How To Start A Podcast

Rachel and Shamsiya talk about how to start a podcast, what tools they use and how they came up with the concept for Failure Decoded. They also talk about the first failure they experienced as podcast hosts.

Show Notes:

0:30 - Failure Decoded's first failure

3:45 - How we handle rejection and failure

8:45 - Step 1 for starting a podcast - finding a niche

11:45 - Step 2 - Finding the format, frequency and name

13:55 - Step 3 - Tips for creating a logo that pops

16:58 - Step 4 - Choosing our recording tools (we use Riverside and the Yeti microphone)

19:13 - Step 5 - Finding a podcast hosting platform (we use Buzzsprout)

21:22 - Step 6 - Editing software (we use GarageBand)

25:23 - Summing up the podcast process

28:48 - We talk about TikTok and the social platforms we like to use

33:00 - Going viral on TikTok

-----

Links:

Failure Decoded
Failure Decoded Instagram

Your Hosts:

Shamsiya

Instagram
LinkedIn

Rachel

LinkedIn
Twitter
Instagram

Transcript

[rachel]: 0:02

sam how's it going

[shamsiya]: 0:03

going good rachel how's it going for you

[rachel]: 0:06

yeah it's it's good it's good

[shamsiya]: 0:08

crazy

[rachel]: 0:08

we have like a bit of an update i guess not even an update but just like failure story of our own that we

[shamsiya]: 0:14

m

[rachel]: 0:14

wanted to kind of kick off the episode with and i was just talking to m c like i don't know you know i feel like we handle failure okay and she's like no

[shamsiya]: 0:23

we don't

[rachel]: 0:24

ye

[shamsiya]: 0:26

yeah

[rachel]: 0:26

um yeah so to give you some back story when we first started this podcast technically this opportunity came up and like we didn't even have the podcas launched at this point but we're like this is huge like we need to trust try and get on this train but basically hub pot which is like a car platform they now have a podcast network some of my favorite podcasts ever are part of that network so for me obviously i'm like fan girling about this i was like oh my god if we can get in the top podcast network that would be amazing like we could be on the no

[shamsiya]: 0:57

ah

[rachel]: 0:57

with the likes of all these huge podcasters who get like millions of downlads every month um so yeah basically to get back to it in the actual opportunities they have an accelerator program for creators so you don't necessarily have to have a big podcast or an audience or even a podcast at all they were actually willing to take people that were willing to just do like a little test pilot episode um and essentially you'd go through this accelerator they would help you with growth help you with marketing um and i was like great that's like all the things that we need

[shamsiya]: 1:26

i know right

[rachel]: 1:27

so yeah so we applied we got through the first round

[shamsiya]: 1:31

a

[rachel]: 1:32

but then after that didn't hear anything back and you always know like that's probably not the best sign um but yeah we've got an email this is actually going back like a week or two i haven't even really had time to even think about it i've just been so busy um by we got animal that we didn't make it through however the ike you know next cohort opens in january so i think we just be ready for that what do you say

[shamsiya]: 1:55

first of all like there was so much we kind of accomplished because we were applying for the hob spot accelerator program like there was so many things you were like rushing you would like doing all this setting

[rachel]: 2:06

yeah

[shamsiya]: 2:06

up the media

[rachel]: 2:06

it actually

[shamsiya]: 2:07

the channels

[rachel]: 2:08

yeah it helped us to be fair launch quicker i think because

[shamsiya]: 2:11

yeah

[rachel]: 2:12

i know you could have launched without a show but i'm like no let's show like we have this recordings done like let's just put our best foot forward

[shamsiya]: 2:18

there was this goal right like we were

[rachel]: 2:20

yeah

[shamsiya]: 2:20

like really looking forward

[rachel]: 2:21

oh

[shamsiya]: 2:21

to yeah best foot a foot forward and it was like amazing like how we were working and i was like so excited i'm sure we're going to get this i'm sure we were going to get this and then yeah you're like now you know why we didn't get and i was like what really what are they looking

[rachel]: 2:34

uh

[shamsiya]: 2:34

for what reason give us some rest

[rachel]: 2:38

yeah unfortunate ly don't give a reason which is like pretty normal i mean i know like they you know

[shamsiya]: 2:43

i know

[rachel]: 2:43

like employers

[shamsiya]: 2:43

i know

[rachel]: 2:44

and stuff an you on't get the job i think they also just want to cover the protect themselves right wanta give you reasons

[shamsiya]: 2:48

yeah

[rachel]: 2:48

or whatever but yeah honestly like for me just like sometimes i think it kind of feels you right like failure and rejection because now it's like you know no i did we did really want this we were really excited about it now we have till january let's just make it we'll kick

[shamsiya]: 3:04

yeah

[rachel]: 3:04

ass till january

[shamsiya]: 3:05

yeah

[rachel]: 3:05

and hopefully apply

[shamsiya]: 3:06

yeah

[rachel]: 3:06

again

[shamsiya]: 3:07

but we did reach out to a couple of good people who are who are already on the network and made friends and we're going to have some of them on the show i think that's

[rachel]: 3:14

a

[shamsiya]: 3:14

really something positive that's come out of it but not reasons but at least feedback should be given with rejection that's like i think that should be made mandatory across all boards you know it's

[rachel]: 3:27

m

[shamsiya]: 3:27

only then that you know you do better and understand what for us and how does it make you feel i was like

[rachel]: 3:32

oh

[shamsiya]: 3:33

how do you take failure rachel what's like the thing for rejection

[rachel]: 3:37

yeah

[shamsiya]: 3:37

and failure

[rachel]: 3:39

um it does hit me pretty hard but you know what i think honestly for me i think the fear of failure and fear of rejection is a lot worse

[shamsiya]: 3:47

hm

[rachel]: 3:48

then the actual failure itself because for me it was like when we got that email i just had so many other things to do that it was honestly like well that's okay like

[shamsiya]: 3:57

yeah

[rachel]: 3:57

on to the next thing

[shamsiya]: 3:58

yeah

[rachel]: 3:58

so i think the thing is you can't necessarily put all your eggs in one basket it's not like if we didn't get into this

[shamsiya]: 4:04

m

[rachel]: 4:04

accelerator we were just going to quit on this podcast and not do it any more like i'm really enjoying it i think

[shamsiya]: 4:09

hm

[rachel]: 4:09

it's great

[shamsiya]: 4:10

m

[rachel]: 4:10

i think

[shamsiya]: 4:11

m

[rachel]: 4:11

we've improved a lot

[shamsiya]: 4:13

m

[rachel]: 4:13

even just like our

[shamsiya]: 4:14

m

[rachel]: 4:14

like obvious have known you for like a year and a half but we

[shamsiya]: 4:17

m

[rachel]: 4:17

were actually just talking we've never even

[shamsiya]: 4:18

m

[rachel]: 4:18

met in person but

[shamsiya]: 4:19

m

[rachel]: 4:19

i've known you for a year and a half but i think it's totally different as soon as you hit record

[shamsiya]: 4:24

uh

[rachel]: 4:24

there's just something right like and it's it's

[shamsiya]: 4:26

h

[rachel]: 4:26

true for so many people

[shamsiya]: 4:28

m

[rachel]: 4:28

the minute you're recorded you're on camera or something you start to feel more awkward

[shamsiya]: 4:32

yeah

[rachel]: 4:33

so i think doing this podcastits help so much like i feel like we're a lot more natural i think we're getting better at interviewing

[shamsiya]: 4:39

yeah

[rachel]: 4:39

so learning a lot so i'm good with it i could accept it but i don't know like how about you how do you deal with it

[shamsiya]: 4:46

feller is not

[rachel]: 4:47

m

[shamsiya]: 4:47

my strong suit i can't take it i don't it's not like i get scared of it of your it's just like i'm so competitive as a person i've always been it's not like unhealthy is that i want to keep like winning things you know that's like

[rachel]: 5:01

yeah

[shamsiya]: 5:02

something i it's not healthy but it's also not bad it kind of has worked for me it kind of helps me achieve things and it's not like i'm competing with anyone else i'm just competing with myself but t's a good thing that we didn't apply to the accelerator and then get on to the podcast or something like that sort podcast is like it's so organic we just started this and so it was so intuitive that just happened was like almost like okay that's just going to help us grow faster but it's fine as you said you know we're learning so much and i feel like every day we're learning so much about ourselves to how we can change how we approach things becoming more intuitive to us and to you know the surroundings and reading and writing these posts and understanding what people are thinking this is constant you now chatter i can hear it's almost like i can visualize okay this is what is happening so it's amazing how beautiful this entire process has been so far and meeting all these people and talking to them about failure and so many people are like you know this is such a good concept how are you all coming up with it and i'm like you know this is cool this is all right saying you know you should ask her when you meet her know how

[rachel]: 6:14

no it's your thing to

[shamsiya]: 6:17

it is such a one concept rachel really i have to keep telling you this it's amazing no it's like the failure you know how and how we are able to get so many topics just to you know build that whole failure decoded podcast for me it's such a learning experience and i'm just enjoying it so yes we'll look into other you know accelerators or maybe applied to this again but this is like amazing we're growing so fast

[rachel]: 6:45

i think that's the win win here right it's like regardless and we said that from the very beginning i think we haven't made that joke like oh if we don't get in it's fine it's content for the podcast well

[shamsiya]: 6:53

he

[rachel]: 6:53

talk about how we failed at something this is failure to code's first fail

[shamsiya]: 6:57

i

[rachel]: 6:57

or which is

[shamsiya]: 6:58

that

[rachel]: 6:58

kind of

[shamsiya]: 6:58

that

[rachel]: 6:58

awesome actually

[shamsiya]: 6:59

yeah and that's how i take failure like if i fail at something i need another win in some way you know

[rachel]: 7:05

yeah

[shamsiya]: 7:06

i need that

[rachel]: 7:07

it feels

[shamsiya]: 7:07

win

[rachel]: 7:07

the fire

[shamsiya]: 7:08

it just has to have it's always been like that if i fail at something i'm not going to sulk and cry it's like no i need another way and i need to you know it has to keep coming i'm very outcome driven kind of a person yeah

[rachel]: 7:21

yeah

[shamsiya]: 7:21

so that's why when you re initially brought up failure i was like what's what do we have to talk about failure like there's just nothing like just go up right you feel upwards i always thought it was filing

[rachel]: 7:32

yeah

[shamsiya]: 7:32

upwards but not

[rachel]: 7:33

yeah

[shamsiya]: 7:33

really not really

[rachel]: 7:35

not always

[shamsiya]: 7:37

not always

[rachel]: 7:37

but that's all we have in podcasts you can figure out ways to fail upward

[shamsiya]: 7:41

yeah

[rachel]: 7:41

because a lot of people like don't handle it well at all and they can't push forward right they don't necessarily have the same

[shamsiya]: 7:47

yes

[rachel]: 7:47

um like personality type that you have where you just you want your next win and you're ready and you're confident and you can do it so yeah that's kind of the gist of why we started the podcast and maybe this is a good time she sage into the topic that we wanted to discuss today which is how and why to start a podcast like we kind of talked about it in our intro episode of now why we picked failure specifically but we also want to talk about just the benefits of starting a podcast in general and then also some of the tools that been using and learning over the last i don't know how long have we been doing this like two months

[shamsiya]: 8:21

two months and you know what

[rachel]: 8:23

yeah

[shamsiya]: 8:23

it's just one month since we launched actually happy one month to us

[rachel]: 8:29

happy one month look

[shamsiya]: 8:30

oh

[rachel]: 8:30

at us go and we have like eight episodes

[shamsiya]: 8:31

h

[rachel]: 8:31

now we're going to launch release another one today so we're

[shamsiya]: 8:34

wig

[rachel]: 8:34

on like we're on pace for

[shamsiya]: 8:36

more

[rachel]: 8:36

sure we're

[shamsiya]: 8:36

than

[rachel]: 8:36

on

[shamsiya]: 8:36

that

[rachel]: 8:36

pace yeah okay so in terms of starting the podcast let's okay what did we first do what was step one step one was coming up with initial concept and the niche like that's the thing as you really want to drill down into a niche not pick something so specific

[shamsiya]: 8:53

m

[rachel]: 8:53

that you can't talk about it for hours and hours on end and episodes and episodes on end because if we do this if five years from now if we're still talking about this it needs to be a topic that is you know still relevant and still has a lot of content that you can produce around it or anything else at ou would add to that what

[shamsiya]: 9:09

oh

[rachel]: 9:09

was like our initial steps

[shamsiya]: 9:11

i think the first thing is you just came up with the idea so yes it was about the entire fear of failure but is there something specific that kind of like helped you you know trim it and make it so specific as her

[rachel]: 9:25

honestly for me it's just that i listened to a lot of business podcast and they're always interviewing people that are very successful that have sold their company for millions of dollars and something i noticed like almost like pattern that i noticed they would talk about maybe the initial days

[shamsiya]: 9:42

m

[rachel]: 9:42

it was like still a concept or really early on and then they would kind of like just gloss over the middle part where all the challenges and all the failures are and then go right into the success so in a way i'm made it look like it was like kind of effortless or that it happened really quickly but that's not the case at all like there's a lot in the middle that i honestly think a lot of people also forget about i think that's the

[shamsiya]: 10:04

m

[rachel]: 10:04

other thing it's not until you kind of press people

[shamsiya]: 10:07

m

[rachel]: 10:08

i don't know if people just repress failure and rejection just to protect themselves which is definitely possible it sounntil you kind of like cry and say no but like were some challenges where were some obstacles like where did you fail and how did you learn from it then people

[shamsiya]: 10:23

m

[rachel]: 10:23

really open up and it's like oh yeah actually like a year

[shamsiya]: 10:26

yeah

[rachel]: 10:26

into the business like this happened

[shamsiya]: 10:28

yeah

[rachel]: 10:29

yeah like right before we you know i pod or whatever this happened

[shamsiya]: 10:33

m

[rachel]: 10:33

people don't really talk about that and that's what i noticed and i just didn't want to be another generic podcast i wanted to talk about something

[shamsiya]: 10:39

yeah

[rachel]: 10:39

a little bit different when it came to entrepreneurship in business like take

[shamsiya]: 10:42

yeah

[rachel]: 10:42

a different approach or angle

[shamsiya]: 10:44

yeah when you brought it up i was like you know failure is almost synonymous with building it back for me because it's like

[rachel]: 10:53

m

[shamsiya]: 10:53

these are two events that happen so close to each other and one is not without the other and a lot of the times entrepreneur s fails many times they're constantly building but now entrepreneur never understand what happens you know what is it that they do in building it back or how do they take failure so for me for me that was what i was what i'm constantly look ing to extract out of the guests or any other topic that we are trying to so i feel like with your concept and your objective and mine it kind of like brings the whole different it enlarges the scope no and there's a spectrum of things we understand and talk through so that's how i think we came up with failialygoded the planning

[rachel]: 11:38

yeah absolutely okay so once you came up with our topic we kind of came up with a niche what was the step after that

[shamsiya]: 11:46

we were trying to figure out how often we are going to do and what's goin what's going to be the format right like the

[rachel]: 11:54

m

[shamsiya]: 11:54

guests or the topics or is it going to be uh twice a week or once a week right that's how we kind of decided

[rachel]: 12:02

yeah

[shamsiya]: 12:03

it

[rachel]: 12:03

yeah and the name to the

[shamsiya]: 12:06

oh

[rachel]: 12:06

name

[shamsiya]: 12:06

my god oh

[rachel]: 12:06

that

[shamsiya]: 12:06

my

[rachel]: 12:06

was

[shamsiya]: 12:07

god

[rachel]: 12:07

challenging to coming with

[shamsiya]: 12:08

oh my

[rachel]: 12:08

me

[shamsiya]: 12:08

god

[rachel]: 12:08

actually you came up with the name decoded was on your brain storm list

[shamsiya]: 12:12

you had a lot of other options we were just

[rachel]: 12:14

i

[shamsiya]: 12:14

like

[rachel]: 12:15

had other options that did not get picked though the failure de code was definitely as at first it was like de coded i was like okay okay google kind

[shamsiya]: 12:22

yes

[rachel]: 12:22

of exactly what it meant

[shamsiya]: 12:23

yeah

[rachel]: 12:24

i was like okay that actually works perfectly in this case what we're trying to do

[shamsiya]: 12:28

yeah

[rachel]: 12:29

the other thing we had originally was i think we were just calling like the failure podcast is like a place holder name

[shamsiya]: 12:34

m

[rachel]: 12:34

and we're

[shamsiya]: 12:34

m

[rachel]: 12:35

like oh i don't know do we just pick that like

[shamsiya]: 12:37

yeah

[rachel]: 12:37

pretty obvious like when you hear it

[shamsiya]: 12:40

yeah

[rachel]: 12:40

ut the two things you don't need podcast in the name

[shamsiya]: 12:43

yeah

[rachel]: 12:43

and i didn't even think about that you were doing some research on picking a name

[shamsiya]: 12:47

yes

[rachel]: 12:47

and like yeah they advised not to do that i was like oh i wouldn't have even thought about that

[shamsiya]: 12:51

yeah

[rachel]: 12:51

that's another thing too as you don't need podcasting am it's obvious when it's in the

[shamsiya]: 12:55

yeah

[rachel]: 12:55

apple podcast like you know it's a podcast

[shamsiya]: 12:58

yes

[rachel]: 12:58

o hat's a good tip for people

[shamsiya]: 13:00

yes and you have to do research that's like the big big research like if you if you're to people that it's amazing because there's a lot of ground that's covered between the two of

[rachel]: 13:07

hm

[shamsiya]: 13:07

you or three of you but if you're solar you or anyone you have do research you have to like everything and we have rachel on the team and you know how specific particular and detail oriented

[rachel]: 13:20

yeah

[shamsiya]: 13:20

years

[rachel]: 13:22

yeah she's yeah

[shamsiya]: 13:23

yeah so

[rachel]: 13:24

i'm a perfectionist i know i know i have a hard time letting go and i like things to look good but

[shamsiya]: 13:28

yeah she sends me these links to articles and you know this is what it is and yeah that's how we kind of like we're able to confidently say okay we're going to call this failure decoded and remember you went back and you were like let's check the domain let's check the social media handles it was in taken so we were like yeah this is how we're going to find a life so we

[rachel]: 13:46

ah

[shamsiya]: 13:47

did

[rachel]: 13:47

that also

[shamsiya]: 13:47

all

[rachel]: 13:47

worked

[shamsiya]: 13:47

of that

[rachel]: 13:47

out great

[shamsiya]: 13:48

ah

[rachel]: 13:49

having the dot com domain i was like wow that's pretty incredible and all the social handles we don't have to compromise on anything which is amazing and that's never happened to me before so

[shamsiya]: 13:58

yes

[rachel]: 13:58

that's great

[shamsiya]: 13:59

yes perfect

[rachel]: 14:00

okay and then the next step after that was you know now we've decided on our format we have the name it's like

[shamsiya]: 14:07

the

[rachel]: 14:07

okay

[shamsiya]: 14:07

local

[rachel]: 14:07

well

[shamsiya]: 14:08

uh

[rachel]: 14:08

logo too we

[shamsiya]: 14:09

h

[rachel]: 14:09

have the yeah we did the logo that was bein a trial and error to canva though honestly even like i was using free canva at the time i think i might have done the free trial for like a month to get better graphics

[shamsiya]: 14:20

how many prototypes

[rachel]: 14:20

sorry can

[shamsiya]: 14:21

did

[rachel]: 14:21

be

[shamsiya]: 14:21

you create like a million

[rachel]: 14:23

so many so many

[shamsiya]: 14:24

yah

[rachel]: 14:24

so many actually

[shamsiya]: 14:25

h

[rachel]: 14:26

know it's another really good tip for coming up with art work that really pops especially because like you're competing against a lot of people there's like i don't know like two million podcasts in the world it's like a brilliant number now um and this is what i learned back in my film industry days when we used to work on like you know show or movie art for i tunes is you just take a screen shot of in this case it would be like the apple podcast like um like i know what's it called not like a dashboard but

[shamsiya]: 14:56

it was almost like a screen shot of all those small pictures a head shots of everything you know

[rachel]: 15:01

like all the art next to each other i'm like

[shamsiya]: 15:02

yeah

[rachel]: 15:02

just blinking on like what that page is called but basically it's ike the itune's library you go and um you know pick your niche so for us it was business so you went on to the business page and you can see like all the you know twenty podcasts there and then once you create a couple mock ups of your art just like cut them out and put them on a couple diferent spots like cover up other people's art just here and there you pick maybe three of them and see how your art pops against everyone else's

[shamsiya]: 15:31

m

[rachel]: 15:31

and that helped us kind of get

[shamsiya]: 15:33

m

[rachel]: 15:33

a sense here because sometimes the art looks really good on its own looks great pops really nice nice colors if it just blends in into a sea of other things it doesn't stand out in any way that's not good for you especially as a new podcast we had no audience like us personally we don't have an audience like we're starting from scratch here so we need all the help we can get so that really helped us narrow down which are actually liked and i would say it's not what i probably would have picked be honest there was other ones i think i liked more but then once i saw it against everything else i was like oh no it has to be this one

[shamsiya]: 16:05

yeah absolutely and i wasn't understanding the color scheme that you were going for and i'm like rachel just pick this red and black and then you were like you know what there is some psychology behind this you know the whole thing i'm like okay okay fine let's let's just go with what we think will work on all grounds right so i think

[rachel]: 16:25

yeah

[shamsiya]: 16:25

that's

[rachel]: 16:25

so

[shamsiya]: 16:25

important

[rachel]: 16:26

yeah so to dig into that not to seem like i'm like a crazy person or anything

[shamsiya]: 16:29

oh

[rachel]: 16:29

but essentially like we have

[shamsiya]: 16:30

oh

[rachel]: 16:30

an arrow in

[shamsiya]: 16:32

i

[rachel]: 16:32

our we have an arrow in our art work and i was like a red arrow about that does tend to like it makes me think and i remember i was showing my husband them too and he's lie yeah t makes me think of like a stock ticker and when it's red it's bad like it's on the way down so i was like okay yeah like you're right if that's what you're picking up and i'm looking this and i'm like i see i'm seeing it now and it's like okay like sometimes there is like it's good to get that feed back from other people too

[shamsiya]: 16:54

yeah

[rachel]: 16:54

because we were a bit too close to it

[shamsiya]: 16:57

yeah

[rachel]: 16:57

so we were showing other people too and saying like what do you think looks the best what do you think pope once again you don't need to take that all the

[shamsiya]: 17:05

not

[rachel]: 17:05

feedback literally but it does help you just to get a sense of what other people are thinking

[shamsiya]: 17:09

as long as the reasons are important i think because as you said you know yes red is not something that it's encourage anyways so yes that was a pretty good point what is the next thing

[rachel]: 17:22

so after that it's like okay now we needtoactually get into recording our show so what tools are we going to use to do this thing we picked riverside for recording i have used it previously on another podcast project that i was were in an i was pretty familiar with it um the microphones we use the yet microphones how do you how do you like your yet microphone cause fee like i just convince you to do it was like this is the one you got to get

[shamsiya]: 17:45

i was using these initially and you were like yeah it's

[rachel]: 17:47

s

[shamsiya]: 17:48

okay but then we did record the first two episodes i think and you were like no the audio is not good you need to get one so yes rachel kind of convinced me to

[rachel]: 17:57

yea

[shamsiya]: 17:58

one but i was quite

[rachel]: 17:59

well yeah

[shamsiya]: 18:01

i wanted

[rachel]: 18:02

i

[shamsiya]: 18:02

to

[rachel]: 18:02

would

[shamsiya]: 18:02

get

[rachel]: 18:02

say

[shamsiya]: 18:02

one yeah

[rachel]: 18:03

yeah i knew

[shamsiya]: 18:04

my

[rachel]: 18:04

you were going to get one and that i was like yu should just get it because here's the other piece of advice that i would give to people who were just starting you don't need fancy equipment to start you really don't as i say like the first podcast project i did we just using headphones we're using zoom we weren't even using riverside because i whatever it's just try this out and i wouldn't recommend zoom like long term it's not very good audio quality um but the d i find great and you can find these actually pretty cheaply if you buy them use that's what i did i bought it on facebook market

[shamsiya]: 18:31

me

[rachel]: 18:31

place

[shamsiya]: 18:32

too

[rachel]: 18:33

um like people try these projects and then they do it like five times and they on't want to do it any more so a lot of times you can pick up podcasting equipment like like it's basically new lie there's no problems with it at all it's been used only a couple of times and you can get it for like wait cheaper i think i got this for like fifty bucks maybe less

[shamsiya]: 18:51

i

[rachel]: 18:51

and

[shamsiya]: 18:51

m

[rachel]: 18:51

it retails for like over like a hundred and twenty

[shamsiya]: 18:54

fifty

[rachel]: 18:54

or twenty five or something

[shamsiya]: 18:55

yeah

[rachel]: 18:56

like that yeah

[shamsiya]: 18:57

yeah yeah

[rachel]: 18:58

so

[shamsiya]: 18:59

me too i just bought it off facebook market place so that was a very good one and we have to be scrappy that's actually the first point

[rachel]: 19:06

yes

[shamsiya]: 19:07

yes so go with whatever resources you have

[rachel]: 19:11

exactly go fitever resources you have use all the free trials you can because you never know right

[shamsiya]: 19:15

m

[rachel]: 19:15

like don't sign up for something also we're in month the month right now i never even sign any on for any year long you can save a bit of money if you do sign up for the whole year but i say we're only a month two and like we might find that like we hate using rovercital of a sudden or we hate using

[shamsiya]: 19:29

m

[rachel]: 19:29

bust which is our next to a

[shamsiya]: 19:31

m

[rachel]: 19:31

we're going to talk about you kind

[shamsiya]: 19:33

m

[rachel]: 19:33

of get locked in

[shamsiya]: 19:34

m

[rachel]: 19:35

o that's one way to do it right like do it as cheaply as you can to start make sure it's working make sure you like doing it

[shamsiya]: 19:41

h

[rachel]: 19:41

before you really commit

[shamsiya]: 19:42

m

[rachel]: 19:42

that's what i would say

[shamsiya]: 19:44

okay perfect

[rachel]: 19:45

okay

[shamsiya]: 19:45

and then

[rachel]: 19:46

next to all sorry go ahead

[shamsiya]: 19:48

no the next one the next software that we had to use

[rachel]: 19:52

yes next offer we had to use was buzz sprout so i didn't

[shamsiya]: 19:56

why

[rachel]: 19:56

know

[shamsiya]: 19:56

didn't

[rachel]: 19:56

that

[shamsiya]: 19:56

we

[rachel]: 19:56

you

[shamsiya]: 19:56

need

[rachel]: 19:56

needed

[shamsiya]: 19:57

it

[rachel]: 19:57

yeah

[shamsiya]: 19:57

why did we need it

[rachel]: 19:59

that's what i thought was like why do you even need this we riverside this is where we do everything and

[shamsiya]: 20:03

yeah apparently

[rachel]: 20:04

remember i

[shamsiya]: 20:04

not

[rachel]: 20:05

went to like yeah apparently not i went to launch our first episode um and i was like wait there's no way to launch this like what am i supposed to do here i'm looking around and i was like oh like this is just the work arding software now we need a host

[shamsiya]: 20:18

m

[rachel]: 20:19

so buzz rout

[shamsiya]: 20:20

m

[rachel]: 20:20

is a podcast hosting platform so once you you record your episodes and then from there you edit your episodes and on to say episodes edited then you're uploadgno get to a different platform well actually release the episodes into all the different podcast players we need another tool and

[shamsiya]: 20:40

m

[rachel]: 20:41

we

[shamsiya]: 20:41

m

[rachel]: 20:41

also realized that it didn't have transcripts none of them

[shamsiya]: 20:44

m

[rachel]: 20:44

had transcripts which was like so annoying i was like really like that seems like so standard

[shamsiya]: 20:48

yeah

[rachel]: 20:49

to me

[shamsiya]: 20:49

riverside basic plan doesn't have transcripts

[rachel]: 20:52

it does not have it and the standard plan does not have we had to upgrade to the pro plan to get

[shamsiya]: 20:56

yeah

[rachel]: 20:57

the transcripts

[shamsiya]: 20:57

m yeah

[rachel]: 20:59

we're still testing that at once to able decide if we think it's worth it but at least for this month we're getting transcript for all the episodes play around with it so if you can make content out of it

[shamsiya]: 21:08

m

[rachel]: 21:08

see if it helps with writing blog posts and cope and all that stuff

[shamsiya]: 21:13

m

[rachel]: 21:13

but yeah buspreadis pretty good actually i like it it's pretty straight forward to use you can even after the episode is published you can still edit stuff and it will updateit

[shamsiya]: 21:22

yeah

[rachel]: 21:22

in all the fees which is good if you realize you want to change the title or like add show notes or something like that

[shamsiya]: 21:28

m

[rachel]: 21:28

that one's petty straight forward i like it what do you think

[shamsiya]: 21:31

i think but proud is good it's almost like a website you know you don't really need a fancy website if you have but proud it kind of links well with instagram and it looks good it has like a good feel to it

[rachel]: 21:44

yeah

[shamsiya]: 21:44

i really

[rachel]: 21:44

the

[shamsiya]: 21:45

like

[rachel]: 21:45

landing

[shamsiya]: 21:45

it here

[rachel]: 21:45

page is good like you get a free website with it it's very basic but it has like your logo you know show description a list of all the shows and your totally right like t's very easy to put in like a link your bio and then someone can act as like every show which is good it's been pretty

[shamsiya]: 22:00

yeah

[rachel]: 22:00

helpful and think the last tool i would say that we use is garage band for editing

[shamsiya]: 22:07

thanks to rachel everything has to be perfect

[rachel]: 22:10

yeah

[shamsiya]: 22:13

right

[rachel]: 22:13

you make me sound like such a tyrant um but yes everything

[shamsiya]: 22:16

i'm

[rachel]: 22:16

does need

[shamsiya]: 22:16

sorry

[rachel]: 22:17

to be perfect

[shamsiya]: 22:17

no no

[rachel]: 22:20

yeah i'll

[shamsiya]: 22:20

but

[rachel]: 22:20

like

[shamsiya]: 22:20

garage

[rachel]: 22:21

literally

[shamsiya]: 22:21

band

[rachel]: 22:21

trim out

[shamsiya]: 22:22

you have to walk us through that s please

[rachel]: 22:25

yeah i know honestly it's like pretty straight forward like once you know how to use it it's free that's why i picked it and i have a max i was like perfect we're going to go with the free tool already paying for all these other tools which whatever that's fine so yeah i just watched a bunch of youtubetutorials and i figured it out like in an afternoon it's pretty straight forward and the good thing about riverside is that you can download all the tracks individually a makes it very easy after the fact if there's any kind of background noise or like feedback or anything like that i literally just cut it out and then it sounds great it sounds perfect right because it's like it's clear and that's the other thing about riverside is that it downloads the the o tracts actually locally on your computer so even if there is issue with internet connection or there's any kind of glitching like sometimes like it'll cut out for me like i'm hearing someone speaking cutting out for me it's not cutting out for them so they all the audio tracks are perfect and then once you put it in garage band you can manipulate them however you want you can you know raise up the sound on some of the tracks lower the sound for others that you can get like a fairly consistent um like sound quality amongst all tracks so highly recommend using it just because it is free like you really don't ned anything fancy especial yu have the time to do it and if you're not a perfection as you probably do a way faster than me i'm just like a little bit picky about it for now

[shamsiya]: 23:46

m

[rachel]: 23:46

um

[shamsiya]: 23:47

hm

[rachel]: 23:47

but it's been a good one

[shamsiya]: 23:49

so how do you do it like you add the clips i kind of started working on it i'm learning it still so once you feel like you need to like cut it out you just edit it and then you export it or you load like and it all comes together how does that go

[rachel]: 24:04

yeah so i put it all into like one like document or document whatever

[shamsiya]: 24:09

m

[rachel]: 24:09

like one project when you open a project you

[shamsiya]: 24:12

m

[rachel]: 24:12

create separate tracks for each person

[shamsiya]: 24:15

h

[rachel]: 24:15

speaking

[shamsiya]: 24:16

m

[rachel]: 24:16

including the intro and

[shamsiya]: 24:17

hm

[rachel]: 24:17

to music so

[shamsiya]: 24:18

m

[rachel]: 24:18

there should be like four

[shamsiya]: 24:18

hm

[rachel]: 24:19

i've different

[shamsiya]: 24:20

yeah

[rachel]: 24:21

tracks

[shamsiya]: 24:22

m

[rachel]: 24:22

you go in to riverside you download each track individually and then you just

[shamsiya]: 24:25

m

[rachel]: 24:26

drag them the track into

[shamsiya]: 24:27

m

[rachel]: 24:27

like the corresponding

[shamsiya]: 24:28

m

[rachel]: 24:28

like lines i'll put one is like shmclbut one is rachel but one is the guest i drag our

[shamsiya]: 24:33

m

[rachel]: 24:33

audio into each

[shamsiya]: 24:34

m

[rachel]: 24:35

section

[shamsiya]: 24:35

m

[rachel]: 24:36

and then i'll go through it when someone's speaking a lot of times will be a little bit of feedback in the other you know the other two people on the show i'll just like split there's a on the editing tab there's a way to

[shamsiya]: 24:48

okay

[rachel]: 24:48

split audio at play

[shamsiya]: 24:50

heah

[rachel]: 24:50

head is what it's called i split it

[shamsiya]: 24:52

okay

[rachel]: 24:52

there i find where that person finishes speaking i split it at that point and then i just delete

[shamsiya]: 24:59

deleted

[rachel]: 24:59

tracks where no one's speaking but you can hear sometimes like just background noise or like someone you know sirens because i live in new york you live in toronto we always have sirens like every five minutes or like some kind of noise

[shamsiya]: 25:08

something

[rachel]: 25:09

or honking yeah so i use to remove all very easily

[shamsiya]: 25:14

perfect actually it's pretty simple as you said if you kind of like go back to it and it's a secret not many people use it but they all encourage us to use the riverside magic editor smigaragepan is so much better the quality i thought racial you've been using this for a while now because kind of post production material you've been producing is amazing

[rachel]: 25:35

thank you know i appreciate it is straight forward honestly like google like i just google things and i need to know them or you tube or whatever it's like really

[shamsiya]: 25:42

it's

[rachel]: 25:42

like

[shamsiya]: 25:42

the first

[rachel]: 25:42

magic

[shamsiya]: 25:43

time you've

[rachel]: 25:43

it just

[shamsiya]: 25:43

used

[rachel]: 25:43

shows

[shamsiya]: 25:43

it

[rachel]: 25:43

you

[shamsiya]: 25:44

amazing

[rachel]: 25:45

yea like at least recently like i'm sure i've used it in the past like a long time ago but yeah like actually don't ve know if i have to be honest i probably use ike i movie something i know if he

[shamsiya]: 25:54

oh

[rachel]: 25:54

s other mac like forms like

[shamsiya]: 25:57

h

[rachel]: 25:57

that but yeah garage

[shamsiya]: 25:58

m

[rachel]: 25:58

man was new to me but it's as i say pretty straightforward definitely very beginner friendly if you just watch a couple of youtubedutorials

[shamsiya]: 26:05

yes and the quality of the end product is amazing very very professional

[rachel]: 26:11

yeah

[shamsiya]: 26:12

okay

[rachel]: 26:12

okay so those

[shamsiya]: 26:13

perfect

[rachel]: 26:13

are the tools we use i guess to like sum it up after that it comes on to promoting the show which i know we still need to keep working on it's just like it all of it is very time consuming i will say like doing a podcast is not see like it's definitely very straightforward and the tools themselves are easy to learn but it is very time consuming an there's a lot of steps a lot of co ordinating especially hen you're working with guests or working with a co host

[shamsiya]: 26:38

yeah

[rachel]: 26:38

you know trying to find times at work for everyone

[shamsiya]: 26:41

guest

[rachel]: 26:41

it is a challenge

[shamsiya]: 26:42

out reach finding the guests

[rachel]: 26:43

yeah

[shamsiya]: 26:44

you need to plan it out because some guests are so busy you know you need to probably wait four or five weeks for them to actually come and record so you need to constantly be in touch with them keep following up right down the list maintain it if they are willing to and you if you're like if you do people then you need to arrange a skate between you two so that you can reach out to the guests i think that's important just so that everything is in the flow and the guests are not disappointed with your lack of you know follow up or all of that and try to make the letters as simple and easy to comprehend as possible and rachel's called out to ach is a good episode to go back to if you want to know how to you write the letter to the guest and obviously you have to if they want details you will have to send them more details links to your linked in account or instagram account and send them samples of your episode it's so that they get a feel of it so briefly tell them what you would be talking to them about and what's expected out of them very clearly and the time that you want them to be on the show for and how initially we were just not very clear it kind of had to evolve over time we were just like give them one broad field to but then now we realize we need to be more specific with what we write to them and how we want them to approach the topic so maybe however that works for you maybe questions or if if you know what the topic they want to talk about be more clear have that conversation back and forth constantly so that they know exactly what they have to come to the show they also be prepared they're not going to mind yeah

[rachel]: 28:26

yeah that's so true and you can template all that stuff so and you'll notice it the more you outreach to people the more you'll realize the common questions that you get so you can write a perfect answer to all those questions put it into like google dock or something like that then start templating it so it saves you time has been doing most of the guests out reaching us be doing amazing job you're geting great responses we have someone who

[shamsiya]: 28:49

yeah

[rachel]: 28:49

said they would come on after a hundred episodes who's like pretty big i was

[shamsiya]: 28:52

we've

[rachel]: 28:52

like oh

[shamsiya]: 28:53

got

[rachel]: 28:53

wow

[shamsiya]: 28:53

a lot of rejections as well you're

[rachel]: 28:54

well of

[shamsiya]: 28:54

right

[rachel]: 28:55

course you're going to get rejections but still

[shamsiya]: 28:57

a lot

[rachel]: 28:58

wait

[shamsiya]: 28:58

of them

[rachel]: 28:59

you can template all those responses and you're right just go about it in a thoughtful nice way say something nice about the person get their name right to give yourself

[shamsiya]: 29:08

m

[rachel]: 29:08

the best shot of getting guests but i almost say that we can almost do it well we kind of did a cool der episode but be down the line once you've had some like more guests and more experience but that we can talk about how to find guests and how prep for interviews and know doing research on people

[shamsiya]: 29:22

yeah

[rachel]: 29:22

and stuff like that is

[shamsiya]: 29:23

yeah

[rachel]: 29:23

a good part

[shamsiya]: 29:25

m

[rachel]: 29:25

two to this episode

[shamsiya]: 29:26

m absolutely and then oh yes then what's left of everything now

[rachel]: 29:33

i feel like

[shamsiya]: 29:33

we

[rachel]: 29:34

that

[shamsiya]: 29:34

have

[rachel]: 29:34

was

[shamsiya]: 29:34

everything

[rachel]: 29:34

mainly it it's like promoting the episodes which you know like on social media try and get you know friends and family feet back were right now focusing on linked in and instagram i do

[shamsiya]: 29:47

instagrap

[rachel]: 29:47

think we need to get into tiktok i'm just like i don't know i feel like that's a whole another beast of a thing to try

[shamsiya]: 29:54

did

[rachel]: 29:55

and conquer like like already tired

[shamsiya]: 29:58

yeh

[rachel]: 29:58

thinking about it but i do know it is a good platform for getting a lot of reach and engagements so we'll see we'll get there

[shamsiya]: 30:04

what

[rachel]: 30:04

but you know it's baby steps

[shamsiya]: 30:05

which is the toughest platform for you now

[rachel]: 30:09

honestly like i just don't understand tik tok i think that's

[shamsiya]: 30:12

m

[rachel]: 30:13

probably why it's the toughest for me an tha's ably why i just naturally gravitated towards instagram even though like instagram sucks right now trying to get reach and likes

[shamsiya]: 30:21

oh

[rachel]: 30:22

all that stuff is so hard like no one seeing any of your post if it's in the feed like no one's seeing it but i just like to have a nice curate feed reels you have to do the reels but i don't find the real features are as good as tiktok which i don't

[shamsiya]: 30:36

m

[rachel]: 30:36

like and

[shamsiya]: 30:38

m

[rachel]: 30:38

linked in just for

[shamsiya]: 30:39

m

[rachel]: 30:39

me is because it's like a know it is a business podcast um and that profile for me is public my instagram my personal instagram account is probate is really just like friends family whatever that's why i kind of gravitate towards linked in just because i find this content lends itself well to that platform

[shamsiya]: 30:57

m

[rachel]: 30:57

but it's still a struggle too like getting getting impressions and and all that engagement like it's tough it's challenging

[shamsiya]: 31:04

it's challenging so yes you have to be able to understand what's your mark what's your goal for marketing what you want to achieve what are the best platforms you don't want to be spreading yourself to ten everywhere you need to keep it focused like now we are linked in an instagram but eventually when we get a hang of things as rachel said we would be moving to tik tok and maybe a little more on twitter those are better places to find twitter and linked on are also good places to find your guests if it's a business podcast

[rachel]: 31:35

ah for sure twitter is another one where yeah just i don't know i've never really liked twitter even like remember i had an account from way back like i don't know it's probably at least a decade old my account but it's just i don't know some of them just resonate better with you and that's okay right like sometimes

[shamsiya]: 31:50

i know what

[rachel]: 31:50

consistency

[shamsiya]: 31:50

you mean i think it's the

[rachel]: 31:51

right

[shamsiya]: 31:51

way you use you know like it's just the way you use the ease of use and what you see how people what kind of people are hanging out there all of that right

[rachel]: 32:02

for sure

[shamsiya]: 32:03

yah

[rachel]: 32:03

and i think finding something

[shamsiya]: 32:04

h

[rachel]: 32:04

you can be consistent with is important because consistency is what will win long

[shamsiya]: 32:09

m

[rachel]: 32:09

term

[shamsiya]: 32:09

m

[rachel]: 32:10

you're like you know you get

[shamsiya]: 32:11

m

[rachel]: 32:11

motivated to do something new you're excited that's the easy part really it's getting over that hump once you lose a bit of enthusiasm so

[shamsiya]: 32:19

m

[rachel]: 32:19

if there's a platform

[shamsiya]: 32:19

m

[rachel]: 32:20

that you find you can really be sistent with i think that regardless of what it is will help you

[shamsiya]: 32:27

is there any other way that like podcasters can promote themselves

[rachel]: 32:34

honestly that's why i want to get into the accelerator because i think if you can a line yourself with like a podcast network you're getting

[shamsiya]: 32:40

m

[rachel]: 32:40

that credibility right there because they're saying oh this podcast

[shamsiya]: 32:43

m

[rachel]: 32:43

is worthy of listening to it listening you

[shamsiya]: 32:46

m m

[rachel]: 32:46

m other than that i know it's challenging you hear a lot of other podcastars saying like growing a podcast is the hardest thing essentially picked the hardest

[shamsiya]: 32:54

it

[rachel]: 32:55

thing not going to lie we did we pick the hardest thing but

[shamsiya]: 32:58

yeah

[rachel]: 32:58

i also just like this medium and i know i can be consistent

[shamsiya]: 33:01

yeah

[rachel]: 33:01

with it because i enjoy this i enjoy these conversations i get energy from it so

[shamsiya]: 33:06

absolutely

[rachel]: 33:06

yeah it's going to be the hard road but it's also enjoyable for me so for me i'm getting

[shamsiya]: 33:11

yes

[rachel]: 33:11

rewards from it regardless of how well it does because this is just we're getting skills um we're getting better an interviewing we're talking to cool people like you can't really discount that right there's like there's a you know

[shamsiya]: 33:23

yeah

[rachel]: 33:23

benefit there regardless how many people listen to it or not

[shamsiya]: 33:27

absolutely i think that's amazing that's the right point it's once you start and i urge more people to start this podcastthing if you really want to talk if you really want to meet people because you'd be supper is that how some guests the kind of value that they bring in the kind of relationships you build the kind of how you start thinking so differently about failure success whatever it is just hearing their stories sometimes it's very it touches you so deep down i think the whole process is beautiful in general like podcasts

[rachel]: 34:01

i think so too me too you get a holly perspective on things so it's awesome ah

[shamsiya]: 34:08

so

[rachel]: 34:08

that's

[shamsiya]: 34:08

that's

[rachel]: 34:08

it i would

[shamsiya]: 34:08

our

[rachel]: 34:08

say

[shamsiya]: 34:09

list

[rachel]: 34:09

yeah that's

[shamsiya]: 34:10

yes

[rachel]: 34:10

our list

[shamsiya]: 34:12

m

[rachel]: 34:13

we'll keep you posted i guess on we'll do like sequel to this episode once we kind of learn a little more use little more tools maybe by that point will have opened like a tik tok who knows maybe we ave blown up go

[shamsiya]: 34:24

yes

[rachel]: 34:24

like a viral viral tik tok or something who knows

[shamsiya]: 34:28

let's create one then rachel let's keep that

[rachel]: 34:30

yeah

[shamsiya]: 34:30

as a goal

[rachel]: 34:31

yeah

[shamsiya]: 34:31

one tik tok let's

[rachel]: 34:32

one

[shamsiya]: 34:32

go wire

[rachel]: 34:33

viral tik tok just one that's

[shamsiya]: 34:35

just

[rachel]: 34:35

it

[shamsiya]: 34:35

one

[rachel]: 34:35

that's

[shamsiya]: 34:36

what

[rachel]: 34:36

all

[shamsiya]: 34:36

are

[rachel]: 34:36

we

[shamsiya]: 34:36

we

[rachel]: 34:36

asked

[shamsiya]: 34:36

doing making eggs

[rachel]: 34:38

making eggs as at a thing on tik tok

[shamsiya]: 34:40

yeah some yes someone told me like some person just made beautiful sunny side up egg and just

[rachel]: 34:47

uh

[shamsiya]: 34:47

went why

[rachel]: 34:48

uh

[shamsiya]: 34:49

like with the

[rachel]: 34:49

tik

[shamsiya]: 34:49

patients

[rachel]: 34:49

tok is so weird it's

[shamsiya]: 34:51

the

[rachel]: 34:51

so

[shamsiya]: 34:51

patients

[rachel]: 34:51

weird

[shamsiya]: 34:52

and the time the person took to break the egg and i don't know i have to see the video i haven't seen it but yeah the person just went oh

[rachel]: 35:00

this is why i don't know what to do because i just have who knows right like what's going to go vial it's impossible obviously it's impossible to predict but boy

[shamsiya]: 35:08

yeah

[rachel]: 35:08

okay well that's another next goal for us find our equivalent

[shamsiya]: 35:11

yes

[rachel]: 35:12

to making beautiful eggs on tick tock so we can go viral

[shamsiya]: 35:16

the process

[rachel]: 35:17

yeah yeah