Table of contents
Hey Creatorpreneurs,
It’s easy to look at a bigger creators and think that they have it all figured out, have a huge team to help them and don’t have the same problems that small creators who are just getting started do. This is an incorrect assumption.
🤫 Behind the Scenes
There are some problems that small creators have when they’re just getting started which make them feel like it’s only them who’s got that problem.
Things like having noisy neighbours, recording videos and noticing later that the whole thing was out of focus, realising afterwards that your mic wasn’t plugged in or there was a background hum (the actual worst feeling on the planet), or expensive equipment breaking.
Last Friday, Ali sat down to record a YouTube video which appeared to go super smoothly, and after filming he left the office and went home. Only after he left did someone realise that 50% of the video was out of focus. On top of that, Ali had a professional videographer with him…
Mistakes happen. No matter how slick our systems are, or how much experience we have, or how big our team is, things can go wrong.
These kind of inconveniences are just part and parcel of being a creator. Steven Bartlett, host of the podcast The Diary of a CEO, one of the biggest podcasts in the UK, records near a busy high street in London, and has to stop recording mid-conversation when an ambulance comes past with a loud siren. Mid-conversation!
This is just the content creation game. No matter who you are, you can still film something that’s not in focus or record audio that has problems.
💡Creatorpreneur Insight - Camera Confidence
Camera confidence is an underrated skill. One of the key differences between and engaging video and a boring one, is the speaker. Yes, editing can spice it up a bit, but if the voice and the personality delivering the message isn’t engaging, then the message is lost.
Whenever you go to the oldest video on someone’s YouTube channel, you always see a more nervous, more awkward, less confident version of the person that you see today. Whether it’s been 1 month or 5 years, there’s always a big difference.
MrBeast, Lilly Singh, Mrwhosetheboss, Emma Chamberlain, they’ve all gone through this transformation from painful to watch, to great to watch. Boring to fun. Awkward to confident.
If you’re at all interested in learning more about how to level up your camera confidence, then we have a camera confidence course launching tomorrow where you’ll learn all about how to be engaging on camera. Ali Abdaal will be sharing everything he knows about capturing people’s attention, and how he approaches filming these days (when he’s making in focus videos of course).
There’s a 35% discount for the first 7 days if you sign up to this waiting list, but if you’re not sure about it yet, by signing up you’ll also get a free 5 day email sequence where you’ll hear lots more about building your confidence on camera, so you can make a decision after taking that 5 day course.
📝 Creatorpreneur Diaries
A weekly update from Gareth and Tintin on their journeys as Creatorpreneurs.
Something I think about a lot as a relatively new YouTuber is finding the right balance between quantity of output and quality of output. Like, does it make more sense to post 2-3 videos every week where I'm just chatting to the camera about my niche or should I put a ton of work into building a story, finding the right b-roll, and just trying to make everything look as pro as possible?
My current position on this is that when you're a fledgling creator you should focus on quantity, as this helps us to figure out what we're doing, stops imperfection from paralysing us, and quickly boosts our overall skillset. But, when we've been in the creator game for some time, there becomes a point where it's better to focus on quality i.e our best growth will come from fine-tuning our creative thing and focusing on the details.
I'm probably still in quantity stage so my focus on posting at least one video a week is correct, but there'll be a point where it will make more sense for me to double down on quality.
What are your thoughts on the quantity vs quality debate when it comes to creativity? 🙂
Last week, I mentioned that my creatorpreneur goal was to find an editor. Fingers crossed, but I think I’ve found someone who’s pretty much what I’m looking for, and doesn’t totally break my bank balance 😅
For context, my budget is around $120 per video, but someone else in the team is paying $50 per video and getting a pretty solid output, so it can really vary, just depends how hard you look.
Generally, I do think that if you’re serious about being a creator in the long term, investing both time and money up front can really help you out in the long term. I’ve been making YouTube videos every week for almost a year, and so I’ve edited 64 videos myself, which has been great experience, but insanely time consuming. I wish I’d found an editor after around 20-30 videos, I think it would’ve helped me out a lot. I could’ve started cheap, and worked my way up, or got someone to help with part of the editing process like doing the a-cut.
Let me know how you’re getting on with outsourcing stuff, and if you think I need to consider anything else!
🧰 The Creator Toolbox
- Teachable is a great platform where we host our Creatorpreneur course, in case you’re thinking about making a course you want to sell.
- Oliur is looking to hire a video editor, video producer, designer and developer.
- Joe Sugg’s episode on The Diary of a CEO has useful advice for creators.
- Magnet is a simple app which helps you save time moving around your windows on a mac.
📝 Written by: Tintin & Gareth 📝 Editor: Ali Abdaal
🚀 Free 5 Day Creatorpreneur Crash Course
If you like these Creatorpreneur newsletters, you might like our free 5 day email crash course, where Ali Abdaal shares everything he knows about becoming a 'professional' Creatorpreneur. Over the 5 days you'll receive the tools, resources, and knowledge to kickstart your journey as a Creatorpreneur and build a scalable and sustainable business.
