What If Growth Is The Thing That Breaks You (ILikeToMakeStuff)

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We talk with Bob Claggett from I Like To Make Stuff about the real cost of building a long-running YouTube channel, from quitting a day job to getting crushed by overhead when revenue drops. We unpack how he rebuilt his business and creative life by redefining growth, hiring smarter, and using a clear personal compass to avoid burnout.

• shifting from software development to hands-on making to stay sane 
• learning to use analytics without letting metrics steal creative focus 
• early maker YouTube and how community cross-pollination fueled growth 
• building videos around teaching and removing “black boxes” for viewers 
• making the leap with a nine-month deadline and working two full-time jobs 
• stacking revenue streams with Patreon, sponsorships, merch and YouTube income 
• using mentorship to navigate sponsorships and business decisions 
• facing burnout after hiring, buying a building and carrying payroll pressure 
• downsizing after YouTube revenue dropped and rebuilding a smaller team 
• separating expansion from true growth and hiring roles that pay for themselves 
• choosing formats that fit the work instead of chasing shorts and trends 
• unifying a multi-audience channel around problem solving 
• handling flops, surprise hits and long-term spikes from culture moments 
• defining a “compass” for what you want to add to the world 

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Transcript

Revenue Shock And Hard Choices

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Basically we decided I'm gonna do two full-time jobs for nine months. And I asked her, is it okay if I'm a terrible father and a terrible husband for nine months while I try to figure this out? YouTube revenue in across the board started dropping pretty significantly. My overhead had not dropped significantly, and it got to where there's just not enough money for everything. And it crushed me. So we went through a process of letting people go, downsizing the entire thing. But in doing that, I just got completely crushed, is the only word I can come up

Meet Bob Claggett And The Channel

SPEAKER_00 0:32

with.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that loves to make stuff. I'm Travis here. Every single week, helping you grow your YouTube channel, and I'm here with a very special guest, someone else who also likes to make stuff. Thank you for joining me today.

unknown 0:43

Bob.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

How you doing? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm uh Bob Claggett from I Like to Make Stuff. That's the name of the company, which was very easy to come up with. And I've been uh doing YouTube stuff for probably about 13 years now.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Oh my gosh. So I love conversations like this because we're gonna be talking to someone who's been through the grind, has probably seen it all, and I love these conversations. But if you're new here, we help you grow a YouTube channel in so many different ways. Sometimes we answer your questions through email. And other times like this, we interview people who've done it and can help you figure your way through this jungle we call YouTube. If you have any questions, you can always send us an email. But more importantly than that, all the links will be in the description below. And if you're listening to the audio podcast, they will be in the show notes. So without any further ado, let's get right into it.

From Software To Making Things

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Tell me about yourself. So let's start before YouTube. What were you doing? Who were you before you were a YouTube superstar? And what were you up to? Like what kind of things were what were paying the bills? What were you doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:40

I was I did software development for about 15 years. And uh I went to an art school for college, and so I was into a bunch of different creative pursuits and started a company uh building software and sold that, worked somewhere else, worked somewhere else. You know, I did all the the software stuff for I think it was about 15 years, and and then I needed to make some stuff with my hands uh to kind of stay sane. And so I would get up from my computer, go over and make something, and then come back and sit down. And uh that was the the beginning of what I'm doing now, and it's it's been a long process, but that's how I got started.

Analytics Without Losing Creativity

SPEAKER_01 2:19

So, you know, being into computers and stuff, I I would guess, and we'll probably get into this later. Um, you're you're probably a little bit of an analytical person, would you say?

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Do you obsess over analytics at all?

SPEAKER_00 2:31

I did early on, and then I realized that it was getting in the way of the creative stuff, like just my brain space and how much attention I have towards things. And so then I took I kind of pendulum swung the other direction and didn't care about analytics at all, and then have ended up kind of in the middle where I mostly ignore them at this point.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

That's interesting because I feel like um there's definitely some important things you can learn from them. However, and you know this having been on YouTube so long, so many of the metrics we have today weren't even available, even like five years ago. Like for what was CTR, you know, just a couple of years ago. We didn't even know what that was.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Yeah, it was very different. And and you can only pull so much in the early days. You could only pull so much from what you were shown. Um, I also have this weird self-inflicted condition on YouTube where I don't have one audience. A lot of people strive to have one audience. I have probably hundreds of audiences that overlap a little bit at a time. And so any information I get from analytics is really hard to apply to everyone. I can apply it to these people or those people or those people, and that only goes so far. Eventually, like I said, I kind of swung the other direction because I found that like I I should just make the things that I want to make. I should do the thing that I want to do. And if people show up, they'll show up. And if not, okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

That we're definitely gonna dive into that because that's a that's a heck of a that's a heck of a thing to say there. Because um a lot of people will say, well, if they don't show up, I don't have a channel, but we'll get to that later. I think that's that's a really good mindset. I think it's a very healthy mindset, but we're not there yet. Let's start more in the beginning parts of the YouTube that you first uploaded to, which is vastly different than the one that is today. Talk to us about what the platform was like back then and what your experience was when you first started uploading.

Early YouTube Maker Culture

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Well, I actually have a couple of of different lifetimes on YouTube, which is kind of weird. So the 13 years that I was talking about is for I like to make stuff. Before that, I did music on YouTube. And so if you know Jack Conte, um so when he was doing music way back in the day before he got famous and everything, um, there was a group of us, and he was kind of one of the top people, a group of us that made music, made videos about making the music, and then put it all up on the internet. So this is probably, I don't know, 2011, something like that. And so I spent a couple of years before I started making things, making music on YouTube, and that was a very uh specialized community, a very collaborative process with other musicians of sharing files, and and it just it had no uh no revenue, no viable business. It was just I need to make music. And so I I went at it with that intention and through that process learned a lot about video making and about the production and about you know just the how do you get things out to people at that time, which is very different, obviously, than it is now. Um, so I that kind of fell off when I started having kids. I have four kids, and so then a few years later, started doing um the I Like to make stuff projects and the videos. And so at that time, the the kind of subculture that I was in on YouTube was still very small. The maker culture on YouTube was relatively small, people that did woodworking and metalworking and stuff like that. So it was very easy to get views because there wasn't a lot of competition, and it's still not competition, there wasn't a lot to choose from. And so uh there were a few of us, and I was not in the first class of that, but you know, I was maybe second class. There were a few of us that were doing it, and at that time you could you could literally make anything you wanted to, and people were ravenous enough for like creative, hands-on, I want to make things, that it was easy to build a community and it was easy to connect with other people. Um and that's how it started for me. And then over the years, that landscape has changed drastically.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Yeah, we're gonna talk about that too. Um, so when you first started, and you first started uploading, you actually had already done the music stuff. So you weren't unfamiliar with YouTube, which is kind of an advantage, right? What type of things did you go into making I like make stuff from the experiences you had from the

Making Videos To Teach Everything

SPEAKER_01 6:52

audio part? Like, so for people who are just uploading now, there's so many different things you can do. You can live stream, you can shorts, you can do you know, content. But back back when you first started, a lot of those things didn't exist. But what type of information did you take from the music channel that you're like, okay, I'm a little bit ahead of the game than someone who just uploads today for the first time?

SPEAKER_00 7:09

I think if anything, I'm not sure that I actually had any any institutional knowledge at that point, but I think if anything, it was that music is a series of phrases and is a series of rhythms, and the video that went with music had to be that as well. So there was a lot of a lot of cutting, a lot of intentional um change to ma visual change to match the audio. And so in the maker space, a lot of the videos that people were making, they take a really long time to make. So if you're carving something, it takes ten times as long to move the camera every two minutes than it does to create a time lapse and just do the thing. And so I think my experience told me I cannot do really long time lapses of work. It's just not visually interesting, it doesn't move enough. And so I started moving the camera around more than a lot of the other people that were doing it at the time. Very early on, this quickly became not something that was unique to me at all. Um but I think that was probably the big thing that I pulled over is just motion. Like it it had to move. And making things in video format, making a physical object on video, I think is pretty unique when it comes to video production because there's there's a different set of um different set of elements that go into the storytelling versus something that's narrative. There's like a whole different set of things that need to be captured to explain what's happening and before and after results, and there's there's a bunch to it.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yeah, we talk a lot about storytelling uh on this channel, which is really important, but you're also doing something educational or at the very least, explaining things, right? So it's not just that you make something, because that's that's one level of coolness to watch. But some people actually want to learn how to do it themselves. So there's almost a little bit of like, here's how I did it, here's the secret sauce, which means the editing and the shooting have to be done kind of intentionally. What um when you were early on doing this content, kind of at the very beginning, were you naturally doing that, or is it something you learned over time?

SPEAKER_00 9:10

That was the the original intention, the the why as to why I was making videos in the first place. Actually, let me give you a little bit of let me go back just a little bit further. So I had kids, young kids at the time, and I also really wanted to be able to make things with my hands at the time. And so there was a trade-off in my mind of if I'm not going to be with my family for a little bit for my own well-being to do this thing, it needs to have a little bit more value. I've got to be able to justify this time. And so that was like, well, if I make videos, then other people can get value out of it as well. It's not entirely selfish on my part, right? To do that, to make it worthwhile for those people, it has to be beneficial and it has to give them something they couldn't pick up otherwise. So the intention originally was I'm gonna make a thing that I'm interested in, and I'm gonna show everybody watching that it is knowable. There are no black boxes. Usually, you know, like old TV shows, it's like, I made this dish, and look, there's already one in the oven. And there's this black box in the middle of like, how did that get from there to there? So my intention was I'm gonna show you everything because if I can do it, you can do it. And part of that required me to show everything and to at least have a basic understanding of what I was doing so that I could relay it, you know, and and kind of get rid of the magic so that people are encouraged to make the stuff that they want to have. That was the whole point. All that to say, that required me to be really explicit about what I showed and about what I covered and not just gloss over the I started with this piece of wood and then I ended up with a clock. You know, that doesn't help anybody.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Makes sense. So when you were doing this, um, you said there wasn't a lot of competition. What were what was it like for your first like uh three or four months? Do you remember like what kind of views were you getting? Were you getting good views or was it relative to what you were doing? Did you kind of expect to go into it and get decent views? Because everything's relative, right? You got them in, there was no shorts back then. So good views could have been a thousand views. Like what were you, do you remember what you were getting, what you were thinking at the time?

SPEAKER_00 11:09

I truly don't remember what the

Community And Collaboration As Fuel

SPEAKER_00 11:12

original view counts were, but I think I was focused more on uh becoming part of the community that was already existing there. So there was a good friend of mine who I do a podcast with now, named David Paciuto. And at the time, he had a weekly wrap-up show that was basically him talking about other maker videos on YouTube and like highlighting here's 10 great videos that you probably haven't seen. And that was the way that a lot of us in that same time period got to find each other. It was through David's show. And so honestly, one of my original goals, I want to make it on that show. I want to be able to identify with the people that I see that I that are awesome, that are making cool stuff. You know, I want to be one of those people that connect that I so I can connect to that community. That was one of the original goals. And so I don't remember view counts, but I remember the day that he picked up one of my videos and put it on his show, and it was like, oh man, like this isn't it, it's not gonna change my life or anything, but this is great. This is the community I wanted to be a part of. So that was pretty significant.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

I love that because I think I remember the first time when I was doing content creation on my personal channel, like when a content creator that I respected was either in my comment section or mentioned me, I flipped out. Like it was the coolest thing ever because you kind of fanboy a little bit, right? Yeah, yeah, for sure. How much of um being a part of the community uh would you say, and this might not be the answer, might be not at all. Do you think contributed to your success? Is there any portion of that, whether it be something you learned from it? Not necessarily like the shout-outs or anything. I'm not talking about that, but I mean like, did you learn something from other people in your community? Did you guys ever collaborate on things? Like, what were the things you got from being a part of a community?

SPEAKER_00 12:51

I think um, I mean, I definitely learned stuff from all of the people that were, I still do, from people that are making videos. But in that original kind of class or two of people who were making videos, it was there was a healthy competition of like how can we do things more creatively? Not in competition with each other, but how can we how can we grow based on what we see? And we would all do that with each other. Um, it also helped a lot that I really enjoy podcasting. I really enjoy interviewing people. And so I started a live show at the time on YouTube to interview other people, other maker people, and get to ask them about what they made. And so there was a cross-pollination of audiences, you know, immediately. And like I said earlier on, those the audience at that time was just hungry for anything that they could get. Whoever was making something cool, they wanted to see it. And so the cross-pollination went really far. It was a very intense, you know, almost one for one, my audience is now your audience, and vice versa. Like, you know, and that is how a community grows when people are like mutually beneficial, uh, lifting each other up. And so there was a lot of that, not just me, there were a lot of that going on. And and I got so much out of being lifted up by the people around me. Um, and just learning skills and stuff too. I mean, we're all teaching each other things, so that was huge.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

I love that. And uh finding communities uh that are similar to your content creation journey is really important. Actually, here at Vitaco, we have a Discord that y'all can freely uh connect with other creators. There's a link in the description. Um, let's talk a little bit about again the early part when you kind of started this channel.

Turning A Hobby Into A Job

SPEAKER_01 14:24

I imagine that you probably weren't monetized for a while. So you have a family. Like, how are you keeping ends together? And at what point did you did you come to the point where it's like, okay, this channel's actually starting to do well enough that I could maybe leave what else I'm doing to make money?

SPEAKER_00 14:39

It took a long time. I mean, the rules for monetization were much easier back then as well. Yeah, yeah. Um, so you know, I had that going in my favor. But I I think I started getting uh some Patreon. I was there, I was like, I want to say number two or number three on Patreon. Like I was the moment the video came out, you know, I'll be like on. I've never been able to get Jack to verify that for me, but I'm pretty sure that's the case. Um and so I that was an early source of getting enough money to cover expenses for materials and things like that. I started doing it for a while, and then I wanted to do it so much more. I think I got a couple of sponsorships here and there, but nothing that would feed my family by any means. Um, but I wanted to do it more and more, and I found myself at my day job, which I really enjoyed. It was a great job, good people, but I found myself, I wish I was over there. I wish I was doing that, you know. And so after a while um of trying to do half of both of them is basically what it was. My wife and I had a conversation about, you know, like, well, what if this is worth actually pursuing? I won't really know that if I do it halfway, but I wasn't gonna throw away my job. So um basically we, I don't know if you want to get to this yet, but basically we decided I'm gonna do two full-time jobs for nine months. And I put a and I put a date on it, like at nine months, a decision will be made one way or the other. We're not gonna do the startup culture thing forever. Like, I've done that before, don't want to do it again, it's not healthy. So we put nine months, I'm gonna do both jobs, and I told her, and I asked her, is it okay if I'm a terrible father and a terrible husband for nine months while I try to figure this out? You know, that was I was gonna be absent somewhere. That was just a known part of why it was a a time period. Yeah. So I did both things full time, worked a full-time job, and then did making stuff of making videos. It took about I'm wanting to say two months, maybe three months, before I was like, no, the job's gotta go. It's it's it didn't didn't take that long to figure it out. I found that when I could put more effort into it, I saw it grow. I started getting I started, you know, selling some merch and I started getting some sponsorship stuff, and and I got more passionate about it the more time I was able to put into it and see it start to kind of snowball in the right direction. And and I found that I was not missing like the the job, which was great and paid really well. Like I I don't care if it's there or not. And so once I got to that point, this one like, okay, now we've we've made the decision.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

I mean, three months is wild. That's uh that's a crazy I mean I love that you gave yourself a goal in a time period. Actually, I talked to another creator recently um who was laid off and asked his wife, hey, I really want to try this for a couple months. Give me, you know, about a year is what most people try to like grind into. Uh, and I I'm gonna try to make this work. And it did for him, uh, thankfully. Um, but three months is crazy. That's that's great. So was that mostly like YouTube money, or was it sponsorship stuff, or was it the Patreon that kind of helped uh bridge that gap? It was all of those things together.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

And I've I've never been in a position in all these years where one thing was enough to make it worthwhile. And I think it's good. I think that's a that's a I think a healthy way to go about it is that you're not relying on you know too many eggs in one basket. Um, but even early on, it was it was trying to get all of those things to grow just enough to where they all came together to be worthwhile. And honestly, at that point, I was not making enough money to quit my job. Oh, but now I knew that I wanted to. And so that was incentive to okay, this is where we're gonna go. And it took a couple more months for me to actually do that, and you know. Um, but yeah, it was it was definitely everything together, not just one.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

So for the people that are trying to take their content to a level that they can sustain themselves, let's talk about this for a moment. I I want to get back to the other interesting stuff, but I think this is really important, the business side of things, it's super important because if you can't sustain yourself, um, this is only ever going to be a hobby. What were the things you learned in those couple of months that helped you get your revenue to something that was more sustainable? Was it um was it being more kind of strict with your budgeting? Was it finding sponsorships? Was it doing content that you saw that would actually get more views to get you more money? Like what were the things that you kind of figured out during that moment to go, okay, if I want this to be a full-time deal, I need to get my money up. Let's just be honest. Uh, and this is the way you did uh you did it.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Um to be honest, it was a long time ago, so it's kind of hard to remember. Well, what would you say now? I mean, at this point, but I well, I that's a whole probably different conversation. But I think I do remember at the

Mentors And Sustainable Monetisation

SPEAKER_00 19:19

time uh mentorship was a huge thing. I had somebody um who was several years ahead of me and very, very successful that I just reached out to, cold call, didn't know the guy, and I was like, hey, I have a sponsorship opportunity and I don't really know how to handle this. Can you give me some tips? And he was awesome, still a good friend of mine to this day. And that was huge to have somebody willing to take the time to just give me feedback. I sent him an email, a formal email, and he emailed me with his phone number and he was like, Call me. Like, okay, cool. So having a mentor, absolutely huge in that time period, because it helped me start to navigate some of the stuff that I just didn't know how to do. Um and I I've never been one to try to tailor careful how I say this, try to tailor the content for the audience. Um because I can smell fake pretty far away, personally. And so I have never I've I've tried, I don't know that I've always gotten this right, but I've tried to always be someone who is doing the thing that they want to do and trying to format it in a way that reaches the most people rather than doing the thing that they want most that they think most people want to see. Um, and that was something I learned early on that you know, you can go down one path where you're chasing attention, or you can go down the path where you're trying to be true to your interest and then figure out how to get other people alongside you. And that doesn't necessarily answer your question, but at the same time of figuring all this stuff out, that was one of the big things I was personally trying to figure out about why am I doing what am I what I'm doing and how am I gonna make it last.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

I think that's smart because a lot of times, and even with doing that, you still could run into the the inevitable thing which happens to most creators is burnout. Um and it happens for to a lot of people for a lot of different reasons. What you just described would definitely hold it off a lot longer than for most creators. However, I have to assume at some point you were like, can I keep doing this anymore? Like, this is too much. Have you ever come across that? Yes. And this is a big conversation. Do you want to jump ahead to this? I do. Actually, I

Burnout From Growth And Overhead

SPEAKER_01 21:25

do because I feel like it's important. We can go back, but I feel like this is important while I'm thinking about it right now, because you kind of touched on it. Your strategy is is strong, but it never seems to there's no foolproof strategy for this. So tell us about the moments that you were like, I'm burned out. Maybe you wanted to quit, maybe you were just thinking, maybe you wanted to slow down. And what did you do to overcome that?

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Okay, so um all this stuff that we were not just talking about was 2014 ish. And then I think at 2015 is maybe when I went full time initially. By uh 2019, I had three or four full. Time employees. Um, we in 2020 or 21, we bought a building, a commercial building. We moved into an office space. We had a machine room set up where we were manufacturing some stuff. Ended up with five full-time employees. Um and the load on me for that amount of great people, like friends of mine, the people were not the problem. But that amount of load of responsibility and provision and stuff was just really difficult for me to want to continue to carry and at the same time try to be creative in any capacity whatsoever. And these weren't people who were making videos for me, so it wasn't like I was trading off, you know, hey, you go make a thing that will make us money. It wasn't that. Um and so it got to a point where around that same time YouTube revenue and across the board started dropping pretty significantly. My overhead had not dropped significantly, and it got to where, like, there's just not enough money for everything anymore. And it crushed me. It crushed my motivation, it crushed my personal just how I felt about everything. So we went through a process of letting people go, um, downsizing the entire thing. Everybody's doing well, they're still friends of mine. Um, you know, downsizing, we sold the building, we pulled everything back to my house. Now it's me and one other full-time guy, and then we have one of the other guys still edits freelance for us. So we still have a small team. But in doing that, I just got completely crushed, is the only word I can come up with, uh, you know, for just how I felt about everything crashed on me really, really hard. Felt like I was letting people down. There was all this stuff. The so there was a logistic burnout around me, but then the creative burnout was underneath all of that and just got just killed. Coming through that was a pivotal point in my life. Not only was I in midlife, which probably had something to do with all this stuff, but you know, there was a pivotal point where I was able to let all the stuff go back in my house, back in my shop, doing things on my own, making videos like I did in my one-car garage 12 years ago, and without the pressure of having to do a video every week, because I did a video every week for probably eight or nine years, which is stupid. Like don't do it to yourself. Um, and so then I released the schedule on myself, which just opened up all this freedom and uh time to be creative and time to take more time with things and try bigger things and different things. And so there was definitely a period of burnout there that was both personal, but also, you know, from the financial side and the structure side and all the logistics stuff. Um and it was really, really hard. I'll I will it was very, very hard. But coming through that helped me filter out the parts that I still wanted to keep and the parts that I wanted to continue on with. And so the burnout, the burnt out pieces got to go away. And the parts that were still there, I think became on YouTube at least, who I am now and what I do, and the pace that I do it and how I do it and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

So if you were to tell your earlier self, and maybe in this particular instance, you're also telling creators who are listening, how to have avoided that as best as possible, or at the very least, the things that you've learned that can be applied to other people, what would you be saying to either your earlier self or to a creator today?

Hiring Advice And The Weight Of Responsibility

SPEAKER_00 25:43

So the impulse, I think, across the board is to grow. That you want to want all the graphs to go up and to the right, right? You want you want to grow, you want things to be bigger, you want more revenue, even if it's not selfishly, you just want things to grow. The problem with that is that we, I think, often see growth in other creators and we measure expansion the same as growth, and they're not the same thing. So the advice that I have would be to if you are looking to hire someone, because inevitably you'll get to where you need some help. You know, if you want if you want things to grow in any capacity, you need some help. Make sure that you are hiring somebody whose work pays for themselves. And I don't mean somebody helping you with your email because that doesn't pay anything. I mean somebody who can contribute to the business in a way that is more financially productive than what they cost. That was the problem I made. I hired great people who were helping me do what I do, but they weren't making any money. And that's not their fault. That's my fault as a manager, right? And so I ended up when the financial situation of YouTube started to change, there just wasn't enough still coming in from what I did to cover their cost. And so my advice would be only hire somebody who can make their own cost, you know, can pay for themselves in the work that they do. And that is absolutely doable. You can find it, but you got to keep it in mind. Make sure you're hiring the right person for the right kind of work, not just to make your day-to-day easier.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

Yeah, because a lot of times we just hear, oh, just get rid of the things you don't like to do as your first hire, which sometimes can be editing. I mean, editing actually can kind of pay for itself in a way, if you think about it. But this is a really interesting uh way of putting it. It definitely makes more sense because if you do run into those financial um uh situations, then at the very least you can say, well, you know, this person's paying their way. I I can't get rid of them. Like you'd want to not have to do that. And you said it crushed you, and I I I kind of I feel for you because I I hate when people lose their jobs, like personally on a personal level. It it crushes me to know someone lose their job, and it's and right now, in the what's going on in the world right now, a lot of people losing their jobs. Um, from a like emotional standpoint and creation, you said it kind of crushed you and stopped you from and demotivated you somewhat. Um is it is that feeling something that you kind of carry with you now in in everything you do? Do you like I never want to go there again? Like I never want to feel that again. Or have you kind of made peace with it and you're like, okay, I'm just moving forward, I've made the corrections, now I'm I'm in a good place?

SPEAKER_00 28:11

I mean, kind of both, I think. Um I think I'm hesitant about outgrowing my capability, you know, uh overstepping maybe. Um and also I I had a reckoning with and that time of my life had a reckoning with a lot of stuff about myself and about with, you know, all sorts of stuff. Yeah, it's a whole nother show if you want to do that sometime. But um part of that is my my personal responsibility for other people. You know, when I hired people, they were friends of mine, they have families, and so I felt a huge responsibility to maintain their standard of living through my effort, right? Yeah, yeah. Which will crush you. It will destroy you if that's if you put all of that weight on yourself. Now, I do think I had a responsibility to them, but I think I overstated my response, my place in their well-being, because they're all adults, they're all talented people, they all have are very smart and capable and can get other jobs. And so I think part of that whole process was me um realizing how unrealistic and unfair I was being to myself about their abilities. And I was undercutting their abilities, you know. And I was worried about all this stuff. So I was creating uh an extra level of stress that didn't need to be there. So I take that with me forward in that I realized that there's only I need to be more choosy about the commitments that I make and who I'm responsible for. But I also have to realize that, you know, I'm working with adults who move from job to job. And sometimes things are gonna work and sometimes things are not gonna work, and how you handle bad situations is far more important than the bad situation. Um yeah, I don't know if I'm saying that well.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

No, I love that. I think that's that's perfectly

Platform Shifts Shorts And Livestreaming

SPEAKER_01 30:04

worded. Um, and since you've been uh on YouTube for so long, what are some of the things you've seen, the massive shifts you've seen over the course of this time that have uh either impacted you from a creative standpoint or the way that you do YouTube videos or anything like that? Obviously, the uh I'll give you an example, like when shorts came on, that was a whole thing. Um did you did you predate live streaming on YouTube? Yes. Yes, I mean you so all of those things. So tell us about like these things that happen as you were on the platform and if they affected you at all, and if so, like in what way?

SPEAKER_00 30:35

Um I don't think they any of those new things have negatively affected me. I think I'm a little bit curmudgy in that I don't jump on all the bandwagons. So when shorts came around, when TikTok came around, when shorts came around, all that stuff, I'm like, well, I can see that people like that. I see that it has an audience and it has a certain type of creator. It's just not me. I can't make I I mean I made a full-size R2D2 that rolls around. I can't do that in shorts, right? That that doesn't work in that format. So it's okay that that's there and that's not me. So I've looked at that stuff that way. Now I did live streaming on Twitch for several years. We did weekly live streams, and I was that was more of an experiment to try to build an audience off of YouTube somewhere else. And it had its advantages and it was fun and everything, but it was not something I wanted to continue long term. And I think for the same reason as shorts, is those other formats are really, really good for certain types of creators. They are the perfect avenue to connect with people in a way you want to connect with. With what I do, making stuff with pre-thinking design and ordering materials and you know, all the different mechanical stuff that goes with it, those things just don't fit very well. And so I've I've tried all of those things here and there a little bit, but you know, I've also I realized my limitations and the best format for what I do.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

So and let's talk.

Many Audiences One Unifying Mindset

SPEAKER_01 32:05

So you mentioned at the very beginning of this that you have like kind of multiple audiences, and you do. Like if you just look at your channel just as a viewer and kind of scroll down, you've done a lot of things. You've done a lot of different things. You've made lightsabers, you made a Tron room, which by the way, I love Tron. And as someone who has been a huge Tron fan, as a matter of fact, I have a an arcade right there, the Tron arcade from way back in the day. I've got it behind this wall. Oh, amazing. Hey, high five. Um, things like that uh definitely are cool. And I and I love them, and I would definitely watch those videos and I've seen some of them already. But then you have you do other stuff. You do stuff that like maybe wouldn't be appealing to me specifically. Um, for example, like you have uh a PanaCourt, you have like um uh can you automate your least like woodworking stuff, which I maybe wouldn't be involved with or interested in, but I'd watch the other stuff. So I'm one of the audiences, one of the multiple different types of audiences you talked about. First of all, talk about who you think your audiences are and how you cultivate those and how you balance that in your content creation, because you're having to talk to different kinds of viewerships and hopefully getting them to watch more of your other content if possible, like if you can make a crossover between them.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Well, I think early on I just assumed that people who were into one thing would probably be into you know the making thing. If you make this, you might be interested in that. Um, and that's not always gonna work. I remember I did a sewing video one time, and I remember doing that thinking this isn't gonna hit with anybody. This is a totally different thing. And it didn't hit with anybody, and that's fine. But over time, um, I realized that you know, I would get these comments about like, why don't you ever do blank again? And they would come in through a woodworking video, assuming that everything was woodworking. And I almost never do the same thing two weeks in a row or two videos in a row. It's always different. So people are always disappointed, somebody's always disappointed, which is okay. Eventually I got to where I think after the whole business change for me, when I started really getting back into like, what do I want this to be? If it doesn't have to be anything for anybody anymore, what do I want it to be? And I came to that I personally just love problem solving. Comes from my software years. I love solving problems. And even if that means I have to go look for a problem to solve, that's it. And so what I really tried to do since then was say, maybe not explicitly, but if no matter what it is I'm building, what it is I'm trying to do, there has to be a problem being solved. And so whether people have interest in 3D printing or robotics or woodworking or whatever, if they're problem solvers, they're gonna latch on to that thing. The thought process, the exploration, the experimentation, trying to make something better for myself or somebody else. And so I think the audience has begun to solidify a little bit into people who like to solve problems or see other people solve problems. I actually got an email this morning from somebody, and the last thing was I'm one of the he said, I'm one of the people that will watch you no matter what you're doing because I'm a problem solver. That's awesome. That's it. And that's what made me think of this because it's I you know the mechanics and the individual details of everything are gonna be different from video to video. But the mindset is like we can fix things, we can make things, we can improve our lives and have the things that we want to exist. And the more people you can get on band on like with that, I don't think it matters so much what you're making. It's it's a mindset thing.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

So yeah. How far in advance do you

When Projects Flop And When They Pop

SPEAKER_01 35:36

know you're gonna make something? Because I imagine some of this stuff takes a while to put together.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

Yes, I've got looking at my calendar here, I've got stuff scheduled for October. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

So and for those listening later on, right now, as we're recording, this is in April. So he's multiple months ahead. And those are loose ideas.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

I mean, this is not stuff that I like, but I I you know, I have to think ahead far enough. Like this one, I have to figure out how to do stuff I've never done before. So it's a couple months of research just to be able to like begin.

SPEAKER_01 36:05

So what what was a a project you can think of or a video you did where um you're you went into it thinking one thing and it came out being something completely different, whether it be good or bad? Oh, that happens all the time.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Um Well, I hmm. There's a there's a bunch of those. One of the things that sticks out recently was a video that I thought was really funny, because I'm a dad, I guess. I don't really know. It was I thought it was funny and it was not funny, and nobody laughed and nobody watched it. I thought it would be I had we put in a pool last year, and so um we have a bunch of pool noodles, and my kids and I were joking around, and somebody said something about a giant noodle grabber, like the thing that you get pasta out. It's like a you know. I'm like, oh, that'd be funny. I should make a giant noodle grab noodle grabber for the pool to get the pool noodles out. Not funny, apparently, but I thought it was funny at the time. So I made this 10-foot-long, 12-foot-long noodle grabber out of foam that I could, you know. So it was really an experimentation and carving foam and fiberglass and stuff I'd never done before under the guise of a bad joke, and nobody watched it. Nobody laughed at it. No, that's brutal. That's always it was tough, but you know, whatever. I mean, that's just one of the things.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

Well, again, like you're trying to you're again, you're you're not just doing one super niche thing where, like, if you're a content creator who makes like in videos about the NBA, you can always do MBA and you have like a baseline of views. This is like you're doing something that could hit super big, you get millions of views, depending, uh, or could hit just whatever bad is for you, which by the way, I think it's kind of funny because bad means a lot of things to a lot of different people. Uh, bad for one creator might be a thousand views, uh, bad for you might be a hundred thousand views. Like it's different for every creator. So um, you know, when you say no one watched it, I think that's that's definitely a relative thing. What video did you make that you knew was gonna hit and it just absolutely did not? Like you were in your soul, you knew this is the one and it just totally didn't.

SPEAKER_00 38:02

Or has there been- I don't think you know, I don't think I've ever had a video where the where I was sure that it was gonna hit. I think I've been doing this long enough that I just there's a healthy skepticism about my perspective on an idea versus everybody else's perspective on an idea. I think lots of ideas are great, but like the noodle grabber, they're not, and that's okay, you know. Um and so I I I think I do temper my expectations a lot, maybe more than I should, but um I think maybe maybe this is overly optimistic, but I think it's gonna hit with the people that it needs to hit with. And if that's not a lot of people, then you know, I'm blessed, I'm provided for. Like it'll be okay if I have some pretty hard dips here and there. Um, as long as I can feed my kids, I'm good, you know.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Is there was there everyone that uh did take off and you were kind of surprised by, like you just didn't really think very much of it?

SPEAKER_00 38:54

Yeah, so when The Mandalorian came out uh years ago, when it before it even came out, when they first announced it, and they had this little teaser, and it was just a couple of shots, and it showed him and it showed his big rifle that he has. And so I was I'm a huge Star Wars fan. And so um I was like, I want to make that gun. I've never made a Star Wars gun, so I'm gonna make that gun. But there was a still one-frame screenshot from this preview and a toy. That's what I had, and so I was like, I'm going off of this and this, and that's what I got. And I made the rifle, and it's actually right there. Um and so I I did that out of just kind of who knows. I'm just gonna make a prop. It did really, really well in the first couple of weeks, and it it did well, like it was good for a while, and then a couple of years later or something, they added the Mandalorian to Fortnite. Oh, yeah. And so the the view went like this, and then it went, he went into Fortnite, and then it went like this, and then I was getting all these comments. Hey, that's the gun from Fortnite. So yeah, I guess I did expect that one to do okay because it was a Star Wars thing, but it was it did very well.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

I'm surprised you don't do more. Like you've done a couple of the the lightsaber, the the dark lightsaber one, of course, the regular lightsaber one. You've also done some things that I have a passion for, which is arcade games. Uh, I I've been a huge fan of arcades. I used to work in an arcade when I was younger. So you've done some stuff that I like totally have a passion for. Um, but yeah, I'm surprised you you haven't done a little bit more with Star Wars, considering uh your you know your love for well, actually you've done quite a bit. I guess yeah. It's a hard to forget, it's hard to remember sometimes that when someone's done something for over a decade, that just because you see the last four years of content doesn't mean that's everything. This is like the it's the it's the iceberg theory where you're you're only seeing the top of the water. Yeah. So I guess maybe I should shut up. Uh all right. So having said all that, is there anything that you um you haven't done, you haven't created that you want to create uh video-wise? Like is there a project or something that you just either haven't gotten around to or it's not possible yet, or you just haven't gotten around to it and you've always wanted to, um, that you would love to

Dream Builds A Cabin On The Horizon

SPEAKER_01 41:02

make.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Yeah, and I'm creeping up on it. Um, so I've wanted for years now to build an A-frame cabin, like a big six-person big cabin. Uh, I always liked A-frames, they're really inefficient. It's a terrible design for cabin, but they're they're so cool. So um, I've wanted to build one of those, but I'd never built a structure before. Freestanding structure. I mean, I've built a lot of decks and stuff, but like a house is a different thing.

SPEAKER_01 41:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

And so this past September, I think, I started building a pool house in our backyard that is a small shed kind of thing, but it was the I gotta figure out the basics before I can move on to the cabin. And so um, I spent six or seven months on and off building this this pool house that I designed. I I built the design and 3D modeling software, and I and I did 100% of the work myself on this whole thing. And it was really just to see how far I could get before I dove into something as big as building a cabin. We have a piece of land that's not far, and so I want to build a cabin out there for our family. And so I finished the pool house, and I miss it. I miss making the videos about it, I miss doing that kind of work. And so that that project that was always in the distance that may I may get to someday, now I'm chomping at the bit. Like I wanna, I want to figure it out, I don't want to do it. And it's gonna take a long time, and it's gonna be a bunch of videos, and it's gonna be very expensive. There's a million reasons not to do it, but I I really want to.

The Creator Compass And Starting Over

SPEAKER_01 42:33

That's amazing. I mean, it sounds great, and I think uh, if nothing else, um you you know the accomplishment you would feel at the end of that is probably worth the juice is worth the squeeze there. You have been doing and making stuff for over a decade on YouTube. You have over three million subscribers, over 300 million views. If you had to take all of that knowledge, shrink it down, and tell a creator who's starting YouTube now the type of things that they need to have in mind. You've already told some of those things in this in this interview. What would it be? What would you say to a new content creator to know about the journey, the things they need to keep in mind, any guardrails they may need, um, and just kind of uh bring it all together in one thing?

SPEAKER_00 43:13

Whew, man, that is a lot. Um I I think the biggest thing is, and this it sounds so cliche, but to have a really true idea of what you want to add to the world. What is it that you are trying to give people, show people, bring people along with? Just know what it is and what you're trying to accomplish so that you have a compass, because the the technology changes all the time, the temperament of audiences changes all the time, monetization changes all the time, all this stuff. And if you don't have a compass as to why and what you're doing, you can get lost so easily, and that burnout will creep up on you often. And hard. And that compass will help you write yourself. It will help you get back to where you need to be to care about it and to be able to continue to do it. And I think that has less to do with style. It has less to do with metrics. I think it has more to do with deciding what you want to add to the world.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

I love that. That's so cool. All right. Final thing, and I do this for most creators. Almost every single creator has been on lately. It's a bit of a challenge. And I want you to talk stream of consciousness. So as you're thinking this through, just say whatever you're thinking. Okay. Let's say today you had to start a new YouTube channel. You have all of your knowledge, but you don't have your resources, and you cannot create a channel with the same stuff you're doing now. What would that channel be about? And what would your first couple of videos be? Oh boy. This is never easy for anyone. I think the one person was like, oh, I got this because they wanted to do it already. But most people are like, oh, geez.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

Yeah, I mean, I have thought about this a little bit. Okay. Um, I've thought about doing a faceless channel before just so I could be, you know, not me and do something else. Right behind me, I have an empty fish tank in this video. And it probably looks really weird to have an empty fish tank, but one of the things I like to do as a hobby that is not on YouTube is planet aquariums. I do freshwater aquariums. I love, you know. In fact, one of the few things, topics that I watch on YouTube is other people doing aquarium stuff. So I think if I were to do that, it would be I'm going to get my phone and I'm going to at a very leisurely pace talk through both the art and science of creating aquariums and making them into something that you can enjoy, not something you just have to maintain. I think that's it'd be something around that.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

Yeah, that's interesting. Is that a is that a I I'm not familiar with the niche. I think I've seen a video here or there. Is that something that uh you see videos with a lot of views on, or is it just kind of like something that the algorithm knows you like, so it just serves it up to you?

SPEAKER_00 45:59

No, they get millions and millions of views. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

Yeah, which is so weird because I didn't know that that was a thing. And I was like, came across one by this. I mean, not all of them, obviously. Yeah, of course. But I came across this one guy. I'll give him a shout-out. I don't know him or anything. His channel's called Tanks for Nothing. I might have to reach out to him. Let me look him up. He puts out one video every like six months or something, and they're they're a delight. Wow. They're just wonderful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Well, maybe I'll reach out to them. We'll see, because I I'm fascinated by this all of a sudden. Anyway, you've been amazing. And if you want to see more, I like to make stuff is on YouTube. There'll be a link in the description below, and of course, in the show notes in the audio podcast. We greatly appreciate everything that you've told us. I think one of the things about this particular episode, which is in some ways better than others, although we've had some great episodes, and everyone's a great creator. But what makes this one so special is that you've been through a lot over a decade. Uh, tons of videos, millions of views, millions of subscribers, and we thank you so much for your time. And if you're new here, feel free to hit that subscribe button. And also, if you're new here, I got a video for you to watch right here. See y'all in the next one.