The Real Truth About Starting a Podcast in 2026

0:05 Good morning podcasting Morning Chat. Today is Tuesday, December 16th, 2025 and today podcasting guidance for 2026. We're cutting through the common advice to focus on what actually matters with starting and growing a show in the upcoming year. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button, bottom left hand side of the screen and share it. However, Clubhouse lets you. And if you're catching us via podcast chatter, YouTube, Facebook, please share this episode with a fellow podcaster. Now give us about 30 seconds. We'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here.

1:20 Good morning again podcasting morning chat. Thanks so much for being here. I am your host Mark Ronik and currently on stage with me. We have my Co hosts Ralphie Step, producer Ashley Feller, BC Babbles, Sid Meadows, Dr. Faye, Nick Dalback, Jonathan Howard and Matthew Blitz all on stage with me this morning. As I say, a full house indeed. Great to see all of you here. And a shout out to Roy Field, Bez and Tim here with us bright and early in the audience this morning. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, we're going to dig into tips and tricks and really statements that we may be commonly hear around the world of podcasting. And we're going to share whether they are truths to us or not and why somebody was off microphone who wanted to chime in. Just me.

2:12 I just wanted to mention that Tim is coming to us live from his Springfield studio. As he usually is. I feel like in the morning I think he he tells us he's coming from us, from his studio every morning. And I love it. Well, we can cut this out, no? No, we'll keep it in. It's nice. I like staples on this show. That's definitely one of them. All right, so real quick, just a reminder, Thursday's our podcast evaluation episode. You can get details about the podcast. We're evaluating the indie podcast that we're evaluating called Shared Delights, Your True Stories and My Funniest Moments, meaning the hosts funniest moments. You can learn all about that with the link in our show notes. And if just real quick, if you've never been a part of our evaluation episodes, that's exactly what we do. Podcasters submit their podcast for our thoughts, our opinions, our feedback, and we provide them throughout the morning on Thursday.

3:12 So come join us because even though it's not your podcast, I guarantee you, you will learn something. At least that's what I'm hearing from our audience who's really appreciating these episodes. So thank you for all that feedback. Keep it coming. And if you're not loving them, let me know that too. I want to hear that. Any feedback is good feedback for me. So thank you for that. I know also before we get into the main content of today's show, Sid has some questions that we'll get to in a moment that I think there's very appropriate for some of the conversation today. And before we do that, Jonathan, good morning. Do we have a puppy update? We have a puppy update. We have a puppy that is sitting next to me in a crate right now who's teething.

3:56 I just updated my profile photo so that's him on the ride back yesterday. He could not get enough of holding on to me. Thank God I did get my dad to drive. I thought about that when you said yesterday you were going to try to get your dad to go with you. And I was thinking if he doesn't, that's going to be a challenging ride home with a puppy because they don't usually do well on that first car ride that they ever take. So I was thinking about that for you, Jonathan. Yep, Yep. So I was very happy my dad drove with me because it was three hours each way, so it was a long ride home. Awesome. Well, congratulations on the new pup, Jack Frost. It's a Husky, right? A mini Husky. Yeah, he's a mini Husky. It's an Alaskan clique. Kai is the official name, but it's a mini Husky. Congratulations.

4:38 Keep us posted. I'm sure you will. There's going to probably be lots of lots of stories coming out of it. There always are with a puppy. So keep us posted and follow Jonathan Howard on social media. He'll be sharing lots of pictures and I know he already has. So with that, let's check in with Sid. Sid who told me last night he had a couple of questions for the group. So Sid, go for it. Floor is yours. Good morning. Good morning, everybody. Before I ask my question, I have a question for Ralph. OK, so Ralph, I didn't know where you live because I don't know where you live and you're posting pictures of this beautiful farm covered in snow. And then a few minutes later, so did Cliff Ravens Craft. But I thought he lived in Florida. So if you're in Florida, are you guys covered in snow? No, I'm in Middletown DE action.

5:24 We got about four inches of snow on Saturday night into Sunday. Yep, not too far from my hometown. Yeah, I heard there was lots of snow around that area. I know, Nick, you were dealing with some some of that too. But yeah, go ahead, Sid. So my first question is about recording devices. So I currently use zoom to record all my episodes. Don't hate, I've been doing it for 169 episodes and it works great. But I'm thinking about changing that and I'm looking at potentially going to thank goodness Alex is not here to descript or to Riverside. And I was more curious about Riverside and I thought I had read or heard somebody say that.

6:07 So Riverside is the application where you have to wait till the the video finishes processing before you close your browser. And then my follow up question was is if my editor, do I give her access to my Riverside account or does she have to have her own account? Because I think I heard you guys other day talking about you login in Riverside. So I'm just curious about Riverside. Sure. So let's address the first thing and just for those who may not know, because again, well, I didn't say this yet and I will, but let's for today's discussion, anything we're talking about, let's assume we've got a lot of new podcasters listening today. OK, And I'll explain more about that in a moment. But let's assume right now that maybe some people don't know what Riverside is. It originally was a recording tool for podcasters. It was and really like Zoom on steroids, if you will. It's really designed for podcasting, for content creating purposes.

7:03 And since then, they've added a lot of different ways you can edit it once it is recorded and now you can upload and well, I should say you can share the finished product to the major platforms like Apple, Spotify, YouTube with that, yes. So Sid, let's see here you can. I will actually address your last question first because that's the one that I remember. Yes, you can share this with your editors. There is a shareable link with every project that you can share. Admittedly, some of my clients seem to have a hard time remembering where that share button is and shares the wrong project with us. I know Dr. is laughing right now because she deals with that with one of our clients from time to time.

7:48 But yes, you can share with an editor who does not need your password or login information to get to it as long as they have that shareable link. And as far as now I remember your other question, yes. So the way Riverside works is it's recording both. Let's say there are two people, both sides of the conversation separately and they're actually recording it locally to your computer browser. You have to use Google Chrome. That's a definitely something people need to be aware of. You got to use Google Chrome to use this product. And what it's doing is it's saving it locally to your computer.

8:29 This way you are getting the best possible recording. It's not saving to a cloud where sometimes you can lose some of that quality. And so that's why once the recording is done, you hit stop, but you ask your guests not to jump off immediately at the end of the interview. It usually takes, depending on your Internet speed, it usually takes anywhere from 10 seconds to maybe a minute or two. So it's a good way to kind of wrap up and let your guests know in that moment, you know, here's where we go from here, right? Here's when you can expect the episode. I'm going to be sharing assets that I would love for you to share on your social media, etcetera, etcetera. BC did you want to add something? That pretty much covers everything I was going to mention. I mean aside from some of the new stuff where apparently now it's actually it's on host.

9:16 So if anyone's looking to relocate their podcast from a host or not a big fan of apparently now Riverside is one of those new hosts. Absolutely. And before you go to Nick Mark, just a quick follow up question. You can do video editing inside of Riverside and audio editing, correct? Yes Sir, you can. Now you you do the editing to the to the video, but once you're done with the edit, you can export it as audio only if you'd like. Yes. And then she could run it through aphonic and all that stuff, 'cause she really likes to do she. Can she can and it does have some if you get the pro plan it it's AI tools has some stuff similar to aphonic, not quite as robust, but it does have some of those features.

9:59 If you plan on using a tool like aphonic, I would say don't use the AI enhancement features on Riverside because then you're. Just I just want to be clear, I'm not be using anything my editor is going to be using. This is not my skill set. But I am trying to convince her to switch from the way she's editing to editing on Riverside or Descript in order to do all in one meeting, video and audio editing at the same time. Because currently we are out of sync and it's two different editors and I need to pull it in under one editor for a lot of different things. So, but I know that Jonathan and Nick both had something to say. So go ahead, Mark. No problem. And your editor, if, if he she, they use Adobe Premiere. I believe you can now, or maybe it's been a while, but just recently I realized that you can export it as an Adobe Premiere project, which an editor would very much appreciate if they're using that software.

10:56 Nick, did you want to add something? I just had a couple of comments. One, Sid, if your editor doesn't use the script for editing or doesn't want to use the script for editing, I kind of feel like you'd be leaving money on the table there with that one just because it is primarily an editor and then they've added in recording after the fact. Just something to think about. Say that again. Sorry. Please clarify that. Say that again. If you were to go with the script, like the script came out primarily as an editor, like a podcast editing platform. So if you were just using it as a way to capture the video and no editing was going to be done in the script, I kind of feel like you'd just be wasting the purchase because it's primarily set up as an editor.

11:39 You can record in there. But since you're not going to be doing a lot of that, I would say unless your editor uses the script, it would kind of be like just throwing money at it in that instance. Does that make sense? Yeah, that I agree. I did have another comment, you were talking about closing out the the browser and all that kind of stuff. I think what a lot of people don't realize when they are recording those episodes, you can end the call, you just can't close the browser out. So if you get finished up with an interview, it's not like you have to sit there for however long it takes to upload with the person awkwardly sitting there talking with them. Like OK, it says 2 more minutes like.

12:19 What do we do? To kill time, like you could actually end the call and everyone can go about their business. You just have to make sure that everyone's keeps the browser window open and it'll keep uploading. And if for whatever reason it doesn't upload, they do have a fail safe tools and functionality. Yeah, that you send the guest a link, they go to that link and it'll continue the upload if for whatever reason they closed out earlier or something like that. So they do have backup plans in case something were to go wrong. But it's always just best to tell your guests like, hey, leave your window open for a little bit and we should be good. Thank you. Nick BC, did you want to add something to that before I go to Jonathan? Yeah, a couple of things.

13:00 So firstly, to confirm what Mark was saying, yes, if you go to the Recordings tab when you're done, you can down export the entire thing as a Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro session. But I also have got a question for Sid. Is there any particular current approach for your producer specifically that you're trying to help them shift from that that might help us kind of help determine if which one's a better option? For you this is a really great question BC and I'm not trying to shift their workflow or get them to change their process. I am trying to go from two different people doing something to one person doing something. A It's cost related because I had pay the YouTube editor a lot more than I want to pay her and she does a good job, but she's like weeks behind on. So she's not current with the audio publish states, which is fine.

13:55 We've come to an end of the season now. But I'm also just trying to make it easier for me and easier for my primary editor, Kayla so that we can get things done faster. This has to do with the relaunch of the show. What am I going to use? Where am I going to put the YouTube link inside of the landing page rather than just the embedded bug bus brought players? So it's like I'm reworking what the landing page looks like. I want to include the YouTube but I got to get the YouTube person on sync with us. But I'm also paying a lot of money for both services to be done separately and I just want to make it easier for me and for my team, if that makes sense. Yeah. No, that really does. And I think, and I think Riverside will, Riverside does a whole lot for you within the hour after your recording is done. So I think that'll definitely help you out there. And by the way, to the listener right now, if you're interested, we're going to have a link to Riverside in the show notes and that, just Full disclosure, will be an affiliate link. So that means if you decide to go with Riverside, I get a little bit of a cut of that.

14:57 OK. How much is it, by the way? That's the one thing I don't know. How much is it? Sure. Well, it depends on what plan and I would suggest, well, I use the Pro plan. The pro plan has everything, the basic local recording that we talked about at the editing tools magic clip. So it'll work similarly to like an Opus clip, for example. It includes high higher quality. So you get up to 4K, you get overlays, live streaming, screen share, etcetera and AI tools, teleprompter, you can take calls, etcetera. All for roughly $30.00 a month depending if you're going to pay upfront for the year or monthly.

15:38 If you pay monthly it's a little bit more. So the free plan is fine, but I don't usually recommend it because you only get 2 hours of separate track recording. It's only up to 7720P and it includes a Riverside watermark you can't get rid of. So at the very least the standard plan is what I would recommend to most people, which is $19.00 a month. Jonathan, did you want to chime in? Well, I was just going to tell Sid that I live in Riverside and I love it. It does everything you need including branding on your on your short form clips. You can have your branding all set so it automatically comes up with your branding. The other thing is there is a studio for your desktop if you have a Mac. I don't know about PCI, don't deal with PCs, they're gross. But if you have Matt.

16:27 You're good. OK. Remember, PCs are gross. All right, And let's go to Matt. I think Matt wants to chime in on this, too. Go ahead, Matt. Good morning. Hi, I'm APC. Guy, you're gross. Anyway, there is not a app for Riverside for Windows, only for Mac at this stage, but I would like to just jump on what BC said. Sid, as long as you're selecting functions to either replace or fit a purpose, that's not going that you're not making decisions for the editors in what they want to do, you know? But what you said there makes absolute sense. The other thing that I would suggest is that you pick the primary functions you need and make sure that the platform supports that.

17:11 And I've got a feeling that Riverside is going to be what you pick because Ashley said in the chat maybe 5 or 10 minutes ago that the scripts recording solution is not that good. They had a very confusing time where they acquired Squad Cast, which records quite differently to Riverside, and then they developed their own descript rooms as a recording platform. And I would take that for what it is. Don't record with the script. If what you want is the editing, then try Riverside 1st and then at least when you pay for Riverside you get their backups and backups of backups and anything else extra that you think you might need. Thank you all so very much. I just want to be really clear, I am all about the easy button for me and for her and I don't have to change from recording on Zoom.

17:59 I'm just trying to do what makes her life easier because she has been with me since episode 35 and we launched episode 170. And I mean, I adore this lady and how so much she's helped me. So I'm all about making her life easy. Janae has joined us. Janae, did you want to chime in before we go to Sid's next question? Absolutely. One thing that I've always said, I'm going to say it again, every single app is going to mimic every other app, right? What does that mean? We're going to have features. We'd have things that one app has that will transfer to the other app. D Script, Bot Squad cast to bring the functionality that Riverside already had. Now Riverside is building in features and editing features that the script was known for.

18:46 So again, all those things that are going to are going to converge. What I like to do is define the process for your podcast production, pre production, post production and during production. Define the process outside of any of the applications so that you can take a nap, put your process on top of it and produce and go. Because when you have that process in place, you can sit in any car right now and drive to the destination you want to get to. It doesn't matter which car, what matters is how many people do you have. Oh, I have 6 people I got to take a van. So think of that process from that perspective, and then you're going to be golden.

19:28 So that's my. Thank you, Janae. That's really helpful and great advice. Thank you for that. And let's keep things going. Sid, you had a second question. Did I'm the new podcaster of the week? Yeah, I have a sure MB 7 on an arm stand that is attached to my desk and it's creaky and ratty and six years old and I need a new mic stand that we talked about this before, so maybe this is a poll, Ashley boom stands or freestanding stands. I need a new stand and I was about to go to Amazon to order one. I'm like, well, I'm not really sure which one to order. So any recommendations as to and I don't mind the microphone being in the video, by the way. I don't mind that at all.

20:16 Yeah, and I don't mind the microphone being in the video either. In fact, I personally like seeing the microphone. Just a personal taste. It's not not a strategy per SE. I just enjoy seeing the microphone. I'm a microphone fan and what I don't like seeing a lot of is the actual stand itself. I feel like it's an eyesore and not that it's going to make or break or a show. I want to be clear about that. But if I feel like if you can hide more of the stand, it just looks better. And so that's why I pushed the low profile ones and I'm sharing here on Clubhouse and we'll put it in the chat as well. I'm sorry.

20:56 We'll put it in the show notes as well. Elgato's low profile arm, $70 and super high quality in my opinion. I haven't used a better quality mic arm before. This is really well constructed Willy, really well done. They have what they call also the low profile pro arm, which I don't think you need if you're using it just for a microphone. It's supposed to be sturdier, stronger, can hold more like say the their teleprompter. But if you're only using it for a microphone, you really only need their regular wave mic arm, low profile. In my opinion, that's the one I would push on you.

21:37 I just think it looks better for video and I recognize that you are in audio first, but I still think with that, some of the video content that you still put out there, it would look nicer in my opinion. See Ashley put up a poll here. What kind of stand? Boom arm or desk stand? Desk stand I think can work too. And it can sometimes be a little inconspicuous as well. You only, you know, in some cases you'll only have just the top of the stand and the microphone showing. So that could be an option as well. It also just depends on your desk space. How much room do you have to put something else on your desk? Matthew, did you want to chime in? All these things that you're mentioning around the actual selection is the important thing, just like we said before. So desk space, weight of microphone, very important. And essentially it's just a thing to hold the microphone. I mean, right, I was going to make the joke that if you can hire a kid from down the street, 2 bucks an hour to hold the microphone in front of your face, then that does it. You know, it's going to look weird that you got an arm in your shot instead of something professional. But at the end of the day, whatever holds the microphone. And the last thing I'll mention is desk vibrations. If you're going with a desk based tripod, you need to test if you're one of those people who loves to plunk their arms on the desk every so often, knee or tap it or or knee the desk or rattle the desk.

23:08 That's where these microphone tests that you see testing handling noise or vibration noise really come into play. But I can recommend the low profile Elgato. I also use the Rode PSA one, both of which have professional options. But you can. Anything you get on Amazon that's cheap is a good starting point, and the MV 7 isn't a particularly heavy microphone. My basic advice would be don't worry about it too much for your first one, just buy a cheap one on Amazon, see how you go, and then you'll figure out what you need based on the other stuff we've been talking about. Thank you, Matt. And it looked like the majority of the group here picked boom arm over desk stand. And yeah, there is something to that. You know, I it's something that eventually I'm going to upgrade or change with my setup because I have one of those arms connected to my Elgato teleprompter. And I am one of those people that Matt said that tends to bump and bang the desk when I'm talking because I tend to flail my arms around while I'm talking in my hands. So when I put my arms or hands down, I tend to bang the desk and that vibrates the stand that's connected to my desk. And sometimes my camera ends up shaking bit. So yeah, even not just audio you have to be aware of, but video too, if you're connecting things to your desk. And that goes for a desk stand as well, for that matter. Ralph, did you want to chime in?

24:41 Yeah, I'm going to chime in because I kind of pivoted to video 1st and by doing that I actually went with a shotgun mic. And it takes a little bit of getting used to and a little bit of work, but man, I am really happy with it because it takes the microphone out of the shot completely. Janae, can you explain a shotgun mic? Since you are our tech guy here in the room, are you able to come off mic and share? So shotgun microphone has a specific polar pattern where it picks up audio from a distance as opposed to it being right next to you. So we have dynamic microphones which has a polar pattern of capturing the voice from the closest the best. And then of course there's other polar patterns that are also have different pickup sides.

25:31 So a shotgun microphone can be out of the shot. It's what's used on most film sets and EV studios. That's where the shotgun works really well. Thanks. Thank you. And Jonathan in the chat reminded me also don't put clamp arms on a glass desk. Thank you for that reminder, Jonathan. I did that early this year when I moved into my new place. We had a desk here already that the owner had here in the home 'cause we are leasing this place currently. And I put it on that desk and walked away. And when I while I was on another side of the studio, I hear a crash and I look and yeah, the clamp had completely shattered the glass.

26:18 So don't do that, OK? Sid, do you feel served? Over served. I mean that took like 20 minutes. Thank you all for leaning in so I appreciate it. Great info. You're welcome. And I think important info 'cause I think those are things that especially new podcasters often are thinking about. So I don't mind that we dug into that, especially the Riverside conversation. We really haven't done a Riverside conversation like that in a really long time. So I think it's very appropriate for today's show. And before we continue on, a quick heads up before we jump back in. And I should have given Ashley the link to this. I will do that momentarily. I want the podcasting morning chat community to be the first to know about this.

27:05 We've officially released, maybe unofficially because I haven't made it public anywhere else. We've officially released the full Empowered Podcasting Conference to Video Library. Every workshop and presentation from EPC 2 is now available on demand. These are practical, real world sessions from people actually doing the work. Not theory, not fluff. You can watch what you need, when you need it and come back anytime. So again, if you, especially if you're a new podcaster, but really any podcaster for that matter, if you're serious about starting growing a podcast with intention and community at the center, this is this was the course that's built for you.

27:49 I call it a course because we're using course software to distribute the content. You'll find the EPC 2 video library at the link that I'll provide in the show notes and I can provide right here as well. Let me do that while I'm speaking. It is normally a $99 product. I can't think of a better word. And we're charging a little bit for it, partially because we want to compensate Janae, who did all of the actual recording at the conference and then went the extra mile if he hadn't already. And he actually put this whole thing together as a course, isolated all the videos, touched them up, made sure that they were presentable for you. So I want Janae to get some kind of compensation. That's how we're going to do it.

28:40 I guarantee you, you will learn a ton from this. So please consider checking it out again. Link in the show notes and available here on Clubhouse as well. Let's support Janae for all of the effort that he put into this for our community. Thank you to Janae for that. Looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks about all of this content should be really helpful. OK, so this would, by the way, this is where I would have played some sort of transitional music, a bumper of some sort coming soon in 2026, I promise. And let's dig in. So today, for the second-half of today's show, before we dive into it, I want to set a little context for the rest of the conversation.

29:27 The episode today is really, like I've said all morning, it's for new podcasters or people who are seriously thinking about starting a podcast in 2026. Some of what we talked about for the rest of this morning might feel familiar to many of us, and that's OK. We're intentionally revisiting these ideas so that we can offer clear guidance, real perspective, and hopefully a little more confidence to those who are just about to take that leap. So as we go through the rest of this hour, let's let's keep those future podcasters in mind. Let's share, honestly, add nuance, and do our best to serve them as well as we can. And as they step into this passion that means so much to many of us. And Jen, I see you raised your hand from the audience to join the stage.

30:17 I've accepted that. So if you want to come up and join us for any part of the conversation, by all means, you are more than welcome. So I will share. What we'll do here is I will share a statement and then you will provide me with a true or false to the statement and then share a little bit more as to why. And you in the audience, listening live especially, please come up and participate, Share your thoughts and opinions. There are no right or wrong answers. The idea of this show and of today's episode is that there are different opinions here.

30:57 These are, for the most part, very experienced podcasters on stage with us and in our audience for that matter. And the idea is to give you those opinions and to be able to take those and form your own. So let's dig in. The first statement, which I think is very appropriate considering the two questions that Sid had for us today. Launching a podcast in 2026 requires a real financial investment. True or false? And I'm curious who will take this one first? Does it really require a real financial investment? Yes BC go for it. I want to say on a technical aspect, not necessarily. I mean, I'm a big believer in that if you know what you're doing post production, you don't need a super high quality mic, you know, just good planning.

31:48 We'll help you out for sure. But and for instance, you don't even need like a host per SE to start off. You could simply upload your stuff to YouTube, categorize it as as a podcast and that helps you. 2 started with distribution, but if you are looking to hit Spotify, Apple using the big streamers right away, that's a different conversation. OK, thank you BC appreciate that. So it's kind of a mixed bag, not really a true or a false per SE I suppose. What are your thoughts, Jonathan? Grab your iPhone and put it up there. Might do you just need an iPhone honestly if you want to start. And we say that here all the time and I am definitely in that camp. And I do think that, you know, there are some people out there that want to start a podcast, may recognize that all you really need is an iPhone to do it, but may feel like, well, you know, but I want this to be, I want this to look really sharp. I want maybe multiple cameras.

32:46 I, you know, they, they want this to really come off feeling professional right out of the gate. I want us to keep that in mind too and think about that as well. And I, you know, it's a different answer for a different podcaster, right? But let's think about these things when we share our answers. And I think I saw several people flash the icon to chime in. And I think Matt was first. So go ahead, Matt. I'm going to be that guy and say I'm not sure what's what the true or false answer is, so say it again. Mark in a sentence, what is the state? What is the statement? Sure, launching a yeah, launching a podcast in 2026 requires a real financial investment.

33:26 True or false? I say true because I believe your time is also worth money and you're always spending either time or money when you do it that way. The long answer I think for me would be, you know, it depends. Fun answer, but also that deciding whether you want high or low production, the scope of the technology you need, the amount of hosting that you could do, every possible thing you could pay for shouldn't be as a flat flow chart of yes I do that or no I don't. There should be a series of steps and questions that you asked yourself that you proceed on in a true or false fashion potentially to arrive at those things as you go. Because the thing we want to avoid with new podcasters coming to this is getting into the decision fatigue stage where I want to start a podcast.

34:23 So I need cameras, space, perfect audio editor, hosting. You don't need that to Jonathan's answer. Just get your phone, record a thing, see what happens. That doesn't mean it's what you're the rest of your podcast is going to be like, but it's going to give you some information to play with so you can inform the decisions you make monetarily after that. I think great advice. Thank you, Matt. And yeah, especially for that new podcaster who maybe is trying to do this all on their own. I think pulling out that phone and hitting record and seeing what happens, like Matt said, and learning from that and tweaking as you go, I think that can be some of the best education you can ask for.

35:05 Ralph coming to you. I saw your comment in the chat and yeah, as our finance guy, I figured you may want to chime in. So what are your thoughts? Launching a podcast in 2026 requires a real financial investment. I think the answer has to be yes. And I'm going to take a different approach to this. I am working with content creators now who are having marital issues because of the money being spent on a hobby. And I think you need to come into it with the your eyes wide open that this is going to cost money. This is going to cost time and it could be impactful on your relationship as well. And the reason I bring that about is you know, when there's a boxes start coming in from Amazon or from some of the other places, you need to have that conversation.

35:48 If you've got a significant other that here's what I'm investing in, here's why I'm doing it so that there's no hard feelings. Yeah, that's a really great point Ralph. And I think it's an important one to share. And when we talk about our significant others, I think to having a conversation that this is going to be both financial and time investment, especially earlier on. Think as you go, you'll, you'll find efficiencies, you'll find ways of speeding things up and you'll obviously, maybe not obviously you won't have to spend as much money either. But there, yeah, there is an initial investment of time and money. And I think that's a conversation worth having with your significant other. And another thing that's worth doing is sending clear boundaries for yourself, right?

36:36 Like maybe it's you, maybe you need to set boundaries for OK I'm budgeting X dollars and I'm setting out this much time every week. And I think that's the whole point is I see a lot of content creators go in just head first without thinking through, you know, what is my budget for this? How much am I willing to commit to this? Because it's real easy once you start buying subscriptions to this and subscription to that and this equipment and that equipment. I look at what I spent on building a studio and I go, wow, I'm glad I had a commitment to do it. But you got to go into it with the idea of here's what I'm willing to spend because it is real easy for that to trickle, trickle and trickle. And then you're like, wow, I just spent how much? A podcaster who's gotten started with to what Ralph just said and feels like they're doing well.

37:20 10 episodes, phone only. Great. What do I buy next? It's a super slippery slope and there is no stopping point because the economy we're in at the moment in the podcasting space is people are offering solutions in sneer quotes to sell you things. And there is no end of problems that podcasters have that someone can't just sell you a solution to it. And so it's very easy for the the price tags to start stacking up in those invoices to start going. So if nothing else, set milestones for each thing that you spend and check in with those stakeholders. Ralph talked about significant others. Whoever gets impacted by by you spending that money.

38:02 Thank you, Matt. Let's check in with Ashley, who we haven't spoken to yet this morning. Good morning, Ashley. Good morning. I just wanted to say that yes, it is a financial investment. However, there is budget friendly options out there. I put in the chat that a lot of towns are now getting podcast labs or podcast recording studios. I recommend that that's available to you. Go try that out. You might get a sense of what kind of gear you really like and if you really like podcasting at all. Or if you're a person who already has a little bit of gear. There's tools like Davinci Resolve that are free. Spotify for Creators is free. It doesn't have to be super expensive, but it certainly can be.

38:45 Thank you, Ashley. Appreciate that point. Janae, go ahead and then we'll check in with some baza. I do believe that podcasting in is also a financial investment and that doesn't mean that how much you're going to be spending. It just comes down to the fact that you have to make up your mind how much money you're going to put into this hobby or professional endeavor. I know cyclists in my biking team that have spent upwards of five to $10,000 on a road bike. I was when I enter of like I'm not spending that much money. I bought a $2000 bike and in the past 10 years, I've probably spent upwards of 5000 additional on that cycling hobby. So again, you have to have that clarity of mind. What is this going to Get Me Out of right? Is it is this podcast as a hobby help me better align my ideas and is it acting as a journalist, as a journaling Ave. So having that clarity, I think is the number one thing before you even decide, hey, am I going to go into this or not? Thanks.

39:58 Thank you, Janae. And you know, I'm thinking here about investments and I think as a new podcaster, I might be curious like how much do I need to budget? If I am, if I do have some money to invest and I want to get a bunch of equipment, what's the right? Amount, what's the right budget? And yes, of course it, it depends on you and, and how much money you have, but I think that it helps to have a gauge as to what kind of investment am I going to make. And this reminded me of a phone call that I had yesterday and no affiliate deal as of yet with this company, but I did have a a discovery call, a networking call with somebody from podcast provisions.com.

40:41 And they work with different manufacturers and they've put together different bundles for you. And so if you want to check that out, that might help you get a little bit more of an idea of what you'd spend on something like equipment for a podcast. Janae, I'll come back to you and then we'll check in with Sabaza. That's a great point, Mark, to understand. Hey which or how much budget or money do I want to put into it? Plus what gear do I really need and I'm just going to do a plug. I did a gear guide that gives you a good, better, best option and all the gear you would need in it and you can basically self select, hey, I want to spend 500 bucks and here's everything that I need and boom, set it up and you're ready to go. So if anybody's interested, I can share the link. Yeah, please.

41:32 Share that in the chat and Ashley will grab that and put that in the show notes for our podcast audience. Thank you, Janae, appreciate it. Some baza. Good morning. What did you want to add? I'm I'm going to agree to the fact that podcast is going to cost you money. However, I'll piggyback on Janae's guide. That he has set up for a set up of equipment because I think it's time when we have to say what type of podcaster do you want to be or do you want to be ABCD type of podcaster? I think that should come with a distinction. And then with those distinctions you would kind of have, OK, if I'm going to be a a podcaster, what type of equipment would I need and how much would I need to spend? Or if it's going to be $0.00, this is what I'm looking for. Then if you want to be a type B podcaster, this is the equipment you want to invest in, this is what you want to pay for or what options you have.

42:24 And then go all the way up to the top such that when somebody comes into an entry level, and this is not to say that you're gatekeeping, you're just telling them, hey, this is a guide to how you want to start off as a podcaster and this is where you want to reach to be a podcaster. You know, they could be other ways you could choose, but I think that would be a reasonable guide to help people try to understand what podcasting is and what podcasting can can give you into in some sense or form. Thank you, Sambaza. Great points. I appreciate you chiming in this morning. All right, here's what I'll do because I do want to get to at least a couple more of these quote UN quote statements and get people's opinions. Here is the next one.

43:08 YouTube is becoming unavoidable for podcasters. True or false and why? Oh, I got several people wanting to chime in. I'll go back to BC since we haven't talked to him in a moment. BC what say you? YouTube is becoming unavoidable for podcasters. I think it's something that we've said on the on this show recently where video podcasting is the next natural step. The only I started with video podcasting and we can't ignore that YouTube has been adding innovative podcast focus elements for a couple of years. Back in 2023, they shut down Google Podcasts to make way for the YouTube podcasting feature, which it wasn't out yet.

43:50 So now you got that categorization on YouTube, which pushes you to YouTube Podcasts and YouTube Music. So with that and again, video being the kind of the next natural step, it's right there. Basically it's it's there for everyone to just be prepared. For. All right, so that sounds like a true answer for BC. Now I'm going to go to Jonathan next. And then I saw also we've got Matt and Ralph wanting to chime in too. Go ahead. Jonathan, what say you? YouTube is becoming unavoidable for podcasters. I'm going to say false again. I'm going to say you don't need YouTube to be a podcaster. You can record on your iPhone, not your Android, your iPhone and put it out there, yes, there it's not going to be the best, but you if you want to start a podcast, you don't need to do be on YouTube. There you go.

44:40 And let's hear from Matt. Matt, what say you, Sir? The philosopher in me wants you to clarify what you mean by YouTube being unavoidable, and so I'm just going to interpret it the way I want to. Please do for precisely why we had 10 people put their hands up in to respond to this thing about YouTube. YouTube is unavoidable for podcasters in that it will always be talked about and there will always be people saying you must be on YouTube in order to have a successful podcasts successful podcast and the pivot to the video is inevitable to that. I followed Jonathan and say it is absolutely not. And I realize I'm taking a devil's advocate stance here.

45:22 I'm not actually that pushy about it, but the thing that frustrates me the most is it's a platform. It is a Spotify, it is an Apple podcast. It is a distribution point. Whatever YouTube is trying to tell the podcasting industry about how it works and how beneficial it is, is beneficial for them because they make ad dollars off every single piece of content that is posted to the platform. They get benefited by having more users signing up to their services, paying for YouTube Premium, whatever. They make money. Spotify makes money. Apple Podcasts, I don't know how much money they make. But the podcaster starting even this late stage in 2025 should not feel like they have to pivot to video and they should not feel like they have to be present on YouTube. But inevitably they will be asked told talk to about YouTube.

46:20 Agreed. Yes, Thank you, Matt. All right. Let's keep it moving so we can maybe get to 1 more of these statements. Ralph, did you want to chime in? Yeah. I just want to say something really quick for our new podcasters in the audience. I'm going to die on this hill. I think content for YouTube and content for audio is different and you need to have a different mindset. You can't just put one-on-one and think it's going to work for both. So that's my only hesitation. Mark is if you're going into this new either decide I'm going in video, I'm going in audio, but I honestly do not believe that both of them can be in the same, you know, you have to have a different mindset for that. Do you mean as far as how you prepare, how you handle post production, etcetera?

47:07 Is that what you're getting at? I'm going to go a little deeper than that. I think the actual experience for a viewer is different than the experience for a listener. Here's the best way I can explain that. The experience from a listener is more intimate. It's inside your ears for a lot of people wearing earbuds, whereas the experience for YouTube is in front of you on a screen. And I just think that the way you prepare for that has to be completely different. You've got to think, am I YouTube first or video first or my audio first? I think you can take the video 1st and make an audio of it, but you have to accept the fact that it's for a video audience first and the same way that if you do audio first it may not dictate well to the video first people.

47:51 Thank you, Ralph. And I know I've shared before. I will just share that for me, I don't believe that what what's important for me is that the person yes, is considering what are they first, right? So if you are a video podcast first, it's good to keep that in mind as you are producing your show. And I don't think it means though, that if you're video first, you have to do something different for your audio podcast. I think if you keep in mind, yes, I'm an audio first, but I also distribute via Audio 2, then I think that helps you in painting the pictures necessary for your audio listening audience. Maybe that's because that's how I was for so many years. I was consuming content as an audio first platform and again, consuming the content.

48:44 And when I would hear that they had video, I wouldn't care that they were doing something, talking about something more visually. I wouldn't care because to me then I would just, if I was that curious, I'm going to go find the video. And that's only supporting the podcaster more at that point. I think we don't give audiences enough credit. I think that they know how to handle this. So I just want to say to the wannabe podcaster or the new podcaster listening to this episode, there are 10 or 11 people that have shared with you their thoughts and their ideas about things that you need to do or think. Tips to help you along this journey of becoming a podcaster. And if that's what your goal is to be a podcaster, you have some great advice today.

49:34 But trying to consume and take action on all this advice is really, really hard. So my suggestion would be to the officially to the new personalist because we all of us on this stage had our day one. So the person who has their day one, just start small. You have a mission to get your content out there. You have a message you want to deliver to the world. Use the free resources that are available to you, the University of YouTube and all the other resources that have been mentioned here that are free and get your message out to the world and then perfect it as you go. We all did that. We all started with that crazy mic that has all the echoes, I forget the name of it, right? And then we bought, yeah, the blue Yeti. And then we bought the better mic and then we bought the mic stand.

50:18 And then we bought this. And then we bought that because our message was improving. Our audience was growing because we all started small and we all had a day one. So that'd be my encouragement to anybody new or wanting to do this. Just start small. The most important thing is to get your message out to the world. Thank you, Sid, I echo that and appreciate you sharing that. Let me go to Dr. and then BC I'll come back to you. Go ahead Dr. Good morning. I don't feel like we've talked to you much today. Good morning. So what scares me is that as technology advances, the new podcaster is going to think that of course video, it's the only choice I've got to do it.

50:58 I see all these big stars with the beautiful chairs and the boom mics and the lighting and everything, and that's going to be their point of reference. And that's not good. I mean, both of my biggest, well, three of my biggest mentors will stand on that hill and die on that hill. That audio is first. You don't have to do video. A couple of them have reached the six figures. One has reached 7 figures by doing audio first. So just keep that in mind. And let me clarify or get some clarification, Dr., When you talk about 6 figure, 7 figure, that's because they built a business around the podcast not directly related to the podcast. Correct.

51:47 They have a branded podcast, they have a business. They sell their products on their podcast. They sell. They get speaking gigs because of their business, because of their podcasts. So all of these different monetization avenues are all because of their Audio First podcast. Yep. Thank you, Doctor. Thank you for that clarification. Appreciate it. And BC, did you want to chime in? Yeah, echoing both Dr. and Sid, Yeah, if you're a brand new podcaster, do not be stupid like me and start out with video podcasting. I've got a broadcasting background that's a bit different. But when you look at kind of like what Dr. was saying, when you're looking at the stars who have their podcast, like don't set Impulsive or Joe Rogan as your standard. First of all, if you look at Joe Rogan for like 2 seconds, you know he's not producing any of that himself. That's his studio doing all that work. He's not touching that original 4 hour long recording session and reducing it to three hours.

52:47 That's not have been all. So you got to remember audio or video, there's always a three-part process, I believe pre production, production, post production. So you've got to consider what your means are, what you got time for and likely if you're starting out and you're not, you know, investing in a producer or even a studio space for you to rent hourly, it means you're handling that on your own. So again, to DRS point, you know, consider what you've got available. Take your own set a small set a smart pace and a frequency too. Don't start off with like a weekly show. If you can't do it, start monthly and then build from there. Thank you BC good advice. Appreciate that one.

53:30 And since we have two minutes, just want to make sure. Did anybody else want to chime in? Leading back to what I said when I began my answer seeking A clarification about YouTube, I think that's actually more important than anything and probably something we can abstract in podcasting as nothing is as simple as the technology or platform that we do. It's more about the questions of intention and our goals because this is floated around YouTube being necessary, video being necessary, the technology being necessary, whether it's a business, whether it's personal, whether you're beginning, whether you're just starting to grow up. There are so many questions that are folded into YouTube being part of the question. But if instead it was clarified a little bit further backwards, it might have been a simpler true or false than the 25 minutes we managed to squeeze out of that one thing. And Mark, we may have to do a Part 2 for the rest of the ones that you had lined up.

54:27 But I just want to say that before you get to do I need to be on YouTube when you're starting out, if you can ask what Ralph mentioned, who is my audience going to be and who is it for? And then you're building the content that they need. Ask is it going to work well on video? What's the Imaginarium experience for the audio listener? What are my goals as a business? All of these are completely separate to the technology, to the money you might spend, the platforms you pick, the host you distribute by. All of these main questions about intentions and goals for yourself are probably the best place to start.

55:08 But the industry isn't built that way. It's not built for us to start by asking ourselves what we want to do with the podcast. It's built where we first say, I want to start a podcast, what's the best microphone for me? And maybe that's the big thing that we should take away from this episode, at least to my mind. But I don't want to speak for all of these fabulous professionals on stage at the moment that have clearly demonstrated that the scope of podcasting is so large and when you have expertise that it distributes so widely and yet you can be successful in every instance, It's very hard to boil it down to a single answer to a question, which is always our frustration Mark, isn't it? With these episodes, there's always so many opinions and they're also valuable.

55:54 But at the end of it, I think at the core, the new podcasts are coming in. If you can think about intentions and goals before you think about tech, then you're probably starting on the right foot. Thank you, Matt, you did a great job wrapping us up this morning. I was going to wrap us up, but I feel like you did, you did it just fine without me. So we'll leave it right there and remind everybody that tomorrow, 7:00 AM Eastern, live on Clubhouse, Facebook chatter, all the platforms, we're back and we're covering the podcasting news and headlines around the world and commenting and sharing our more thoughts and opinions on those topics. So please come join us then and remember Thursday we're evaluating another indie podcast and Friday we're wrapping up 2025 with the podcasting morning chat, and we'll be back again in 2026.

56:45 So until tomorrow, make it a great day everybody take care.