I just launched a podcast last week! The podcast is going to be (basically) an audio version of the blog, with some small extra stuff added for the people who enjoy listening to stuff instead of reading. Podcasts are also something you can listen to while doing other stuff like doing chores around the house or working out, which (obviously) is not a property of blog posts.

As I foreshadowed last week, I wanted to talk about my experience of starting a podcast and how easy (read: not easy) it was to do so, and this blog post does just that. I want this to be the be-all and end-all place for people to learn how to start a podcast and how to get it on platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

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Why should you start a podcast?

Honestly, if you’ve ever had the idea of starting a podcast, however random that idea might have been, you should start one!

Podcasting is honestly something that requires very little technical ability to do, at least at the start of your podcasting journey. You don’t need to know how to use a camera or how to edit videos, you only need to know how to talk.

Of course, some people edit their podcasts before publishing them, but I’m not one of them. The off-the-cuff, unedited nature of podcasts is something I really enjoy and it really helps me speak more eloquently and without thinking “I’ll just edit it out.” I believe it’ll help me improve my speaking and articulation skills.

It can be as long or as short as you want, as people aren’t as averse towards listening to longer podcasts. This isn’t the case with YouTube videos, where the audience leans towards shorter videos; or blog posts, where a multiple-pages-long blog post might scare readers away. Podcasts are almost meant to be long and detailed.

Podcasting also requires very little gear to get started. If you have a phone and a pair of headphones, it is enough to publish your first episode.

Okay, you’ve convinced me. How do you do it?

Starting a podcast is honestly more complicated than it should be. Ideally, you should just upload your podcast to a central place that distributes it to all the other platforms like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify. But that’s not the case.

But let’s start from the beginning.

First, you should decide what you’re going to talk about and what your podcast is about (see below) and then make some short notes about it. Your notes don’t have to be a script (although that might work too), just short ideas and points to hit to minimize awkward silence and pauses between points).

Next up, recording. To do this, you need two things: a mic and recording software.

Your mic can honestly be anything from a phone mic till a professional recording Shure mic. It doesn’t matter at the beginning as long as it records something.

Recording software is also really easy to acquire. If you’re using your phone, you can use your voice memos app or use a more “pro” app like GarageBand on iPhone and Bandlab on Android. If you’re using a computer, I recommend using Audacity as it is free and allows you to export in a variety of audio formats. You can also do basic editing!

Of course, if you make music, DAWs are an option for this. I personally use Ableton Live Lite.

Now, how do you upload it to a variety of platforms? You need podcast hosting software, such as Podbean or Overcast. I personally used anchor.fm, a free service that was recently (ish) acquired by Spotify. You could honestly also use Substack itself, but I’m not sure how good it is.

When you upload your episode to the hosting service, they will provide an RSS link that you can copy and paste into the various portals of the individual podcast apps like Apple Podcasts. Honestly, this process was extremely tedious and unnecessarily overcomplicated, and it was extremely frustrating. All of these apps have their own requirements to upload your podcast, and it was a pain to just figure out where to paste your RSS link. Apple Podcasts, for example, requires an Apple ID that (for some reason) has a valid payment method. This is the reason my podcast is not on Apple Podcasts (yet).

Luckily, Anchor has direct integration with Spotify so your podcast is automatically uploaded there when you upload it to Anchor. Furthermore, whenever you upload a new episode, you don’t have to go through all of these hoops again.

But what should I talk about?

Anything. It really doesn’t matter.

The big upside of a podcast is that you can talk about anything you want. It can really become a good side-hustle (if you get a decent audience) and it really doesn’t require too much work to record one.

The fact that podcasts are long also lets the audience forge a deeper connection with you and learn about you as a person. That’s extremely valuable.

This is why a podcast (especially shorter ones) are extremely valuable for people who are in the workforce. It lets people learn about you as a person and what your views and values about life are. It is a really useful side to a CV.

It can also help you log things you learn about and interesting experiences that you’ve had.

But I digress. Talk about anything.

Interesting Things over the Week

Rain

On Saturday (30th Jul), our family got stuck in the rain when we were coming back from a relative’s place.

It was raining so heavily that we could barely hear the navigation.

The roads were flooded and the water came up to the rear bumper of the car.

It took us 3 hours to cover around 20 kilometers with the rain and the traffic caused by it.

“Planning and doing are different.”

A video by Ali Abdaal (see below) had this as one of his talking points. [timestamp: 8:35]

This is something I can really relate to as I’ve been planning to do stuff for ages and it’s only recently that I actually started doing it.

Planning is useless if you don’t execute on it

What happened to the channel?

Honestly, I haven’t had enough time to work on the videos. There’s also some maintenance work that needs to be done to completely finish up the “rebrand” of the channel.

I need to figure out some stuff completely before I get back to it. So it’s coming soon!

Photo Diary

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