The Fifth Fourth

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Chris Coyier on (Updated on )

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Half a decade. That’s how old CSS-Tricks turns today. That means it’s time for the annual state of the union as we’ve done on it’s 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th birthdays. That reminds me. Obligatory stock art fireworks:

Kickstarter

The big news for CSS-Tricks right at this moment is the Kickstarter for the redesign is closing today. I timed it to end on CSS-Tricks birthday for a super double celebration.

When I was preparing it, I was fairly sure I’d make the $3,500 goal. That number was a bit arbitrary (there are no real fixed costs to this project), it just represented about one month of expenses for me. I thought perhaps it’ll hit $10,000 and that would be amazing or maybe it’ll go nuts at hit $20,000. So the fact that this will wrap up around $80,000 is pretty crazy. I am trying to replace a very good job with my own projects, so this is all the proof I need that it’s possible. Hearts to you all. Oh, and the money will be well used – a lot will be re-invested in the redesign project and this site in general.

Summertime

The summer is such a crazy time of year. There is always so much going on. This time of year I always go to a couple of music festivals.

Last year at this time I went to those festivals, then drove back to my folks house in Wisconsin in my VW Westfalia Vanagon (I’ve since sold that and got a truck and popup trailer instead). I left the van and my dog there and flew back to Florida where I was living at the time to pack up my house and move to California. Wufoo had been acquired and I was pretty much the last of the team to get out there and start working at SurveyMonkey. The next week, my buddy drove the van and my dog from Wisconsin. I spent the whole year working for SurveyMonkey which was fun and rewarding work. Great group of folks.

This summer will continue to be very busy. I’ll be furiously working on the redesign. My sister is getting married. I’m headed to BarCamp NOLA and UX Mad. I’m driving back to California after a few months in Wisconsin. I’m doing the CSS Summit. And who knows what else!

The Big Three

In May, I left full time employment to deeper pursue my own projects. I’ll be focusing on my the big three this year:

CSS-Tricks: v10 Redesign. Building the private access area to distribute the screencasts and such (Kickstarter thing). Finish the almanac. Increase the volume of writing (and all content production).

CodePen: Work like crazy on it to get it out of Beta by fall, meaning the bug list is squished and it is in good shape for growth. Figure out some monetization stuff including pro accounts (we have some really juicy features in planning). Figure out some marketing and promotion strategies.

ShopTalk Show: New site design. 2.0 season with big batch of fresh guests. Keep steady schedule with Dave trying not to miss any weeks. Sprinkle in as many rapidfire (all Q&A, no guests) shows as we can.

Being totally off on my own now I would expect to be feeling some worry or at least uncertainly, but I don’t feel that way at all. I have a solid plan for the year and plenty of work that I can’t wait to get started on each morning.