What We've Learned From 100 Episodes of the Pixilated Podcast

Patrick Rife: 0:00

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Pixilated Podcast. I'm Patrick Rife,

Alex McGlynn: 0:03

and I'm Alex McGlynn,

Patrick Rife: 0:04

and today we're going to discuss what we've learned from producing 100 episodes, The Pixilated Podcast

Alex McGlynn: 0:16

100 episodes already, but we have learned It's kind of crazy. hundred episodes.

Patrick Rife: 0:23

101. As of today, we're on to our next.

Alex McGlynn: 0:25

Yes, we've got through 100 episodes century two. Hopefully everyone enjoy the hundred episode special edition with a special guest, Nick kena.

Patrick Rife: 0:34

We should have done way more we should we should have done a lot more research about like centuries. Isn't that like a distance that you ride a bike? If you're like a street? cycler? Yes, you know, I believe there's probably some funny jokes that we could have.

Alex McGlynn: 0:47

No, well,

Patrick Rife: 0:48

no pun funny. Is this

Alex McGlynn: 0:50

no puns today? All right, so let's hop into it. So the number one thing we learned, I would say this is probably the biggest takeaway, as we've kind of worked through this. We've had to redo some things, we've had to redo some episodes, sometimes we've had things fail on us. It's been brutal. Sometimes make sure you have the right tech stack and right AV stack going into it. You don't need a super expensive camera. But you do need good lighting. That is something we learned the hard way. So you can use a cell phone to record your podcast if you're just starting out. Or actually, you should upgrade to a better camera with a nice like mic attached to it. But start out you really don't need that. But again, the lighting is always going to be critical no matter what you're using. And then for like the week, I believe we did an episode about our tech stack at some point, our actual text deck. I think we did. be thoughtful about what you're using to edit and publish and host your podcasts. It's a pain to switch hosting platforms as back until you and it's actually also a pain to switch really pretty much anything involved with with the podcasting kind of produce production side. So be really thoughtful. Do your research, make sure that the products we're using are good, they don't have to be super expensive. We don't spend a lot of money per month on our text nology side.

Patrick Rife: 2:14

It's super cheap. Yeah, I mean, I think I think Alex is right, like the right tech stack is a good idea. Also, like starting with nothing is a good idea as well. You know, as you get comfortable producing your podcast, you'll be able to find ways to incrementally improve, like we're always doing that as a matter of set pack, this episode, and probably the next few we record this afternoon, will will be the last that we're going to use a microphone that's on top of the DSLR, we're actually going to try out some lavalieres from a miking point of view. So we're always looking to continue making it better. But definitely, you know, like, writing it all down and making a plan for it is important because at least you know what you're working with. And you've got some kind of standardization that has been pulled together. And that's really helpful because then when you are improving, you see where those are. The second thing I want to add real quick, just to that point is Alex mentioned, you know, getting your, your tools and your kind of your publishing figured out and what you're going to stick with. And what he's referring to is we launched on anchor, which was cool anchor, it's really easy to get up and going to list your podcast and a ton of places. So it was obvious and there was no cost involved, we could literally just produce it and there was no no hosting fees upfront, you know, where that didn't work for us was, we knew that the plane was like, Okay, let's get it going here. And if it works, then we'll move it on to like a more formal platform, which is what we did, we migrated over to buzzsprout, I think it's one of those, which has been great. But there's a lot to do with your RSS feed that gets recorded in all the public podcast engines. And it can be very difficult to change that after the fact, as a matter of fact, we're still not listed. We're not available in Stitcher, we're not available in another one because it got set up wrong. And basically to move them. They're emailing an email address that doesn't exist somewhere anymore. So figuring that out, you know, if probably what you should say to yourself is am I doing this thing? And do I really want it to last? And if you do, you need to know that you're going to produce more episodes than you expected before you see any reason why you keep doing it. And planning not having to go back and change stuff can be a real godsend. Even if you are spending, you know, I think the starter plan for buzzsprout is like six bucks a month or something. It's crazy cheap. And it's a cool platform. So there we go. Number two, the what we learned from publishing episodes of The Pixilated Podcast is be consistent, be consistent, be consistent. It has been really hard and there have been times where we have not been consistent, but like all things that you're trying to learn to get better at we just keep committing to doing it keep moving forward. Keep saying like this is what we're gonna do. You know, we say every single day At the end of every episode, we'll see you tomorrow. And while mostly that's always true, there are definitely some times where we haven't been as consistent. And, and you feel it, you know, we feel it internally, we a little bit bummed that we like stumbled and didn't manage to keep up the pace. But also, you know, there are people that are subscribing to our podcast, and they expect that, you know, that there's going to be a new episode for them the next day. And if we are lucky enough to make it into the thing that people listen to on their drivetime commute in, and it's not there, there's a chance that they may not go to us the following day. And you know, like, you got to be about if you're going to talk the talk. So that's number two, when you're when you're rolling out a podcast or a blog, wherever the case may be, speak your intentions, and then hold yourself accountable to be there.

Alex McGlynn: 5:46

100% Yeah, the consistent thing, it's not always easy. But if you have a good plan going in, you can record multiple episodes in a day, make things a lot easier, you don't have to just actually record these every single day. So think through like the plan up front and make it easier to be consistent. If you had like a good recording schedule. That is the thing that we maybe struggle with the most, the beginning of this was just the consistency. And we're like recording on the same day at the same time. And trying to get we're actually being too rigid, I think, which is kind of what caused those pitfalls. Once we are. And also, this is a great segue, this is a learning process that never really ends. So once we realized that maybe we needed to be a little bit more flexible, in terms of how we're going to record and how we're going to be producing these. And what was needed up front, we sent really extensive show notes, we have really dialed that back. It just wasn't as necessary as we thought it was going to be. So there's, you know, again, you're making small improvements as time goes on. This is really true for anything you're doing in life get philosophical, like we've been doing these last few episodes, anything you're doing in life is about small, incremental improvements over a long period of time. So again, if you want to be good at something, you have to be consistent, and you always have to be looking for ways that you can improve. So whether that's finding a new publishing platform, or a new video editor, or switching to a different mic kit, or finding something like like otter that will basically transcribe everything for us. I mean, there's a whole host of different improvements we've made along the way and realizations we've had. And if you don't have everything written down and kind of scheduled out and again, not like tight schedules, but just to kind of an idea of when you're gonna be doing things and we're going to be doing during that process, what tools you're going to be using, it's very difficult to make improvements. So they kind of go hand in hand. It's a learning process, but you also need to be a little bit more organized up front so that you know where you can make improvements. Yeah,

Patrick Rife: 7:38

well, so next on the list is it's very opposite to my last point of being consistent is it's okay to take breaks is actually really, really great to take breaks. One, if you feel like you're going to, like fall off the rails anyway. Like, would it be rather better just to say like, I just got pause, as opposed to like, you know, like, fuck it up, and then be like, Oh, now I feel bad, because like, I dropped the ball, like, you know, get in front of the ball and dictate the way that's gonna work. You know, like, there's nothing wrong with taking a break from deploying a strategy, particularly like if it's breakneck, you know, we try and publish something every single day, that's videos, podcasts that, you know, like, they go on to multiple platforms, like the whole managing and distribution side of it is really intense, like it is a lot of work to stay on top of. And sometimes we feel like the, you know, the train is going to come off the tracks. And the reality is, is like, just saying, like, I have to stop and taking two days off, or taking five days off and getting a bunch of back end stuff in order. The last time we did that, we came upon a realization that has immediately started. And it's a it's a little secret sauce. So we're not going to share it yet. But we we came across like one little tiny strategy that we could tweak. And it adds more work. But it is giving us like an insane boost and a return for us. And we probably wouldn't have we hadn't stopped, we probably wouldn't have seen it. And sometimes it's not enough just to know that it's there. Right? You also have to have the time to apply it and try it out. But we took a week off. And we did that. And immediately we saw that it was working. And now it's something that we've built into our whole new strategy going forward. So don't be afraid to take a break. You know, like one, it's okay to give yourself a break, too. If like, you're not going to perform any way like take the break. Don't just take a loss day after day where you feel like you've fallen behind on your schedule. And then you know, three, there's, there's gold in them hills, and you'll find it as soon as you give yourself a chance to kind of focus on that.

Alex McGlynn: 9:48

Yeah, I'm actually gonna push back a little bit on something you said right at the beginning. I think that being consistent and taking breaks can go hand in hand. It's not an I think I probably agree with me. It's about intentionality. If you're interested Taking a break. If you're like, Man, I'm really overwhelmed. And I feel like there's some leak leaks in the boat I need to shore up. If you have a planned break, also, you should tell your listeners, if you're gonna have a plan break, like it's okay to just have like a quick like, Hey, we're taking this week off, cuz like happens more, because we need to change some things, whatever you tell your listeners, you're going to do that. But if you're doing it intentionally, and you have some real purpose behind it, it's definitely okay to take breaks, give yourself a breather, and hopefully find some, some processes that can be improved, taking breaks, because you messed up or you're feeling lazy that day, or you had a little bit too much fun last night, that is not okay, you got to make sure you break yourself out of those potential pitfalls and keep pushing even when you don't want to, um, this is important. This is really important for anyone who's even considering starting a podcast, just No, you will not have thousands or even hundreds, potentially of listeners right away. But it is important not to give up. So the thing about most really successful podcasts is that they were either started by a really famous person, or they had, they record thousands upon thousands of episodes, and they have built their huge audience, one episode at a time over years and years and years of work. So again, if you want to be a podcast star, if you want to have a successful podcast where you have, you know, 500,000 5000 10,000 really loyal listeners, it didn't take a long time to build up that audience. And it's a lot of hard work on the distribution side as well. So packed with a lot of this. But again, it's distributing it through social media networks, it's being intentional about what types of subjects you're going to cover about how what kind of guests you can get on and how you can leverage their social networks and their social platforms. And again, also provide value to your listeners, a lot of pieces that go into it. But if you're doing all those things, and you have a podcast, it's valuable to your listeners, in one way, shape or form, you will start to see breakthroughs over time, once you have a big library of episodes, and you have a lot of experience under your bill on the best ways to produce your podcast, that's subject matter to cover the best guests to have on the best tools to use and the best ways to distribute it all those things to kind of learn as you go.

Patrick Rife: 12:25

Yeah, totally. And also you feel like it's also got a lot to do with what you set your eye on as far as your goals are concerned as well, you know, like, are we have not placed at the center of our strategy, get lots of listeners yet, that has not been what we've been about, what we've been about is, it's been two things, we want to make sure that we make content that that we think is like relevant and actually good. And we want to be consistent, we decided to start there. And, and with the agreement that if we did those two things, if we stayed committed to this thing, because we were really enjoying having the conversation, and if we kept focused on trying to make it good, and not suck and not be like so full of like, bullshit, or like, you know, self promotion, or just any of that thing, that that we would find our tribe, the people would show up and it would be cool. And we would like slowly build from there. And that's been our goal. And that's what's gotten us to Episode 101 has been really focusing on enjoying being in the in the mix and actually making the content. So Alright, last one on the list is be willing to make changes and adjustments as necessary. Everyone starts out with an ideal way they want to execute their plan, I am I am very much a hold the line kind of person, you know, like I'm the type of person where you get 11 episodes, and we change the artwork, and I want to go back and edit all the old videos and like pull them down and upload them which I didn't go that far. But it's always very enticing to be that specific, I have a hard time letting go on that stuff. And I think that there are good attributes in there bad attributes about it. And I think that largely, you know, like, that's your 80% like you want to be you want to be whatever you want to be thorough you want to you want to approach it with conviction to what your plan is you want to execute at all costs, you want to be very reluctant to act a part of the strategy that's showing up. At the same time, you have to be practical, from a bandwidth point of view. And also, like be realistic about how many people are on the other side. Like you've got room to grow. Like everything does not need to be perfect because as Alex just mentioned, you're not going to start publishing unless you are, you know, whatever Michael J. Fox and and you have this huge audience that's gonna immediately listen to you. But like if you're Michael J Fox, like you don't have to do any of that shit anyway, like you're not doing the recording or not doing the editing, you're not like you're not even posting it to your Instagram you have like an assistant that's doing that for So, the point being that, if you're listening to this, to get advice on how to set up a podcast, like you're not going to have 50 subscribers on one, you know, you're probably not going to have 10. So you've got room to grow and taking on that mindset, that growth mindset and knowing that you know, have one or two key things that are driving you forward and and then also be, you know, be open to feeling it out as you go.

Alex McGlynn: 15:29

Right. So make sure you have a text, break text back up front, be consistent. Understand that you're learning things along the way, you're not gonna be perfect. Take intentional breaks when necessary. Be alright without starting off with hundreds of thousands of listeners and be flexible and realistic with what you are able to do with the bandwidth you have during your day. Yes,

Patrick Rife: 15:50

so that brings us to the end of this episode. Before you go, we would love it for you to rate reviews subscribe, you go to podcast.pixilated.com you can find your podcast network you can find the videos Whatever you're looking for. Your reviews help us find more listeners and obviously when you subscribe to get notified each day when we publish a new episode. So until tomorrow, I'm Patrick Rife

Alex McGlynn: 16:13

and I'm Alex McGlynn

Patrick Rife: 16:14

Peace.