Three lessons from recording our first 3 podcast episodes
Earlier this year, I started testing an app my friend Andrew was building called Thunk.
Andrew’s a product designer, and he’d designed a beautiful app for journaling with a key feature: disappearing text. The idea behind it was to facilitate a digital version of a key practice taught in The Artist’s Way— Morning Pages.
We started chatting back and forth about ideas for helping Thunk get its first 1,000 users. Our conversations were always insightful for me, and we decided to do a podcast to document it and build in public.
Our first episode of Finding the Net came out two weeks ago, and the next one goes out this week. We’ve recorded 5 episodes so far, and have learned a lot already.
I love those lists creators put out after reaching x episodes with what they’ve learned, but to be honest I don’t have a great memory, so the sooner the better to get them out there.
No. 1: Outsource what you’re not good at.
You can use people and/or technology to help you fill in the gaps— a podcast is a lot of work, so save yourself energy where you can. For Finding the Net, we’re working with an incredible producer and editor, Mandy Miranda. She is quite honestly a magician with audio; an area Andrew and I both agreed we didn’t want to take on.
On the other hand, Andrew is a great designer— so it was relatively easy (and fun!) for him to create the visual assets for the podcast.
We’re also using a few different tools + apps:
Riverside
Anchor
Notion
Dropbox
No. 2: Don’t start from scratch.
Podcasting has grown at a rapid pace this year, and so have the resources for creators just getting started. Between the tools above and the resources you can find on Twitter, don’t start your workflow from scratch.
Again, save yourself time to focus on creating good content, a show worth watching. My must read/watch resources:
Marketing Showrunners: Jay Acunzo has worked with the best in podcasting and created a library of useful lessons & tools that are a gold mine.
Podcast OS: So this technically won’t be out for another week or so, but if it’s anything like Janel’s Newsletter OS, it’s worth every penny and then some.
Passion Economy Stack: A curated guide of resources for all types of creators.
No. 3: Experiment to find your format.
When you’re creating something, there isn’t a right or a wrong way to do it— it’s an evolving process. Great episodes don’t come from spending ten hours on a single one, but they do get pretty good when you make and publish as quickly as you can.
The motto is: done is better than perfect. You might not have your final format nailed down for a few episodes. This is the best time to experiment and change up the different parts of your process and format, doubling down on what’s working and cutting out what’s not.
Related Read: Marketing Showrunners on developing a format listeners love.
Episode No. 3 comes out on Tuesday (I’ll link it here after it’s published). You can subscribe and listen to the first two episodes on your platform of choice.
Bonus: You will always think your voice sounds weird.
It probably doesn’t.