What We've Been Working On (Patreon)

Hey everyone!

As you all may know, we recently took a couple weeks of break from working on / publishing big technical pieces so we could refine processes. We keep working during that time, but normally I give the team 5 days off so I can just tie-up loose ends and build some processes for new work going forward. I have to do this 1-2x per year for a few reasons: One is to prevent burnout -- it's hard to manage and also improve the testing methods, increase video quality, and maintain quantity all at the same time. Giving people time off allows me time away from managing the pipeline for the team, which allows me to reinvent methods and get the team new and exciting work to do. Everyone enjoys it and benefits, as it keeps the job fresh and interesting. One recent example was adding the Intel platform testing to Mike's skillset, so now he can do contact frame benchmarks (and we'll likely do other thermal tests with that platform, too).

Another reason is just to push a bunch of old/stuck videos through the pipeline and get them out the door and done, mostly so I can mentally move on from stuff that's been stuck for months. The video where we gave Matt from the bike shop a PC is actually from December, but it got stuck pending some voice-over and cleanup, so I was happy to clear that.

I find that managing content is just as much about the content/testing itself as it is about keeping yourself creative, and for me, that means unburdening myself from whatever old projects are floating around in my head. Even if they won't do crazy views, getting them out there allows me to move on -- and that's where we get to the new stuff.

The PSU transients video was in the plans for a long time, but we were finally able to execute on it. I just put Memory Timings Pt. 2 back on the to-do list for about the 4th year in a row, but I think we can finish it this time now that we have a workflow/pipeline system in place (we're using a new software system to manage projects and it's been working great).

Right now, we're really gearing-up for higher quality rather than just quantity. We used to publish one video a day for about two years (this was a while ago), but as our quality standards went up, that became impossible to maintain. Now, our goal is to publish 4 videos per week: 1 in-depth research piece, 1-2 normal reviews, 1 news video, and a livestream (interchangeable with the second normal review).

As for the in-depth pieces, I'd consider the Thermal Grizzly Contact Frame to be one of those. Although that will lead to "normal reviews" (other frames), this one took a lot of animation work and exploratory/methodological development to get going. So that's in-depth. Transients is another in-depth one. A 'normal' review will be the case review we're publishing Wednesday. The streams are self-evident -- they're fun, healthy for the algorithm, but more importantly, I think they serve as a great internal team building day. Andrew and I love doing streams and grabbing food after, almost like that's part of it. When Patrick joins for the occasional stream, he and I enjoy getting back to basics and just building a PC.

Things are looking good now. This ~4 video cadence will allow me to spend 1 day per week doing methodological development and test engineering, which is more important than cramming one more review through the pipeline (especially since that 2nd or 3rd review was normally not that critical anyway).

I plan to hire more people soon too, but I'm going to wait until after the summer just because I'd like some more time to work in this new system (and also I need a break from training).

That's the update for now! Thank you for all of your support. The additional Patreon and store support have allowed us to really cut down on hardware manufacturer advertisers and have also funded projects like the Transients video. That video took over a month of on-and-off work to make and, if only from a staff time perspective, was very expensive. It'd be impossible to make money on that without external support, as YT ads just don't cut it for that style of video.

Our goal is to make higher quality, smarter content in a way that's accessible (e.g. adding animations), but not dumbed down. We don't want to start our videos screaming and targeting the widest audience, but instead we want to put the time and effort and money into building quality.

Thanks for your support!

PS - the regular reminder of how to connect Patreon to Discord is here: https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/212052266-How-do-I-connect-Discord-to-Patreon-Patron- (we get a lot of messages about this and we really don't have the bandwidth to answer them - just follow the directions in the link and you'll be good to go!)