How To Turn Setbacks Into Success
"If you want to go further, you must be willing to change. What got you here won’t get you there.” - Marshall Goldsmith
This is part of a series of extended posts updating my no-longer-available YouTube Book. For the first installment, click here.
In the summer of 2013, things had just started to click for the Yoga With Adriene channel. Views, subscribers and watch time were all building steadily. Comments on the videos were amazing. We loved getting the feedback and it felt like a little community was developing. To top it all off, we were now averaging $100 a day from YouTube.
Everything felt like it was working… until Adriene lost her voice and needed vocal-cord surgery.
We couldn’t make new videos and we weren’t sure when we would be able to go back into production.
Inspired by the black-and-white Bob Dylan film (Subterranean Homesick Blues) in which he held up cards with written messages and dropped them to the rhythm of the song, we shot a short video of Adriene doing the same to say we were taking a break from the channel.
Now we were officially dead in the water. We didn’t have a choice.
Everything stopped for a few months. It felt endless at the time. We knew how important it was to post consistently and now we couldn’t do it. I worried that we might not be able to continue with the business—that the idea would die before reaching its potential.
It gets worse. Recovering from surgery prevented Adriene from working her other jobs or making videos. This created financial hardship for her. She needed help to pay for the surgery and just daily survival. She also couldn’t use her voice yet, so we couldn’t provide the type of content our audience had come to expect. Almost desperate to do something rather than feel stalled, we created a few yoga videos inspired by the silent-movie era, complete with old-timey music and title cards.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to keep us from losing views and our momentum on YouTube. Views dropped and so did the money. Now we were lucky to bring in $20 a day. I had failed to deliver on my promise of a profitable business.
Everything felt pretty bleak.
That moment of crisis, however, forced us to discover strengths we didn't know we had and taught us an invaluable lesson: what got us here wouldn't get us to the next level. We needed to try something fundamentally different. Of course, you know the business survived, but it might not have if it had been just me in the business. I had gotten Adriene into this thing, though, so I felt a responsibility to find a pathway forward and not give up. She wouldn’t give up either.
When she recovered enough to speak in videos, the audience started to return—but slowly. It took a long time to return to the engagement levels and the meager $100 a day we were earning before our break.
Once again it was time to try something different. Inspired by the success of Hilah’s book, I was ready to try a digital yoga product. Instead of a book, this would be a series of exclusive videos not available on YouTube. An online course.
I pitched Adriene the idea of the “Reboot” product (a symbolic name for us, it turned out, not just the audience). It gave us both a sense of hope, even though we weren’t sure what the response would be or how well it would sell.
Reboot consisted of four progressively challenging videos, a digital PDF guide, and a downloadable calendar. It was designed to be practiced over a 29-day period. The guide provided additional context, and the calendar allowed you to stay on track and mark off the days. At the last minute, we added a private members-only Facebook group to ensure we offered enough value for the $27 price tag.
This decision to include community access proved to be the most valuable component—a reminder that sometimes the highest-value additions aren't the ones that take the most production time but those that foster connection.
We planned to launch it over the holidays and deliver it starting January 1st so members could use this as part of their New Year’s resolution.
We finished the videos the day before Christmas Eve.
We promoted Reboot with two vlog-style sales videos on the YouTube channel. (We also sent out emails, of course!)
However, there was still one problem I had overlooked. I had no idea how to sell a digital product with videos on our terrible WordPress website. I ended up lost in a confusing nightmare of plug-ins. I couldn’t get it to work. I found a company called Digital Product Delivery, uploaded everything to their platform, and sent out the announcement email.
The sales came pouring in.
Our community validated Reboot with their enthusiasm and money. This gave us a much-needed psychological boost. It felt like a loving thank you for all the free videos we had released. That validation reenergized us to keep moving and keep serving our community.
We engaged with our community for a month in a private Facebook group. This is where the YWA community started to grow. It was one of the best online community experiences I’ve ever had. Members would share their daily practice photos, support each other through challenges, and even organize local meetups. One member wrote that she'd found her 'yoga family' after years of practicing alone—exactly the connection we hoped to foster.
When we relaunched REBOOT in early 2015, we sold even more. Those people joined the Facebook community and started to actively engage. This engagement also seemed to translate to growth on the YouTube channel.
Our audience was now more deeply engaged and felt like they were a part of something. They felt part of a real community, and they were telling their friends.
For the first time, we had money in the bank and a clear plan to move forward.
Finally, we felt confident that this thing had a chance to truly succeed.
Looking back on this now, what seemed like a devastating setback ultimately became the catalyst for our greatest growth. Had Adriene not lost her voice, we might have continued along the same path, happy with the slow, consistent growth but potentially never getting around to creating and selling a product. Sometimes, the universe forces change upon us when we're not brave enough to make it ourselves. If you're facing your own business challenges, remember these key lessons from our experience:
Forced innovation creates opportunity: What looks like a business-ending crisis can be the push you need to try things you wouldn't otherwise consider. The vocal cord surgery detour forced us to try new things and created a sense of urgency around creating something we could sell.
Content brings people in, Community makes them want to stay: While great content brought people to our channel, it was the sense of belonging in our community that transformed viewers into devoted members willing to invest in premium offerings and spread the word to others.
Revenue diversification provides stability: Relying solely on YouTube ad revenue left us vulnerable. Adding direct-to-customer digital products increased our income, gave us more control over our business destiny, and deepened our relationship with our most engaged followers.
Keep Creating,
Chris
Great article Chris. I didn't realize you created a digital product. I'm glad to hear it was just the right thing for you at the time. I'm now creating a digital product because the membership thing is still a struggle.
What an amazing story Chris, thank you for sharing so authentically about YWA's humble beginnings, I had no idea. Love the story and message and love REBOOT because (assuming) they became the 30 day challenges that I've literally been cycling through, and recycling through, back to back for several years now! Oh and Happy Birthday, so glad to have found you on SS!