2015 – Not bad, not bad at all.

I was tempted at the end of 2014 to let thewoodfather.com slide into a state of decay; updating was just becoming too tedious and time consuming. I was working 2 full time jobs, one was an overnight shiftwork position, and I was quite simply tired all the time. And even with all that work, I was somehow still always short of cash to spend on new tools or materials!

The only reason I didn’t throw in the towel is because I am a huge tightwad; I’d already paid for a years worth of web hosting, so I had to keep it going until that year was up! I’m incredibly glad that I did, as the year ended up exceeding all my expectations for the site.

I need to say a big thankyou to all viewers and readers over the past 12 months, I really never thought more than a couple people would stumble across the site but I’m very pleased with the amount of traffic that does come my way. I get an incredible amount of emails as well, I try my hardest to reply to them all, but I know I miss a lot, please, just email me again!

Who likes stats? I like stats!

This is just a quick graph showing new visitors to my site, notice a little jump after I start putting some effort in and release new content? 🙂

In total during 2015, my plans have been downloaded almost 30,000 times! Holy cow!

I think that is incredible! Maybe I should start charging? Nah, free is fun.

 

By far the most popular plans are the Mega Nike Shoe boxes. Over 17,000 downloads for them!

In April I think, I decided to build a giant shoebox for a friend of mine. He ended up not having the room for it in his house, so I advertised it on facebook instead. It sold within 5 minutes. And that set me off for the past 8 months, all I’ve been doing is building and shipping out these boxes, it’s amazing how many requests I get for them.

They are fun to make, just time consuming, bulky and pricey. Doesn’t help that my two main suppliers put their prices up on the stock I use as well. But, people keep buying them and I’ve managed to make a little bit of money out of it as well so I can’t complain. It wouldn’t be fair to complain either, I’m making money from woodworking, that was a really long term goal I had set for myself. Not everyone gets to make money from a hobby so got to be happy with that!

Next most downloaded is the Single Blade Box Joint Jig, now I’m really proud of this one. Over 9000 downloads of something that I thought up and designed myself. Good feeling.

This video and the plans were shared an insane amount of times, insane to me at least, and quickly became my most popular video at the time. Jay Bates even built a version of it and kindly linked to my site and video which was a huge leg up. Many thanks Jay!

I’ve had so many different woodworkers make that jig and send photos through of it or projects they’ve built on it, that’s an idea I’m pretty proud of!

And the final project that worked out well and was shared around a bit was my panel layout program, Fit It! I need to update and advertise it more, but it is definitely a great little piece of software, very helpful. It’s saved me heaps of money already, and has even brought in a little bit as well which is very much appreciated.

I am tempted to change the name of the program though, it doesn’t really roll off the tongue. If you haven’t tested it out yet, there is a free trial available here too.

Plus there were a few thousand downloads of my other free plans, really amazing I never thought I’d get to anything like that. I actually installed a couple of different apps behind the scenes to count downloads on the site, I thought for sure the figures were being inflated. But nope, all three counters agree on the number. Incredible, is the word.

And for the future of the site? Looking good. I started a new job around 6 months ago, and I’m starting to finally get my head around it I think. I spent the first 4 months of it working all day and then studied all night, but now I find that that study is paying off and I can spend more of my home time on other things.

I have a couple videos ready to go and some different projects from what I’ve done in the past so it’ll be fun to see how they are received. I also sat down and created a list of what I want to build this year, there is some fun stuff on there that I can’t wait to get to. I also want to drastically improve my videography skills. A new computer would really help with that so in a few months an upgrade may be on the cards.

I think the main thing I need to focus on is being consistent. I’m not strict enough on when I update the site and release new content, I really have to buckle down and sort that out. Now that I am a Mon-Fri, 9-5er, I think that Sunday night Australian time is probably the best time for me to release stuff. It means even if I’ve struggled during the week, I have the full weekend to prepare.

So that’s what I plan on doing from this coming sunday. 

Did anyone make it this far down the page? Congrats, here’s a spoiler for you then! First project of the new year? A letterbox, (mailbox for US readers), that I made from some Spotted Gum offcuts. Came out really nice too.

 

Ok, I think I’ve written enough now. I’ll close up by saying thank you to everyone again, I really appreciate your support and wouldn’t have lasted this long without it.

All the best, and have a happy, safe and productive new year!

Mario ‘TheWoodfather’ Cappellano