My friend and I recently started a podcast (non-tech related) and it’s been super fun! We have recorded 3 episodes so far and we are both having a lot of fun doing it. I’ve had a chance to reflect on this experience and want to share some raw thoughts. I think my learnings from starting a new effort apply to all creative projects involving more than one person. I hope you find it useful 🙂
1. Power of a team
This podcast wouldn’t have been possible without the energy of my friend who kept me going. I have a tendency to give up too easily when things get hard or ambiguous. So it was helpful to have another person to get through those tricky times. We’ve had our fair share of conflicts and disagreements but it’s all been very productive which is new for me. (I wish this happened more at work!) The reason for this is quite simple – trust, built over a decade of friendship.
There were times when we realized we had very different goals in mind for the podcast. But were still able to agree on a common execution path and make progress which I consider a victory! There is a lot of give-and-take necessary for two people to work together effectively and this experience has highlighted my own limitations in this area. For example, I had expressed strong opinions on some topics only to recant them later on further thought. Overall, it’s been a very humbling growth experience for me – a reminder to be open-minded and less emotionally attached to my own ideas.
2. Constraints are powerful
Before we started the podcast, we set a bunch of constraints which helped us in many ways:
- We committed to recording 5 episodes no matter what. This way we didn’t have to worry too much about evaluating success or failure after every episode and just focusing on the next episode. In an alternate world, we would have waited for feedback after every episode to decide if we should continue with the next one which clearly would not have worked. Here’s why: we didn’t know what we were really doing after the first episode. So we needed to give ourselves enough time to try new things, get feedback and improve to be in a position to objectively decide if we should continue.
- We picked a very specific theme for the podcast and one that interested us. This allowed us to limit the possible topics we could cover and ensured that we actually cared about what we were doing. (Unfortunately, this is something that I have often found lacking in work projects since the benefits of personal interest alignment are huge)
- We decided we were going to record one episode a week every Sunday. This meant that we would finish our 5 episodes in just over a month while we were still excited about the whole thing. This decision also meant that all the planning
So never underestimate the power of constraints to reduce mental energy necessary to complete a task. (You can read more about this idea here)
3. Plan and adapt
For every episode, we had a plan (not a surprise given that we both work in the software industry) which looked something like:
- Decide on a topic
- Figure out structure for discussion
- Prepare some talking points independently
- Record and release!
As complete beginners, this kind of planning and the resulting structure helped us. We were happy that we could record episodes without too many glitches or much rambling. But on listening to the episode we realized that we sounded too prepared and robotic. The key takeaway was that we needed to prepare just enough to know the topic and then let our instincts take over to fill the gaps. This change has brought about a marked improvement in the end result. We definitely would not have discovered without starting with our original approach, making mistakes and learning from them. Amen to the power of iteration, feedback loops and continuous improvement!
4. Remember to have fun
We were very clear about one thing – we were starting the podcast to have fun. I did need a reminder of this from time to time since it is so easy to get caught up in the details and stress too much about stuff that doesn’t matter. By remembering to have fun, you tell yourself to focus on the parts that you enjoy the most. This in turn gives you energy to do other things which maybe important but not as much fun. If you focus only on the latter, then all fun evaporates into thin air. This is a very important lesson which holds true for work and life in general.
This experience has been pretty rewarding so far and we hope to collaborate on other efforts. We’ve learnt so much about each other and ourselves – both good and bad. Overall, this reminds me of the need to say “Yes” more often to new experiences even when time feels limited. You never know what you will learn from them!
<3 <3 <3