January 2, 2024 • 21 mins
In Episode 02 of How to Start a Podcast, you'll learn how to pick the best format for your show, how long your podcast episodes should be, and the qualities to look for in a co-host.
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Alban (00:00):
All right, I think we're recording Chavis left this
Gilon (00:01):
dangerous hands, which is our own.
Alban (00:04):
I'll do a countdown 28 Seven. Why don't you start?
Alright, fine. I'll start atthree.
Gilon (00:16):
Hey there, welcome back to the How To Start A Podcast
podcast where we talk about howto start a podcast. Nice. Nice.
So last episode, we talked a lotabout the beginnings of a
podcast and about your goals.
Why do you want to start andtoday we are talking about your
podcast format. So basically,this is step two, thinking about
the actual structure of yourpodcast, right?
Alban (00:35):
Yeah, we're talking about the format. We're gonna talk
about how you pick your co host.
And we're gonna talk about whatkind of show you're gonna make.
And hopefully, everything thatyou did in the past episode,
picking out a title niche, yourtheme, your reasons, all of that
is going to inform this section.
So if you haven't decided thatyet, you might want to go back
and start kind of making some ofthose decisions, because it'll
(00:57):
make what we're doing here somuch easier.
Gilon (00:59):
It's kind of like you can't skip step one, you need to
do step one, to be able to evenget to step two. Yeah, two plus
two equals five is not
Alban (01:06):
a 10 step process. And step one is the first one to do,
Gilon (01:09):
right. So if you haven't listened to step one, head on
back, but if you have Welcome tostep two, podcast format. So
first things first, let's talkabout what type of podcast we
want to do. This Solo was a solomission, or we like Jack Sparrow
handling the seven seas, or webring in people with us,
Alban (01:27):
or Jack Sparrow like in the movies later on, we actually
teamed up with people.
Gilon (01:31):
Yeah, cuz that's what he ends up doing anyway.
Alban (01:34):
Yes. So should you be podcasting with friends? Or
should you have a co host? Orshould you do this yourself? Or
are you going to do interviews?
And if you do an interview, areyou the only one interviewing
we're just picking out thebasics? You know, there's lots
of radio shows that may havethree or four people. There's
podcasts that I've seen thatsix, but there's also good shows
that is one person speaking forhours on end. So there's lots of
(01:56):
options, how do we consider youknow which way we should go?
Gilon (02:02):
So let's just start with Should I do it by myself or with
others, right? I think if youlook, we talked about niching.
Down, Right. So if you are aperson that doesn't feel like
you could talk into the void for30 to 45 minutes, solo, normal
person, I mean, I've hopped onmy podcast for 3045 minutes, it
would always surprise myself bymyself. But if you're not that
(02:23):
person, right, if you're not aweirdo, like I was, maybe still
am, then you may not want to doa solo podcast, it might be that
you would like to haveinteraction of another person.
Because another thing you haveto be mindful of with a solo
podcast is energy, you're justdroning on and on and on. Nobody
is going to continue for thefull 30 to 45 to an hour. So
(02:45):
this
Alban (02:45):
episode has not ever been released. But that definitely
feels like a personal attack.
Because I did record a solopodcast for a little bit. And
the episodes, I couldn'tstruggle through them. Because
my energy level died. As soon asit was mean by myself, I'd
written an outline, I knew whatI wanted to talk about. And
there's just no energy, becauseI'm just reviewing a book. And I
(03:06):
noticed my personal energylevels are very much affected by
the person I'm talking to. Andso it was just me with my
feelings about a book, man, theenergy just dropped. Another
thing he's talking about is whenyou're positioning your product
in the marketplace, and I waslike, Whoa, let's go get
something going here.
Gilon (03:26):
Yeah, that's a really big deal. And I don't, I don't know
that people really consider thatpiece of it. Like, I think I am
a talker, so I can just beperfectly fine. And then other
people do better when they havesomeone else's energy to play
off of. And so being mindful ofthat for yourself, Are you the
kind of person that can just gostraight on for 30 minutes
without anyone interrupting you?
Or if you would really like tohave someone else to bounce off
(03:47):
of? So that's, I think, aconsideration when you think
about a solo podcast, a pro sideis that you're not really
coordinating? Right, right. Likeyou're able to just decide I'm
going to record at this time forthis long, whenever it suits me.
So that's helpful. Logistically,
Alban (04:02):
yeah, I've seen podcast of maybe four people involved.
And once you have for people,schedules get tough. And
schedules get extremely toughduring the like, Episode Seven
to like 20 range where thenewness has worn off, but you're
not reaping all the rewards yet.
So you have people who've shownup for a few episodes, and then
(04:23):
they're like, I don't know, am Istill doing this podcast thing?
Yeah. And then you're like, Hey,everybody. Thursday, you know,
we always record at six. Andsomeone's like, ah, let's make
it seven. Someone else is like,Ah, I don't know, I'm not
feeling super good. I'm out. Andif you're the person who's
trying to push this podcastforward, you may have the energy
for you. You may not have theenergy for four people, and
(04:45):
getting everyone in. So thiswill probably go into our
considerations of who you shouldpick. Yeah. But the bigger the
group, the harder it is to geteverybody on the same timeline.
Gilon (04:57):
And that's not even to say that we're like not pro do a
podcast with other people, Ithink it is very much. So more
like these are things to bemindful of. So like, I started
out with my podcast, and thatwas very solo. But then I hopped
into interviewing people. Sothen I had someone else on the
podcast and not consistently,but I was talking to other
people. And there weredefinitely benefits to doing a
(05:18):
podcast with others. So whatwould you say are the biggest
reasons or the pros topodcasting with a co host?
Alban (05:25):
Well, energy is one. Also having somebody to keep you
accountable. If you got oneperson who is about the same
level as you is, as far asinterest when you're marketing
the podcast, like maybe one ofus taking on more of the
editing, and writing the shownotes, and you're taking on the
marketing of the show, likethere's more than just the 45
minutes where you record,there's a lot of other things
(05:47):
going into it. And you candivide that labor up among two
people, that's a lot easier.
What can go wrong is when oneperson starts taking on all of
it, and the other person startschecking out is where it's not
going to work out. Right. As faras numbers, I think the sweet
spot often is about threepeople, two or three is a really
good number. When you get abovethree, you get this issue of one
(06:08):
crosstalk. Lots of peopletalking at the same time, it's
hard to figure out who's aboutto speak and who's kind of
rapping, but also just beingable to tell voices apart, I
definitely
Gilon (06:19):
can think of a couple different podcasts where
people's voices sound just alittle bit similar. And it's
hard to know who's saying what,which can be kind of it can be a
little bit annoying and offputting. But also, depending on
the topic, it might be importantto know who is saying what, but
I will say that shared divisionof labor with working with more
than one person is really nice,is definitely kind of a thing
(06:41):
that you feel when you do a solopodcast. Alright, so we talked
about should you do a solo? Orshould you podcast with friends?
It sounds like going intobusiness with friends. So how do
you pick a co host? Like, well,who's a good person that you
would be like, Okay, these arethe qualities of a solid person
to reach out to, to host a showwith?
Alban (06:59):
Well, when we're talking about I mean, we are using the
word friend, this person willhopefully be a friend. It
doesn't need to be one of yourclosest friends. It needs to be
somebody who is interested inthe topic of the podcast as
well. Does this person have thesame motivations as me? Do we
have the same goals? Are wegoing to be constantly odds? Do
we feel competitive against eachother? That may feel silly, but
(07:20):
you don't want like one of youkind of trying to be like, I'm
the host, you're the co host?
You know, if you both feelcompetitive against each other,
you're going to run into thosekind of awkwardness stuff. And
then I don't know, do you have agood vibe with them? If you've
got one person who I don't know,all the handoffs between the
conversation are painful, that'snot going to be good. And that's
going to come through. So themore you enjoy the other
(07:42):
person's company, the better forthe people listening to the
podcast. Yeah,
Gilon (07:47):
absolutely. I think those are all really important. vibes
are really important. Podcastsare audio. So all the energy
between you is really palpableon the podcast, you're going to
feel it, you're going to hear itif it's awkward. Even if there's
like that hint of competitionbetween people. I think you can
totally pick up on that in apodcast. So just being mindful
of like, do I enjoy this person?
Do they have something to add tothis conversation? We talked
(08:08):
about expert level? Do they needto be the same kind of expert on
a subject matter as you?
Alban (08:13):
I don't think so. So, you know, if we did a podcast
together on mental health, Idon't know much about it, you
actually went to school for it.
So you understand it, I think itwould be okay for you to be the
expert and me being the personsaying Okay, so we're getting
questions about depression. Whatare the signs of depression?
What is the DSM five say aboutit like, and I'm asking, you can
have the novice asking thequestions and the expert
(08:36):
answering them. And one coolthing about that is it has
somebody for the audience toidentify with, if the audience
is trying to jump into a podcastwhere everybody is expert level,
well, that can be intimidating.
It gets a lot nicer, though, ifthey can jump in one person's a
novice is asking questions forthem. And the other person is
(08:57):
the expert kind of answering. Sothey're asking the questions I
would ask, right, becausethey're playing the role of the
audience for us,
Gilon (09:04):
right. And then I think there's also the benefit of a
different perspective in that aswell. So while the novice might
be able to ask questions thatthe audience may be asking as
well, they're also thinkingabout things that the expert may
not really be thinking about.
And so it's almost like anotherresource, as you're coming up
with ideas for the podcast, asyou're thinking about topics for
it, and how people might bethinking about a subject matter
(09:24):
that you guys want to do anepisode on.
Alban (09:27):
Yeah, I just talked to my friend who's starting a DJ
podcast. And he's been DJing forlike, 15 years. And he's really
well known in the community.
Lots of people want to be on ashow, they think it'd be really
awesome. And I'm like, owl, helpme out here. Like, I don't know,
anything. All I know, is thedumbest stuff like I go. And so
I'm playing music and likethey're doing stuff up there.
(09:50):
And the music sounds better andit like kind of rides the energy
of the moment, but I don't knowanything else. What is the DJ
doing? If the target audience isnovices, they don't know stuff
that is so obvious to you. Andso having a different levels of
expertise, allow you to avoidthe curse of knowledge, where
you know so much aboutsomething, you almost forget
(10:12):
what it was like to not know itexactly.
Gilon (10:15):
You're not connected to maybe your listener or your
audience in the way that youhave an expert level of
information in there aspiring tomaybe that level. So that
disconnect of I don't even knowwhat kind of questions they
would ask having a co host thatmight feel more like an audience
member, at least in how they'rerelating to the topic might be
really helpful.
Alban (10:34):
Yes, so so far, you've probably got an idea like, do
you want to do it by yourself?
Do you want to just be youinterviewing someone do you want
to do with a few other people.
And now hopefully, you've gotsome people in mind that you're
like, hey, we're kind of nearthe same level of interest.
We've got different perspectiveson exactly the same. We want to
agree on everything. And wedon't want to fight about
(10:54):
everything, right. So someoverlap there. And once you
figure that out, what's our nextstep? I've got the idea. I've
got the team assembled theAvengers,
Gilon (11:04):
the Avengers have been called. Alright, so now you need
to figure out your game plan. Sothe structure of your episodes
are you going to have aninterview based podcast will be
scripted nonfiction will be newswill be education, will it be
scripted fiction? Is itstorytelling? Like, what is the
format of your podcast episodes
Alban (11:22):
is funny that now when people talk about podcasts, a
lot of time with our interviews,and we think of a lot of these
really big shows, and a lot ofthem are just interviews. It's
an interesting, dynamic host,who is interviewing interesting,
dynamic people. And we oftenknow the guests from being in
movies or doing all sorts ofstuff. And there's a
(11:44):
conversation and it feels liketo friends. And we're like cool,
but it's not just thoseinterviews shows, there's
storytelling. A lot of ThisAmerican Life was basically
storytelling and journalism andpoetry and they've got all sorts
of stuff, you could do a showlike that. You could do news
like the daily, so every day,giving you 2030 minutes of a
(12:05):
couple important stories thatthe New York Times has picked
out can be educational, likethis podcast is we're teaching
you how to start a podcast, youcould probably look how to do
almost anything, how to start anonline business, how to do
something you're interested in.
There's probably a podcast,teaching it as an educational
show. And then scripted fiction,think of the old radio dramas,
which were really popular 80years ago. But there's a big
(12:29):
resurgence in a lot of peoplewho are actually putting a real
time and writing stories,getting voice actors. And
they're all coming together andmaking these really cool fiction
pieces.
Gilon (12:43):
So there are a lot of options, is there any particular
consideration that you need tomake when you're deciding what
format you should take
Alban (12:49):
interest level, obviously, and then what kind of
commitment you have. So ifyou're doing a news podcast, you
need to make sure that you'reprobably actually creating news,
you're doing some sort ofjournalistic stuff, or at least
you're reading enough, and youhave a background that you have
a different take, it is notgoing to be super helpful for
you just to recount stuff thatyou heard or read on CNN or
(13:11):
something. If you're going to doscripted fiction, there's so
much effort that goes into thestories like you're writing it,
but then you're assembling ateam of different voice actors.
And then you're putting in likeaudio ads, like the editing
work, there's so much greaterfor anything that's scripted and
interviews, you're gonna have todo prep. If anybody knows the
Jordan Harbinger show, like Italked to Jordan about his show.
(13:35):
He said, My thing is like, I'mworking probably 30 or 40 hours,
each interview, preppinglearning everything I can about
this guest. So if you want to bedoing an interview show, you're
probably putting in at leastthree, four hours of good
research into everybody. Becauseyou want to know what to ask.
Gilon (13:56):
So now we've got some things to be thinking about.
We're wondering like, Alright,we're gonna do this by
ourselves, are we going withsomebody? What is the format
going to be? Is it news is itstorytelling is an interview
style? Our next target wouldthen be like, how long? Should
it be like, what are peoplelistening to? Are they listening
to to our shows? Does it need tobe 10 minutes? Like, does it
need to be the length of a quickYouTube video? What's my aim
there?
Alban (14:16):
So length of a podcast is an interesting question. I've
seen so many people who've said,we've looked at 4 million
podcast episodes. And here's thedistribution of how long they
are. And I'm like, that's aninteresting data point. It's not
illuminating anything for me,because how long are movies? I
don't know, between an hour and15 minutes and two hours. But
(14:38):
that doesn't tell me how longthe movie should be. No one's
said like Schindler's List is agreat film because it's three
hours and two minutes orwhatever the number is, long.
It's a good movie, because thecontent is good. The Lion King
I'm sure it was a lot shorter.
It was also a really good movie.
Movies are good based on thecontent. They're not good based
on the length and podcast of theyear. Exactly. So so it
Gilon (15:00):
sounds like content is king is kind of what you're
saying. Yeah. So does it everget to a point where it's like
this is too long shut it down,or it doesn't sound like there's
a minimum or a maximum. But isthere a sweet spot,
Alban (15:12):
I think that the sweet spot is consistency. And it
doesn't have to be exact. But ifyour podcast is 20 to 30 minutes
long, the people who are goingto listen to it are people that
20 to 30 minutes is good forthem, they've got a commute to
work, that's 12 minutes, andthey go there and back and they
listen to an episode on Tuesday,if your podcast ends up being
(15:33):
three hours long, your audienceis going to be people who
probably have a job, they canlisten to you. And they're
looking for long amounts ofcontent, whatever it is, like
you kind of want to stay aroundthat zone, because staying
around that zone is going to bereally helpful for the actual
audience you've already built.
Gilon (15:49):
Makes perfect sense.
total sense. So then on thatnote, how often should I be
publishing?
Alban (15:54):
I mean, I think it's kind of the same answer again, right?
There's people who do theeveryday thing, there's people
that do series once every fewyears, like cereal does every
two years a new season, theyspend a long amount of time
working on these things beforethey release them. But the sweet
spot is a week. And there's afew reasons for that. One, we're
trying to train the audience. Imean, some of you will watch TV
(16:15):
shows like, every Friday, Iwatch this episode of this new
show with my wife. Well, if it'snot showing up on Friday, we're
gonna find something else. Andif we're finding something else,
we may not come back to thatshow next week when it does come
out. So it's finding thisregular cadence that you can
commit to in your life.
Gilon (16:36):
And I think you know, a note on consistency. So much of
this is based upon just whatyour audience has come to expect
from you, right, like the lengthof your episodes, there's not
really a pin down number, but itdoes need to be consistent.
Because if you go from 15minutes to two hours, that
throws off your audience and thewhole thing, the whole idea is
(16:57):
that you become a regular partof your audience, your listeners
routine. So if they've got a 30minute commute, and your podcast
is 30 to 40 minutes, they knowwhen it comes out first thing
Monday morning, they can listento it on the way home and maybe
finish it on the way from work.
But if you give them a two hourepisode randomly, it's kind of
like, When am I gonna listen tothis? When can I listen to this
and then you run the risk of wemight move on or I may not
(17:18):
listen to that. Or you know, Imay not ever even listen to that
episode,
Alban (17:23):
right? We're building habits in our listeners lives,
we're also building habits inour own life. If a topic I end
up going, Oh, this is actuallylike, I'm gonna do two hours.
Well, I'm going to probably burnout if I'm used to doing 25
minute episodes, and I'm tryingto edit a two hour audio clip.
And if I'm not saying it'salways going out on this day,
(17:43):
well now I run the risk ofoverthinking and overanalyzing
and doing way more editing thanI should like, oh, maybe I'll re
record that whole thing, maybeI'll re edit all of that, well,
maybe what would be better wouldbe to start getting stuff out
there. I mean, I know this isbetter, is to start getting
stuff out there and getconsistent and build the habit
yourself so that you can keepmoving forward and growing.
(18:04):
What's much more dangerous iswhen you start overthinking it,
and you go weeks and weekswithout releasing anything.
That's where you know, you'regonna start running into an
issue. So finding that weeklycadence is a way of keeping
yourself accountable to what youwant to get done with this
podcast.
Gilon (18:20):
That's really good. And then one of the things that I
done, because when I podcast, Itry to keep my episodes about 30
to 45 minutes, one, because Iknow how much time I'm gonna
have to dedicate to editing, ifit's tons and tons of content,
but I'm really big on content.
And so every now and thenthere'll be an episode where
it's like, oh, this is like anhour and some change. But it's
so good. And I don't want tolike lose any of it. And I don't
(18:41):
want to edit this part out orthat part out, I broke it into
two parts. So I was able to keepboth as well as maintaining that
expectation of a 30 to 45 minuteepisode. So I didn't like shock
the bejesus out of my listeners,like while I listen to this. So
that can be a thing that you cando as well to sort of maintain
the integrity of of what you'vegotten your audience used to.
Alban (19:00):
So we've got a bunch of everybody to think about, you're
gonna figure out who's going tobe on this podcast. How many
people do I want on here? Whoare the people that I really
want to ask? And are they ascommitted to this as I am
because you don't want to enterinto something with someone and
find out they didn't really wantto do it. They're just kind of
being nice. Pick out the format.
Pick out the length of theaverage episode. You don't have
(19:21):
to be locked into this forever.
And we recommend picking thatweekly cadence Travis, what
other resources should peoplelook at if they want to go
deeper?
Travis (19:32):
The first one is a blog post titled How to Write a
podcast script with eight freescript templates. And so if you
want to have a little bit morestructure to your episodes, you
want to see what that would looklike if you're still kind of
deciding what kind of format youwant to go with. That's a great
resource to get a feel for thedifferent kinds of podcasts you
can do and what's involved topreparing for those. As far as
(19:54):
how long should a podcastepisode be. We actually do a
blog post diving deep into thatwith some more Data and examples
if you're still not sure exactlywhat you want to aim for, and
then if you want to do aninterview podcast, the biggest
part of that is knowing whatkind of questions to ask. And so
Jalon has a video on our YouTubechannel called the top five
podcast interview questions. Andso if you want to start your new
(20:17):
bank of questions, that's agreat video to watch first, and
you can find links to all thoseresources in the episode show
notes for this episode, you canjust scroll down in the app
you're listening to this podcaston find those links and dive
right in.
Gilon (20:31):
Awesome so now that you've got some things to look
at some things to consider somethings to watch. We're going to
get you all ready for EpisodeThree right and so we're gonna
be talking about the good stuff,moneymakers,
Alban (20:42):
the money spenders, money spenders,
Gilon (20:45):
podcast equipment, so we'll look at some of our
favorite pieces for microphones.
Look at different types ofsetups if you decided to do a
two person podcast or if you'regonna go solo, and then talk
about some accessories so youdon't want to miss that. Thank
you for listening and keeppodcasting
All right, I think we're recording Chavis left this
Gilon (00:01):
dangerous hands, which is our own.
Alban (00:04):
I'll do a countdown 28 Seven. Why don't you start?
Alright, fine. I'll start atthree.
Gilon (00:16):
Hey there, welcome back to the How To Start A Podcast
podcast where we talk about howto start a podcast. Nice. Nice.
So last episode, we talked a lotabout the beginnings of a
podcast and about your goals.
Why do you want to start andtoday we are talking about your
podcast format. So basically,this is step two, thinking about
the actual structure of yourpodcast, right?
Alban (00:35):
Yeah, we're talking about the format. We're gonna talk
about how you pick your co host.
And we're gonna talk about whatkind of show you're gonna make.
And hopefully, everything thatyou did in the past episode,
picking out a title niche, yourtheme, your reasons, all of that
is going to inform this section.
So if you haven't decided thatyet, you might want to go back
and start kind of making some ofthose decisions, because it'll
(00:57):
make what we're doing here somuch easier.
Gilon (00:59):
It's kind of like you can't skip step one, you need to
do step one, to be able to evenget to step two. Yeah, two plus
two equals five is not
Alban (01:06):
a 10 step process. And step one is the first one to do,
Gilon (01:09):
right. So if you haven't listened to step one, head on
back, but if you have Welcome tostep two, podcast format. So
first things first, let's talkabout what type of podcast we
want to do. This Solo was a solomission, or we like Jack Sparrow
handling the seven seas, or webring in people with us,
Alban (01:27):
or Jack Sparrow like in the movies later on, we actually
teamed up with people.
Gilon (01:31):
Yeah, cuz that's what he ends up doing anyway.
Alban (01:34):
Yes. So should you be podcasting with friends? Or
should you have a co host? Orshould you do this yourself? Or
are you going to do interviews?
And if you do an interview, areyou the only one interviewing
we're just picking out thebasics? You know, there's lots
of radio shows that may havethree or four people. There's
podcasts that I've seen thatsix, but there's also good shows
that is one person speaking forhours on end. So there's lots of
(01:56):
options, how do we consider youknow which way we should go?
Gilon (02:02):
So let's just start with Should I do it by myself or with
others, right? I think if youlook, we talked about niching.
Down, Right. So if you are aperson that doesn't feel like
you could talk into the void for30 to 45 minutes, solo, normal
person, I mean, I've hopped onmy podcast for 3045 minutes, it
would always surprise myself bymyself. But if you're not that
(02:23):
person, right, if you're not aweirdo, like I was, maybe still
am, then you may not want to doa solo podcast, it might be that
you would like to haveinteraction of another person.
Because another thing you haveto be mindful of with a solo
podcast is energy, you're justdroning on and on and on. Nobody
is going to continue for thefull 30 to 45 to an hour. So
(02:45):
this
Alban (02:45):
episode has not ever been released. But that definitely
feels like a personal attack.
Because I did record a solopodcast for a little bit. And
the episodes, I couldn'tstruggle through them. Because
my energy level died. As soon asit was mean by myself, I'd
written an outline, I knew whatI wanted to talk about. And
there's just no energy, becauseI'm just reviewing a book. And I
(03:06):
noticed my personal energylevels are very much affected by
the person I'm talking to. Andso it was just me with my
feelings about a book, man, theenergy just dropped. Another
thing he's talking about is whenyou're positioning your product
in the marketplace, and I waslike, Whoa, let's go get
something going here.
Gilon (03:26):
Yeah, that's a really big deal. And I don't, I don't know
that people really consider thatpiece of it. Like, I think I am
a talker, so I can just beperfectly fine. And then other
people do better when they havesomeone else's energy to play
off of. And so being mindful ofthat for yourself, Are you the
kind of person that can just gostraight on for 30 minutes
without anyone interrupting you?
Or if you would really like tohave someone else to bounce off
(03:47):
of? So that's, I think, aconsideration when you think
about a solo podcast, a pro sideis that you're not really
coordinating? Right, right. Likeyou're able to just decide I'm
going to record at this time forthis long, whenever it suits me.
So that's helpful. Logistically,
Alban (04:02):
yeah, I've seen podcast of maybe four people involved.
And once you have for people,schedules get tough. And
schedules get extremely toughduring the like, Episode Seven
to like 20 range where thenewness has worn off, but you're
not reaping all the rewards yet.
So you have people who've shownup for a few episodes, and then
(04:23):
they're like, I don't know, am Istill doing this podcast thing?
Yeah. And then you're like, Hey,everybody. Thursday, you know,
we always record at six. Andsomeone's like, ah, let's make
it seven. Someone else is like,Ah, I don't know, I'm not
feeling super good. I'm out. Andif you're the person who's
trying to push this podcastforward, you may have the energy
for you. You may not have theenergy for four people, and
(04:45):
getting everyone in. So thiswill probably go into our
considerations of who you shouldpick. Yeah. But the bigger the
group, the harder it is to geteverybody on the same timeline.
Gilon (04:57):
And that's not even to say that we're like not pro do a
podcast with other people, Ithink it is very much. So more
like these are things to bemindful of. So like, I started
out with my podcast, and thatwas very solo. But then I hopped
into interviewing people. Sothen I had someone else on the
podcast and not consistently,but I was talking to other
people. And there weredefinitely benefits to doing a
(05:18):
podcast with others. So whatwould you say are the biggest
reasons or the pros topodcasting with a co host?
Alban (05:25):
Well, energy is one. Also having somebody to keep you
accountable. If you got oneperson who is about the same
level as you is, as far asinterest when you're marketing
the podcast, like maybe one ofus taking on more of the
editing, and writing the shownotes, and you're taking on the
marketing of the show, likethere's more than just the 45
minutes where you record,there's a lot of other things
(05:47):
going into it. And you candivide that labor up among two
people, that's a lot easier.
What can go wrong is when oneperson starts taking on all of
it, and the other person startschecking out is where it's not
going to work out. Right. As faras numbers, I think the sweet
spot often is about threepeople, two or three is a really
good number. When you get abovethree, you get this issue of one
(06:08):
crosstalk. Lots of peopletalking at the same time, it's
hard to figure out who's aboutto speak and who's kind of
rapping, but also just beingable to tell voices apart, I
definitely
Gilon (06:19):
can think of a couple different podcasts where
people's voices sound just alittle bit similar. And it's
hard to know who's saying what,which can be kind of it can be a
little bit annoying and offputting. But also, depending on
the topic, it might be importantto know who is saying what, but
I will say that shared divisionof labor with working with more
than one person is really nice,is definitely kind of a thing
(06:41):
that you feel when you do a solopodcast. Alright, so we talked
about should you do a solo? Orshould you podcast with friends?
It sounds like going intobusiness with friends. So how do
you pick a co host? Like, well,who's a good person that you
would be like, Okay, these arethe qualities of a solid person
to reach out to, to host a showwith?
Alban (06:59):
Well, when we're talking about I mean, we are using the
word friend, this person willhopefully be a friend. It
doesn't need to be one of yourclosest friends. It needs to be
somebody who is interested inthe topic of the podcast as
well. Does this person have thesame motivations as me? Do we
have the same goals? Are wegoing to be constantly odds? Do
we feel competitive against eachother? That may feel silly, but
(07:20):
you don't want like one of youkind of trying to be like, I'm
the host, you're the co host?
You know, if you both feelcompetitive against each other,
you're going to run into thosekind of awkwardness stuff. And
then I don't know, do you have agood vibe with them? If you've
got one person who I don't know,all the handoffs between the
conversation are painful, that'snot going to be good. And that's
going to come through. So themore you enjoy the other
(07:42):
person's company, the better forthe people listening to the
podcast. Yeah,
Gilon (07:47):
absolutely. I think those are all really important. vibes
are really important. Podcastsare audio. So all the energy
between you is really palpableon the podcast, you're going to
feel it, you're going to hear itif it's awkward. Even if there's
like that hint of competitionbetween people. I think you can
totally pick up on that in apodcast. So just being mindful
of like, do I enjoy this person?
Do they have something to add tothis conversation? We talked
(08:08):
about expert level? Do they needto be the same kind of expert on
a subject matter as you?
Alban (08:13):
I don't think so. So, you know, if we did a podcast
together on mental health, Idon't know much about it, you
actually went to school for it.
So you understand it, I think itwould be okay for you to be the
expert and me being the personsaying Okay, so we're getting
questions about depression. Whatare the signs of depression?
What is the DSM five say aboutit like, and I'm asking, you can
have the novice asking thequestions and the expert
(08:36):
answering them. And one coolthing about that is it has
somebody for the audience toidentify with, if the audience
is trying to jump into a podcastwhere everybody is expert level,
well, that can be intimidating.
It gets a lot nicer, though, ifthey can jump in one person's a
novice is asking questions forthem. And the other person is
(08:57):
the expert kind of answering. Sothey're asking the questions I
would ask, right, becausethey're playing the role of the
audience for us,
Gilon (09:04):
right. And then I think there's also the benefit of a
different perspective in that aswell. So while the novice might
be able to ask questions thatthe audience may be asking as
well, they're also thinkingabout things that the expert may
not really be thinking about.
And so it's almost like anotherresource, as you're coming up
with ideas for the podcast, asyou're thinking about topics for
it, and how people might bethinking about a subject matter
(09:24):
that you guys want to do anepisode on.
Alban (09:27):
Yeah, I just talked to my friend who's starting a DJ
podcast. And he's been DJing forlike, 15 years. And he's really
well known in the community.
Lots of people want to be on ashow, they think it'd be really
awesome. And I'm like, owl, helpme out here. Like, I don't know,
anything. All I know, is thedumbest stuff like I go. And so
I'm playing music and likethey're doing stuff up there.
(09:50):
And the music sounds better andit like kind of rides the energy
of the moment, but I don't knowanything else. What is the DJ
doing? If the target audience isnovices, they don't know stuff
that is so obvious to you. Andso having a different levels of
expertise, allow you to avoidthe curse of knowledge, where
you know so much aboutsomething, you almost forget
(10:12):
what it was like to not know itexactly.
Gilon (10:15):
You're not connected to maybe your listener or your
audience in the way that youhave an expert level of
information in there aspiring tomaybe that level. So that
disconnect of I don't even knowwhat kind of questions they
would ask having a co host thatmight feel more like an audience
member, at least in how they'rerelating to the topic might be
really helpful.
Alban (10:34):
Yes, so so far, you've probably got an idea like, do
you want to do it by yourself?
Do you want to just be youinterviewing someone do you want
to do with a few other people.
And now hopefully, you've gotsome people in mind that you're
like, hey, we're kind of nearthe same level of interest.
We've got different perspectiveson exactly the same. We want to
agree on everything. And wedon't want to fight about
(10:54):
everything, right. So someoverlap there. And once you
figure that out, what's our nextstep? I've got the idea. I've
got the team assembled theAvengers,
Gilon (11:04):
the Avengers have been called. Alright, so now you need
to figure out your game plan. Sothe structure of your episodes
are you going to have aninterview based podcast will be
scripted nonfiction will be newswill be education, will it be
scripted fiction? Is itstorytelling? Like, what is the
format of your podcast episodes
Alban (11:22):
is funny that now when people talk about podcasts, a
lot of time with our interviews,and we think of a lot of these
really big shows, and a lot ofthem are just interviews. It's
an interesting, dynamic host,who is interviewing interesting,
dynamic people. And we oftenknow the guests from being in
movies or doing all sorts ofstuff. And there's a
(11:44):
conversation and it feels liketo friends. And we're like cool,
but it's not just thoseinterviews shows, there's
storytelling. A lot of ThisAmerican Life was basically
storytelling and journalism andpoetry and they've got all sorts
of stuff, you could do a showlike that. You could do news
like the daily, so every day,giving you 2030 minutes of a
(12:05):
couple important stories thatthe New York Times has picked
out can be educational, likethis podcast is we're teaching
you how to start a podcast, youcould probably look how to do
almost anything, how to start anonline business, how to do
something you're interested in.
There's probably a podcast,teaching it as an educational
show. And then scripted fiction,think of the old radio dramas,
which were really popular 80years ago. But there's a big
(12:29):
resurgence in a lot of peoplewho are actually putting a real
time and writing stories,getting voice actors. And
they're all coming together andmaking these really cool fiction
pieces.
Gilon (12:43):
So there are a lot of options, is there any particular
consideration that you need tomake when you're deciding what
format you should take
Alban (12:49):
interest level, obviously, and then what kind of
commitment you have. So ifyou're doing a news podcast, you
need to make sure that you'reprobably actually creating news,
you're doing some sort ofjournalistic stuff, or at least
you're reading enough, and youhave a background that you have
a different take, it is notgoing to be super helpful for
you just to recount stuff thatyou heard or read on CNN or
(13:11):
something. If you're going to doscripted fiction, there's so
much effort that goes into thestories like you're writing it,
but then you're assembling ateam of different voice actors.
And then you're putting in likeaudio ads, like the editing
work, there's so much greaterfor anything that's scripted and
interviews, you're gonna have todo prep. If anybody knows the
Jordan Harbinger show, like Italked to Jordan about his show.
(13:35):
He said, My thing is like, I'mworking probably 30 or 40 hours,
each interview, preppinglearning everything I can about
this guest. So if you want to bedoing an interview show, you're
probably putting in at leastthree, four hours of good
research into everybody. Becauseyou want to know what to ask.
Gilon (13:56):
So now we've got some things to be thinking about.
We're wondering like, Alright,we're gonna do this by
ourselves, are we going withsomebody? What is the format
going to be? Is it news is itstorytelling is an interview
style? Our next target wouldthen be like, how long? Should
it be like, what are peoplelistening to? Are they listening
to to our shows? Does it need tobe 10 minutes? Like, does it
need to be the length of a quickYouTube video? What's my aim
there?
Alban (14:16):
So length of a podcast is an interesting question. I've
seen so many people who've said,we've looked at 4 million
podcast episodes. And here's thedistribution of how long they
are. And I'm like, that's aninteresting data point. It's not
illuminating anything for me,because how long are movies? I
don't know, between an hour and15 minutes and two hours. But
(14:38):
that doesn't tell me how longthe movie should be. No one's
said like Schindler's List is agreat film because it's three
hours and two minutes orwhatever the number is, long.
It's a good movie, because thecontent is good. The Lion King
I'm sure it was a lot shorter.
It was also a really good movie.
Movies are good based on thecontent. They're not good based
on the length and podcast of theyear. Exactly. So so it
Gilon (15:00):
sounds like content is king is kind of what you're
saying. Yeah. So does it everget to a point where it's like
this is too long shut it down,or it doesn't sound like there's
a minimum or a maximum. But isthere a sweet spot,
Alban (15:12):
I think that the sweet spot is consistency. And it
doesn't have to be exact. But ifyour podcast is 20 to 30 minutes
long, the people who are goingto listen to it are people that
20 to 30 minutes is good forthem, they've got a commute to
work, that's 12 minutes, andthey go there and back and they
listen to an episode on Tuesday,if your podcast ends up being
(15:33):
three hours long, your audienceis going to be people who
probably have a job, they canlisten to you. And they're
looking for long amounts ofcontent, whatever it is, like
you kind of want to stay aroundthat zone, because staying
around that zone is going to bereally helpful for the actual
audience you've already built.
Gilon (15:49):
Makes perfect sense.
total sense. So then on thatnote, how often should I be
publishing?
Alban (15:54):
I mean, I think it's kind of the same answer again, right?
There's people who do theeveryday thing, there's people
that do series once every fewyears, like cereal does every
two years a new season, theyspend a long amount of time
working on these things beforethey release them. But the sweet
spot is a week. And there's afew reasons for that. One, we're
trying to train the audience. Imean, some of you will watch TV
(16:15):
shows like, every Friday, Iwatch this episode of this new
show with my wife. Well, if it'snot showing up on Friday, we're
gonna find something else. Andif we're finding something else,
we may not come back to thatshow next week when it does come
out. So it's finding thisregular cadence that you can
commit to in your life.
Gilon (16:36):
And I think you know, a note on consistency. So much of
this is based upon just whatyour audience has come to expect
from you, right, like the lengthof your episodes, there's not
really a pin down number, but itdoes need to be consistent.
Because if you go from 15minutes to two hours, that
throws off your audience and thewhole thing, the whole idea is
(16:57):
that you become a regular partof your audience, your listeners
routine. So if they've got a 30minute commute, and your podcast
is 30 to 40 minutes, they knowwhen it comes out first thing
Monday morning, they can listento it on the way home and maybe
finish it on the way from work.
But if you give them a two hourepisode randomly, it's kind of
like, When am I gonna listen tothis? When can I listen to this
and then you run the risk of wemight move on or I may not
(17:18):
listen to that. Or you know, Imay not ever even listen to that
episode,
Alban (17:23):
right? We're building habits in our listeners lives,
we're also building habits inour own life. If a topic I end
up going, Oh, this is actuallylike, I'm gonna do two hours.
Well, I'm going to probably burnout if I'm used to doing 25
minute episodes, and I'm tryingto edit a two hour audio clip.
And if I'm not saying it'salways going out on this day,
(17:43):
well now I run the risk ofoverthinking and overanalyzing
and doing way more editing thanI should like, oh, maybe I'll re
record that whole thing, maybeI'll re edit all of that, well,
maybe what would be better wouldbe to start getting stuff out
there. I mean, I know this isbetter, is to start getting
stuff out there and getconsistent and build the habit
yourself so that you can keepmoving forward and growing.
(18:04):
What's much more dangerous iswhen you start overthinking it,
and you go weeks and weekswithout releasing anything.
That's where you know, you'regonna start running into an
issue. So finding that weeklycadence is a way of keeping
yourself accountable to what youwant to get done with this
podcast.
Gilon (18:20):
That's really good. And then one of the things that I
done, because when I podcast, Itry to keep my episodes about 30
to 45 minutes, one, because Iknow how much time I'm gonna
have to dedicate to editing, ifit's tons and tons of content,
but I'm really big on content.
And so every now and thenthere'll be an episode where
it's like, oh, this is like anhour and some change. But it's
so good. And I don't want tolike lose any of it. And I don't
(18:41):
want to edit this part out orthat part out, I broke it into
two parts. So I was able to keepboth as well as maintaining that
expectation of a 30 to 45 minuteepisode. So I didn't like shock
the bejesus out of my listeners,like while I listen to this. So
that can be a thing that you cando as well to sort of maintain
the integrity of of what you'vegotten your audience used to.
Alban (19:00):
So we've got a bunch of everybody to think about, you're
gonna figure out who's going tobe on this podcast. How many
people do I want on here? Whoare the people that I really
want to ask? And are they ascommitted to this as I am
because you don't want to enterinto something with someone and
find out they didn't really wantto do it. They're just kind of
being nice. Pick out the format.
Pick out the length of theaverage episode. You don't have
(19:21):
to be locked into this forever.
And we recommend picking thatweekly cadence Travis, what
other resources should peoplelook at if they want to go
deeper?
Travis (19:32):
The first one is a blog post titled How to Write a
podcast script with eight freescript templates. And so if you
want to have a little bit morestructure to your episodes, you
want to see what that would looklike if you're still kind of
deciding what kind of format youwant to go with. That's a great
resource to get a feel for thedifferent kinds of podcasts you
can do and what's involved topreparing for those. As far as
(19:54):
how long should a podcastepisode be. We actually do a
blog post diving deep into thatwith some more Data and examples
if you're still not sure exactlywhat you want to aim for, and
then if you want to do aninterview podcast, the biggest
part of that is knowing whatkind of questions to ask. And so
Jalon has a video on our YouTubechannel called the top five
podcast interview questions. Andso if you want to start your new
(20:17):
bank of questions, that's agreat video to watch first, and
you can find links to all thoseresources in the episode show
notes for this episode, you canjust scroll down in the app
you're listening to this podcaston find those links and dive
right in.
Gilon (20:31):
Awesome so now that you've got some things to look
at some things to consider somethings to watch. We're going to
get you all ready for EpisodeThree right and so we're gonna
be talking about the good stuff,moneymakers,
Alban (20:42):
the money spenders, money spenders,
Gilon (20:45):
podcast equipment, so we'll look at some of our
favorite pieces for microphones.
Look at different types ofsetups if you decided to do a
two person podcast or if you'regonna go solo, and then talk
about some accessories so youdon't want to miss that. Thank
you for listening and keeppodcasting
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