
still injured, I didn't do two more races,
I did one little kind of tune-up Olympic,
which PB'd, and then I did Coeur d'Alene, where I PB'd,
and then I did Half-IRONMAN Worlds, where I PB'd.
So the performances, I was really happy with
from a triathlon standpoint, but it came with,
I had to juggle things, I had to drop things.
I had told you that I was going to be racing certain times,
and I didn't, because I had to change them,
so I'll call that like halfway.
And then this was the big goal, this was the big goal,
I think it was literally sitting right here
in the same spot with these same Philips Hue fancy lights
in behind me, where I said at the end of 2018,
I wanted Triathlon Taren to be all that we did.
So it's important that I get Triathlon Taren
to a point that it's stable enough that
it's all that we do so we can keep doing it.
And that was important to me to be able to step away
from doing social media consulting work for clients
and just be able to do this, because that would have meant
that this has longevity and that I can do
something meaningful that helps people in the world
for the rest of my life, and it's not reliant
on basically having money funding it from elsewhere,
that this was a business in itself, because that means
that I can be around and I can help people
get into the sport and train intelligently
and all that good stuff for years and years to come.
Is it the only thing that we do, yes.
Is it because it's a self-sustaining business, no.
We had wound down all of the social media consulting work
we were doing, expecting the Triathlon Trainiac platform
to be very busy and taking over what we do.
It's not launched yet because of the difficulties
and the left turns that we took in the year,
and we're on a little bit of precarious footing,
but I think, I really think that we can get to the point
very soon in 2019 that between the Team Trainiac
and between the pro masterclasses with Lucy Charles,
with Cam Wurf, with other potentially
yet-to-be-announced athletes, go to
TriathlonTaren.com/earlymasterclass if you wanna see
everyone that's officially announced.
Between those couple of things,
I think we got ourselves a business.
I'm pretty sure that within the first
half of 2019, this is gonna be it.
We can do this with your help, Trainiacs,
and I have you to thank for that.
And that is the biggest thing that
I look at as a massive success from 2018.
We have so many new friends, whereas in 2017,
we had people that we were starting to know,
but now we've got all kinds of legitimate
new people that I can consider friends.
Ventum, they came over and had a bunch
of wine on our lanai after Kona.
Pros, whether it's Sarah True coming up
and just hanging out and killing some time
before her press conferences, or going for the warm-up rides
with Danielle Vignon at Coeur d'Alene,
there are legitimately pros that, when,
in news day, I'm like hey, you know
my pal Matt Russell, legitimately a pal.
And then down to the people that watch the videos,
Cindy and Phil who hosted us in Coeur d'Alene,
like actually friends that we're talking about
going and racing a destination race together.
Like, that is what the best part of triathlon is,
it's the friends that you meet, the people
that you train with, the people that you race with
in destination races with, the people you travel with.
It's not the times, it's not the being
a super A-type awesome triathlete, it's about
being a better person with the people around you.
Your friends, your family, your connections,
your training partners, and we have met
some awesome people, had the support of some
fantastic companies, and I can't thank everyone enough.
I'm really excited for where 2019 is headed.
2018, well, we've had some bumps,
I gotta say it's a success, it's been a lot of fun,
it's been really tough, but I owe you all
a big thank you for being along for the ride,
and especially when times have got tough,
being there and being supportive.
You're extremely motivating to me,
you give me the motivation to get
out here and train every single morning.
You give me the motivation to get out here
and learn about how to be a better leader
and be a better teacher and learn more things
about triathlon so that I can share it
with you, and I owe that all to you.
And a little bit to NTK, and a lot to Mel,
so thank everyone that's been involved.
This is not just the Triathlon Taren YouTube channel,
this is Triathlon Taren with NTK,
with Mel, with some awesome Trainiacs,
with some awesome companies, so thanks, everyone.
Make sure you're subscribed for 2019, later, Trainiacs.