Why I am making YouTube videos

I thought it was probably worth sharing the goals behind the channel with you, to give context to how your support matters, and explain a bit more about where I want to go in the future.

At the start the move to YouTube was twofold:

1. No one reads blogs any more. I can be upset about it, or I can accept a change in the landscape of how we learn and entertain ourselves.

2. I've enjoyed making little videos for a long time, and this was an excuse to dive deeper into it as a hobby. (Though my ability to keep hobbies separate from work is sorely lacking...)

The channel has started to pick up some momentum this year, in large part because Patreon has given me a powerful mixture of resources and accountability. It's also because I've become much clearer about what the point of it all is.

Speciality coffee has many problems. One is the supply/demand imbalance on the consumer end. We have a lot of coffee roasters, cafes and businesses that are able to supply a great deal of great coffee. We don't have enough customers. As a business owner, I can either go and fight my competitors for a slightly larger slice of market share or I can try and grow the market - and that's what YouTube is about. My goal is to use the largest social platform (everyone uses YouTube) to reach those people who might care a little more about coffee. Then, hopefully, win their trust and then drag them down our little rabbit hole and leave them as someone who sees value in what we do, value in sustainable coffee production, value in a massively undervalued product.

So why reviews?

Reviews, I think, are a great way to find people who have a little bit of interest. Hopefully, they are also a way to build trust, which is why honesty and impartiality are so important to me. Hopefully they watch another video, even better they subscribe and I have a chance to take them on a journey.

Here's a comment from today's video (in which I'm not particularly subtle):

It's not a perfect example, but it does give me hope that this might be a good path forward.

What's planned then?

Aside from more of what I'm already doing, behind the scenes, I'm working on a few bigger projects. I'm aware I don't really have the skillset to start producing good mini-documentaries, but I'm going to learn by doing (the ethos of good YouTube I think). Next year there'll hopefully be more stories from outside of my little studio. I'm an enormous fan of what Jonny Harris does at Borders for Vox, and I feel like coffee is bursting at the seams with stories to tell.

So, this is where I'm going. There's a bigger plan, and even if it fails then we'll have created an archive of videos that hopefully help people make better choices around coffee and coffee equipment.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I will say thank you again for all your support.

James