Second Wind - Q2 2026 Financial Report + Upcoming Plans

Hey folks!

Once again, it's time for another quarterly report here on Second Wind! Bit of a beefier one this time around as there's lots to talk about!

/ REPORT BREAKDOWN

Q2 was an interesting quarter for us. The good news is that we were profitable again, but the bad news is that for Q3 things are looking a little tight as a few of our regular bigger sponsors have had to pause continued campaigns with us due to the current financial environment.

Second Wind isn't immune to the current events of the world obviously. With increased prices across the board for a lot of things, we've seen cutbacks both on the sponsor side and work for hire side via Lost and Found. Not unexpected, but when we operate on a thin margin as it is, that can have a big impact.

This is something we've always of course planned for. This is why we have different sources of income that we can focus on when things like this happen. As you can see from the report, merch was stronger in Q2, and we expect will do even better on that number in Q3.

We're also not just waiting for things to get better. We're in the process of now of working with a new partner on sponsorship campaigns that we'll be trialing with for the next little bit to see what kind of results are produced.

We've long tried to get in the doors of companies like Hello Fresh, Rest, Stitch Fix, etc... but on the sales side of things it's often a lot about who you know. Unfortunately for us, none of us worked in those kinds of sales departments and the previous agencies we worked with didn't quite work out! The hope is that this new group we're working with, who is much better suited to the kind of company we are, will get us in those doors.

On the work for hire side of things, we're finally starting to build Lost and Found into more of a direct marketing agency. This means working with game developers to get their titles in front of the press, streamers, and content creators, rather than just being a production house for assets.

It's a big effort from those of us working on it and we're currently working to build our initial line-up of titles to do a test-run with to generate data, name recognition, and our overall service offering.

(As per usual, none of these titles will be directly presented on Second Wind due to a conflict of interest. We may let you know we're working on them here via Patreon, but no editorial content will be produced.)

As for the actual Patreon, we're working on a couple projects now that we think will drive renewed subscriber interest outside those of you who are already supporting. I expect we will be launching both of those projects in August, so you won't have to wait long on that.

Our goal is still to get back to $50,000 per month on Patreon so that our monthly expenses are covered directly through YouTube revenue and Patreon. Q3 will be a challenge for us, but one that I know our team can take on and adapt to as we always have in the past!

/ UPCOMING PLANS

We're kicking off Q3 with our annual mid-year fundraising event this Saturday, July 18th. We'll be playing a bunch of party games throughout the day, launch a bunch of new merch, tease some upcoming plans we're working on, and hopefully raise a good chunk of money to throw back into our warchest for the quarter.

Q3 will be focused on a lot of development for Second Wind in general. Both for the business side of things, as well as new content to look forward to. It's been a while since we had a lot of cool new things to announce, but we're planning to have a pretty stacked third birthday in November.

We're not ready to share more specific plans yet, but we are in the planning stages for the next iteration of Adventure is Nigh, new documentary projects, and a couple of experimental show ideas we've been toying around with for a while.

In the meantime, we've got a litany of fun content coming up for you:

July 16 -- Clueless Commentator -- World Cup Edition (Patreon Exclusive)

July 18 – Fundraising Stream + Dokapon’s Return

July 18 -- Hey, Listen! Episode #2 (Patreon Exclusive)

July 22 – Waterworld Watchalong (Patreon Exclusive)

July 24 – Stardew Valley Bingo – Jess vs Jenna

July 31 - Phoenix Tier Game Night (Patreon Exclusive)

Aug 25 – Gamescom Opening Night Live Watchalong

And look for even more fun vids in the near future, including our Dark Souls 2 and 3 roommate tier lists, and a video game trivia showdown between Yahtzee and Marty

/ EDITOR'S NOTE

This was a beefier update than I usually provide, but as I've said since the start of Second Wind, we do these reports so that you have insight into what it takes to run an independent games media org of this size.

While it can be easy for people that are not part of the community or team to point at the numbers and just say "make cuts", Second Wind is not what it is without the people behind it.

When our Patreon took the hit it did back in 2024, every single one of us took paycuts to keep everyone employed.

We work on the margins that we do because we all believe in this team and we're not in this business to be rich. We do this because we genuinely love getting up every day to do it. We're a crowdfunded business; we know what we signed up for!

These reports help keep us honest about where we're at as a business, and also bring you insights on how unpredictable things can be sometimes. As always, we thank you for your ongoing support and belief in what we're building here.

Nick Calandra
Editor-in-Chief