Three days ago I've published the first episode of Bruno Talks With, where I talked about lot of things with my guest Arvid Kahl. The next episode is already on the way, but I want to stop for a moment and reflect on this whole event. It is kind of important to me, since I'm doing this for the first time in my life, and it definitely has a potential to expand my network.
This is something completely new to me
Let me put this straight. I'm not a podcast guy. I'm a developer. Also, I'm not good with design or video editing. Not to mention sound engineering. Still, it's a one man show. And I don't plan to change it. How come? Well, because of priorities and setting goals and expectations. What is my goal with all this? Networking. I want to reach new people. I want to make new friends. I want to give serendipity a chance. That's why it doesn't matter to me really if audio or video is (not) optimised. I wanted to put it a bit on the next level, but only a bit. You probably saw some nice chair and "promising" setup, I didn't record in front of a white wall and from my laptop camera. But that's it. What I want to validate is if I will have enough guests and if I can produce enough content. That's the only thing important.
"Give what you want to receive", it literally happened
Let me tell you what happened. The episode was titled like this, "Give what you want to receive". I organised a giveaway of a ebook Zero to Sold. Meanwhile, I also participated in another giveaway and won that same book plus 5 others. I gave one book, and I receive 6x times of that.
I already bought some of those books (The Mom Test, Obviously awesome, Zero to Sold) so I dropped a message I can get only those missing, but Tyler insisted on buying me all of them, so I can re-share. At first, I wanted to simplify it and have a kindle version that you can digitally send over the world in no time. But for a moment I thought how physical book would fit better into this whole giveaway concept. So we checked the options but the shipping costs were insanely high and we agreed on some more feasible option. Thanks again Tyler.
Bruno Talks With - Launch and Giveaway
Since the episode was released on Friday, I wanted to make it active till Monday. Later I've realised I could have shorter period, since most of the entries happened on first 2 days. I got like 8 participants. Not much, but still the launching tweet get like 15k impressions. That's way more than my average tweets so I consider it as success.
18 people subscribed to my YT channel. Didn't have any expectations on that so I can't write too much about it. Definitely nice for the beginning. I got like 200+ views of that episode. Not much, but for the first video I'm satisfied.
The giveaway was organised via one of those wheel of names online pickers. And I've even created a video of me doing it. Not the happiest video created though.
Feedback
I got quite amount of feedback. Positive. People were happy. And a lot of thoughts shared with me that I can put into two buckets
- thoughts about technical details and
- thoughts about content
To be fair, I've enjoyed latter more. I'm aware of my editing skills, video composition and sound engineering. Also, I'm aware of my English and my filler words. But, guess what, I don't plan to make a big changes there. English language habits can't be changed overnight for sure, and I don't think that mastering video production will lead to success if I don't have quality stories and ability to produce enough content. I'm not saying it's not important, but it will made less impact.
On the other hand, I got positive feedback about content, picking the guest for the first episode, his stories etc. Very pleased to read all of those.
What I want out of this?
I want to do something new in my life. Video podcasting with international guests is something that you don't start every day. There are already 3 episodes recorded and I like it so far. It's about meeting new people. And not like any people. But people who can inspire me. I want to create a new pool of connections. They say "It's not who you are, it's who you know". I believe in increasing my chances to get lucky. If you haven't watch the episode yet, you can see where one single public github repo took Arvid later. I'm not looking for a job, this has nothing to do with it, I'm looking for experience.
Today is my birthday, let's see if this thing (Bruno Talks With) will be alive next year! Am I able to produce 50 episodes? We will all find out that. Thanks for reading.
If you like to hear more stories from my journey, go and follow me on Twitter @brunoraljic!