Back to articles
Personal • 5 min de leitura

Journal: My YouTube Channel

The Beginning

Every year between November and December, I like to write and plan my goals for the next year. I've been doing this since 2022 (at least that's what I have documented in Notion).

In 2025, one of my goals was to record a Filament 3 course. I planned to do this because:

  • I had just discovered this wonderful tool that made my work so much easier;
  • I wanted to exercise a bit of my educational background (I have a teaching degree);
  • There was almost no content about it in Portuguese (and there still isn't!), with few exceptions

The Plan (and the Procrastination)

The plan was quite simple: record a series of content in a course format where we would build a practical project using Filament's main features.

Simple, right?

However, as I imagine everyone has done to some degree, I procrastinated, procrastinated a lot. I only started to actually plan and structure everything at the end of October. That's when I realized the challenge was bigger than I thought. There were several details I needed to think about before having a channel:

  • Define a name for the channel (yes, this is hard!)
  • Will it have an intro? What will it be like?
  • Define thumbnail template (do I have to appear in the thumb? 👉😳👈)
  • And many other details...

Lessons Learned in Planning

Tip #1: Break large tasks into smaller ones
My psychologist always reinforces the importance of breaking a large task into smaller ones, and also celebrating each small task completed. Enjoy the way 😊!

Tip #2: Keep your "why" always visible
If it's clear in your head why you're doing this, the reason you're giving up your wants to do something, it will make it easier when it's time to leave your comfort zone (oh god, don't read this as if I were a coach). So I don't know, put a post-it in front of your computer saying why you do what you do.

(By the way, the game of my life is LoL, I've been playing since 2015 and decided to stop to have more time dedicated to the channel) My op.gg with no matches for a long time

Execution and Route Change

I was already way behind, there were just over 2 months left until the end of the year and I really didn't want to get frustrated without delivering this task of recording a YouTube course.

So I started to plan better and structure what was needed. I also rethought the course topic: if before I wanted to do Filament, now I thought I should first spread the word about Laravel around the world. I'm passionate about this stack! There are countless advantages and facilities when coding that Laravel provides us. I don't know any other stack that makes DX as easy as Laravel does.

Tips for Those Starting Out

Don't plan too much, just start doing
It's better to start with little, without being 100% perfect. Along the way you'll discover and improve. It's the Lean Startup mentality.

Today I see that the audio of the first videos was WAY too low, the font was quite small (hard for people to follow), and other small details that I improved along the way.

Take care with visual details
Thumbnails, elements that appear in your video... anyway, these details I feel make a difference. If you don't have a good sense of design, I think it's worth hiring someone to do it. (by the way, thanks Saicno and Júlia <3 for giving me tips)

Consider adding exercises
A detail I didn't do in my first course, but I'm applying in the second is dividing the learning into modules and also adding exercises. I really like to practice what I learned, this way I think the content sticks more in the brain. So in the API course I'm adding exercises, it's a regret I have that my Laravel course didn't have them, but I'll add them in the Intermediate Laravel course)

The Fruits

Human Connections

I've met a lot of cool people, some I chat with almost every day. That's really nice.

Impact

I've been promoting my work, and it's been very rewarding to read the messages people leave on YouTube or in my DMs thanking me for the content.

Constant Learning

I'm learning sooo much! GraphQL, personal finance, and managing to give life to my side projects:

About Monetization

About money, nothing has come in yet lol, but it was never the goal. When I started I knew that what could come would be money to at most pay the bills (VPS for the projects we do in lives/videos, Capcut).

Summary

It's worth it!

Despite all the work (it's quite costly to deliver 3 videos per week + 2/3 lives), this process has been really cool. The connections, the learning, seeing the positive impact on people... that's priceless.

If you're thinking about creating content, my advice is: start. Don't wait to be 100% ready. You'll improve along the way, and the important thing is to take the first step.

📚 Content on YouTube

If you want to follow my journey or learn Laravel with me:

Done is better than perfect ✨

Written by Ygor Combi, a human being.