Patreon Shareholder's Report '21-'22 (Patreon)

Hello!

Those who are new here might not know about this, but every year I share how the finances are going for the channel. Your support is what makes this whole thing viable, so you should see where the money goes. The Australian financial year is July 1 to June 30. All numbers listed are in AUD.

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Reflecting on goals from '20-'21 Financial Year

• Spend more money
• Do more for Patreon
• Hit ten thousand subscribers
• Meet people

I'm happy to say: I've accomplished every goal I set last year! Especially that last goal of meeting people — I've met heaps of industry people this year in-person and online. Thanks to these new relationships, I've even gotten the opportunity to play two stage games at PAX Australia this year.

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Income '21-'22: $46,369
Patreon: $38,293
YouTube: $4,271
DriveThruRPG: $2,702
Sponsorships: $1,102

Patreon. If you only consider month-to-month income, the whole year has been pretty steady, and it might even look stagnant on a graph. But behind the scenes on Patreon, it's actually been a tradeoff from fewer patrons on higher tiers, to more patrons on lower tiers. The latter is much more preferable to me because it feels less volatile, so I'm very happy with how it's gone this year. 

YouTube. This is all ad revenue, which means it was massively boosted by my six-month stint in the Critical Role mines. This isn't a figure I can really affect other than trying to make better, more successful videos. That's not really my goal — well, it is — but it's not my focus. If I try to do better on YouTube, all the feedback I get from the system is cryptic and often disappointing; how am I meant to affect growth in a system with such obtuse controls? So my focus is personal growth and Patreon releases. I'm presuming this number and general YouTube performance will increase as a symptom of pursuing my other goals.

DriveThruRPG. I never promote my DriveThruRPG products. This is just a nice bonus, a little surprise each month.

Sponsorships. This is a massive blind-spot. The majority of people who contact me about sponsorships are fans. At some point though, I'm going to have to be proactive about this. In an ideal world, every video would have a sponsorship attached. But that's is a lot of admin which won't provide any value to you or any personal growth for me, so it's still on the backburner for now.

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Expenses '21-'22: $24,983
Gear: $7,752
Wages: $3,308
Tax: $13,923

Gear. Massive upgrades! A new computer, a new mic (Shure SM7B), a new camera (Sony A6600), and a bunch of little pieces here and there. I really don't know what I else would need to improve my setup. For my current kind of content, it's complete! 

Wages. I currently have four writers and two artists I work regularly with, so there's always a handful of Patreon projects in production at any one time. I personally do all the layout and editing work, but if I had to do all the writing myself... woof. This is an area I want to spend like 3x MORE money on — not only to increase the output for Patreon, but to pay contributors more for their work.

Tax. Absolutely wild. This includes tax owed on my day job, but as a sole trader for YouTube, it all kind of mixes together anyway. Most of my gear purchases depreciate over four or five years, so claiming my expenses didn't have as big an effect as I'd hoped. This is snuck up on me because my day job witheld very little and I forgot about my student loans (called a HECS debt in Australia, paid through income tax). I'm going to adjust my paycheque split so my day job keeps 50% aside for tax next year. I don't ever want to get another bill like this! Next year I'll get an accountant...

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Future Expenses & Goals

Website upgrade. I hate Patreon's interface. It's awful. I want to make a catalogued storefront for my website which links to Patreon on a post-by-post basis. This should make it easier for existing patrons to search and browse the PDFs they already have access to, and it should help onboard new patrons. I've already met with a development team to work on this; it should be finished by the end of the year! (Also: the Australian government has good tax incentives for digital upgrades like this!)

Brand overhaul. I've recently consolidated all my social media tags to @heyitsMattyP. I feel there's a kind of online identity-shift on the horizon. I don't know what this will look or feel like, but my attitude towards my content is changing, so I think they way I present it will change as well.

Returning to podcasting. I wasn't happy with the Pea Pod, so I retired it and wiped the old episodes. But I learned a lot about presentation from doing No Plan, No Problem, and I think there's room for more growth here — I want to revisit the Pea Pod in a different format soon. I'm going to try making something with my wife this year (she's the funniest person I know!)

The year of content. I want to keep doing YouTube. I want to become a Twitch streamer. I want to become a TikTok person (a TickToker?). I'm almost at the point of having enough infrastructure in place to step into these habits without ruining my life. It's all about discipline! My goal is to being a never-ending streak of timely content.

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A quick note about the future

My first salary. The channel is self-sufficient enough to cover all its costs for the year with some leftover, so this is the first year I've been able to take a salary. When I first started with zero subscribers and no Patreon, I spent maybe $800 on gear and that's it. Although I haven't invested any of my own money since then, I did go part-time at my job in 2021, and losing those three paid days each week has proven a pretty big expense. From now on, I'm going to keep $5,000 in the business accounts to cover ongoing expenses, big purchases and business emergencies, but any overflow I'm going to take as salary and spend on fidget spinners and Yu-Gi-Oh cards.

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Thank you so much for helping me on this journey. I'm working very hard to make it worthwhile.

Cheers!

Shareholder's Report 1: https://www.patreon.com/posts/bi-annual-report-41477638
Shareholder's Report 2: https://www.patreon.com/posts/bi-annual-report-49217864
Shareholder's Report 3: https://www.patreon.com/posts/bi-annual-report-55825595