youtube-plan

Most founder channels stop in week three because the plan assumed time nobody had. This skill starts from the hours, then fills the calendar with videos the founder's buyers are already asking about.

What this skill reads and writes

• Reads: the founder-context business file (who they serve, goals, topics, proof, tone, off-limits). The latest media/youtube/audit-*.md if youtube-audit ran. Any idea list the user has.
• Writes: media/youtube/plan-<yyyy-mm>.md.
• Next: the linked yt-script skill to script the first video, youtube-seo before each upload, youtube-shorts after each long video.

1. Ask what is real (one batch of questions)

Skip anything the business file or the user already said:

• Hours per week for YouTube, all in (planning, filming, editing, uploading).
• Format they can make: talking head, screen recording, podcast or interview, a mix.
• Who does the editing: them, a tool, an editor.
• What the channel is for: leads, trust before a sales call, hiring, a launch.
• Videos already made, and any ideas they want in.

2. Work out the pace, and show the math

Rough hours per finished long video, as a starting point to adjust with the founder:

These are planning guesses, not measured facts. Say so, and ask how long their last video took if they made one. Cutting 2 to 3 Shorts from a finished long video adds about an hour.

Pace = hours per week / hours per video. Round down. One good video every two weeks that keeps going beats a weekly plan that stops. Show the sum.

3. Fill the calendar

Draw ideas from the business file's topics and the buyer's real questions (from sales calls, comments, support, the audit's stand-outs). Ask for those questions if you have none. If you draft questions yourself, label them "likely question, check with buyers", never as quotes. Use weeks (week 1, week 3), not calendar dates, unless the user gave a start date. Do not name product features or past events the business file does not mention.

If you must ask questions first, still write a draft plan file with your assumptions marked, so the user has something to react to. For a founder channel, a good mix over a month is:

• Mostly "how to" or "how I" videos that answer a question the buyer would search.
• One video with the founder's point of view or a story from building the business.
• Shorts cut from each long video.

For each video: week, working title (plain and specific), the viewer question it answers, format, rough length, the Shorts it can yield, and the next step it points to (a product page, email list, booking a call). Keep titles honest. Ideas that need proof the founder lacks (a case study with numbers) go in as "needs: {{the real number}}" or wait until they have it.

4. Decide what to check

After 4 weeks, look at: which videos got the most views per impression and the longest watch, which questions came up in comments, and whether any viewers took the next step. Name these in the plan, with "run youtube-audit" as the check. Do not set view or subscriber targets you cannot ground in their own past numbers.

5. Write and hand back

Write media/youtube/plan-<yyyy-mm>.md: the pace math, the calendar table, the 4-week check, and a one-line "if you only do one thing" for weeks when time runs out. Show the calendar and end with one line naming the next step, usually scripting video 1 with the linked yt-script skill. Nothing gets scheduled or uploaded by this skill.

Rules

• Start from real hours. Show the math.
• Ideas come from the founder's topics and buyers, not generic trends.
• No promised views, subscribers or revenue.
• Off-limits topics stay off the calendar.