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Ollie Aplin
3 x Founder | CMO & Creative Strategist
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Why You Need An End Of Year Review.
I’ve split this into two parts for a reason.
Most founders don’t need another framework dropped on them when they’re already busy. They need clarity on why something matters before it’s worth making time for how to do it properly.
Part 1 is about creating that pause. Stepping back from the noise, understanding why an end of year review is different from day-to-day reporting, and what most reviews miss when they stop at the numbers.
Part 2 will drop in next week’s newsletter. That’s the practical side. What to actually review, the questions worth asking, and how to turn reflection into clear decisions for the year ahead.
Read this first to reset your thinking. Then use Part 2 in next week's episode to do the work.
Part 1: Pause & Reflect
By the time you think about reviewing the year, it’s already over.
January is underway. Plans are set. Targets are live. Execution has begun. You might have taken time off to rest. More likely, you were watching Kevin outsmart the Wet Bandits while checking ad performance.
For most founders, the end of the year disappears somewhere between closing laptops for Christmas, reopening them “just quickly”, and realising it’s suddenly mid-January.
You’re wired to look ahead. Next quarter. Next year. The next three to five years. There is always something coming, something to prepare for, something that needs moving forward.
At the same time, your business is under constant review. Data, targets, decisions, fire-fighting. But that review happens inside the work, squeezed between meetings, messages, and whatever problem happens to be loudest that day.
This is something we saw repeatedly at MindJournal. Even when the business was growing, most of the “reviewing” happened reactively, in motion, rarely with enough distance to change the direction of travel.
An end-of-year review isn’t another planning session between mince pies and inbox zero. It’s a deliberate pause. A chance to take stock of what actually moved the business forward, what quietly held it back, and what deserves more or less attention over the next 12 months.
When you create that space, something shifts. You move from managing what’s immediately in front of you to lifting your head and taking a longer-term view. Not where the business happens to be heading next quarter, but where you want it to be by this time next year.
Without that pause, the business keeps moving, but not always in the direction you intended.
What most end-of-year reviews miss
Most end-of-year reviews stop at the scoreboard.
Revenue is checked. Growth is measured. A few wins are noted. A few obvious problems are acknowledged. Then it’s straight back into planning.
What’s missing is the work that actually changes behaviour.
A useful review starts by mapping what actually happened, not just what performed well.
For example, you might finish the year up 25% and feel good. But a proper review asks where that growth actually came from. Was it driven by a short Black Friday spike? Heavier discounting? A single product carrying most of the business?
These were exactly the kinds of questions that changed how we planned at MindJournal. The headline numbers rarely told the full story. The detail underneath decided whether growth was repeatable or fragile.
Next, it’s about separating activity from impact.
You probably launched more ads, added more SKUs, tested more creatives, or expanded into new channels. On paper, that looks like progress. In practice, a review often reveals that one channel drove most of the profitable growth, while the rest absorbed time and budget without moving the needle.
This is usually the first uncomfortable realisation. Not everything that kept you and your team busy deserved to be carried into the next year.
Another critical step is linking performance back to decisions.
If paid media costs climbed, was that down to platform changes, creative fatigue, or the decision to scale before retention was in place? If email revenue improved, was it because of better flows, stronger creative, or simply heavier discounting?
Without connecting outcomes to choices, it’s impossible to know what should be repeated and what should be rethought.
Reviews also need to account for trade-offs.
Growth often comes with hidden costs. Faster fulfilment increased conversion rates but crushed margins. International expansion unlocked new demand but doubled operational complexity. Launching more products increased AOV but diluted focus and slowed decision-making.
None of these are failures, but all of them need to be acknowledged if next year is going to be planned realistically.
Finally, the review needs to end with decisions, not observations.
Clear calls on what to do more of. What to do less of. And what to stop entirely.
That might mean doubling down on one acquisition channel and cutting three others. Simplifying the product range instead of expanding it. Or investing in creative and retention before increasing ad spend again.
These aren’t theoretical improvements. They’re practical constraints that shape how the business actually runs.
This is what turns an end-of-year review into leverage.
Without this depth, ecommerce brands tend to repeat the same patterns with slightly different tactics. With it, you start the next year with clarity on what actually drives profitable growth, and what simply creates noise.
So start thinking about your review.
Not to sit down and do it in full. Not to open spreadsheets or pull reports. Just to notice where the year felt easy, where it felt heavy, and what you actually want from the next 12 months.
I know things are busy right now, which is why this is split into two parts.
Next week, I’ll share a practical framework you can use to turn that thinking into clear decisions for the year ahead.
