This week, Thought Liters has been under construction. In an effort to make the brand a little more congruent — and perhaps more differentiated — I’ve embarked on some behind-the-scenes brewing which I’ll document in today’s brief issue.
Before you scroll: if you happen to find yourself bored and stuck at your desk this Friday afternoon, might as well flip one of these recent vids on in the background. All Pittsburgh-based stories:
Now, get your hard hat on.
Note: this is a subset of the Thought Liters newsletter where I try and open up the back end of this journey to building a content business. Let me know if you like this style.
Channel Under Construction
tl;dr: visual branding; formats; series. Few graphics to illustrate below.
context?
the production has ramped up a shitload over the last 12 months:
Jan-Oct 2025: 1 live event + 8 videos uploaded. Comfortable pace. Solo.
Nov-Dec-2025: 1 live event + 7 videos uploaded. Breakneck pace. Solo + a trailer editor.
2026:
Jan - May: 12 videos uploaded.
June: 2 filmed; 4 more booked.
July - Aug: 4 more soft-booked, plus I need to get the Thought Liters Ship event set.
had a kid in March, for which I was ready but not prepared
If 2025 pace was breakneck, 2026 blows my head smoove off. Still solo + a trailer editor.
I’ve worked like a dog to up the cadence (while, like, making a living or whatever). Spaghetti meets wall. It’s been like mashing the gas in first gear — there’s only so much engine, and so much fuel. I haven’t thought about the design of the car.
Last week I went to Press Publish LA (more detail in once upon a thursday in hollywood). The most valuable conversations I had came from showing my channel to other, bigger creators and asking for their immediate thoughts. One clear piece of feedback rang out: no one could discern what the channel was about. Even “learn from the top of the world through the bottom of a glass” wasn’t clear (I love wordplay but it rarely makes things easy to understand). The thumbnails have no cohesion. Basically, new potential viewers see the content, have no idea what they’re looking at, and move on. Ouch. So I spent like 2-3 days to mourn being a bad creator, and then I got to work on the car.
what’s updating?
Even though there’s not a new episode dropping this week (that’s next week), here’s what I’ve been working on behind the scenes:
Channel text: intro, descriptions, keywords (though they may little matter). I know it doesn’t make content better — it’s more for brand cohesion.
Thumbnails: I’ve started updating the packaging of each video to be clearer and more to-the-point. Basically each graphic will now have 3 main points of interest, with a consistent color pallette (example below):
A person to focus on
Relevant background imagery, reflecting the story
High-contrast text hook
Example of a before and after:
We’re early yet, but some of the CTR metrics seem to be improving post-update:
Formats: This is the biggest, most invisible, area of development. The show’s core format is known: studio set, flight of beverage, hopefully a good conversation. But I want to try new things. For example, I made the below LinkedIn poll to assess a few ideas I had, in comparison to today’s core format:
good data.
Day in the life with PNC’s CEO? Crossbar challenge with a Riverhound? Golf with the mayor? Maybe. A version of Subway Takes on the Incline? On the Incline? I think that could work as short-form first. Why not?
(Extra insight: this week, Subway Takes creator Kareem Rahma went on the Colin & Samir show to talk about his process. He had this baller quote: “There is no longform. The show is the clips.” That’s what’s pushing me in this direction — I want something more compelling which can live independently in the short form without necessarily requiring that a viewer jump to the long.)
what’s next?
Back to full episodes next week — we’ll see what performance looks like with the refreshed brand look and descriptions. Right now it’s looking like weekly uploads through mid-July, which will include at least two upcoming episodes filmed outside of the studio..
More to come.
In the meantime: the number one thing you can do to help me and the show is to watch, like, and comment on the show on YouTube. If you scrolled all the way to bottom of this thing first, that’s the tl;dr. Consider subscribing as well.
If there are specific aspects of the content creation or business side you wished more small creators talked about, let me know and I’ll try and layer it in to future newsletters.
I read everything, and respond to everything.
Cheers.
Adam
