i almost quit youtube

About this video

NetworkChuck gives a low-energy, behind-the-scenes review of 2022, saying he almost quit YouTube and everything else that year. He first cites the highs as he reports them: 65 million views, 6 million watch-time hours, growth of 936,000 subscribers to 2.7 million, with views up 35% and watch time up 17%. He also had another daughter — six daughters in total, ranging from zero to 11 — bought a whole house to serve as a studio after outgrowing a bedroom in his home, hired three more full-time people for a peak team of five, and launched a new website and a locally roasted coffee line. He then ranks the hard parts from burnout, driven by constant creation plus all the change, to the unfinished studio build started in August, to learning to manage a team as a former solopreneur. The most painful lesson, he says, was the website/academy project: he contracted a dev team to build a custom platform to host NetworkChuck Academy courses, made bad hosting/platform decisions with his team, discovered late that it would not work, and spent an amount he says he is too embarrassed to state, ending with a beautiful front end but no working backend or product. For 2023 he says the plan is finishing what was left undone — the studio and Python, Linux, Bash and CCNA courses — doubling down on content to help viewers’ IT careers, and trying to make courses affordable, ideally free.

Key takeaways

• Creator reports 65M views and 936k new subscribers in 2022 despite burnout
• Growth added strain: sixth child, house bought as studio, team peaked at five
• Managing people was a new, difficult skill after working as a solopreneur
• Custom academy platform failed late over hosting/platform choices, costing an undisclosed large sum with no backend product
• 2023 plan: finish studio and courses, focus on consistent career-helping videos

Episode details: published January 13, 2023 · 13:02 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are NetworkChuck’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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