Creating The Maker Dad Channel - A New Direction

So I've been talking about the channel and what I'm actually doing now. I'm not doing the alternative platform stuff like I used to. I'm still involved with that, but it's not going to be my main focus anymore. It's not where I am anymore.

I'm moving more into the maker space. I want to make stuff, do woodwork. I've always been into this. All this stuff right here? I made that with my two bare hands and some power tools. I want to do more stuff like this because I actually had fun building it. That's a Murphy bed back there, if you're watching this after the fact. And of course I have this cabinet with two drawers, two open cabinets over here, and then a shelf countertop (whatever you want to call it).

I already have some plans in the mix ready to go. First of all, I'm actually getting the garage set up as a workshop. I posted up on the website at themakerdad.com with photos of the rolling storage, which I was actually surprised about. The missus was very quick to say okay. I'm like, you know, they aren't cheap. She said okay. I'm like, okay, I'm not going to push this any further. Ordered it and had it delivered.

I was quite surprised about that. I'm like, hmm, usually it's a battle, but not this time. I'm kind of thinking to myself, did I just shoot my shot that I could have saved for something else down the road? Now if I want another big purchase, she'll be like, no, you got that. So I think I probably screwed myself, but it is what it is.

Why The Shift?

I'm moving away from covering the alternative platform and content creator side of things. I'm still going to be doing that a little bit, but it's less than 25% of what I'm going to be doing going forward from this year to the heat death of the universe. Or until I decide, oh, I want to do pottery or basket weaving. I don't know. Something.

I just felt like the education space, especially around alternative platforms, has dried up. You don't really see any kind of content or videos from the big players like Harris Heller or EposVox anymore. Well, Harris Heller is posting up videos, but he's doing sponsored videos of cameras and webcams. The education space, the tutorial kind of space, I got into it too late and it's kind of done.

Especially the stuff that I covered. Half my content is defunct. Guilded is dead. Trovo is dying. Moonbeam is gone. I moved all of that content into a playlist, an abandonware playlist. I'll keep the videos up on that particular channel just for the hell of it, but yeah, it's kind of a dead avenue to go towards. Hopefully in the next couple of years it'll pick back up, but who knows.

The Workshop Setup

I've transitioned over into woodworking and makerspace. I'm not going to say it's more pleasurable because you guys will get the wrong idea. It's just more in tune to what I like to do. And eventually I want to get the setup out there so I can record videos and stuff like that. But I want to eventually have it set up so I can do live streaming from out in the workshop as well. That'd be pretty cool.

That's on the future plan. For right now, the near term is actually getting it up and running as a working area. I have a two car garage basically, and the middle of it is a pile of stuff as you would normally have in a garage attached to your house. I've got to build the miter saw station or platform that's going to be mobile. I have enough of the two by fours and MDF platform to actually create that because I took apart the old workbench that I had attached to the wall.

Now, the second thing (actually, the first thing) is painting that side of the wall because it's this ugly concrete textured stuff. Half of it and the other half is drywall that I sanded down because the paint was flaking off. I'm probably going to do a dark gray, something to be kind of a neutral color. I do want to do some cool stuff on that wall where it's actually kind of like a mural, but I still haven't decided exactly what's going to be on there.

I haven't done too much yet because all the stuff in the rolling storage is mobile. I've got to move boxes and some other stuff off the wall and out of the way, which will take maybe 10 minutes. I also got a wood storage rack that you attach onto the wall. You can have it whatever width that you want and set up the wood on top of the platform. I've got to figure out which side I want to put it on, either the concrete wall or the drywall. I'm probably thinking on the concrete side.

When I'm doing videos out there, I'm trying to figure out the set design and which way I want things. I'll probably have two views, one left and one right, so I'm not just stuck in one direction. There's still a lot of stuff I've got to figure out.

Current Projects In The Pipeline

The miter station will be over here between the drawer and the water softener because there's enough space there for it. I'm going to be making a video on building that and getting that set up. I already have some video ideas in the works and ready to go. I just have to build the stuff and then edit and do all that.

The other project is a rolling storage rack for all these chairs and the collapsible table for parties and stuff like that. I want to make a storage rack for these guys as well so you can roll it out of the way or put it in the corner somewhere. It won't just be leaning up against the wall where you have to constantly move stuff out of the way. Being more organized, that's the major important part of it.

After that, I'm actually going to start building the standing desk for the office. I want to just make a tabletop, have the frame, and do an adjustable standing desk. There's a couple different ways I can go about it, either through a crank like the IKEA one, but that's a super expensive option. The other options is have it motorized and have the up and down through a push button. I just haven't priced everything out.

What The Channel Will Be About

Content is plentiful. I kind of want to base the entire channel around being laid back. I'm not one of these channels that are doing tool reviews. I'd be happy to get sponsored by Craftsman because I've got a crap ton of Craftsman stuff, as you saw. But no, I'm just wanting it to be kind of a laid back channel where I'm talking about the actual projects themselves and the process and just showing the work as I build through each project.

That's basically what the channel is going to be about. It's MakerDad, the MakerDad official on YouTube. I'll put the links on the website (I don't know why I didn't do that, I should have done that).

Why I Made This Change

I posted this up on the website weeks ago, but I wasn't really having as much fun creating the content that I was making for the alternative platform stuff. It wasn't sparking joy for me. I took a couple months off from October to now where I really didn't make any videos. I was kind of like, you know, this is it. I'm done. I need to do something different or I was going to go crazy.

I didn't want to just drop everything and get rid of everything, but I did drop a lot of stuff. A lot of the subscriptions I was actually paying for, I was like, yeah, I'm not using it. Why keep paying for it? They were basically in service of what I was doing. I needed them to make the tutorials and videos about the services and stuff like that, but I wasn't in need of them anymore.

Especially for the forums. I was using Invision Community. If you don't know the price tag for that, it's $200 a year. You thought I was going to say per month. No, even at that I was like, no, $200 a year. And I had two licenses, so that's $400 a year. I kind of pushed that off and I was like I don't want to do this anymore. I know there is a market, but I just don't have the heart to do the content around Invision Community because that would be leading more into a B2B kind of relationship, talking about how to set up Invision Community for your company or corporation.

It was a business decision that I made. I'll just walk away from all this stuff. And it was a breath of fresh air, really. It was something that needed to be done.

What's Coming Up

I'm going to be streaming on Twitch until I can get the YouTube site taken care of because I need channel history on YouTube. I'll get that up and running and we'll get some videos and live streams over on YouTube and get a community started over there.

I also have at least 20 episodes planned because I'm going to be doing a podcast type of thing, the Maker Dad Podcast. I have at least 20 episode ideas and they're all fleshed out. I just have to record them and go through the whole process of getting them set up and ready to go, and that'll be weekly. I'm going to start the first one probably Thursday or Friday. I still have to get some graphics work done and ready to go.

Yeah, the ball's rolling. Let's do this.

Definitely check out the website at themakerdad.com (I don't know why I have such hard times with these website domain names, and this is the most simple one I've created so far besides Two-Tone Waffle).

Welcome to the Maker Dad.