Second Wind - Q4 Financial Report + Upcoming Plans

Hey folks!

It's that time again for another one of our quarterly reports. Financial breakdown is in the image above, and below we'll go into it in a bit more detail, as well as our upcoming plans for Second Wind.

/ REPORT BREAKDOWN

As expected, we had another loss in Q4 as we continue to adjust our costs with the drop in support on Patreon due to both the current financial environment, and the malicious videos made towards our team last year.

Things have stabilized mostly, and we're back to the normal ebb and flow of new subscribers coming in and going out. While we'd still like to try and get the Patreon back to around $50,000 / month, we also know the challenges of accomplishing that, and have said since day one of Second Wind that we would adapt when needed and not be reliant on any one source of revenue.

Q4 was a slow period for sponsors across the board unfortunately, and our one-year anniversary event didn't have the impact on Patreon we had hoped it would, along with some partnerships not panning out. That's just how it goes sometimes in this content creation business - and thankfully our team is very good at coming up with solutions when we need to and adapting.

I wrote in our Q3 report that a loss in Q4 was expected so we've been focused on longer-term goals that are coming together in Q1. These goals include getting our podcasts monetized on audio platforms, getting a work for hire branch of Second Wind spun up, and reorganizing our merch plans.

We've followed through on pretty much all of our notes from Q3:

• Reducing costs

  • Q4 is the first quarter where Frost and Cisco were no longer part of our salaries.

  • We've also reduced and paused additional freelance work until we get profitable again.

• Moving merch providers

  • Moved to DFTBA. Higher quality merch, better designs, international shipping and more consistency.

  • Fully Ramblomatic Blu-rays have sold very well. This money is not reported in our Q4 report yet as pre-orders are ongoing.

• Started talks with a podcast partner platform

  • We have yet to monetize our podcasts outside of YouTube.

  • We're in talks with a potential partner now to get our podcasts monetized on audio platforms like Spotify.

• Have been prepping to launch a work for hire arm of Second Wind

  • Work for Hire projects have been a part of our plan since the founding of Second Wind. It was outlined in our business plan document and soon we'll be announcing something cool we've been building out behind the scenes for the last couple months.

Work for Hire will be an essential part of the business for us once we launch it to make sure we have an actual product to offer that is just work we complete and get paid for.

And don't worry, it will be completely separated from our Second Wind content so that there's zero conflicts of interest on our part.

We'll be ready to talk about this project more in the near future.

/ UPCOMING CONTENT

• Unpacked is making its 2025 return this Friday the 24th around 3 PM CT, and then with episodes dropping weekly on Fridays at 10 AM CT.

  I have reformatted the show so that each week I cover a few smaller topics and then unpack them in a single video. I had a lot of fun writing up this week's and I think you'll appreciate the updated format as a way to keep up with interesting news, game announcements and some additional surprises.

• Starting on February 3rd, Design Delve will be moving to every other Monday at 10 AM CT. No other changes are coming to the show aside from the new timeslot!

• The Archive is back in production with Marty and Jesse S. prepping the long-awaited episode on Peter Jackson's King Kong video game. We will have more updates on that soon, and you can expect a new episode once a month going forward.

• Animal Well Documentary is progressing nicely and will release in the first half of February!

• This month's experimental video for Patreon supporters at the $5 tier will be available next week from Yahtzee! It's one we're all really excited about.

We have some other projects in the works that we're not ready to talk about just yet as well, so stay tuned for continued updates.

/ THANK YOU

As always, we thank you for your support here on Second Wind. It's more important than ever to support your favorite independent media outlets and we wouldn't be here without everyone that chips in every month to allow us to continue doing this job we all love.

It's obviously been a little challenging on our end, but things are moving in the right direction, and the team is confident and feels good about the path ahead.

We've said since the beginning we just want to be sustainable, and have no expectations for constant, exponential growth on Second Wind. We're going to have a down quarter or two, and that's OK. If we're ever in dire need of your help, we will be sure to let you know!

With current events in the world, we also want to make clear that if you need a place to escape to for a bit to get some laughs, talk about your favorite game, movie or television show, and feel welcomed no matter who you are - Second Wind's community is always open to you.

Thanks everyone and hope you've had a good start to the new year.

Nick Calandra

Editor-in-Chief