This happened to me in 2024 – Year in Review

2024 has come to an end, and I am grateful for all the new opportunities as well as the difficult unforeseen challenges that I faced this year.

On the personal front, this was one of the most emotionally challenging years of my life despite all the amazing accomplishments on the business side. I truly believe everything happens FOR you, not to you … and this core belief has been very helpful during difficult moments.

I’m blessed beyond my wildest dreams, and I feel that I am ending the year with greater clarity & direction for 2025.

Since everything happens so fast, I usually don’t get a chance to document it all in one place. This is why I do a yearly recap (2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015), so I can keep a diary for myself to reflect on as I get older. This is actually my 10th year end recap, and it’s pretty cool to go back and read through previous years.

I have also been told by many friends, family members, and readers that they love my year end recaps, so that is just double motivation for me to write this blog post.

Plus, I think it’s going to be helpful for Solomon as well.

Let’s take a look back at everything that happened this year (caution: it’s very long).

TLDR: I turned 34 years old, visited 9 countries including a new continent (Australia), passed the milestone of over 30 million websites using our software, completed 5 business acquisitions + numerous investments, had my first and then many panic attacks (it sucks), but I’m ending the year with a lot of positive things shaping up for 2025.

Personal Highlights

This year was filled with a lot of ups and downs, and it really made me question everything that I am doing and the WHY behind it.

On the positive front, my dream of having more family members living within walking / biking distance continued to become a reality. This year, both my parents and my uncle moved into our neighborhood. Solomon, Amanda, and I regularly walk or bike to their houses. Now Solomon has both sides of grandparents within a short biking distance.

Having so many family members close to us is truly one of the greatest gifts of life.

On the challenging side, I went through some really dark points when dealing with anxiety & panic attacks, but ultimately I am in a much better place now (more on this later).

I believe all things happen for a reason, and while I can’t control the events, I can choose how I react to them. Gratitude helps shape our attitude.

Like every year, I’m grateful for the ability to build amazing family memories through shared experiences.

We returned home from our Pakistan trip a day before the New Year. Few days later, I flew to Greenville, NC for the MFM basketball event organized by my friends Shaan Puri and Jimmy Donaldson (aka Mr. Beast).

It was great hanging out with bunch of smart entrepreneur friends, sharing ideas, and playing basketball.

Later in January, we went to Punta Mita, Mexico (at our favorite resort) with my friend Thomas Griffin. Thomas and I co-founded OptinMonster together in 2013. It was great spending time with him and discussing plans for the year.

I really enjoy the vibes there because it helps me get in the right mindset.

In February, I flew to Scottsdale, Arizona to meet with my friends in a mastermind group. Our friend Yaniv (CMO at Nextiva) did an amazing job hosting us.

We shared growth hacks, business ideas, challenges, recorded podcast episodes, and of course played some basketball + pickleball.

Didn’t take many photos, but here’s a good one from our group dinner.

Later in the month, I flew to Sofia, Bulgaria for the first time to visit my friend Tenko, founder of SiteGround.

Normally we meet in the US, but since I was going to be in Europe already, I decided to visit Bulgaria. I had an amazing time, thanks to the awesome SiteGround team especially Monika, Hristo, Nikolay, Reneta, and of course Tenko & Evo.

For those who don’t know, I actually host a lot of my websites with SiteGround, and I highly recommend them. Over the years we’ve become great friends. It’s inspiring to see what Tenko and Evo are doing with SiteGround as well as their numerous investment in Bulgaria and beyond.

After Bulgaria, I went to Istanbul, Turkey for my Growth Fund meetup. I am absolutely in love with Turkey, and I wanted everyone to experience it.

We had a great time, and for many in the group this was their first time there. Aside from our AM mastermind, we also did some fun things like visiting Hagia Sophia as well as getting a private cruise on the Bosphorus.

Later in March, we visited Atlanta zoo because Solomon wanted to see a Panda. This was a lot of fun. Seeing Solomon’s reactions was priceless.

During the trip, we also did other Atlanta things like visiting the Coca Cola museum, Atlanta aquarium, etc.

In April, we celebrated Eid at my house. We had the whole family over, and it was a lot of fun.

Later in the month, I went to Canada for the annual TED conference with my friend Mohnish Pabrai and Guy Spier. While there, I also had the pleasure to meet and have lunch with Li Lu.

I also connected with old friends like Matt Mickiewicz (founder of 99designs, Flippa, etc), Denys (founder of Sparkmail, etc), and others.

In May, I flew to Cancun, Mexico for our annual company retreat. As always, this was a lot of fun and high energy event.

Solomon actually wanted to speak at the event and do part of my keynote talk, so I had him do the Welcome part before the opening keynote (proud dad moment).

Later in the month, we organized a laser tag event for our family during one of the weekends. It was a lot of fun to have all our parents, cousins, and everyone involved.

After laser tag, we went on to have a water balloon fight which was even more fun.

In June, we flew to England. I had to be there for my bi-annual forum meetup. Amanda, Solomon, and my brother Zain joined as well.

It was Solomon and Zain’s first time there, so we did some sightseeing first. We went to Stonehenge, and it was awesome. I highly recommend getting there before sunrise.

We also did a city tour of London with a photographer who followed us around. I highly recommend it because the photos turned out amazing.

I split up from the family and went to Richmond Green to hang out with my forum group. As always it was extremely insightful, but I think the highlight for me was playing cricket with Guy and Mohnish on the Richmond Green field.

Thank you Guy for organizing it 🙂

Later, I rejoined with the family in London, and we flew to Turin, Italy for WordCamp Europe. My friend David Henzel surprised me by joining us there.

It was great seeing so many WordPress friends, and I also completed an acquisition for BuddyBoss while there (more on this in Business Highlights).

In July, I wanted to visit India, but as someone who was born in Pakistan, the process is very difficult even though I’m a US citizen, have a company in India, and pay tax there. I applied for the visa, but it didn’t arrive in time for the dates I wanted to visit.

I eventually got a highly-restricted single entry approval to visit India, but they rejected Solomon’s visa (even though he is born in US). If someone is reading this who can help make it possible for our family to visit India, I would love to visit India, see the historical sites, and also visit our team there.

Since we couldn’t do India, we decided to visit Australia for the first time.

We went to Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Uluru (formerly known as Ayers Rock).

I really enjoyed hanging out with Josh Kohlbach, founder of Rymera Web, one of my growth fund companies. I also got to hangout with my college roommate who now lives in Australia.

Our trip back from Australia really made me realize how far away it is because the Crowdstrike outage happened on the day we were supposed to fly back.

All flights were cancelled, and we were basically going to be stuck in Sydney for multiple days. Luckily, I found an alternative route within few hours with Emirates to bring us back home, but it ended up being a 40 hour+ journey.

We circumnavigated the globe on this trip for the first time, and that’s pretty cool although we were all exhausted.

In August, I decided to stay home for the month since Solomon was starting at his new school, and I was really struggling with panic attacks.

My friend David Henzel came over to visit along with Chris Ueland, and it’s always great hanging out with these two. We had a great time playing Uno while discussing cyber security, business, and investments.

In September, I flew to Cabo, Mexico for my growth fund meetup and AM mastermind with all our company leaders.

As always, the event was extremely productive. We tried a new format for presentations, and it worked really well. Basically no presentation can be longer than 10 minutes.

This allowed us to share more actionable ideas and strategies (without the fluff). I wish all learning sessions are like that. It really changed the energy level.

Solomon started playing in a youth basketball league for the first time. It was really fun watching him get better at the sport. Here’s the cutest photo of him playing defense at the very first game. He got much better as the season went on.

Later in September, I attended WordCamp US in Portland, Oregon. The event was great as I got to connect with so many of my WordPress friends and establish new partnerships with companies that I like.

This was my first time visiting Portland, and the city felt extremely unsafe to me. I almost couldn’t believe that I was still in America. The amount of drug needles on the streets, people sleeping on sidewalks, everything in CVS shelves locked up including Pringles, etc. This was all very sad to see.

In October, I celebrated my 34th birthday. Amanda got me a harmonium because I really love Qawwali music. Although I have no idea how to play any musical instruments, but here is a photo of me attempting lol:

Later in the month, I visited Houston to see Rahat Fateh Ali Khan concert with my friend Mohnish Pabrai. It was a lot of fun. I never got to see Nusrat Fateh play live but have seen Rahat numerous times, and he’s a legend.

Here’s a link to get an idea of his music: Afreen / Raag performance at Nobel peace prize concert.

Towards end of October, we celebrated Solomon’s 8th birthday party and then went to Oman.

I have never visited Oman before, and I really loved our time there. The landscape of ocean, mountains, and desert was just incredible. People are very nice and the country is very quite & peaceful.

In November, we went to Dubai because I was attending an investing event there.

This time, we also visited Abu Dhabi while there and I really liked the architecture there. I also got to hang out with my friend Harsh Agrawal while there, and that was fun.

Later in the month, I visited Washington DC for my bi-annual forum meetup. This particular meeting was very helpful because the group helped bring a lot of clarity for me in certain big moves that I am planning for in 2025.

I am grateful for all the insights from my friend Mohnish, Mong-Gyu, Jeff, Dante, Josh, and Guy.

Also the weather this time in DC was just perfect. We don’t see this many fall colors in Florida, so it was a good change. The photos turned out really great.

In December, I was initially planning to visit Japan, but we had a wedding in the family. Pakistani weddings are a multiple days celebration that can be spread across multiple weekends, so I decided to stay home.

We did go on a local trip to St. Augustine with Amanda’s parents and her grandmother. I booked a Wander property because I heard the hype around these as being built for tech-savvy folks with all the remote work setup, high speed internet, tech-enabled homes, etc.

Unfortunately my experience was underwhelming. The property was not luxury, didn’t match the description, and attention to details were simply lacking. For example, the bed configuration in rooms didn’t match the listing, the work station wasn’t fully functional, etc. Anyways, I hope they improve their attention to details.

On the positive side, the views in St. Augustine were wonderful.

Later in the month, we attended the many events for my cousin’s wedding including one in Michigan as well.

We’re home for the New Year, and I’m really enjoying the weather. We don’t get many cold days in South Florida, so it’s a good chance.

Panic Attacks (Crazy Experience + Learnings)

Beginning of this year, my grandmother passed away. She was the last of my grandparents alive, and her loss was emotionally challenging. I’m so glad that I got to see her just a few weeks before on our trip to Pakistan. If you have grandparents that are alive, I highly encourage you to spend time with them (see this article on The Tail End by Tim Urban for perspective).

My default coping mechanism has always been to immerse myself into work, and that has worked well for me until this year because a chain of events happened.

I came back from a multi-country trip only to discover that my mother was hospitalized the day that I landed. I rushed straight from the airport to the hospital and seeing my mom in the condition was hard. Between hospital, work, and extreme jet lag, it was a lot of juggling.

A day after my mom was discharged from hospital, we had to say goodbye to one of our dogs who’d been with us for 12 years.

The following week as I was immersed in work, drinking a lot of caffeine (my old normal), I experienced my first panic attack. At the time, I had no idea what was happening to me because the symptoms felt like what I would imagine is a heart attack: shortness of breath, rapid heart beat, dizziness, sweaty palms, and losing sensation in my hands.

I have never experienced anything like this before, and it really freaked me out. I get regular blood work / tests, and nothing concerning had showed up. Of course I had the doctors + cardiologist do a thorough analysis, and the diagnosis was that it was likely anxiety / panic attack.

At first, it was very hard to accept that because I was just doing my normal things — and there had to be something else. But I continued to experience high anxiety including full panic attacks at the most inconvenient times.

The anxiety became so dishabilitating that at times I didn’t want to do anything, see anyone, or even leave the house. This is very atypical of me because I am an extrovert, and I enjoy hanging out with friends & family.

Luckily, Amanda is a clinical psychologist, and she encouraged me to see a therapist. My recommendation is to choose someone who has actually experienced panic attacks. I felt I could relate to that person better.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) really works. You just have to commit to it. I didn’t want to take any anxiety medication due to side effect risks, so this was my primary choice. My therapist really helped me navigate the panic attacks, and it has drastically improved my ability to deal with anxiety.

While I’m not free of panic attacks because it’s just your body’s fight-or-flight response, I’m also not afraid of it either — this is the most important part.

During this journey, I realized that far too many people experience anxiety, but most never talk to anyone about it due to the stigma surrounding it. When I started opening up to friends, I realized many of my successful entrepreneur friends have also experienced this and are on the same path. Some are taking medications, others do therapy, morning rituals, etc to manage it better.

Here are the things that helped me with anxiety & panic attacks:

• Read this book: Don’t feed the Monkey Mind book – it was very helpful for me.
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) – therapy exercises to see if I could trigger panic attacks by myself to remove the fear of panic.
• Good sleep balance – I’m using the Oura ring to track my sleep and resilience. Calm app with Planets (Delta 110hz) music helps a lot.
• Giving up all caffeine – this was hard for about 3 days, and now I’m glad that I have gotten rid of the chemical addiction.
• Cold plunge every day – I never thought I would be saying this. I extremely disliked the idea of cold plunge or even cold showers, but now I have one in my house. I got Cuboid XL Pro because the dimensions worked for me (I’m quite tall). Aside from anxiety, it really helps with overall mental clarity and post-workout recovery.
• Journaling on high anxiety days.

Even though I would have preferred to go through life without ever experiencing any panic attacks, it definitely forced me to slow down and reflect deeply on so many areas of my life.

I am grateful for the experience even though it was extremely painful because it has given me a new perspective, appreciation, and empathy for everyone who has dealt with severe anxiety.

I firmly believe that this experience was a gift from the universe, and it will prove to be helpful later in my life’s journey as a father, brother, and mentor.

If you’ve ever struggled with anxiety or currently dealing with, then know that you can always reach out to me. I’d be happy to share my experience and learnings.

As I write this recap, I feel incredibly blessed to be able to do everything I did despite the challenges. This would not be possible without the support of my amazing wife, Amanda, who was with me every step of the way.

Choosing who you marry is one of the most important decisions of your life, and I definitely got lucky.

Business Highlights

2024 was another great year for the business. We completed 5 business acquisitions, made several growth fund investments, acquired majority stake in a business where I was previously a minority partner, and I exited a growth fund investment due to lack of founder alignment (more on this below in the Other Investments section).

We also passed another huge milestone of over 30 million websites using our software products. The impact our products make on the small business economy worldwide is truly incredible.

My goal has always been to make high quality software at affordable prices, so we can help more small businesses grow & compete with the big guys. I am proud of our team for living this mission every day and helping shape the web for billions worldwide.

Note: The Awesome Motive team is fully distributed (remote) with over 400+ team members in 50 countries. Want to join us, we’re hiring 🙂

Since I now have over 40+ companies, I will only share notable highlights from a select few. You can see more details on each product in our Newsroom.

WPForms

WPForms is a powerful drag & drop online form builder for WordPress that’s used by over 6 million websites. It’s one of the MUST HAVE plugins for all websites. Here’s a link to the WPForms free version.

This year, we added several powerful features including a brand new AI Form Builder along with AI Choices to make it even easier for you to create any type of forms within just a few seconds.

Aside from our powerful AI features, we also launched a major improvement to our powerful Conditional Logic to include smart layout fields. This allows you to apply conditional logic rules to entire block of fields inside your layout vs. doing it one field at a time. This makes it easier to create complex forms even faster.

We also launched over 40 new form themes along with the ability for you to easily create and save custom form templates. This allows you to streamline your workflow further. To create your own custom form template, you can either build a form from scratch or use one of our 2000+ pre-made form templates and customize from there.

Repeatable Form Fields was one of our most requested features, and we’re excited to bring this feature to the market. Our repeatable fields are the best in the market from ease of use perspective. Most other form builders make everything too complex. WPForms makes it easy!

We also launched native Slack Integration and Dropbox Integration to further streamline your workflow while saving you money.

You can probably see why WPForms is consistently rated the best WordPress form builder in the market.

WPForms team did their own 2024 Year in Review that I encourage you to check out.

AIOSEO

All in One SEO (aka AIOSEO) is one of the most popular WordPress SEO plugins used by over 3 million websites. One of my goals this year was to make SEO tools more affordable for small businesses.

If you use other popular SEO tools, then you know what I’m talking about. They’re all raising prices and are simply getting too expensive.

So I asked my team to build a custom keyword rank tracking tool inside WordPress. You can manually add keyword to track or bulk import from a CSV file for quick setup. You can also group your favorite keywords together to ensure you can quickly access important data.

After the launch of this feature, we were able to cancel our SaaS keyword rank tool subscriptions that we were paying for separately because this is already included in AIOSEO Elite plan which costs $299 / year!

We launched a free broken link checker tool for WordPress that automatically scans your website content for broken links. Checking up to 200 links is free, and after that there is a very affordable paid plans that let you check up to 500,000 links for only $49.

The best part is that AIOSEO lets you seamlessly redirect or change any broken links from a centralized dashboard.

We also launched a brand new Author SEO addon to help with Google’s E-E-A-T. This allows you to create robust author profile pages, add proper schema, design beautiful author bio sections, and more to help you rank higher in Google.

Last but not least, my team also launched a brand new AIOSEO writing assistant (powered by SEOBoost). This tool gives you real-time optimization insights as you write including keywords to include based on competitor analysis, NLP analysis, and more.

SEOBoost by AIOSEO

We launched a new product called SEOBoost that helps you create content briefs, perform content audit, and most importantly write highly optimized content.

The way it works is that you enter the keyword you want to rank for in Google. SEOBoost analyzes the top ranking competitors for that keyword and tells you exactly what they’re doing to rank well.

This includes the keywords and phrases you need to mention, how many times you should mention it, where on your content you should mention the keyword, the readability level, the length of content, and more.

It also gives you a content optimization score as you write.

The best part is that you can try SEOBoost for free, and our pricing plans are 70% less than leading competitors.

Unless you like wasting money on SEO tools, I think this is a no-brainer 🙂

SugarCalendar

SugarCalendar is a WordPress event calendar and ticketing plugin. We completely revamped the plugin, and are entering the market because I feel the existing solutions are too buggy and bloated.

With this plugin, you can easily create and organize events on your WordPress site, display the events calendar on your website, sell tickets, and more.

I encourage you to try the free version and see it for yourself. More details in the launch announcement on WPBeginner.

OnePageGA

Ever since the launch of GA4, Google Analytics have gotten really hard to use for just about everyone. This is why my team created OnePageGA, a simple and easy-to-understand dashboard for Google Analytics 4.

OnePageGA is the magic button you always wish you had. With just a few clicks, it instantly turns all your Google Analytics 4 data into easy-to-use reports … no need to install a plugin or touch a line of code!

It lets you get a birds eye view of your website’s analytics, so you can see the right information when you need it.

You can easily drill down on all key areas, design your own custom reports, easily setup funnel reports, eCommerce data, and so much more.

If you’re frustrated with Google Analytics 4, but don’t want to switch to an expensive SaaS analytics tool, then use OnePageGA which gives you the best of both world at fair prices.

WPCode AI + Search & Replace Everything for WordPress

My team at WPCode has been busy launching features that our users have been asking for. If you don’t know, WPCode is a code snippet management plugin for WordPress. Think of it as Google Tags manager for WordPress except more powerful and easier to use.

Over 2 million websites use WPCode for adding custom functionality on their site, and ensuring that all changes are future-proof.

We launched WPCode AI that can write custom functionality snippets for you right inside the WordPress dashboard.

We also improved the conditional logic interface, so you can add custom features where you need it. It’s basically if-then rules on steroids.

Last but not least, we also launched a brand new bulk editing tool for WordPress called Search and Replace Everything.

You can use this tool to bulk find and replace text, links, images, serialized data, and more without touching a single line of code.

The best part is that there’s a 1-click undo button in case you make a mistake.

There’s a free version available as well that you should add to your toolkit.

ClickSocial

ClickSocial is a game-changing social media management plugin that my team built for our own internal use, and I am happy to share it with our community.

Imagine having the power of Buffer or Hootsuite, but integrated directly into the WordPress dashboard. With ClickSocial, you can simply connect all your social media accounts to start scheduling and publishing social content right away.

And the best part is that it’s quite affordable unlike the competitors in the market. Here’s why you should use ClickSocial:

🔁 Automated Scheduling – publish instantly, add to your predefined schedule, or save drafts for later.

⚡️ Quick Share Interface – Share blog posts directly from the WordPress editor with easy access to your media library.

🗓️ Social Media Calendar – Get a visual overview of your posting schedule, helping to plan for product launches, sales, and more.

♻️ Revive Old Posts – Don’t let your old content gather dust. Easily reshare old posts to boost engagement and traffic.

👱 Collaboration Tools – permission control for teams, content review options, and internal feedback capabilities.

See the full announcement on WPBeginner for more screenshot and video.

WPBeginner Pro Services – I Launched an Agency

At WPBeginner, we launched affordable WordPress services offering including custom WordPress development, WordPress maintenance, website speed optimization, hacked site repair, and emergency WordPress support.

I launched an agency because most of my friends who run WordPress agencies have moved upmarket. I respect their decision however this leaves a big void for small businesses who’re looking to get started and need an affordable & reliable service provider.

This is where WPBeginner Pro Services comes in. Instead of going to Upwork or another marketplace where you have a sub-par experience, you can use our team to do the work for you at affordable prices.

Note: This is NOT an enterprise WordPress agency. Our offering is designed for small businesses and store owners.

I was only able to make this service happen due to my investment in Seahawk Media last year.

Over 1,000+ brands, like DreamHost, GoDaddy, and others partner with Seahawk to offer custom WordPress development, website maintenance, and other services for their clients. The best part is that you can white-label these services to expand your profits without hiring additional resources. It’s a great way to build recurring revenue.

I highly recommend that you talk with Ryan & Gautam at Seahawk. I shared the full background story here.

Other Notable Product Highlights

• MemberPress, the most popular WordPress membership and courses platform launched Dynamic Quizzes, Assignments and Gradebook features to further enhance our WordPress LMS offering. Also we added the ability to do Order bumps on checkout, so you can maximize your revenue.
• Easy Digital Downloads, the WordPress eCommerce plugin that we use to sell our software products, added new revenue breakdown reports, a much improved email management experience, and more payment methods.
• AffiliateWP, the #1 affiliate management plugin for WordPress & WooCommerce, added the multi-tier commissions feature. This was one of our most requested features. Aside from that, we also added affiliate coupon links, instant discounts for select affiliates, AI-powered affiliate application review process, and more.
• WP Mail SMTP, the top WordPress SMTP plugin added 1-click Microsoft Outlook integration to ensure users can continue using Outlook to send WordPress emails. We also added integrations for Elastic Mail and SMTP2Go, along with adding features like optimized email sending, rate limiting, and more. If you have a WordPress site, then this plugin is a MUST HAVE.
• SeedProd, our drag & drop WordPress website builder added AI features, dynamic content, new theme kits, and so much more. Many of our new websites are built with SeedProd including Duplicator, WPCode, and more.
• MonsterInsights, the best analytics plugin for WordPress launched Conversations AI that allows you to talk with your Google Analytics to get actionable insights.
• Envira Gallery, top WordPress gallery plugin added a much requested Comments addon to allow users to engage with photos in your gallery.
• FunnelKit, our powerful sales funnel builder for WordPress, was completely revamped in version 3.0. This plugin is designed to help you make more money from your WooCommerce store through order bumps, optimized checkout flow, and more.

All our product teams have been doing great work, and it’s nearly impossible for me to summarize everything here, so I highly recommend that you check them out individually. Your support means a lot to me.

Note: Want to join me and work on products that are seen by billions of internet users every month? We’re hiring 🙂

Acquisitions & Investments

This year, we did several business acquisitions and investments despite the personal issues that I was dealing with. My team really stepped up, and I’m really proud of everyone.

I passed on many opportunities that I believed were overpriced because my goal is to remain disciplined with capital allocation. The treasuries have been pretty nice.

Below are the deals that I can share:

BuddyBoss is the leading all-in-one community platform for WordPress. You can use it to create a private community with social networking groups, forum discussions, online courses, and more. In simple words, you can build your own clone of Facebook where you have full control.

The best part is that you can even create your own custom branded native mobile app to offer a perfect social learning experience to your users on Android and iOS devices.

LowFruits is a keyword research tool that helps you discover low-competition, high-potential keywords you can actually rank for. It streamlines keyword research and SERP analysis to reveal weak spots in the SERPs, helping you rank higher—and faster.

I acquired it as part of our AIOSEO team because I believe most popular SEO rank tracking tools are just getting way too expensive. Our team at AIOSEO is solving that by making SEO affordable.

AccessAlly is an all-in-one membership and course platform that comes with all the features you need including membership management, community, affiliate management, quizzes, recurring subscriptions, and more. I acquired this plugin as part of our MemberPress portfolio to further strengthen our position as the leading WordPress membership & LMS company.

AdTribes is a popular product feeds plugin for WooCommerce used by 80,000+ websites. When this plugin became available for sale, I acquired it to be part of our Rymera Group which specialize in WooCommerce extensions. Our other products include Wholesale Suite, Advanced Coupons, and more.

Beacon is a lead magnet creation tool that many of our OptinMonster customers used in the past. You can use it to create eBooks, checklists, worksheets, etc. We bought this business under OptinMonster since it’s a great value add.

Other Investments

Aside from the above, I also made several other investments across various industries including a very big deal that I did in Q4 of 2024, but I’m not yet ready to share that one. Here are some other investment highlights from this year:

I invested in Somewhere (formerly SupportShepherd). This is a popular headhunter agency for finding top overseas talent for your company. My friend Nick Huber was looking to acquire majority stake in the business, so I invested alongside him to make the deal happen.

If you’re a business owner, then I highly recommend you to try out Somewhere. They’ll help you find talented employees overseas at very good rates.

I also invested in Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr, and more. I believe in Matt’s vision and appreciate everything he has done over the last two decades to lead WordPress, and I’m excited for the things ahead. Without WordPress, I would not be where I am today!

In 2020, I invested to acquire a minority stake in Uncanny Automator, the no-code automation tool for WordPress (basically it’s Zapier but for WordPress without the high costs) through my WPBeginner Growth Fund. This year, one of the co-founders was looking to exit, so I was able to increase my equity stake, and we now own majority stake in the business.

If you’re using WordPress, I highly encourage you to try out the Uncanny Automator free plugin. It’ll save you a lot of time. Over 40,000+ websites use the plugin including the likes of Google, Adobe, Stanford University, etc. We now have 185+ integrations, and our users have successfully run over 110 million automations which saves 3 million work-hours each year!

Late last year, I invested in a help desk software company called GrooveHQ. I was initially very excited about this investment because I saw the potential to disrupt the market. Unfortunately, as the months progressed, it became clear that the founder and I have different visions on how to operate the business, level of expectations for product quality, and overall growth strategy.

We found amicable terms to exit the investment and wish them all the best. Normally I would NOT share this because I didn’t mention the company in my last year end review, however since I did a MFM podcast this year where I did mention my investment, I wanted to disclose it here that I have ZERO involvement in this business going forward.

Please DO NOT use this product solely because of any endorsement that you may have heard me make on the podcast, and instead do your own independent research. Full disclosure: my big companies were NOT able to switch to Groove due to technical limitations of the product.

I made numerous other investments through various funds that I am a part of. I’m not going to go into details there, but overall I’d say they’re doing fairly ok.

Going into 2025, my plan is the same as before. Stay disciplined, operate with cautious optimism, and have a large margin-of-safety, so we can protect our team and our customers.

It’s important to remember that past performance increases confidence more than ability, so staying disciplined is critical no matter how good things are at the present moment because we just can’t predict future surprises.

On that note, if you’re a founder looking for an exit or an investment, check out my M&A program page to send me a message. This will help you get a fair exit while saving on the broker fees 🙂

Lessons Learned

Like every year, I learned a lot in 2024 through trial and error, reading books, and talking with other entrepreneurs / investors. Below are some of the most important lessons in no particular order.

Sliding scale of mediocrity

I believe that everything in life is a slide scale. When it comes to performance and growth, either we’re sliding towards excellence or towards mediocrity.

The challenge with large numbers or fast growing organizations is that mediocrity can silently creep in, and it can even go unnoticed for a long time without proper checks and balances.

What’s worse is that complacency is a contagious disease, and it can spread across teams. This must be prevented at all times.

In studying great operators like Ingvar Kamprad (founder of Ikea), Sam Walton (founder of Walmart), Jim Sinegal (founder of Costco), and James J Hill (the mastermind who created the Great Northern Railroad in the US), one thing that stood out was their relentless obsession over excellence and efficiency.

As founders we have to stay diligent and demand excellence from ourselves and everyone in our team (no exceptions).

Our greatest adversary on the road to success is complacency.

Costs are Like Fingernails

I really liked this analogy from a friend of mine that costs are like fingernails, and they should be trimmed regularly.

Love this analogy from a friend:

Costs are like finger nails. You have to trim them regularly.

— Syed Balkhi (@syedbalkhi) November 22, 2024

As you grow, the costs across the board can rise especially if you’re not mindful. This year, we reduced a lot of unnecessary expenses across our business.

For example, we removed several of our SEO tool subscriptions like Semrush, Clearscope, etc. We were able to do that because AIOSEO added keyword rank tracking, SEO writing assistant (in SEOBoost), and keyword research through Lowfruits.

We also got rid of various subscription seats that weren’t being used like Figma (which automatically upgrade seats). You can go in their settings to prevent this from happening — not sure why this isn’t the default.

Anyways across my various companies, we trimmed multiple six figures of costs.

If you’re using software and paying by seat, I highly encourage you to look at the activity / usage of those seats.

Another correlation I noticed is that often the low-performing team members request access to various unnecessary software tools, and they want to move on from one software tool to another to mask their performance.

FOMO Cost Calculator

In my 2023 year end review, I shared that having no FOMO is the ultimate life hack for staying focused and avoiding critical mistakes.

But the shiny object syndrome is real, and too often we can fall victim to it.

Earlier this year, as I was mentoring an entrepreneur, I shared the concept of a FOMO cost calculator which basically helps contextualize the perceived loss.

For example, you have FOMO because you did not buy a specific stock earlier and are wondering whether you should buy it today at a significantly higher valuation. All you have to ask yourself how much are you willing to invest? Maybe $10,000?

So if it doubles again, then all what you will miss out on is $10k. What’s the likelihood of the double? or 10x? Based on that, you can easily calculate the perceived potential loss from not taking action on the opportunity.

Then after that, ask yourself how does you NOT taking action impact your life? Is that significant enough for you to stress over it or give it any energy?

Most of the time the extra context gained from the FOMO cost calculation analysis helps when dealing with FOMO.

Output vs Outcome – Illusion of Productivity

As high performers, sometimes we mistakenly equate busyness with productivity. This happens when the focus shifts entirely on output instead of outcomes, and I call this a trap of “productivity illusion”.

While it’s great to have a high level of activity, it’s crucial to ask ourselves: Are these efforts leading to the right outcomes?

Outcomes are the actual results that affect our core objectives (a.k.a goals). For example in business this would be increased sales, lower churn, better customer success rate, etc.

The key to avoiding the productivity illusion is not doing less, but doing more of what matters most.

Strengths and Weakness Perspective

I attended a YPO event where the facilitator shared this perspective, and it really resonated with me.

Every strength has a shadow.
Every weakness has a shield.

Self reflection is a humbling process.

— Syed Balkhi (@syedbalkhi) September 30, 2024

Our strengths and our shadows are two sides of the same coin. Basically if you have strengths, then those strenghts also have shadows.

For example, if your strength is to be helpful and selfless, then you might not be able to prioritize self-care or say ‘no.’ If you’re the go-getter, who is incredibly ambitious and driven, then you might struggle with feelings of inadequacy or have a shadow around relaxation.

These shadows are unavoidable, but they can be managed with practice and being intentional.

Similarly, we build shields to protect us from our weaknesses. For example, shy people will regularly avoid being the center of attention even when it is to their detriment.

Our personal growth happens when we reflect on our strengths and weaknesses, and stretch our boundaries.

Other Lessons and Wisdom from 2024

Since this post is getting quite long, I’ll just make a short bullet list. Although unlikely, I may share more about these in details at another time:

• I wrote down this note for Solomon: “Even though our starting point can affect the outcome, it does NOT determine it! Many factors like ability, attitude, ambition, method, experiences, and luck play an important role”.
• Feedback early shapes direction while feedback late judges decisions.
• Not all results are linear. Think about range of outcomes.
• An empty seat is less damaging than a poor fit.
• Continuous improvements > Delayed Perfection
• Humility is a superpower that prevents overconfidence.
• The way to get luckier is to find what’s repeatable.
• Sometimes what you are looking for is right in front of you.
• People will go to great lengths if they can find a way to save money.
• It’s not always about information. Often a better presentation wins.
• Having clarity on the plan / process determines how fast you can go!
• TAM can be redefined and most successful companies often redefine TAM multiple times.
• It’s in human nature to overestimate risk and under estimate opportunity.
• To grab something, you have to let go of something.
• History’s greatest entrepreneurs learn from history’s greatest entrepreneurs.
• “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.” – Alberto Brandolini
• “Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.” – Marcus Aurelius

Favorite Reads of 2024

These are in no particular order, but I enjoyed them all:

• The 38 Letters from J.D. Rockefeller to his son
• The Joy of Costco – I’m becoming obsessed with Costco. My parents have been members for nearly 20 years, and the business is amazing.
• Buffett and Munger: A Study in Simplicity and Uncommon, Common Sense by Peter Bevelin
• Winning Long-Term Games by Luca Dellanna
• The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
• Quiet Compounding article by Morgan Housel
• Founders podcast by David Senra – this is a reading cheat code because David covers the best highlights from each book. Also on his website, he shares the summaries.

My Goals for 2025

I won’t be listing out product-specific goals since each of them have fairly elaborate roadmaps already.

My personal goals for 2025 are:

• Continue being intentional about my health (with energy audit)
• Disciplined capital allocation and continue compounding
• Double down on my closest relationships
• Avoid hectic travel — no back to back trips
• Do more weekend get togethers with extended family

Despite all the challenges of 2024, I am incredibly grateful to be able to do what I love every day.

Here’s to an even better 2025!

In the meantime, enjoy more pics from the year 🙂