Software Misadventures - Podcast update and news!

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

Some reflections on running the podcast and Ronak has some eggciting news to share :)   Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

Why are you laughing again? I wish I could have recorded the entire thing. Let's do that again. Why are you smiling? Why are you laughing again? Sorry. I can't just, I'm not a monkey. I can't just go out and be all dramatic and shit.

Maybe that's a skill I should pick up. Okay. Hey guys, I wanted to give a quick update where things are with the podcast. So some of you might know, we, we started this podcast all the way the December 2020. And then we took a break back in June of 2022. And then it was for almost a year. We thought he was gonna die in the quiet, but then he came back. So then we started back up in June of 2023.

So almost after a year. And then things really ramped up in November of last year where we decided to okay you know what we should really double down on this podcast and then finally I guess another milestone was in June of this year where we started doing like weekly episode releases which has been that's been huge Ron I would talk about the numbers, but then from an effort perspective of that, that was really a test of, okay, do we have like a system set up in place, right? Are we professional?

No, we're not. We're not fucking. We're not professional park doctors yet, no. But I did think that was cool because we did need like a system in place in terms of like scheduling things in advance, really cut down the time to do stuff like we haven't i guess one thing we haven't done well is the outsourcing which i think so given that we haven't we don't have the outsourcing setup i thought it was it was pretty it was a nice moment yeah for people who actually ask me how do i get

the time to do the podcast? I want to say thanks to Guang. He takes care of a lot of stuff from scheduling to doing all the amazing audio and video edits. And also if my audio comes out only on one side of the ear, I blame Guang for that. It's your mic, bro. I could have done a better job of catching that earlier. He does it.

He works on my machine. One thing which I would say is I think doing this podcast alone, if I was doing this alone, this would have stopped maybe sometime in two months after we started. But doing this with Guang has been, has made this a lot more fun, has also encouraged us to keep going and double down on the podcast as well

and come up with a system that works well. I'll let Guang talk about some of the optimizations he made in terms of how things are structured today. But since we moved to a weekly cadence from a monthly cadence, our monthly downloads have doubled since our all-time high before 2024. And now we are getting almost

like 4 000 downloads a month which is pretty amazing in terms of what's working well the weekly cadence of course it's a lot of work but it has allowed us to iterate really quickly and act on feedback i feel we got better at interviewing guests though i think that's a subjective opinion overall it's been easier to record the podcast as Long was saying before the recording we've become better at just winging it in case we're not prepared but hey we're always prepared I yeah like I did feel before we would do all this like preparation and then sometimes we get tripped up in it I remember there were like many times where we felt like we had a schedule and then we need to stick to it. So even when we wanted to take interesting sidetracks, we're like, we got five more topics we need to go through.

It was like a checklist. But then I think the weekly, sometimes I guess we had to do two in a week. And then that really made us realize, oh, let's not do that. Let's actually have a process where we actually enjoy the conversation and go on these tangents. Yeah. I think the nerves have gone down significantly where we are way more relaxed during the conversation, which I think results in a better episode, but at least if not that it is, it's at least

a lot more fun for us than it used to be and this weekly release has shown a serious traction on youtube by the way which and the increase in download is very encouraging like i go to youtube just to check how many subscribers we have which is pretty cool to see that we hit 1100 plus subscribers at this point uh so thank you everyone for listening to our episodes glad you're enjoying. And please continue giving us feedback if there's something we can improve upon. I would also say that inviting new guests have become easier.

I think we've loved all the guests we have hired on the show in terms of just the title and kind of quote unquote internet popularity of a guest. I think this year we've had the most internet famous guests and they've been really

kind to say yes to come on the podcast and very generous with their time. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on our show and really, really appreciate it. And shout out to Guang for his awesome audio and video editing skills. Go ahead, Guang. Thanks. Yeah, like a little bit on that. I did feel like the more that we we finally to me, I think this happened maybe two to three months ago, where we were doing like a flurry of reach outs. And these are all Cody, whether they're emails or like Twitter DMs. But we finally got to the point where we've had enough like internet famous people on the podcast where now when new guests like when we reach out to them we don't have to do because before back in the days like we had to write like a very long email about oh yeah these are like the topics i really want to discuss and then

just to show that we are legit and that we're not going to waste their time versus now i feel like we finally had the enough like a compounded momentum such that people look at it and it's oh yeah like they recognize he's all this person that they know so he makes the whole process much easier I don't know in my head it's like the rich gets richer situation which I don't know but we're not rich so I don't know what that is with this analogy but yeah and then what's the other thing I think one part which has been super cool is when we reach out to a guest and they say oh yeah i really love your podcast and this is a potential guest who we have never spoken with before like we don't know them personally and

they recognize the podcast and respond with that in the email whether they come on the show or not is a different question but just the fact that they're able to recognize that it's super cool that is very encouraging all right bro i think that happened like what like twice that made it sound like wow we're yeah no we're not quite uh no not yet yeah but uh two is more than zero yes yes i think one thing which has been continuing to work well even before we move to the weekly cadence and just doubled down on the podcast overall, is thoughtful research before the episode.

And I think that is continuing to pay off. This is something that we consistently get good feedback on from the guests themselves, where they have a better time on the podcast because when they're talking to us, they can recognize that we have done our research. And I think that is something we want to have as a differentiator as well,

where we want to be really well-prepared during the conversation, not just for the guests to recognize that, but it makes it easier for us too. Yeah, and shout out to Rana, who has done an amazing job doing the research and getting into all the fun stuff. I remember, yeah, before we used to do more of this

sort of like together, I guess. It was like an awkward sharing because then I think we'll hit on similar things and then we need to, versus now, Rana has taken over the research tasks. And yeah, there's been so many times in the conversation where he asks, right, something. And then, oh yeah, I saw you doing this.

I was like, like whoa that's so interesting or even in the prep you start talking and then i'll be like oh that's a great thing we need to like yes please ask that yeah um good job thanks thanks one guang is never nice to me like this when we are not only on podcasts when we're recording yes yes yes Not in private. Sanyam Bhutaniya, I just to pay back the compliment, the research has been much easier because Guang's been working on this amazing podcast research tool, where before we are recording an episode, he would send me a PDF file with pretty much a summarization and topics of previous transcripts of the

podcast that the guest has been on so there's a pdf document with different topics we can potentially get into and linking to direct quotes of that guest from a previous show that they came on and i think that as context makes it super easy to do the research and i'm hoping guang actually publishes that tool at some point so that others can benefit from it too. I'm talking too often about this. I need public accountability. That's what motivates me to get off my lazy ass.

So I appreciate you calling it out and I will need to watch that. So I think Guang is committing to publishing that tool by the end of November this year. We can't say the F word on the podcast. But yes, F you. And I will indeed get that thing out before end of November. So in terms of things that didn't work quite well. One thing at the start was when we really started thinking about growth. I think we were a bit naive in thinking about right because like after many months now what i realized is like that the key

is it's like what lenny says right like consistency and quality like those are the two like the biggest drivers versus i think when when we out, it was more about trying to paint lipstick on a pig sort of thing where to me, so, so sorry. So for context, we did a lot of like short form video on like different platforms. So on TikTok, Instagram, like YouTube shorts and Twitter for a little bit, we run the experiment for maybe three, four months, maybe a little bit longer than that. But yeah yeah the results were just like pretty bad and then i think it makes sense right it's very hard like you have to have like really good quality content in order to actually pull someone off of the platform that they were using to go listen to a podcast it's i think it's crazy hard so even if

we're getting like a lot of likes a a lot of subs or whatever, but it's just not the medium that people are like really engaged in. So yeah. So then we gave up on that. But, but YouTube, I think was like an interesting channel because it is very much like people watch like long videos on there as well, even though I think I was a bit surprised because he's not like super, like it's not very flashy.

Right. But and actually I do it myself. I think the diary of the CEO, I think it's like they're super polished. It's a little bit click baby, I guess sometimes, but, but then I actually watch through like some of the stuff. So then I'm like, okay, I think this is like a reasonable channel. And for folks who want to know more about the editing process, I think Wang has a newsletter. I encourage folks to check that out. He actually has a really nice post there where he talks about how he went from like various iterations of what our YouTube thumbnails look like. And starting from the ones which look

like a PowerPoint presentation to now something that actually looks like a YouTube thumbnail. Cringe. No, that is super nice. I found it not just entertaining, but also educational to read that. And Guangli as well. So yeah, do check it out. Thank you. Thank you.

So yeah. So on that note, we're taking a, so another short break. Why you ask? I'll let Radek, would you care to do some explanation? Cause we are lazy and broadcasting is too much work mean that plus i'm expecting a baby and that's the primary reason for this every person i speak with who have kids they tell me i shouldn't expect to get much sleep in the first three months and i'll be more or less a zombie and i'm learning a lot of new words about babies and how they behave and act and i think that's going to keep

me a little occupied. And we want to bring good conversations to this podcast. You don't want to see me groggy. Point being, we'll take a short break. And once we are settled in this new lifestyle a little bit, we'll come back. And thank you all for your continued support. We'll be back soon with more episodes. Until then, take care, and we'll see you on the other side. And by the way, funny story. The first time I think during a podcast recording where you're telling the guests, oh, hey, by the way, right, we're expecting a baby. I thought it was so funny.

I controlled myself so hard to not make a joke, be like, not like we. Guang and I are just friends, just FY friends just even though it might seem like that yeah so aishani will be like what anyways so yeah oh she's gonna find this particular video so cringeworthy excellent that's what I'm here for all day, all week. All right. Thanks, guys. See you in a couple of months. See you later, folks.

Hey, thank you so much for listening to the show. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and learn more about us at softwaremisadventures.com. You can also write to us at hello at softwaremisadventures.com. You can also write to us at hello at softwaremisadventures.com. We would love to hear from you. Until next time, take care.