Adam Blampied
patreon
BlampCo Monthly Debrief - Feb 2025
🕑 Added 2025-02-23 12:00:12 +0000 UTCHello employees!
Welcome to your first monthly debrief, where I tell you everything we’ve gotten up to with your lovely MONEY over the past billing cycle because BlampCo strives for transparency. I started this Patreon as a way to generate funds and provide a relatively kind training level for my editing skills, and I want you to know how I’ve been using your money to build whatever this is that we’re building here.
Personnel:
At the moment, the only full-time employee is me, writing the scripts, filming it all, sourcing the graphics and editing the shows together. My salary currently includes my mortgage payment, bills, living costs, NI contributions, income tax, and pension deposits.
In the next month I plan to add another full time member of staff at the same pay as myself to handle excess edits, as well as produce all the shoots, and manage the admin side of the channel. It’s not quite ready to be announced yet, but I’m looking forward to letting you know!
Equipment:
Black Magic 6K Pro Camera - did the Fantasy Booking video look considerably nicer than the rest of the videos on the channel? Good, because that camera cost a wee bit, but was chosen as it’s a) mint, and b) will be part of a studio I’m building in the coming months and has enough resolution for things like, oh I dunno, game boards, and cards, and the like. More cameras will join the collection in time, but for now, the one should be enough.
Sigma 18-35mm lens - pretty lens for a pretty camera for a pretty boy.
Neewer tripod - got a nice one, not only so that it supports both the camera and the teleprompter, which straps onto the lens, but also to make panning super smooth for future board game list shoots.
Neewer RBG Panel Lights x 2 - one for lighting my big dumb face, one for backlight. That’s all I should need right now, but as the studio build continues (looks like it’ll be May when that’s complete - we need the GeeknSon table to arrive before we can shoot there) we’ll be adding more.
Elgato Teleprompter - genius bit of kit, this. Not only does it let me screen share my booking, list and predictions scripts to the prompter, but also lets me put the live chat for the Watchalongs on the screen so I can easily look at you sods as I talk to ya!
Elgato Facecam - for all the livestreaming goodness, I picked this because it pairs really well with the prompter, and comes with the Camera Hub app that gives me a greater deal of control over the camera’s framing than most other webcams.
Blue Yeti Stereo Mic - got this for recording audio for all my videos, as it’s directional enough to hide out of shot and still cut out a lot of roominess from my audio track, but also the two-sided mic made it seem good for podcasting. Ultimately, I’m not FULLY happy with the audio quality of A Rad Time ep 1, so we’ll be investing in more mics for a cleaner audio setup in the future. For studio shoots, we’ll need proper lav mics, but this covers pretty much everything I’m filming at the moment
Drives - Samsung & Lucie - Bought two drives, one 5TB drive to act as a backup archive of the final drafts of all my videos, the second, a drive to film all the Black Magic footage directly onto. As the studio is built, we’ll need many more of these
A goddamn Michael Cole WM27 costume - clearly the most important expense of the month, fucks sake.
Freelancers:
Paid lovely Pete to appear on the podcast, as well as our lovely mods for their moderation work, and a freelance graphic designer who’s knocked up the BlampCo and Rad Time logos. Money well spent on all fronts, especially Lisa. But especially Bart.
As time goes on, I’m hoping to have 2-4 freelancers for shoots at a time, adding people to watchalongs, the monthly podcast, and future studio shoots
Subscriptions:
Epidemic Sound - royalty free music for the videos
Adobe - Premiere Pro costs money, the arseholes
Netflix - thanks, WWE, for moving to Netflix so I can expense this every month!
Zoom Pro - so I can organise all my rewards that involve fan interaction
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Grand total for February: roughly £7500
So, as you can see, there’s been a butt-ton of money spent this month to try and build this into something that’s going to stand the test of time. As we grow, those expenses hopefully won’t rise TOO much, but I’ll let you know in March’s debrief how it transpires. Any money that isn’t spent on purchases or payroll will get invested back into the company’s savings. Not a huge amount of savings this month, but hopefully that’ll build over the months to the point where we have a comfortable enough base to launch on YouTube, with the potential shakeup to the Patreon’s profitability that might follow going public.
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Future needs:
We’ll need a much more powerful editing computer, as this poor laptop has been THROUGH IT the last month. We also need more mics, furniture for the studio inc soundproofing, and the extra lights/cameras that will come with the requirements for the studio. Add to that expanded staffing costs and we still have a little way to go before BlampCo is operating at MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY, but it’s been a heck of a productive first month!
I know a lot of people would be happy if I just shot board game playthroughs on a phone with a few mates all crammed onto a single sofa, but I’ll only get one chance to properly launch this new channel when it comes time to take it to public YouTube, and I really want it to hit the ground running in terms of professional quality.
I’ll definitely try and add some more low-fi gaming content for you all to enjoy in March, though.
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If you have any questions about the above, let me know, but otherwise I hope you all have a great month ahead. I appreciate all the support no matter how big, small, regular or one-off!
Now get back to work
x
Comments
GhostCrab
I just want to make sure the pace gets kept up. A lot of us wrestling fans are here because we don't have loads of wrestling mates in real life, so there's not really anyone I can share this with to get the word out (I also barely have social media). I just want it to thrive and remain a log term project after the initial buzz is over!
H. V. Fisher
Second this. Understand wanting to keep the rewards in Patreon subscribers hands, but maybe do a two or three minute teaser with clips from the content you're producing as sort of a YouTube channel trailer?
Andrew the Elder
Glad to see things off to a strong start! I'm a full-time photographer (including some pro wrestling!), I wish I were on your side of the pond to help create some promo content and headshots for you and the team, but if you ever find yourself heading to the Northeastern U.S. let me know! You've got a FREE photo session on the books anytime! :D Best Frame Forward is my brand/biz on all platforms, Twitter/X is where I post my wrestling and MMA content: https://x.com/BestFrameFrwd
Heath
Loved this post. Good to see you reinvesting in your own future.
John g
Really really looking forward to the board game play through s, please some thing Arkham related
Jake Samuels
That all looks like money well spent, and it's been great to see and hear the quality improvements with each video.
GhostCrab
I have got a question actually. What's the plan for growing the audience at the moment? Word of mouth can only go so far when all your videos are behind a paywall and from what I remember, you're not big on social media. We all saw the announcement video on YouTube because we're subscribed but even that only appeared in my feed 3 days after you announced it. Glad to see all the cash has been spent well!
LforLopez13
Amazing. As long as the quality stays the same ill be sticking around for a long time. Long live blampco
Alex T
Our laptops may want to get together sometime to vent their mutual suffering due to editing.
Jacob Lange
I’m actually a huge fan of this type of thing, I like knowing what actual physical things my small portion of donation went to, makes me feel more invested
Dan
Amazing to hear how you’re getting on. And it’s a mad insight in to the time, equipment, and money required to do what you do. You’re doing awesomely.
Angela
Boss, boss, Black Magic?!?! REALLY? In all seriousness, very cool, those things are insane!
Matt hall
Awesome stuff! Love the transparency about costs. Can't wait to see it all grow 🤩
Ulises
Back to work dickhead no but seriously thanks for giving us a insight on what this month as been going for you and I hope the following months are even better
HeavyMetalChris
Made you another logo just for the craic
Ryan Anderson
Excellent work sir. So happy for you that the first month was a success! Let's hope it nothing but up and up for BlampCo! Small request here. Can we please add poutine to the menu in the cafeteria? Us Canadians would appreciate it greatly. Thank you and sorry.
Cristian Martinez
Hey Adam, if you’re ever wanting a freelancer editor or anyone who can make 3D stuff, let me know. I’ve been looking to work with a YouTuber so I can explain my portfolio at BlampCo.
George cartright
Thank for the update and can we get Mr. Pibb in the vending machine
Naomi Randall
Love this and thank you, would love to see an in person event in the future like WT used to do with the watch alongs though i realise that's harder now because of Netflix but I would happily buy a ticket to watch you fantasy book and do some lists!
Gerrit Coulter
Please can we have more cheese puffs in the company vending machine? The troglodites in accounting love those things. But seriously, thanks for the transparency and all the content.
John Molden
I have to say Adam, as a longtime fan of your work, this opportunity to branch out on your own has been very successful. Keep up the amazing work
Gaz Greenall
Love this breakdown, always interesting to know just how much work and investment goes into getting things up and running. Great first month of content, looking forward to what’s next!
George Ellis
Have to say Adam, it's incredibly kind and open of you to share all this information with us. I'm sure many will agree with me when I say that as long as the content is fun and consistent, how you spend the money you make on here isn't our concern. It's great to see the funds being invested into your equipment, but please don't feel like it's a necessity to update us. Glad the patron has been such a big success so far!
Dave Donaldson
Great to hear Adam. Seems like you've had a busy month. Keep it up we're all behind you
BigJohnsWorld
This level of transparency is so refreshing. No shade to Patreons for bigger channels but it's so nice to be part of the grassroots and see where the money is going/how it's being used to build a channel from scratch!
Simon Barrowman
Love to see the transparency!
Martin McCutcheon
Really enjoyed the content this month Adam, keep up the good work!
Tom Shucksmith
I don’t plan on going anywhere and continue my subscription! Keep it up Adam and it’s good to have you back
Liz Dwyer
I really appreciate the transparency, it shows such integrity and makes me incredibly happy to be a part of this. Can't wait to see where this all goes for you.
Conor Geraghty
Love the transparency and that the money of patrons is helping you both personally and professionally. Great to have you back Adam. I thoroughly enjoy being called an employee that pays to work here. X
Dash King
Thanks for the breakdown champ , all the best to you and your comeback
Dante
I did not expect this level of transparency but find it wholesome Adam has provided it.
Stephen Dunlop
Happy to see you back Adam, you were the reason I started watching wrestling again back in 2015 and I’m forever grateful!
