YouTube is adulting

Hi Friend 👋

As you might’ve seen I started to publish a few short form videos. Finally testing if that has a net positive effect on Orbit as a whole. So far the reactions are quite positive but I’m not sure I’m hitting the right vibe yet. What are your thoughts on it.

It’s also my second full week in Spain living in a house with other creators and it’s really sparking a lot of energy and progress. Making me even more excited to open up the community at the end of the month to give solo creators a online co-working space.

Are you on the waitlist yet?

💛 Valentin

Happy Birthday, YouTube

On Valentine’s Day 2005, three former PayPal employees launched YouTube as a video dating platform. Yes, you read that right.

The original idea for YouTube was to be a dating site.

But the world didn’t need another dating service as much as it needed an easy way to share videos. Prompting the team to quickly pivot, and in 2006, Google bought YouTube. A year later, the Partner Program was born, laying the foundation for the creator economy as we know it today.
Since then, both the platform and its content have evolved many, many times.

Without that evolution every creators favorite platform could've lost relevance just like MTV did after it's 20th birthday in 2001.

What was your first YouTube era?

For me, it was around 2009/10, when I started film school. At the time I uploaded my own projects to Vimeo, but YouTube was already becoming a hub for educational content with channels like Film Riot and Video Copilot.

It wasn't until 2014 that I published a video on it, that was meant for reaching random people on the internet. When video essay channels like Every Frame a Painting started to pop off. I was obsessed with Mad Men and shared a re-cut of Don Draper's origin story.

One of YTs most defining eras might be the 534 days Casey Neistat published his daily vlog. From March 25, 2015 to November 19, 2016.

Even though I lived in New York at the time and even saw Casey at an event once, I did not follow his adventures and completely missed that phase.

It wasn’t until 2018 when I discovered Matt D’Avella that I started considered YouTube as a platform to build an audience. Only after joining his Master YouTube course in 2021 did I gain the confidence to give it a shot myself. Experimenting with channels like Creative Ties and Cardboard Cleric before finding the "niche" I could really thrive in.

The spark for Orbit for Creators came out of conversations in the Colin and Samir community, that I moderate. After their steep rise in popularity in 2022/23 many of their viewers asked for a more diverse lineup of guests and better representation for smaller creators. Eventually, making me realize I could fill that gap.

Even in the last 6 months Orbit has evolved from another creator podcast channel to being dedicated to sharing success formulas for solo creators. Even though it started out as an excuse to visit some of my YouTube Friends in person.

I’ve always loved talking to other creators and learning about their processes, so turning those conversations into a show felt like a natural step. Also giving me an opportunity to highlight the European creator perspective, which is often overlooked.

For the first season, I was convinced that filming everything in person would create the best content. But I had to realize this wasn’t sustainable. It was too time-intensive, logistically complex and expensive.

To figure out my next step, I asked myself one of my favorite questions:

What if you only had two hours to do this?

The answer led me to remote interviews. I tested this approach with a breakout video compilation and quickly learned that the audience didn’t care whether the conversations were in person or remote.
What mattered was the content.

But making that shift wasn’t just a mindset change—it was also about finding the right tools. Riverside.fm became the backbone of this transition, allowing me to record high-quality, remote interviews without sacrificing production value. The ability to capture crisp audio and video, even with guests halfway across the world, made the shift feel effortless.

That insight led me to redesign the entire show around a fully remote format.
Without this pivot I would've never been able to bring on people like Aprilynne Alter, Ben Kaluza, or Luc Forsyth. Giving me an opportunity to create connections way beyond my local scene.

Birthdays are always a great time to reflect, even if it's not your own.

Looking back at YouTube’s history, the different creative eras, and my own journey makes one thing so clear:

Every big idea is just an evolution of an assumption.

The key to having an impact isn’t starting with a perfect vision. It's about getting started and paying close attention to what works and what doesn’t, and being willing to pivot.

So if you haven’t found your thing yet, keep going. Experiment, adapt, and stay open to new possibilities. Discovering who you are as a creator can take time and just because you started with one idea doesn't mean you have to stick to it.

What was your biggest pivot yet?
What changed, and how did it impact your journey?

This issue is supported by Riverside.fm
Use code Orbit to get 15% off

My favorite old video on YouTube

What is your favorite vintage YouTube video?

In case you missed it:

⬅️ Last week I gave you one question to rule them all.