[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":191},["ShallowReactive",2],{"navigation":3,"/blog/my-youtube-channel-2375-subscribers-and-a-year-of-silence":26,"/blog/my-youtube-channel-2375-subscribers-and-a-year-of-silence-surround":186},[4],{"title":5,"path":6,"stem":7,"children":8,"page":25},"Blog","/blog","blog",[9,13,17,21],{"title":10,"path":11,"stem":12},"I Built a Service Area Checking Tool. It's Shit.","/blog/i-built-a-service-area-tool-its-shit","blog/i-built-a-service-area-tool-its-shit",{"title":14,"path":15,"stem":16},"I Built a SaaS, People Wanted to Pay Me, So I Took It Offline","/blog/i-built-estimate-calculators-then-took-it-offline","blog/i-built-estimate-calculators-then-took-it-offline",{"title":18,"path":19,"stem":20},"My YouTube Channel: 2,375 Subscribers and a Year of Silence","/blog/my-youtube-channel-2375-subscribers-and-a-year-of-silence","blog/my-youtube-channel-2375-subscribers-and-a-year-of-silence",{"title":22,"path":23,"stem":24},"Switching to Nuxt - Why I'm moving away from WordPress","/blog/switching-to-nuxt","blog/switching-to-nuxt",false,{"id":27,"title":18,"author":28,"body":32,"date":176,"description":177,"extension":178,"image":179,"meta":180,"minRead":181,"navigation":182,"ogImage":183,"path":19,"seo":184,"stem":20,"__hash__":185},"blog/blog/my-youtube-channel-2375-subscribers-and-a-year-of-silence.md",{"name":29,"avatar":30},"John Simeone",{"src":31,"alt":29},"/john-simeone.png",{"type":33,"value":34,"toc":167},"minimark",[35,39,42,53,58,61,64,67,71,74,81,87,93,99,103,109,115,121,125,128,131,146,150,153,156,164],[36,37,38],"p",{},"I started a YouTube channel because my girlfriend got pregnant. That's the honest answer. No grand plan to become a content creator. No passion for being on camera. Just a developer who suddenly needed to figure out how to get more clients and had no idea how marketing worked.",[36,40,41],{},"The logic, if you can call it that, went something like this: people watch YouTube. Some of those people need websites. If I make videos about web development, maybe some of those people will hire me. Eventually. Somehow.",[36,43,44,45,52],{},"That was the entire strategy. The channel is called ",[46,47,51],"a",{"href":48,"rel":49},"https://codingoblin.com",[50],"nofollow","codingoblin"," and it currently has 2,375 subscribers. I haven't posted in over a year.",[54,55,57],"h2",{"id":56},"the-quantity-trap","The quantity trap",[36,59,60],{},"When I started, I did what everyone on the internet tells you to do. Post consistently. Upload as often as possible. The algorithm rewards frequency. So I tried to upload every day.",[36,62,63],{},"The problem with uploading every day is that you run out of things worth saying very quickly. I started making videos for the sake of making videos. Talking to the camera about whatever came to mind. Tutorials I hadn't properly planned. Hot takes that were lukewarm at best. \"Day in the life\" content that nobody asked for.",[36,65,66],{},"I got good at one thing though. Speaking freely on camera. After a few hundred videos of just talking, the awkwardness disappeared. I could sit down, hit record, and talk for ten minutes without a script. That's a skill I still have and I'm glad I developed it. But the content itself? Most of it wasn't good. I knew it at the time and I know it now.",[54,68,70],{"id":69},"what-actually-worked","What actually worked",[36,72,73],{},"Not everything was a waste. A few things genuinely worked.",[36,75,76,80],{},[77,78,79],"strong",{},"The tutorials that I actually prepared for."," When I sat down and planned a proper tutorial - a DaisyUI component walkthrough, a Laravel Jetstream setup, deploying Nuxt to a specific host - those videos performed. They ranked in search. They brought in subscribers who stuck around.",[36,82,83,86],{},[77,84,85],{},"The loyal community."," Despite the quantity-over-quality approach, I somehow built a small group of regulars. People who watched every video, commented consistently, and genuinely engaged. That was unexpected and honestly one of the best parts of the whole thing.",[36,88,89,92],{},[77,90,91],{},"Getting monetised."," YouTube approved the channel for monetisation. The ad revenue was small - nothing life-changing - but it proved the concept worked at a basic level. More importantly, it opened the door to sponsorships.",[36,94,95,98],{},[77,96,97],{},"Sponsored content."," I did some sponsored videos for Cloudways, the hosting platform. Those paid significantly more than YouTube ad revenue. One sponsored video was worth months of AdSense. That was an eye-opener about where the real money in content creation comes from.",[54,100,102],{"id":101},"what-didnt-work","What didn't work",[36,104,105,108],{},[77,106,107],{},"Uploading every day."," Frequency without quality is just noise. The algorithm doesn't reward consistency if people aren't watching. And they weren't - not most of the time.",[36,110,111,114],{},[77,112,113],{},"No direction."," I never properly decided what the channel was about. Was it Laravel tutorials? Vue.js content? Build-in-public vlogs? Talking head opinions? It was all of these things and none of them. A channel that's about everything is about nothing.",[36,116,117,120],{},[77,118,119],{},"Expecting clients from YouTube."," Remember the original plan? Make videos, get clients? That barely happened. A few people reached out over the years, but the conversion from \"YouTube viewer\" to \"paying client\" is so low that it's not a viable marketing strategy on its own. Not at my scale anyway.",[54,122,124],{"id":123},"the-year-long-break","The year-long break",[36,126,127],{},"About a year ago I stopped uploading. Not because I burned out or lost interest. I stopped because I realised I had nothing valuable to say.",[36,129,130],{},"That sounds harsh but it's true. I was making content about building things while not actually building anything. Talking about projects I hadn't shipped. Giving opinions about tools I hadn't used in production. Recording videos about \"my journey\" when the journey had stalled because I was spending all my time recording videos.",[36,132,133,134,139,140,145],{},"I decided to actually build stuff. Ship projects. Get ",[46,135,138],{"href":136,"rel":137},"https://serviceareawizard.com",[50],"Service Area WIZARD"," to nearly 300 users. Build ",[46,141,144],{"href":142,"rel":143},"https://estimatecalculators.com",[50],"Estimate Calculators",". Work on real client projects. Create things worth talking about so that when I came back to the camera, I'd have something to show instead of just something to say.",[54,147,149],{"id":148},"whats-next","What's next",[36,151,152],{},"I think I'm close to coming back. Not to tutorials though. AI has made the \"how to install TailwindCSS in Nuxt\" style of video mostly pointless. Why watch a 10-minute video when you can ask an AI and get the answer in 30 seconds?",[36,154,155],{},"What AI can't replicate is the story. The decisions, the mistakes, the \"I built this and here's what happened\" content. That's what I want to do next. Talk about my websites. How they're doing. What's making money and what isn't. The real numbers and the real decisions behind them.",[36,157,158,159,163],{},"The ",[46,160,162],{"href":48,"rel":161},[50],"codingoblin website"," is still live. The YouTube channel still exists. The 2,375 subscribers are still there - or at least the ones who haven't forgotten about me. When I come back, it won't be with daily uploads of whatever I can think of. It'll be with something actually worth watching.",[36,165,166],{},"Or at least that's what I tell myself. Ask me again in six months.",{"title":168,"searchDepth":169,"depth":169,"links":170},"",2,[171,172,173,174,175],{"id":56,"depth":169,"text":57},{"id":69,"depth":169,"text":70},{"id":101,"depth":169,"text":102},{"id":123,"depth":169,"text":124},{"id":148,"depth":169,"text":149},"2026-05-02T00:00:00.000Z","I started a YouTube channel because my girlfriend got pregnant and I didn't know how to market myself. Here's what happened - the good, the bad, and the year-long break.","md","/codingoblin-youtube-screenshot.png",{},7,true,null,{"title":18,"description":177},"G17CmYZ0gvgwqSjT0noTVA81aw9w_XIN8h0Kd2DlZLY",[187,189],{"title":14,"path":15,"stem":16,"description":188,"children":-1},"The story of Estimate Calculators - a tool I spent years thinking about, finally built, then pulled offline the moment it started working.",{"title":22,"path":23,"stem":24,"description":190,"children":-1},"A look into why I have decided to focus on building websites with Nuxt as opposed to WordPress",1777710472259]