Hey everybody yes
It's Joel, and this is 3d printing nerd the title "this is my last day" is not clickbait.
it's something that I...
honestly, never thought I'd have the chance to say and this video is something that I never thought I'd have the chance to make
but
Today is my last day in corporate America once the day is over, I will be a full-time
content creator and just saying that scares me a little bit
It's it's exciting to think about but it's scary because I'm an adult with a wife and kids and all these adult
responsibilities, let's start the story at the beginning, so I work... well, I guess almost worked for a company you may know
Adobe and at Adobe I worked on the After Effects team in fact. There is a way to see somewhat of a
Secret about page on After Effects, and if you go past some of the previous versions
you'll you'll see my name among some other incredibly talented creators and
programmers and testers and marketing people and just wonderful humans.
I started at Adobe June of
2014 so I've been there three and a half years
I've always worked on the After Effects team
I I interviewed because a mutual friend worked on the team, and they had an opening I interviewed well
I guess and they chose to bring me on the team
What is this is this trash am I supposed to throw this away, it's my resume
The team at Adobe on the After Effects project is an amazing collection of some of the most talented
Wonderful people you'll ever meet. I like to say that
Working at Adobe is like checking a list item off of your bucket list. It's an amazing place. It's an inspiring place
It's a creative place. They make all these tools that inspire others to create
Wonderful works of art, and I started at Adobe June of 2014 and as you may or may not know
I got my first 3d printer Christmas of 2014.
I started my channel within the first few days of April in 2015 and I can remember my coworker across the hall from me
Telling me how excited I was when I had my first subscriber. I when I had my first hundred or thousand or
10,000
100,000 and at the time of recording this video I'm over one hundred and sixty eight
thousand
subscribers on YouTube with
fairly consistent view counts a lot of comments on the videos you guys are wonderful at watching things and commenting on things I
Appreciate the heck out of it Joel you may be asking yourself you have a lovely wife you have three incredible kids
You have a house and cards and dogs
And you have to feed people and you have to ensure that people can get to the doctor if they're sick and you
extracurricular activities for sports and and school stuff and
How do you anticipate being able to cover all of that when you're no longer working as a software engineer?
At a software company, and I thought about that
it's kind of difficult to to think about I noticed that my my 3d printing nerd and
content creation workflow was starting to
take an impact on my life in a negative way and
I didn't have a proper work/life balance going all of this stuff that I do on this channel
Was usually done after my wife and kids went to sleep for the night
Which means sometimes content wouldn't get recorded produced thought about?
Edited until well after midnight, and it wasn't uncommon for me to go to sleep when
The Sun was coming up
Originally it was something that I could I could record I could edit and I could produce in the same night
but it started to take a toll and
And within the past couple months
I've been getting some some crazy migraines, and I think just the stress of maintaining a full-time job and
What is essentially a full-time content creator job? I couldn't do it
My body couldn't handle it, and I just at the outset
I think that this decision will not only enable me to be able to create content
full-time, but it reduces my stress levels and
As soon as I gave my notice at my job
I haven't had a migraine since it's it's a wonderful feeling to know that your body is
on board with your decisions
Someone's almost cuttin onions in here so now that I'm a full-time content creator
I think the question that I thought you would be asking me was how I could maintain all of these adult responsibilities and
There's a couple different reasons that I'm able to do this one YouTube provides ad revenue, and I get a certain amount there
I have some incredibly awesome people supporting me at patreon.com, and I do get a somewhat consistent
Revenue stream from patreon one of the changes, that's gonna. Go through is while the ad revenue and patreon is great
I I need to open up my channel to more
sponsorship opportunities
more advertising opportunities more things
That generate revenue that are in line with the goal of the channel to inspire and educate
And to have a little fun along the way and right off the bat
I do want to make sure you know that I will always
disclose when something is a paid advertisement and
I will not accept any
Advertisements for products that I would not
personally endorse I know that I need
money to buy things and to live
But I will not sacrifice my end Hegarty, and I would rather
slow down or shut down the channel and go back to corporate America than to
sacrifice my integrity
I just want to make that clear right off the bat moving to a full-time content creator is interesting
Before when I have my Adobe job of like I said I was recording and editing shooting
Film and it was always dark outside now I can maintain business relationships
And I can answer the 100 plus unread business emails that I still have to go through I can take care of the backlog of
Printers that I have to open up showcase and review I can
Be free about doing what I am
Passionate about and I am I am so excited at this
Opportunity to succeed so where does this leave us it means that as a full-time content creator I?
Am a small business owner now before I joined Adobe. I did have a startup company with a friend of mine
It was called gratzi mobile
And I think I've talked about it before you may have seen the shirt that I wear or it's on my hat it was
The the idea was you could check in to certain places like the movies or the bar or the club and then?
People could send you drinks, or desserts using the app, and it was just a few years too early
I think it might have a better chance of succeeding now
But back then it just it didn't work and so we were never funded
We racked up a few bills, and I that's why I didn't have to go into corporate America
That's why I got the job at Adobe. Thankfully though able to pay some things down able to save some money
Able to begin this new adventure in my life, so how does it work so the YouTube ad revenue is awesome?
It's not consistent
There's not a big window into what ads are gonna be shown on your channel or what you're gonna pay be paid for certain ads
But it's it is a revenue source. I will always have YouTube ads enabled on my channel and
If it ad pops up and you watch it. That's great if you don't
Just watching my video liking it share
commenting
Being a part of the conversation in the comments
That's helpful as well
I would love for you to be a part of all of it on the side of patreon patreon gives me a fairly consistent
Monthly revenue source I do my best to interact with my patrons
I know that I've been derelict and my duties. They're not so much lately but in the past
I don't I don't think I gave my patrons what they deserved now
I have something called the hi-5 Club, and if you are a $5 or more
patron through patreon com
You get to be a part of something called after the five so when I produce my videos and I say as always high five
I can leave the camera rolling, and then I just share what's on my mind for three to ten minutes
So I'm essentially
Producing two videos every time and people that support me in the high five club
Get to see that second video, so if you go over to patreon calm
And you sign up and you're a part of the hi-5 Club at five dollars a month you get to be a part of that
stream of consciousness that happens after nearly every video
Going forward my wife
And I we are also going to be reopening my Etsy shop so before I started my youtube channel
I did have an Etsy shop and I
3d printed cookie cutters and then sold them through Etsy it was wonderful. I I got really good at it
I will probably do that again. I'm gonna start selling my cookie color models again
I think my wife
also
Has some cool seasonal designs in mind that we will be selling through the Etsy store
And that will be up within the next couple weeks
I need I need my days back so I can actually get that up and running
I will put links everywhere and announce it as soon as I know but I won't be 3d printing nerd on Etsy so you can
Probably find me before I announce it anybody that buys something through their day
They are supporting the channel and helping to ensure that I've gotten food on the table for my family, so I will pre
Thank you. I did talk about
sponsorships and advertisements right now and
in order to bring a more consistent stream of
further revenue in I am open to spa sir ship
Opportunities, I will tell you right now matter hackers has officially joined on as the first sponsor for this
channel in the iteration that it is today matter hackers is a company that I
Used and bought filament from way before I had my 3d printing nerd channel
And I just got to know them in fact. It was my buddy Michael ruddy
Who originally told me to start a YouTube channel?
He is the one that introduced me to Mehra at mater hackers and our friendships. Just grew from there
I know a lot of the matter hackers staff and
I'm down there for meetups. They are unofficial sponsor of this channel, so you will be seeing some mater hackers
advertisements on the channel and like I said
I will not sacrifice my integrity for this matter
Hackers is a company that I?
Endorse and I allow to advertise on the channel because I believe in what they do I think they offer good products
And I think they do a good job being a part of our wonderful 3d printing community. There are other
Sponsorship talks that haven't been no contracts have been signed, so I don't want to talk about them at the moment
But I do want to make sure you my audience know that I am open to
advertisements and sponsorships of the channel and
you can get in contact with me Joel at the 3d printing nerd comm if you are interested in sponsoring or
Advertising on the channel again. I don't want to showcase
Anything that I wouldn't personally endorse and so I'm more than happy to start that conversation
If that's something you are interested in but knowing that matter hackers is a sponsor of the channel
They are doing a lot of good for my family and for myself, and if you ever have the chance to go shopping online
I've put matter hackers links in the description of every video
And I would love it if you went and click those links, or if you tweeted at mater hackers on Twitter and said hey
Thanks for supporting Joel at the 3d printing nerd I love his content
thank you for enabling him to keep doing it anything like that is more than welcome, and I'm
Mara, or Dave or Lawrence or Kevin or John or anyone over there would would throw you a high-five right back and finally?
Thanks to Clayton
You know him as Uncle Jesse the one who prints all those really awesome cosplay things on his CR 10 3d printers
He tweeted about something called buy me a coffee and it's interesting because rather than a patreon model for supporting creators
Consistently month over month over month. It is a one-time thing and so if I produce a video. That's really awesome and
You're like you know what I love that video
Or I love that piece of content or that post really helped me or thanks for that advice
You can buy me a coffee and it's simple the link is down in the description
you click the link and you say how many coffees you're willing to buy me of course it is the
Equivalent of a coffee the money is it's a PayPal transaction
But you know my my fan mail address is actually a local coffee shop I get my coffee there
It's wonderful coffee that they have so if you use the buy me a coffee link. There's a really good chance
You're actually helping to keep me properly caffeinated, and I I would love you dearly for that well
That's all that. I really wanted to announce it's not a typical video
This isn't something that I ever thought I would be doing
but as of now you're looking at me Joel telling at the 3d printing nerd as a
100% full time
Content creator there will be more collaborations on the channel there will be more prints there will be more machines
I will finish more things because I'll have time to sand for days
You might see me being able to do more types of content production. Maybe a podcast is in the future
Maybe Chuck Angus, and I throw something together, maybe Barney Cleese, and I throw something together
maybe build I ran over at punished props brings me in and gives me some tutelage on how to sand for days the
Possibilities are literally endless
and I'm really excited for the opportunity to provide you fun and
Inspiring content in the 3d printing and making area. Thanks for coming along with this journey with me
we're just getting started and with that we're gonna close it out, but
I'm gonna be changing up my closing a little bit
And I will throw you a high-five and after after my high-five
I am going to record and after the five
So just know the content doesn't stop when I throw you that high-five and the screen fades we keep going
But as for my closing. I think I was specifying too many different methods for supports
I thanked people for watching ads and I know most people are running
Content blockers or ad blockers, so I've been I've been thinking of a few different things. Let's try it on for size
Here we go
Thanks for watching. Don't forget to subscribe if you're not to ring that bell to be notified of when
Possibly viral awesome stuff is
Uploaded to the channel if you like what you saw consider buying me a coffee and keeping me properly caffeinated
There's a link down in the description for that if you like what we do
Consider supporting the channel via patreon calm a link for that is down there as well and finally sponsorships
Help me keep food on the table
There are some links down in the description
Tickle those links and tell them that you love them because they certainly show some love to me beyond all that don't forget to hug
Each other more because I love you guys as always
High-five