The Power of Constraints

"Art lives from constraints and dies from freedom.” - Leonardo da Vinci

Long time no talk!

Here’s yet another email where I make excuses for not writing more regularly.

I could give you some great excuses.

However, I always have a lot going on. Here are some of the things I’ve been up to since we last talked.

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Yoga With Adriene

This summer, we held our first live Yoga With Adriene event since the pandemic. The Bentway hosted us, and it was easily one of our best live events. Over 2,000 people attended, all the details ran smoothly, and the energy was amazing.

Yoga With Adriene @ The Bentway. Photo by Brandon Ferguson.

We’ve been creating videos for the YWA channel for over 12 years. In the early days, when the channel was small, it was easy to see our direct impact on people. Some of that direct connection can get lost as things scale up - and also just from doing the same thing for so long. To be back in real life with our YouTube family was like plugging back into the energy source and getting recharged. It re-energized me about both live events and the channel itself.

I left the event feeling inspired, humbled, and reinvigorated about our work.

The Bentway put together this great video to give you a glimpse of what it was like.

thebentway

A post shared by @thebentway

Musou Movement

We just celebrated the first birthday of our little movement studio in Greenville, SC. We have been so focused on the studio that most of our digital plans have been slightly put on the back burner. But to survive 12 months as a bootstrapped brick-and-mortar gym is a success worth celebrating. Most businesses don’t survive a year, and the failure rate for gyms is even higher.

On October 1st, we’re opening our first expansion - a restoration studio centered around hot and cold therapy. Later this year, we’ll be opening our second location. In January, we’re launching our first big online project. The YouTube channel will be back in action around that time as well. This endeavor has had a steep learning curve, but we’ve finally made it to profitability.

Phase Two will be amazing—A massive shout-out to Sean Russel Herman, the man on the ground who is making it all happen.

FWFG

I’ve been spending a lot of time behind the scenes on our app and membership. We are closing in on seven years of this project! While it continues to be a big success, we’ve been at a plateau for the past 24 months.

With that in mind, I’ve been focused on reworking our internal systems, adding new features, and pivoting our marketing efforts away from paid and back to email and community. These efforts are finally starting to pay off. We have reduced churn, increased new sign-ups, and extended the amount of time members spend on the service. Most importantly, there is a renewed feeling of excitement all around.

I’ll be going into much more detail about this very soon.

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The Future of This Newsletter

This newsletter falls under my “creative/fun” project category. So, it tends to get bumped off my to-do list in favor of what I need to do at the main businesses.

So why am I even writing it?

I guess it’s because I like writing about this stuff.

I love YouTube, independent media, digital business, and the Creators who drive it all forward.

And I’ve genuinely enjoyed getting to know all of you.

And the truth is, I have been writing a lot.

But I haven’t been publishing.

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A few weeks ago, I stumbled across the Word Docs for an entire nonfiction book. I wrote it in the early days of the pandemic. I’d already moved past the jigsaw puzzle and paint-by-number phase of lockdowns, and there wasn’t much else to do. The book was the whole story of my YouTube “career,” including all the details about starting the businesses and figuring everything out.

I enjoyed the process of writing it.

But once it was finished, I hated it.

The files have been sitting there in the cloud ever since. Looking back on it a few years later, I thought it was pretty good. It brought back so many memories but also made me miss writing this newsletter.

I realized I needed to keep the infrastructure (and expectations) as limited as possible to keep going.

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My most successful projects were created with severe constraints.

They’ve included:

• lack of money

• lack of time

• lack of cameras & gear

• lack of knowledge

• lack of connections

• etc.

All of these limitations have forced me to get creative.

In the early days of Hilah Cooking, we had one camera, a wired Lavalier mic, two work lights, and an old shower curtain (for diffusion). I would call “cut” and move the camera closer when I needed an insert shot of the food. Then, I’d move the camera back to the primary position, and we’d continue. We were essentially editing in-camera. Insane!

The shower curtain diffusion was used in all the early Hilah Cooking videos.

When we were two years into Yoga With Adriene and still not making any money, we decided to try selling an online course. If it didn’t work, we were seriously considering quitting. So we got it shot and edited. Then, I realized I had no idea how to sell an online video course.

We had already announced it to our audience, so there was no turning back. At the time, there was no simple way to sell an online video course. Or at least I didn’t know of one. Kajabi, Podia, and Gumroad didn’t exist at the time. At the last minute, I hacked something together, and we put the course up for sale. I clicked “send” on the launch email, and almost immediately, my PayPal app started dinging to announce new sales. It worked! And it gave our business a lifeline at a critical time when we were close to giving up.

Sometimes, doing things wrong is the key to unlocking entirely new opportunities.

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Historically, one of the things that has bogged me down is technology.

Not the limitations, but the lack of limitations.

I can waste weeks tinkering with different platforms, templates, and website themes. The amount of time I’ve wasted on this is mind-boggling and depressing.

With this in mind, I’ve decided to impose limitations on this project and myself.

First up, I’ve moved the newsletter over to Substack.

I’ve been using ConvertKit for a few years. It’s great.

But I need something worse.

I need fewer options.

My goal is to keep things as simple (and ugly) as possible. I will fill in the blanks, write consistently, and see what happens.

If you’re reading this email, you’re all set. Nothing will change on your end.

On the content side, I will keep it personal. Everything I write about here is from my own experience—things I’ve done and things I’m doing. I’ll share what worked and, maybe even more importantly, what didn’t.

I’m not a YouTube guru or internet marketing salesman, and I don’t want to be. I don’t make my living by selling you courses.

I’m a practitioner.

I’m doing the actual thing.

I’m also removing the pressure of a regular schedule. There will be a new email about once a week. I’ve already got a head start. Some will be archived on the site, and others are designed to be more ephemeral. You’ll see what I mean soon.

This newsletter's first “season” will be a trip down memory lane.

In addition to re-reading that forgotten book manuscript, I’ve been revisiting some of our early non-YouTube videos. There is so much I’d forgotten about. I blogged about a lot of this back then, but having the perspective of over a decade’s worth of experience adds a valuable new element.

So that’s the plan. I hope it sounds interesting to you. If not, it’s easier than ever to unsubscribe. Just look for the link down below.

Talk to you soon,

Chris

Adriene and me at The Bentway Summer 2024. Photo by Andrea Martinez.

PS: I plan to test out all the Substack features. Please bear with me while I make mistakes. You can probably leave a comment directly on this email/post, but my email is always open. I read all of them and respond to as many as possible.