Hey There!

This week, we are wrapping up the remaining pieces so that we can launch next week!! 😱 We're so excited!

I (Amy) knew there would be a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes for launching a podcast, but I don't think I realized just how many things. So, for anyone that's thinking about starting a podcast or interested in a true behind-the-scenes look, I thought I would take this edition and briefly talk through all. the. things:

Landing Page

As we've promoted the podcast on our various social media channels, we wanted to have a place to point people and collect email addresses. I built this site on Webflow. If you've never used Webflow, it's a No Code tool for building websites. (FWIW, we're planning on doing a complete episode on No Code Tools). I like Webflow because:

1. I have complete control over the design. (This is a big deal for me.)
2. It writes clean code.
3. I can spin up a site very quickly.

And that last reason — speed — was the main reason I reached for Webflow. For the initial announcement, I wanted to get something up as quickly as possible without detracting from the "real" site's development.

Newsletter

This is meta: talking about the newsletter inside the newsletter.

As we're collecting email addresses for the launch, we also wanted to generate engagement beforehand. Plus, we didn't want to create a scenario where someone registers, doesn't hear from us for 1 month, completely forgets, and is surprised when they finally hear from us.

Since we technically don't have podcast content to write about (yet!), sharing the journey seemed to be an obvious topic for our pre-launch emails.

My Email Service Provider (ESP) of choice is ConvertKit, but this newsletter is for a podcast. We're not selling anything (other than sponsorships! 😜), so we didn't need any fancy funnels with tagging and targeting. Instead, we reached for MailChimp. It meets our list of requirements, including a generous free tier. — And honestly, I've had a lot of fun writing about the tools I've been using and the things I've been learning

The Full Website

First, let's talk about design. I designed everything — the cover art, logo, color palette, and website inside Figma. Several products serve similar purposes, but Figma and I have been in a committed relationship for a little over three years. —And projects like these, where we're collaborating remotely, is really where Figma shines.

The frontend code is built on Next.js. I can't say enough good things about Next.js. Even if I want to spin up a small project, I've started reaching for Next.js over Create React App. I love that it has routing and has the ability to render pages statically or on the server.

Vercel builds Next.js. So, it only makes sense to use Vercel's hosting platform. The two are seamless. Tell Vercel where the repository is and what folder your frontend code is in, and that's it! You're off to the races.

The backend is built on Sanity.io, which is a headless content management system. This makes it easy to update and manage all the site's content. My favorite feature within Sanity is Portable Text. You can think of like a WYSIWYG editor on steroids. You get all the standard text formatting buttons: bold, italic, headings, etc. But, you can also inject custom React Components, giving you complete control over subsets of your content. I don't know of any other tool out there that does something similar.

There were a few areas of the site where I tried to push the functionality:

• I used Auth0 to give sponsors and guests the ability to login to the site and view stats, contracts, and invoices.

• I created a custom audio player because I wanted complete control over the design (notice a theme here? 😬). Plus, I wanted to create some custom functionality. For example, if there are multiple audio players on the page, starting one will stop another.

• I also created a command-line script. — This is probably one of the pieces that I'm proudest about, simply because I feel like it unlocked a next-level badge of developer achievement. I've been using Descript to edit. From there, you can export a transcript. However, by default, the transcript isn't formatted correctly for the site. It would be tedious to reformat every episode, every single week, by hand. So, I created a command-line script in Node.js that will automatically reformat * and * update the website.

Recording Logistics

James and I have been recording on Sunday afternoons. This seemed like an obvious time slot when neither one of us had meetings or work obligations.

• Staying Organized - We've been using Notion to track all of our episodes: script ideas, sponsors, episode status, grab bag questions, and picks and plugs.

• Actual Recording - We've been using SquadCast.fm to record each week's episode since it will capture the audio locally and upload it to the server.

Editing - I've been using Descript to edit all of our podcasts. When you load the audio file in, it will transcribe it. Then, editing the audio is similar to editing a word document. When you delete a word, it deletes the corresponding audio. I've started to use this program when I'm editing YouTube videos, and already, I've been amazed by the amount of time I've saved.

• Leveling - I don't have a lot of experience mixing and leveling. But, like most people, I know when it's bad. Fortunately, Auphonic is a great little service that will handle all of that for you. In fact, this is another tool that's worked its way into my video editing workflow, especially since it has a plugin for Premiere Pro.

Sponsorships

We've been very fortunate in that we're able to launch with sponsors from the beginning.

• Contracts - I've written the contracts in Google Docs and used Hello Sign to collect signatures.

• Invoices - We're using Freshbooks to send invoices and track any expenses. This helps keep accounting separate from other projects. At a glance, I can see exactly how much I've spent on software and subscriptions. Plus, it creates a layer of transparency between James and me.

Social Media

• Creating Graphics - For social media graphics, I've started using Canva. Yes, I have Figma, and, yes, I know how to create my own graphics. But, it comes to delivering quickly, I love being able to tap into Canva's preexisting templates and configurations.
  

• Audiograms - I'm sure you've seen these. They are sound bytes and video clips with closed captioning built for social media. I'm still experimenting with several different tools.
  • Headliner - This service is built specifically for Audiograms.
  • Descript - You can create and export Audiograms directly within Descript. Since I'm already using Descript for editing, this is probably the route I'll send up going in.
  • Recast - We're using Simplecast to host our podcast, and they have "Recast," an audiogram feature built-in.

• Scheduling - I'm trying to schedule and batch as many of these tasks as possible. Therefore, scheduling is a necessity. I'm using Buffer to schedule tweets and Later to schedule Instagram posts.
  

Publishing

Show Notes and Chapters - With Descript's transcript, it's pretty easy to create Show Notes and Chapters. To attach the appropriate metadata to each episode, I'm using a free app called Forecast.

• Hosting - We're hosting the podcast on Simplecast. I looked at several different options and really liked Transistor.fm but at the end of the day, Simplecast had better analytics and the ability to access them through an API.

Automations

I know James has been working hard to automate a lot of his reoccurring tasks. That's the goal, here too. But, I've found the best way to automate is always doo dial in the process first, creating a checklist as you go. From there, you can use the checklist as documentation for creating automation

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T minus 6 Days!

The first four episodes will drop in one week, on April 13th (mark your calendar!). After that, we'll release a new episode every week.

In the meantime, you can catch us on YouTube:

• James just released a video on the 5 Common JavaScript Mistakes with Equality

• Amy just released a video on Creating an Animated Circle Graph with SVGs

or on Twitch:

• You can catch James on Fridays (times may vary) with "Learning Quick." This past Friday, James talked to Jonny Burger (@JNYBGR) about creating videos with React, using his new product, Remotion!!

or on Twitter:

• James (@jamesqquick)
• Amy (@selfteachme)
• Both (@compressedfm)

That's all we got!

Amy