Undecided Media
Your trust is the most valuable part of this business. Here’s exactly how I protect it, and exactly how I make money.
Your trust is the most valuable aspect of my business, and it guides my choices and actions. I will remain vigilant in my efforts to never compromise my view on a subject because of a sponsor. Promoted products or services are things I already use, or would want to use for myself, and that I stand behind.
If you ever feel I’ve violated that trust, contact me.
Your brand must be a fit for my audience’s interests, and your product or service must be well-regarded and reputable. You may review the sponsor portion of a video before it publishes, but you will not have any editorial control over the video itself.
I will not work with stock or investing apps, alcohol, tobacco, adult content, gambling, or politics.
Where I stand on AI
Every Undecided script is written by a person. I believe the struggle of making something is what makes it worth watching. Sitting with research until it finally clicks. Throwing out an opening for the fourth time. A machine that skips the struggle skips the result too.
AI helps us the way spell check helps us. It catches grammar slips and flags sentences that got too tangled. Once a script is finished, we ask it to point at claims that deserve a second look, and a human checks every one against the original source. Think of it as a beefed-up Grammarly. The words and the arguments are ours.
My team and I also write our own software with AI’s help. Custom code streamlines how we publish scripts to the website, and another tool reads through hundreds of news articles every week and grades them, so important ideas bubble up where we’ll see them. Humans still read those articles and decide what we cover. The tools just make sure less slips past us.
Follow the money
AdSense rates are a rollercoaster, which makes them an unreliable way to run a business. Sponsored integrations are the most reliable revenue for my work: usually a 30 to 60 second segment about a product or service, sometimes called a shout-out. There’s always a clear call-out at the start of the video (“This video is brought to you by …”), plus verbal and visual call-outs during the segment. These integrations are what let me build a team that produces quality content consistently.
A large portion of revenue comes from YouTube AdSense, but it’s hard to predict ad rates or how each video will perform. I typically reserve ad placements for pre-roll and post-roll and avoid mid-roll ads as much as possible, especially when a video has a sponsored integration.
Memberships like Patreon are probably the best and most reliable source of income. It’s a smaller slice than integrations and AdSense, but it plays a key role in planning and budgeting for the core of the business. And Patrons bring an intangible benefit: support and ideas. They’ve provided insight into many of the topics covered on the channel, introductions to people in the industry, and more.
Affiliates played a bigger role when Undecided was just starting out. Today I still participate in several programs, like EnergySage, TeslaFi, Amazon, and Build with Rise. If I mention one in a video, I always call out that I’m part of an affiliate program, and the same goes for links in the description. Transparency is critical, and I want viewers fully informed.
Full transparency
I’m a long-term investor and don’t do short-term trading. The vast majority of my investments are in ETFs, plus a small number of shares in a few tech companies. So small it’s insignificant in the grand scheme of things. These investments don’t influence my coverage or opinions on any of my productions. For full transparency, I thought it was important to call these out:
