Any makers sharing their journey on YouTube?
Graeme
9 replies
Hey all, I've been a maker for years, and realised it's been since 2018 that was my last full-time job! Is anyone in the same boat?
I've found myself getting a bit bored when working on my own, so I decided to start YouTubing to mix things up and actually speak. I'm starting out just scrappily using Loom, talking about the stuff I've worked on each day.
If you have a Youtube channel, add it as a comment so I can find your channel! Does anyone have tips for starting out? I don't wanna spend time editing, so hopefully there are some tools that can automate YouTube thumbnails etc.. any suggestions?
Here's my first vid, 'Building Letter':
press like and subscribe to my YouTube lol (first time i've written that)...
Replies
Joseph Natoli@joseph_natoli
Launching soon!
I have not done this so far, being over a year after founding, but I have thought about livestreaming on Twitch.
Problem is that building a business requires a lot of confidential content and ensuring that I don't accidentally stream it seemed like a hinderance.
Additionally a lot of the business building process can be really erratic and boring. This is not great for a livestream where you need to entertaining (requires more focus than you'd think) meaning getting the business work done would be really quite hard.
YouTubing your journey can be quite interesting though if you can do it in an entertaining way.
Share
yeah that’s a good point, i remember when there was a period streaming coding was pretty popular..
I find making a vid showing the outcomes and changes in the UI is good compared to those business aspects. Initially i just share to build momentum in sharing work again. Somehow lost that over the years because i got jaded
@graeme_fulton I can see people could be getting excited if you maybe tried to approach your (weekly?) YouTube video as an accountability tool, meaning:
At the end of each video, you make a statement on what you’re going to have shipped within 7 days.
Then in a week, it’s judgement day and you show what you got.
Will Graeme deliver? Or, will he fail “miserably”? :D
Of course, start the video with a great hook, a petite story that leads from the hook the outcome, and then deliver the outcome.
I believe the very simple story arc approach that Casey Neistat explained in this video of his could be helpful:
1. Setup (beginning)
2. Conflict (middle)
3. Resolution (end)
(classic 3-act story)
Source: "HOW TO VLOG LIKE CASEY NEISTAT by CASEY NEISTAT" https://youtu.be/Q980C74SdYQ?t=284 (timestamp: 4:44min)
Core question: Could you find, in your activity of bulding Letter, find a 3-act narrative to share?
===
Alternatively, you can consider the Dan Harmon "Story Circle" approach which is quite universally applicable, including real life and business. It goes like this:
1. a character is in a zone of comfort
2. but they want something
3. they enter an unfamiliar situation
4. adapt to it
5. get what they wanted
6. pay a heavy price for it
7. then return to their familiar situation
8. having changed
And shortened to single words, you get:
1. You
2. Need
3. Go
4. Search
5. Find
6. Take
7. Return
8. Change
Source: Dan’s article about it - https://channel101.fandom.com/wi...
Additional source: a video explaining it well - "Using the Story Circle to Structure Your Screenplay - Complete Screenwriting Masterclass Part 7" (don’t be misled by the context, which is screenwriting and film in this case, it applies to YouTube documentaries as well)
Harmon also writes (qutoed from the article above):
===
It’s not that stories have to follow this structure, it’s that, without some semblance of this structure, it’s not recognizable as a story.
You can have a story where your characters don’t change (8) or don’t get what they want (5) or never return to a familiar situation (7) but you can only take away so much.
So then would be left:
1. You
2. Need
3. Go
4. Search
5. /
6. Take
7. /
8. /
This 👆 is the barebone.
Harmon’s Story Circle is so useful because it exists outside of the screenplay structure. You can also apply the Story Circle to each act of the script or each scene.
Always keep in mind, in each act/scene we follow a character with a dramatic need heading towards a goal.
The audience doesn’t care about simple external obstacles. The audience only cares about how your character’s beliefs come into conflict within the story.
For the documentation of your startup, Letter.so, and particularly your video from above, “Building Letter series: Brand Logo Manager”, this could mean:
1. I, Graeme, was happy with how images worked in Letter
2. But I noticed that for your brand logo you didn’t want to crop and zoom in and behave like a cover image; you wanted a consistent logo and then look the same everywhere
3. So, I had a look
4. ...ran through some iterations
5. /
6. You explain some of the struggle that was involved it
7. /
8. But then I noticed that if I do that (epiphany) I was able to resize logos so they maintain their ratio, and everywhere where you want your logo to appear, your newly uploaded logo will show, too.
Next week, I’ll show you how I approached social media icons in a similar way. Talk to you next .
Here's a good example shared with me on IH - https://www.youtube.com/@colinma... @colinmathews
Anyone else out there?
This is cool Graeme and I think aiming for short (2 mins) is key here.
My story:
I started creating a behind-the-scenes for my (ex)YouTube show and made 3:
(unlisted)
Then did another series building Email Love, this is vid #4 on the domain negotiation: https://youtu.be/7QsDgLvOrrM
Did some for One Page Love too.
... and my big takeaway is having a limited about of time and energy in a week, I can't justify the time it takes to create a detailed video, if my objective is to actually build out the network.
If I was building only 1 thing, I would definitely consider a YouTube series, but WAY lighter production with little nuggets like you shared.
I aimed way too high and it's not sustainable if you have 3-5 projects.
@robhope can't believe I wasn't already subbed!! I do remember that video though on the domain negotiations, how the hell is it 4 years ago! 😅
Thanks for sharing your takeaways from doing it too - yeah the lighter production sounds like the way to go as I already have too much going on..maybe low-budget tiktok sort of thing. I don't really expect many viewers from it.
I'm looking for a way to document things faster, since I used to write articles but those always take longer and I end up stopping..maybe I just need to write blogs instead of 'articles' too!