How do I put components after another & export?

[Blrp]

I'm a beginner at this and I have four components that I want to play in sequence one after another in an mp4. How do I do this? Should I manually input the duration of the first component as the start timecode of the next etc, or is there a more elegant way? And then how do I export?

[P.M.B]

Don't be fooled by the title of this video.  It's less a description o fwhat's in the video than it is of

Adobe current culture of incompetence.

Get to know the After Effects interface |​

The lesson takes you through the process of importing a clip, positioning it in the timeline & adding it to the render queue and rendering (exporting).

It has nothing to do with getting to know the interface.

[Blrp]

That doesn't tell me what to do when I have multiple components.

[Dave_LaRonde]

Considering you don't know what you're doing or talking about, I'm going to guess that you actually should be using Premiere Pro instead of After Effects. 

Four "components" sounds to me as if you're talking about "four video clips".  You just want to string them together, and that's editing, and for editing you use Premiere Pro.  It's the right tool for the job.

[Blrp]

Two of the components are mp4 videos. Two are fade-in text on a black background, created in After Effects, with m4a audio clips.

[Dave_LaRonde · Accepted solution]

....and Premiere Pro remains the right tool for the job.  It's an EDITING application.

On the other hand, After Effects is an animation, compositing, special effects and motion graphics application.  Two different beasts.