Second Wind - Q3 2025 Financial Report + Upcoming Plans
Hey folks!
It's time for the next quarterly report and our upcoming plans as we close in on the end of the year.
/ REPORT BREAKDOWN
Note: We've added unpaid contracts to the report which means these are contracts we've already signed, but have yet to complete and be paid for. These amounts are marked with ( ) in their columns and listed in the summary. They are not included in the net profit, loss, or warchest in the report.
We had a really strong Q3 this year. I'm extremely proud of the team for hitting all of the financial targets I set for us earlier this year. We're in a really good spot right now as a business and things are looking steady for us as we plan for the future.
As expected, we saw a drop in sponsors for Q3, but we've already signed a lot of sponsors for Q4 which includes some bigger partnerships that we will be talking about soon.
Our updated merch strategy with Omar at the helm is also going really well at the moment. We didn't include the numbers in this month's report because we had some accounting errors to fix on our end, so that will be included in Q4's report.
The long-awaited Adventure is Nigh - Season 1 and 2 blu-rays will be ready for pre-order VERY soon, and we'll have a couple extra merch items dropping on our DFTBA store before the end of the year. You can also expect the Year 2 compilation of Fully Ramblomatic on Blu-Ray at the start of next year.
On the Work for Hire front, we're close to wrapping up the Guild Wars 2 Documentary, which Javed has done an absolutely stellar job of editing. We're really proud of how that project has come together to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the franchise. That documentary will be airing later this fall on the official Guild Wars channel as we don't host our work for hire projects here on Second Wind.
We also wrapped up work on Surgent Studio's Dead Take which released to great reviews and player feedback. We did a full rebrand of that project, helped with all of their trailers and social media assets, rollout strategy, mock reviews and even helped with some of the visual feel and tone of the game.
/ YOUTUBE VIEWCOUNT UPDATE
I wanted to take a moment to say we're extremely appreciative of the huge wave of support that came into our Patreon earlier this summer with our call to action when YouTube was borking out. Having our views drop like that so suddenly is an extremely scary thing for our business, even if we are mostly funded on Patreon.
The YouTube view count issue seemed to end up stemming from how YouTube reported views, and an API change that disabled one of the most popular ad blockers around. YouTube seems to only be tracking non-ad blocked views now, which is understandable as that's more accurate for sponsors and advertisers... it would just be nice if YouTube would actually communicate these things.
Other big YouTubers came to a similar conclusion, and it's backed up by the fact that our ad revenue has remained consistent despite the decrease in viewership during that time-period. Things seem to have stabilized now on YouTube's end thankfully.
Regardless, that kind of unpredictability is why we'll never chase algorithms or focus too much on viewcounts. It can change at any moment and isn't something we ultimately can control, so Patreon, Merch, Sponsors, Work for Hire... etc, that is and will always remain our focus to remain a sustainable business.
/ UPCOMING PLANS
As of this writing, we are less than 1,000 subscribers away from hitting 500,000 on YouTube which is super exciting to see and just in time for our upcoming 2-year anniversary celebration on November 15th!
For the rest of the year we're continuing our focus on refining our current shows and business as we noted in our Q2 report, but we do have some exciting events and one-off projects coming up!
Our one-shot Adventure is Nigh x Balatro episode is done and ready to go! We're just waiting on some things to line-up promotion wise before releasing it, but you will have it before the end of the month! Jack, Yahtzee, and Jenna had a great time making this and the crew knocked it out of the park with the animations and art as usual.
I'm also still planning to launch my own interview podcast soon. Had to put it on hold the last couple months just due to how busy things were with YouTube going crazy and such, but we're working on branding now and I hope to have it up and running before the end of the year.
We've also got a new episode of Game Arcadia from Jenna Stoeber dropping this Thursday!
And of course, we've got some great events coming up to look forward to.
Week of Horror - October 27
Next week, since I (Nick) will be the main full-time person in the office while everyone else is filming Adventure is Nigh, I'll be streaming a short horror game Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings with Jenna or Jess!
Second Wind 2-Year Anniversary Party - November 15
The Game Awards - December 11
End of the Year Party - December 20
We've got some big plans for 2026 cooking already as well.
As always, thank you for sticking with us and supporting us, and we welcome your feedback, ideas, or suggestions!
Until next time,
Nick Calandra
Editor-in-Chief
Comments (31)
RAID SHADOW LEGENDS
Woah, profitability? These days? Show them how it's done, @SecondWind!!!
Wonderful to see some positive figures, you guys truly deserve it. And super pysched for the one-shot; starved for Adventure is Nigh content. Great work all round and looking forward to continuing supporting for many more moons to come.
Oh dear... I just figured out the silhouettes... If that one shot is cast the way I think then it is going to be hilariously funny. :-)
The openness is completely refreshing and one of many reasons I'm here, glad things are going so well you all deserve it
Yay! Glad to hear things are going well. Is your plan to continue expanding, or do you have a set goal in mind of "if we're producing roughly X amount of content per month and staying profitable, that's good enough"? I'd hate to see the profit mindset take over and have SW expand and lose focus.
No, we don’t plan to expand. Plan is the same as it was at the start which was that Yahtzee and I wouldn’t take raises from Second Wind, and that we’d continue to raise the pay of everyone involved when it’s financially safe to do so. We still haven’t gone back to our normal salaries yet so that we can keep building back our safety net. I suspect we’re maybe a quarter away from that if we have a really strong end of the year. Hopefully we have a little wiggle room for some more freelance budget as I’d still love to bring in fresh new voices for occasional work. If we can get back to $50K a month on Patreon then we’re able to do all that with Sponsors, Work for Hire, Merch, etc all just being straight profit.
You guys are a part of my week I look forward to every time. Congrats on doing so well on the business side.
Just want to say I love reading reports like this. The business side of companies, especially digital ones, is super interesting to me. Thank you guys for putting this out
I enjoy writing them! I think it helps to have the audience understand the business side of things to know what and why they’re funding it. Too many people think a lot of views means a lot of money, but our reports clearly show that’s not the case!
That’s awesome to hear! Hopefully the good trends continue for a long time to come, I really love the work the whole team has been putting out!
so happy things are going well!
Glad to see things are going well! I look forward to all the projects you're working on!
Always nice that see you’re stable and not always scrabbling on the back foot. Hopefully life can be boring for you all for a while :)
Awesome! So glad you’re still on the up!
Woop! Awesome to see you've put last summer behind and that things could not be less frosty for Second Wind :D
Nice work Second Wind! I’m glad you had a good quarter and are on a path to being a sustainable channel
Woooo!!!
Still loving the transparency, and very glad to see that people got on the Patreon train to help you out. Not that it wasn't well deserved before the algorithm shenanigans, but still, it's nice to see the community rally together for some of the most interesting voices and content creators on the web. It's still crazy to me that you're only reaching 500k subscribers when you produce such awesome videos and written essays. It feels weird that you're not more personnality driven aside from Yatz acidic and thoughtful participation, when you have all these awesome people front and center on your streams and podcasts. Much love to all of you guys and gals and non-binary pals, you're a veritable beacon of joy and escapism (in the best way possible) on the internet. I hope you continue to shine for a FUCKLOAD of quarters, because I cannot imagine you stopping and leaving this gaping hole in the internet (hubba-hubba).
In terms of sustainability, is there a profit margin you're aiming for? Also tangentially related, how do you determine feasibility for working on and releasing new projects? I know Second Wind has experience with content studios creating their own bubbles that pop and was wondering if the team had thoughts. Overall really happy to be supporting.
We're a very lean company. Just the nature of the business of media. If we're posting these kinds of numbers on a quarterly basis, then we're lookin real good.
Awesome to see things are going well!
I'm so glad it's working out for you
Was there not a Windbreakers podcast yesterday? I couldn't find it? Is it because everyone is heading to Milwaukee?
Yeah, everybody that would be on the call is away this week.
Really don't know what YouTube's logic is not being forthcoming with changes that actually make sense. So needlessly stressful for everyone involved. Anyway, happy Q3 was such a good one, love the work y'all are doing, can't wait to keep engaging with it. Thanks!
Very well done, lads and ladess' of Second Wind.
Great to see! Keep up the amazing work 😄
Looking forward to year three! Great stuff as always.
Is this good? I'm not sure but it seems good for the company
Yeah it is. They have at least enough in reserves to expand or try new things and take a few months with less income than they do know