State of the Howtown: 6-month update
Added 2024-11-26 14:00:13 +0000 UTCWe launched Howtown six months ago! And we wanted to give you, our beloved backers, a report on our growth, our finances, and our plans for the next six months.
Comments
Love the content and the philosophy of Howtown.
James Tu
2025-06-25 17:18:17 +0000 UTCI love what you both are doing!
Uwe Heinrich
2025-03-08 16:53:14 +0000 UTCGreat work. Being a scientist myself I love your work. Thank you for your efforts to promote science stuff on youtube. Love y'all <3
Muhammad Khalid
2025-01-20 15:51:38 +0000 UTCLate to chime in on this as I am a new paid subscriber 🙂, but congratulations! When you said that it might be useful for you to appear in other people’s videos I think that’s true, however other people appearing in your videos is equally important I think. I discovered you a few months ago because Simone Giertz was featured in one of your videos. I follow her and YouTube suggested your video because she was in it. Having guests, even if they just ask a question at the beginning, is a great way to be recommended to their followers. Good luck for 2025!!
Pierre D.
2025-01-13 17:33:40 +0000 UTCas living proof, i came from a short and decided to stay for the whoooole show! :) for me it was obvious just from that short that you have/do something rare and special that the world is running very low on at the moment!
Magor Kovacs
2025-01-08 23:58:15 +0000 UTCLoved seeing this analysis! I just became a Patreon subscriber a few days ago. Howtown is doing what I wish every channel did: credible journalism, engaging community, passionate science, etc. Absolutely my favorite! I still have to catch up and watch all of the bonus videos, but I’m very excited for those. You’re actually the only Patreon I’ve ever subscribed to so I’m not sure what’s normal, but I’m really happy to be here. Keep it up!
Haley
2024-12-31 16:13:44 +0000 UTCSo glad this is working for you guys. Congrats on the grant! FYI - Access to extra content videos for the topics you cover is the reason I came over to Patreon. I do not usually comment on videos, but I wanted to share to give you more info to work with. Even if you change your Patreon content, I’m pretty hooked on your excellent journalism and production quality, so I’m probably here to stay :)
Marianna Galligani
2024-12-20 06:20:10 +0000 UTCThank you for the update video! One potential use of shorts could be bridging the gap between "patreon content" and "tangential rabbit holes" that could detract from the pacing of your longform videos. E.g. it could act as an appendix of ideas and anecdotes that may not qualify exactly as "bonus content" i.e. patreon exclusive but anchor/cement additional instruction/understanding
Tim
2024-12-19 23:00:40 +0000 UTCSorry to reply so late - would you be interested in like a walkthrough of the animation process? Or something less technical
Joss
2024-12-19 20:57:52 +0000 UTCResponding.....thumbs up! I love your work. The research, the happy touch, and your conversation style
bev fong
2024-12-16 19:14:58 +0000 UTCThe Finland-bump makes me think of the Girls5Eva episode where they decide to write a song about Fort Worth (because it was a big city with no song about it): https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/girls5eva-fort-worth-song/
Marcos
2024-12-08 18:47:30 +0000 UTC¡Gracias por su trabajo! Love you, guys! <3 (Upgrading my Howtown subscription plan will be my Christmas self gift) :)
Paulina A.S.
2024-12-07 18:36:53 +0000 UTCMay I suggest to work together with kurzgesagt in a nutshell. I really love your content.
Ashla
2024-12-03 10:13:53 +0000 UTCThanks for the update! And congrats on a successful first 6 months. Would love to see more BTS content here, especially some details on production challenges. Your animations and visualizations are so great, would love to hear more about the thinking and process that goes into to those. And I definitely wouldn’t say ‘no’ to more music videos and a tour of Joss’ eyewear collection.
Mark B
2024-12-01 15:55:18 +0000 UTCYou basically got it - we knew we'd never be able to keep up a 1 episode/2 weeks schedule (it takes us each 5-6 weeks to research, record, animate etc an episode) so we banked 3 eps before launching. The hope was that we would have some momentum out of the gate and then slowly taper down ... which kinda worked? We're planning a 1 ep/month schedule for the next 6 months and to spend a little more time on the Patreon community. Our hope is that if we can grow our Patreon base we can start to slowly ramp up production again by hiring outside help and then start publishing more frequently.
Joss
2024-12-01 15:01:12 +0000 UTCThank you for this update! I really appreciate how transparent you two have been about your channel's progress. I'm also a Video Consortium member and enjoyed your conversation on the Rough Cut podcast last month. I'm curious about your upload schedule: I noticed that you started the channel with uploads two weeks apart, then three, and now four. Was this a planned strategy from the beginning — starting with more frequent uploads to populate the channel and then slowing down? Or is this a meaningless pattern I've picked up on? 😅 I imagine it must be difficult to balance the deeply researched and well-produced Howtown episodes with the consistency demanded by YouTube's nebulous algorithm. Did you already have a "buffer" of finished videos ready to upload when you launched Howtown?
kikikrazed
2024-11-30 16:47:19 +0000 UTCWeoo - thanks guys, looking forward to six more months!
Chaston Kome
2024-11-30 00:52:47 +0000 UTClove these kind of videos!
patrick gallagher
2024-11-29 16:23:40 +0000 UTCI like the Patreon extras, I watch all of them! Super excited for the upcoming Friday and Monday content as well, can't wait to participate! Also, thank you for doing this "update"! It really does make it feel like we're a part of a community
Vedant Mahabaleshwarkar
2024-11-27 19:31:14 +0000 UTCI’m always curious about what goes into creating so I absolutely love when you guys go into how you approach researching, strategies for the channel, selection process for ideas, etc. like this video or the past brainstorming one! General interest fueled by years of watching How It’s Made videos 😅
Kelvin Nguyen
2024-11-26 18:20:45 +0000 UTCLet us know here in the comments what kind of content you'd like to see here on Patreon!
Joss
2024-11-26 17:15:48 +0000 UTCI’m glad to state of the Howtown is strong and I am extremely excited for what’s to come yall
Jamhad Byers
2024-11-26 16:39:24 +0000 UTCAbout these patreon only videos: The main spark for me to sign up, was that I wanted to see the one of these videos. More info behind the video (Perhaps it was the flat earth video ? Don't remember) A brief consideration of just absolutely supporting the "How" mentality, and here I was. The full Map projection song made it even more worth it ;)
Roel Binnendijk
2024-11-26 16:24:26 +0000 UTC
