January was dead — and it felt dead. Not quietly slow, but unmistakably empty. The kind of month where the lack of movement shows up everywhere at once.

It was a rough start to the year. Even knowing seasonality, there was no mistaking how thin the calendar looked from the jump.

Almost every job we completed was booked just a few days in advance, often with little to no notice. Some of that came with rush fees, which helped on the margin. But it cut both ways. A few jobs slipped through simply because I didn’t have enough lead time to line up inventory.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Revenue landed around $5,600. That’s roughly 25% better than last January, but still well short of the $8K goal I set going into the month. The gap was clear early, and nothing in the calendar suggested it would close.

Only nine events were completed all month — one of the lowest totals I’ve tracked, second only to a single summer outlier last year. Most of those jobs were small table and chair orders. No tents. No larger builds. The kind of mix that caps revenue before you even start counting.

January is what happens when fixed costs meet low volume. Rent and vehicle insurance hit at the same time, inventory was purchased (mostly chairs), and there simply wasn’t enough revenue to absorb any of it.

The result was a loss of roughly $8K. Not because something broke, but because timing mattered and January offered no buffer. It’s the danger of looking at months in isolation — and also why it’s so hard not to.

I know a trailing twelve-month view tells a better story. January still makes its case loudly when you zoom in.

Advertising was intentionally turned off this month. It felt risky, but it was deliberate. Going into year five, I wanted to see what organic demand actually looks like without a safety net.

January didn’t offer a comforting answer, but it did offer a clean one. Whatever the baseline is right now, it isn’t enough on its own in the slow season.

One clear bright spot did emerge. I started putting feelers out on staffing and met with a potential hire who looks genuinely promising.

Nothing finalized yet, but enough to shift how I’m thinking about capacity heading into the busy months. It didn’t solve January. It did change the tone of what comes next.

February opens with a clear target: $14K in revenue. That number is intentional, and hitting it will require real effort. The calendar is light, and there’s a lot of wood to chop.

To help close that gap, I’ll be leaning into outreach to past clients and testing how much demand can be reactivated without paid ads. Whether that effort fully lands or not, February should offer a clear read on momentum, systems, and how the business responds after a quiet start.

January was a stress test. Low volume, high exposure, fixed costs turned up loud. Not a month to romanticize, but one to understand, document, and move past with eyes open.

Until next time
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