My love letter to streamers
Don’t tell my wife I’m writing a love letter to anyone besides her, ok?
I love you guys. Streamers, broadcasters, content creators: whatever you feel is the most relevant label for you. You do damn good work and you build meaningful, caring, supportive communities out of nothing. You bring people together as friends; people who may never have met without your help. They get an awesome place to hang out, totally for free. That so many of them choose to support you speaks for itself. You’re making a difference.
I’m constantly staggered by the pure passion I see fueling Twitch. How many hours do you guys put in? So many of you work full time, stream, produce videos for YouTube, and manage a community. Even if this is your full-time thing I know you’re grinding out extra content, thinking of new show formats, wrangling sponsors, improving your design, and juggling all of the things involved in running a business.
No one would do that if it weren’t for the passion fueling all of you. I get weird looks from colleagues in the financial planning space when I say that the people I work with aren’t antsy to retire or looking to just stop working. It’s the opposite! I see you all wanting to do more and make things better and further involve and support your community. If you’re full-time already you want to do it better. If you’re not yet full-time it’s the dream. The streaming community is nuts and it’s great.
Here are some of the things that I think are the coolest discoveries I’ve made via streamers. This is far from a comprehensive list, but if I listed everyone this article would be disgustingly long:
- Rudeism taught me the joy of creating something, even if it’s wacky, and using your unique skills to make life a little better for everyone. Does a baguette sniper rifle controller for Overwatch help the world directly? Like not, but it makes me laugh which brightens up my day. It also might inspire someone with some engineering talent to try something wacky of their own that ends up helping us all.
- Lowco helped show me how giving back to those who are following in your footsteps can make a meaningful difference. Her site helps streamers through every step of their journey and helps everyone get a little better at what they do. LunchBreakLP + the whole Lunchroom crew showed me something similar when it comes to community building.
- ScottOnesieWilson, Billy1Kirby, DolphinChemist, CyberBilly, and CovertMuffin all showed me how the pursuit of excellence can lead to awesome things. Those first four were all mentors of mine in FTL, which I now play with some competency in an insanely difficult way. They may not know they were mentors but their clear excellence helped me find places I could improve. CovertMuffin does something I never want to do (speed running) but damn is he good at it. It’s always a ton of fun to watch him defeat a game, not just play it. Their pursuit of excellence not only impresses me but inspires me to do better myself. I see them exceeding what’s expected of you in unique and interesting ways.
- HeroesOfFitness helped remind me how important it is to stay in shape and showed me ways to do it while gaming. Their stretch and workout breaks are informative, inviting, and effective. They helped me realize that I could bring my outside talents to Twitch to hopefully make a difference.
- Finally, Day[9] showed me how important it is to help other people feel joy. He’s the one who got me in to Twitch and streaming in the first place. His consistent good nature and affability can turn any negative day into a pleasant experience. He also showed me I wasn’t alone in being obsessed with video games. His (and Eric’s) talent at building community and bringing on great people helped me find others through the DayKnight community who I now spend tons of time with.
That’s a whole lot of amazing life lessons rolled up into one platform. Unfortunately, I’ve also seen the struggle of doing what you do. You’re passionate hobbyists who had it turn into a job… or you wish it could turn in to a job. While that’s a really, really cool place to be it also leaves a lot of room for major errors that can cost you the dream. Let’s be honest, most of us are not naturally great at running a business or managing our money.
It breaks my heart when I see broadcasters considering stepping away from streaming because they can’t sustain it financially. It hurts when I see someone run themselves into the ground at tax time because they didn’t prepare throughout the year. And man, it kills me when I see even major broadcasters worry about losing it all because they’re not sure what’s coming next or if they could survive something that pulled them away from broadcasting.
I hope this conveys why I chose to start my business. I see so much potential in all of you. It might already be a full-time gig for you but if not you can get there if you work hard, have some luck, improve constantly, and make smart decisions.
I just want to do my part to contribute and to make everyone stronger. I’m not as gifted or practiced in bringing joy to others so I’ll contribute what I know: financial planning. So many of you are accidental business owners who pursued passion and found something you could build to support yourself. I want to help you make it intentional, repeatable, and most of all reduce the stress of running it yourself. You do you and if you need some help along the way, let me know. We’ll make something work.
You don’t have to figure this out alone. This is what we do- help streamers make great money decisions. If that’s something that sounds interesting to you reach out me or schedule some time for a free consult. You can check out what I do here.
