This year was a pivotal one for me and my family, so after skipping last year I decided to write this year review again — something I can look back on in a few years’ time.
2023 was turbulent, and I experienced two of the highest peaks of my life so far. I hit absolute rock bottom (it started with complete burnout) and then lived through the happiest moment of my entire life (which will definitely be topped sometime around mid-April 2024 😊).
The beginning of this review will be more about me personally, but once I get through the tough stuff, it’ll be about the two of us again (well, actually the five of us).
Burnout and the Fear of Dying
In February, I burned out. Without any prior warning signs, I became so unwell over the course of a single week that I ended up at the emergency room of a Portuguese hospital after midnight. I was convinced I was having a heart attack and that I was dying. Intense heart pounding, sweating, shooting pain from my chest into my shoulder and back, irregular heartbeat.
It wasn’t a heart attack — in fact, my body is perfectly fine. I confirmed this later back in the Czech Republic with a thorough two-day screening at a hospital, where they examined every corner of my body and found nothing wrong (apart from flat feet and a stiff cervical spine 😅).
It was my first full-blown panic attack.
After five hours they discharged me from hospital, and I stepped into a completely new chapter of my life. For the first time ever, I couldn’t work for weeks on end, and my days consisted of obsessing over what on earth was wrong with me and being terrified of dying.
Since then, I still don’t feel completely right. I get chest pain that lasts days or even weeks, and while getting back to a normal state is getting easier over time, it still takes real effort.
What helped me was a course called Anxiety & Panic by my good friend Honza Hovád, who had gone through similar experiences himself.
My body had been overwhelmed with chronic stress and simply didn’t know how to cope anymore. Unfortunately, I’d never had any mental health issues before, so I had no idea anything was wrong. Now I understand myself much better, but I also know things will never be quite the same as before. 😊
What helped was working less and delegating more. Talking to Lucka more openly about life and sharing my feelings. Going to therapy. Reading several books, such as The Way of the Superior Man. And making a few new friends who helped me realise that constantly playing the “nice guy” takes a massive toll — and you can’t keep it up forever.
I meditate more now, listen to affirmations, and generally try to tune into more positive thinking. The hardest part was accepting that I can’t chase every new opportunity and can no longer afford to launch new projects left and right. Instead, I had to slow down significantly and come to terms with the fact that I can only push my limits gradually.
Since February, my body gives me a very clear signal whenever I start overdoing it and pushing my boundaries. My heart has become a reliable barometer that keeps me in check. And it thinks I’m overdoing it almost all the time. 😅
So, with full awareness of my limits and a genuine effort to slow down, we still managed to accomplish everything below. 😂 I won’t write about the failures — I simply don’t feel like it.
We’re Having a Son 👶
In April 2024, we’re expecting our son to be born. That best moment of my life I mentioned above? It was seeing him for the first time on a live ultrasound. 😊
My whole world turned upside down, and the fear of death almost vanished. Suddenly it felt like we have so much ahead of us! I want to be there for everything and make the most of the fact that we can work from home. The office will probably see me a lot less than before, but there’s no way I’m missing the first months (and years) of our child’s life.
We have several friends who also work from home with their kids (their jobs allow it), and you can just see how incredibly happy they are. So that’s what’s in store for us too 😍 I’m going to be a DAD!
Work Projects
2023 was a turning point on the work front as well.
Reviving LK Media
Lucka and I have our own brand, LK Media, through which we help several clients with their online businesses. Because we have so many projects of our own, we stopped taking on new clients back in 2021.
This year things changed, and we decided to stop turning away everyone who reached out for a collaboration (because why would we, right?). We started hiring new team members, and there are now six of us.
We have a steadily growing portfolio of clients we help primarily with SEO. We created a product called Custom Blog to have a clear, packaged offering. And it’s going well!
Patreon and a Big Bet on Blog Income
Around the same time, we launched our Patreon, where we publicly committed to taking all our subscribers along on our journey to multiply this blog’s income.
Before February 2023, loudavymkrokem.cz was earning an average of about €240 per month — we hadn’t really focused on it. But for Patreon, we got serious and made a bet with ourselves that by the end of 2023 we’d get the blog to €2,400 per month. We hit that target in September 2023.
Every month on Patreon, we shared all the changes and strategies we implemented on the site, including a breakdown of earnings by individual affiliate programme — what worked and what didn’t.
Loudavymkrokem.cz went through a complete redesign, loads of optimisations, translation into several languages, and the creation of tons of new content.
Our Patreon is focused on online marketing and is almost always sold out (we cap the number of members). We currently have 200+ paying members and an active Discord community. 😊
Blog Challenge — How to Make Money Blogging
After winning our bet, we launched the Blog Challenge — a six-month journey to building a money-making blog from A to Z. All of our Patrons have access to the Blog Challenge and can build their blogs alongside us.
Each week, we create one detailed task that moves participants closer to earning their first income from a blog.
The challenge runs from September 2023 to March 2024, after which we plan to turn it into a full course. About 50 websites signed up, so we consider this a real success!
Here’s an overview of the tasks so far:
- Week: Find your niche
- Week: Choose a domain, install WordPress and plugins
- Week: Keywords, categories, content
- Week: Content plan and first article
- Week: Author page, legal documents, writing articles
- Week: SSL and connecting analytics tools
- Week: Entity stacking
- Week: Speed optimisation
- Week: Content sprint
- Week: Lead magnet
- Week: Internal linking
- Week: Writing a product or service review
- Week: Link building
New Project — Portugalbay.com
We’d been thinking for a long time about trying an affiliate project targeting an international audience. So we signed up for our own Blog Challenge and created a new travel website — portugalbay.com — all about Portugal.
Our goal is to reach hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors and total revenue of €40,000/month, with income coming from display ads (Mediavine), affiliates (Booking, tours, etc.), and direct partnerships with local tour, accommodation, and boat operators.
We hired a virtual assistant from the Philippines and are steadily working on the project following our own Blog Challenge assignments (which we write ourselves 😅).
Our First Online Course
We invested in some professional home video equipment and had a go at filming our own online course — the result was an SEO for Shoptet course. We only sold a few dozen copies, but as proof of concept, that was enough for me. Apart from Patreon (where the course was free anyway), we didn’t promote it anywhere. Just a trial run and preparation for the real thing 🏃
NanoSPACE
NanoSPACE is doing well, all things considered. 😊 We’re not growing exponentially, but we’re closing the year with a turnover close to €1.6 million, which is — given that 2023 was the first full year without COVID (and therefore without sales of COVID-related products) — an excellent result. We can now say with confidence that our revenue is 10x what it was before the pandemic.
In 2023, we focused mainly on expanding our product range. We now have our own cosmetics brand, nanoSPACE Cosmetics, with seven products and more on the way.
For our bedding line, we obtained OEKOTEX Class 1 certification (which opened up the German-speaking market for us), and a baby product range is just around the corner.
Other Projects
We really do have a lot on our plate, but I should also mention the relaunch of our two projects nemuzuspat.cz and denikalergika.cz, which are being managed primarily by our new team members at LK Media. I see them as a training ground. 😊
Travel
We draw inspiration from our travels, so this year was no exception — we visited plenty of places. As always, we spent the whole of February in Portugal, but throughout the year we saw much more:
Balkans Road Trip
We got ourselves a rooftop tent, kitted out the boot with cooking gear, packed up our dogs, and headed off to the Balkans for a month. We drove through Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, and several other countries.
First Time on a Yacht
At the invitation of our friend Tomáš Zdražil, we went sailing on a catamaran for the very first time. Tomáš put together a brilliant crew — we all clicked instantly, and instead of boozy nights, we spent the entire trip in fascinating conversations.
I came away with loads of notes and new direction on my personal journey as a man.
Loire Valley Châteaux in France
In May, we headed to France to visit the Loire Valley châteaux.
Goals for 2024
Since we’re expecting our son and I honestly can’t see too far ahead, I’m keeping my plans light:
- Our son
- Turn the Blog Challenge into a full-fledged course
- Build a tiny house in our garden
- Get Portugalbay.com closer to €40,000/month
- Get loudavymkrokem.cz to €10,000/month during peak season
2023 Year Review from Friends and Fellow Creators
- Petr Krauz
- Zdeněk Matuška
- Jarda Pajskr
- Dála Musil
- Vláďa Pilný
- Mário Roženský
- Štefan Polgári
- Patrik Gajdoš
- Michal Binka
- Patrik Pilous
- Jan Polzer
- Bronislav Markowicz
- Marek Farda
- Štefan Janoušek
- Petraontheway
- Ondra Martínek
- Radka z Norska
- Lucie Po
- Jaroslav Janíček
Want your link here? Drop a comment or send an email to: lukas@lkmedia.cz.
Tips and Tricks for Your Vacation
Don’t Overpay for Flights
Search for flights on Kayak. It’s our favorite search engine because it scans the websites of all airlines and always finds the cheapest connection.
Book Your Accommodation Smartly
The best experiences we’ve had when looking for accommodation (from Alaska to Morocco) are with Booking.com, where hotels, apartments, and entire houses are usually the cheapest and most widely available.
Don’t Forget Travel Insurance
Good travel insurance will protect you against illness, accidents, theft, or flight cancellations. We’ve had a few hospital visits abroad, so we know how important it is to have proper insurance arranged.
Where we insure ourselves: SafetyWing (best for everyone) and TrueTraveller (for extra-long trips).
Why don’t we recommend any Czech insurance company? Because they have too many restrictions. They set limits on the number of days abroad, travel insurance via a credit card often requires you to pay medical expenses only with that card, and they frequently limit the number of returns to the Czech Republic.
Find the Best Experiences
Get Your Guide is a huge online marketplace where you can book guided walks, trips, skip-the-line tickets, tours, and much more. We always find some extra fun there!
