IHAVEACOMPLEX
Community Member
Hello All,
Bear with me on the length of this post…
I’m relatively new to posting on R2R, so I realize I may be a foreigner to you all, but I promise I have been reading R2R posts for upwards of a decade now, so you all feel like family to me.
Quick story:
I finally moved into a house that I will be living in forever, and have started to get the itch to set up a reef tank.
To all of you that welcomed me through my introduction post, and saw the pictures I posted, you probably noticed that the house is still not quite finished…. I do still have one leg of the construction project left (the garage), but I am starting to have more-and-more free time as the construction of the main house comes to a close.
As I started to feel my wife out on how much funding “we” wanted to dedicate to “our” reef tank build, I hit a brick wall…. Apparently its “unreasonable” to earmark $10k-$20K for a reef tank when you still have over 2,000 square feet of construction left to budget for… (Who knew?)
So using my master negotiator skills (I have none), I finally got my wife to agree to letting me set up a tank “if it didn’t cost us anything”…
…Challenge accepted…
Plan A.
As an avid consumer of video content on YouTube, my first thought was that if I were to set up a (maybe Media) business creating extremely-high-quality, hyper-digestible, content, I may be able to secure enough sponsors to build my reef tank with limited out of pocket funding. (Side benefit - any out of pocket expenses related to the project are write offs, and are tax deductible. Which is basically like having a 30% off coupon for all reefing gear)
So I got to work. My first few conversations were with brands that don’t currently hold the majority of the market share in reefing gear (A.K.A. anyone who isn’t owned by the parent company of Neptune/Ecotech/BRS). I started with these companies because I figured these brands would be the most apt to having their products on display, as most content currently available uses the big brands, even if they are not sponsoring the content. This actually started to go pretty well, and after pitching the idea, I got some traction with several brands.
Before reaching out to too many equipment manufacturers, I started to realize that sponsorship seems to come with strings attached… I didn’t run into any insidious behavior (like brands asking me to lie, or mis-represent products), but I did run into brands trying to “steer” me to using only their products, rather than showcasing a variety or brands. (Which I think would make the content less interesting)
It started to become apparent that the challenge was going to be to find manufacturers/brands who would be comfortable just sponsoring a single portion of the project (IE just the tank, or just the skimmer).
After “fighting the good fight” for a few weeks, I decided I should reach out to the ultimate “consumer” that the content is going to be targeted towards, rather than assume I know what everyone here wants to watch.
So question 1 is, If there were going to be a new Youtube series following the build of a (lets call it 180 gallon) tank build. Would you prefer the focus be on picking a few Items from each reef-gear manufacturers/brands, and showing an “alternative choice” to the flagship products that dominate the market? Or would you rather watch a series that picks a top tier manufacturer and uses them as a sponsor for all of the gear involved with setting up the reef tank?
I’d like as many people as possible to voice their opinions on this post, as I’ll likely be pointing to it in my upcoming conversation with sponsors of the project!
I’d also like to call on you-all to put me in touch with anyone you know who makes reef gear that you think would be interested in sponsoring a portion of the build. (They would obviously get a pretty big shout-out in the video series).
Plan B
If the majority of people here agree that it would be more interesting seeing content that isn’t skewed in any way by sponsorship (and would go so far as to help with the cost of setting up the system) there may be a second option where we can crowdfund the cost of all of the gear used in the video series.
I realize this sounds a lot like asking for a handout, but with the content from Ryan @ BRS going on hiatus, I (and maybe you as well) have been feeling that there is a serious lack of high quality reefing content available to get me through the work day. So there may be an appetite to get more content going.
Ultimately, I’d rather not go this direction, because while it would be so much easier to manage, I’d much rather have this endeavor be a win for all parties (Sponsors get extremely-low-cost publicity, reefers get free high quality content, I get a free reef setup), but it may be the only way relieve the logistical nightmare of finding like 50 willing sponsors)
If you’ve made it this far into the post, here is my call to action for you:
Comment below on:
Bear with me on the length of this post…
I’m relatively new to posting on R2R, so I realize I may be a foreigner to you all, but I promise I have been reading R2R posts for upwards of a decade now, so you all feel like family to me.
Quick story:
I finally moved into a house that I will be living in forever, and have started to get the itch to set up a reef tank.
To all of you that welcomed me through my introduction post, and saw the pictures I posted, you probably noticed that the house is still not quite finished…. I do still have one leg of the construction project left (the garage), but I am starting to have more-and-more free time as the construction of the main house comes to a close.
As I started to feel my wife out on how much funding “we” wanted to dedicate to “our” reef tank build, I hit a brick wall…. Apparently its “unreasonable” to earmark $10k-$20K for a reef tank when you still have over 2,000 square feet of construction left to budget for… (Who knew?)
So using my master negotiator skills (I have none), I finally got my wife to agree to letting me set up a tank “if it didn’t cost us anything”…
…Challenge accepted…
Plan A.
As an avid consumer of video content on YouTube, my first thought was that if I were to set up a (maybe Media) business creating extremely-high-quality, hyper-digestible, content, I may be able to secure enough sponsors to build my reef tank with limited out of pocket funding. (Side benefit - any out of pocket expenses related to the project are write offs, and are tax deductible. Which is basically like having a 30% off coupon for all reefing gear)
So I got to work. My first few conversations were with brands that don’t currently hold the majority of the market share in reefing gear (A.K.A. anyone who isn’t owned by the parent company of Neptune/Ecotech/BRS). I started with these companies because I figured these brands would be the most apt to having their products on display, as most content currently available uses the big brands, even if they are not sponsoring the content. This actually started to go pretty well, and after pitching the idea, I got some traction with several brands.
Before reaching out to too many equipment manufacturers, I started to realize that sponsorship seems to come with strings attached… I didn’t run into any insidious behavior (like brands asking me to lie, or mis-represent products), but I did run into brands trying to “steer” me to using only their products, rather than showcasing a variety or brands. (Which I think would make the content less interesting)
It started to become apparent that the challenge was going to be to find manufacturers/brands who would be comfortable just sponsoring a single portion of the project (IE just the tank, or just the skimmer).
After “fighting the good fight” for a few weeks, I decided I should reach out to the ultimate “consumer” that the content is going to be targeted towards, rather than assume I know what everyone here wants to watch.
So question 1 is, If there were going to be a new Youtube series following the build of a (lets call it 180 gallon) tank build. Would you prefer the focus be on picking a few Items from each reef-gear manufacturers/brands, and showing an “alternative choice” to the flagship products that dominate the market? Or would you rather watch a series that picks a top tier manufacturer and uses them as a sponsor for all of the gear involved with setting up the reef tank?
I’d like as many people as possible to voice their opinions on this post, as I’ll likely be pointing to it in my upcoming conversation with sponsors of the project!
I’d also like to call on you-all to put me in touch with anyone you know who makes reef gear that you think would be interested in sponsoring a portion of the build. (They would obviously get a pretty big shout-out in the video series).
Plan B
If the majority of people here agree that it would be more interesting seeing content that isn’t skewed in any way by sponsorship (and would go so far as to help with the cost of setting up the system) there may be a second option where we can crowdfund the cost of all of the gear used in the video series.
I realize this sounds a lot like asking for a handout, but with the content from Ryan @ BRS going on hiatus, I (and maybe you as well) have been feeling that there is a serious lack of high quality reefing content available to get me through the work day. So there may be an appetite to get more content going.
Ultimately, I’d rather not go this direction, because while it would be so much easier to manage, I’d much rather have this endeavor be a win for all parties (Sponsors get extremely-low-cost publicity, reefers get free high quality content, I get a free reef setup), but it may be the only way relieve the logistical nightmare of finding like 50 willing sponsors)
If you’ve made it this far into the post, here is my call to action for you:
Comment below on:
- Whether you feel there is a lack of binge-able reefing content on YouTube these days
- Whether a new reefing channel that you stumbled upon would be more interesting to you with a variety of different brands showcased, or whether you would be indifferent to having a single brand used for all the different facets of a tank build
- Whether you would go so far as to throw ~$10 of your own hard-earned cash to have a new reefing channel to follow. (and know you were a part of developing it)
