A whole new decade

I feel like the 2000′s were one big identity crisis.  No one even knew what to call these years.  Sure, we all settled into two thousand and .. but I think we’re going feel much better now that we’ve got 90 years of twenty-whatevers. It was all a bit of a roller coaster ride.  Bubble upon bubble were destined to pop, the towers fell, we felt waves of fear and unity and division, our country engaged in two wars, and even our (over)confidence in the planet was shaken.  Yet now somehow it seems like things are slowing down. I don’t doubt we’ll climb our way out of our current economy, but I think it’s going to be slow and steady.  We’ve just been biding our time, waiting for this sense of settling down.

My newphew on Christmas morning, patiently waiting for his one last present (a bike!) to be brought out.  I love the patience and pleasurable anticipation on his face.  That’s what the 2000′s sort of felt like to me.

Maybe it’s just personal. Oliver and I turn a decade older just before the turn of each decade.  We spent the 2000′s in our 20′s: finishing school, lots of different jobs, figuring out what we want to do with ourselves.  Turning thirty this year felt big.  But now we’ve at least got a sense of what we’re going to pursue.  We’re trying to become real adults and buy a house.  Last year nothing worked out on that front.  This year the first house we’ve put an offer on – it’s address is 2010! Good omen?  Maybe.  I’ll tell you in three days.

The Present Group in the 2000′s was young.  Though our idea was novel, we struggled to be noticed.  Now we’ve got three years of works behind us, we’ve met and worked with lots of really amazing people.  And we’re very happy to report that this past year, for the first time, we broke even.  We’ve had a steady rate of growth, though our subscriber numbers don’t fully show it.  We’ve also gotten better at running the business: creating projects we can afford without sacrificing integrity, creativity, or ingenuity.  So, our big goal for this year is to continue on the same trend that we’ve been on.  Because if we do, this year we’ll be in the black enough to give one of us a very small paycheck.  That means that this project might just work out in the end.  That’s what we’ve been waiting for.