2025 Year In Review
2025 was a whirlwind first year for Sustainable Support.
On November 22, 2024 I purchased this domain name, after only briefly considering paying the premium domain price for the two-word version.
At the time, I had a stable job in corporate technical support management, and no desire or inclination that my status would change. I genuinely loved my role, my team, and the leadership of the company.
As the year unfolded, things changed slowly at first and then rapidly > faster > abruptly when an announced restructure made my role redundant, followed a few months later by being a part of the layoffs needed to bring that restructure to fruition.
That slow > fast > faster > abrupt dynamic pushed the Sustainable Support brand in specific ways in three main areas that I’ll outline in their own sections below.
Slow: The Book
I’ll skip the pre-2025 backstory, except to say that in the summer of 2024 I announced to my wife (afraid to announce to the world yet) that I was writing a book.
The first public hint came on January 1, 2025:
I’m about to launch a book …and I dare one of you to ask for a friends and family discount. The Friends and Family “discount” is an additional $13 because you’ve met my kids and prefer that they eat well. Subject to change.
While supplies (and friends) last.
From there, Q1 saw no less than 30 hours per week spent after the kids were in bed or before they got up chipping away at the book. That “last 10%” sure took longer than anticipated.
It was released on March 20th to as much fanfare as I could muster.
As one who doesn’t normally use social media for self-promotion or direct asks, this was emotionally hard on me. To say “go buy my book” while providing no other real value felt slimy. I (mostly) pushed back on those emotions and asked as directly as I could. In retrospect, I could have done more direct selling to the target market.
When it comes to sales, I don’t think I could have done any better with friends and family—quite a few of them now own a copy of a technical support book they have absolutely no need for, and it’s probably gathering dust on their shelves.
I lost count of how many folks who just love me and want to support said “I bought it, but I haven’t read it.”
I could (and will) do better promoting it among the people that actually need the book: managers, supervisors, support team leads, and even agents themselves stand to make gigantic professional strides.
I also connected intentionally with my network of leaders past, present, and even hopeful future to directly ask for book reviews, sending advanced copies of the book.
The audiobook (which I recorded, edited, and produced by myself) was released on May 23rd. It’s the one piece that is the biggest miss so far, having only sold 3 copies. There’s bonus material in the audiobook that literally nobody has heard, and it was nearly as much work as the book to produce. My 2026 goals below reflect a new strategy for the audiobook.
For transparency, here’s the numbers:
- I personally reached out to 25 contacts to ask for a review.
- 5 of those folks provided a review or endorsement.
- Final word count: 12,242.
- Audiobook length: 1 hour 51 minutes (if you can tolerate my southern drawl at 1.0 speed.)
- Total 2025 sales (any format): 88
- Royalty revenue: $694.36
Launch day was fun, as the book (propelled by 25+ pre-sales) made it as high as #19 in one category on the Amazon charts.
I count it as one of my proudest vocational moments to have released my first book.
Rapidly: The Coaching Calls.
Sometime in Q2 (exact dates lost with my old work calendar), the wind shifted at the day job. Nothing concrete—just unease and a lack of clear direction from new leadership.
I had a choice: spiral into dread over things I couldn’t control, or live out one of the core (often unspoken) principles of Sustainable Support: control what you can control.
The system works.
Instead of stewing, I channeled that energy into building an offramp. I started reaching out—uncomfortably—to leader friends in tech, offering consulting focused on Technical Support and Customer Experience (CX).
I’ve since landed one steady client for regular coaching calls. The experience has been invaluable, sharpening exactly what value I can deliver to small businesses or individual leaders inside larger ones.
To date, those coaching calls have earned me $800 (minus some transaction fees).
The biggest takeaway for me personally has been that everything has pointed back to helping leaders set up an objective, repeatable system to get DATA on how their teams are performing. Most data collected by existing CX monitoring tools are helpful for measuring sales, but not measuring how sustainable the support system is overall.
More Rapidly Still: Urgent need for (personal) liquidity.
On Saturday, October 11, I was killing time in a tire shop waiting room while the family minivan got new tires. That same day, our rental property tenants were late on rent, and family health expenses were eating into savings—despite still having a full-time job.
Nothing sparks creativity like urgency.
I pulled out my phone and started brainstorming (with an overly agreeable AI assistant) ways to turn expertise into quick cash.
Two ideas launched that day.
Thing 1: Customer Experience Audits
Product owners know their product too well. It’s nearly impossible for them to write beginner-friendly onboarding from a true newcomer’s perspective.
New customers end up taking far too long to experience the value that justified their purchase.
My done-for-you audit service bridges that gap.
I booked my first client shortly after launch (again via uncomfortable outreach to an industry friend). The work was exhilarating—I got to dive in and highlight issues the busy founder hadn’t even noticed.
2025 revenue from the product audit service: $1500
Thing 2: The CRR Tool
Both the coaching calls and the audits helped me to really hone in on the spot in the market where Sustainable Support sits as a brand: philosophy about support is helpful, but leaders need to put repeatable, trackable data in place to be able to actually transfer that philosophy (and the results it produces) to the whole team.
There’s literally no software out there tracking the correct metrics that will actually produce the type of support teams that CEOs like to brag about having.
Also on October 11th sitting there in the tire shop the idea for the CRR Tool was born.
After several nights of coding, I built a prototype of a tool that enforces the philosophy, leadership style, and grading scale I use.
In addition to selling it, I also gave free copies to my team leads at work, and they began using it (alongside me) to see how it really works.
Generally speaking, it does the job. Because it has no database under it, and no way to truly save the data without exporting to a Google sheet or CSV, it’s certainly got room for improvement.
I was looking for revenue fast, and so I created it as a product on this site. Because it’s a prototype, I priced it so low that I don’t think anyone took it seriously.
Total sales on the tool: 1 😒
Total revenue: $25 minus fees.
So yeah, fast revenue. Just not much.
I knew in creating the tool that I was making a “scratcher” for an itch that almost nobody currently feels. (see above: very few people have read the book!)
Before I build it into a micro-SaaS (which I had started to brainstorm, and where I want to go with it) I’ve got a messaging and branding problem. I need to get the problem clearly defined in my target audience’s mind before I have any need to build the solution.
Abruptly: The Holding Pattern.
On October 29th I noticed a mystery meeting that got added to my work calendar, and got to participate in the (honestly way more comfortable for me than them) process of being laid off.
Once the shock of the day wore off, I immediately fell headlong into Sustainable Support.
Had there been no immediate needs financially, or if the layoff had taken a few weeks or months longer to happen, it’s highly likely that the tool would have started out as a micro-SaaS product. That’s still my goal for 2026.
I couldn’t afford the risk of dumping 3-6 months of effort and money into building a SaaS without any income, so the layoff sped up coaching and audit marketing (which doubled as job-hunting), and paused building on the tool.
Out to be more fully IN: 2026 Goals.
I wasn’t planning to leave corporate tech support, but shortly after the layoff, a dream opportunity appeared in a related field. I’m now full-time in a role I love.
Paradoxically, this stability lets me be more committed to growing Sustainable Support on the side.
We’re back to “slow”—but with the huge advantage of a real-world dry run at going all-in.
Here are my measurable 2026 goals (we’ll check back next year):
- Book 5 CX audits
- Sign 2 additional regular coaching clients
- Sell or give away 300 books (any format)
- At least 100 of those as direct-site audiobook sales
- (Moonshot) Launch a micro-SaaS for internal Support QA
The first two goals are deliberately modest. With three kids, a full-time job, and other responsibilities, I can’t overcommit there and still have energy to build a SaaS.
Ignoring the calls and audits entirely would disconnect me from real user needs.
On the book goal: my true objective is that people read and apply it, not just own it. Selling or even giving away copies on a street corner would mostly create expensive coasters.
I need better ways to track actual consumption (the current weak “email me your thoughts” plea at the end of the book isn’t cutting it). Whatever tactics I use must prioritize getting the ideas into the right hands and minds.
Despite the ups and downs, 2025 has been one of the best years of my working life. If you’ve read this far, I have you to thank for it. Here’s to 2026!
