Ben's first YouTube video is out! It's been a week and by all objective measures (that we should probably not be thinking too hard about) it's been a success! 100k views in the first week and the comments have been nothing but supportive.

We talk about what went into making this first video. How it took a lot of rewatching and rerewatching to make it feel snappy, and how a lot of the magic was in the edit and in "killing your darlings". YouTube is a different beast than Instagram. Being so searchable and just with the way the platform is designed, it incentivises more evergreen content — different from Instagram where things feel a bit more fleeting.

The biggest thing that went into it was weeks and months of developing taste by consuming all things YouTube, and all things about making YouTube. Figuring out what you like and don't like. Figuring out what's worked for other people and seeing what parts of those you can take for yourself and you feel will work for you and your context.

Keep it focused on the narrative and the problem. Avoid trying to add all the things that would be nice but are actually not part of the core problem. Edit, edit, edit. Rewatch. Get fresh eyes. Get other's opinions. Edit, edit, edit.

Note: this is actually episode 18, and episode 18 is episode 19.

We hope you enjoy this one, we love hearing your feedback, questions, and suggestions! Contact us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠@makenowthinklater⁠⁠⁠⁠ or send as an email at ⁠⁠⁠⁠hi@makenowthinklater.com⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Links

(00:33) Ben's Youtube Video is released

(04:27) Rewatch, edit, sleep, repeat

(06:27) How to think vs how tos

(09:13) Giving yourself a deadline (or not)

(10:52) YouTube incentivises evergreen content

(13:06) Ideas for a next video?

(15:14) Idea, thumbnail, and transformation

(21:14) Spitballing YouTube ideas for Francis

(31:30) Developing a taste is key

(34:11) Focusing on the problem and avoiding scope creep

(38:10) Combining contract work with streaming

(41:02) Draw it in your style

(42:37) Quick update on Francis' work and wrapping up

#19 - 100k YouTube views in 1 week: Behind the scenes

Make Now. Think Later.