Most of us start the new year with long lists of dreams and goals for the next 12 months. (If you don’t, you should at least try, it is fun to dream!) This year, we have started with a long list of 2014 accomplishments! It is the most amazing feeling to look back and realize how much you have grown personally and professionally, and to be able to pin point all major ‘aha moments‘ that happened.
It is like a friend of mine told me a few days ago:
“When you give someone a present and they just look at it and put it aside without being happy or thankful, you feel like you will never ever buy that person a gift again. The same principle applies to life. Universe offers us presents everyday and most of the time we take them for granted and forget to say ‘Thank you!’ and then we are frustrated because ‘We never get anything we wish for!”.
If you feel like gratefulness was not on your list in 2014, take a moment to look back and give thanks for your unique 2014. There are no mistakes, only opportunities to grow.
So many amazing things have happened in 2014 that I don’t know where to start or how to start, but I think that organizing them month by month might shed some light over our beloved diamond, called Estilo Tendances and my personal journey in growing the business.
January 2014
We did the Oshawa Detox Diet
Started the INSPIRE ME Project, where my goal was to help small fashion designers
Printscreen of the INSPIRE ME Project
We had 3 Writers and one Contributor
9,819 Pageviews
32 Articles
February 2014
I left for a month to go on volunteering events in Ghent (Belgium) and then Lisbon (Portugal)
Spent Valentines Day in the most romantic city in Europe – Bruges, Belgium
Got 3 more contributors
Wrote one of my best shared article Sunday Photo: How To Make Packing Easier & Faster (12,000 shares)
Had our first Social Media & PR Intern – Andra Maier
March 2014
Wrote my best article ever Sunday Photo: 10 Things Successful Women Do Before Breakfast – PART I
Got one more writer and one contributor
April 2014
We went to our first event ever Cocoa Brown Launch Event
Finally surpassed our 10,000 page views goal (10,270)
Got 3 more writers and one contributor
Google removed our ban and we finally had page rank 2 from 0
Had Andra’s most read article: 18 Ways To Wear Platform Shoes (with 52,700 shares)
May 2014
Wrote my other best article Sunday Photo: 10 Things Successful Women Do Before Breakfast – PART II
Moved to a different hosting provider, which not only saved us money by not having the subscription to other services like Cloudflare, Backup services and CDN; but also helped us by having 100% uptime – Thank you, PressLabs
Visits jumped to 15,238
Got 2 new team members, a Social Media intern and a new writer
Bought our first blogging course, that was paid with our savings and it took a lot of sleepless nights to make this decision.
June 2014
Me and Mihai graduated! We are now both Power Engineers
Me and Mihai on our Graduation Day
Moved to Bethany Beach, Delaware, USA
Had an Editor-in-Chief, our one and only Andrada Cuc
Promoted Andra to PR Coordinator
Launched the Pre-Order of our first eBook
Started our Instagram account – with Angela‘s help
We had a compact team, with responsible people that we could count on and things started to look more serious
July 2014
We had only 16 articles published, our lowest month. I was unable to take care of anything that month (my laptop got broken, I started a new full time job and had relationship issues) and my whole world was falling apart. If it hadn’t been for Andrada (she took care of all the editorial, scheduling, writers, writing) and Andra, Merle, Tasha to write, we would not have had anything. Grateful for these amazing people!
Had our last INSPIRE ME project for 2014: Inspire ME To Follow My Dream #7: F’s Handmade Jewelry (It was very hard to do this for free and we realized we had no more resources to invest in this project and that we needed to come up with a better way of helping each other)
August 2014
Took the biggest decision of my life, enrolling to Institute of Integrative Nutrition, in New York, to become a Health Coach. I had student loans for the first time in my life and had no idea how I will be able to pay them. Scared to tell my family, but finally got the courage to be true to myself and tell everyone who I was and what I wanted to do with my life (even if it was scary!)
My IIN school books
Knew who were the most important people for Estilo Tendances: Andrada, Andra, Merle, Tashaa and Angela (besides me and Mihai)
Started organizing all the how to’s and departments in Google Drive, so we all had access to an online platform where we could add documents and find archive
Had our new logo (it was one of our goals to change our logo and it finally happened)
Our New Logo
September 2014
With a whole paycheck, bought my first Macbook, my lovely Macbook Air
Grateful for owning my first Macbook Air
Went to New York Fashion Week (got 5 invitations)
Me and Mihai at NYFW
Went to London Fashion Week
Started the Core Team: Andrada, Andra, me and Mihai were those who knew what was going on with our 2 blogs and had weekly meetings (USA, UK and Romania) with 3 different time zones (pretty fun)
Started school again – Institute of Integrative Nutrition
Had a new writer, who was also our Creative Intern – taking care of our promo materials – Romina
Received our first freebie: Product Review: SOBO Skin Care
Made our first money (after working ‘for free’ for the last 9 months)
Went to New York for the 4th time in my life and wrote this very useful article 8 Tips A Travelling Fashionista Should Know About New York
October 2014
Most important thing of ALL: started blogging FULL TIME
Had the most amazing birthday ever, my team prepared an awesome present: See it HERE
Spending my 23rd Birthday on the beach…
Surpassed 20,000 pageviews (23,824)
Started a new project, called Editor’s Choice, where each week we presented what we want to buy and wear: (Find all of them HERE)
We went to Marc by Marc Jacobs collection launching, read all about it: We’ve Been There: Marc by Marc Jacobs at Matches Fashion
We went to TOGA’s Mesmerizing Exhibition
November 2014
Got back home, in Romania, to spend the holidays with our family
We went to Push PR Press Day
We went to MODUS PR SS15 Press Day
We went to Matalan SS15 Press Day
We wrote our Goals for 2015 and actually won the prize, read all about it here: Estilo Tendances’ 2015 Goals – Together We Can Make It Happen
Our dear friend and co-worker, Merle, left the team
Started our Internship Campaign and from 16 interns (from Romania, Canada, Africa, Georgia, New York, Iran, UK, India, Florida, Bulgaria, Italy) we chose 4 and were left with only 2:
Deiana – Social Media, from Romania
Alyson – Pinterest, from Georgia, USA
Started our Writers Campaign (the only people writing on Estilo were Andrada, Andra, myself and Tashaa) and ended up with 16 new writers (from New York, Romania, Italy, Bulgaria, UK, USA)
Moved into our new apartment, a very cosy place that we now call HOME (we have no idea for how long, but we love it here!)
December 2014
This was our busiest month EVER, working more than 10h/ day but still being able to go to the gym, cook twice a day and have some quality time with friends and family
Best month EVER, traffic wise -> 29,604 page views
Reached our 1,000 page views/day goal (1,009 page views) with Our Christmas Story
See all the pictures HERE
Had our first shooting (we worked day and night but the result was truly amazing) and first online magazine
Our first 7 writers started writing
Got a new intern on PR – Alexandra
Launched our second eBook: Change Your Lifestyle – Get Estilo Tendances Free Printable Diary
Fulfilled our money goal
Reached 1,000 followers on Instagram
Started my Health Coach page and offered my first FREE eBook: The Breakfast Experiment (Check out my page HERE)
