Elevate Your Video Developer Brand: Featuring Aaron Francis

June 7, 2024

With over 36k subscribers, Aaron Francis, the renowned developer educator, conference speaker, and creator, will share invaluable insights into crafting compelling video content, building an engaged community, and mastering the art of communicating technical concepts engagingly. ​Don't miss this unique opportunity to be inspired and equipped to take your developer advocacy and video creation efforts to new levels! Join this event for a chance to win a Davinci Resolve Studio License!
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Transcript

Kevin
00:01:17 – 00:01:36
Howdy howdy, everyone. Welcome to this live stream event. Hope you're all doing great. And, this is, like, the first time that I'm gonna have someone that's it's not from the dev rel, from dev rel field. Just one second because I'm hearing, like, a echo here.
Kevin
00:01:36 – 00:01:52
So let me see if this is on my end. One second. There you go. I'm back. Alright.
Kevin
00:01:52 – 00:02:09
So here we are. Let me know in the chat if you're hearing me well. And, you know, the idea of today is just hosting an amazing event, an amazing guest. But before I introduce him, I'd like to invite you to say hi on the chat. Don't be shy.
Kevin
00:02:09 – 00:02:33
This should be an open conversation rather than, like, a webinar or something like that. And also take advantage of our guests by asking all of the questions that you might have. Also very importantly, we have a DaVinci Resolve Studio license to raffle among the viewers. So I'll explain how that's going to happen in a little bit. So stick around, obviously, and be capable of winning a DaVinci Resolve Studio license.
Kevin
00:02:33 – 00:02:50
Now there are a lot of features on the Studio version because, you know, DaVinci Resolve have a free version, which you can do a lot with it. It's completely free forever. No free trial. But the Studio version has a lot of features for content creators and for DevRel. For example, you can create subtitles automatically.
Kevin
00:02:50 – 00:03:34
You can do a lot of artificial intelligence features like noise reduction, voice isolation, and things like that. So the purpose behind this session is to create a collaborative space for developer relations specialists, developer advocates, developer marketers, and content creators in general focused on developer education. The idea is that together we can share insights, best practices, and resources to support developers in their journey. So let's welcome our guest. Let me just go back here to this camera and welcome our guest with over 30 safe k subscribers, Aaron Francis, who is a developer, educator, conference speaker, creator, father of 2 set of twins.
Kevin
00:03:34 – 00:03:52
Hear me that. 2 set of twins. Also, we're gonna talk about that a little bit. And, he's going to share some valuable insights into crafting compelling video content, building an engaged community, and mastering the art of communicating technical concepts effectively. Aaron, how are you doing?
Aaron
00:03:52 – 00:03:56
Wow. It's quite a it's quite an intro. Thank you. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.
Aaron
00:03:56 – 00:03:59
I'm excited to be here and excited to hang out for a while.
Kevin
00:04:00 – 00:04:11
Sure. So first of all, the question has to be asked. Twos, twins twice. How how did it happen? How how did that make you feel when that happened the second time?
Aaron
00:04:11 – 00:04:39
Man, when it happened I was shocked when it happened the first time. When it happened the second time, I thought my wife was kidding because she came home she came home from the first, you know, sonogram and showed me a picture, and I was like, oh, looks like there's there's 2 of them in there. And we both just started laughing, and it was just I was just shocked. I'd been joking about it for a long time, like, hey, wouldn't it be funny if we had 2 sets of twins? And then it actually happened, and I was like, what is going on?
Aaron
00:04:39 – 00:04:42
So we've got 2 3 year olds and 2 6 month olds.
Kevin
00:04:43 – 00:04:45
Wow. That's quite a challenge for sure. Right?
Aaron
00:04:45 – 00:04:48
Yeah. It definitely is.
Kevin
00:04:49 – 00:05:08
Well, still having, 2 set of twins, and, obviously, that requires a lot of attention and work. You get to manage a very success YouTube channel. You create amazing content. You have a a big set of followers. So I wanted to ask you, like, the first thing to get things things started.
Kevin
00:05:08 – 00:05:20
Sorry. And if, anyone in the audience have questions, we're on LinkedIn. We are on Twitter. We are on YouTube. Please let us know in the chat that you have questions along the way, and we can bring them on the stage at any time.
Kevin
00:05:20 – 00:05:47
But to kick things off, I was reading your biography, and I was just getting up to speed about who you are. And I bet there is a great story in Aaron being a tax accountant moving to software development and obviously then to developer education. So can you, sorry, share a little bit of George's story and how that big change happened moving from a whole different field into software development and then education?
Aaron
00:05:48 – 00:06:00
Yeah. Sure. Yeah. I, actually got my degree and and a master's degree, in fact, in accounting and then sat for the CPA exam. And so I'm like a fully licensed CPA.
Aaron
00:06:01 – 00:06:27
And then I I went to work at an accounting firm for 1 year. I went to a big, a big firm called Ernst and Young, and I was there for 1 year and I was like, man, this is this is miserable. So it just it wasn't very fun. And I watched, I watched, like, people a few years ahead of me. I saw what my life was gonna look like, and I didn't want it.
Aaron
00:06:27 – 00:06:52
And so I decided, like, you know, I had been I grew up being a software, like, tinkerer, and so I had been I knew how to program, and so I started doing odd side jobs while I was still at Ernst and Young, and then finally I was like, nah. I'm just gonna go be a programmer. So I made it I made it 1 year. I spent 5 years in school getting my degrees and then 1 year actually practicing, and then I was like, I'm out of here.
Kevin
00:06:55 – 00:07:13
Yeah. I know that feeling. I I also come from a a whole different background at, at some point, and I was like, no. Definitely, I wanna do something different and computer science in general and computer engineering. And then when I started to do, like, filmmaking and things like that, I I also feel very passionate about it.
Kevin
00:07:13 – 00:07:41
And that's why I wanted to merge those things into something that I didn't knew existed at that point, which is several, and I'm happy about it right now. So, to kick things off also in another thing that is very important on your trajectory. 1 is having 2 set of twins also moving from a being an accountant. And then, unfortunately, as many people have happened, you were fired not so long ago. Mhmm.
Aaron
00:07:41 – 00:07:41
And
Kevin
00:07:41 – 00:08:07
that turned to be like a situation that you used to move forward, not to, like, you know, feel lame about it or to you actually use it as a step to move forward in your career. So can you share a little bit about that story, how that happened, and how would you use that to move to your next chapter? Because maybe somebody who's watching this, got fired in all those, fire that happened a couple of years ago and also last year. So just share a little bit about that.
Aaron
00:08:08 – 00:08:28
Yeah. Sure. So I got laid off, let's see, maybe 3 months ago now. I was actually still on paternity leave with my newest set of twins and was set to come back on a Friday. And on the Wednesday before I came back, they laid off the entire marketing team and the entire sales team and a bunch of engineers.
Aaron
00:08:28 – 00:08:48
And so they laid off, like, half the company. And so there I was, like, you know, 2 44 kids under the age of 3. My wife works way harder than I do, but she works at home. Like, she's a stay at home mom. So I'm like the, you know, the sole breadwinner.
Aaron
00:08:48 – 00:09:09
I've got a 1000000 kids, and now no job while I'm, you know, still on paternity leave. So it was pretty it was a pretty big surprise. I was kinda I was super shocked. And so, you know, I I waited a few days and then finally tweeted about it when it became public, when the layoff became public.
Kevin
00:09:09 – 00:09:09
Right.
Aaron
00:09:09 – 00:09:34
I tweeted about it and just got, like, an an intense amount of overwhelming support from kind of, like, our community and felt like, hey, I I'm gonna be alright. And so then, you know, that felt like that felt like, okay. You know, I have I have options. I've got, you know, job opportunities. And I started, you know, the next week, I started, doing some interviews.
Aaron
00:09:35 – 00:10:04
And at that point, I was like, I don't really know what I wanna do because I had just left that company. And at the at the company that I was at before, I was doing a lot of YouTube videos. I was, like, I was basically a developer educator at that company, and I grew I grew the company YouTube account to, like, 35,000 subscribers, which is, I think, hard to do for a company account. And, you know, a bunch of companies were like, hey. Do you wanna come do YouTube for our company?
Aaron
00:10:04 – 00:10:23
And I just kinda started to think, like, I could go I could go join some other company and kinda just play the same song again, just, like, do it all again. But that just seemed that just started to become less and less compelling. It just seemed less interesting and, like, not a challenge.
Kevin
00:10:23 – 00:10:24
Mhmm.
Aaron
00:10:24 – 00:10:45
And so throughout that process, I actually had a few of the people that I was, like, interviewing with tell me, hey. You should go out you should go out on your own, and we'll be, you know, we'll be your first client. I was like, wow. That's really interesting. And so after hearing that a couple of times, I reached out to a guy that I worked with at the old company that I really liked.
Aaron
00:10:45 – 00:10:54
I was like, hey, man. You wanna, like, you wanna try to do this thing together? And he was like, yeah. Let's do it. And so that's kind of the genesis of, you know, what we've been doing the past 3 months.
Aaron
00:10:54 – 00:11:12
So it's me and my friend, Steve, and we started a video production studio for developer content, called TryHard Studios, and that's what we have been doing since then. And it Awesome. It's working. It's, like, actually working, which is which is crazy, but we're having a lot of fun.
Kevin
00:11:13 – 00:11:27
That's crazy. Yeah. Well, first of all, congratulations on making that work. And I wanted to ask you, like, in terms of the TryHard Studios, which is what you're being cofounding with your friend Mhmm. I saw your building in public.
Aaron
00:11:27 – 00:11:27
Mhmm.
Kevin
00:11:27 – 00:11:43
You're actually sharing your story on how creating a company that creates content for developers and how the experience is and how you try, you know, stopping how things are going. I saw your videos. You're publishing videos very often. Mhmm. So what does building in public means?
Kevin
00:11:43 – 00:12:12
Like, it's a for me, it's a huge responsibility because you have to take care of the company itself, growing the company, finding the customers, creating the videos. You also have your own, like, YouTube channel because I see your pop your published constant content, sorry, very often. And also, you're publishing how you're building that in public. So how's that experience? How do you I will say the question more of will be more likely, like, how do you manage to do so many different things on so many different areas?
Aaron
00:12:12 – 00:12:37
Yeah. I think part of it is, I think part of it is our business model. Like our business model is attention, you know? So like we're trying to get people to go watch our videos and go subscribe to YouTube and follow me on Twitter. And so some of it is just like purely, this is like, I am, the top of the funnel for our for our business.
Aaron
00:12:37 – 00:13:09
And so that's, I think that's an important caveat to, for people listening. Like it just so happens that the people that we want to reach and the people that are on Twitter are basically the same thing. Like, it's a circle. And I think a lot of people get hung up on, like, if you're building, b to b SaaS for, commercial roofers, like, building in public on Twitter is not gonna be that helpful. Like, it'll be it's fun, and I think, like, putting yourself out there is generally net positive.
Aaron
00:13:10 – 00:14:07
But in terms of, like, meeting your business goals, it's not gonna be that helpful. It's very, very different for us in that the most concentrated group of people we're trying to reach is on Twitter. And so that's the first thing is, like, you have to understand is building in public, a good idea for you. And then for me, I think, I think a big part of it is you kind of have to train yourself to, lower the mental barrier of what you are willing to, like, put on Twitter. And what I mean by that is when you're working, so like when you're working just in your day to day and you do something that you're like, Oh, that's really interesting or I'm really proud of how clever that was or I just learned this and I feel like I should have known this for a 100 years but I just figured it out.
Aaron
00:14:08 – 00:14:33
You have to, like, almost have, content brain and think, okay. Well, I'm just gonna, like, take a screenshot, put it on Twitter, back to work. Like, for example, yesterday, I was working on a little command line tool to help me visualize some load testing that I was doing for a SQLite course. And I finished, like, working on the tool, and it looked kinda pretty. It looked like it, you know, had charts and graphs popping up and down, and I was like, oh, it's kinda cool.
Aaron
00:14:33 – 00:15:10
So I took, like, a, you know, 15 second video and put it on Twitter, and then it's just, like, back to work. And so that's you know, in terms of, like, doing a lot of stuff, you know, Steve and I are definitely doing a lot of stuff, but a lot of the, like, the little public stuff that you see, the effort is really low, but the outcome is really high. And I think that's a lot like you kind of have to train yourself to think as you're working, what could be interesting to share. And once you're in that mindset, you'll have more content than you have time of day. Like, it's just it just keeps coming over and over and over as long as you're doing stuff.
Kevin
00:15:11 – 00:15:32
Yeah. That's true. And that's also one thing I wanted to bring up, which is, at least for me, and it it seems that also for you, sometimes the pieces of content that you spend the less time on and maybe effort, like, you don't think too much about it. You just put it out there, and it has a huge impact. And, for example, I was talking to my my leader and my boss, the company that I work for.
Kevin
00:15:33 – 00:15:52
I, you know, I created an article just because I need it as a support for the article that I was working on. It was a very basic article about how to run SQL Server on Mac using Docker M1 because I I couldn't find anything online, and I figured it out. So I just put it out there. Didn't invest too much time. This is what I did.
Kevin
00:15:52 – 00:16:18
Boom. And it seems that that article is the top performer article on the entire AppSmith community portal, which is freaking weird because it is a product our community portal Has nothing to do with the product itself, but a lot of people are finding that content interesting and helpful for them. So that's what I think it's top of the final stuff that you should put it out there. Don't think too much about it. Obviously, being mindful about it, being respectful, and things like that.
Kevin
00:16:18 – 00:16:38
But so how do you how do you think about, alright. I'm gonna put a lot of effort on this, or I'm going just to just put it out there and see how it works. How do you understand when something requires to be polished, to require a script, or maybe really have a good editing, or just put it out there? How do you think about that specifically?
Aaron
00:16:39 – 00:16:59
Yeah. I mean, we named our company Try Hard Studios for a reason. Like, Steve and I are very committed to putting in a maximum amount of effort and a maximum amount of polish and quality. And so like the way that that breaks down is honestly on Twitter. Twitter is pretty ephemeral.
Aaron
00:16:59 – 00:17:38
So you, so the way that it works for me is I will often like the bar to tweeting is very low for me and I think I think that, that is not a quality bar, that is like an emotional bar. I don't, I don't prejudge the thing, like the the, like the value of the content before I tweet it. Because if I did that, I would only tweet things that I thought were gonna go super viral. And then a lot of the ones that did go, like, that did do super well wouldn't have passed that bar. So I would have filtered out my own best content.
Aaron
00:17:38 – 00:17:59
And so the way that I look at it is like, my job, my responsibility is to do the best I can and to share whatever I think is interesting. Beyond that, it's not really my responsibility. Like, if a tweet does super well, that's amazing. If it bombs, that's too bad. But, like, it's not my responsibility.
Aaron
00:17:59 – 00:18:23
My job, my responsibility is to try hard and to put out things that I think are valuable. And so on Twitter, what that means is, it's a lot more like, like I said earlier, like, I just learned something. Let me fire it off. That's different than YouTube because YouTube is, a lot higher effort just to, like, actually produce a video versus a tweet. And it lives it lives forever.
Aaron
00:18:23 – 00:18:34
Right? Twitter is, like, there and it's gone. And that gives me a good signal if I tweet something and everybody's like, oh, that's crazy, then that's a good sign that, like, maybe I should go make a video about that.
Kevin
00:18:34 – 00:18:35
Right.
Aaron
00:18:35 – 00:19:02
If I tweet something and everybody's like, alright, then that's a good sign. Well, I don't need to I don't need to invest my time in making a really high quality video because apparently people don't care about this. So it can be a good, like, it can be a good testing ground on Twitter to just, like, kinda do stream of consciousness. Now I don't do I don't tweet a bunch of garbage and a bunch of junk. I don't tweet a bunch of, like, memes or hot takes or engagement bait.
Aaron
00:19:02 – 00:19:31
I'm always trying to share something that I think is valuable, but what I don't do is try to predetermine which ones are gonna be winners and losers and only tweak the winners because I'm really, really bad. I think actually everyone's really bad, but I'm really bad at determining upfront what is going to resonate with the audience. And I let the audience decide that. And part of that, you have to, like, you kinda have to kill your ego a little bit and say, I'm gonna put this out and it may totally bomb. And that is just part of the game.
Aaron
00:19:31 – 00:19:53
Like, if I tweet 10 times and 9 of them bomb, that's still pretty great. Like, I still got one that did really well. Well, what's my strategy then? My strategy should be tweet a 100 times, and then I'll get 10 winners. The strategy is not, like, try to determine upfront what's the one winner because that starts to feel like you start to get a little bit too polished, and you don't connect with people anymore.
Aaron
00:19:53 – 00:19:55
And I just think that's no way to live.
Kevin
00:19:55 – 00:20:05
That's true. Well, speaking about Twitter, big shout out to the Twitter community right now. We have 292 people watching. So Wow. That's awesome.
Kevin
00:20:06 – 00:20:06
Friends.
Aaron
00:20:06 – 00:20:08
I love all of you. Twitter, my people.
Kevin
00:20:09 – 00:20:13
Yeah. Look at that. Twitter beating YouTube and LinkedIn right now.
Aaron
00:20:13 – 00:20:14
She's very interesting.
Kevin
00:20:14 – 00:20:33
So if you're watching this and you're enjoying it, say hi on the chat. Don't be shy. The idea is to ask as many questions as we can to Aaron, and that way, I don't run out of questions. So let's switch gears to video. So how does Aaron approach his video?
Kevin
00:20:33 – 00:20:55
Like, how do you do you know how to talk how do you know how you're gonna talk about what content did you wanna say, and how did you edit it and distribute it? Now I know there's a lot of questions in just one question, but I will say in general terms, a quick overview. Like, this is how I approach video. This is how I mostly think about it. This is how I record it.
Kevin
00:20:55 – 00:21:05
Not too much about the software or anything like that, but just mostly, what would be your high, recommendations for people who are trying to create video out there?
Aaron
00:21:06 – 00:21:32
Yeah. Lots, lots of recommendations. I'll just kind of ramble through them. I think one thing that I'm really careful about is I only ever really wanna talk about things that I know about. And I think there's a real, like, that seems potentially silly or trivial to say, but I think there's a real temptation, especially when you start getting on YouTube to, like, broaden your audience, like reach more and more and more people.
Aaron
00:21:33 – 00:21:43
And so sometimes I'll get requests. I'm a Laravel developer, Laravel's PHP framework. I talk a lot about Laravel. I talk a lot about databases, that sort of thing. There's oftentimes I'll get comments.
Aaron
00:21:43 – 00:21:51
It's like, hey. Can you compare this to Next. Js? And my answer is just simply no. No.
Aaron
00:21:51 – 00:22:20
I can't. I I can't because I don't know about Next. Js, and I don't want to enter this world where I'm captured by the algorithm or I'm chasing I'm chasing the algorithm, into areas that I'm not familiar with because I feel, I feel a big responsibility. Like if I'm going to hold myself out as a developer educator, it needs to kind of be pure and honest. And I can't just like teach about things that I don't really know about.
Aaron
00:22:20 – 00:22:34
And that goes all the way to like the news of the day. Like if Sam Altman gets let go from OpenAI again, that's interesting. I'm gonna go, like, read a bunch of tweets, but I'm not gonna make a video because what do I know about OpenAI? Nothing. Right.
Aaron
00:22:34 – 00:23:01
And so one of the things that, like, I'm very cognizant of is I try to stay in my lane, and there are aspects of other things. There are aspects of other things that I have insight into. But I don't pretend to be an expert about the whole thing. Right? So I can talk to an aspect of, a technology that I'm unfamiliar with and speak to that aspect, but not pretend to be like, Wow, I've used this for so long.
Aaron
00:23:01 – 00:23:11
Like, honestly, I haven't. So that's one thing is I always try to, like, teach what I know and be honest with people like, nope. Can't make a video about that. Don't know anything about it. Not going and learn.
Aaron
00:23:11 – 00:23:48
And I think that's the other thing is you can go learn a bunch of stuff and turn around and teach it. And I do that, like all these books right here, those are all database books, and I just read books. And I think that's a like, that is, the most obvious least used pack of content creators is like y'all nobody reads anything ever. Nobody reads anything and there's, like, there you can be of 2 minds about this. You can be of 1 mind where you're, like, wow, that's really bad for society, like, I don't know, maybe.
Aaron
00:23:48 – 00:24:25
Or you could be of the mind that's, like, wow, There's a whole lot of material that I can learn from and then turn around and package it with my own point of view, my own taste, my own personality, and put that out there. And so, like, for example, when I was working on a database course on, MySQL, like, I was pretty good with databases, but I wasn't, like, I wasn't, like, a DBA. And so I went and got all the books and read them all, and it turns out nobody else had ever read them. And I was coming from a different point of view. Like, these books are traditionally written for database administrators which is like a very low level thing.
Aaron
00:24:25 – 00:24:40
I was trying to teach from a level of, application developer. So, like, somebody in the code rather than the database. And so I can take all of this stuff that I've learned, translate it in my head to, like, alright. I've learned this. I am an application developer.
Aaron
00:24:40 – 00:25:14
Now how can I teach what I learned to these people of which I am a part, and how can I, like, communicate that effectively? And so that's, like, that's one thing. And then, like, I just, like, I continue to do stuff, and I think that's really I think that's really important, that if you're gonna be like a, you DevRel or content creator, dev educator or whatever it is, you gotta continue to, like, actually do stuff. And the more stuff that I do, the more I'm like, because now my brain has kind of been trained to, like, be content brain. As I'm working on something, I'm like, hey.
Aaron
00:25:14 – 00:25:37
There's an interesting there's an interesting angle to that. I wonder if I could package that up and turn it into a video. And usually the answer is yes. Sometimes you find something that is technically interesting that it's like, boy, this is so esoteric that I can't even, like, turn it into a a good video, and you gotta you just gotta let those go. But in terms of, like, figuring out what the content is, I stay in my lane.
Aaron
00:25:37 – 00:25:55
I do a lot of reading and I spend a lot of time on Twitter, Hacker News looking just because I enjoy it. And then and then, yeah, I just continued to work. So I think that that's kinda that's kinda the the stuff for how I find the content. That was a long answer. What was the second part of the question?
Kevin
00:25:56 – 00:26:08
So, you know what you wanna talk about, and you know you have to be prepared, which is what I'm putting right now on the screen. Read that freaking manual. Read that freaking manual. That's the that's the No matter
Aaron
00:26:08 – 00:26:13
how many times I say it, very, very few people do it, and so it continues to be a relative advantage.
Kevin
00:26:15 – 00:26:32
Awesome. So I will say, the other question was around distribution. So you can create a very valuable piece of content, and I know a lot of people out there who are creating good piece of content, but unfortunately, doesn't reach their audience. So it's not worth it. So my question to you is distribution.
Kevin
00:26:32 – 00:26:42
How do you get the content that you create to the right people? Do you have any recommendations or just happens organically? Yep. Yep.
Aaron
00:26:45 – 00:27:09
Yes. I think I think I have many recommendations. So one is, the platform that you distribute on mandates a few things. So you have to kind of like, you have to think, where am I gonna put this piece of content? So for example, a video that goes to be, he changes toners every few months.
Aaron
00:27:09 – 00:27:21
I do actually have a whole box of toner. I print out a lot of stuff. I print so much stuff. So, like, if the video is going to go on YouTube, you are competing with Mr. Beast.
Aaron
00:27:22 – 00:27:55
Like that sucks. You you are though. And so that is a reality. You may think you're competing with other people in your niche, which you which you are, but you're also competing with the entire world. And so when you, when you put a video on YouTube, I think there has to be an eye towards entertainment And what that may what that may stir inside of you, or inside of someone listening is like, well, that sucks because I'm an educator, and I wanna teach people how to do things.
Aaron
00:27:55 – 00:28:03
And you're like, okay. Yeah. Like, same. I feel the same way. Like, in my in my heart of hearts, in my bones, I want to be an educator.
Aaron
00:28:03 – 00:28:22
I want to teach people. So you have you're then left with an option. Like, the platform dictates, the platform demands that your videos be a little bit entertaining. You're saying, I just wanna educate. You have to decide where that overlap is for you.
Aaron
00:28:22 – 00:28:37
And that's like, that's your sweet spot. Because one thing that I won't do is I won't do clickbait or rage bait or like surprise faces. Like, oh, I can't believe PHP still works. And you're like, that's that's disingenuous. I am not gonna do that.
Aaron
00:28:38 – 00:29:12
But what I will do is I will find, I will take like, a nugget of an idea and try to wrap it in an interesting way. And it's not even like, I don't feel at that point, like I'm selling out to the algorithm. I feel like I am trying to crack the nut of how do I take this topic and make it interesting and entertaining? And I I I have no, moral qualms with that. And so that's how I exist on YouTube is, like, what can I do that is pure and noble and right and also meets the needs of of YouTube?
Aaron
00:29:12 – 00:29:34
And it's a very thin slice, and I think I have found that part. I think if you're doing, like, if you're doing, for example, a long form course of which I've done a few, it's a very, very different vibe. You can go slower. You can have fewer jokes. You can go more in-depth because you know that your viewer is a little bit more committed to being there.
Aaron
00:29:34 – 00:30:01
And so with YouTube, you kinda have to, like, hook them in and keep them entertained. And with a course, you kinda can go a little you can draw them in a little bit deeper and hit a little bit more, a little bit more of the nuance. And then when you put something on Twitter, I think you can just put whatever you want out and see what resonates and do it over and over and over again. And one of the great things about Twitter is you can just keep going. Like, if I were to put honestly, YouTube's kinda the same way.
Aaron
00:30:01 – 00:30:23
I've I've seen YouTube creators do that where they, like, put a similar video up, like, 6 times. Yeah. I don't personally like that, but on YouTube, it just drifts away. So like you can put out a video and then the next day you're still working on that same project, put out another video, and some people will follow along, but at some point, you're gonna have 20 videos out, and one of them's gonna catch, and everybody's gonna be like, hey. What's that thing you're working on?
Aaron
00:30:23 – 00:30:53
And then then you're there. And I know that it's really, really frustrating to, like, put a bunch of effort and energy into, a video and have it just totally flop. And that is the part of, like, that is that is the part where you have to emotionally disconnect and understand what is your responsibility and what is your duty and your duty ends when you hit the publish button. Like you can go home fully justified knowing I did a great thing today by putting it out there. Did it flop?
Aaron
00:30:54 – 00:31:12
Maybe. And there's stuff you can learn from that. Like, you can learn how to repackage it, or you can learn how to make it shorter or longer or more interesting or more funny or whatever, but you shouldn't feel bad if it flops. You should feel like, man, I'm so proud of myself for doing the thing. Now let me learn and see why this one flopped and let's move on and try again.
Aaron
00:31:12 – 00:31:24
But I feel like that is that's an emotional journey you have to go through of, like, I my job ends when I push publish, not when the views go up to a million because that just rarely ever happens.
Kevin
00:31:25 – 00:31:43
Yeah. That's true. And that's something that big shout out to Danny who's putting comments out there, from Twitter. Something that I discussed with Danny, because we have a Twitter space normally every Wednesday on the DevRel lead, channel over there, and it's like, you know, put the word out there. You have to start.
Kevin
00:31:43 – 00:31:59
You're gonna be lame at the beginning. You're not gonna get a lot of views. You're not gonna be famous. If that's the reason why you wanna do it, probably it's not going to work. You want to put it out there because you know you have valuable things to say, and you can teach others to do that.
Kevin
00:31:59 – 00:32:15
Which leads me to the next question. Do you have consistent growth to the point you're at right now, or you were, like, super bad and at some point something happened, and it kind of took you to the next level in terms of subscribers, in terms of views because, like, you get a lot of views. Mhmm.
Aaron
00:32:17 – 00:32:43
This is an interesting story, and it could be discouraging. But the first video that I put out got, like, a 100,000 views. And I was blown away by that. Now that is not the first video I've ever done, which I think is important to say. The first video that I put out on YouTube was like a it was like a 30 minute video on on Laravel, and I just kinda sat down and did a screen recording and went, you know, went through it.
Aaron
00:32:44 – 00:33:14
And that video alone got me, like, 5,000 subscribers and got me monetized, and I was like, holy crap. I guess I gotta do YouTube now. But the reason that's discouraging is because that was my first video, and I just don't think that's very common, but that was not the first video I'd ever made. At that point, I had made I had created, like, maybe 3 long form courses that were, like, you know, 60 videos or more each. And so at that point, I'd done 100 of videos since I'd had a lot of practice.
Aaron
00:33:15 – 00:33:36
And since since that first video, I've put out some that just totally freaking crush it, and I've put out some that just totally bomb, and I just keep moving. I just keep moving. And if you look, I I I haven't. But if you looked at the charts, I imagine you would see that the subscriber count is kind of staccato. It goes up when and then there's a banger and it just goes flat when there's a bomb.
Aaron
00:33:36 – 00:33:49
And it's like, if you zoom out enough, it's gonna look smooth. And the only thing that I can control is uploading. That's it. Hopefully, I'm getting better over time. Hopefully, I'm learning from my mistakes or my wins.
Aaron
00:33:49 – 00:33:53
But again, I just gotta keep going. You just gotta stay in the game.
Kevin
00:33:55 – 00:33:58
Yeah. That's true. You have to hustle. That's for sure. Mhmm.
Kevin
00:33:58 – 00:34:06
So, Aaron, I wanna be mindful about your time. It's 35 minutes already, and I just wanted to ask you if you have a little more time to stay because Yeah.
Aaron
00:34:06 – 00:34:07
Yeah. Yeah. Go as long as you want.
Kevin
00:34:07 – 00:34:16
Alright. Cool. Because we have 4 467 people only on Twitter. So that's growing very intensively right now.
Aaron
00:34:16 – 00:34:19
Oh, I'll be drinking a Spendrift. All 400. Awesome.
Kevin
00:34:20 – 00:34:43
And, I think the topic is very interesting, obviously. And before we continue then, I wanted to remember that, we got a DaVinci Resolve Studio license. I don't think you can see it because my lighting, it's very poor over there. But, anyway, here is the DaVinci Resolve license, the DaVinci Resolve Studio license. You can win it by just scanning the QR code I'm gonna be putting on the screen right now.
Kevin
00:34:44 – 00:34:58
You can watch it afterwards and scan it again. This is going to happen June 15. I'm gonna be live doing the raffle, and it's gonna be completely random for everyone who participate. You don't have to subscribe. You don't have to do anything.
Kevin
00:34:58 – 00:35:19
Just put your name, put your email address, and that's it. Now if you wanna earn more points to be able to win, you can follow me on Twitter, you can subscribe to me on YouTube, but that's not obligated. That's not mandatory. You can still win it by just putting your name and your email, and that's it. So, let's go back to the conversation.
Kevin
00:35:19 – 00:35:41
I will put the QR code again at the end. I'm gonna stay there with a DaVinci Resolve video that I prepared so you can learn about what DaVinci Resolve is and what, you know, which movies are made with a feature result, which is always a good question people tend to ask. So, Aaron, going back to video, I saw you recently tried something called vmotion.dev
Aaron
00:35:42 – 00:35:42
Mhmm.
Kevin
00:35:42 – 00:35:57
Which is a video as code tool. So I know you have we have a lot of developers who follow us. They might not have great experience editing their own videos, and I know you tried that. So you can literally create a video out of code. So what what how was that experience?
Aaron
00:35:58 – 00:36:15
It was amazing. Now here's the sticky wicket. I'm not a React developer. And so it was really like, I'm not a React developer. My whole front end journey has been vanilla JS to Vue JS, you know, over whatever it's been, you know, 20 years now.
Aaron
00:36:15 – 00:36:39
And so, diving into the React world was like, boy, I'm in over my head. But, you know, yeah, I've learned things before I could learn things again. And so using Remotion was awesome. It's so cool to be able to programmatically create videos. I will say, it doesn't really, it doesn't really work that much for, like, the screencasting style videos that I do.
Aaron
00:36:40 – 00:36:57
It's more for, maybe, like, programmatic graphics overlays or data driven, videos that scale, that sort of thing. And so when I was playing around with it, it was for, like, programmatic graphic overlays that I I wasn't doing live. I was, like, rendering them and then dropping them into my editor.
Kevin
00:36:57 – 00:36:58
And
Aaron
00:36:58 – 00:37:13
it was super fun. I wish, I wish I knew React better, or I wish there was a Vue JS version of it. But just the power of programmatic video has always been so enticing to me that I couldn't I couldn't resist. Even though it's React, I couldn't resist.
Kevin
00:37:14 – 00:37:22
Yeah. No. Totally. And I know that the Vue community is very eager to do something that already exist in React and move it to Vue. Mhmm.
Kevin
00:37:22 – 00:37:39
So maybe somebody who's watching from the Vue community might port remotion.dev to, to view. I'm gonna put on the screen right now the name, remotion.dev, and you can go to I think it's on the TryHard Studios, YouTube channel. Right? You put a video about it, or it's on your personal channel?
Aaron
00:37:39 – 00:37:50
Yeah. It's on the TryHard Studios channel. There are a few, like, podcast style videos. And on the left hand side, I've got, like, almost like a sports center countdown clock of when I'm covering different topics, and that's all Remotion.
Kevin
00:37:51 – 00:37:55
That's what I liked. Yeah. That's what I liked. I really liked that, like, kinda chapter thing and, you know Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin
00:37:55 – 00:38:01
It was cool. The next 3 minutes, you're gonna talk about the other stuff. So that's kinda challenging because you know what's gonna happen.
Aaron
00:38:01 – 00:38:02
So Uh-huh. Exactly. Yeah.
Kevin
00:38:03 – 00:38:19
Awesome. So a question that I I have to ask. And I know you mentioned you're not clickbait, and that's totally fine. But, at the end, we try to reach more people, and if we are capable of getting the algorithm to show the video to that people, well, that's great. Yep.
Kevin
00:38:19 – 00:38:21
So thumbnails and video titles.
Aaron
00:38:22 – 00:38:22
Sure.
Kevin
00:38:22 – 00:38:36
We know it plays a big part on the click to rate. And can you share your experience about that? Like, I know you don't do clickbait, but, I know you mentioned something on Twitter about the the video titles you did for the PHP. But I think PHP started that. That was the title.
Kevin
00:38:37 – 00:38:39
And that gives you a lot of views. So can you talk a bit about titles?
Aaron
00:38:40 – 00:39:07
Yeah. I think, just to speak to clickbait first, I think it's such a gray and, like, it's a gradient of what is clickbait and what's not. It's such a personal, like, decision. And I think, I think fundamentally clickbait is giving a title that you don't deliver on in the video. And so you're basically, it feels deceitful to me.
Aaron
00:39:07 – 00:39:25
It feels like a trick. That being said, there are good ways to frame ideas and there are boring ways to frame ideas. And if you have a choice, go with the good way. And so, like, you don't have to, you don't have to deceive people. You don't have to deceive people to make something interesting.
Aaron
00:39:26 – 00:39:35
Like so the PHP video, for example, I did a video a little while back. I think it's still the highest number of views on my channel. I think it's, like, 200,000 views or something.
Kevin
00:39:36 – 00:39:36
Right.
Aaron
00:39:36 – 00:39:53
I did a video a little while back about, the evolution of PHP in the past, like, 10 years. Like I said, I'm a PHP developer. A lot of people think PHP is lame. I'm like, that's fine. I don't really care, but a lot of stuff has happened in the past 10 years.
Aaron
00:39:53 – 00:40:19
And so I made this video of, like, PHP's evolution in 10 years features whatever whatever, and then it comes time to, like, put a title and a thumbnail on it and frame it, like, what is what is the point of view here? And there are 2 options or there are at least two options. 1 is you title the video PHP's evolution in the past 10 years or new PHP features since 2014. Right?
Kevin
00:40:19 – 00:40:19
Right.
Aaron
00:40:20 – 00:40:30
I don't know. I don't care. Like, if I'm not a PHP developer, I don't care about PHP's new features in the past 10 years. Right? That that's kinda like, I'm just gonna keep scrolling.
Aaron
00:40:31 – 00:41:01
What I actually titled titled it was PHP doesn't suck, parentheses, anymore. And so that framing hits a little different because that hits people that used to be PHP developers and remember it sucking super hard, of which there are many. I feel like every developer has a story where they're like, oh, I used to do PHP, but now I don't. And so it hits all of those. It also has a secondary benefit of, like, hitting the PHP developers who don't think it sucked and then being like, hey, PHP has never sucked.
Aaron
00:41:01 – 00:41:14
What are you talking about? And so it kinda hit it weirdly hit both. I was actually only going for the non PHP developers, but I got a lot of comments that were like, I've been a PHP developer forever. What are you talking about? It doesn't suck, which was which was a funny side effect.
Aaron
00:41:14 – 00:41:53
But I think the point there is, like, if you have an idea for a piece of content, I would first and this is how I do it. I would first consider, is there a frame or is there a point of view or is there an interesting angle that you can, look through to get to this content. So if you come up with a great idea and you're like, I don't know how I'm gonna package that, I personally don't know if it's worth the effort of going through making a video and putting it on YouTube. You could put it you could put it somewhere else. You could make a course out of it or whatever if there's not, like, a really interesting, like, gotcha angle to it.
Aaron
00:41:53 – 00:42:30
But if there's a piece of content or a technique or an idea that you want to teach someone, this is going back to, like, what does the platform dictate? If there's a piece of content you want to teach someone, how can you, in a in a pure and noble way, get people to notice it and get people to click on it so that for their edification, you can teach them something. And so I don't I don't think it's, I don't think it's wrong or bad or anything to try to be interesting. I think it's wrong to deceive. I think it is wrong to deceive, and it's wrong to pretend like you're totally shocked about something that you're not shocked about, but to, like, be interesting?
Aaron
00:42:31 – 00:42:31
Great.
Kevin
00:42:31 – 00:42:32
You gotta do that.
Aaron
00:42:32 – 00:42:33
That's part of the game.
Kevin
00:42:33 – 00:42:36
That's it. Don't lie. Exactly. Yes.
Aaron
00:42:36 – 00:42:36
Which is
Kevin
00:42:36 – 00:42:37
what happens with not
Aaron
00:42:37 – 00:42:55
trick me because if you trick me, I'm never gonna come back and I'm not going to like you. Like, if you continually or maybe even once, trick me into clicking on a video and I feel deceived, oh, it's like, ah, that person's a trickster. I don't trust them. And that's we're playing a long game here. You gotta play the long game.
Kevin
00:42:55 – 00:43:17
Exactly. And even more with developers, because the developer ecosystem and community, it's big, but it's also small. Like, if you get people get a sense of you being, like, a a person who chose the tricks or do, like, you know, clickbait content, they're not going to respect you. And if you want to put actual content out there to educate people Yep. Then you're gonna lose it.
Kevin
00:43:17 – 00:43:28
So, yeah, slow and steady growth, it's gonna be like something clickbait, who is gonna be a momentary thing, but I think it's just gonna hit you because you're gonna you're gonna hit a wall for sure.
Aaron
00:43:28 – 00:43:34
Yes. In the short term, click bait can win. I think in the long term, reputation wins, and that's what I'm optimizing for.
Kevin
00:43:35 – 00:43:54
Exactly. So we're getting close to an end here, but if you have questions, I see we have 404 142 people on Twitter. So it will be nice if you have questions for Aaron to put it on the chat. Don't be shy. Also, if you're on Facebook, YouTube, or LinkedIn, ask your questions if you want.
Kevin
00:43:54 – 00:44:15
We have a lot of people joining from Peru, from India, from United States, from Europe. So that's amazing to have such a large community trying to get something about Aaron and from Aaron. So, Aaron, I actually wanted to ask you something that I ask everybody who I meet because I think it's a great talking point, and it's what's your favorite movie?
Aaron
00:44:16 – 00:44:29
Oh, gosh. I'm gonna give you 2 that are completely opposite of each other. The first one, feel good movie. It's called Dan in real life
Kevin
00:44:30 – 00:44:30
Oh.
Aaron
00:44:30 – 00:44:57
And it's with it's with Steve Carell. And actually, weirdly, I think Dane Cook is in it. But it's just like it's just the platonic ideal of, like, family bonding relationships, 3 generations. Steve Carell is a single dad to 3 girls, and they go to, like, their parents' summer house. And it's just so good and so, like, heartwarming and very, very touching.
Aaron
00:44:57 – 00:45:09
So Steve, not Steve. Dan in real life is the first one. Obviously, Interstellar has gotta be in there. Interstellar's like, oh, man. Top 5.
Aaron
00:45:09 – 00:45:14
But the other one that I was gonna say that is the complete opposite of Dan in real life is The Hurt Locker.
Kevin
00:45:14 – 00:45:14
Have you
Aaron
00:45:14 – 00:45:32
ever seen The Hurt Locker? Yes. Okay. So The Hurt Locker about a, bomb disposal technician in the middle is American in the Middle East, and he goes around and diffuses bombs. Unbelievably, like, bleak and almost, like, devastating.
Aaron
00:45:32 – 00:45:40
There's a scene if you haven't seen it by now, I'm sorry. It's, like, 15 years old. So I'm gonna it's not a spoiler, but it's Yeah. It's been long enough. He comes home.
Aaron
00:45:40 – 00:46:24
So he comes home from, I think it's Iraq. He comes home and it's Jeremy Renner. So he's the arrow, the guy in the Marvel movies, whatever his name is. He comes home from Iraq and he's standing in the cereal aisle and it's this bleak shot of him alone surrounded by, like, you know, 400 brands of American cereal and he's just looking up and down the aisle and it's the most, like devastating despondent shot in the entire movie because he just is so empty after coming home and that was like oh, man. That was just so heavy and just a wild, wild, like, realization that this guy is living for the adrenaline of diffusing bombs, and then he comes home, and he's safe and comfortable, and he's so miserable.
Aaron
00:46:25 – 00:46:33
So way, way, way different movies, but, both extremely good. Very different between each other. That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin
00:46:33 – 00:47:06
So So the reason I like to ask about movies is because we'll have our favorite, we'll have our bad movies as well, and and it's interesting because everybody always gives different different answers to that question. So it's also like a personal journey. Sometimes a movie, it's perceived very differently from different people because they all have their story. So that's why I wanted to ask you, did you use or do you implement some sort of storytelling when you think about videos or put yourself a video out there? Or you just, like, let's put content out there in terms of education.
Kevin
00:47:06 – 00:47:09
Here it is, blue. If you like it, great. If not, just move it.
Aaron
00:47:10 – 00:47:41
Yeah. I don't think necessarily about storytelling. The thing that I think about the most when I am, when I'm doing a video is I think primarily about taking smaller steps with the viewer. And so here's an example. When when I'm teaching something, my my, like, my gut reaction is to prove to everyone how smart I am.
Aaron
00:47:41 – 00:48:16
I'm like, I'm gonna teach you everything and all the nuance and all the all the, like, optimizations right up front, just so you know, I'm very smart. And it's like, that's a disservice. That's a disservice to the viewer, and that's like a fragile ego kind of thing. And so what I'm always focused on is like, how can I take the viewer from not knowing something to knowing a little bit more and then a little bit more and then a little bit more and bring them along this journey with me? Because what I like I said, what I view myself as is a teacher, not an entertainer.
Aaron
00:48:16 – 00:48:53
I want to be an entertaining teacher, but I'm at at my heart, I'm a teacher. And so my responsibility is to the viewer. And I think the best way to, like, teach somebody something is to teach them a little concept and then build on top of that and build on top of that. And so I teach the original thing and then I teach the optimization and then the nuance and then the way that it doesn't always work and then some alternatives instead of like throwing everything at them all at once, because then they're like, bro, you're teaching me alternatives, but you haven't taught me the real, like, I don't even know the main way, and you're already telling me when it doesn't work. And I feel like that's where you start to, like that's when you lose people.
Aaron
00:48:53 – 00:49:13
And, you know, you could say, you can have a point of view where it's like, well, these students gotta keep up. And it's like, well, that's not a very generous point of view. Like, why don't you just teach better? And so that's what I'm always thinking about. Story is is less interesting or less, like, I'm less skilled on that, and so I don't think about story as much.
Aaron
00:49:13 – 00:49:21
But I try to keep the pace pretty good with, dopamine hits of, like, hey. You learned this. Oh, you learned this. Oh, you learned that. And that hopefully keeps them entertained.
Kevin
00:49:22 – 00:49:38
Exactly. That's a great recommendation. And, actually, there is a question from Nimit Savant, Twitter. Mhmm. What should be an ideal length of a video explaining a concept on YouTube while also grabbing their attention, considering the short attention span of viewers these days, which is actually true.
Kevin
00:49:38 – 00:49:39
Mhmm.
Aaron
00:49:39 – 00:50:16
The video should be as short as it can be and as long as it needs to be. And so I think, I let's see. I think that people do have short attention spans, but I think that people really do want to learn. It has become, man, it's become almost out of vogue to be like, hey, I want to try really hard to learn something, but I think that is still inside of people. I think people still really do want to become better at their craft.
Aaron
00:50:16 – 00:51:06
And so, any video, any explanation, any sentence, any code should be as short as it can be and as long as it needs to be. And so that like part of what dictates the length of my videos is what am I gonna teach and how many steps does it take to level them up into the final answer? So some videos are 6 minutes and some videos are 25 minutes. And I don't I don't really think about it too much, except that if I do a video and it's 40 minutes long and I watch it back and I'm like, dude, you rambled through half of that, I redo it because that's not like, 1, it's not gonna perform, and 2, it's not good, like, for the the viewer to, like, listen to me ramble. And so I make it as tight as I possibly can without sacrificing the things I don't wanna sacrifice.
Kevin
00:51:07 – 00:51:26
That's good. That's good to hear because, even myself, sometime I said, like, you know, people have short span of attention. You gotta keep it short, and then I split it into episodes because I'm trying to accommodate myself to the lack of attention from people. And just hearing you is refreshing. Like, it takes what it have to takes.
Kevin
00:51:26 – 00:51:41
If it's interesting, they're going to stay. If it's not, they're gonna leave, and then I'm gonna learn from that because I see the dropping, at, I don't know, minute 3 and why they're dropping at minute 3. Then you can kinda understand what why people are dropping at that specific moment, which is very refreshing, to be honest.
Aaron
00:51:41 – 00:51:42
Oh, good.
Kevin
00:51:42 – 00:51:56
Also, another question from Twitter, Sessa Kuto. Not related to video, but I wanted to ask, here we go, PHP, What he thinks the future of PHP is and if he also codes being plain PHP without Laravel?
Aaron
00:51:57 – 00:52:10
I wouldn't touch plain PHP with a 10 foot pole. I really wouldn't. I I I grew up on PHP. I love PHP. I've done all sorts of flavors of it, all the way back to, like, 5.2 maybe.
Aaron
00:52:11 – 00:52:26
Like, I was a kid. I was, like, 10 when I started PHP. I think the future of PHP is Laravel, frankly. I think the the core language continues to evolve and improve. There's a great set of maintainers that continue to push the ball forward.
Aaron
00:52:27 – 00:52:46
I think Laravel is the platonic ideal of what a PHP framework should be. And I feel like it's hard. It's gonna be hard for anybody to eke out any market share there. I also have so much fun writing Laravel. And so it's like, this is another thing where I just stay in my lane.
Aaron
00:52:46 – 00:52:59
I'm like, I honestly don't wanna go try out Rails. I think Ruby on Rails is amazing, but, like, I'm happy. I'm I'm happy. And so I just stay I just stay with Laravel. But I think PHP will continue to push forward.
Aaron
00:52:59 – 00:53:13
I think Laravel has a bunch of stuff up their sleeve. They they're they're on a hiring spree. They're up to, like, 31 employees now. And so I think there are great things coming for PHP, and I think the PHP image rehabilitation is fully underway.
Kevin
00:53:14 – 00:53:21
That's that's true. I worked with PHP for, like, I don't know, 5, 7 years of my life. Cake, PHP. Mhmm.
Aaron
00:53:21 – 00:53:21
Yeah.
Kevin
00:53:22 – 00:53:23
WordPress. Cake was good.
Aaron
00:53:23 – 00:53:37
Cake was cake was alright. I remember cake. I remember, yi, y I I yi, which is really hard to say out loud. I I did that for a while, and then finally found my way to Laravel after. I think it was Yi and then cake and then Laravel.
Kevin
00:53:37 – 00:53:44
Yeah. It's true. A long way, PHP. So alright. To close-up because we're getting up, it's about an hour already.
Kevin
00:53:44 – 00:53:54
It's amazing how time flies. 600 viewers on Twitter. Big shout out to the Twitter community who are joining. What's the future for Aaron? What's coming up in what's the landscape right now for you?
Aaron
00:53:55 – 00:54:33
Just conquer the world, man. I mean, we, like, we really do. Steve and I, my partner Steve at TryHard, we we have a lot of, like, we have a lot of big dreams and we think I think our thesis is, that developer content, is going through a fundamental shift and and leveling up. And I think our thesis is developer content is only going to become more and more important and more and more valuable. And so we are leaning super hard into producing as much high quality video as we can.
Aaron
00:54:33 – 00:54:59
So I'll dork around on Twitter and, you know, hang out with my friends over there. But when it comes to, like, putting out video, everything that Steve and I touch, we want to be extremely high quality. And, like, right now, I'm working on another database course, for SQLite, and we've partnered with a company called Terso that's a SQLite host. And I think those kinds of deals, like us partnering with Terso and Terso being like, yes. We wanna put our name on anything that you do.
Aaron
00:55:00 – 00:55:33
Those kinds of deals only come after building a reputation and a reputation for, like, high effort, like, quality content. And so I don't know exactly what the future holds. Like, I've got this course, the the SQLite course, and then gonna do a Postgres course, which is another database, and then continue to do YouTube videos throughout. And after that, it gets a little bit blurry because that's, you know, 6 months out. But I think, I think our thesis is strong that if we continue to show up and make high quality video, opportunities will continue to present themselves.
Aaron
00:55:33 – 00:55:49
And so far, that has been true. We're 3 months in, and it's working better than either of us could have ever imagined, both on, like, vibes and actual money in the bank. And it's like, okay. Well, maybe this is a thing. And so our our near term future is just push harder.
Aaron
00:55:49 – 00:55:57
Do more. Make more videos. Put more time into it, and we will see where that ends.
Kevin
00:55:58 – 00:56:14
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Aaron, for your time. It's been amazing. I really enjoy talking to to people about video and everything that, your journey has been. Because, again, I truly believe that storytelling is also key for trying to put things out there.
Kevin
00:56:14 – 00:56:19
So thank you so much for your time. And just to finish it up, do you have any any questions for me for the audience?
Aaron
00:56:21 – 00:56:33
I guess my question for the 500 people listening is why didn't y'all ask more questions? Come on. Somebody hit me with a last minute question here. There's gotta be somebody that wants to know something. Yeah.
Aaron
00:56:33 – 00:56:41
But, no, I I oh, lovely chat. Not a question, but I still take it. There we go. There's some there's some responses. Yeah.
Aaron
00:56:41 – 00:57:05
No. This is great. I love I love talking about this stuff. I think, I think with, the rise of AI, I think more attention and more value is going to be paid and, attributed to individuals that are being human online. And so my charge my charge to everyone listening is, like, put yourself out there.
Aaron
00:57:05 – 00:57:26
Like be a human online and I think the, the accolades will accrue to you if you're just a human being because that is that's in decreasing supply as, content becomes automated. Be sincere. Be optimistic. Put yourself out there, and I think good things will happen.
Kevin
00:57:27 – 00:57:35
That's that's completely true. Very comfortable, advice. Yes. Abdullah, we do read this. If you have any questions now.
Kevin
00:57:35 – 00:57:48
Yeah. We're reading it right now. You're spot on the screen. So I'm gonna give just one last minute to people if they wanna ask one last question to Aaron, who's willing to answer a couple of them. So in the meantime oh, there you go.
Kevin
00:57:48 – 00:57:52
There's one. Do you think Turso is prod ready?
Aaron
00:57:52 – 00:58:06
I do. Yes. I think SQLite is prod ready. I think TURSO is prod ready. I think TURSO's embedded replicas cover a lot of the problems of distributed SQLite, which is an insane thing to say Distributed SQLite but Terso has cracked that and I think, yeah, it's totally prod ready.
Aaron
00:58:07 – 00:58:17
Any more kids coming? You better believe the answer to that is no. Absolutely not. I've got enough to keep me very, very busy and very, very happy.
Kevin
00:58:18 – 00:58:19
I hope you had your surgery.
Aaron
00:58:20 – 00:58:23
Not yet, but I am it's on it's on the schedule.
Kevin
00:58:24 – 00:58:24
To share
Aaron
00:58:24 – 00:58:28
too much information, I'm gonna make sure that we don't have any more kids.
Kevin
00:58:29 – 00:58:36
Yeah. Because it seems that your, you know, your little kids are very strong. They found their way, so I mean, you should you should do that.
Aaron
00:58:36 – 00:58:40
I have a knack for producing twins somehow, and I don't want that to happen again.
Kevin
00:58:40 – 00:58:58
Exactly. So, again, DaVinci Resolve Studio license, here it is. If you wanna win it, don't be shy. $299, license, and you can start editing your videos with all those cool features that it has. Aaron, do you edit your own videos?
Aaron
00:58:58 – 00:59:14
I used to up until 3 months ago when Steve and I started, working together. Steve is a proper video editor, video producer. He's got way more experience than I do. And so now I just throw it over the wall, and Steve makes it look good, which is, like, that's the dream.
Kevin
00:59:14 – 00:59:20
Awesome. That's great. Do you know what, he uses to edit? Does he use Premiere or DaVinci? Or
Aaron
00:59:21 – 00:59:22
I think
Kevin
00:59:22 – 00:59:23
What do you use to use?
Aaron
00:59:24 – 00:59:34
I use ScreenFlow because I'm a, like, I'm a I'm a LOBE, and ScreenFlow is so easy to use. Yeah. I think he uses Premiere, but I don't actually know. That's a good question.
Kevin
00:59:35 – 01:00:10
Cool. Well, if you wanna, join my YouTube channel, there's a lot of DaVinci Resolve videos that I put out there for people who doesn't know anything about editing videos and wanna put out their videos for developers. Is very focused on things like, you know, making sure your videos are not boring, zooming in, zooming out, putting your titles, your animations, your transitions, automatically put, subtitles in closed captions, which is super important because the feature is all about a bunch of AI features that they just launched. So, I mean, you can win it. You can participate and win it.
Kevin
01:00:10 – 01:00:16
So it doesn't seem that there is any other questions, Aaron. So I think we can start closing the session right now. Okay.
Aaron
01:00:16 – 01:00:17
Great.
Kevin
01:00:17 – 01:00:30
Thank you so much for your time. I really had a wonderful time. Thank you to everyone, the 645 people who are live right now. I hope you really learned something from Aaron. Oh, there's one last thing over there.
Kevin
01:00:30 – 01:00:48
Do I have to wait 90 days to see the result of the giveaway? Yes. You have to, I'm afraid. But, that's because next week, I have another another person joining my, my channel, which is Jake Ward. So Jake Ward is the CEO of a company called Data Protocol.
Kevin
01:00:48 – 01:01:24
So what they do is something very similar to try and hard studios. They create videos for developers, but they're more focused on the companies that needs to create videos for, developers. So he's also going to come here and talk about video too, talk about the developer journey, how you can resonate with the developer journey, and try to create content on the different stages of the the the developer journey, you know, whether if it is awareness or traction or growth, etcetera. He's gonna come here and talk. So, if you participate next week, I'm gonna be enabling another option to win more points.
Kevin
01:01:24 – 01:01:40
So if, you join and just scan the QR code again, you will see more options to maybe have a big chance to win the stoving just result the student license. So thank you so much, Aaron. Take care, and I see you on the next one. See you. Bye bye.
Me

Thanks for reading! My name is Aaron and I write, make videos , and generally try really hard .

If you ever have any questions or want to chat, I'm always on Twitter.

You can find me on YouTube on my personal channel or the Try Hard Studios channel.

If you love podcasts, I got you covered. You can listen to me on Mostly Technical .