podcasting

  • September 26, 2023

    Creating a Solo Episode – Recording and Editing

    I’m working on a longer form series on how I create solo episodes, which will likely go on Medium. But I’d like to publish the parts here, as I write them.

    As the baseball season winds down (for Yankee fans, anyway), I find myself thinking about the process of the sport as it relates to publishing my podcast.

    Like many things in life, both have a number of moving parts and contexts in which you want to change your approach.

    For example, in baseball, you have pitching coaches and hitting coaching. More granularly, they also have infield coaches and outfield coaches.

    You don’t want your pitcher to take the same throwing approach as your right fielder.

    The same thing goes for podcasting — I usually publish interviews for How I Built It. But once a month or so, I’ll do a solo episode, and the process is quite a bit different.

    For one, I’m not scheduling with anyone, so I don’t need to find a set time to record. I’m also not doing a pre-interview…but that research is replaced with topic research.

    Finally, I don’t usually send solo episodes out for edit.

    I’ll cover every aspect of the solo show here eventually, but today I want to talk about recording and editing. 

  • February 7, 2022

    You Don’t Start at the Top of the Charts

    One of my favorite shows is Parks and Recreation, an NBC show staring what’s now considered an ensemble cast in a mockumentary-style TV show, like The Office. It ran for 7 years and is beloved by many. And if you watch Season 1 without knowing anything else about the show, you’d probably be surprised it lasted beyond those 6 episodes.

    If you look at Scrubs, which is a strong contender for my favorite show, it’s very different when we compare Season 1 Episode 1 to Season 2 Episode 1. That show lasted 8 Seasons and got a short spin off.

    And while Friends’ pilot does a great job setting the tone of the show, it’s very muted compared to what we saw even later in that season. Friends lasted 10 years and is considered one of the most influential sitcoms from the 90s, a pretty great era for sitcoms.

    Each of these shows started as an idea that a bunch of people took a shot on; but they all needed some time to refine the details. Heck…The Janitor in Scrubs wasn’t supposed to be such a central character at first, and in Friends, Joey…well let’s just say he was quicker on the uptake in those earlier episodes.

  • December 30, 2021

    Favorites of 2021

    I’ve been doing this post for 8 years now, and this year I was finally smart enough to keep a running list right from the beginning of the year. And I’m glad I did, because for some of my picks, I forgot they came out this year!

    As a refresher, at the end of the year, I like to list my favorite technology pics (gadget, app, and thing I learned), as well as media pics (book, movie, music, TV show, and podcast). This year was especially good!

  • August 29, 2021

    How Skip the Grind Showed Me to Focus my Business

    A common question I get is, “What exactly do you do?” Generally when I answer, I get a response of, “Wow! You do a lot.” Even my wife says, “I’m not really sure how to answer when people ask me what you do.” That is awful for a business owner.

    It’s easy to think doing more = more revenue. But that’s usually not the case. It’s usually the opposite. You’re not focused, you’re trying to promote too many things, and you lose prospects because they aren’t sure you really know how to solve their problem.

    This is why I knew I needed to focus my business, and why I signed up for Skip the Grind. I was not disappointed.

  • August 18, 2021

    Iterating to Grow Your Podcast: Next Steps for How I Built It

    I often talk about how course creation is not passive income, which I think is an increasingly less common misconception. What’s generally not a misconception is, “podcasting is passive income.” For one, podcasting is something you need to show up regularly to do well. Second, most people aren’t making money podcasting. But still, growing complicit in your podcast format and process can really stifle your podcast’s growth. You need to iterate.

    With that in mind, here’s what I’m doing to continue growing my podcast, How I Built It.

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  • July 29, 2021

    SavvyCal vs. Calendly

    A few weeks ago In my newsletter, I talked about how I’m considering switching to SavvyCal over Calendly. There are a lot of great features to like about SavvyCal, including how calendar overlays work, one-off links, reusable hours, and recurring time blocks based on calendar events.

    Plus with teams, you can do “round robin” scheduling, allowing you to easily combine multiple people’s availability – something that while SavvyCal requires a team account for, Calendly doesn’t offer at all. But I’m not quite ready to switch yet. Here’s why.

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  • April 27, 2021

    What is the Best CTA for Podcasts?

    We’ve all experienced analysis paralysis. There are too many items on the menu at a restaurant and you’re not sure what to order. There are seemingly a million Apple Watch bands – which do you pick? What’s really the difference between the Honda Odyssey EX and EX-L?1

    What’s the balance between offering choice and getting people to take action? That really depends on the medium. For example, you may notice podcasts have a ton of calls to action (CTAs). Maybe you do. My podcast does at times. Is that really the right route? And if not, what should your podcast’s CTA be? Let’s explore.

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  • April 16, 2021

    5 Ways to get More Podcast Downloads

    There are times in life when you have a fairly captive audience. You’re giving a lecture at a college where attendance is required. You’re the keynote speaker at a conference. You’re leading a meeting at work. You’re explaining to your wife why CSS Custom Properties are the bee’s knees1. But a podcast…and most online content…is the opposite of that. In-fact, unlike all of the examples names above, the audience might not even know your podcast exists. To get more downloads, you not only need to engage the audience. You need to find the audience.

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  • February 23, 2021

    Why the WordPress.com / Spotify Deal is Bad for Podcasting

    Imagine going to one of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant. He makes you his signature dish – Beef Wellington. After eating what is sure to be the best Beef Wellington you’ve ever had, you go to the kitchen to give your compliments to the chef. You notice he has some cooked steak left over. You say, “You’ve already done the hard part. Why don’t you just serve it for lunch tomorrow?”

    He’s going to explain to you that the left overs won’t be nearly as good tomorrow as it is tonight. That the steak was made for his Beef Wellington and he’d need to exert effort to create a dish fitting for lunch, for the left over steak.

    While I’m no Michelin chef, I do create a lot of content. And you can’t just throw the left overs out there and expect the same quality content. So why are WordPress.com and Spotify telling us to do that?

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