When content becomes your king

Published on

January 13th, 2022

Author

Dan Shipper

Category

Interviews

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Matt D’Avella on creator burnout and building an audience for the long run

Dan Shipper is an entrepreneur, writer, and the co-founder and CEO of Every, a bundle of business-focused newsletters, founded in 2020. Find him on Twitter: @danshipper. This post was co-written by Dan and Kieran O'Hare.

Everyone wants a successful YouTube channel, but very few people talk about how to keep it once you build it. Matt D’Avella had to figure that out for himself.

He’s a documentary filmmaker and YouTuber with 3 million subscribers who covers minimalism, habits, and productivity. He started out by releasing one video a week—and soon his numbers started to pick up. It was exhilarating at first: he never expected his videos to get so popular so quickly. When they did, what started out as a fun outlet for creative expression soon became something entirely different.

Matt wanted to make sure that his channel growth didn’t stop and that his existing subscribers stuck around. So he doubled down on doing exactly what he’d been doing from the start: continue releasing one video a week, and trying to make each one as popular as possible:

“It was this kind of internal belief I had created for myself. I guess I believed that if I stopped making them [on that schedule], then people would stop showing up.”

In this interview, we go through the systems and processes Matt uses to keep his channel growing without burning out. We go into everything from how he sets goals, to how he does his email, to the habit that changed his life.

This is an excerpt from an article originally published on Every, a publication and writer collective focused on business.

Read the interview.

Comments (3)

Karan Bavandi @karan_bavandi

This definition has resonated with me and clearly describes what you describe: Anything that comes into existence is because its emergence is sustained by a ritual! Our existence is guaranteed by breath! For the same reason marketing campaigns are measured by reach and frequency! You will stay top of mind as long as you continue to create new content! There is certainly a lot to be learned from people who have walked this walk and established processes that make this work!

Jan 18, 2022