You might have noticed there haven't been a lot of strange parts videos in a while. And well, there's a good reason for that
Don't worry, I'm not actually going anywhere. I have actually really super pumped up for what I'm doing with strange parts
And I'm really excited for what's coming in 2019, but I was super burned out at the end of 2018
I'm on a backcountry ski trip with some friends up in Seattle before I head back to China and I thought I'd take some time
Out this morning to tell you guys a little bit about what's going on and what's coming up and
What I've been working on behind the scenes, so, you know, as I said this stuff I love making videos
But
It really costs a lot of time and energy it takes a lot out of me
You kind of got to be in this state where you want to be watched and
Yeah, I don't always feel that way and when you don't feel that way
But you need to shoot you got to pretend and that that could be super exhausting
You might have seen the videos that Casey Neistat and Elle Mills made about their struggles with burnout and
Well, I'm really grateful to them. I think this is a really hard thing to talk about publicly and
Their videos have meant a lot to me and made it a little bit easier for me to talk about publicly
I just hit this point where I was really struggling to make videos
And I have a couple that are kind of half-finished right now like this one got my hand full of batteries
And I got my battery tester. I also got to know Han batteries off of Taobao. And then this is another thing that happens
Oh
Scary. Okay. This is a terrible idea. Don't worry. I'll be finishing those up when I go back to China
But first I just needed to take some time off and be human for a little bit
I visited my 95 year old grandparents in Southern California for Christmas and
We flew my drone. It was his first time seeing one
we spent a lot of time checking his gutters for leaves and I did a brief and cold road trip back to Colorado with my
Mom, and then I spent three weeks running off the side of a mountain in Mexico until I couldn't lift my arms anymore
Right now I'm headed back to San Francisco
I've been working a ton behind the scenes in the past few weeks urine up for season two of strange parts
And so I wanted to share with you guys a little bit of the work. I've been doing behind the scenes and
What challenges I'm facing?
What things I'm trying to put in place and hopefully I'll get this figured out so I can produce a lot more videos and
Avoid that burnout my biggest challenge for over a year now has been
How do I produce content on a more regular basis and to give you some idea in?
2017 I released like two or three videos in
2018 I released 24 videos
Just definitely an increase, but it's not quite where I would like it to be for one that schedules been pretty erratic and
It's not as frequent as I would like to be so I'd like to be releasing videos
Ideally, once a week, but I still feel a long way off from that
I know there are a lot of channels that release even a video every day. I have an immense amount of respect for those people
That's an incredible amount of work. But the reality is for the kind of videos that I make for strange parts
It's a ton of work and
If I was you know doing tech reviews
Sitting in my apartment all day in the same set. I could probably do a video a day if I really hustled
Um, but
There are a lot of people out there already doing tech reviews and, uh, I feel like strange parts is more than that is something different to give you some idea?
The the iPhone video the very first video I realized how I made my own iPhone in China
Uh took me about five months to make between shooting and editing and
We had over a hundred hours of footage
That's not actually even the most footage for the headphone jack video. That was like
250 hours of footage and, uh, that took us four months. So it got a little bit better. The reality is
If I want to make a video every week
Those numbers don't add up. Now some of that time was spent editing and so
Early last year uh, I brought in a full-time editor Kevin
Uh, I've been working with for about a year now
And that's meant that I can spend a lot more time shooting a lot more time doing engineering work a lot more time finding cool new stuff to show you guys and
A lot less time slaving over slave and edit. So I'd say that's working. I actually want to do more of it
I'd like to bring in a second editor this year. Probably not to me
It's gonna happen right right away
But if you're a professional editor and you'd like to work with me on strange parts, uh, I'd love to see some of your work
Please send me some examples to editors at strange parts down here. But there's a ton of other things that are taking my time
From you know
Finding camera people and drivers to getting visas to doing research to talking to factories to you know
Making selling and shipping one-of-a-kind Merch all of these things take a ton of time and energy and focus and
You know while they're not directly related to making a video. They're still super important
And so I'm realizing I can't do it alone
At least not if I want to keep releasing videos on an aggressive schedule and there are so many things
That we haven't talked about that
I'm super excited about I've decided to try and find someone
To take a lot of this off my plate and allow me to focus on the things that I'm really good at
And hopefully to take a bunch of the things off my plate that I'm not so good at
So I've been in SF for the past two weeks meeting with old friends and acquaintances
It's a place I used to live and work. So I've got a lot of network there and and
having coffees and lunches and dinners
trying to track down the right person if you think you might be the right person or
You know somebody who might be
You can find more details here on the link on the screen and down in the description
if you're a relentless extrovert who loves meeting people loves diving into chaotic situations and
Creating order from chaos and is excited to help me build
Kind of a I guess a YouTube production studio then
Maybe we should talk but just for the moment
I need to go back inside and get some breakfast and do some skiing and then nah
I got more to talk with you guys about
I
Had do up postpone shooting the rest of this video until after the ski trip
There was simply too much going on. So I bet a lot of you are asking Scottie, how can I help and
Firstly thank you simply by watching my videos
You're part of the strange parts family and our strange partners strange participles
We're gonna have to think of a name, but if it wasn't for you guys
I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing and for that I'm incredibly grateful
secondly, if you're not a professional editor or
You know an Operations guru
But you think there's some way you can help me send me an email
Tell me where in the world you are and what you think you can help with and a little bit about yourself
so many of you have already emailed me or messaged me offering to be a local guide or fixer translator to
Very general or specific engineering help
to intros into factories and labs and research
Facilities and other places that I just wouldn't otherwise have access to so if you think you have something you could help with send me
an email here
And I'll ease to add you to my list of people that can help
I won't necessarily have something for you to help with right away
but I'll keep you in the back of my mind and I have something that I
Think I could use your help with all that, you know, I'll be honest and say that sometimes these offers have been
humbling and and way overwhelming
So if you've emailed me or messaged me offering help and I haven't replied yet. I'm sorry
I'm trying to wade through all my old
messages and emails and put together a database of
Of everybody who's who's offered help and how they can help me so that I can actually find you in the future
thirdly, a lot of you guys have been asking me about patreon and other forms of financial support and
You know first off. Thank you
the reality right now is that strange Parts is kinda at this point of
Almost at what I would call ramen profitability in the startup world, which is that I can pay for parts for projects
I can pay for cameras and new equipment I can pay for flights
I'm not really quite yet paying for my full living expenses
And then I can pay for my editor and other people that are helping me. I would like to do patreon, but I'm
Don't feel ready yet. So
I don't want to do patreon in a way. That's just donations
For what? I'm already doing. I really want if you're gonna be a patron
I want to be able to give you something cool in return and I have a lot of
Ideas that I'm super excited about for that
but as I said before I am struggling to just make the videos that I'm making and
release them on the frequency that I'd like to be releasing them on and
so doing anything more for patrons would just way over stretch me at this point and
I really don't want to get to the point where I feel like I am letting you guys down, you know
I think if I got to the point where I was feeling like that
that would be a lot of extra pressure and
Would sort of lead to further burnout and that just doesn't seem like a recipe for success here
So I would like to do patreon, but I need to wait until I have
enough of a team built up such that we can do the cool stuff that I want to offer you guys and
Really do it in the right way, but boy when I find the right head of operations, there is so much awesome stuff
I want to do I can't wait, but in the meantime if you still really want to chip in
I'll put a Bitcoin address below. Mmm. No strings attached. I'm also a brave publisher
Which means that if you use the brave browser you can contribute a little bit
Every time you watch one of my videos, I'll put some a link to that in the description below as well
I think when you sign up they give you a little bit of brave bucks, whatever they call them
To give to your favorite creators. So that's another way you could help. Thank you guys for sticking around for my self-induced to vacation
I'll be honest and say that at times I felt pretty guilty for taking all this time off and not making videos
but the reality was it was something I really needed to do and I just needed to take the time to
be a human for a little while and recharge the batteries and get excited about this again my theme for
2018 for Strange Parts was sustained and I wouldn't exactly call that a resounding success
but I learned a hell of a lot and I'm still here and
I'm fired up again and ready to tackle the same theme for this year
I have big big plans for strange parts
And we're only at the beginning and I want to be able to do it for a long time to come
I'm Scotty from Strange Parts. Thank you for watching. Stay tuned for more adventures. I'll see you guys again soon