One year in review

Jeroen Leenarts: Hi, and welcome to the 55th episode of my podcast. My name is Leenarts. And I've been developing software for over 19 years developing iOS apps for over nine years. And I'm running that code catch for over eight years also. I've been podcasting for one year now, this episode is going to be a bit different compared to my other episodes, because I just wanted to review a little bit on the past year of me podcasting. I still remember the day that I mentioned to my wife that I would start a podcast and she asked me, but why would you do this? And I replied to her, I don't know. But something will come of it. Now I'm a urine. And I think it's good to look how things went. In this episode, I'm going to talk about me. So my next episode will be double the content with all the links of this week, and next week, so don't worry, you won't miss a thing. So at this time, I have 105 episodes published 50 have been individual episodes like this one, and the other episodes. So that's 55 has been with guests on my podcast. So that's a lot of people that I actually talked to from a podcast and I had the privilege and the enjoyment of having a conversation with thus far every participant to an interview of my podcast has always reflected back on it positively. Which is great, because when I started interviewing, first interview with with Antoine formulae, I have no clue what I was doing. And right now, I still really don't have a clue. But for some reason, it seems to be going alright, and people are enjoying it both participating and listening to what I'm doing. And in itself, that's already a big compliment. And I must say the conversations with guests on the podcast is the part that I enjoy most of my podcast, because it's just ways for me to expand my network to get to know different topics, different people, different code bases, and to just hear how people have progressed through their careers. And also some people actually still have to start or are starting with their career. So if I look back on all my episodes, there's a couple episodes that that really stick out to me. And I just wanted to mention those, one of the most frequent participants on my podcast has been Josh holds the maintainer of the Fastlane tools. And, yeah, I don't know why. But every time he's on the podcast, we have a great conversation. And we really bounce back and forth off each other really well. And what I also like is that he's, he's very open about some of the things he is struggling with. And also some of the things he's able to he's been able to overcome over the years. Yeah, it's just great to see what he's doing nowadays. And also that he's, every time that I reached out to him, he's always willing to, to really participate and to provide his input. Same goes actually to Anton from the lay, because he's the person that actually made me start a podcast. And he, at the start of my podcasting, he actually made me think about what I wanted to achieve minimal podcast and how I could strive for those goals. And actually setting goals would be a good thing. So I'm Tom, thanks for that. On those goals. I wrote down sort of a concept before I started my podcast. So I'll just let you know what my concept from a podcast was when it started. And then I can look back on it and see whether or not it's been successful or not. So first of all, why do we want to do a podcast I wrote down for myself, I wanted to make myself hurt. I want to build my brand app force one more so that people know who I am, what I do, and that they have positive feeling with when they hear the name app Force One. Of course, I wanted my hands on some gadgets, you know, microphones recording stuff. At that point in time, I really needed to do something new. I had the side goal of creating regular content for my blog. But if you look at my blog, nothing much has happened there in the past year, also wanted to learn something new, mainly audio editing, and I wanted to seduce part of my network that I've built with Coca hats and now to my own brand. Still, I keep on working on coca hats now but because coca hats now is its separate entity, it's a nonprofit, I don't want to, like try and and market myself through that channel to that audience, because that's strictly coca hats. And yeah, that so that's an organization with a very specific goal. But if people know me, they look me up online and they they cross over to my bucket of content so that that's my newsletter and my website and my podcast, then I am allowed to try and markets the things that I do towards them basically, that's my brand and also my book, sometimes a workshop. And it's it's really working well that way because people clearly see the separation in my work that I After that, both separate and distinct buckets, and they accept that once they step into my app force one bucket that I can then like, talk to them and share content with them. So all my podcasts I wanted to targeted at a specific group of people. And that's mostly software developers who are specialized in iOS development. And of those, I want to make sure that those were people that have less of a focus on following the latest articles and events. Because I can do that for my audience, I can curate that content a little bit. So why should people listen to my podcast? That's a question that I asked myself, I want to do to do a recap of the week. So in 15 minutes, you are mostly up to date on any useful and current trends happening for iOS developers. And the channel for that is, of course, by sharing articles with my audience, and provides sometimes the occasional tool to become a better craftsman or cross woman with your software development skills. So you notice in my content that I share, there's also something sometimes in there that's not strictly software development related, so the tech side of things, but also things like note taking how to work within a team and stuff like that. So and the name of the podcast, I came up with Air Force One news and information for iOS software developers. Yeah, that that name stuck around and episode length. I aim for 15 minutes. So usually, I'm a little bit below 15 minutes, but that's fine, I think. And I wanted to be consistent with publishing my episodes. And I think in the past year, two times, I was unable to reach my self imposed deadline. So let's let's go over this list and see how things went. So on the first one, why I wanted to do a podcast to make myself heard. I think that's working out pretty well, because I have a steady listenership. I'm still trying to look for ways to grow that. But I much rather have people listening to my podcast that are fully invested in, in what I'm doing and that are like engaged and that hopefully also occasionally reach out to me on Twitter and share their thoughts and also reply through Twitter or maybe even ask if they're a good guest from a podcast also, on building the Air Force One brand, so I think it's been pretty successful. I've been able to get a listenership to have people on my newsletter. I'm slowly but steadily growing my, my Twitter following as well haven't passed the one key yet. Then on the topic of gadgets, yeah, I started my podcast, I did some investments, bought a microphone, bought an interface, got some software, and stuck with that with those tools ever since. I think mostly because they've been working pretty well. For me, I wrote a blog post on what I'm using. That's on my personal blog. It's still the same stuff that I'm using. Maybe someday I will upgrade my microphone. But I like what I have. I like the sound that it provides me and I think it's good enough. On learning something new, the audio editing, it's still an ongoing project. I'm using Hindenburg Pro. And it's a convenient and easy tool to start with. But the depth of the tool is amazing. Keep on finding new and interesting ways to improve the editing experience and to just be able to edit my podcast quicker, really. And yeah, that's, that's all right. Really, I highly recommend Hindenburg Pro, if you ever start to do some sort of narrative audio content editing, on transferring people from my cocoa hats network to my personal network. I have no clue. I haven't measured it. But I'm fine with it just because I've met so many new and great people through my podcasts that the growth of my network. And it's it's been it's been amazing how quick it's been going up and up and how many people actually reach out to me with questions and stuff that I want to share with me. So yeah, I think that's that's pretty good. That's something that Antoine formulae tried to instill in me. And that's creating goals. So the goals are worked with I have seven goals defined right now. The first one is within three months, I wanted to make it a habit podcasting. So I wanted to create a minimum of 14 episodes achieved that easily. I wanted to achieve an average of 200 downloads per episode. Got that I wanted to build my app for one brand, by having 300 followers on Twitter also reached then the next goal that I had defined after that was reached 60 episodes. Got that one as well. And now I'm trying to get to an average of 300 downloads per episode within one day. Still haven't reached that but if I look at my long tail does look like I'm I'm in that that area and 300 episodes It doesn't sound like a lot to many people. But I just wanted to share some some stats on that review, because on the hosting platform that are you Buzzsprout, there's actually a sort of a list or page that lists how many on their platform, of course, how many downloads, podcasts are having within the first seven days. And just Just for reference, so you're a top 1% podcast, if you have 4237 Episode downloads in the first seven days, so you publish an episode, and you have this number of downloads, you're in the top 5%. If you have 711 downloads in the first seven days, you're in the top 10%, if you reach 296 episodes in the first seven days, so trying to reach that top 10% ranking with the niche that I'm in. So I'm on my way, and just having found this global stats page of Buzzsprout, it really puts some perspective to how my podcast is doing because people are used to blog posts and page views. And people are always talking about 10s of 1000s of pages huge each month. And yeah, with a podcast, it's very hard to get to that number. And also what I really try to do with myself, if I'm in like, sort of like a down day, you know, like, do the podcast and why should I do it? And then what I just do, I close my eyes, and then I imagine I'm in a room that has 200 or more people in front of you listening to what you're saying? Yeah, that's kind of motivating to just get started again, and to just make sure that you get the episode out and and serve your audience. And then it also at least me up in a way that yes, there are people who are out there waiting for me to publish my episodes. So that's a good feeling, actually. Um, so the next aim that I also had was reach 600 followers on Twitter reach that, I'm now working my way towards 1k followers on Twitter. Now, why Twitter? Well, it's the most convenient social media that I'm using. I don't like Facebook, tick tock is not my thing. And on Twitter, I noticed that there's a lot of iOS developers on there who are actively engaging in a positive way. So that's why I picked Twitter and why I stuck with Twitter. So yeah, that's all going reasonably well. And now it's just a matter of working on making sure that that I reached the next milestone. But let's define another milestone, because I'm now one year in what would be a great other milestone from a podcast. So let me think so 1000 followers on Twitter, I reached 100 episodes, would be great to do another 50 episodes 150, like in in half a year. But I know I will be able to reach that if I just stick to it. I don't know. I'm trying to come up with something. Because right now I'm just doing podcasting. And I'm enjoying it. And I'm just keep on doing it. Because it's just yeah, just for the heck of it. And so yeah, if you have any suggestions for goals that I should strive for within the podcast, just let me know, because maybe I'll just pull you into my, one of my episodes and discuss why you think it's a good goal for me to actually work on. Next topic, how much money am I making with podcasting? Yeah, about that. Judge, I have some sponsors, I have a little bit of income of people who are like, Oh, my pot fanpage. I have a little bit of sponsorship on GitHub, but everything combined, it just does not cover the expenses that I need to make every month to keep my podcast going. So to host it to have the email address, I have to host name, everything. And that's fine, because it's a hobby, and the hobby is something you just do for enjoyment. And I know my podcast is really small time. But yeah, who knows, maybe in a year from now, or whatever, I don't know what I'm going to do. Maybe at some point, it's, it's the typical hockey curve that I'm achieving with my podcast. I wouldn't know whatever would have to do with that. And but it sounds scary to me to publish episodes and have 1000s of people listening to it. But on the other hand, it's it's worth to dream about something. Right. So then the next topic is What did the podcast bring me in the past year? I started my podcast on October 13 2020. So that's like smack bang in the middle of T Corona pandemic. What did it bring me? Initially, I came up with the idea of creating a podcast because I just wanted to engage with people just talk with people share with people really, and it seemed like a format that I might enjoy doing. But the actual inception of my podcast is a talk I did for the Koko Hudson l meetup because we were switching to an online form as well because we had lockdowns in the Netherlands. And I did a video recording for cats now and I felt totally awkward, like uncomfortable. No audience sitting in front of my computer, looking into a camera, talking to a microphone and just recording myself and hoping that I was doing okay, that was so uncomfortable. So I really needed to do something to make sure that I was more comfortable with talking into a microphone. So what's the best way to do that? Maybe podcasts, you know, record yourself and publish it. So I did that. And if I listen back to my first episodes, it's, it's, it's very interesting to hear yourself a year in and then just compare, like I did in my previous episodes, a little bit of the content like a year ago. And then compared to how I do things nowadays, and also how it sounds nowadays. So the reason I started my podcast was to train myself and being less uncomfortable talking into a microphone without anybody around me, and I think I'm doing okay. One of the things that I still have to deal with is sometimes getting stuck on my thoughts and not expressing them. Well, something I'm working on. And I'm really trying to find ways to get even more comfortable with that maybe I need to do some training on a microphone technique. At some point. I don't know, if there's a microphone expert out there. Just let me know how you think. I'm talking into a microphone. And if you think there's anything I could do to improve on my microphone technique, because having good technique with anything, it really suits the nerves. If you have technique to fall back on, I think one of the things that my podcast has brought me is that, because I built my public persona and my brand online, I was able to land my new job on November 1, I think, because already I had a solid resume, good software development skills are good projects, good companies, I was able to showcase what I'm able to do technically, with my podcasts, I have proven that I can be a visible and active participant in the community. Also, because I wrote a book last year as well, because just wanted to share this content. And I needed to do something with my time because I couldn't go out to to Corona. I think that combination of writing a book and creating a podcast has been very helpful in in just giving that extra boost to my resume. So that are among a great group of very qualified people for a job, I was able to stand out just that little bit more compared to my competition, really. And I think that's one of the biggest things that my podcasts and my book writing has given me in the last year is the opportunity to start a new job at stream as a developer relations engineer, but the focus on iOS within the developer relations team off stream. So yeah, that's, that's just amazing. So one of the things I'm really bad at is managing the marketing side of my podcast, I have no clue what I need to do there. Because I listened to a bunch of podcasts that are specifically at growth, hacking your podcast and how to market your podcast and keep on hearing all the same things. Put things on social media, engage with people, make sure that people hear about you. And I don't know, I think I'm reaching out to people on Twitter, and I'm just doing the a good mix of tweets on on Twitter, you know, on content, publishing my content, replying to other people's tweets, liking tweets, you know, just engaging being a participant on the Twitter community. And I've noticed that my growth on Twitter is really slow, but steady, which is fine. But I do think that Twitter is my main magnet for getting people into my ecosystem. So getting them to try my podcast and to start listening to my podcast. And then of course, I need to make sure that once they have a taste from a podcast that they actually like what you're hearing. So yeah, maybe I should do a poll sometime to figure out what aspects of my podcasts you like, and what aspects of my podcast I should improve to make sure that I have even better engagement with people who pick up on my podcast, because I've sometimes I started podcasts, listen to it, because somebody recommended to to me, but yeah, I don't I don't like it. So then I move on again. And I can imagine that that happens with my podcasts a lot as well. I think I pretty much talked about anything that I wanted to talk about in this episode. Mostly, it's been me, rambling for over 15 minutes. If you have any questions, let me know reach out on Twitter. As promised, next week, I will make sure to make up for the content that I'm missing this week. And yeah, if you're really if you're a fan of my podcast, if you want me to keep on podcasting, yeah, just reach out, let me know I love it when people reply on the content that I share with my podcast. And if you want to be a super fan of my podcast, then look at my GitHub sponsor page, or Boxtop fan slash app Force One, because they're always there that you can support me and my podcasting journey in a way that allows me to invest more time and efforts and equipment into my podcasting journey. So keep on listening to my podcast, recommend people in your network to have listened to my podcast, and reach out on Twitter support me in any way that you'd like again, and yeah, let's let's keep on going with this journey and see what the next year brings. Talk to you later.