Aaron Francis

Transcript

Craig

00:00:05 – 00:00:13

Hello. Welcome back to Rogue Startups. I'm your host, Craig Hewitt. Today, I'm joined by Aaron Francis. We're gonna talk all about video and YouTube.

Craig

00:00:13 – 00:01:11

So for those of you who enjoyed our YouTube series around the end of the year, I think you're really gonna enjoy this deep dive into how Aaron approaches content, how he approaches content for technical audiences and SaaS, the importance of personal branding and a little bit about his new venture. Try Hard Studios where he's helping kinda developer Dev tool companies create really amazing video content. You know we talk at the beginning a lot about why YouTube and why video And so for those of you who are kinda like trying to figure out your growth strategy and what the heck marketing looks like, how does AI affect Google and all this kind of stuff, they could really appreciate Aaron's perspective on on just kind of like why YouTube why video how the platform of YouTube varies from content marketing and Google and social media and podcasting even and so that's really great conversation with Aaron Francis. I hope you enjoy. Yeah.

Craig

00:01:11 – 00:01:58

So it occurred to me the other day that, in our previous kind of YouTube series, we talked like 4 or 5 different, you know, consultants, people who are experts at growing channel, but had never talked to a person who'd actually, like, grown a channel successfully. And so you and I had been in touch a few months ago, had to reschedule because I was sick. But this is a really timely conversation, I think, in light of, like, your new thing and just like to continue the thread of of growing a YouTube channel. But, Aaron, I wanna start with why YouTube. Because, like, I have my reasons, but I'd love to hear from you because, like, a really strong like social presence on Twitter kind of been out there done a lot of things like to start with like for folks who are on the fence about YouTube as like a content content marketing channel, like, what's your what's the pitch you tell yourself, I guess?

Aaron

00:01:58 – 00:02:17

Yeah. I think surprisingly, I think competition is way, way, way lower on YouTube, which is, like it feels crazy to say that because it's like, wow. It seems like YouTube is so mature and saturated. And, like, in some regards, it is. Like, if you're gonna do I don't know if you're gonna do Minecraft.

Aaron

00:02:18 – 00:02:50

Yeah. If you're gonna do one of these topics that has been around for forever, I feel like that's tough, or if you're gonna do one of these topics where everybody in the niche is really, like, comfortable on camera and personable and, like, I feel like that's gonna be kinda hard. Where it's totally open, I think, is, like, developer related content, honestly. Because, you know, if you look at, like, the level of effort required to produce any sort of content, like, the lowest level of effort is you do nothing. And that's what most people do.

Aaron

00:02:50 – 00:02:56

Right? You just don't produce anything. And then moving up from there, it's like, what's easiest? Well, I could fire off a tweet. That's pretty easy.

Aaron

00:02:56 – 00:03:11

I could write a blog post. That's a little bit harder. If I'm gonna turn on the camera and put my face out there, like, that not only is it, like, an emotional labor, but it's also a lot more work. Like, you gotta edit. And editing can can be terrible.

Aaron

00:03:11 – 00:03:43

And so that's one reason because I think it's, like, the very tip top of the effort pyramid, and so, therefore, it's sparsely populated. But then, like, if I were I think if I were starting today, I would start strictly and solely on YouTube. I would I would have Twitter still because I I, you know, I think Twitter is extremely valuable. But YouTube can give you distribution unto itself. Like, you don't have to build up a following on YouTube or build up a subscriber base.

Aaron

00:03:43 – 00:03:54

Like, if your video is good enough, YouTube is just gonna say, great. Here are all the views. Have fun. And I don't think that's, like, I don't think that's still I don't think that's the case on many other platforms anymore.

Craig

00:03:55 – 00:04:03

Yeah. No. I agree. I mean, if you think about the kind of options you have, it's like social, like, definitely have the the platform and network effect built in. Like, that's the whole idea.

Craig

00:04:04 – 00:04:33

Blogging like pretty stand alone Google, maybe like we'll serve some of your stuff but really the that you want to write like Google's never going to suggest so so I think that's kind of from from like thought leadership opinion pieces. Podcasting I think is super interesting like my whole kind of world is has been podcasting for a long time. Kinda in between. I feel like you got it. You got to grow a podcast outside of podcasting, which is weird because there's not a YouTube place, right?

Craig

00:04:33 – 00:04:54

Not even Spotify to be. And I think the big difference to me is like podcasting has, like, podcast level discoverability. Whereas, like, you're saying YouTube has, like, episode level, like, the homepage or the sidebar is, like, oh, you might like this from this whole different person you've never heard of. There's like that. I I don't feel like that exists in in podcasting.

Craig

00:04:54 – 00:04:55

So I think that's just No.

Aaron

00:04:55 – 00:05:15

And I feel like a podcast perspective. Yeah. Podcasts are great. And I have hosted several in the past and I'm, you know, have one right now and put a lot of effort into it. And I think it's really, really great for deepening relationships, you know, with the audience and less so for, like, growing the audience.

Aaron

00:05:15 – 00:05:38

I mean, our podcast is growing, but it's not like it's not like you put out an amazing YouTube video and you get, you know, a 100000 views. It's like we're getting, you know, we're getting many tens of new listeners every episode. It's it's a slow and steady long long burn, but people people that listen think that we're best friends. And, like, you just can't you can't get that anywhere else. Right?

Aaron

00:05:38 – 00:05:44

Being in people's ears for an hour, you just can't get through Twitter, frankly.

Craig

00:05:45 – 00:05:47

Yeah. Yeah. Right. So it's the the depth of

Aaron

00:05:47 – 00:05:48

Mhmm.

Craig

00:05:48 – 00:05:54

Connection, along with the volume. Yeah. I talked to Dan Andrews, last week about this, in fact. So yeah. Cool.

Craig

00:05:54 – 00:06:05

So okay. So we're sold on YouTube. So I'll kind of give a little background on kind of my my journey in the last few months because I had this Mhmm. Have this goal of 200 videos this year. I know.

Craig

00:06:05 – 00:06:10

And arguably some of them well, this is gonna be one of them. Right? So, like, I'm cheating a little bit. Right? But great.

Craig

00:06:10 – 00:06:22

I think that's fair. So, like, that's across 3 channels. So that's the podcast. So Rogue Startups has its own channel, my personal channel. So talking about kind of sales, marketing, and SaaS stuff, and then Casto's channel talking about podcasting and and our platform and stuff.

Craig

00:06:23 – 00:06:55

So that's a podcast episode like this. It's a product typically or kind of, you know, how to podcast for the Castles Channel and then to kind of like talking head videos a week. I ran into a really significant road bump with overcomplicating my tech setup. Really, for about the last 6 weeks, going back a couple of weeks, I've been back on the horse, But I talk to some folks. They're like, you got a script or videos, you got to get the teleprompter, you got a blah blah blah blah blah.

Craig

00:06:55 – 00:07:27

And it just totally kneecapped me to where to where now like the teleprompter is sitting right over there and it's unplugged because I find it's just like if I just like outline something in an ocean dock and I have that sitting here, I can just talk for a couple of minutes and then look at that and then talk for a couple more minutes and and that's it. And that's my whole process. So Yep. And I suffice to say, like, I have not been creating. Like you said, like, I've done nothing for the last couple of months, but but I'm kinda back on the train, but found that, like, the tech stuff really handicapped me.

Craig

00:07:27 – 00:07:32

This is overcomplicating it. Like, I think my setup here is plenty good, and I should just go with that.

Aaron

00:07:32 – 00:07:47

Yeah. Yeah. I think that is, I think that's a common trap that people fall into, and it's not even wrong. Right? Like so, scripting it out and using a teleprompter, it's great.

Aaron

00:07:47 – 00:08:00

Love that. Love that for whoever that works for. You know, I have a course at screencasting.com where I teach, like, people how to do screencast videos. And one of the things that I go into is, should you have a script or should you not? And the answer is, I have no idea.

Aaron

00:08:01 – 00:08:25

Like, I have no idea if you should have a script or if you should not. I'm the same way that you are, where I do an outline. I read over the outline and then I turn on the camera. Right? And I find that for me, that is most effective because that gives me the, like, that gives me the the live performance energy of it versus just, like, dead reading script off the screen.

Aaron

00:08:25 – 00:08:39

And now I know for some people that, like, not having a script just totally paralyzes them. They turn on the camera and they completely freeze. And so, like, in that case, use a script. But for me, I'm I'm the same way. I'll write something and then try to read it and it sounds so stilted.

Aaron

00:08:39 – 00:08:59

Whereas if I, like, know what my major, you know, my few major points are and then I figure out as I'm talking, like, how to meander through those points, I feel like it it goes much better. And, frankly, sometimes I even trash the first video because I'm like, great. Now I know like, now I know what I wanna say. Like, could I have written a script? Maybe.

Aaron

00:08:59 – 00:09:09

But for me, it was better to to, like, start saying it and then trash it and start over and say, like, alright. Now now I know my path through the points, and I'm gonna hit it a little tighter.

Craig

00:09:10 – 00:09:19

Yeah. And even from a time perspective, all of that is probably faster than writing the script and revising and reading out loud. So yeah, I love that. I love that. Cool.

Craig

00:09:19 – 00:09:38

So yeah, let's let's kind of continue to start. Let's get like really practical with like things that you have seen work well for you and that like working with your folks, like through screencasting.com, the course or just like you and your channel like it's kind of let's go through some best practices or or like places to focus, and grow the channel. Yeah.

Aaron

00:09:39 – 00:10:01

So for for context, I have grown my channel from 0 to, like I think it's, like, 30 or 32,000 subscribers. And, you know, I just got back from paternity leave. We just had another set of twins. And so I haven't published a video in, like, 3 months or something, 3 or 4 months. And so that all happened within maybe 6 months.

Aaron

00:10:01 – 00:10:11

And then at the place I used to work, I grew their channel from, I think, a1000 to, like, 35,000 in 6 months. Same you know? Or maybe 4 to 6 months. Same same amount of time. Yeah.

Aaron

00:10:11 – 00:10:43

And so I think one of the things that, like I think one of the reasons I was able to do that is I think I understand maybe the type of content or, like, the structure or pattern of content that works on YouTube. Like, in my in in my heart, I'm an educator. Like, I just want to teach. I want to teach people how to do things, and I think teaching people how to do cool stuff is a lot of fun. When you go on YouTube, you have to change like, you have to adapt.

Aaron

00:10:43 – 00:11:02

Like, you have to adapt to the platform a little bit. And I think there are people out there who would say, like, I am not going to like, I'm I'm a purist or I'm an educator or something like that, and I'm not going to adapt to the platform. And to that, I say, great. Go go ye with God. Good luck.

Aaron

00:11:02 – 00:11:22

Like, it's not gonna it's not gonna work, but if you don't wanna do it, then that's fine. I think there is a way to adapt to the platform and stay true to yourself. Like, you don't have to do you don't have to do stupid, shocked thumbnail faces. Like, I've I've never done one. I don't think I will because I'm never gonna feign surprise to, like, get people to click on something.

Aaron

00:11:22 – 00:11:41

But that doesn't mean I'm not gonna try to optimize for people clicking on the video. Right? Like, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say, like, I'm taking a moral stance, and I'm not gonna do anything that's interesting because I don't wanna, you know, kowtow to the the Google gods. I'm like, nah, man. I wanna be happy and I wanna make a lot of money.

Aaron

00:11:41 – 00:12:06

And so, like, I'm just like, that you know, making a title clickable doesn't go against my moral standing, and so I'm fine saying, like, yeah. I'm gonna make the title clickable. So for example, I did a video, I did a video a while back called, PHP doesn't suck, and then in parentheses, I put anymore. Like, so PHP doesn't suck anymore. And so even that alone is, like, a little bit like, oh.

Aaron

00:12:06 – 00:12:20

Like Right. I I thought PHP sucked, but but now it doesn't, so I'm going to click on it. Or, in fact, PHP never sucked, and I'm mad that he said it used to suck, and so I'm going to click on it. Right? And so the content of that video was like, hey.

Aaron

00:12:20 – 00:12:41

You haven't looked at PHP in 10 years, dear dear reader. You haven't looked at it in 10 years. Here are all the great things that we have now that, meh, you might you might not know that we actually have. And so an alternative title for that video is PHP's changes in the past 10 years. And it's like Right.

Aaron

00:12:41 – 00:12:52

Nobody cares. Nobody freaking cares about what's changed in PHP in the last 10 years. The content is the same, but the packaging is PHP doesn't suck anymore. And you're like, really? I thought it sucked.

Aaron

00:12:52 – 00:13:25

I hate PHP. Let me go see what this guy's talking about. And so that's an example of, like, you can take a piece of content, which is what has changed in PHP since 2013. Take that same content and wrap it in something that's way more interesting and way more clickable, and that is, like, that's adapting to the platform and making it work for the platform with the exact same content. Like, maybe you change the flavor of the content a little bit to speak back to the title, but you don't go in by saying, here's what's new in PHP.

Aaron

00:13:25 – 00:13:27

Like, who cares? Nobody. Nobody cares.

Craig

00:13:27 – 00:13:38

Are you along those lines? Are you kind of coming up with like the title or a couple of title ideas and the thumbnail first and then you shoot the video from that? Or do you just turn the camera on and start talking and then figure that stuff out?

Aaron

00:13:38 – 00:13:48

Yeah. So I always start with, like, what's the, like, the thing that I want to teach or do. Yeah. And then I think before I record anything, then I think, is there an angle that that makes this work?

Craig

00:13:48 – 00:13:50

Like Okay. If I have

Aaron

00:13:50 – 00:14:13

a piece of content where I'm like, oh, I just learned that or I just saw that on Twitter, that would make a good video or, like, this is something that I have been working on, you know, on side projects and, like, that's an interesting nugget to extract. The question then becomes, okay. It is an interesting nugget. Is there a package that works? Because if there's not, like, a if there's not a title thumbnail that works for it, it's almost not worth doing at all Mhmm.

Aaron

00:14:13 – 00:14:32

Because nobody's gonna click on it. Now rarely do I think of a title and then try to backfill, like, how can I make, like, how can I make good on that promise? I think that's a fine way to do it as long as you make good on the promise that the title is, like, promising the viewer. But I usually am like, hey. This is really cool.

Aaron

00:14:32 – 00:14:40

I would love to teach people to how to do this. Uh-oh. How do I make it interesting? Like, oh, shoot. Maybe I can't, and so I just let that one go.

Craig

00:14:41 – 00:15:06

So okay. You're so you're creating a new channel. Right? And you're like, you have I think planning the content for a channel has been really different for me because it's not like SEO and content marketing where you just have all of this you wanna write about and you just crank them out like I've I've thought about for my channel like organizing things in the playlist. So like I have this playlist and this playlist and this place and and those play like I have to do these.

Craig

00:15:06 – 00:15:18

I have to do these videos. So you're kind of saying, like, I have a playlist on, you know, SaaS sales. If I can't come up with a unique angle on this topic for a video, then I just shouldn't do it.

Aaron

00:15:20 – 00:15:38

Close, maybe. I think if you can't come up with an interesting angle, I don't think all your content has to be unique solely to you. Okay. Because, you know, your the way that you say things, your personality, like, that's gonna connect with people where other videos didn't connect with people. So I don't think you have to be unique in the world.

Aaron

00:15:38 – 00:15:48

What I do think is the packaging has to be interesting to click on. So you have to have an angle. I don't think it needs to be a unique angle, if that makes sense.

Craig

00:15:48 – 00:15:57

Okay. Okay. Fair. Fair. Do you think it's, like, too much to say that you're kind of, like, optimizing for virality in that?

Craig

00:15:57 – 00:15:58

Like, it's not every day at all.

Aaron

00:15:58 – 00:16:20

That's exactly correct. Yeah. Yeah. And you may not you you may not and likely won't get it, but you have to imagine I think what's different about podcasting and Twitter, as those 2 together and then separately YouTube, is you almost have to treat every video as a stand alone, artifact where people don't know who you are. They don't know you.

Aaron

00:16:20 – 00:16:56

They don't know your backstory. Everything basically has to be, like, auditioning on its own. Because, like, you know, if I do a video, I do a normal video and it gets 15,000 views and then I do a video that YouTube likes and it gets 250,000 views, like, I need to basic that needs to be a stand alone artifacts because I want people to be served that video and watch it all the way through without having to need any sort of, like, backstory or, like, anything like that. And so it's totally different. I have to continually remind myself when making YouTube videos, people don't know who you are.

Aaron

00:16:56 – 00:17:10

And that's fine to, like, continue to show your personality and your inside jokes and your long running bits and everything like that. That's fine. But if it requires so much backstory and lore, like, for people to like it, I think you're hamstringing yourself a little bit.

Craig

00:17:11 – 00:17:29

How do you how do you think about, like, so so, like, yeah, get an engineering virality, have it be kind of a standalone piece that people can kinda know you and your context and all this kind of stuff. How do you then connect the dots back to, like, your brand and your website and whatever kinda further engagement or conversion event you want.

Aaron

00:17:30 – 00:17:51

Yeah. I mean so I think we can go from the corporate angle. So the company I used to work at, we had a corporate channel, and all of the content was not about how to use their product. The content was, you know, it was a it was a database platform company. And so all of the content was about how to use the underlying, like, database, MySQL.

Aaron

00:17:51 – 00:18:18

And the theory was that if you're looking for MySQL content or you're, like, watching MySQL content on YouTube, then you should know about the company that I work at. And, like Mhmm. So the way that the way that we did it was everything was branded with the company's name. It was very clear that I was working on behalf of the company, and, you know, we would talk about the company briefly in the videos. But the all the videos were were just pure education on database topics.

Aaron

00:18:18 – 00:18:51

And so from that point of view, it's like super top of funnel awareness kind of thing. And the hope is that as you're learning about how to use this database, you are transmuting trust from this educational, like, experience onto the brand and saying, like, oh, if I ever need to put my database somewhere, I'm gonna go to that that brand where that guy taught me how to do all that stuff. And so that's, like, from the corporate angle. From the personal angle, I don't think it's even that different. It's, like, you begin, hopefully, to you hopefully subscribe to me.

Aaron

00:18:51 – 00:19:12

You begin to know me, and you begin to know, like, my world or my universe of of products or attention or whatever. And so I don't on the personal side, I don't treat it very scientifically. I just I continue to, like, put stuff out there and basically just say, like, hey. Here's who I am. If you wanna go to my website, it's in, you know, it's in the description.

Aaron

00:19:12 – 00:19:25

And that's kind of it. Yeah. Now there may there may come a time when it's, like, more funnel specific, or more funnel focused, but right now, it's just about growing the growing the base.

Craig

00:19:26 – 00:19:45

Yeah. Interesting. I think this is this has been a challenge for me because like, well, in this podcast, like there will never be like, Hey, subscribe and I'll be like, that's just not going to happen. And in my YouTube videos, you know, the I know the thing is always like and subscribe and ring the bell and all that stuff. And I I kind of think like, well, that's trite.

Craig

00:19:45 – 00:19:46

Everybody says it like

Aaron

00:19:46 – 00:19:47

Mhmm.

Craig

00:19:48 – 00:20:03

But but that's kind of because of the platform effect that that is kind of like one of the things you want them to do. And then, yeah, I've been including, like, I have a special page for each of them on the site that are in the description. So Mhmm. Yeah, but I don't. I haven't been taking the time because I think it's tough to like.

Craig

00:20:03 – 00:20:19

Where do you? Where do you put this bit? You know, like, yeah, but at the beginning people are going to bounce, but at the end they might not stay to get there. And so, like, that's been a that's been a challenge is like, I feel like I need to have some kind of connection, you know, because they're not just going to stay on YouTube wherever you wanted to go do something. Yeah.

Craig

00:20:19 – 00:20:21

Like, how to give them that next step because that that's How

Aaron

00:20:21 – 00:20:29

to get them off platform. Yeah. Yeah. Which is tough because, you know, the platform is optimized to not get people off platform. Right.

Aaron

00:20:29 – 00:20:50

That's that's their entire goal is to keep people on YouTube watching more and more videos. Yeah. And so to some extent, like, to some extent, you have to be careful because if you're trying to optimize to get people off platform, you are optimizing for the thing that YouTube is specifically penalizing. Right? And they probably And so you gotta be yeah.

Aaron

00:20:50 – 00:21:17

You want you want people to stay and keep watching more videos because that's what YouTube wants. But if you want to, you know, make make money, you got to get them off platform and into your funnel. And so there's a delicate dance of, like, how do I how do I do that? I think, like, taking your Castas channel, for example, I don't know what kind of content you do there, but the world of content for that channel is wide open. You just make generic podcasting content all day long every day, and it's just branded.

Aaron

00:21:17 – 00:21:34

Like, you have the logo or whatever on screen the entire time. And then, you know, beginning, middle, end, or whatever, you say, if you need to host a podcast, go to Castos. And you're like, yep. The the like, the if you're thinking about it, it isn't like a mining metaphor. You could mine that vein of content forever.

Aaron

00:21:34 – 00:21:46

There's always podcast. That was the same with databases. There's always database content. Like, there's not always Castos content. Like, you're not releasing a new feature every week, but there's always, like just talk talk about microphones for 12 episodes.

Aaron

00:21:46 – 00:21:53

Like, you could totally do that. You can make 12 videos on just microphones. Yeah. You can make 50 videos on just microphones. So that's kind of the idea.

Craig

00:21:53 – 00:22:04

Yeah. That that's been yeah. I mean, that that's interesting. Like, we we we have some content on on gear, and like that that performs really well on the blog. So I have to believe it would perform well on YouTube.

Craig

00:22:04 – 00:22:23

There's a fair amount of just like talking head like this is how you think about like a script and a topic and an intro and all that kind of stuff. The ones I like the best from a business perspective are how to use our tool to achieve a thing you want to do in podcasting. You know, and I look at, like, HR does an amazing job of this. Right? Like, and

Aaron

00:22:23 – 00:22:50

that is the best that's the best business topic for sure. And if that, like, that you just have I think you have to approach that as fundamentally separate from a good YouTube topic. Yeah. It's like maybe you have those videos and they are helpful to people who use Castos, but no one in no one on YouTube is ever going to click on that if it says how to do dynamic ad insertion with Castos. Like Right.

Aaron

00:22:50 – 00:22:58

1 Yeah. I don't know who Castos is. And 2, I'm not looking for that right now. And so are those videos good to make? I don't know.

Aaron

00:22:58 – 00:23:07

Like, maybe if maybe if they're good for your existing customers, but they're not going to be a top of funnel broadening the audience type of

Craig

00:23:07 – 00:23:07

type

Aaron

00:23:07 – 00:23:08

of content.

Craig

00:23:08 – 00:23:25

Yeah, it's interesting. Like when when we think about our written content, we have like this concept of like, what's the job of this and jobs to be done? I guess of this blog post, right? Is it like links to attract links or virality or SEO or conversions? And I hadn't really thought of it that like YouTube could have the same.

Craig

00:23:25 – 00:23:39

It's like this one like the goal is just to broaden our digital footprint. The goal of this one is to like show how our tool does a thing. Yeah. Definitely. I think that's been the biggest learning for me is, like, kinda mapping that content.

Craig

00:23:40 – 00:23:46

Yeah. Because, like, I could talk about microphones for 12 episodes, but that would just feel weird. So, like, just have to stare at that a little bit. But

Aaron

00:23:46 – 00:23:48

why? Why does that feel weird?

Craig

00:23:48 – 00:23:55

For me, like, as a creator, I would be like, oh my gosh. I can't. I just can't do another microphone video like I did one for the last 10 weeks.

Aaron

00:23:56 – 00:24:04

Well, every you know? Yeah. That that makes sense from, like, your point of view. But, again, from the consumer's point of view, they didn't know you did that. That yes.

Aaron

00:24:04 – 00:24:19

That yeah. I mean They don't care. Yeah. That that is If you go if you go on Twitter and bang on for 6 months about the exact same thing over and over and over, people are going to get annoyed. If you publish functionally the same video on YouTube for 6 months in a row, nobody's going to care.

Craig

00:24:20 – 00:24:23

Yeah. That's so bizarre. Yeah. No. But you're right.

Craig

00:24:23 – 00:24:32

I mean and that's just like that's yet another thing of, like, how YouTube is really fundamentally different than, like, content marketing, which is like yeah. The other kind of big focus for us.

Aaron

00:24:33 – 00:24:56

I think a way you could you could get doubled you could get double duty out of some of your content is, like I don't know if Castos does dynamic ad insertion. It just made that up. But, like, let's say you have some those you can do x on Castos this way. Right? Maybe that's a video that serves your existing people, or people that are searching YouTube or searching Google for, like, can cast those even do this and a YouTube video comes up?

Aaron

00:24:56 – 00:25:14

It's like, great. That's awesome. I think you could take that exact same topic and just do a generic one and say, like, here's how you do dynamic ad insertion in podcasts. And you'd give, like, a little bit of an overview and talk about why it's hard and everything. And you're like, but if you use Castos, which, you know, this that's the company I run.

Aaron

00:25:14 – 00:25:26

Here's how we do it on Castos. And that, like, that broadens the top of the funnel for people just looking for this thing in general. Maybe it's audio normalization. Maybe it's whatever. And then you get to sneak in like, yeah.

Aaron

00:25:26 – 00:25:31

It's really hard. Actually, on Kastos, it's really easy, but I'll show you how to do it the hard way or, you know, whatever.

Craig

00:25:32 – 00:25:39

Yeah. Yeah. No. Totally. We we started doing this around video pod we we do dynamic ads, but we started doing this around video podcasting.

Craig

00:25:39 – 00:25:55

It's kind of very popular these days. And so just even like, how do you fucking publish a video podcast? You know, like half the hosts don't support them. And then Spotify has its own special snowflake. And so like we did on that and then we're going to do like, how do you host a video podcast?

Craig

00:25:55 – 00:25:57

So anyways, yeah, definitely.

Aaron

00:25:57 – 00:26:13

And you can I know I know that we need to move on, but you can leverage other people's brands for that? Like, you know, recording a video podcast with Riverside, and then you show them how to do it in Riverside, then you're like, well, f, now how do you how do you get this thing out there? Oh, it turns out Interesting. Yeah. Will do it for you.

Aaron

00:26:13 – 00:26:15

So anyway, we can move on.

Craig

00:26:15 – 00:26:21

Yeah. Yeah. Super interesting. I did want to talk about, you know, kind of what you're up to now. You mentioned kind of company work before.

Craig

00:26:22 – 00:26:42

I'm a fresh start now, and like I saw your announcement on it last week, and I was like, oh, this is, like, such perfect timing. And, like, truth be told, we're, like, a month ahead on the podcast right now. Like Mhmm. But we're going to slide your episode into going next week because, like, I want I want people to to kind of hear about this. So, like, tell me tell me what you're up to.

Craig

00:26:42 – 00:26:47

But but, like okay. So tell us what you're up to and then, like, why that? Because I think it's so interesting.

Aaron

00:26:47 – 00:27:03

Yeah. Yeah. So like I mentioned, I used to do YouTube at a company, then they laid off the entire sales and marketing staff. And so I found myself with this opportunity to be like, what do I what do I wanna do next? Which is a spot that I've never really been in.

Aaron

00:27:03 – 00:27:24

You You know, I've always whenever I search for jobs, it's always like, I kinda have a job, so I gotta do it on the sly. And this time, it was like, great. By no fault of my own, I'm a public, like, free agent and let's see what the world has to offer. And so took a bunch of interviews and it was like every SaaS tool, developer tool, every company is like, we need help. Like, we need video.

Aaron

00:27:24 – 00:27:38

I've seen what you can do, and we need you to do our video. I'm like, that's really interesting. And so this calculus was, do I wanna go, you know, do I wanna go run it back? Do I wanna go do the same thing somewhere else? Or do I wanna, you know, aim a little higher, dream a little bigger?

Aaron

00:27:38 – 00:28:05

And so me and my friend Steve, we decided we're gonna go out and do this on our own. And so the idea is we're gonna function as basically, consultants to these big, you know, dev tooling companies. And we can offer we can offer 2 things right now, and we'll see. Like, you know, we've got a bunch of calls lined up for this week, of people who reached out after we after we launched. So we'll see what the market demands.

Aaron

00:28:05 – 00:28:31

But so far, I think the 2 things that we will offer, 1 is, like, we come alongside your existing developer education team, to whom you're paying huge salaries, and maybe the video isn't actually producing anything of of value. And so we'll come alongside those teams and basically have these kinds of discussions that you and I just had, but internal to them and be like, great. Tell me what your content ideas are. Okay. Great.

Aaron

00:28:31 – 00:28:40

How are you gonna package that? That's terrible. This is great. Do that one instead. So that's gonna be kind of the consulting, like, we are on retainer to help your team.

Aaron

00:28:40 – 00:29:19

And then the, the contact us for pricing tier is gonna be we can produce the entire like, we can do it for you. Yeah. And, you know, that's gonna be terribly expensive because, 1, it's a huge time commitment and, 2, there's some sort of, like, personal branding, like, dilution slash risk of me teaching courses on or doing videos on certain things. And so that's just gonna, you know, that's just gonna have to cost a lot more. So that that's the idea is we're gonna take the show on the road and, like, help other companies spin up or make their video offerings more effective and more engaging, as marketing.

Craig

00:29:21 – 00:29:45

How did you, how did you you mentioned the calculus of, like, shall I just rewind and do this over again or kind of do do my own thing? Like, tell me about like, I mean, it's pretty recent, right, that you moved on from your old role like the the kind of risk of, like, doing this yourself versus the risk of I mean, I'm sure you had a whole bunch of job offers, like I saw it on Twitter. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about that.

Aaron

00:29:46 – 00:30:03

Yeah. So I weirdly so as as backstory, we have 4 kids that are under 3. So we have 2 two and a half year olds and 2 4 month olds. My wife works way harder than I do, but she works in the house. She doesn't bring in any money.

Aaron

00:30:03 – 00:30:26

And so yeah. Seems crazy. Seems crazy to go from, you know, tech salary to no salary. But weirdly, I feel like now is the the least risky time to do it for me because I think so, like, I became the face of this old company that I worked at. Right?

Aaron

00:30:26 – 00:30:42

Which is a a good spot. Like, it's a high leverage spot for me to be in, but also kind of a tricky spot because it's should I have ever wanted to move on. It's a little like, it makes me feel a little bit like, oh, sorry, guys. Thanks for, you know, thanks for letting me become the face of your company. I'm out of here.

Aaron

00:30:43 – 00:30:57

But the way that it went down, I meant no fault. Like, not my problem. And so I feel like right now is a good time for me to try this because, you know, I'm the aggrieved party. I I was let go. I didn't, like, leave anyone high and dry.

Aaron

00:30:58 – 00:31:32

I have a lot of interest from other companies, and I don't think all of that is gonna go away if I try something ambitious and fail. I don't think people are gonna look down their noses at me and be like, 6 months ago, we wanted you. But since you, like, believed in yourself and tried and it didn't work out, now we don't want you. It's like, I just don't see that happening. Like, maybe some of the roles get filled and maybe some new roles open up, but, like, the fact that I'm at no fault for leaving my old job, I have a lot of opportunities, and the thing I'm going to do is, like, like, the American dream.

Aaron

00:31:32 – 00:31:39

I just don't I just don't feel like there's a lot that could go wrong. Maybe I crash and burn and in 6 months I get a job. It's like, it's not so bad.

Craig

00:31:39 – 00:31:56

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I mean, from a I'm just thinking from a business perspective, you you probably can we'd make a lot more money like this way than just having a single salary. I mean, there's there's some more risk, but you know, the each of those companies would probably pay you about the same as your salary.

Craig

00:31:57 – 00:32:20

And so that that's pretty cool. I mean, there's ramp up time in sales, and now you have to figure out all the stuff and the website and the brand and all that. But that's pretty cool. You know, I will say just on the topic of like being the face of the company as a company, we went through a similar thing a couple of years ago, had had someone on the team. His name's Matt, who who was largely like the face of the company.

Craig

00:32:21 – 00:32:27

And he he left. It was my decision. It was our decision. We just Mhmm. Couldn't afford him.

Craig

00:32:28 – 00:32:54

And that was that was like a fair risk, I think, to to choose not just allow, but like I chose is like, man, I want to hire Matt because I don't want to freaking turn this camera on and do this stuff. You know, like I want to pay someone to be the and really connected in the WordPress space, which for us is a pretty and the podcasting space. And that was scary to see happen. Like, I wanted that to happen. It happened.

Craig

00:32:54 – 00:33:26

And then I was like, Oh, but like, we just can't afford that. Yeah. You know, still like have him on the team. I think fortunately, like we didn't see a lot of negative backlash. But definitely from a founder perspective, like that's a big that's a big risk and like I think you know talking about your 2 options for for your business like as a founder I would want the first one probably because I want to retain as much of that brand identity as I can.

Craig

00:33:26 – 00:33:39

And if I can pay you to come in and tell me how to do it better, like, that's that's just great. Yeah, I can imagine there'll be some of the bigger some of the bigger brands will be just like, fuck, guys. I don't have time to even think about it. Like, here's, you know, 20 grand a month. Yes.

Craig

00:33:40 – 00:33:42

But that's probably just a different type of company.

Aaron

00:33:42 – 00:34:11

The, yeah. I I want to empower people in house to, you know, be the face of their company or, like, many faces of their company. The I think the interesting thing about, like, the done for you strategy is less becoming the face of someone else's company ongoing and more producing a discrete asset for them that so let's say a course. Like, maybe I produce a 4 or 5 hour course and hand it over to them, and then I'm just like a guest lecturer on their brand. Right?

Aaron

00:34:11 – 00:34:32

I don't become the figuring out the content, the structure. I work with their team to figure out what they want. We record, edit, do the whole deal, and then hand it over to them and say, here's your course. I hope it does great for you. Thank you for the money.

Aaron

00:34:32 – 00:35:04

Like, that's that's kind of the the dream, but, you know, we'll you know, we're we don't have any offerings on our website at all right now, because we wanna talk like, we need to have these 15 calls this week and find out, like, what do you like, what do you all want? Because there's another world in which, you know, we did this big hype video for where, like, we're launching, and there's another world in which companies just want that. Like, they just want a highly produced, like, Hollywood style. We're launching a new feature, a new product, a new whatever. Yeah.

Aaron

00:35:04 – 00:35:18

And they just want one big splash and to be done with it. So it's not a retainer and it's not a course. It's like a fully it's a commercial. They just want a commercial and, like, maybe we'll find out that's what people want. So, yeah, we'll have to we'll have to discover it as we go a little bit.

Aaron

00:35:18 – 00:35:18

Interesting.

Craig

00:35:18 – 00:35:27

Interesting. I know you're, well, publicly just a few days into it, but, like, what has been the the biggest kind of learning or surprise getting to this point for y'all?

Aaron

00:35:29 – 00:36:01

It's just so much easier and better and more fun to to have something that people want. I mean, it's just like turns out making something that people want is just better than trying to convince people to want something. And just to, like, even, like, we haven't sold a single dollar of anything, but we've had people we've had people say, like, please take all of my money. We need we want you to help us. And it's like even even the the week I was doing all these interviews, I was talking with CEOs and they're they're like, hey, man.

Aaron

00:36:01 – 00:36:16

Honestly, I think you should go out on your own. And if you do, we'll be your first client. And it's just it's just That's awesome. Amazing to me how long I've spent toiling on other projects in the past to where nobody cared. And this is just like, I think we might do this.

Aaron

00:36:16 – 00:36:22

And everybody's like, god. Yes. We need you. Please help us. So that's been that's been the biggest surprise so far.

Aaron

00:36:23 – 00:36:23

Yeah.

Craig

00:36:24 – 00:36:42

Yeah. I I was chatting about this the other day and I said to someone, I said, I think like the opportunity, you know, the boat that you're in is like the biggest predictor of your success. And I think that's what you're seeing. And I think that like. We've seen it a little bit too, like podcasting.

Craig

00:36:42 – 00:37:26

Pretty cool place to be was a huge booming market for a long time and has kind of flattened out now. And I think that like our growth is just like exactly that, you know, like 0 interest rate COVID great podcasting as a medium is not growing on like YouTube and video, you know pretty flat and that sucks and and I think that like we can do a whole bunch of fancy stuff and it might change that like 5 degrees, you know, but if we just went and we're like, we're an AI writing tool now, it would be, you know, potentially a whole different thing. So I think. And that is. That is really hard, like you're saying, when you're in the boat, like when you're in the toiling in this thing to say like.

Craig

00:37:28 – 00:37:35

You know, maybe my date to prom just isn't that pretty. I don't know. You know? Like, maybe this just isn't as awesome as I want it to be.

Aaron

00:37:36 – 00:37:40

Yeah, you get halfway up the ladder and you're like, shoot, I'm on the wrong ladder. Yeah.

Craig

00:37:40 – 00:37:46

Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, from a personal level, I've just I've been kind of that's a big thing to process.

Craig

00:37:46 – 00:38:07

But yeah, yeah, yeah. I tell you, like along those lines, one of the one of the biggest lessons I've seen over the last year and a half is like the power of like a personal brand. You know, like you being able to put this thing out on Twitter and have a whole bunch of phone calls the next week is like people shit on it all the time. And I think they're just crazy.

Aaron

00:38:07 – 00:38:25

They're just crazy. I think I think there's, it's gonna be it's worse than crazy. I think crazy would be like a fine thing. I think what they really are is cynical. I think they're cynical about the personal brand and they're like, they feel some sort of, like, ickiness around it or, like, it's self promotional or something like that.

Aaron

00:38:26 – 00:38:46

And so they're like, it's another one of those principle things where it's like, on principle, I'm not going to build a personal brand. And I'm like, that's fine. I don't, like, if that's your principle, I'm not gonna try to convince you to defy your principles. I think it's a silly principle. Like, I think it's just I think it's ridiculous, but I think a lot of things are ridiculous, and I just you know, I move on.

Aaron

00:38:46 – 00:39:16

But I think this whole, like, I'm not gonna have a personal brand is, it's like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Like, why not? Like, why I I I tweeted I tweeted that I got laid off, and it got more than half a 1000000 impressions. And, like, from that tweet alone, I filled an entire week of back to back calls. And, like, I happen to think I'm I'm good at what I do, but a lot of people are good at what they do.

Aaron

00:39:16 – 00:39:19

The fact that the fact that I have this thing where I can say,

Craig

00:39:19 – 00:39:20

like, hey.

Aaron

00:39:20 – 00:39:34

I've been putting in effort for a really long time, and I've been, like, providing stuff for a very long time. And now, unfortunately, guys, I need some help. And everybody's like, we got you. I got your back. Whatever you need, I'm on your team.

Aaron

00:39:34 – 00:39:53

And that's just the kind of thing that, like, I I you know, is a personal brand valuable for starting a SaaS company? I have no idea. But a personal brand is valuable just in general. Like, I don't know what the outcome is going to be, but all things held equal, I would rather have a personal brand than not. Yeah.

Aaron

00:39:53 – 00:39:55

And we'll see what happens.

Craig

00:39:55 – 00:40:01

Yeah. Yeah. No. I agree. I think you know is is a part is my personal brand effective at growing castos.

Craig

00:40:02 – 00:40:10

I think very small. You know, I think if it's aligned with if my personal brand is podcasting. Yeah. Mhmm. If it's not, if it's just, you know, SaaS and entrepreneurship, no.

Craig

00:40:10 – 00:40:31

But maybe one day we'll be. So I'm putting, you know, maybe 10% of my week into, you know, content and social media and stuff. And I feel like that's a pretty good balance, you know, like fucking a company to run. I'm trying to do some stuff. And so, like, if you can't give, like, what's a half a day a week to your own stuff, like something's wrong.

Aaron

00:40:32 – 00:41:05

And I even think, like, like, almost everything that I videos are different, but almost everything that I tweet is just, boom, spur of the moment, was doing something, thought it was interesting. It doesn't matter if it's Sunday evening or Tuesday morning. Like, that's the other thing that, like, I am just not optimizing for numbers on, let's say, Twitter. I'm just I'm just not optimizing for numbers. My whole my whole thing on Twitter is I'm going to, have as much fun as I can while staying totally true to who I am.

Aaron

00:41:05 – 00:41:18

And so in my case, I don't like I'm not cynical. I'm not mean. I don't do rage bait. I don't do engagement bait because, like, those are things that the platform wants that I'm not willing I'm not willing to flex on. And so there are things where I'm like, yeah.

Aaron

00:41:18 – 00:41:27

The platform wants that. I don't want that. Like, I don't want my life to look that way. I don't want anyone to ever meet me and say, wow. He is so much nicer in person.

Aaron

00:41:27 – 00:41:39

You just have to actually meet him in person. Like, his Twitter his Twitter thing is just a persona. Like, he's just doing that for he's just doing that for numbers. If you met him, you would actually like him. That to me is like a life failure.

Aaron

00:41:39 – 00:41:50

If people look at me and they're oh, he's actually nice. He's just a dick on Twitter. I'm like, then I failed. I've totally failed. But I don't think I don't think of it as, like, engage I'm just like, hey.

Aaron

00:41:50 – 00:42:07

I'm here hanging out with my friends. I had a funny thought on a Sunday evening at the worst possible time to tweet, and I'm gonna tweet it anyway because I'm going to move on with my life. And this, like, Twitter does not control me. But I do think about it as, alright, I just had an artifact come into my brain. Let's get it out there and move on.

Craig

00:42:07 – 00:42:11

Yeah. Yeah. Aaron, for folks who want to kind of check out tryhardstudiotryhardstudios.com?tryhardstudios.com.

Aaron

00:42:14 – 00:42:23

Yeah. So me and my friend Steve are at tryhardstudios.com. On Twitter, you can find me Aaron d Francis or just aaronfrancis.com.

Craig

00:42:24 – 00:42:26

Cool. Awesome, buddy. I appreciate it.

Aaron

00:42:26 – 00:42:28

Yeah. Thanks for having me.

YouTube Growth Secrets

Transcript

Not enough emails?