In life we are bound to think something we did in the past was not the ideal outcome. Whether or not we are right about that thought process is really up to the individual. While I would say there is no point in wallowing in that line of thinking.

I tend to think a lot about the future myself, and not so much on the past. However I do find myself sometimes going down the rabbithole/spiral of the past.

Therefore these are sometimes the things that keep me thinking, what could I have done differently, and because of that I thought they might be useful to you. Perhaps these will help you make the right decision for you based on my experience. At least that is my hope! lol

Mistake #1 - Too many interviews, not enough solo content.

Okay now this is really semantic, or just a matter of opinion. However I got really engrossed in 2020/2021 when it came to interviews for the Polymath PolyCast.

I wasn't doing hardly any solo content during that time, when I should have been doing my "omnicontent" series, which probably would have helped accelerate my growth by a decent margin.

However I found myself really motivated to talk to more people, and the networking effect was so intoxicating for a more extroverted person like myself. Especially considering we were all stuck at home at the time. I wanted to "take advantage of the opportunity" at the time, which I think was a valuable mindset to have perhaps.

The thing was I think I could have taken the interview percentage down from 100% of my time to 80%, and had been okay. Pareto Principle after all.

Then with that extra bandwidth I could have focused on my solo content. At least once a month, if not even once a week (ideally). However I probably only made
6-10 posts in the whole year kind of thing. I also got rather burned out from interviews, as I made so many that I got behind and had to catch up. I had like 40 I did in 40 days (as in editing and posting, as most had been recorded). That burned me out pretty bad, and my automation tool at the time Repurposeio crashed out. Making a ton of my interviews go super low resolution on YouTube, and since I was so distracted I didn't notice for a month and half. Then had to reupload all of the impacted videos.

It was when I started doing more solo content that I started to grow, however the interviews would later come in handy for couple other reasons...

Mistake #2 - Not clipping soon enough.

Those aforementioned reasons I'll discuss here. Firstly, the network it produced for me allowed me to gain access to conferences. Making me able to start going to networking events, and meeting people from companies I could then work with.

Additionally, in 2023 I was "finally" able to make clips from my interviews, which solved my short form video production. I wasn't really keen on MAKING SFV from scratch, I had tried for five years on Tiktok, and every so often for Shorts/Reels. Alas it just wasn't my style of content to make, and while I might in the future. I still would mostly like to just repurpose my videos (even solo) into clips.

Now the changing factor was the shiny new tool called OpusClip, which was in my opinion the first "clipping" tool on the market. I put it in quotes as this newsletter started out as "PolyTools" a tools directory/database, that I had 30 categories for various creator tools. Repurposing and Clipping are two similar, yet separate categories. When I started using it I was able to get through my backlog of 120+ interviews at the time (now over 200) immensely faster.

Prior to the introduction of Opus, there were a handful of tools that could repurpose my content. However not only were they not as effective at FINDING the clips, but they also couldn't REFORMAT or "REFRAME" the clips.

The ones I can think of would be Repurposeio (only worked with timestamps, and was limited on reframing), ContentFries/Chopcast/Recast (only found about 12 clips, and also limited reframe).

Mind you that was 12 clips for a 60-90 min interview, so that does not check out. In retrospect I thought about it, even 12 clips at an 80% usability rate (across the board), that would have given me 6-8 decent clips I could have been posting. However the only good way of going about it would have been exporting the clips horizontally, then using something like CrossClip to reframe them into the split vertical clips you see today.

I could have started clipping in 2021 or 2022, which is when podcasting really took off on tiktok. That would have been a great first mover advantage, hence the creator regret, but even 2023 was still good. I'm glad Opus came out, and here is my link for it. I still use it to this day. https://www.opus.pro/?via=729b77

Mistake #3 - Putting too much faith into a tool, before they earned it.

A tool that dumped me for bigger creators. Riverside.

Now here's a good example. I was one of the first, possibly maybe the first I'm not sure, partners with Riverside (the podcast recording tool). I talked to the founders back in 2020 when I was doing a bunch of interviews. Then in early 2021 I started collaborating. Mostly sharing their posts, and updates. In return I got access to the tool, which was super helpful due to zoom being so low quality.

However they just forgot about me, and maybe it was cause they got bigger names to partner up with. When they finally got a partnerships person I didn't even know until after a year after she started. When I reached out half a dozen times I was ignored, and I think I got one generic response one of the times.

Anytime I provided feedback through their messenger I always got a generic copy-pasta response from their support team. Rather than being able to contact the product team to help fix the glaringly broken issues. Then they wouldn't even tell me things were fixed, and I would find out with broadcast announcements.

Their lack of communication, and really just dumping me for bigger creators was not cool. However I still have access to the tool, and saving a monthly cost is still pretty important to me. Thus I don't go somewhere else, but I have tried many times. Alas nothing really is as stable as Riverside, which itself isn't that stable either unfortunately.

Ever since I came across them, they were all about automations, and making it easier for the creator to syndicate their content out. It seemed like the modern version of Dlvrit, and in all the right ways. They technically had a bulk upload at the time, but it was shortly depreciated. Thus I had to split my time between Nuelink and Publer to get my Automations and Bulk Short Form Video uploads.

I had so much hell with Publer, that when I became a partner with Nuelink I even just started doing one by one short form video upload. It was free with the collaboration partnership, and it was a lot more stable too.

Over the years I have been in contact with them periodically, and they listen to my feedback. They care about me as a creator, and their team is really dedicated to making the tool even better.

It is one of the few companies I am comfortable putting my name next to when I share the links or info about it. Not to mention it helps me so so so very much when it comes to automating the tedium of sharing posts. Any video/podcast/blog that goes out, then will get shared automatically across a ton of platforms I set up.

That was something I was wanting for over a decade, and most tools failed at doing it. Even Zapier or IFTTT consistently. Here is my link in fact if you want to check it out! http://nuelink.com/?via=dustin

Does it even matter? No, not really.

None of these regrets change anything now. I can't go back and change my actions, and I can only look forward. Hence why I tend to be more of a futurist rather than retrospective.

I just hope that by sharing these regrets with you, that maybe it can help you make the right decisions now.

Think about what the "first mover" advantage may be for you, on a platform you're using, or when a new one comes out. Trying to take advantage of it, even if it means using tools that aren't ideal yet. I.e. the Recast Studio and CrossClip method I mentioned earlier for clipping, had I done that I would have started sooner, but I also had a MOUNTAIN of content to go through. Which was really daunting to me at the time!

The other thing is make sure that the company you're working with as a creator is something WORTH continuing. Perhaps you can work together in a less intricate way, and so you still gain access + they still get content from you. Etc.

Just you aren't "partnering" up with just anyone. Try to find your Nuelink for example.

I hope this post/video inspired you in some way!