This week, I focused on connecting the persistent store for chats and user services, using Drizzle for relational database. I worked on building the services, redesigned data models. On the content side, I scheduled my blog post for next week, continued creating gaming highlights, and studied the success of iShowSpeed on Youtube. I also started creating a second channel for gaming content and experimented with stream highlights short form content, by doing so, I was able to clean up my main channel specifically for engineering, storytelling and project building. In terms of business, I finished reading the “How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age” and “Traffic Secrets” and started to draft the marketing landing page for all of my projects.
Monday
Product
I wanted to connect the persistent store for both the chat service and user service.
In the beginning I wanted to use Firebase since I’m already using Firebase Cloud Messaging for Push Notifications but after some thinking I thought it would be much better to focus on what worked before — that is using Drizzle.
IN the past I’ve used Drizzle / relational database for my projects, I could easily use MongoDB if I wanted to but that would testing since I have no experience in connecting it with express app nor using it on the cloud. I wanted to use what already worked before to save time with the same codebase.
So that’s exactly what I did, I went over to my previous project called ArchieOS and copied the same exact code for setting up and deploying the database in production in Vercel. So I had setup the same Docker Compose for development environment and testing. I started creating the tables based on the data models I had designed before
Content
Last week, I missed out on doing my Twitch Optimisation and improvements in my stream and making the 2nd short form content for the week.
Yesterday before the stream, I wanted to improve the features of my Twitch Stream using alerts, tips and donations and updating the about page. I had been inspired by other streamers such as iShowSpeed’s growth, Jill on BeanDip channel for.
Initially I had some issues donation feature since Streamlabs requires a business account on PayPal and I only had a personal account
Luckily PayPal makes this transition much easier for you and it could just be one button for change.
I also continued my content experimentation with gaming highlights, I published a short video of my 6 bomb on CS2 and I really enjoy the process of simply publishing it and sharing it to others. It’s currently performing okay on tiktok but on youtube, I don’t know how this would impact my current audience on Youtube. Maybe it’s smarter to create another channel dedicated for gaming rather than engineering videos. But I’ll wait for a week to see how it changes.
Business
IN the book How to Win Friends and Influence People, How to leave people with long lasting impression:
Be genuinely interested in other people
Smile more
Use people’s names
Be a good listener
Make them feel important
Leave others a little better
In the Chapter How to Lead Change Without brewing resentment, he advices for employees to make sure its safe for them to admit their mistakes honestly and readily, so they can recover and learn quickly.
There are 5 actions to take to instill this organisation environments:
Acknowledge that failure happens
Encourage dialogue to foster trust
Separate the person from the failure
Learn from your mistakes
Create a risk-taking and failure system
The company’s effort to design as an effort to find the borderline between what is possible and what is not possible and design along it. The best designs are those that fall right on the edge of the borderline… That is the space of innovation, the space whjere we test our talents and grow as individuals
Tuesday
Product
I started to build services for chat and user repositories and tables on database and even redesigning the data models.
Content
I published my blog on current progress on the project on Substack.
I continued with my strategy of filming my design and progres in building the project.
I continued studying iShowSpeed’s success on youtube, I analysed some of his older videos and growth strategy on Youtube. It’s quite refreshing to see how he grew his channel almost organically through consistent uploads and livestreams in the very beginning. His own personality helped him become more viral as others continue to create small accounts dedicate for him. We can learn a lot from his success and how virality can easily spread through 30s clips
IShowSpeed: ‘Streaming can only get you so far. I want to do it all’
iShowSpeed Net Worth: Teenage Millionaire Streamer - MoneyMade
I wanted to learn how to improve my streams, I started off which the platforms I stream.
In this video, he explains why Youtube is better for newcomers thanks to all the analytics and SEO tools available on Youtube.
My goal is to prioritise Youtube over any platforms, but I don’t want to miss out on the opportunities in other platforms such as Twitch. Nothing will replace Twitch but growing on Youtube is essential for being a content creator and building a business in the future.
In this post, they go into detail the pros and cons of each platforms
https://fourthwall.com/blog/youtube-vs-twitch-where-should-a-creator-stream#:~:text=YouTube's platform allows content creators,fewer growth opportunities for newcomers
I continued studying the rise of iShowSpeed and looked at it from the personal branding sense, what makes his character so captivating that makes his fans in IRL go insane? You can ask the same question for the likes of Taylor Swift, Donald Trump, What about them that makes them so magnetic and formidable in media?
I looked into Chris Do’s 3 character traits
Self-Confidence
Self-Awareness
Self-Acceptance
I looked into Alex Hormozi’s breakdown of Taylor Swift influence:
Longevity
Do things that scales
Show vulnerability
She shows ownership of her music
Embrace the ability to make a change
Business
I continued reading the How to Win Friends and Influence People
If you want to lead change without resistance or resentment, here is one strategy to use
Call out other’s mistakes quietly
Delivery praise as soon as possible
I studied what makes a magnetic personality like Donald Trump and Taylor Swift, here’s what made them stick in people’s minds
Consistent persona
Relatable — they engage with fans and share stories with them
Evoke Emotions
Clear messaging of their values, goals and what they stand for
High quality output and dedication
Strategic controversy and media presence
Evolve publicly
Wednesday
Product
I finished building the chat services and messages, I even expanded into designing the device management for the user to save the device’s information for notifications
I’m worked on improving my data models
I caught up with Buildspace lecture 5
Content
I read a post that breaks down the rise of iShowSpeed’s success on Youtube
Inside IShowSpeed’s $7 Million+ YouTube Empire | Growth Strategies & Financial Insights
Strategies for growth
Consistency
Authenticity
Engagement
Diverse Content
Collaboration
I added a content scorecard for my Youtube video template that I learnt from Magnates Media
I learnt to stream properly in Ludwig’s video, he advices to stream for Youtube Videos
Streams are for recordings that eventually become a Youtube Video segments that has better title and thumbnail that become part of a Youtube Video
Form ideas around video titles
You don’t have to have original video ideas
To grow on Twitch, you need to start:
Collaborating with other creators
Start in smaller communities before becoming a variety streamer
Hosting Big events
I upgraded my stream to multistream on Youtube and Twitch using Restream. During the evening, I tried multistreaming for the first time, but I faced an issue getting Restream to worm on Twitch. What I noticed yesterday, is that it acknowledges that I’m live but the video shows that I’m offline. Either I use Youtube as VODs only or I use them simulataneously whenever I’m live
Business
I finished reading the book How to Win Friends and Influence People. I thought that book was interesting and useful not just for daily interactions but even your social media presence. I thought the book goes along well with 33 Strategies of War since that book also outlines ways for warfare and influence.
After reading the book, I became more interested in how to turn conversations to engaging and meaningful.
I watched a book summary of the book SuperCommunicators by Charles Duhigg, these are some of the strategies they outlined:
Loop for understanding
Ask DEEP questions. DEEP stands for Dreams, Elevated Experiences and Passions
Reciprocate Vulnerability
He states that most meaningful discussions should be a learning conversation where I intentionally learn how people around us see thew world and help them understand our perspectives in turn
Thursday
Product
I worked on building the services in my backend service for device, along with user, chat, call and credit management.
I have yet to work on the controllers and that is something I need to learn about. How do you structure an express service using layered architecture?
I recently saw a post from the Product Hunt CEO about the 6 biggest mistakes to do when launching:
Launching without supporters or an audience — use coming soon to tease your supporters
Rushing to write your copy
Launching too late — launch at 12am to stay visible all day
Don’t Ignore commenters
Having an empty profile page
Content
I made a realisation yesterday. Why am I working towards turning this into a product when I initially plan to use this is project for content challenge?
From this thinking, I started think about the product in a way different way. I can’t work on the video without this project in a different state. So I listed out the features that I will need to complete the challenge.
I believe the more appropriate approach for the project is to not view as a product but as a prop for content before turning it into a product. Having this in mind would’ve ease off the pressure of launching immediately on the Appstore.
I started to ideate the different ways I could make content about this product, besides from the challenges similar to Mark Rober, I thought about making similar videos as I did in my previous product, the behind the scenes, product updates.
Because I wanted to do more Youtube, I’ve been thinking about creating a second channel specifically for gaming content. But I’m not sure if this is the right move. One way I could see why is because people didn’t subscribed for gaming content rather for engineering and educational content.
Gaming (Adding this as an extra)
I made a realisation yesterday how I play CS2. The one takeaway from playing with the ‘pros’
Business
One of the things I started to think about in How to Win Friends and Influence People is asking this question in the book to myself:
How can I make others a little better?
“…The smaller seeds sown meaningfully reaped a bigger harvest…”
According to Tony Robbins, the real key to winning friends and influencing people today is to constantly add “meaning and value”
I started ideating and drafting my landing page for my marketing funnel. I looked into different inspirations and the entire Marketing Funnel to figure out what sort of traffic or audience am I expecting here?
I continued reading the Traffic Secrets by Russel Brunson. I learn about ‘Work Your Way In, Buy Your Way in Secret.
Work Your Way In — involves leveraging organic methods to build relationships, establish authority, and attract traffic without spending money ojn advertising
I recently saw effective organic marketing using Tiktok. I actually plan on doing the same to my profile since it is well produced and easily replicable.
Friday
Product
I finished building APIs that I plan to connect my client to, started learning the routing mechanism in express
During my livestream, a viewer suggested using Nest JS over Express. I candidly explain why my currently using Express over any other technologies — TL:DR — it’s the one that worked in the moment and I simply doubled down on it.
Content
I uploaded my first shorts on a content curation based turned Tweet then turned as a Short for the first time. The editing took longer than expected, I believe the person that really started doing this is Alex Hormozi. I uploaded the video in the same day, but there are plenty of improvements I could make. By doing so, expands my content creation other than from gaming, to building a product and now to video form of content curation.
Uploading it to both Tiktok and Youtube has been a hassle that could be better improved.
I actually recorded the segment of me reading a content curated content on the livestream, as part of my Twitch improvements. My goal is to make the most of the stream following the model that Megyn Kelly uses, Ludwig and other political channels where they have multiple segments of the show and then cutting those into videos and short forms. Perhaps I need to start thinking about the stream in a more detailed fashion and subdividing it into segments that makes it easier to create long form Youtube Videos and short forms.
I plan to continue expanding my content creation inputs, to different types of audio, video, text forms. Tomorrow I’ll be experimenting with Stream Highlights which is a mix bag of leetcoding, building and gaming.
I earned at least 2 follower this week on Twitch and fixed my multi-stream on both Youtube and Twitch but I have seen issues with copyrighted music
Business
Traffic Secrets by Russel Brunson.
One of the things I’ve been starting to learn from the book Traffic Secrets is this concept from Gary V, it’s “Document, Don’t Create”
If you want to people to start listening to you, you have to show up everyday until you get noticed.
In most cases, you watch the first episode of a show but have seen bits and pieces shared across the internet. The same concept should be applied to your show.
“Continue publishing if you want to stay relevant or you will never remain relevant” - Russel Brunson
Saturday
Product
I caught up with Buildspace weekly update, uploaded my segment on weekly updates. I briefly worked on the product, and I realised that the demo will be Friday! The thing is, the product is kinda done. IN fact I used my AI number to verify myself for Youtube! Which made me realise I need to expand the use case of this number to SMS and text!
Content
As I was editing my videos for the second channel, I kept notes on how to improve my livestream and how might I start adding segments through curated content made for short form tweets.
I decided to clean up my main channel and expanded to another channel specifically for live-streaming content, highlights, gaming and VODs, away from the engineering-storytelling and educational channel. This gives me enough leeway to produce content outside of software engineering and repurpose livestream to other areas that my viewers might be interested in as well.
I decided to re-upload my shorts form content for gaming to my 2nd channel. My strategy is segment my streams so that I have a space for engineering projects and showcase and a place for VODs, stream highlights and even gaming.
I fixed my audio track issues and separated each one of them into multiple tracks. It gives me an ability to get the sound in multiple ‘layers’ for later user in editing but also to avoid getting copyrighted both on Youtube and Twitch
I also uploaded my first Youtube Stream Highlights with a better title and thumbnail! I plan to follow this work for all of my Livestreams as a creative outlet and ensure my momentum for Youtube.
When it comes to the live-streaming, I want to use the same strategy that iShowSpeed uses and Ludwig to make for an effective Youtube video.
For the main channel, I want to continue uploading more videos on engineering related content so I get my channel up to 500 subscribers. How might I make my engineering building segments into episodes? I don’t know yet, or should I use it for something else like a bigger video? I have been inconsistent with Youtube Creation. I recently learnt Gary’s creation model, rather than focusing on storytelling, document your journey instead. This really eases off the pressure of creating videos on stories and challenges which is the trend on big Youtubers — it’s a mindset shift but it would enable me to make more videos.
I receive comments on how to improve shorts form content via on Youtube for the first time! What I realised after watching my own content is that I need to improve my public speaking skills and how to speak well in front of the camera.
Business
I continued reading the Traffic Secrets
I started working on my Landing Page
Sunday
Product
I briefly worked on the product’s API controllers for device management. The product is due for launch next week, I’m goal is no longer to launch on the app store, rather the finish all the features and demo the project live AND make the youtube challenge for this product.
Content
I finished writing my blog post about the product progress and drafted my newsletter for this week.
I worked on creating my Idea Generation Machine for Youtube incorporating the techniques that Mark Rober Particularly and other big Youtubers use. Then I used AI to generate title ideas by following a series of criteria about the video. When the AI generates a new video idea, honestly, even I was that intrigued to find more about that video particularly when it’s about tech
Business
I’ve been starting to draft my landing page for all my projects.
I’ve been reading the Traffic Secrets and I’ve been loving the Fill Your Funnel Chapter. He goes over strategies and workflows to post on each platform. He even advices to focus on one platform before growing to another. I’ve heard of this advice before and that’s why for me, it’s crucial I’m taking Youtube even more seriously this quarter so that I can lean in to more important project.
If you enjoy the $100 Leads by Alex Hormozi, You’re going to find the DotCom Traffic Secrets by Russel Brunson, as he goes into detail about content creation for each platform and how to gain more traffic to your funnel through these social channels
That’s it for this week! Next week is going to be more about building the product, launching and demo-ing on buildspace and changing my content to more intentional content.