I recently got the chance to interview Travis Shreffler one of the co-founders of Bottlespark about his new book, “Start Streaming!: 100 Definitely Real Tips for Becoming a Successful Twitch Streamer”
“Remember when your parents told you that you’d never be able to make a living playing video games? Well just like everything else, their generation was wrong about that too. However, the road to success can be long, hard, and sometimes hairy. You’ve been looking for something to make it all easier, right? Well this is it! The tips in this book will help guide you to being a successful Twitch streamer before you can say “What do you mean there’s no retirement plan?”. In this book you’ll learn:
-What you need to get started (Hardware, software, and hair color)
-How to utilize social media to grow and network (mostly TCP, FTP, and HTTP)
-How to pick a game to stream, as long as it’s Fortnite
Don’t be a chump and try to build a community the hard way! Nobody has time to spend years slugging away for minimal return in hopes that one day you’ll stumble upon an opportunity to grow your audience in an organic and meaningful way. Buy this book and you can be rich in no time with no effort and you’ll have no more problems at all! “
Hey so what inspired you to write this book?
Hey! There’s a few things. The original inspiration was in February of this year. I saw some people, stream coaches mainly, starting to write books about how to grow audiences, best practices, etc. I was actually hyped about it. There’s not a lot of long form written word about streaming, so that was cool to see. I usually make videos about streaming for Twitter. Tips and tricks. I try to keep everything real light and humorous because that’s how I am. I like making jokes as much as I like providing info. So I thought to myself, “If I were to write a book, how could I make one that’s funny?” Originally, I had a writing partner, my boy Kyle. He helped write some of the jokes but we both are very scatterbrained on this stuff and busy with real work, so it fell to the wayside. A few weeks ago I was at a marketing conference and someone encouraged me to write a book. I started working on it, rewrote what little bit I had, and then did the bulk of the writing. I wanted to make a parody first. I accidentally put in a few good thoughts lol
So what percentage parody to advice do you feel it is?
I’d say that outwardly, it’s 95% jokes, 5% actual advice. But like all comedy, the joke has to be grounded in truth. So if you read the subtext, there’s meaning in most of the jokes too. But like, 5% minimum is complete nonsense.
So what sort of streaming experience do you have?
I’ve been streaming on an off for about 5 years or so. I’m not a great streamer myself, but I’ve guided people from starting to Partner to full time streamer. I co-founded a company, Bottlespark, to help streamers monetize their content. Before that, I studied social media networks growing. I’ve always been more of a behind the scenes guy than anything.
So do you have a day job? If so what is it?
I have two. One is a tech support job to pay my bills. I also am the cofounder and Chief Experience Officer of Bottlespark. We help streamers monetize their content by hooking them up with advertisers. I handle the influencer side of that work, so I spend all day talking to streamers, teaching them, hearing their pain points, etc.
So what got you into streaming and what inspired you to start your company?
I got into streaming after finding Twitch from Mario 64 speedruns and League of Legends esports. Thought it looked fun. A few years later, I really got into understanding Twitch and helped a friend get started, start building a community, and get Partnered. My cofounder, JT, found me through a YouTube video I made. He comes from the digital marketing industry and had some questions about streamers. One night we had an overnight Discord call where we accidentally made a business plan for what would become Bottlespark. Here we are a few years later with a platform.
That’s really cool. One last question what is an interesting fact about you that people wouldn’t necessarily guess?
Oh man, I’m realizing I’m WAY too open about myself on the internet now. I guess most people wouldn’t know that I am a huge gadget nerd for phones and tablets and stuff. Like, when new phones come out I run to Best Buy just to play with them. I have to have the newest phone when possible.
Make sure you check out his new book below.
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