This is going to be a very self indulgent post, and I make no apologies for that. When you have a job like this (Hi, I’m John, founder and technical lead of Bristlr & M14) it’s very easy to sail past milestones without flinching, continuing to run as fast as you can away from trouble.
I’m sat in bed, on a rainy Manchester day, about to carry a hastily decorated store-brand cake through the damp to a small gathering of friends to celebrate a year-and-a-day since Bristlr launched. And I’m taking the opportunity to reflect on the accomplishments of the last 12 months through the power of statistics. This is a blend of vanity and therapy.
Year 1, by the numbers
- Members: 115,000
- Matches: 500,000
- Beard ratings: 1,300,000
- Messages : 1,000,000
- Pageviews: 39,500,000
- Unique visitors: 500,000
- Countries: 187
- Top 5 countries: USA (32%), UK (22%), Brazil (13%), Netherlands (10%), Canada (6%)
- Top 5 cities: London, Sao Paulo, New York, Amsterdam, Chicago
- Desktop users: 22%
- iPhone users: 37%
- Largest traffic spike: December 26th, 3am GMT
- Funds raised (excluding director’s loans): £28,000
- Verticals: 1 (and a half?)
- Full-time staff: 1
- Freelance staff: 9
- Git repositories: 16
- Git commits: 2,600
- Individual services (Heroku apps): 25
- Database nodes: 2
- Primary database file size: 8GB
- User-facing errors generated: 7,400
- Cumulative downtime: 1 hour, 57 minutes (99.98% uptime)
- Cups of coffee drunk: 900
- Miles driven: 10,000
- Car parts replaced: Tire, spare tire & hub, clutch, coolant header tank, exhaust shield, windscreen wipers x 4
These numbers are good at showing where we’ve been and how much we’ve achieved. But they’re basically useless for predicting our future. We’ve been busier than people realise, and we have big plans and expectations for the next 12 months. My goal is to improve on all of these metrics at least ten fold.
The past year has been littered with happenstance, luck, chance encounters, and supportive friends and family. Whilst I can’t thank everyone individually, I do want to say thank you to everyone who has helped put us where we are today, and everyone who’s taken a chance on us.
Happy birthday.