I’m very excited for 2011 to hit. It will be a big year. The day job has some promising projects on the horizon, and the for the garage job, I’m hoping to get some awesome project moving.

Rather than being specific about launching particular apps, I’m going to set broader goals to allow myself to adjust to the year as things develop.

Mobile

I want to release at least 1 free, and one paid native iOS and Android app. This means getting to grips with Objective C, and the Android Java SDK.

I would like to add WebOS to the list, but unless HP does something amazing with its new range of Tablets, the market is going to be pretty small.

Dog fooding

Some of my most successful projects, have been applications/websites that I’ve needed myself. Episode List was born from the frustration of not knowing if tonights episode was a repeat or not. Most Inspired has saved me countless hours of surfing design galleries looking for that key bit of inspiration. This year I aim to return to building tools that I would use very day.

This year this will start with Mubdo. Frustrated with the many todo and time tracking tools out there (and yes I’ve used most) I decided to build my own. The aim to is be quick and simple, yes I know most tools like this aim for that, but very few actually stay that way.

There is enough functionality built to launch Mubdo, but I’m going to be running it for a long time in private beta. This is primarily a tool for myself, and I don’t want to get bogged down with people requesting too many features/changes.

Rebirth

I’ve left a few of my previous projects alone for too long. A lot has changed in the last couple of years, and fresh look at some old problems I was trying to solve is in order.

My first order of business will be turn Uberlook into more of a Reddit/Hacker News, style community site. I’ll be able to leverage a lot of that functionality into other sites.

Social

Not living in a big city makes it hard to connect with other lean startup folks, but I vow to try harder. I’ve been part of some local developer groups, but nothing aimed at people starting their own business. This may involve a little more travelling this year, but should be well worth it.

Health

Time to get my bum out of my chair. I used to be a lot more active, and therefore a lot thinner! I’m aiming to lose about 50lbs this year. This is going to involve a combination of more exercise, and watching what I eat. I don’t think I’ll be using Lose it or Lose it, but if things don’t go well in the beginning part of the year, it might come to that!

Money

Makes the world go round, right? I’m hoping by the end of the year, that my garage projects, can bring in as much income as my day job, yes I’m a long way from that right now, but it good to set targets

There you have them, my goals, for the 2011. I won’t be waiting til 2012 to post a review, I am to do one every month.

I’m very proud of the work I did at the day job, but lots of long hours at work left little time to spend tinkering in the Garage.

This years most significant work ended up being a relaunch rather than a launch. The rebuild of Episode List, took something that I originally built in 2001 and let fall into disrepair, with declining visitors, and turned into something that has continued to grow, in both visitors and revenue month over month.

I hope 2011 brings much more garage time.

I plan to refresh and relaunch a number of existing projects, as well add some new projects. I’m focusing on projects (web applications) that help get more done during the day. I’ll be documenting my plans for 2011 in another post.

For now I hope everyone had a great 2010, and wish everyone continued success for 2011.

What exactly is GaragePowered? GaragePowered is a reference to the early days of Silicon Valley, where entrepreneurs from now world famous companies like Hewlett Packard, and Apple, toiled in garages creating the next great technological products. Even the mighty Google can trace its roots back to a rented garage.

But rather than an physical location GaragePowered reflects a frame of mind. Entrepreneurs working hard, often in their spare time, bootstrapping their way to the next great invention.

This blog is written by one of the next generation of Garage entrepreneurs working to create the next big web based businesses, bootstrapping all the way.

I’ll be blogging about all aspects of building a web based business, from web design and development to the state of the industry.

I’m working on a custom theme for the website, in the mean time the default theme will serve me well!

Enjoy your stay and feel free to leave a comment.