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@lmiller1990
Created January 30, 2024 21:39
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Questions for Basarat

Congrats!

You had your 20K sub special 3 months ago. You are now at 141K. Holy smokes! The growth is exponential.

Congrats, well deserved. You are one of my favorite creators - I don't watch every video, only so many hours in a day, but I always have a good time when I do! I first found you via your TypeScript handbook, that was very useful, thanks!

On Content

Looking at your videos, some are hugely popular (50K+) and others are sub 1K. The algorithm is fickle. I do see many other creators getting much more consistent view counts. Any thoughts on this, what they might be doing different?

How do you decide what kind of content to produce, it looks like you are starting to focus more on plain JS and fundamentals.

Is that what you meant about "singular focus"

Over Time

How has your perspective on creation evolved? What are you main learnings, what would you do different if you were giving yourself advice 2-3 years ago?

On Sustainability and Vision

Hard to gauge, but I can't imagine these numbers even hold a candle to your full time job. Any desire to go full time on creation More importantly, is this even practical when compared to your full time job? Or is content creation just a for fun hobby for you?

Melbourne is VERY expensive and inflation is a bit out of control. You don't seem to do brand sponsors, and YT ad revenue alone isn't enough unless you are pulling huge amount of views (like, millions per week).

I notice you are working on your booleanart platform - this seems like a good strategy, YT is the marketing funnel for a more relative income via a subscription based education platform). Did you ever consider a platform like Udemy?

Closing Thoughts

You have a great brand and your production quality is unmatched. I'm excited to continue following your progress and learn from you and other such insprirational content creators.

@basarat
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basarat commented Jan 30, 2024

Looking at your videos, some are hugely popular (50K+) and others are sub 1K. The algorithm is fickle. I do see many other creators getting much more consistent view counts. Any thoughts on this, what they might be doing different?

Sadly course content doesn't get enough views on YouTube.
I know how to make grabby videos, but I prefer to make videos that are eternal. E.g. cover async / await once, properly, instead of grabbing "5 things you don't know about JavaScript async await", "promise rejections are bad",
I make some grabby videos as well, and they do grab, but it turns into a "I'm working for YouTube" which is not what I want to do. I want to create something more long lasting.
If I go full time, I intend to move courses into their own category and use YouTube for what works on YouTube.

Some of my personally not great videos are liked the by algorithm e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STeKBm67l6M 🤷‍♂️

How do you decide what kind of content to produce, it looks like you are starting to focus more on plain JS and fundamentals.

Yup. Cover one topic well and have it as high quality and long lasting as possible. Covered React, JavaScript, React Native.
TypeScript is more adhoc, my TypeScript course currently only lives on Udemy and its a good source of income.
I've been working on making a complete journey:
JS -> TS -> (CSS / HTML - pending) -> React -> React Native
And consolidate it into BooleanArt.

Is that what you meant about "singular focus"

Singular Focus: Be a channel that covers one topic like only React
Multi Focus: Cover Development in general, diverse topics like React, TypeScript, JS etc

How has your perspective on creation evolved? What are you main learnings, what would you do different if you were giving yourself advice 2-3 years ago?

I don't think I have useful advice. I've been fortunate in hitting the milestones as I've hit them.
My journey: Excel at something, like TS. Then expand 🤷‍♂️

Hard to gauge, but I can't imagine these numbers even hold a candle to your full time job

I have a very well paid full time job as an Engineering Team Lead. Been in leadership positions for 5 years at this point. Content creation has been a hobby, but I think its time to take it more seriously. It doesn't pay nearly as much though but has potential now that I have the beginnings of a paying audience 🤷

Did you ever consider a platform like Udemy

Yes. My TS course does very well. But not my other courses (I believe same quality). Hence more focus on creating my own platform at some point to ease the discovery.

You have a great brand and your production quality is unmatched. I'm excited to continue following your progress and learn from you and other such insprirational content creators.

Thanks! 🌹 ❤️

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