Coat hangers and the slow death of my YouTube channel (?) (Patreon)

Me, after six years of building stuff: wow, I'm starting to get the hang of this.

Also me, trying to draw a straight line:

Hi! Happy 2021! What a rocky start. This last week has been like the final season of Game Of Thrones we all deserved, except that it's real life and we don't have any dragon glass.

Anyway. There's something that's been on my mind, and that I can't stop thinking about . And that thing is... coat hangers. I so wish that was a joke, but it's not. I have been excitedly obsessing about coat hangers for over a month now, and if you're thinking "they're coat hangers, how much is there to ruminate about" I'd say "fair point, but have you met my brain."

MAIN PROBLEM

I have a clothes rack in my bedroom, and it takes up too much space. I wish there was a way for the clothes to hang closer to the wall. 

SUB PROBLEM

I have way too much time on my hands.

SOLUTION

What if you could have a coat hanger that folded down the middle? So you hang your clothes like it was a normal coat hanger, then fold it up and put it on a rack really close to the wall.

So I hit up my engineering team mate and we have made maybe 10 separate prototypes and revs since then. Let's just say I fell into a tiny rabbit hole, landed on the bottom, pulled out my shovel and was like "let's keep digging."

I've finally settled on a design that I really really like, and I really want to show you and make a video about it but here's the conundrum I'm in: I want to turn this into a product, and I don't want to blow the big video horn until I have units in stock and/or a crowdfunding campaign in place. 

This is something I'm running into more and more, where the fast cycle of content production clashes with the realities of manufacturing. And as I'm focusing more and more on product development it's inevitably at the detriment of my YouTube channel.

But I've spent the last couple of years preaching that you should follow your enthusiasm even if you don't really see where it's leading you, so here we are. Sitting in a pile of coat hangers, with no video to show for it. Good news is that I'm having a blast. A slightly guilty blast, but nonetheless, a blast.

TLDR; I'm hung up on coat hangers and need to figure out how to balance all the different parts of my job. Also I miss you. How was your break? And what are you excited about??

XOXO
Simone