The Bootstrapped Founder

Arvid Kahl
Hey, Arvid here. Today, I'm talking to Aprilynne Alter, a YouTube expert who really knows what she's doing. The day after we had this chat, Aprilynne posted a video to YouTube that at this point has gotten almost 100,000 views. I don't think I need to say more about her expertise, you will see. But besides that, we talked about many issues that come up in the lives of digital creators, balancing quality and quantity, all those mental health pressures we go through and how to set up your homework environment for optimal productivity. This will be a masterclass in not just video. Big shout out to our sponsor: acquire.com at this point, more about that later. And now, here's Aprilynne Alter.

Thanks for being on the show, Aprilynne. You're in this unique position of being close enough to remember what it's like to be a YouTube beginner. And it's something that I consider myself to be still, yet you're also experienced enough to teach beginners how to do it, which is really cool. You're just about to monetize a YouTube channel for the second time around. And what I wonder is, what's the most surprising thing that you've learned in the second round of getting to a monetization?

Aprilynne Alter
Yeah, that's a great question. The most surprising thing to me so far, I think, was that I actually took back my editing, which is strange because I have been outsourcing my editing for a while. I started outsourcing my editing for my old channel. And I continue to do that into this new channel. But recently, in the last like two months, I took my editing back towards myself. And I never thought that that would be something that I would do. For so long, I was in the camp of, yeah, as soon as you can afford it, outsource your editing because then like it frees up your time to do other things that you probably like more. Because I did not enjoy the editing process. But I realized that as soon as I started to edit myself again, I was able to level up my YouTube skills so much and just like became an overall be a better creator. And my content became a lot higher quality, not because I can edit better than my editor. I am not a professional editor, whatsoever. And it's like this takes me so long to do. But it's because when I have like full ownership of the entire process again, I'm able to, I guess, like fully create the vision. And so the cool thing about having a new channel is that I get to experiment so much more with the different types of content and then the different styles of content and formats that I want to try out. And it's a lot easier, I think, for me to like iterate and pivot and try new things when I have ownership of the entire thing versus I'm trying to like communicate with an editor like, oh, hey, let's actually try this style. Let's actually try this thing or that thing. So yeah, I think like, I surprised myself taking back my editing. And I was surprised by how well it went. And now I probably won't outsource again for a long, long, long time.

Arvid Kahl
It's so interesting because I've been doing all my editing myself. And I've always been thinking, when can I give it away?

Aprilynne Alter
Yeah, exactly!

Arvid Kahl
As enjoyable as it is to be able to experiment for myself, it just takes a lot of time, right? It's a lot of time. But then again, what I'm hearing is that time is well spent because it's time to allow you to experiment more and to do things. I have two questions as a follow up here. Like, obviously, spending time doing your own editing allows you to be more creative, but does it also help you just become better at talking to the camera? Do you see like, is that a kind of self reflection in there where you can train yourself to be better at presenting to have more energy or to convey things better? Is that something you've been experiencing?

Aprilynne Alter
Yeah, I get that question sometimes. For me, no. Because I guess like, what I'm editing, I edit for so much more than just I guess like my talking head footage. I think when I film, that's really when I try to focus on my like tonal inflections or making sure that I'm energetic enough or I'm saying the sentence in the right way. When I edit, it's less so about that and more so about okay, like how can I use what I have? Because like my content isn't particularly like whoosh like all, you know, it's like I'm not giving away a castle. I'm not, you know, like doing all of this stuff, right? I'm teaching people about YouTube. This is not like groundbreaking, like hyper emotional stuff. But the cool thing about editing is that I get to like, just like take the base footage, which is me talking to the camera, hopefully with some degree of tonal inflections and other stuff like that, but mostly, like, augment that with visuals and B roll and music and sound design in just like really take it from meh to something that I'm very proud of. So I think like, that's kind of a skill that I'm honing with editing process.

Arvid Kahl
Interesting. Do you experiment a lot with tone between your videos? Because I've been noticing in your work, that all of the videos you do are slightly different than style. You do a lot of experimentation right now, I guess, trying to figure out what works, which is awesome. Because that's such a indie hacker mix between an indie hacker and a creator just experimenting all the time. Do you experiment a lot with that?

Aprilynne Alter
Yeah, I mean, again, that's the cool part about having a new channel is that I can experiment. And so yeah, with every new video, I think a lot about like, what do I want the final product to look like and to feel like? And I've been experimenting a lot with, like, what that is taking inspiration from some of my favorite creators, like, how can I take elements of that into my own content? Especially I think in a more saturated niche, like the YouTube tips niche, where there are a lot of people there. You have to think about, okay, like what's going to set my content apart. And for a lot of people, it's like their own style and the format. And so I've been experimenting a lot and like this new one that's coming out is actually different from what I've released so far. And I'm very excited for it. And yeah, it's also a degree of what do I enjoy creating, right? Because like, that's, like, what you're really looking for is, what works and what do you enjoy and that you can continue to do consistently while loving the process. So that's what I'm doing.

Arvid Kahl
That is awesome. That must be fun. YouTube must be pretty present in your life right now. Right?

Aprilynne Alter
Oh, yeah, that's like the only thing that I think about all day and night.

Arvid Kahl
Yeah, for sure, right? You can't sleep, got a YouTube. That's interesting because it is different now than it used to be like a couple of months or years in the past. You did pivot, right? From your first channel to the second channel. Can you maybe tell me more about that pivot? How that came to be?

Aprilynne Alter
Yeah, okay. So my first channel, I started YouTube in July of 2021, I believe. And I had no video or editing experience whatsoever. But I had listened to a podcast featuring Ali Abdaal and he's a well known fantastic, very lucrative YouTuber. And that was like my first time really hearing that people could be on YouTube. And like, not in a Mr. Beast fashion. I'm like, oh, there's like someone who was an educational YouTuber and making a lot of money from doing this, like, this is actually something that is possible. And at that point, I was like, trying to do a lot of different things. So I made a YouTube channel. At that point, I didn't really know what my niche was. I just kind of like took Twitter threads, X threads, but it was Twitter at the time and turned them into YouTube videos. And then late 2021 happened. And then all of a sudden on Twitter, everyone was talking about these things called NFTs. And some people loved them. And some people hated them. But no one can really tell me exactly what they were. So I'm not wanting to be left out of conversations. And I believe that the best way to learn is by doing so I made an experimental NFT collection on my own just to like, see what the hype is about. Like, surely it's not like, you know, we've all heard of NFT millionaires during that time. And I'm like, surely it's not that as easy as just like NFT's and then oops, you're a millionaire, right? There's got to be something else here. So I created an NFT collection and made a lot of mistakes in the process. Like I didn't know what gas fees were, that was like a whole thing. And I made a thread on Twitter, kind of like recounting my experience and a lot of people really resonated with that thread. So I turn that thread into a YouTube video. And that video blew up. That was my first viral video. That video got my channel monetized and I had this large flood of people coming into my channel, who again, like they had heard about NFT's, they'd heard about NFT millionaires and they're just like, well, you know and they were mostly other creators and entrepreneurs thinking, is this something for me? How do I fit into this? I think there's always this fear of like a new trend taking off like, will I be left behind? Will this type of thing be reserved for the people who are super hyper technical and know all of this stuff? Because it was like a very complex topic and not very accessible to people. So that's kind of what my content became. I leaned into that because they say you niche down to blow up. And even though I wasn't particularly passionate about the crypto space or NFT's myself, I thought, hey, like, let me ride this wave as far as I can and serve the people who are here already. So I made more content focused on the creation process of NFT's and making the industry more accessible to people who otherwise would not be able to like understand what's going on. And that did super super well. And my channel was making upwards of $100 per day just from AdSense alone. And then you have sponsorships on top of that. Things are going really, really well. But because I was creating in a niche that I was not genuinely passionate about, I burned out really, really, really hard. Like biggest period of burnout I've ever felt in my life, the strongest period of burnout I've ever felt in my life, to the point where, you know, I was sleepy all the time. Everything felt so hard and so heavy, like I could not get up off the couch. And I was like, oh, like something needs to change, like, this is not good. I deserve better in my life than to be in this period of burnout. So had like a little existential crisis and decided what I wanted to do with my entire life. Fast forward through lots of bits and pieces and ultimately realized that I really love YouTube. And if there was like, if I could be anything, if I could do anything, I would want to be a YouTuber. I would want to be teaching people things on YouTube. I just love the process of creating a YouTube video. And so then again, like another period of existential crisis and self reflection about like, what do I want to make a YouTube channel about? I kind of like landed on well, the one thing that I know for sure, is that I love talking about YouTube. And I love teaching people about YouTube. And I get questions all the time about how to grow on YouTube. And it's something that I'm very passionate about. And then I know that there's a lot of misinformation about it online. So, you know, just because I was burned so badly from being in a niche that I didn't care about, I wanted to make sure that going into my next channel would be something that I absolutely loved. So here we are. I made a new channel in April 14, I believe, is when I started this brand new channel. And yeah, that's the TLDR of that channel pivot.

Arvid Kahl
That's awesome. I love the fact that you went from something that you were not passionate about, like in terms of the whole NFT space, which is something that I kind of feel the same. I love the technology. I love the social implications of what may happen. But I'm just not that into it in the sense that I want to contribute and want to be part of all these communities. I also launched a failed NFT collection, which was fun and I got to talk about it. I got to talk about like failing at understanding why this works. And all that stuff, which is nice for me. It's a learning for me that I got to share through my means, which is podcasting and writing, right? And now, I guess, video as well. But it's interesting to try these things out and then use them. What I really like about the journey that you're currently on is that instead of saying, I built this amazing channel on YouTube, follow me and do what I do. You started a new one and you want to, like just really walk the walk. You want to get into monetization to show people that it can be done repeatedly. And that is wonderful because that just teaches people that or it shows them that you're not just talking about what they should do. You're actually showing them. It's really cool. I think that's for a teacher, that is a spectacular way of approaching this.

Aprilynne Alter
Thank you. I really appreciate that.

Arvid Kahl
Yeah, I appreciate that too because I get to learn from you. Right? The benefits of you actually walking the walk here is that I get to see how much experimentation is needed to, you know, figure things out. Also how the, you know, the amount of subscribers versus the amount of hours watched and that kind of stuff all plays into, you know, into how you create and what you create. So what I would like to know in terms of monetization because that's the thing that a lot of people want to understand about YouTube. Getting monetized on YouTube, is that enough for a creator to you know, build a life on YouTube?

Aprilynne Alter
Monetizing your channel won't in the beginning. No, that is not enough. The way that monetization works on YouTube for those curious, is that once you reach a certain threshold of monetization, which right now to enter the YouTube Partner Program and to benefit from AdSense, so from ads shown on your YouTube videos, you have to reach 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours. So at that point, you're a YouTube partner. And now you take a portion, that's around 55% of the ad revenue from ads played on your videos. And usually, this is measured by something called a CPM or cost per mil, that's like the cost per 1000 views that advertisers pay to advertise on your videos or RPM, just revenue per mil. And for most like that the average number is around $5. So that's like you receive $5 for every 1000 views on your channel. Some niches have a higher CPMs, some niches have a lower CPM. But that's kind of like the overall average. And as you can imagine, if you're a newer channel and maybe you're getting 1000 views per video, which is great at a certain stage, that's only roughly $5 that you're making per video that you put out. You think about all the time and energy that goes into making the video. It's like, okay, that's not a living, whatsoever. So I think like you have to determine for yourself like what a livable wage is. But also, the majority of creators who are full time on YouTube, the majority of their income comes from sources outside of just YouTube AdSense, whether that be affiliate marketing or sponsorships or products or you know, digital offerings or something else. So, yeah, I think like, there's this common misconception that, oh, you just get monetized on YouTube and then the AdSense pays for everything in life. And while AdSense can be significant, if you play your cards correctly, the cool part about YouTube is your distribution, right? It's like, hey, all of a sudden, like, once your platform becomes big enough, you have free distribution of anything that you want to. And it's particularly powerful distribution because your audience cares about you as a creator. And so if you were to go and create your own product, like yes, you can have sponsorship slots where you share someone else's product. But if you create your own, now all of a sudden, you don't have to worry about a marketing budget, like your new YouTube channel is your marketing budget and it converts people a lot better than traditional marketing does as well. So yeah, that's kind of like the overall of rundown of YouTube monetization.

Arvid Kahl
Yeah, that makes sense to me, like distribution is a big deal. Like the fact that you can talk to people who already like you. Like, that makes marketing so much easier. And I love that, which is, it makes me wonder, like, do you even still need to chase virality on YouTube if your audience is already where you are? Like, do you still make videos to go viral? Or do you just make videos for your audience?

Aprilynne Alter
I think it depends on what stage you're at. There are ups and downs of virality of speaking that you get a lot of use and a lot more people can discover you downs in that, it might not be the right people who are discovering you. I think it's still important to make videos that have the potential of like, of discoverability. Because most people want their audiences to grow. And so like if you just focus on making content that only suits your current audience, without thinking about how can this be discovered or applicable to other people, then your audience isn't going to grow very much. Now, it's like if you're at a stage where you don't really care about your audience growing at all, that's completely fine. But if you do want to continue to grow and I think like there's like a mixture. You don't have to be trying to make like a viral bangers every time. But I do think that it's worth a lot of intentional thought about like the topic and the packaging of the video to as I said, like, make it more discoverable by new people who don't already know who you are.

Arvid Kahl
Yeah, let's maybe dive into that kind of strategy angle there a little bit like how does it work for you? What is your strategy, your content creation strategy, both in terms of pacing and the topics but also what the exact content of the video is supposed to be?

Aprilynne Alter
Yeah, okay. So I start, like most people on YouTube, they think of an idea. Then they script their video and they film their video, then they upload their videos. And then they think like, oh yeah, I need a title on a thumbnail and they slap one together and publish. That is overall a more self centered way to approach YouTube because you're thinking like you. You're not thinking like your audience. Your audience doesn't see the beautiful video, all your audience sees is the title and thumbnail. And so when I go about my YouTube process, I always start with idea first, with the topic, the like three T's that are the most important to think about our topic, title and thumbnail. I start with topic because it doesn't really matter how good of a video you make or how beautiful your title and thumbnail are. If it's a topic that no one's interested in, no one's going to click on it. And if they don't click, then they don't watch. So I think about topic first. And when I think about topics, I think about, okay, like, what are people first, like, what do I want to teach? And what are people interested in? And how can I like merge them together? Because sometimes you want to teach something. But it's not something that people are interested in after coffee yet. I will give you a YouTube related example. Right? So maybe I want to teach people about music and sound design and about like how you can use that to elevate the quality of your videos. If I just made a video title like how to choose the right music for your YouTube videos. It might do well. I feel like that's like more like search related topic. So if people are directly searching for that thing, I might show up. But if it just like appears on someone's homepage, unless they're specifically thinking about that, they might not click on it because it's like, it's just seems kind of boring to them. Versus if I say something like this one thing will 5x your views or something like this, there's one element will elevate the quality of your videos. It won't be phrased like that. But then it's like, okay, you capture something that people are interested about, which is getting more views or growing on YouTube. And you're hooking them from there. And then you're delivering on that promise, but by talking about the thing that you want to teach. And so that's like the whole concept of packaging is what's the topic? And then what's the title on thumbnail. How do you make a title thumbnail combo so good, that if people see it and they don't click on it, for whatever reason, they'll think later in the day of like, man, I wonder what was in that video. Like you want it to be that intriguing. So then they click on it. And then when it comes to after I have my title and thumbnail and topic, that's when I'll start scripting the video itself. And I have like a whole process around like research and then outline and then scripting and then after a script. Starting now, in my most recent video, I've experimented with a new process where instead of going straight into filming after a script, I go through my entire script and annotate it with exactly what is going to happen on screen during each of those times, whether that be B roll or a visual or an animation or talking how to footage. And that like takes a lot of I guess like the mental effort of the editing process but front loads it. It also helps me with like the filming process and making the filming process a lot easier because I know what I need to be filming and then after have all of my footage, then I'll hop into my editor and video itself. And after all of that, export, publish and a video is out.

Arvid Kahl
I love that you pre edit your video before you film it. That's kind of cool like that conceptually. I mean, I guess that's how most like high budget movie productions work, right? Everything is already in the script very, very clearly laid out. But for a single creator, it tends to be less organized. I love that you organize it that way that you have everything figured out in the beginning. That's really cool.

Aprilynne Alter
Yeah, it's something new that I tried with this video and I've loved how it turns out in terms of like, I feel like I'm able to create a more dynamic video because of that and because the editing processes was already something that's like, ah, it's so much effort. If I can, like frontload, at least like the mental part of it, then all you have to focus on in the editing process itself is the execution of something that I've already thought about, which is great.

Arvid Kahl
I love that you call it more dynamic because in a way, it's more constrained, but allows you to just feel more free in knowing what exactly is happening around you. Right? You can kind of play with it in a way. That's cool. Because I do wonder, is it potentially harming your creativity in the editing process to have everything laid out even before you film?

Aprilynne Alter
No, because like one, I can always change something if I need to. But two, it's still like the same thing, right? It's still like the same creative process that I'm thinking about. But it's just at a different time. Right? Since I was like, if I would be doing this either way, either after filming or before. And I'd rather do it before because like, in this case, like I thought about a lot more types of B roll that I wanted to include that I thought would look really, really cool. And part of like, the rough part about editing is if you start to edit and you're like, ah, I really wish I had footage of this, but I don't. So I'm going to do something else. Right? Versus if I say that before the filming process starts, I can record as much extra footage as I want to. And I could decide for myself if I want to use it or not an editing process, but at least it's there.

Arvid Kahl
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. It is very clear. I love the way of phrasing it. You're still the same creative person, you're just at a different point. You stil apply this creativity, that's cool. Let's get back to title and thumbnail for a bit. Because as a YouTube user, not just as somebody who is like throwing this mostly unedited podcast on YouTube. But also, as somebody who just watches a lot of YouTube from all different kinds of people, title and thumbnail is all I have to make a judgment about the video. And that's kind of what you explained, right? You have your home feed that kind of stuff that gets shown to you. And then you have the things you search for, which apparently are two very different things to optimize for. That's interesting. But let's dive into title and thumbnail b. Before we get to that hopefully. You never know. As somebody who wants to build a very authentic brand like being myself in front of people, I struggle so hard with catchy titles and thumbnails, like it always feels like it's not me to be louder than I am. And to promise more than I think it actually is about. How can I avoid feeling that way? Because I know I need to compete with all these other very showy, very flashy things on YouTube. Like, how do I deal with that as a creator who wants to stay authentically, myself?

Aprilynne Alter
Yeah, I think like it comes down to, it's not about you being loud. It's about your audience. Like it's about your audience wanting to click on the video. It's about like, getting the audience to watch the video in the first place. And so it's like, again, like they don't see your video and most likely, they don't know you. And if you don't package it in the right way, if you package it in a way that would only be interesting to people who already know who you are or already subscribed to you, then you're doing the audience a disservice, like any new audience a disservice. Because then they'll see your video, it'll come up for them. But because it's packaged in that way, they're not going to be interested in and they're not going to click and so that video could be something that was really like that might change their lives or might like change the way in which they think or maybe exactly what they need, but they're never going to see it because of the way in which you packaged it, which is only really interesting or relevant for people who already know who you are. So yeah, I don't know if that helps at all.

Arvid Kahl
Oh, absolutely. What I hear you say let me just mirror this back to you, is that if the video is really really good and helpful to an audience that may not know about it, it's not communicable outside of the title and thumbnail, so these need to communicate. This is good for you. They can't know what the video is about. They have to be lured in and then see the video and then figure out oh, yeah, this is actually for me.

Aprilynne Alter
Yeah. So I recently had a conversation with a friend about a similar topic of like, I was thinking about a title and thumbnail. I was like, oh, like I could do this but like, it seems to clickbaity, right? And I want to avoid the idea of clickbait whilst also, you know, having a packaging that is attractive enough to be clicked on. And what he said, which was interesting to me and that helped me was that if you have a problem with packaging your video in a way that is intriguing or interesting enough to be clicked on, what it really is most likely is you not being confident enough with the quality of your own video. Because if your video is good enough, it won't really matter why they clicked on it in the first place. After they watch it, they're gonna be like, dang, that was a good video and I want to tell other people about it because it was so good. Because like, if you think about the YouTube videos that you've watched in the last month, do you remember the title and thumbnail of those videos? I never remember what the thumbnail is in the first was. I might remember the title if I like, think about it really, really hard. But for the most part, no. I just think about like, what the video is. And so yeah, like, if your video was good enough, it won't really matter why they came. They're going to be grateful that they came. So maybe the answer is like, I guess the question for you is do you believe that your videos are worth watching? And that if people watch it, they'll believe that it was worth their time?

Arvid Kahl
Well, ask my imposter syndrome about that part. But yeah, I get it. Like, obviously, it does remind me of books like book covers, right? I don't know if you saw this like a month ago or so like Pieter Levels was sharing this picture of all the self help productivity books and they're all just white books with like, font. And that's all, right? Like there was 20 books on the page, they all looked alike, doesn't really matter. They're still hyper successful books that are sold all over the place because the content of the book is what gets people to change their lives. And then they tell their friends to get the book.

Aprilynne Alter
Exactly!

Arvid Kahl
The difference here, apparently, between books and YouTube is YouTube is immediately measurable. Like you see if people clicked on your video, if they shared it, if they invited their friends for other means then YouTube if you see if it's external or came through Twitter or newsletters or whatever, right? You get immediate data. And that's what I sometimes struggle with because if it doesn't perform immediately, a new video that I put out, it feels like I did something wrong, even though it may just be that my audience just wasn't awake just yet or had something else to do. How do you deal with this in your own work? Like how do you deal with the, I guess, the curse and the blessing that is immediately available analytics in videos like this?

Aprilynne Alter
Gosh, it's so hard. The number of hours that have disappeared for me from just like refreshing YouTube studio after a new video was live and I'm like please a 1 out of 10, please a 1 out of 10. For those who are not creators, a 1 out of 10 is a good thing for YouTubers. YouTube will rank your video out of your last 10 videos in terms of its performance. So a 10 out of 10 is oh it's like the the worst performing video out of your latest 10 versus a 1 on 10 is your best performing video out of your most recent 10. Yeah, it's tough for me to get stuff done during the first day that I upload a new video because I'll just be like so wired like, are they gonna like it? Please like it. I work so hard on this video. I really hope that they enjoy it. And I think like I've come to try to like separate the result of a video into like three categories in my head. One category is the views, right? So like, okay, like how many views did this video get? That's like bucket A. Bucket B is how much did my audience or like any people enjoy this content? What are my comments like? Are my comments saying like, man, this is the best video that I've seen in a long time. Or, wow, this helped me so so so much right? Or are the video or the comments more generic? Right? It' like okay, like, how much did they find the content useful? And how much did they enjoy it? And then the third bucket is what did I learn from this process? Or how do I feel about it? So for a number of videos, like they might not perform the best, but I learned something new and it's like thinking about YouTube skills in general is like collecting more like items or buffs video game that is YouTube. So okay, like maybe you didn't defeat the dragon yet, but like in this run, you were able to pick up some new items and buffs that can help you in the next time you try to defeat the dragon or make a viral video, right? And it's like, okay, like, I pick up these new skills and now we have them forever. In my most recent video, I was playing around with some B rollers or supplementary footage and I discovered this new angle that I really, really, really loved. And it's going to be my first time using that angle in this new video. And I'm like, whoa, I can now use that for all of my future videos. And even if this video isn't a complete banger, you're gonna like I've collected this item that I can now use forever. And that's so cool. And that's a big win. So those are like the three buckets. So like, whenever I get too deep into thinking about that bucket, one of the results, I try really hard to focus on okay, like, were there any other ones on the other buckets? And if yes, were good. The last thing I'll say too, is that the best cure that I found for a video not doing as well as I wanted to is working on the next one, right? Like I try to go into every single video thinking this will be the one or like, this is my next hit. Because one, I want to genuinely believe that like if I don't believe that, why am I making the video in the first place? Like if I don't believe that it's useful or like good enough for a lot of people to watch and love, why am I making it in the first place? And two like, you just like have that prolonged hope. And so as soon as the video goes out, it's like, cool. Now, let's work on the next one. And this one is going to be my best one yet. And I kind of like takes the focus away from thinking about what's already happened to what's going to happen.

Arvid Kahl
Yeah, that 1 out of 10 thing on YouTube, it can can give you brain damage. That's how I feel sometimes when I look at this. It's like I'm looking at this number that won't change, like over the next couple hours. It's just not gonna happen. And what do I want out of this? Why do I want it to be higher? Like every video is different too, right? You can't expect to be better every single week than everything you've ever done before. That's not how progress works. It's like a back and forth. I really liked the idea of separating this into buckets and taking the like analytical results in a different bucket then the results for you as a creator, the learnings, the internal learnings and I love the dragon, a World of Warcraft raiding metaphor there because that's how I feel about like my whole creator journey. I started like with item level 200. And now I'm an average item level 457 or something. It just keeps increases over time.

Aprilynne Alter
It does.

Arvid Kahl
You don't really see the massive difference as you go through it. But over time, looking back at two years ago, I was listening to my 20th podcast episode for some, I misclicked somewhere yesterday, let's just say that. I just randomly clicked on my website and I clicked on the audio version of a episode 25 or something. And I was listening to the audio and it was horrible. I recorded that with my old what is it called? This weird, high gain microphone that picked up everything around me. And it was really, really bad, not edited at all super bad. And it was like still people listened to this. And the same people that listened to that back then, they listen to my stuff right now, which is much better produced. It's much better thought out and all of that stuff, they still around like they didn't hate it back then. Why should I think it was bad, right? It's like you see the increase of quality over time. And you see your own journey, which is really cool. Which I wonder like, how much time do you spend per video? Because did you spend less time on that before? Did you spend more time on that before? What is that trajectory for somebody who's getting better at YouTube? Do you spend more time or less?

Aprilynne Alter
It depends on what my goal is. I think I'm able, so I recently started this like on my new channel, this 90 day challenge to get my new channel monetized. And I had like I went in with a couple of different strategies to try out. In the beginning, my goal was to upload three videos per week. Now to me that was insane. I don't know what I was thinking. I obviously only able to upload one video per week max. And but that week, I succeed. I make three videos in one week. And the difference is, is that the quality of each of those videos in that one week was the same if not better as a year or two ago when I would make one video per week. Right? And so I was like okay, like, does that mean that it takes less time to make a video then? Well, after that I started thinking more strategically. I was like, well, for this moment in time for my journey, it's less so about quantity, but more so about quality. And so then I switch my strategies instead of focusing on the quantity of three videos per week. I'm like, hey, let's just make the best video I've ever made. Now, I take a lot more time on each of my videos more like an entire week for a single video, which is a similar time as what I did before, but the quality of this video is so much better than ever before. So, yes. I'm able to get more quality bang for my time buck now. It's just up to me in terms of how I want to divvy that up.

Arvid Kahl
That makes sense. Do you have like a number of hours that you spent on like an average over your last like 5 or 10 videos?

Aprilynne Alter
When I made three videos in one week, each of those videos on average took me two days, but like two full days, I'll say like 16 hours for a video. Now, it's more like eight hours per day for seven days. So 56, right? Hours for a single video. Yeah, but like that's kind of, but like, I'm doing this full time. So there's nothing else I'm doing with my time besides YouTube. So all of my effort can go into it.

Arvid Kahl
Okay

Aprilynne Alter
And that's what I'm doing.

Arvid Kahl
Okay, I don't want to like dive too deep into the specifics. But I'm a process person. When I write, I have one day for writing, one for editing. And then I turn it into my other kinds of contents. I'll record a podcast, record the video then I distribute. So that's my weekend structure. Do you have like a similar structure for how you produce videos like a step by step order of things?

Aprilynne Alter
I used to. So back when I had a more consistent schedule, I will give you the schedule that I had for my three videos per week. So on Monday, I would upload a video in the morning and then I would ideate script and film another video. On Tuesday, I would edit that video. On Wednesday, I would upload the video and spend the day researching for like more content for the future. Thursday, I would idea a script to film my next video. Friday, I would edit that. Saturday, I would upload that and idea a script and film. And on Sunday, I would edit and then on Monday it would start over again.

Arvid Kahl
Oh, that sounds like a great work life balance, right?

Aprilynne Alter
Honestly, it wasn't bad. But the edit days were the worst for me. The idea of scripted film, I was like, cool. I'm vibing this is great. The research days were amazing because I love to do research. I just got to like, get snacks and go in front of my computer and just like spend the day researching and that was great. The editing was awful. I said eight hour days before my editing day is where, gosh, 14 hour a days, 16 hour a days in order to try to get it all done. It was too much. So now what I've done is kind of like taken as I saw that same process, right of like idea script, film, edit, upload and like research as well. But now I've like expanded each of those to the point where I feel like it's enough, I suppose. And I think like the debate of like, should I focus more on quantity or on quality is one that a lot of people talk about? And it's a question that I get a lot of time. Like many times the answer that I'll have to say for this is just because I don't want people looking at my own process. I mean, like, oh, I should do that. And she's focusing so much on quality, so I should too. My take on this is focus on quantity, so on consistency. Usually that's one video per week, at least until it's no longer a question of will I make another video? Until it's like it's not even a thought in your head. It's of course, I'm going to make another video that's just what I do. Right? So as long as it's like, will I make another video? Oh, this is really really hard. Like as long as there's that potential there of if you were to take longer in a video might never get done. Focus on quantity, focus on consistency. Then, once it no longer becomes a question which is like that's just a staple of your life. Then you can focus more on quality. So that's where I'm at in my journey so I can focus more on quality. And at this point, like how I do that is because I've done the quantity thing for so long, I know what like the baseline is. And I know where I thought like, oh, if I just had another day to do this, it would be so much better. Right? And so then I'm able to use my time and like, add time where it needs to be now and I process because I know where to allocate time for the biggest result or the biggest impact.

Arvid Kahl
That sounds like a very thought through approach, like, but I started with all random trying things out. But this seems to be like you crystallize the high impact things and integrate it into a structure. How do you prevent, like burnout? Like you talked about burnout on YouTube channels before. Like, what active steps do you take right now to not burn out on this one?

Aprilynne Alter
If I ever so I feel like I have like a hypersensitive sensitivity to burnout now. And like if I feel even like the inkling of it potentially coming, I'm like, oh, warning, something's gonna happen. Let's chill out for a second. So usually, I have to think about, like, why I'm feeling that burnout. And at this point for me, it's usually something external because I've done enough work. And I'm far enough along my own journey that I am confident that what I am doing now in terms of like, the content itself and the process itself, is something that I genuinely love, like I genuinely enjoy. It's taken a lot of work to get to this point, but something that I believe to be true. So when I like feel any, like, ounce of burnout coming in, I'm like, why is this happening? And it depends. Typically, it's because either like, I'm making a video that I don't actually want to be making or I'm pushing myself too fast when I should be slowing down or other things are going on in my life. Like, we're in a heatwave and there's no air conditioning, you know or like, ah, like or I'm sick or something else that's or like, I haven't gone outside enough. So I don't have enough fresh air. Right? And there's usually something else going on. I'm like, that's the reason why. But I think like, it's a lot easier for me to identify that because I know that my core thing is something that I love and I'm lucky enough to like found that for myself. But, yeah.

Arvid Kahl
Okay, that makes absolute sense. And thinking about it as something external, something that is not coming from within you in the sense of that it's like a deep desire, but some kind of external pressure or external constraint that makes, that's my experience as well with these things. And often it's something externalized like, it's an expectation that we projected onto something else as well. Right? That's also weird. How has your move to San Francisco affected your mental health, let's just say that, or your productivity? Like your state of doing things on YouTube? Because move is a pretty big thing. And moving to the valley is probably equally big and making big changes. Has that had an effect on you?

Aprilynne Alter
It's had an enormous effect. But probably for a different reason than you would think so, prior to this. Like I mean, I've been living with my partner, Rocks, for almost two years now. And for the majority of his time, we were both working from home in the same place. And it was great. But I feel like neither one of us were as productive as we could have been. Because, you know, oftentimes, it wasn't like a one bedroom apartment. And so we're not even like distanced from each other in different rooms. We're normally in the same room in two different corners. And it's just like it was so hard to have long, productive hours

Arvid Kahl
Right

Aprilynne Alter
Because I think we picked up on each other's energies a lot. So it's like, even if I was like in the zone, if he was having a rough day, I would pick up on his energy and like want to go and console him or want to like go and see what's going on and vice versa. So when we moved to San Francisco, he now like works at like a different physical office. So he leaves early in the day

Arvid Kahl
Perfect!

Aprilynne Alter
And he doesn't come back until really late at night and also going to San Francisco, I didn't really have any friends here at all. I had one friend that I was looking forward to seeing here. The week that I moved here she moved to Romania. I was like man, of course. So I didn't really have any friends here at all. And there is like a moment and I guess like the main shift that happened was the default was stillness. So the default, if I were to do nothing in this apartment, it would just be stall. Rocks wouldn't be here. I wouldn't really have friends like trying to hit me up or you know, go out and do an activity. I would just be alone and still. And also, I have these, like gigantic windows in this apartment, which just like have a gorgeous city view. So I can just like stand there and like, look out into the city, which I love because I love that San Francisco is a city of builders. And there's this energy of like a lot of people are here working towards their dream. And I think like that default of being still has allowed me to work so much more and like be a lot more productive. Because I can always add in distraction if I want to. I can always fill the space with videos or calling friends and family or going out if I need to. But it's just like, I've been able to be so focused. And I tend to work really well if I'm alone. I know some people like to work when they're like around people. Even in school, I never went to a library to study because there are people around. I like went to like my room and shut all the doors, right? So this has been a dream for me. I've just been able to get super, super deep into spending my time exactly how I want to spend my time. And it's been wonderful.

Arvid Kahl
Yeah, the ability to just be still in yourself and reflect on the things you want to do. I think that's the source of energy and the generative core of most creators, many creators. I don't know. And you know, people have different personalities. And like you said, some people need their solipsistic kind of enclosed space. I'm the same way like this is my room and nobody goes into my room. I have a biometric lock on the door. Nobody gets into this room. That's how my studio is.

Aprilynne Alter
What about your dog?

Arvid Kahl
The dog, she can knock and then I will let her in. But we should have a little doggie door in here. But no, the puppy is an exception because she's my co founder at this point. So she

Aprilynne Alter
That makes sense

Arvid Kahl
Has access privileges to my room. But yeah, I need the space as well. Like my creative source is finding a silent place, thinking and then I can follow like you said with distractions as well. I think it's important to have that place to go to and probably that is something over the last couple of years, that was significantly lacking in most people's home office, forced home office lives, right? Particularly if you have kids or pets or just loud neighbors, you live in a busy space, not having a place to go back to retreat to, to relax, that probably was a big issue. It's nice that you have that. I'm really happy for you to be able to have this place and also for Rocks to have his thing and do his work from another place and not have this kind of energy bounce that you were describing. That's really important. So having, maybe that's something to talk about. What does a creator space look like? How how do you set up your space to be creative in, starting with not having another person sitting there streaming for hours a day? Right?

Aprilynne Alter
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think it's very dependent on the creator in general. I can speak to what helps me out. One thing that really helps me, which might seem counterintuitive, but I think like if you're a creator you would understand. Having some sort of structure in my day helps a lot with being able to be more creative. And so like the very first like I have a morning routine, where when I get up after I brush my teeth, I will go to like a specific like corner that I have over there, where I have my journal and a pen and it was right next to a window so I will open the window, get that natural light, look out into the city and just spend some time journaling. It doesn't have to be that much like one page if need be. Usually, it's longer. But no matter, I start my day unless I have a very early call. I start my day with that and I just think like it helps so much just like to get me ready for that day to look out, to get inspired by the city view and to just like reflect and think about like where I'm at in the current moment and like what I want my day to look like. After that's done, then I can like start my day. And I like having like a separate like desk that I use for just like work, I guess. If I want to like watch TV or something or like, watch YouTube, at this point, I just consume YouTube for entertainment. I don't really like watch TV anymore. It's like, we have an open floor plan. So it's like this the L is the couch and then the TV is here. And then on the other side of the couch is the desk and the slight corner. And I guess like all this to say that for me, I really love like the separation of spaces. It's like, okay, I have a specific space for journaling. I don't do any work there. I don't do anything else in that space other than journal. I have this space. I have the space for work. I don't do anything else in the space besides work. I have that space. I don't do anything else in that space besides chill, right? And just like having those separation for me, has been really, really great. And then also like, even in that, there's like another little kitchen table and like the bar kitchen area, where I can go and sit if I want like a change in scenery or like, you know, if I want to go and like write someplace else. So I think like the optionality and like where I want to, like sit and do work if needed. And the separation of spaces and access to natural light, have been pretty big for me in terms of being able to like, more easily access a flow state.

Arvid Kahl
That is something that I've witnessed both in myself and a lot of other creators. Like when you told me the story about you having your little journaling spot where all that happens, there is journaling. I had this conversation a couple of weeks ago with somebody else. They have their journaling spot, that one seat in the house like a nice cushion space where they can relax into. They have their little coffee table beside it, and they they spent like 30 minutes or whatever journaling and then they leave the space and nobody else is allowed to sit there. It's there spot, right? And that's for that purpose alone. I think that's something that if you're building a home office or if you want to work from home, you have to really consciously make these spaces for yourself to be creative. And I've talked to writers that have a desk that is just for writing by hand. And then there's the computer that's for writing, you know, on the keyboard or whatever. Like taking these different activities and giving them individual spots and spaces that compartmentalizes the activities into spaces where if you go there, you're prepared to do that work. That is something that I find myself too, like the space I'm sitting in right now is my recording computer, like I literally bought a little Mac Mini that is connected to all this stuff here that is just for recording. I don't edit here. I don't do anything else here. If I sit on this chair here, I record, which brings me into a mind space where I'm more inquisitive, right? Where I'm talking to people and I get to ask them cool questions that brings me an energy and then I move over there, which is invisible right now because it's obviously not in the recording space. And that's where all the kind of analytical deep work happens, the editing even the writing and that happens there for me. So it's really cool to see you taking that step as well. And having all these little spaces. That's interesting. What's that conscious? Like did you consciously set up the space like this? Or did it just you map the activities onto the space?

Aprilynne Alter
Most of these happen by happenstance. So when we moved into this apartment, we are subletting and so this is like a fully furnished apartment during this time. But where this current desk was, was where my journaling nook is now. And I didn't like that in terms of like having like a filming background. Like I moved things around. But then that area was bare. And I was like, we got to put something there. How about like a little like desk over there that we can put like the coffee maker on and maybe I can journal? And I think like, as that started to be built out, I started to realize like, oh, this is actually a huge deal. Like, I'm able to keep with a journaling habit that I know is really important to me, but I haven't been able to keep with for a while because there's a designated spot for it. And I'm able to get more work done in this space because it's separate, like big, like, from my chill space. I originally started to like watch my entertainment on the couch because I don't have an office chair. This chair is just like a normal like, kitchen chair. And so instead of like sitting here to relax, I just like moved over to the couch and was like, oh, this is actually a big deal too. So in the future, with every new space that we set up, that's what I'm going to look for. It's like okay, how can I compartmentalize spaces for specific activities?

Arvid Kahl
That's like creator of Feng Shui, right?

Aprilynne Alter
Pretty much, yeah

Arvid Kahl
Yeah, you have to find the right spots for the right energies in your space. That is really cool. And since we're talking about finding, let's bring this to a close. Where can people go to find you?

Aprilynne Alter
What a segue! Incredible! I'm on YouTube, youtube.com/@aprilynnealter. I'm on Twitter as well @AprilynneAlter. And yeah, that's for the most part where you can find me if you want to follow along the journey or learn more about YouTube.

Arvid Kahl
I highly recommend it. I'm a big fan of your work. I follow you everywhere I can find you because your insights are spectacular. And I'm really, really grateful that you shared your early morning instead of going into your journaling note today with me in this conversation. Thanks for giving me a little insight into the world with a physical and mental world of a creator who is very, very interested in sharing and teaching people, which I really admire. You're so good at teaching people and you're teaching people how to teach, which is even better. Telling people how to get a grow on YouTube is effectively teaching them how to teach, which is really, really cool. So thank you so much for being on the show today. Thank you for spending your morning with me. That was wonderful. Thank you.

Aprilynne Alter
Thanks so much for having me.

Arvid Kahl
Always a pleasure. Thanks.

And that's it for today. I will now briefly thank my sponsor: acquire.com. Imagine this, you're a founder who's built a solid SaaS product, acquired customers and is generating really consistent monthly recurring revenue, the SaaS dream, right? The problem is, you're not growing for whatever reason, maybe it's lack of focus, lack of skill, or just plain lack of interest and you feel stuck in your business with your business. What should you do? Well, the story that I would like to hear is that you buckled down, reignited the fire, started working on the business, not just in the business, and all those things like audience building and marketing and sales and outreach and six months down the road, you made all that money. You've tripled your revenue and you have this hyper successful business. But reality is unfortunately not as simple as this. And the situation that you might be in is different for every founder facing this crossroad. Too many times, the story here ends up being one of inaction or stagnation until the business itself becomes less and less valuable over time or worse, completely worthless. So if you find yourself here already or you think your story is likely headed down a similar road, I would consider a third option that's selling your business on acquire.com. Because capitalizing on the value of your time today, that's a pretty smart move. Acquire.com is free to list. They've helped hundreds of founders already. Go to try.acquire.com/arvid and see for yourself if this is the right option for you.

Thank you for listening to The Bootstrapped Founder today. You can find me on Twitter @arvidkahl. And you'll find my books and my twitter course there too. If you want to support me and the show, please subscribe to my YouTube channel, get the podcast in your podcast player of choice and leave a rating and a review by going to (http://ratethispodcast.com/founder), makes a massive difference if you show up there because then the podcast will show up in other people's feeds. Any of this will help the show. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful day and bye bye.