Star Wars Theory

Star Wars Theory is a niche site dedicated to all things Star Wars. Regardless of what you think about Star Wars the channel is quite an impressive tutorial on how a niche passion site should run.

The Youtube channel is the main "website" then we have other social channels added. The face of SWT is Niatoos Dadbeh. He seems to be very dedicated to the Star Wars lore and thus could be seen as a trusted source of original lore (mainly aimed at the 6 original George Lucas movies).

The positives of Star Wars Theory

Lets put this in perspective, the official Star Wars Youtube channel is 4.1million subscribers. Videos ranging from the tens to hundreds of thousands of views. Their main views come from trailers (Force Awakens is 110 million views is the highest so far).

Compare that to Star Wars Theory:

3.31 million subscribers
3k videos as of writing with over a billion total views
mid to late hundreds of thousands of views per video with 29 million views for a fan film
merch
merch part 2- light sabre hilts. Cool idea
Podcasts
large interaction
love the idea of theories of different aspects of the Star Wars universe (like what would have happened if Qui-Gon Jinn lived?)

It is quite noticeable that Theory communicates with his audience.

Emotion and passion we believe is a good thing. Theory seems to have had quite a bit of flack for this (being emotionally upset at certain movie moments), but we are unsure why. I would rather listen to someone who has passion rather than someone who dismisses that passion. He is an audience member. He is a paying member.

Passion for us is something that you care, absorb and enjoy what is produced through that brand. You can show warranted criticism but also understand that getting stuff sometimes is better than not. That company can grow. Seeing their products is a joy.

As a very side step to this. Check out soccer fans. They can be very passionate about their teams. They win and loose with their teams. They want the best for their teams...but they always get back up and support their team. Applying the same logic to a creation that has been around from the 70s and has influenced, and to a point guided people, is understandable.

This is what a passion website is all about. People have different ideas and opinions. If you flip and change, cave in and bow to that negative pressure then was it passion in the first place?

But passion can have a negative impact if it is not balanced with complete balance. Negative comments can have a point. Being stuck and blinkered is also not a way to grow passion within the niche that you have chosen.

With passion projects you have to be (careful) and:

passionate enough
respectful of the audience who enjoys your passion and the company/ entity behind your passion
allow yourself to listen to your audience as a whole rather than a vocal few. Are your key metrics changing in the direction that you want
what are the general populace thinking who like the niche, is it right what you are doing. Are you going off script and not going back to your original idea- what grew your brand originally
are innovating or following- have you stalled. Some companies will review projects/ business on a regular basis- is this the right direction you want to be going along. Is what you are releasing helping those metrics? Because we can be so blinkered, we assume that we are travelling in the right direction, but sometimes you need an independent to check it out- wood and trees.
can you highlight and recognize problems within you passion foundation?

People will gravitate towards people who are more passionate about a project than someone who is not.

How Star Wars Theory can grow

Remember the point of this is to figure out how to help rather than put down.

The main issues that we found was the merch.

Sabres is a great idea, unsure how many people are going to rebuy, but there comes the issue.

Merch is helpful as long as people buy more. So if you sell a fridge, how many more fridges is that person going to buy from you? So that fridge has to be higher priced, you need add ons (extended warranty) and new models and technology. A Lightsabre once bought might not be profitable in the long run unless you have other sabres to back this up. Then you get into collector items. Then you have the issue of licensing.

The grouping of the sabres is a good idea. But is there a way to get someone of the cast to sign 20 and have those as collectors editions?
Lightsabres, when we think of them, are all light shiny awesomeness. You do have one on your main channel, but there are no videos to show how the sabres work. We looked, but nothing on the main sales page. You have to dig around for "user guide" but that is putting up road blocks and skipping away from product pages. It is a visual product- the main hilt is great, but does it do anything else? It says about sounds, but we couldnt click on anything to hear the sounds. Theres even pictures of the beam coming out of the hilt, but what does this look like?
On your Youtube general merch link there is no link to the actual sabres merch
We like the testimonials. But again, these are visual products, could anyone post pictures or videos of them using the products?
If you have been able to create the products through licensing, then why not become more merch based? So more pro models of characters, ships even maps, character accessories...the list can become slightly endless. But it is that attention to detail people are after. What is it- for fans made by fans? But another cool feature would be the uniform/ clothing of the different characters. So this would be a clothing range.
The short movies and cartoons were cool and garnered your largest views. But how about TheoryStudio which churns out these features? They could also do documentaries about the lore, the behind the scenes of what George wanted/ vision. It would show people what you see about the universe. But again licensing/ copyright?
Can you come up with your own stories and then create short movies/ animations from those? If not, there must be an avalanche of stories online that you could find and produce. It doesn't have to be in the Skywalker universe, how about away from that. A story that opens up the universe. Heck even Young Solo Chronicles. Orrr, people who have been with the main character but never mention them by name but eluded to that character?
A really out there project could be a Jedi Academy. How would you train to be a Jedi? How about some of the moves/ fighting styles. It would need to be immersive, but a different idea.