We often spend a lot of time trying to convert people who don't listen to podcasts to bring them over, and that there's a lot of waste in that because we're we're trying to convince people who are either not in the mood right now, not in their place right now where they wanna do it, or they just it doesn't feel like it's for them. Welcome to About Podcasting, a show for podcasters. We talk about podcasting practices, tools, successes, and failures mixed with interviews and music.
Hosted on podhome.fm, the most modern podcast hosting platform. Welcome to another episode of About Podcasting. This week, I'm speaking with Mark Stedman, who is a podcaster and also helps podcasters to create their best work. He's been doing this for quite a while. We talk about all the usual stuff like his workflow, why he creates podcasts, what his goals are, his setup, and more. And we also talk a little bit about value for value and why Mark does not like Bitcoin.
Now we disagree on this topic, but that doesn't matter. That's exactly what podcasting is about. Right? I like hearing from people that have different opinions, And so I let them talk instead of trying to convert them to my opinion, which in my experience does not work. I think this was an interesting episode with lots of value in it. So without further ado, let's dive in.
I started, making podcasts in 2008, and, I I made my first one, the beginning of 2,008 with, some cheap microphones and a handheld recorder that actually recorded into a mini disc. And that's how I recorded because I love I love mini disc. But I would genuinely I would record episodes at work, and I would take the MiniDisc, and I would play it back through analog into my audio recording software.
A few months later, I invested in an hand in a a handheld recorder that actually, had an inbuilt, SD card. But I studied radio and, well, my my degree was in media and communication, when I left university in 2004, which is also the year that podcasting, got its name. And it wouldn't be for another year or so, until I started
hearing about it. And for whatever reason at the time, I didn't feel like I had anything to say, which seems ridiculous considering the amount of stuff that I've put out since. But for those first, like, three and a half years, I didn't, yeah, I didn't contribute.
But I, you know, I was an avid listener and then I decided, yeah, it's about time that I did this. And, my first attempt was really trying to make a radio show, a short half hour radio show more than, you know, what we would consider a podcast now. And it is not good. But you know, that's, that's what happens. And there's, but from then people, would sort of pay me in beer and whiskey to make podcasts with them or for them.
And I volunteered at radio stations. And then in 2016, I got my 1st paid client as a podcast producer. And I've done lots of other things since then, you know, run a podcast hosting company, and, set up a sort of a a little mini agency studio, all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, that's that's me in a nutshell. That that's awesome. So at at this current, point in time, this is still your main,
occupation? You still make all your money from podcasting in a podcasting space? It is my job. Yeah. I've been purely podcast income. My income has purely come from podcasting since, 2017. Wow. I I was freelancing on a on a project, almost in in many ways, actually a precursor to podcast index.
And before I sort of changed my views, I was involved in some very early Bitcoin stuff, around what we now think of as value for value, but then it wasn't really worked out, but it was, sort of the beginning stages of of NFTs and stuff like that, but it was all around all around podcasting and the blockchain and stuff. And then in 2018, I went full time with my podcast hosting company and sold that in 2021. So, yeah, since halfway through 2017, I've been full time, in in podcasting.
Wow. That that's, you know, that's the best thing. Right? You can do what you love, and you can sustain yourself with that. That is Absolutely. Congratulations on that. Thank you. Every now and again, I
it's been a while, but I I remember having a conversation a couple years ago with someone. I said, you know, what are you up to now? And I said, well, I make podcasts, and I teach people how to make podcasts. And the guy was like, and you make a living from that. You know, I'm not rich, but I make a living. Yeah. I think and that that's important. Right? Yeah. The from the outside,
people think of podcasts as, you know, it's a it's a hobby thing. You can never make money with it unless you're one of these, the top 1% of the the the well known names. Right? But that's that's not true. Right? No. And I think people have
this idea around podcasting very early on. They think, you know, I I get these these questions all the time when I'm working with new clients is, how can I get sponsors? And it's like, I think what people are searching for when that stuff comes up, it's actually not the monetization because I can always say to them, you'll probably make more money selling your own products and services because it's based on the trust that you're building up with your with your listener.
That's what you're capitalizing on then. Whereas if you if you are selling something else, you're sort of eroding a little bit of that trust or, you know, that that has to get paid back, a little bit. And so I think, you know, people want not just the monetization, but I think when it comes to sponsorship, people want validation. They want someone to say your show counts more than they actually want, you know, the money from it, I think.
Yeah. Yeah. And that's kinda all what humans want. Right? Yeah. They just wanna be Yeah. We want them along. They wanna be heard. Yeah. That's it. Okay. So I'm seeing a list of podcasts here with your name on it. Which one is your which ones are your current ones? Yes. So, I am, in the process of rebooting what is probably no, what is definitely my favorite show.
So in 2019, I started a show called List Envy, where I bring on a guest and we, every week we collaborate on a top five list, on a topic that the guest chooses. And so every every week I get to learn something new or discuss something that I love, and get to meet people who are really enthusiastic about things, which is wonderful. I had a long conversation this week with, a Disney expert and we talked about, Disney world attractions. And,
yeah, you know, I get to do all sorts of stuff like that and I love it. So, that's the one that I'm sort of currently working on. But I also, cohost a show called Convergence with my friend, Brendan. Every Friday we we get together and we talk about the businesses that we're running. And, on the face of it, they are 2 very different businesses, but we are quite similar in in some of our outlooks and the way that we approach business. And so we talk about that. We don't talk about, like,
you know, the numbers and marketing and making it. It's all about the soft side, you know, that or it's all about the squishy human stuff, that comes, you know, when you're trying to run your own sort of solopreneurship. So those are the 2, the 2 main shows. Right. Okay. That's awesome. And and let let's just pick, List Envy, for instance. Why do you create that show? You already kinda alluded to it. But what's your why for that show? Often,
I have an idea, and then it's like, am I gonna execute on this one? At at the time, I didn't so I I've, you know, started as as you alluded to. Like, I've started a lot of podcasts. And I was walking to meet, my brother, age I said back in 2019. I had, a few months ago finished,
the first season. We thought that was gonna be the very end of the show, and we ended up coming back. But I did a show about the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and we'd finished that, that run. And I thought, okay, well, that's it. I need another project. And the idea of there's been a couple of shows that I was listening to. And I thought, well, the idea of top fives, I think, is really fun.
And ranking creating these definitive rankings for things that are very subjective, I think, is a lot of fun. And so I literally I remember where I was just walking down a grass verge listening to another show going, yeah. Okay. Well, I could do this. And I I, you know, straight away the the name, like, I knew what it was gonna be called. And, I just yeah. Most of the sort of idea was was formed then. And then, I had a camping weekend,
and left it and then came back to it a couple of weeks later and started working on it. And, yeah, took a big break in 2021, and now I'm I'm bringing it back. Okay. All that those are great reasons. Right? And and Yeah. It's just just the fun of it, really. So for you, is there something as, success for this particular show? When is this show successful, or does it even matter? It does. I think success, but it's it's it's it has you have to define what success is for you. Mhmm.
And so for me, it's do I enjoy it, and do I get feedback from it? That's a that's one of the things that I've learned over the years is for me, I wanna know that people are engaging with it. And it doesn't have to be in huge numbers, but I I wanna be able to read a comment or read something, some feedback, some follow-up that that a listener has sent through. And that that is it for me. That's the thing. And so when I get that, I'm like, great, you know,
I'm moving. There's nothing worse for me than putting stuff out week after week, especially, you know, putting some work into it. There's very few shows that I do or that I have done over the years that require very little effort. You know, I I always put some preproduction effort into everything I do. And so I wanna know that that is reaching people and it's
making them think or just making them wanna reach out. And so that is what success looks like for me. Okay. And and how do you measure that? Because, obviously, you have download numbers, right, in your analytics. And you just said, I want to see when people comment. Where do they comment? Is it on social media? Is it somewhere else? It could be all over the place, but most likely social media. Every now and again, I might get an email.
I've had some lovely emails from people, but, I've been able to, you know, read out and, you know, they they create some discussions that we can bounce off. So, yeah, it's it's it's that kind of stuff. Yeah. Occasionally, you might get, like, a an Apple Podcasts review or something like that. That might be fun, but, yeah, social media, email, that kind of thing. Okay. And and do you,
I I if I look at the show here, I'm looking at podcast index at the list envy show. I don't see that you have value value enabled on it there. So I I was just wondering, like, do you then also use the the Boostrogram, ecosystem for also in the you know, having engagements with your with your audience? I don't because I'm I'm having done the the Bitcoin stuff and having, gone into it more, I'm pretty I'm pretty dead against it.
I don't believe in it. I think it's, it's a it's a pyramid scheme and a waste of our energy, literally our actual world energy. I think, I I've been fairly hard line about it, and I've got into some discussions about it with people. The idea,
the original Adam Curry idea of value for value is so strong. Right? It's it's really, really simple. And that's actually what I founded my previous business on, was the idea that if you get value from what I'm doing, you wanna show some value back, and that could be through Patreon. It could be through PayPal. It doesn't matter. And in in the spirit of it, absolutely, that's brilliant. What it has sort of become is this whole
Bitcoin thing, and and I'm just not down for it. I I think it's it's fiddling while Rome burns. I think it's creating so much, energy that we and, yes, I know there's arguments about people saying, yes, there's wind farms and all that stuff, but well, it's not wind farms. There are, energy efficient Bitcoin mining rigs, whatever. I that's fine.
You're not you know, I'm open to it, and I'm open to be told I'm wrong or that things are changing, and the idea of the blockchain is great, the idea of having a ledger, all that stuff is great. We don't need a decentralized currency. The only people who do are, for the most part, that's they don't that's not what they need. Like, money's fine. We have a system, of money. It's been working really well for 1000 of years. That's a great way of being able to show people,
some some love. So with Listnvy, I have, a very simple, like, $2 a month, subscription that people can sign up for. And so they can they can absolutely show their support that way, and they get some extra stuff. And I'm very happy with with that model. So yeah. Okay. Yeah. So it's it is the, the the currency that is used in the system. Right? So not the system itself, because that's that's just interaction. You can create interaction. Right? Which is very good thing.
Yeah. And I think if we could if we can have figured out and I I think, the the w three c, I think the the web, consortium are trying to figure out a way of being able to stream real money, that isn't used to buy drugs.
There is a way to they're looking at that. And I know how hard that is because, like, we can't divide up money in the same fractional way that we can divide up a Bitcoin. And so I absolutely see the sense in that. It's like, as I'm listening, I'm sending you tiny, tiny amounts of value that add up, and that's that's brilliant. And we don't we can't go you know, you can't charge someone a tenth of a penny.
But, you know, I'd love us to figure out ways that we can do that because, again, I think the idea is cool. I sometimes bristle a little bit about it in terms of I'm only paying for the small bit of it that I listen to or just that bit that interests me. There's something there that I'm not quite sure about either where, like I don't know. That that could get us into a whole other conversation, but, yeah, I think the the idea is solid. I just wish it wasn't based on burning fossil fuels.
Okay. I I think it would also get, larger adoption also is if it's just, easier using fiat money. There are services that do that. Right? Like, for instance, there's TruFence, which is also a modern podcast app, and you can buy,
Sats or whatever they call it, an insight there with fiat money, and then use that to boost and to stream and to do all that that type of stuff. It's, again, it's the it's the same problem. It's the fact that you're buying sats, and you're buying this stuff that is is being mined at incredible cost to the planet. Yeah. It's it's,
yes, it's easy. It's getting easier and you can hook it up to your Albie wallet and stuff like that. No one's gonna do it. No one's doing it. And again, it's like no. Like, all the money that's being passed around. I see it. And I, you know, I, I listen to a lot of, you know, podcasts about podcasts and there's plenty of like, this person sent me a boost to gram and it's all other podcasters listening to other podcasters. It's not, it's not breaking out into the real world and it's not going to.
There you go. 2024, I put my stamp on it. Yeah. It's totally fine. I like, to hear different perspective because I talk to a lot of people that are in that world. Right? And that, that do like this stuff. So I like hearing a different perspective. I do think that it is, slowly growing Mhmm. A little bit also into the mindset of, let's say, people that have no idea what that is. Or against crypto
as these services are becoming easier. So I think there is value in that and that things can become easier. And I think we also need something else, which might come in there for cross sell comments, which have nothing to do with with boosts or currency.
And that will make it even easier to get engagement and comments back and forth. That'd be very cool. And then that would be very cool if you have a comment that shows up in a podcast app and then shows up in all of the podcast apps. Yep. Podroll as well. Like, it's it's a great I mean, there's so much in the podcast index that or the podcasting 2.0 spec that's wonderful, and I've I've contributed a little bit to it as well. The, like, the Podroll thing, you know, anything that we can do
to help the word-of-mouth spread of of shows to be able to direct people. You know, if you like this show, chances are you'll like this one over here because I like it. You know, that kind of stuff. We yeah. More adoption of that would be wonderful. Yeah. And that is also coming, I think, with, modern hosting platforms, like, the one I run, for instance, and others are also adopting tags. And also, you know, Apple Podcasts now does transcriptions, which is based on also the podcast index
tag. So, you know, things are, are slowly coming and that's good for listeners and good for creators as well. Absolutely. So that, that absolutely helps. Now in, in your experience of creating shows, how do you get, people to actually listen to your show? Because there's so much out there. Right? There's unlimited content. How do you do that? Well, part of what I'm trying to do now is is is this, is
I love I love this as much as I've sort of just you know, and I feel a bit bad now because, like, we're having a lovely conversation. I just suddenly, like, unloaded on you about value for value. So I that was bad guesting on my part, so I apologize. But I, you know, I love this process. You know, I love I love getting to speak to people and have fun and, you know, disagree, agree, but do it in a, you know, in a in a, you know, friendly,
collegiate way. Like Yeah. And that is, I think, the best way to help people get to listen to what you do is, you know, people who listen to podcasts listen to podcasts. I think we often spend a lot of time trying to convert people who don't listen to podcasts to bring them over, and that there's a lot of waste in that because
we're we're trying to convince people who are either not in the mood right now, not in their place right now where they wanna do it, or they just it doesn't feel like it's for them. Whereas doing this, having a conversation with with yourself and and with other people where we're, we get to, you know, hopefully add value, be interesting for a bit, and then be able to say, hey. If, you know, you like this and you want more of it, I have a show over here.
I kinda think that's that's one of the best ways to do it. And then one one quick thing as well is I I touched briefly there on the social thing. What a lot of podcasters wanna try and do, and it's understandable, is post to social media and say, here's my next episode, you know, here's a link or here's a a quick clip and that kind of stuff. Go and listen. And they hope that listens can be equated with,
the, you know, the social media post that there is this sort of, you know, you can track it. And that very rarely happens because people aren't in the mood to go put their phone away, do something else, and listen to a podcast. They're in the mode of scrolling. That's what they're doing. You know, they're just scrolling through their feed, and then they wanna keep doing that. They don't wanna stop, put their phone away, and listen to a show.
So with list envy, I'm really pushing email as the way that people can subscribe to the show so that all they've got to do, if they've heard a clip or they've heard about it or they've checked out my profile because they've seen something interesting, the first thing they see is something along the lines of new episodes arrive every every Tuesday. Here's the premise of the show. Pop your email address in, and then done. And then once they've done that,
they can go about their day. They can continue scrolling. And in a, you know, once they they check their email app, there's the information to, you know, a new episode will arrive in their inbox. Or if you want, here's the links to subscribe to it in your favorite app. And so that's one of the things that I'm trying to do to reduce the friction, and hopefully make it a little bit easier once people have landed to actually go, okay. Let's give the show a go. Right.
And so you don't promote at all on social media? Not at the moment. I used to do the sort of, you know, I I had a bit of a schedule in in previous iterations of the show, where I would do, like, a quote card. So take a quote from from the episode and post that to places. Mhmm. I might do a clip. There's, you know, 1 or 2 other things that I might do. But what I'd rather do is not promote the show, but be interesting, valuable, helpful, entertaining,
all those kind of things, and and active on various social media places so that then when someone gets curious and taps my bio, I can say, hey. Season you know, new season of my podcast starts here. There's a link there. It looks like a link tree, and they go off and they they explore that way. And so rather than actually trying to promote and push, I'm just out out here,
trying to be fun and interesting and contribute. And then for those that are like, oh, you know, this is interesting. Check out the profile. Right. So that's a different approach. Yeah. So so be be visible on social media yourself as as a person yourself, and then people might follow that and, follow your content afterwards. That's that's the hope. Okay. Interesting. And, what about the video aspects? Is, are these shows only audio only? Or do you also post, on YouTube or something like that?
I am recording video because I'm doing it on Riverside. I'm not using those videos, and I'm not planning to make it a video show. I've done that in the past, and I do it for clients as well. But, and I've I've I've got absolutely no problem with it. But I I you know, for what I do, I'd it's it wouldn't be engaging enough
for YouTube to you know, because all it's gonna be is 2 people talking, which is fine, but I don't think you're gonna watch that. You know what I mean? Like, when I say watch, like, really actually look at it, you're probably gonna have that off in a tab somewhere or a corner of your window while you do something else. So it may as well be an audio show that that, you know, gets posted to YouTube with a a static image. And I think that's the case with a lot of shows.
I think there are some instances where, you know, I know I'm not a big I'm not a diary over, CEO, or listener, but I know there have been moments where
someone's saying something quite emotional, and and it's great to be able to capture that. And Yeah. Maybe that's just great for the social, or maybe it's nice to have that on the video. Something like hot ones, I think, actually, is a great example because you get to see the guest eating hot wings and being, taken over by the, by the, you know, the heat of these different spices, and you get to see them sweat and, oh, you know, all this kind of stuff. And that's a lot of fun to watch,
Probably less fun to listen to. But on the face of it, it's it's 2 people talking. You know? It's it's can you find a visually interesting way to do it? And my answer is, for my show, not particularly. So I'm gonna focus on audio. Yeah. Yeah. I I agree. And most podcasts probably, should do that because they're not television shows. Mhmm. And it's a very different beast. Yeah.
So let's, let's switch gear and and talk a little bit about, the technology and the tools that you use. Because you mentioned a couple of things already. Like, for instance, that, you have something where people can have a subscription. Right? Like, a £2 or €2 per month. How do you how do you do that? So I, because I have a technical background, I use Stripe, and you can do this without a technical background, as long as you're happy clicking some buttons. But, essentially,
I set up a recurring subscription within Stripe, which is a payment provider. So they take care of, your credit card. You know, they they take most websites, apart from Amazon, you know, tend to use a service like Stripe. And so they will take your take your payment details and keep it secure so you don't have to deal with that, and, and it's nice and trusted. So, they take a small fee, but not as much of a fee of something like Patreon.
And so, for for what I do, I just set up a simple subscription within, Stripe, and Stripe allows you to create what they call a payment link, which is, it just as it might suggest, it just it's a link that you can direct people to, which will set up that subscription. And then you just need a a link on your website to make it easy for people to cancel if they they don't want it anymore. And so that's what I've done. I have toyed around with actually making a more programmed
system where people have a login area and they can do all that stuff. But for the for the moment, I'm just like, no. This this works perfectly. This it's a no code solution as they call it. I create the payment link that kicks off on automation. So, I use a podcast hosting company that is a different one from yours. Other services are available. And it is Transistor. Right? It is. Yeah. Yeah.
Mhmm. And that sets up a private feed. So I've got a I've got 2 feeds for the podcast. 1 is the public feed that goes out to Apple and Spotify and all the places, and then I have a private feed which has extra bonus. So it's it's all the episodes, but with extra stuff in in each episode. And so using the tool Zapier, which is basically, like Internet glue, it glues services together. When, subscription comes through for List NV plus, as I call it,
that then talks to Transistor to say, take their email address, subscribe them to the podcast. They get a welcome email. And then similarly, if they cancel, it removes them from the, private feed in Transistor, and, that's all done without having to to write any code. Yeah. That's brilliant, isn't it? Yeah. We, Yeah. Because I I looked at Patreon and I was like,
there's so many expectations with Patreon, and and, yes, there's the fee. You know, I'd I'd probably have to I would have to charge more because they take a bigger cut, which is fine. They've got a huge infrastructure. No problem with Patreon. But the the expectation is you have, you know, a certain number of people are supposed to sign up and you're supposed to, you know, you wanna list all the names and all the I'm I'm, like, unrealistic. I know.
For the 1st few months, no one's gonna sign up for it. You know? No one's no one's gonna do that yet. I don't wanna have an empty supporters page. I don't wanna have a page that's like, you know, how many like, I wanna be able to keep that stuff private so that, there isn't that sort of expectation that, you know, I'm providing stuff every week. I don't yet have the the social proof. You know? Yeah. And so now I just wonder what's, like, it's there.
Whereas with Patreon, it's, like, there is an expectation that you tell people how many people are signed up and there's a list of names. Like, that's hard to kick off, and I don't I don't wanna do that. So that's one of the reasons that I I stayed away and just thought, yeah, I'll do this privately. Yeah. Yeah. I totally get that. And, it's beautiful to automate these things with Zapier as well. Mhmm. We do that now as well in, in PortHome.
What did what made you choose Transistor for these multiple shows? Because multiple ones are hosted there. Right? Yeah. Pardon me. Sorry. I cleared my throat. Yes. I, so I used to run, a podcast hosting company. So I I I had a company called Podient, which I built. Started working at the end of 2016. And when I sold that, I looked around for other services. So I sold it to Castos.
And for after looking around at the landscape, transistor was the one that was closest in terms of the services that, I provided. It had a more generous pricing model. I think it's it's a it's a higher step up to get into because, their their model is you can have as many shows as you want on there, provided, you know, it's it's banded by how many downloads and stuff, and that's fine. And so, you know, having looked at,
you know, I've used Libsyn for clients. I've never enjoyed losing using Libsyn, from a UI point of view, and that's kind of why I started Podian. There's, you know, a few others. I I really wanted to get the because when I started, the podcast UI, podcast user experience, because the expectation back in, for me, then 2016 was at nerds. Their nerds are fine using, unfriendly interfaces, things that have been built in 2,005 and haven't really changed to Blueberry,
at the time. Blueberry Libsyn. There were a few of these that you know? And then people like, Dan Benjamin started coming up using his experience running a podcast host a podcast network for years. He started thinking, well, I can probably make this into a product. And I happened to be doing it around the same time, and there was a couple of others. And then Captivate, and Transistor came a little bit later. But we were sort of there kicking kicking the door open a little bit going,
I think there's room here for it to be a pleasant user experience. And so when I sold it, when I sold, Podium, I was looking around for that same experience. And I find transistor just a pleasure to to use both from a a UX perspective, but also from customer service. They they get it they get it right. And I know the challenges as well.
And, you know, having having taken a tour of of Pod home, like, I yeah. I this is stuff I I know well, and I know how which bits are really hard to build and which bits, you know. Yeah. So yeah. But that's why that's sort of why I made that choice. It just at the time, it was, like, the the most comparable sort of service to what I was offering. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I can totally, see that.
Okay. So that's kind of, like, a bit of the software. Right? You also already mentioned Riverside that you do for remote talks. We are currently using SquadCast, which is a similar, thing that does kind of the same. I see that you have a awesome microphone in front of your face. What what kind of gear do you have? So this is I'm speaking into the RODE Procaster, which is a big fat dynamic mic. So it's got that kinda nice warm radio sound. Yeah. And then that's sitting on a Rode boom arm, which
is almost as expensive as the as the that's not quite, but it's quite an expensive boom arm, but it's a really good one. I've used quite a few before. They clamp to the desk, and and this one, it's always been able to take the weight of the microphone. So I really do I really do like it. And it just you know, you can move it and it stays where it's put, so it's great. That is the microphone is plugged into something called the Rode Streamer x, which, is almost like a really tiny mini RODE,
podcaster pro what do they call it? Pod all the all the names of the products have to say. Pro. Yeah. The RODEcaster Pro. That's what they're saying. To swap the syllables around and you get different product names. Yeah. So I've got a Rodecaster Pro in my living room where I was recording a couple of days ago, but the Streamer X is like a really tiny one mic version of that. It can also take a camera input because it's meant for, gamers,
which I'm or game streamers, which I'm not. But it's great. It works. It's got a little preamp, so, it gives you, the right amount of volume, and, you you know, I can play little sound effects and things if I want to. But it it's great. I really like it. So that's the Streamer x. So that's plugged into my MacBook. I in front of me, I have an Anker webcam. I can't remember which one it is, but, my Mac will probably tell me. But it's a a fairly wide angle,
camera because I'm visually impaired, and so I tend to sit quite close to my monitor. So the webcam's sitting on my monitor, which is only, you know, like, kind of inches away from my face. And so a wide angle means that I don't look like I'm, you know, too far, into the screen. So, yeah, that's my setup. Okay. Oh, and, my favorite headphones that I always recommend are the Sony MDR 705, because they're just perfect
workhorse headphones. I've had, I think, the same pair for 7 years, and I've only had to change the the foam ear cups. Whereas I bought the Rode as much as I like Rode gear, I bought their headphones. Twice the headband has snapped. The plastic headband has snapped. Whereas these things, I've never had to change them. They're great. Mhmm. Okay. So I think that's my whole setup. Yeah. And and, well, coming back to software a little bit more, when you do a podcast,
can you maybe take us through, like, your workflow? So you record this all this stuff. Where do you record in? Do you edit it afterwards, and and then what? Absolutely. So I, with List Envy being a weekly show, and with there being very different topics every week, I use automation to manage as much of that process as possible.
Because in any given episode, I've got to think about the guest, I've got to think about the the list that we're making, and then I'm recording weeks and sometimes months in advance because I like to batch episodes, and so I don't wanna have to keep all of that in my head. So I use a combination of MailerLite for email, Notion for managing the process, managing all the the information, and Zapier to glue the things together. So I work with a guest, or I work with a prospective guest, and I said,
you know, what what are we gonna cover? I'll find the the topic that we cover. They then get put into an automation in MailerLite, which sends them details about, here's where you can book your, book the the recording time, and here's some information about, that process. So they do that. They then get put into another, pipeline once they're booked to say, thank you for booking.
Here's how we record. Here's the information that you need. Please wear headphones, but, you know, all that kind of stuff. So there's a nice onboarding process. And then at the same time, that's going into Notion as well, which is an app for keeping track of information, basically. It's a note taking app. It's a database. It's a spreadsheet. It's all sorts of stuff. And so each episode is listed within Notion.
And I have a view called a Kanban view where I can see it as a list of cards, in columns. So I can actually, you know, drag an episode from one column to another so I can look at you know, see the process as as each episode goes through. And that means that,
I can keep track of several episodes. You know, I might record several in a week, and it's all just managed there and I can quickly look in Notion to say, okay, what am I recording today or what's the thing what am I editing this week? So that's the sort of preproduction. And I'll make all my notes and do all my prep in within Notion as well. When it comes to recording, do that in Riverside. I then take the audio files from Riverside and I put those into Logic. So that's Apple's.
It's it's meant for music editing, but it, you know, works perfectly fine for for my purposes. And I do some funky things in there. So, I use chapters quite heavily, so each thing that we talk about because it's top 5, so I will, invite the guests to go first. They'll talk about their their first their top one item. I'll do my top one item, then we do top 2, and so on. And each one of those is split up into chapters, so you can navigate through the the episode if you want to.
And there are some chapters that are for List NV plus So some some chapters are just for the people who pay £2 a month. And so what happens is once I export my MP 3 file, which has got all these chapters in, I run a bit of code that creates a public version of the MP 3 and a private version of the MP 3. So the the public one doesn't have the extra content, but it has an ad.
And then it's exactly the opposite for for the other one. And then they get automatically uploaded to Transistor with a title and description. I'll go and work on the artwork. I use an app called Sketch. I've I've always used it for graphic design. And so I make my artwork in in Sketch, upload that, and, yeah, everything's then scheduled and, MailerLite.
My email software uses the feed for the podcast to then say whenever a new episode comes out, email it, out to everyone, and there's some custom code there to make it, look nice. So, that is my workflow. So, yeah, there's a bit of automation, some custom coding in there as well, which is not necessarily not not necessary, but it, like, saves me a lot of time. And, so, yeah, that's it. Yeah. Wow. So
that sounds like a lot of work. How much would you say it takes how much work, like, how much hours for 1 episode? It it really varies because, well, I'll I'll yeah. It's an it's an unfair example with list envy because sometimes, like, a couple of weeks ago, someone, wanted to do top 5 Korean romcoms. I've not seen any Korean romcoms, so I had to watch a bunch, so that I could get a feel for it. So I'll I'll ignore the, like, research phase.
Going back and forth with a guest might take 10, 20 minutes, probably, probably less to, like, firm up the idea and make sure that we've got the right top 5. And then when it comes to recording, you know, I'll sit and I'll make some notes. Because it's, a formula, I haven't got to do a tonne of other stuff for each episode because it's like, well, I know what the
the structure of the show is. You know, I asked them why why we talked about this list. We'll go through our lists, you know, a couple of other things, and it's all kind of on rails, really. So, the actual recording process tends to be done within an hour. And then editing, I will take probably, I don't know, an hour, maybe 2 hours,
sit and do the sit and do the edit. And and I record, an intro, and a a segment in the middle where I sort of have a conversation with the listener, and that's where I can do my pitch to subscribe to ListMD plus or, you know, anything like, else like that. And then show notes are very, very simple. I used to do really comprehensive show notes for the show, Like,
so when we say show notes, I'm talking about the the episode description that you might see in your app or on the website. So the show notes on the on the app are really simple. It's just like a chapter list because Transistor makes it easy to once you've got the chapters in your MP 3 file, you can just list them with time codes so that people can look and see, oh, at 3 minutes, you know,
3 minutes 30, that's actually where the the first conversation starts. So I, you know, I can skip to it or whatever. And so that makes the show notes really easy to produce because I haven't got to do a ton of work. But on the website, because I think, podcasts should have websites, and I think it's great if they're really good websites. It helps with SEO, and it just gives, you know, the listener an experience, and an opportunity to to dive more into stuff. I ended up writing a ChatGPT
thing. So I wrote a script that imports all my episodes, and it talks to Chatcheapiti to say, what is this top 5 about? Is it about films? If it's about films, then reply with this word. If it's about books, reply with this word. And based on those words, I would then look up either in Amazon or IMDB or the games database or whatever and create a list on the website from all these chapter headings. So that, basically, you can go to the I'll give you an example.
I did an episode on top 5 journalism films. And so I give chat GPT. I say, I've got an episode that is called top 5 journalism films. Because it's a script, I don't actually know what the episode's about. So, you know, because it could be anything. And so I say, if it's about films, reply with the word IMDB, for example. And it does. And it's it'll say, oh, well, it's obviously about films. So okay. I now know I need to look up each one of these films listed in the chapters in IMDB.
So once I do that, I can get the artwork, I can get a link to the IMDB page, I can get a description, I can get the year the film was released, and that can all be shown on the website without me having to do that every week. So it was an afternoon's work, which was quite fun for me because I'm a nerd and, like, you know, that's that's great, and and I I enjoyed that process. And it's very inexpensive to do that in Church EPT,
But it means that I'm adding lots of value, and I can say to people, go to the website. You'll you'll get more stuff there. And, you know, there's all sorts of things I could do from there. So, yeah, I love these little bits that we can do, little extra things that, maybe there's a bit of work at the front end, like setting up all these automations and stuff, but, actually, it saves you time and allows you to create a bit of value,
for each episode going forward. So it just keeps saving you time, really. Yeah. Yeah. But I obviously, that's an advanced, thing to do. Right? That's not for everybody. But I do get it as a coder myself, of course, I do understand. You know, we like to spend
2 weeks to solve, to automate something that, takes us 5 minutes every week or something, just so that we don't have to do that anymore to make it scalable. Right? And that's it. It's not even a time saving, is it? It's just we don't like doing the same thing more than once. That's what it is. Yeah. And we just like, you know, fiddling around and creating that type of stuff. So
that's also what works. Yeah. My website is needlessly advanced for what it is, but it makes me pleased when I go to it because it looks nice. Oh, there you go. And so, maybe we can end on with all your, podcast experience, could you give the listeners, the most fabulous, the most important tip to make their podcasts successful, whatever that may mean for them? Keep the keep the joy in it. That is the most important thing because we have to get away from this idea of grind and,
you know, whether it's paying you dues or whatever. Like, if you don't enjoy it, at some point, you're gonna get to a moment where you're like, it's the day before you're supposed to have an episode out. You just haven't been in the mood. You know, it's not working for whatever metric you you choose. And if the enjoyment or the curiosity isn't there, then it just becomes, a millstone around your neck rather than something that you actually
want to show up for. And so whether you're creating, you know, using a podcast to further your business or it's just for a hobby, especially if it's, you know, for for your business or something, following your curiosity and making sure that every week or every 2 weeks, whenever you show up, that it's something that interests you and you learn something, you get something out of it every week and that you're prepared to offset that
with the rubbish tasks that you don't wanna do, that we all have to do, then if if the joy outweighs the irritation or the the roadblocks or the, you know, whatever, then, you know, that's it. And so pick something that you are really that brings you joy, that brings you curiosity, that you are happy to keep doing, even when it gets a little bit tricky. Yeah. Okay. That's great advice, I think. And then finally, where can people find you and your work?
So, if you wanna hear, the podcast, that's at listnvpod.com. It's like listen and then v y, listnvpod.com. And my website for all my stuff, I talk about podcasting and creativity and and that kind of thing, is at hellostedman.com, s t e a d m a n. That's me. Excellent. And I'll put all that stuff in the show notes so that people can find that easily as well. Thank you very much for talking with me today. Thank you. It's been a real pleasure.
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