---
aliases: ["February 2025"]
Is A: Month
Created at: "2025-02-28"
Belongs to: "[[25q1]]"
Rating: "🤩"
---
# February 2025

## Focus

- Execute [[25q1-rate-increase]] — communicate new pricing to sponsors
- Launch [[25q1-referral-program]] — design tiers, set up tracking
- Continue [[25q1-laputa-v1]] — add search and navigation features

## Highlights

- Executed [[25q1-rate-increase]]: communicated new Gold rate (EUR 3.5k/issue) to all sponsors — 9 out of 10 renewed without pushback, one negotiated a 6-month lock at the old rate
- Launched [[25q1-referral-program]] with three tiers: 3 referrals (exclusive article), 10 referrals (premium trial), 25 referrals (1:1 call) — 1,100 referral subscribers in the first 3 weeks
- [[25q1-laputa-v1]] now has full-text search, type-based sidebar navigation, and keyboard shortcuts — my daily driver for vault browsing
- [[measure-sponsorship-mrr]] jumped to EUR 13.5k after rate increase — significant lift with minimal churn
- Newsletter at 54.2k subscribers — referral program providing a noticeable acceleration
- [[person-matteo-cellini]] onboarded a new enterprise sponsor (cloud infrastructure company) at the higher rate — first deal at the new pricing

## Reflections

This was the month I learned that raising prices is one of the highest-leverage moves in a business. We spent weeks agonizing over the rate increase, running scenarios, worrying about sponsor churn. And then... almost nothing happened. Sponsors said "sure, sounds fair" and renewed. One even said "honestly, I'm surprised you didn't raise earlier." That's the curse of the bootstrapper mindset — you're so grateful for every dollar that you forget to charge what you're worth.

The referral program is generating genuine excitement. Seeing readers actively sharing Refactoring with their colleagues because they want the rewards — it's word-of-mouth at scale. The 1:1 call tier at 25 referrals is clever because it creates a personal connection between me and my most engaged readers. Three people earned it in the first month, and those calls were some of the best conversations I've had about engineering leadership. February was excellent. Everything is tracking.
