My Fails, Wins and Learnings of the Year. Wrap-up of 2023.

What a ride it was in 2023. Technically, it still is, as it's the 27th of December, but it's my last newsletter this year, so let's make it short and sweet.

Focusing on important

At the beginning of the year, I stepped down from the position of CEO at Team Up - We Build Teams and started to focus on my favorite lifetime project Gegidze , which eventually ended up growing like:

• Revenue 2x
• Clients 50%
• 16 countries operating in
• 300+ talents employed across 10 countries

So overall, it was the right decision to focus on personal freedom in business choices and scaling the main revenue stream.

New venture

Together with my amazing wife and business partner Tatia Bebua , we made our biggest investment so far in real estate and rolled out the new venture Digital Jungle , the exclusive workspaces for the digital community.

At Digital Jungle, we have reimagined the idea of work, comfort, and community. We made it cozy and fancy, integrated an industrial vibe with nature, and as all valuable clubs, it is super hard to get in.

As a result, we are fully booked since day 1; not bad, hah?

If you are interested in the honest story of how Digital Jungle was created, here is a separate article.

Angel investments

This year, I made 5 angel investments in Georgian startups to support and grow the ecosystem, together with Axel - Georgian Business Angel Network.

• Kernel financial management tools for startups and SMBs in Asia
• QuickShipper ? fleet efficiency & and transparent communications
• Interstellar Lab Sustainable farming on Earth and life-support in space
• ArrivalLabs Automated Immersive Experience Generator
• Orbital | Banking for The New Generation

Events

Meeting people in person is still one of the best ways of growing a network and building trust. In 2023 Zurab Aitsuradze , Maciej Matti Kawecki and I have dedicated quite a lot of time travel to events.

• Attended 20+ tech conferences
• Spoke at 10+ conferences
• Organized 2 Webinars
• Organized 6 in-person meetups
• Had over 300+ meetings at the events

My learnings in 2023

Life is like playing a video game; it's getting more interesting and challenging with every next level.

In this chapter of my life, I faced the truth that some things just do not work the way you expect them to work, so you need to restructure and start from the beginning.

What I learned:

• Not all plans are meant to be accomplished as well as not all skills are going to be monetized
• Hire slow, fire quickly
• Never delegate the work that you are best at
• Listen to others carefully, analyze and go do whatever you want to do.

What 2024 is going to be like?

I love this process of thinking about the silhouettes of the future, which basically will be in the blink of an eye. We human beings gather all our positive energy to visualize it and fill it with hope, opportunities and adventures, thus neglecting all negative thoughts, which I think is a beautiful thing to do.

Nevertheless, 2024 will be hard for businesses, especially those running out of runway money and planning the funding rounds. We can predict the graveyard of startups, companies getting bankrupt, many layoffs, cost optimization, and quite harsh times.

The hard times create great ideas and entrepreneurs who can transform the problem into opportunities.

We already plan to support companies in optimizing their costs and taxes and navigating through the tough times.

What's your plan?

Happy Holidays and New Year wishes

Thanks for taking the time to read this, I hope you enjoyed my short story of 2023. Feel free to share your thoughts or wishes in the comments.

At the end, I would love to wish you to:

• Believe in yourself
• Invest in yourself
• Learn what you are lacking
• Go and fail as fast as you can,
• Learn from it
• and start over again Oh and of course, don't forget to enjoy the ride!

Best regards from Georgia,

Valerian