@peldi concludes his mini-season as host with an open and honest discussion with @freyfogle about a problem every business owner eventually encounters. How do you keep at it when you are feeling bored? Are we stuck in our businesses?
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I’m craving honest feedback on my guest-hosting performance! I don’t know if I should continue (starting a Balsamiq podcast) or not, and if so, how to make it great.
Thanks again to Steve and to this community for the opportunity.
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My honest feedback: I listen to a podcast to learn something new, or to get the viewpoint of someone else on something (I think) I know. That means I enjoy hearing when guests and hosts are challenged to explain why they think about something in a particular way.
I think you should consider challenging your guests more.
For Balsamiq, a podcast for the brand needs not to be anchored to you as a person. You can even hire a podcast (co)host. But I imagine you have access to so many great customer stories, that you could produce a successful podcast. There is a podcast called “How I built this” (listen to episode reCAPTCHA and Duolingo: Luis von Ahn : How I Built This with Guy Raz : NPR ). This can be an inspiration.
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Thanks so much @unboot - that’s great feedback, I never would have thought about it on my own.
I like “How I built this” a lot, and Luis von Ahn is a genius! You made me want to re-listen to that episode 
Thanks again.
I really enjoyed this final episode. I am definitely in the lifestyle business end of things and it is always good to hear others looking at things in the same way (ie taking time off in the summer etc.) when my day to day social circle is quite far removed from that But also good to cover this topic of being mindful of the job you create for yourself while you create your business.
In terms of honest feedback… The others I (mostly) listened to were the 180 (Geraldine/Rand) and 182 (responsible product design). They were enjoyable but it felt like you had something you really wanted to say to the world and the guests were at times an excuse to get your opinion out. Not as bad as that sounds maybe (now I read it back) but just that you, as the host, were perhaps more of an active part of the conversation than I was expecting. And that can then lead to the opinions going unchallenged so if I feel differently (as I did on some of the topics for 182) it’s not quite as satisfying to listen .
Possibly this is your style and would work well and I’m just not your audience? Or maybe it is something to consider in your interview style? Or maybe someone else is doing the hosting and you are part of the conversation along with a guest? Or something else, I really don’t know. Anyway, I look forward to being wrong somehow!
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You saw right through me Robin! I felt that my role was to amplify the guests’ voices, rather than challenge them. I am learning that it doesn’t make for good podcasts though, every good story needs some drama, some challenge to overcome!
I can easily introduce that in future episodes, if I ever do this again. Thanks so much, I would have never thought about it.
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My honest feedback: I thought your co-host looked great, and made a lot of really thoughtful points.
In seriousness, I vote you go for it. But decide what the goal of your podcast is. Is it to share your personal story and opinions? Is it to promote your business? Is it a tool to educate your customers or attract potential customers? Obviously, more than one answer is possible and it can evolve over time, but I do think you should know the goal(s) rather than just hit record and start marching with an uncertain destination. Set an achievable goal, say 20 episodes, and some sort of success metric - though that could just be “I am having fun”, and then see if you get there. If yes, keep going., if not stop or adjust the goal.
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@peldi, I would say go for it.
In my opinion, a decent podcast should feature the following:
- a host with an intriguing background and a sense of humor
- an ability to come up with thought-provoking topics
- and also being able to invite interesting guests/experts
I think you have all three and, yeah, start small and make it fun for yourself.
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in terms of avoiding some of the admin (even just initially while trying it out) there are services out there. I know you know that, but thought I’d throw in a mention for a friends service https://lowerstreet.co/ They do a lot of fairly high end stuff and I think will handle booking guests and etc and as much as possible reduce the process to you just turning up and talking for 30-60 mins.
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