Reflecting on my 2025 journey as a Webflow freelancer: course launches, client work, digital nomad life, YouTube milestones and what I’m aiming for in 2026.
I’m writing this just before 2025 ends as I was inspired by my friend Linus Yam who made a Linkedin 2025 recap post and blog post. 2025 was a great year! Of course being a human being not everything is 100% sunshine and rainbows all the time - but from a zoomed out perspective, I have nothing to complain about and I praise God for all the experiences and achievement he has granted me in this under-the-sun world.
Let’s take a look at a high level recap together shall we?
Yes - this was something that bothered me for many years in the back of my head and this year I finally completed it. The procrastination was real and my perfection mindset really kicked in but the lesson learned was:
“It’s better to start and finish something then never to have finished anything. Or it’s better to have any product than a perfect project that never gets released”
Anyways.. Lot’s of work was involved in creating a course from: writing modules to filming, to editing all the way to marketing and sales.
Of course I had to re-do my personal website (the one you are seeing now):
https://www.dereksiu.com.au/
My old website (built in Webflow ofc) used my old method which was Tim Ricks Wizardry technique which is instead of using PX or REMS it uses VW making the site scale nicely. But this new site I wanted to make sure I do everything correctly specifically SEO.
You can check out the old site here:
https://dereksiu-archived-site.webflow.io/
So I won’t bore you too much, because I actually documented this whole process already on my Youtube channel it’s a 9 part series. Go check it out!
This year I left my hometown of Sydney Australia (where I grew up my whole life) and embarked on a journey - working across multiple countries (mostly Asia) for 9 months straight. This was the longest I have ever gotten. Why did I do this? Well why not?. I do want to state there are definitely pros and cons living this kind of lifestyle and perhaps I’ll make a video in the future.
“Solo travel not only pushes you out of your comfort zone, it also pushes you out of the zone of others’ expectations.”
— Suzy Strutner
Believe it or not but I’ve been a huge fan on Youtube since it’s release in 2006 with the OG people like Freddie Wong, Nigahiga, Kev Jumba, Community Channel, etc.
I also ran my own animation Youtube channel back in my uni days which you can check out here: https://www.youtube.com/@Keredsiu
So it’s no surprise I would love to keep growing my Youtube channel which I created on 9th of January 2023. At the start of this year I started with around 2,000 subscribers with already 80+ videos uploaded.
But this year I continued by reaching 4,000 subscribers and uploading another 80+ videos AND started experimenting with YT shorts uploading 100+ of them (currently disabled as I am debating if shorts is worth making).
More importantly this year was when my YT channel got monetised (ads) - it’s not a lot and I’m still figuring out how to best utilize this POWER. I also had my first ever paid collaboration with Relume.io who reached out - so that was super exciting.
This year ended on a total 250,000 views on my Youtube channel.
You maybe surprised (as I am) I actually engaged with x2 video editors to help me with my Youtube channel. The first person actually reached out via email, he mostly helped with making them motion graphics for my Webflow showcase videos.
The other (not con-currently) helped me edit only 2 of my videos. Sadly both these people no longer help out. This was an awkward outcome as I feel like I invested large amounts of time “inducting” these editors + spending my time to provide revisions and feedback.
So as of now I decided to edit and do everything myself (which is arguably a bad business mindset) but I will still be open to the right people to help me, but will no longer be actively seeking. I also want to note especially towards the end of the year I personally put more editing time and thumbnail design to my videos and I hope to yield a stronger growth on my videos and channel.
I praise God again for sustaining me this year. I actually dropped Fiverr by 95% the reason being Fiverr is actually very stressful - replying to messages constantly and getting new clients becomes very tedious and risky.
Risky in the sense that during my time on Fiverr I actually rose pretty high in search ranking (1st page) but always had a fear clients would do me dirty and leave a bad review etc. So it was very hard for me to let go of Fiverr especially since I started with it and it served as my sole source of income.
It’s important to note that Fiverr also takes a large cut (deservingly) of 20% + small fees for all sales made.
Now I currently get work mostly from past clients, referrals and my new Website contact form (organic SEO). This year I was lucky to serve over 50 clients / brands and worked on 80+ Webflow sites.
This year I also updated my Invoice where I used to make them using Canva and now it’s done in Figma - this is amazing cause I can now keep track better of what invoice I am up to. The adjustment to the invoice also makes it more professional.
Lastly with the new website I created I had a small newsletter signup on the footer and I actually manage to get 80 contacts so I plan to send more EDMS in 2026.
This year I averaged a 60kg body weight and managed to create 2 PR records of:
10 Kelp Muscle ups in a row and 160kgs deadlift 4 times. I also played Pickle ball for the first time and coming from a tennis background I absolutely loved it! Also lazer tagging is fun even at 29 years of age.
But of course this is all speculation and I do not claim I know what tomorrow holds:
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
James 4:13-14
Anyways thanks for reading this and I appreciate the support from my clients and the people around me, thanks for making 2025 a good one. Looking forward to 2026 may God bless us and provide us with peace that surpasses all understanding. Assuming I still get to live - I will see you in the 2026 recap haha.
