Operational Blueprint for Streaming

Overview:

Learn about an operational philosophy for livestream production that has been proven on a real subscription service. This service has 15,000 paid monthly subscribers and has been operating for five years, with livestreams Monday through Friday. Also provided is a blueprint for getting started on your own livestream operation, planned for long-term stability.

Have you ever been up to your neck in complicated processes and logistical labyrinths, wishing for a simpler way? Perhaps you have a dizzying web of colleagues, deadlines, and contracts to navigate? Simple is a dream - a wonderful concept that nearly everyone agrees is close to impossible.

My theory for this is that it’s mostly anxiety. Simple requires overcoming the fear of ‘not enough’. But trust me, you do not need to worry about keeping it too simple, things will get complicated anyway. A simple foundation to a system fated to be complicated is better, more stable, and more nimble.

The problem is that video production is hard, making high-quality content is hard, and there are so many moving parts that it makes you wonder if it’s even worth the effort? What makes you stand out from people who make free content on Youtube or social media? What can you promise that they can’t? The simple answer is value, quality, consistency, and community.

My experience has proven this. For five years I’ve run the operations of a live streaming fitness company that has 15,000 monthly subscribers. We’ve got a 99% success rate and that’s because the operational workflow is based on a philosophy of work that considers all angles of a process. It’s as simple as humanly possible. The workflow accounts for failure as part of the process, something I learned while working in a newsroom and on movie sets. Failure wasn’t an option, it was an inevitable variable that had to be planned for. Because of that, I test for worst-case scenarios and always have a backup plan.

I’m going to rewind and explain briefly how I fit into the world of live video production. First off, I don’t come from an A/V background, I’m not an engineer, and I’m not a technician. I’m an artist who is good with technology and I come from the world of making independent films and videos. Or put another way, making dirt-cheap look amazing.

You plan for everything, including the flexible scenarios, the unexpected weather, and the many personalities of your cast and crew. Working this way rewires your brain to see every production as a series of risks and opportunities that you prepare for in service of a collective goal. It’s organized chaos. You’ve got to know your ground rules if you’re going to make it through with a professional end product. You’ve got to consider what can be changed or eliminated if circumstances require it.

Live production is even more chaotic, it’s in-the-moment, it relies on systems that even billion-dollar broadcast networks can’t entirely control. On the internet, it’s a completely new game. You can livestream right now from your phone. You can pay a million+ dollars to set up a stage and stream a one-time concert or a conference’s general session. The range of production scale is wider than ever before, so it’s easy to get lost in the cost-benefit analysis. Is it even feasible? What if you have paying subscribers? What if you need to stream every week for years to come? What if you need to scale that up to streaming daily? Or multiple times per day? What if you develop different types of programming? How can you funnel this content into marketing efforts? How can you do this reliably enough to keep your subscribers? What if you want to take a vacation in the middle of it all!?

The answer is: You can do it! You can make it work. And without entirely blowing the budget or burning out. I know because I’ve already done it, and below I’ll share my blueprint for getting started.

Surprise! It begins with “keep it simple.”

The “Keep it Simple” Operational Blueprint for Streaming:

Go ahead and read through the whole 6-step process first, then go back and start filling in your details.

The Results:

Conclusion:

Keep it simple. Make a plan like the blueprint above and be ready for it to change as you go. It can actually be a lot of fun to plan and execute, and there’s almost always a way to make your accountant happy. My philosophy is to be human, keep it simple, and make it happen.

Good luck on your endeavors! If you have a question or if you’d like to hire me to help, please feel free to reach out!