Podcasting has taken the world by storm; podcasting is one of the biggest markets in the world right now. Whatever it's about sports, to music to even stock, podcasts exist on every topic on all your music platforms.
But can podcasts help developers, founders, and makers? Yes, yes and yes! Podcasts can actually help you with not only building a startup, but even for a product, and one person took a big leap, Alex Edmonds!
Today we're interviewing Alex Edmonds, in his first-ever interview on how you can use podcasting to start, build and reach your startup or product, his story, and a second opinion on how you should build a startup!
Tell us a bit about yourself
I am a podcast host, My podcast is the Building an Indie Business podcast! I'm also a web developer, who's currently building the Open Podcast Community. A podcasting community. Currently, I am writing a book to help podcast host and people that want to start a podcast called What’s The Deal With Podcasting
How did you discover podcasting, in the way that it can help you build products or even start a startup?
I started podcasting because I noticed people that have successful products create content. I saw podcasting as one way to create content for my product.
I started by discussing the project I was building, a podcast directory. I did not have enough updates to have a weekly show. I filled in the episodes will ideas that were in my head.
My most popular episode is one of these episodes, Dogs and Web Development. I thought that people would be more willing to click on dog content. I made an episode about dogs to see if it was true. I was correct!
Wow Alex, that's amazing how dogs can help your podcast. Next question, What odd Jobs did you had in your life?
Well, when I was 16, I worked for a company called Liberty Tax during spring break. I was a sign waver and they made sign wavers and they made me wear a Statue of Liberty costume. I would wave the sign around at stoplights but I don't know if it worked. This is how I got started in marketing!
Now let's talk about how podcasts can help your brand if that's okay with you?
Startup founders can use podcasting as a way for potential customers to find their products. Customers can about future plans for the products. Podcasting adds personality to a product because customers are hearing from the founders directly not only reading the information.
What Mistakes do First time founders, and even serial founders make while with podcasts, or without podcasts to the point of building their startup?
Not creating content, I recently someone post on a website that they built a product and will start promoting after a year. They should have created content around the build process. This would get them customers waiting to use the product as soon as the product is built. They could have used podcasting.
Many people, just want to quit their jobs when they are building a startup? What do you think of that?
If you really want to to that have venture backing and have a salary. Another option is to save up money and move somewhere cheaper. That way the money can stretch out. You don't need to quit your jobs right way, you can work on the weekends or just finish your work faster. You shouldn't quit.
As we're on the topic of using podcasts, how has covid-19 helped podcasting?
I would say podcasting has grown since covid-19 started because people are home now and they less to do, and they start a podcast! Then, they have to buy the equipment and software. The podcast industry has grown.
Lastly, What do you think of communities, and makerlog?
Communities give startups support. That support will give the startup founders support to keep building. When showing a product to new people the community can show support to help get more support for the product
A positive experience I had with communities is when I launched the Building an Indie Business podcast on ProductHunt. The members of Open Podcast and Makerlog left comments of support on the page. New people saw the comments and gave the podcast a chance because of the positive comments.
Makerlog is great. The founder Sergio is smart. If I could buy stock in his future I would. I can’t wait to see what he does. I’ve said this before about Makerlog itself, I can draw a direct line between my success and Makerlog. Without Makerlog I wouldn’t have had the confidence to start a podcast, which means I wouldn’t have Open Podcast, and there would be no podcasting book.