Year In Review: 2025

Lessons from a year of pivots, personal resets, and the long game of growth

👋 Hey, I’m George Chasiotis. Welcome to GrowthWaves, your weekly dose of B2B growth insights—featuring powerful case studies, emerging trends, and unconventional strategies you won’t find anywhere else.

This note is brought to you by Minuttia.

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This is my first time writing a year-in-review.

I want to keep it as transparent and real as possible.

That’s the only way to build a trusted, long-term relationship with you on the other side.

I’ll break it into the following sections:

1. Business

2. GrowthWaves

3. Personal

4. Reflections and What’s Next

Then, I’ll close with my final thoughts and wishes for the new year.

Thank you for following my journey and taking the time to read this note.

Business

Let’s start with everything around business.

Overview

It was an interesting year for me professionally.

Not the best in terms of revenue or satisfaction from the projects I worked on.

But still a meaningful one, and I’m grateful for both the highs and the lows.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know I launched my agency, Minuttia, six years ago.

That was my main focus—until a couple of years ago, when I started GrowthWaves (September 2023) and began exploring other projects.

Earlier this year, I got an offer from a close friend and decided to co-found a new agency.

From March through late October, I was almost fully committed to that project.

This experience gave me exposure to new channels for marketing and growth, the dynamics of running a business with a partner (not my first time), and the challenge of selling services outside content marketing and SEO.

Overall, I’m glad I did it.

Even though things didn’t turn out exactly as we’d hoped, it was still a net positive experience.

After deciding to shut down the project, my focus has shifted back to Minuttia, my personal brands, and other matters I can’t discuss yet.

Lessons

A few big business lessons from this year:

1. Going brand-first instead of business-first: the logo, the website, the color palette. Get customers, serve them well, and build a couple of case studies. Then you have a business. After that, you can build a brand on top of it. Always go business first.

2. You don’t want the ones who don’t want to be there. This year, I had to part ways with certain people. Even though I was frustrated—and honestly, embittered—at first, once I stepped back, I realized that when someone wants to go (or has to), you should let them. Keeping them around isn’t good for anyone.

3. On the other hand, the people who want to stay—and are worth it beyond personal or emotional attachments—are the ones you should keep close and reward. That’s why I offered Zacharias Xiroudakis the role of Managing Director at Minuttia.

4. Mindset and headspace are the most critical aspects of running a business. That’s something I want to work on much more in the coming year.

5. Ultimately, what you do becomes who you are. Choosing the right career path—whether in-house, freelance, or founder—depends on who you are as a person. Many of my decisions were driven by the wrong reasons (often survival). I want to start doing things that are aligned with who I am at my core—and that go beyond mere survival.

There are many more things I could share, but we’ve got a lot to cover, so I’ll save those for another note.

Speaking

This year was decent in terms of speaking engagements.

One reason is that until March—when I co-founded Restartt—I was still focused on content and SEO. After that, my topics shifted.

And as you’d expect, it’s hard to become an in-demand speaker on new topics (e.g., signal-based outbound) in just a few months. That’s part of why I didn’t speak much this year.

Another reason: I was all-in on Restartt and chose not to pursue speaking gigs, online or offline.

Still, here’s a quick snapshot of the year.

In-person events:

• SERP Conf. (Sofia, Bulgaria)

• SaaStanak 2025 (Šibenik, Croatia)

• Clay x HubSpot Event (Dubai, UAE)

• Spotlight by Semrush (Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Webinars:

• AI + SEO: How to Stay Ahead in 2025 (AirOps)

• Founder-Led Content Strategy (Maven)

• Signal-Led Growth: The Playbook of the Now (Private)

• Signal-Led Growth: The Playbook of the Now (Juma)

Next year will be much stronger.

I’ve already booked three events (two are live on my site), and more are coming.

The goal is to double in-person appearances and triple online events compared to this year.

Personal Brand

This year was interesting for my personal brand.

Around March, I started working on a new agency.

In May–June, I shifted the topics I cover on LinkedIn and GrowthWaves, with good results.

A large part of Restartt’s pipeline came from LinkedIn—driven directly by my content.

I added 4K+ followers on LinkedIn this year.

Content impressions hit 933K as of writing this.

I’m not 100% satisfied, but given the pivot—and declining reach on LinkedIn—I’d say it went well.

Most importantly, I documented my LinkedIn content strategy for the first time, which now makes creation easier and more consistent.

All in all, not the best year for my personal brand—but I’m well-positioned to do a lot better next year.

I’m also planning to test new channels and formats beyond LinkedIn in 2026.

More on that later, and I’ll discuss GrowthWaves in one of the following sections.

Investing

I made one angel investment this year.

The company’s called RankBee, and it sits in the AI search tracking category.

(I shared a report on this category here.)

I get angel pitches all the time, but I’m shifting focus away from this asset class.

One of the main reasons is that AI will commoditize most SaaS categories.

Which means high valuations and liquidity events (like IPOs) are mostly off the table.

Unless we’re talking about a unicorn or outlier with huge upside, secondaries are also off the table.

That leaves acquisitions as the only likely liquidity path.

But even acquisitions usually aren’t enough—cap table structures often don’t favor angels, and it’s hard to even get your money back, let alone make a return.

Add to that the fact that I’m making better returns elsewhere, and the opportunity cost of angel investing is just too high.

I get the LinkedIn “look at me, I have money for angel investing” energy—but that doesn’t do much for me.

I want substance in what I do, and I don’t care to show off for the sake of appearances.

That said, I’m still open to angel deals, under very specific conditions, and only if I can take an active role (advisor, board, etc.).

Let’s move on to how GrowthWaves did this year.

GrowthWaves

Okay, time to discuss GrowthWaves.

Performance

Earlier this year, I moved GrowthWaves from a custom-built site to Substack.

Was it the right move? Too early to say. But so far, it’s looking like it was.

Substack has definitely helped with discoverability and reach.

There are things I don’t like about Substack, but looking back, the move was the right call—for both GrowthWaves and me.

We’re closing the year with just over 5.8K followers.

Substack shows 5,354 total subscribers (though, take that number with a grain of salt).

When we moved over to Substack, we brought 4,761 subscribers from Beehiiv.

This means that our growth after the move was ~22.92%.

Not great, but not bad either.

The biggest issue? Substack’s analytics and list management aren’t great.

Out of those 5,800+ followers (still not sure what that number actually represents), there’s no clean way to track who’s engaging or even opening emails.

So you’re flying blind on list quality, which partly explains the dip in open rates.

On the upside, more and more folks from bigger companies have started subscribing.

Since I’ve stopped using paid media, subscriber growth has been entirely referral, organic, and direct.

More specifically:

• Substack (e.g., newsletter recommendations—shout out to Kevin Indig for the support)

• Listicles and blogs mentioning GrowthWaves

• Google search

• Email clicks

• “Direct to app” (whatever that means)

• Direct (black box, but it’s there)

Traffic (including emails) hasn’t been super consistent since February 11th (around when the first few notes moved to Substack).

There were some dips, mostly from switching to a bi-weekly cadence and going inconsistent after launching Restartt, since priorities shifted.

Okay, let’s talk content.

Content

It’s funny how you can spend hours on a piece of content, only for it to flop the moment you share it.

It’s like no one cares—no reactions, no feedback, no engagement.

Which makes you wonder: are people even opening these emails?

I still don’t have a solid answer to that.

Like I mentioned earlier, priorities shifted. I went from weekly notes + one Pro note + the occasional interview or webinar to barely managing two notes per month.

That definitely slowed growth for both the free and paid versions of GrowthWaves.

That said, next year I’m choosing quality over quantity.

I haven’t finalized the content strategy yet, but we’re sticking to a bi-weekly cadence.

As of today, GrowthWaves has 104 notes in its library (51 of them from this year alone).

That’s a lot of content, especially for a solo creator (even with occasional help from a ghostwriter and researcher).

Pro

When we moved GrowthWaves from a custom site to Substack, we more or less relaunched GrowthWaves Pro.

It didn’t take off, and in hindsight, I can see why.

Even with a big library (some of it really strong, like the 135 growth tactics note), good content alone isn’t enough to build a loyal base of paying readers.

Next year, I might relaunch GrowthWaves Pro with a more focused, I’ll-do-it-right attitude.

That said, thank you to everyone who’s paid for—or is still paying for—GrowthWaves Pro. Your support means a lot.

Sponsorships

GrowthWaves brought in more sponsorships this year, from a variety of brands:

• Attio (SaaS)

• AirOps (SaaS)

• DoFollow (Agency)

(Big thanks to all of these brands for choosing to advertise with GrowthWaves.)

Aside from having a storefront, I didn’t do any outreach to generate sponsorship sales.

I also increased prices—something I know might be off-putting for some companies, given the current size of the newsletter.

But subscriber count is just one lens for evaluating a GrowthWaves sponsorship.

The quality of subscribers and other factors—like how long the ad stays on the website (ours stay up permanently)—should also be considered.

That said, I don’t plan to make any major changes here going into the new year.

Direction moving forward

Here’s where my thinking stands with GrowthWaves right now (and yes, some of this may change):

• Notes will go out every other week, with more emphasis on the quality of both the ideas and the execution.

• I’ll redesign GrowthWaves Pro and may relaunch it next year, but only if it aligns with everything else I’m working on.

• I also relaunched B2B Marketing Jobs—a job board for B2B marketers. I rebuilt it on Lovable, with a backend that crawls specific job boards and updates automatically every Monday. Companies can also post jobs for free. I’m not planning to monetize it right now, but that might change later. Interestingly, I launched it just last week and it’s already getting traffic.

• I’m considering opening GrowthWaves to guest posts—with very strict criteria—as another way to monetize what I’ve built.

That’s it for now.

No other updates I want to share at this point.

If you have any suggestions, feel free to reach out.

Personal

I live by a simple personal vision statement:

Be healthier, happier, wealthier, wiser while having fun and helping others.

Each of these buckets…

• Health

• Happiness

• Wealth

• Wisdom

• Having fun

• Helping others

… has measurable goals each year.

I set the bar high, which means I don’t always hit every goal.

But that’s fine, it’s part of the process.

It’s been an okay year on the personal side.

Plenty of ups and downs—like any other year.

I made progress in most areas, but I also neglected a few.

And some things just didn’t go the way I expected.

For example, I couldn’t run for most of the year due to a knee issue.

(Hitting a certain number of kilometers is part of my health bucket.)

On the wealth side, it wasn’t my strongest year—my income was lower than last year.

Interestingly, it’s the first year where my investment income nearly matched my earned income from business.

Not sure if that’s telling me something about where to focus next.

Bottom line: I have a solid system built around my personal vision.

It works well, but it can also be draining.

Next year, I want to double down on the areas I neglected or that didn’t go to plan, so I can finish the year in the green on most goals.

To be clear, most of these goals are about internal wins.

But they also have a ripple effect as they impact others in meaningful ways.

All that said, I’m grateful for everything this year, and I’m looking forward to what’s next.

Reflections and What’s Next

I’ve already shared my thoughts on the current cycle and my predictions for the new year.

Broadly speaking, this feels like one of the most exciting periods for marketers and growth professionals.

The past three years brought massive shifts, and more are on the way.

I’ve seen it firsthand through my agency, Minuttia.

2023–2025 haven’t been easy, especially for agencies (and in-house teams too).

Still, I believe we’re heading into a better year.

I can’t say that with absolute certainty, but I believe it.

On a personal note: after launching and shutting down Restartt, and appointing a Managing Director at Minuttia, I finally have some space to think about what’s next.

Everything’s on the table—maybe launching something new, maybe joining a company.

Either way, I’m excited.

At a high level, here’s what I want to focus on:

• Mindset: Staying aligned with my personal vision and maintaining mental clarity and emotional consistency

• Focus: Doing fewer things, but with more meaning (and less soul drain)

• People: Keeping only those who nourish me and help me grow

• Online/Offline: Less mindless scrolling on LinkedIn, more deep work, meaningful output, and time spent offline

Let’s wrap this up.

In closing

Writing these notes takes time and real mental effort.

And opening up like this—sharing goals, behind-the-scenes struggles, wins, setbacks—isn’t easy.

But I’ve always believed that transparency helps us connect, understand one another, and become better, both as people and professionals.

I hope this note—and maybe others I’ve shared—gave you something useful to think about.

I’ll be back with the first note of the year in early January, and then continue on a biweekly rhythm.

I’ll keep you posted on everything I’m working on.

And as always, feel free to reach out with questions, feedback, or just to connect.

Wishing you a great start to the new year.

—George

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