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Making $60k a month from a podcast on software engineering

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Re: Making $60k a month from a podcast on software engineering

#111

Post by eeZah7Ux »

jonathanyc wrote: post #42
themagician wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's disingenuous to say, "…regardless of what affluence he had." The thing about being wealthy isn't that you don't have to work as hard to succeed at something (well, sometimes it is). The thing about being wealthy is that you don't have to do anything, so you have all this time to focus on what you want to do—and you can fail while doing it without any major consequences. Most people can't do that. Hell, half of t…

Yes. If you are wealthy (i.e. don’t depend on income) you can take big risks. 99% of the US couldn’t afford to spend $250k for a learning experience and a cute blog post.

99% of the world couldn’t afford to spend $25k

Re: Making $60k a month from a podcast on software engineering

#112

Post by petercooper »

kristianp wrote: post #25

I wish that hour-long podcasts weren't an hour long. They are often too unstructured and slow paced. I think with some editing for pace they could be winnowed down to say, 20 minutes. I don't have time to sit around listening to an hour long podcast, especially not every day and multiple different podcasts! I remember the old giants robots ruby podcast was about 20 minutes and covered 3 topics (not sure if I'm rememb…

At the other end of the scale are podcasts that are a few minutes long - daily briefings, the news, etc. I've always found these hard to listen to in normal podcast software since they're meant to be ephemeral and quick, so I've been working on a new approach: http://briefings.fm/

Re: Making $60k a month from a podcast on software engineering

#113

Post by petercooper »

astura wrote: post #103
marak830 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do that, I'm not the owner either. My wife just had a son, so I definitely have a family. Add on top an hour and a half commute each way and it can be a little difficult at times to have family time I'll admit.

"Having a family," as in, relatives that physically exist, is obviously different from "having a family you value spending time with." I think it was clear the GP was talking about the latter.

For some people, quality time with family is better than quantity. The key is to have those hours or days with the family focus. This is not even a workaholic or tech thing - it's the way military families have worked for centuries.

Re: Making $60k a month from a podcast on software engineering

#114

Post by nl »

Myrmornis wrote: post #56

I don’t think podcasts are for me, but maybe I’m missing out on something. I don’t even really know how to play them. Do you stream them or pre-download? People listen to them on their commute do they, or while driving? So requires a cellphone contract with no download limit? I guess you don’t just sit in your living room listening? And you wouldn’t be able to pay attention while cooking right? I don’t think I can ta…

So I didn’t do podcasts for a long time.

Now I put one earphone in, go for an easy bike ride for a couple of hours and listen to one. It’s pretty good.

You can’t really do it when you are concentrating on something else (or riding hard!), but commutes or whatever are good.

You download them using a podcast player. On Android I use PocketCast.

Re: Making $60k a month from a podcast on software engineering

#115

Post by roel_v »

Well they're not 'making' 60k a month - they have revenue of 60k. A small bakery with a few locations has that sort of revenue. They have payment processing fees, accounting and other admin costs, housing, hosting, yadda yadda yadda - not to mention three people on payroll (and not on minimum wage, I'd imagine).

It would be much more interesting if they would show a balance sheet and profit and loss statement for the last few years. I've seen companies flaunting much better looking numbers than this and still go bankrupt. The real question is: how much is he pocketing, and how does that compare to say a consulting job?

(another way to put my point is 'it's easy to have revenue of 1mm a month - start a luxury car dealership, buy 5 250k Lamborghini's each month and sell them for 200k').

Re: Making $60k a month from a podcast on software engineering

#116

Post by jacobwal »

roel_v wrote: post #115

Well they're not 'making' 60k a month - they have revenue of 60k. A small bakery with a few locations has that sort of revenue. They have payment processing fees, accounting and other admin costs, housing, hosting, yadda yadda yadda - not to mention three people on payroll (and not on minimum wage, I'd imagine). It would be much more interesting if they would show a balance sheet and profit and loss statement for the…

But the inputs to his podcast are merely time (and one-time equipment costs). As you point out, a car dealership needs to spend a ton of money on the inputs, but that doesn't translate to a podcast business.

Re: Making $60k a month from a podcast on software engineering

#118

Post by ghaff »

petercooper wrote: post #112
kristianp wrote: post #25

I wish that hour-long podcasts weren't an hour long. They are often too unstructured and slow paced. I think with some editing for pace they could be winnowed down to say, 20 minutes. I don't have time to sit around listening to an hour long podcast, especially not every day and multiple different podcasts! I remember the old giants robots ruby podcast was about 20 minutes and covered 3 topics (not sure if I'm rememb…

At the other end of the scale are podcasts that are a few minutes long - daily briefings, the news, etc. I've always found these hard to listen to in normal podcast software since they're meant to be ephemeral and quick, so I've been working on a new approach: http://briefings.fm/

I agree on both counts. A 5-10 minute podcast often feels like it's "not worth" selecting and playing--at least as part of a standard podcast queueing and listening flow. At the same time, a straight interview/discussion without a lot of production work to break it into segments, etc. that's an hour feels too long. (And producing a radio show rather than just putting an interview up is a lot more work.) I find the interview podcasts that I do naturally gravitating into the 20-25 minute range.

Re: Making $60k a month from a podcast on software engineering

#119

Post by badpun »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #110
badpun wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people from Henry Ford onwards have been finding people are more efficient with less hours. On average. It's not impossible that there are outliers than can just work crazy hours without productivity decrease.

I'm sure that's what they tell themselves.

I remeber that the guy that made Diablo said that he can sustain 18 hour workdays for a couple months during a final crunch. Given how successful his product was, there may be something to it.

Re: Making $60k a month from a podcast on software engineering

#120

Post by ghaff »

joshvm wrote: post #40
kristianp wrote: post #25

I wish that hour-long podcasts weren't an hour long. They are often too unstructured and slow paced. I think with some editing for pace they could be winnowed down to say, 20 minutes. I don't have time to sit around listening to an hour long podcast, especially not every day and multiple different podcasts! I remember the old giants robots ruby podcast was about 20 minutes and covered 3 topics (not sure if I'm rememb…

Structure is an editing problem, but there are lots of people who listen to podcasts sped up, or with silences removed. Apps like Overcast will do this for you. Some podcasts, like Hardcore History, are worth the 5 hour runtime and they're so rarely published it doesn't really matter.

Structure is an "editing problem" but once you go beyond a fairly straight interview or talk show format, the amount of post-production work increases dramatically. With the help of some automation, I can edit a 20 minute interview in an hour so so. Structuring a 1 hour show from different clips and inserting various breaks etc. would probably add a good day to the whole process.
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