Lesson 1: Hobby or Business

Pros and Cons

Creating a podcast is hard-work. That is why the very first consideration you should be thinking about is whether or not you are pursuing a podcast as a hobby or as a business.

It’s TOTALLY ok to pursue starting a podcast simply as a hobby. But you just need to know the time and effort involved so you can decide if its a hobby if you are OK with never having one listener - or the flip-side of having thousands! Both can conceivably happen. Just know that no one is ever guaranteed success when they begin a podcast and, in fact, most fail. Many fail - before they are even launched. 

If you simply have a message you are passionate about and have no interest in monetizing your podcast - know that podcasting is an incredible way to do that.

Podcasting is still in its infancy and is gaining popularity all the time. It presents a unique opportunity most of us have not had in our lifetime - to have a global reach for the things we are passionate about - a plus for whether you approach your podcast as a business or hobby.

The benefit of it being a hobby is that you do not have the added pressures of monetizing your podcast and growing it. Because ultimately, most of the revenue streams are correlated to how big you can grow your show.

Like other forms of Internet-based businesses - driving traffic to your site (podcast) will be a priority. Without traffic, your podcast will not produce income and a business is not a business without it.

You will need to ask yourself the hard questions:

●     Am I willing to invest the time?

●     The emotional energy?

●     Can I or do I want to build a business?

●     Is my family on board?

The Commitment

As mentioned in the previous section, creating a podcast will take quite a bit of your time. 

When we first began, we were told it would take between 5 and 10 hours a week. The reality is that it has been closer to 20. On a good week - it's about 10.

We batch record on Mondays, which takes between 2 and 3 hours. Then we also prep for each interview for at least an hour, but usually more.

We have two podcasts a week and editing varies between 2 and 5 hours for each one depending on the length of the interview or the bonus episode.

The background administration of the podcast, following-up with guests, emails to prospective guests, other email follow-up and administration takes another couple of hours. 

We also create our own show notes. You do not have to have extensive show notes, but we have found by taking our time and bulking them up with meaningful content has helped us with SEO.

Website maintenance, content creation, updating social media and maintaining listener relationships can take an additional several hours depending on what we are working on.

For example, preparing for this course launch was many evenings and weekends.

Now, you don’t have to do everything that we do. You don’t have to have a course. You CAN create a podcast without all the extras - but I hope you can see that even without some of the extras, you will be making a pretty big weekly time commitment.

Other podcasters we have talked to will batch several of their tasks so that they can take a month off every few months to spend time with family as well as travel, attend conferences and promote their podcasts.

Some of the ways we have not let the podcast overrun every part of our lives is to batch record, batch edit, keep to a schedule and delegate duties when we can.

Business Considerations

Formal Structures**

If you are co-hosting with another person, you should consider whether or not to create a formal business structure.

If you are not cohosting then your choices are more limited. You may still want to consider whether or not a formal structure is advisable, particularly if you anticipate your business will grow.

For anyone who decides to co-host, the decision to co-host is an import one and will be discussed more thoroughly in later lessons. When you co-host you must be aware that even without a formal business structure, the law may determine that you have created a partnership and then all the ramification of a partnership become important to be aware of. You should inform yourself what those are with your legal and/or tax professional before proceeding.

At a minimum, you should have the important discussions with your co-host about the following topics and decide while everyone loves each other how certain issues will be resolved in the event one or both of you decides to leave the podcast.

If you determine to create a formal structure, you will need to decide geographically where that will be as each state has its own procedures and costs. Some states are more friendly to corporations and LLC’s than others. A simple Google search will tell you where those are.

Other Business Considerations:

Bank Accounts -

●     Where will you get them?

●     Who will have access?

●     Banking requirements for formal businesses

Sharing of Sensitive Information

●     If you are pursuing this as a business you will be sharing sensitive information with this person.

●     Are they trustworthy

●     Where will sensitive information be stored

Business Risk

●     With any business there is risk.

●     Risk will be one of the factors to consider when determining the business structure.

●     Know what the risks and responsibilities are for each business structure.

●     Be clear about an exit strategy and who owns what should the venture fail.

Capital

●     Who will contribute what are where will this capital sit?

●     Joint account

●     Split expenses in separate accounts

Expenses

●     Will expenses come out of one account where capital and/or income has been deposited

●     Will expenses be separated?

●     If expenses are separate, consider who has control over getting information about that expense. (i.e. Canva - one person pays, will you give the other person access to the Canva account. That will require sharing sign-on information.)

Timelines

●     Make sure that you and/or your co-host have created a time and aware of what steps are required before you can move on to another.

●     For instance, if you are going to form an LLC, you need to get a TIN first, then prepare and file the LLC, then you can open a joint bank account. These all take time.

Responsibilities

●     It is also very important to discuss the division of labor and expectations.

●     You must be comfortable in being able to communicate with your co-host if you feel there is an issue with a division of labor and/or another issue that arises.

●     Disagreements WILL happen. Decide now, how they will be addressed.

**Nothing in this chapter should be construed as legal advice. You should consult your own legal and/or tax professionals.

Exercise 1:

Write down whether or not whether you are considering podcasting as a Hobby or a Business.

●     Write out your weekly schedule

Time Blocking

●     Other Organizational Methods - There are lots of options for weekly scheduling. 

●     Trello

●     Google

●     Kanban Boards

●     Old-fashioned Day Planner

●     Your Choice

Determine the time you have available to dedicate to the podcast.

●     How much time do you have available to dedicate to your podcast? Is it sufficient?

●     If not, what activities are you willing to create the time?

●     Discuss this commitment with your family.

●     Are they on board?

●     If not, what are the issues? List them.

●     Can they be resolved?

If you will be pursuing the podcast as a business -

●     Begin a To-Do List and Start Executing Necessary Tasks.

END OF LESSON ONE