What I Have Learned After 2 Weeks of Streaming on Twitch

For the last ten years, I have spent all my free time trying to start my own companies or build something new and innovative. But for the has few months I have shifted my focus to giving back and trying to create a brand and reputation for myself in the JavaScript community. It started with Medium, and then a board game review blog and the most recently, live streaming on Twitch.

Shameless Plug
Wednesday nights (9:30cst) I stream javascript programming. If you want to learn some code tricks while being slight entertained follow me, I could use the followers. LoserKidKlazy
Sunday through Tuesday I stream games like the Witcher 3 and My Time at Portia. The rest of the week I will hop on an off randomly if I have the time.

Heres what I have learned after 2 weeks of streaming.

First and most important

Your significant other will not be happy with this. They might try to play it cool, but for some reason as soon as you turn on the camera they want your attention, and then they are mad at you for days about it. Just know this before you start, and to my wife, if you are reading this, I’m sorry, and I love you :P

It’s a lot of work

It’s far more work than I actually expected. Learning how to use the Gear, getting everything setup, building a brand, researching how other people do things, figuring out what tools to use and how they work. It’s a lot of effort to and research, and trial and error. Yes, you could just start broadcasting yourself playing games but if you’re want to be even mildly successfully expect to devote a lot of time to getting started.

It’s expensive

This is no joke. Sure you could stream on a mediocre PC, but it’s not going to be very good. I was going to use my Mac Book Pro at first and an Elgato HD60s to stream my Xbox, but my Mac wasn’t strong enough. So I had to buy a PC, and a better webcam, and desk, and gaming headset, and keyboard, and a mouse, and a monitor… you get the point. Some of you might have a lot these things laying around, but they do need to be good if you want to look professional. I’ll list my gear and costs to date below.

It takes awhile to get going

Like I stated up above, there is a lot more to it than just turning on your computer and streaming. The learning curve is a little on the steep side at first. I have been trying to start streaming for about 2 months, but it’s taken about 6 weeks to get everything set up in a way they I can stream with any form of consistency.

Scheduling and consistency is important

Everyone will tell you this, and it makes sense. You need to be consistent, and a have a schedule and try to stick with it. You want your follower to know when they can watch you, and maybe even some will be excited and looking forward. Don’t let them down.

Its weird, but important, to talk to yourself

I’m still getting used to this. Most of the time you won’t have anyone in your room, and even when you do most people still won’t be talking to you. It’s not a live chat; you are streaming to produces entertainment, be entertaining. In fact, Twitch has a 10-second delay so round trip you could be off by 20 seconds. You have 15 seconds to impress a lurker. You need to be exciting to watch even when no one is watching unless you’re are insanely good at a particular game, and even then.

If you are going to code be sure to zoom in

My first code stream was terrible, you can see it on my youtube page, or better put, you can’t because my 1440p monitor streamed at 720p was so tiny you can barely make out what I’m coding.

Pay attention to your audio

My first code stream I also forgot to turn my audio on for the first 8 minutes. Oops. And if you have your Twitch stream up for chat or something, be sure to mute it because it will for some weird feedback loop.

Don’t stream games that are too popular, or not popular enough

If it’s a popular game, all the big guys are going to have all the viewers. If it’s not popular enough, no one is ever going to find you. You can use a site like Twitch Strike to see that you should be playing. Then find something YOU WANT to play.

Build your brand

There are few ways to do this. You can buy something if you are less artistically inclined, or you can build your own. I’m working on building my own brand right now, and again this adds to even more time spent on setup and research.

You can’t make money unless you get followers

Once you have 50 followers and meet a few other simple goals, you can become a Twitch Affiliate, which lets you get subscribers, which they pay $5 a month to support you and you get some kind of cut of that $5. This can add up pretty quick. Some of these big times followers make upwards of 100s of thousands of dollars a month. Granted they have been doing for YEARS. I don’t get, but It’s a thing. There is a Twitch Partner level as well. Not sure what the difference is, I just know I’m lightyears away from it.

Set a Discord Server

Everyone uses it’s for live chatting and offline chat rooms. It’s like Slack but better and more confusing.

Good Camera and Good Lighting

Light makes a HUGE difference, especially if you want to do a green screen. Get yourself two softboxs off amazon and set them up kind of in front of you and to the left and right of your desk. I had to use a boom arm to get mine in for of me on the right side because my desk is in the corner of my room. If you have a green screen be sure to set up a hair light to cast light on the back of your head, this will reduce the green screen bleed around your image.

Streamlabs and Chat Bots

I’m still trying to figure our the Chatbot, but using Streamlabs and Chat Bots is how you get some interactivity with your stream. If you want to have a pop-up and some audio every time someone follows you, this is how you do it. But, expect to spend a few days playing with it to figure out how it works and what works for your brand.

That’s about it for now. I am by no means an expert, but these are just a few of the thing I have learned over the last few weeks. If you’re interested in getting started, I hope this helps, and I wish you the best of luck. If you want to help support me, you can follow me on Twitch, Facebook, and Twitter at these links:

Twitch — https://www.twitch.tv/loserkidklazy
Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/LoserKidKlazy/
Twitter — https://twitter.com/awklaser
YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLND4ARfpDGvLpeS9T8LeXg?view_as=subscriber

As promised my gear list.

This is just what I have purchased in the last two months for doing this.

PC — Alienware Aurora R7 = $2000
CPU — Intel i7 8700
GPU — Geforce GTX 1080
RAM — HyperX Fury 16GB
Monitor — Dell 27" 1440p 144hz Gsync = $430
Capture — El Gato HD60 = $130
Webcam — Logitech C922 = $99
Mic — Red Yeti Mic = $160
Headset — Steelseries Arctics 7 = $150
Keyboard — Ducky Shine 6 — $150
Mouse — Logitech G602 — $40
Controller — Xbox Pro Controller / PS4

Desk — IKEA concoction = $270
Softbox Lighting and Green Screen = $150
Adobe CC — $30/month
Games — $100/month

Grand Total = ~$3,839