How I Started A Podcast for $12 – The FastForwardAmy Show Episode 151

Recently, I had the idea to start and launch a new pop-up podcast — a few weeks and 12 dollars later it’s fully launched, so how did I do it?

I have three podcasts, one of which won Best Business Podcast in Belgium. This time, I didn’t want it to take a lot of time or money. I just wanted to share the content effectively so it could help people. I already had the content (the episodes were going to be made up of previous interviews I did with some coachees on Instagram live), I just wanted to get it out there.

This meant putting the podcast together fast, as I had other launches to prioritize. This week, I share with you how I did it successfully and how you can do it too — whether it’s on your own, with a team, recording from scratch, or repurposing old content like I did.

In this episode, I share with you the steps and materials you need to start a low-budget podcast that is still high-value content!

How did it happen?

In the middle of my Business Freedom Elevator™ launch, I hosted some really interesting interviews with some current and former coachees. The content was really inspirational and I knew it could help people but I wasn’t sure how to share it. Instagram live isn’t always the format where people consume their information as it’s not readily available.

I knew I had to get these interviews out there, and I knew these stories could really effect and help people.

Finding my title

These interviews had been in Dutch. Therefore, the title is in Dutch too — Gewoon Doen. This basically means ‘Just Do It’. It’s entrepreneurship made simple. It’s about taking fast action.

We live in a hustle culture where people like to show off when they are buying houses, growing businesses, and so on.

But it’s not always easy — sometimes you have to go through the difficult things in order for your business to grow. The interviews I used to create this new podcast show that.

Creating the cover

Creating a cover for your podcast doesn’t need to be expensive, or complicated.

At the end of the day, your audience wants to know you and choosing a simple photo of yourself is enough to achieve that.

I literally took this picture of myself from a day where I was holding headphones and I thought ‘oh, the camera has this really cute feature where you can just cut yourself out of a picture!’.

I asked around a little bit, my teammates, my boyfriend, and we all decided it was a good idea to put it out there and that this photograph looked fine as the cover.

The big investment — $12

I got one of my teammates and I said ‘okay — let’s do this thing together!’. I started by getting on to my Buzzsprout account, which I already had, and checking how to add a new podcast. To do this, I had to get a Pro account for $12 a month, so that’s what I did.

I invested that $12 because I believe in the podcast and its value.

You don’t even need to buy a jingle — make your jingle. I didn’t even record an intro for all of these episodes because the content had so much value already, there was no need to add to it.

A low-effort launch

I recorded a short 4-minute intro episode after that to explain what the episodes were about and then it was just a matter of getting them up onto Buzzsprout and Spotify.

My virtual assistant (okay, it is important to note that paying an assistant is another cost, but if you wanted to you could do this yourself) gathered all the audio files, the intro, and everything and helped me get it started.

I still did a lot of the work myself — I was writing episode descriptions in the car, and I took episode titles from the Instagram lives when I originally interviewed these coachees.

I could have obsessed over details, but I decided they don’t matter — this is really good content and I’m going to push it out and help people consume it.

That mindset allowed me to create the podcast faster, cheaper, and easier — which is kind of the whole point of the podcast itself! Taking action fast.

Don’t overcomplicate things

I don’t mean to be condescending when I explain how simple this was. In fact, I was surprised at my ability not to overcomplicate the process (which I usually do!).

The 80/20 rule, which I have discussed on my show before, states 20% of our effort determines 80% of our results.

I took the skills I had, and the content that already existed, applied the 80/20 rule, and by staying focused and not overcomplicating things, I created a whole new podcast.

Lessons for content creators

The really valuable lesson for me here was that I saw my content had high value and repurposed it in a new way. You can think ahead and go live on Instagram, or do an interview that has value at the time but that you can also repurpose into a podcast episode later.

The main thing is, if you have a good idea or good content and you feel people will find value in hearing it, then stop doubting yourself! Get those dreams and ideas out there.

Today is a really great day to get started.

You might feel like people have already heard it, so what’s the point? But you have different email lists, Instagram followers, etc.

In the end, it’s not the video quality, or the views, or the production quality, that matter — it’s the content and the value of what is being said.

RECAP

Maybe it sounds a little too easy, maybe you still have questions. To further break it down, here is a summary of exactly what I did to get this show on the road — literally!

1. I identified content that already existed and had high value for my audience (Instagram live interviews with my coachees)
2. Downloaded those lives through Instagram browser
3. Ripped the audio from them using iMovie and converted it using Sprout
4. Created a cover with a photo I already had and some editing
5. Created a Buzzsprout product account (costing $12 a month)
6. Created a new Spotify account for the podcast — free!
7. Remember the focus — helping people and making an impact!

If you want more advice on how to stop doubting yourself and finally get your podcast out there you can listen to the rest of this episode here, or you can go to www.fastforwardamy.com/startyourpodcast to download my FREE GUIDE on podcast production.

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Listen to this episode via Apple Podcast, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, and search for episode 151 of The FastForwardAmy Show.