This Seats Taken
This podcast is all about movies! Here my reviews, with some input from other movie enthusiasts , on all new movies. Weekly episodes that review the newest movies in theaters. I also review a throwback movie along with each episode that is picked by my guest. And every once in a while there will be bonus episodes of just older classic movies and just movie, tv, and pop culture updates. Let me be your movie guy.
This Seats Taken
Tales and Tips from Podfest with Fernando Jimenez
This conversation dives into our experiences at Podfest in Orlando, a networking and educational convention for podcasters. Together, we discuss the challenges, insights, and creative connections made during the event, all while reflecting on the journey of podcasting.
• Overview of Podfest and its significance
• The excitement and nerves of attending
• Networking experiences with fellow podcasters
• Insights gained about video podcasting strategies
• Reflections on personal podcasting journeys
• Tips for working with guests and finding unique stories
• Learning from panels and speakers
• Merchandise ideas and future aspirations
• Encouragement to connect and share knowledge with other podcasters
https://msha.ke/thisseatstaken
excuse me, is anybody sitting here?
Speaker 2:sorry, this is taken sorry, thank you for tuning in. This is taken where I'm, your host, rob miranda, coming to you live from orlando, florida, hanging out with mickey mouse here. Big guest, big news. I'm gonna tell you what I'm gonna be doing out here. It's gonna be a good episode, a little bit and um, to help me for my guest today, we're not gonna be talking about movies, we're gonna be talking about big picture stuff here.
Speaker 1:And to help me, I got uh, fernando jimenez what's up, what's up, what's up, bro, I'm glad to be here with you you were just on a couple episodes ago, but we talked about a couple movies.
Speaker 2:We're not gonna be doing movies today. Instead, we're gonna explain what we're doing out here in orlando, florida. Um, we're also like recording. For those of you listening, you can probably hear some background noise a little bit. It's a little noisy out here because we're also recording outside and, um, this beautiful setup we got going on here yeah, bro pool party and everything going on exactly, exactly, um, but we came out here in lando, florida. We got here a couple days ago and what we're doing out here? We're here for 2025's pod fest.
Speaker 1:It's awesome for those you don't know.
Speaker 2:Pod fest is like a big convention for a bunch of podcasters across the world who come here just to network and learning a lot more things about, to improve their podcast or just share their experiences. Um, we got here around wednesday we're only halfway through it, like we're recording this midway and it's been incredible. So far it's been amazing. It's been amazing and you know we I wasn't gonna come on this trip originally. It was kind of the spur of the moment kind of thing, because you were going to come out here. You got invited to come out here for free and you were excited about it and were you a little bit nervous to come out here by yourself.
Speaker 1:I'm going to be honest, I was excited that I was going to come by myself. I liked the idea of finally going on a vacation completely by myself. I thought that would have been like very, just kind of different for me. You know, it's very different. It was gonna help me get out of my shell and all that stuff. But when I, when I was able to come with you, I was also really excited because you know what it's gonna make things easier. I'm gonna be out here with a friend, so I'm excited that you're here with me we talked about this a little bit ago.
Speaker 2:I'm definitely an introvert, you're I would definitely say an extrovert. I mean, yeah, so that's a plus for me coming out here. So, um, you, you got invited to come out here and then, um, I really wasn't going to come because I had other priorities I was going to do, but it ended up falling through and I you know what you helped, you hooked me up, you, you emailed them to see if you can give me a free ticket too. As you know other, you let them know I have my own podcast and stuff like that too and they were grateful enough to give me a pass for free. Um, so I only had to pay for my plane ticket. My biggest goal this year was to save more money. The first week, I spent a ton of money on plane tickets.
Speaker 1:It's all good man, I think sometimes it's an investment, it's an investment, it's an investment, bro, because if you think about it's an investment, it's an investment. It's an investment, bro, because if you think about it, the money that you spent at home we would have been doing the same repetitive stuff, so it's worth it.
Speaker 2:I mean, the whole point of this podcast is come here to learn new things. We're going to get into video podcasting very soon and that's one of the biggest things we learned so far. So, how this podcast works, we go to this convention. There's several panels throughout the whole day, you know. You just pick and sign which ones you want to do, but in between to them is really where the magic happens. We're networking with other podcasters and it's for only podcasters who are just they haven't even started yet, or who are like 300 episodes deep in yeah, and we're meeting all kinds of different people and learning experiences. We met some very interesting people, like all the way from like a nine-year-old podcaster to like um someone doing podcasts about goats and a little bit of everything, yeah yeah, people missing legs, I forgot about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's fun and we met like the most interesting man in the world literally yeah we'll talk about a little bit as we go along, but you know you're like almost 10 episodes deep in your pocket so far. Yes, how are you even feeling about the process?
Speaker 1:um, it's definitely been up and down, um, so this is my second time doing little shy, like a little shy rebrand, and I it does. Even though you do more, I feel like it's still it's not. It doesn get easier, but it doesn't get more difficult.
Speaker 1:I think I start to criticize myself more, you know, because the more, the more episodes that I upload, I'm like you know what, I don't know if I'm liking that format, so I'm able to change it as I go, you know. So the first 10 episodes, I think they're going, they're going well, but I'm starting to notice some things that I do want to change. But it's just going to push me to keep going.
Speaker 2:I mean, the whole podcasting is just trial and error so far. We're skipping a lot of stuff by coming to this convention, by skipping a lot of stuff from what we could have been doing Because, like I said, video editing is hard as fuck for us it's really hard no-transcript podcast because I've been doing it.
Speaker 2:I just hit my three years, like a week or two ago yeah you been doing it for like two years, took a break and now you're coming back, so we do definitely have the experience. I mean, compared to my first episodes, like we talked about, like the first 10 episodes, like I didn't even know how to use two microphones, yeah, it's hard. We were switching, like handing the microphone back off.
Speaker 2:You're like the yeah, I didn't know how to edit podcasts, no, so the first piece of advice if someone wants to start their own podcast, build your portfolio before you start releasing Like record like six or seven episodes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You're you start releasing like record like six or seven episodes. Yeah, you're gonna learn like how to, how it feels, how to talk on a microphone. Uh, you're gonna learn a lot about yourself too, and you might even change the whole podcast by the fifth episode. Anyway, say, your podcast is about like um, collecting buttons or some shit like that. You're gonna burn yourself out after like 10 episodes and it's gonna change and it's okay if it changed. My podcast is restructured several times this three years. On top of that, I do pay attention to other people's podcasts, like who I listen to professionally Mostly the folks on the camera angles, how they talk, how the structures, how to make clips. We're still learning about that stuff now and we've not to say we're pros at it, but we're definitely better than the average person.
Speaker 1:We're pros.
Speaker 2:Nah, just kidding. Definitely better than the average person pros. No, yeah, um, and meeting people here. Well, we're from indiana, like chicago area, indiana and um, there's no other podcasters that we know around us there's really there's not podcasters.
Speaker 1:There's very, very limited content creators where we're from um, so it's hard to to meet other creative minds, to kind of bounce ideas off of each other I know I mentioned chicago, but I mean talk about indiana. There's not really a lot of creators, no, and even then we don't, even though we're in chicago, often we don't really connect with chicago creators we don't really network out there, no no, which I feel like we should start networking out there because we're so close to it.
Speaker 2:We're going to now. But I mean, what I'm getting at is there's not a lot of creative people out there, so we're bouncing off each other all the time we work together. I mean, very little are we talking about work. We're bouncing ideas off each other. So it's good to have that person there. But down here in Orlando, florida, there's nothing but creative. Everyone here has their own podcast. They have a great advice and it just puts us in a more creative mood. We got great ideas for a podcast we've been filling hella content down here.
Speaker 2:Um, it's, it's amazing to be like it's. The greatest advice you can give yourself is like surround yourself by people who you want to you know, improve you.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love that so we came down here for a pod fest and like we got down here around Wednesday morning or noon-ish and we went early to orientation stuff like that orientation and we learned about what the podcast is going to get like, what to expect and what the biggest thing we're doing is networking between these classes. Because that's all this convention is You're signing up for, like it's not classes, but it's like TED Talks almost we're listening to. Convention is you're signing up for?
Speaker 2:like it's not classes, but it's like, uh, ted talks almost we're listening to, yeah, but, uh, in between them there's like 15, 20 minutes or sometimes longer for lunch or at the end of the day there's always a party, like after party. We meet at the bar and, um, we met the first night. We met this incredible woman named shirley. She has her own podcast company. She's a social media influencer um, she gave us great advice about, specifically, our camera rolls like my camera rolls, because I use iphones to record my stuff and she gave me some great advice about framing and lighting and stuff like that. Set up studios and, um, I was excited to learn from her. She was actually a speaker. We didn't know this.
Speaker 2:She was actually a speaker at the convention today right, yeah, we got like a little prequel and uh, she got to give and we talked about I'm an introvert, my social battery was dead at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, it really was. Because you're not used to I don't talk to anybody. I can't imagine how much energy it takes to talk to you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:like for someone who's not used to doing that stuff yeah, and I mean this podcast has helped my confidence tremendously. Tell me be an extrovert. Yeah, not, I'm not saying I'm an extrovert, but like it's easier a little bit for me to talk about. I mean, we have a given here like starting points off like hey, where you from? What's your podcast about?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's our pick up line that's, yeah, that's our pick up line that's what we came with the goal, like with doing the first night, how we met shirley you, you were so smooth with it because we were at the bar getting drinks and we noticed her like sitting next to us and she was looking at the menu. So you guys like, oh, what are you drinking? And then that led to a conversation that's like like an hour and a half and, uh, we got great tips from her and stuff like that. My approach is so different.
Speaker 2:The next day we go to this TED Talk and she goes. I noticed this girl sitting in class. I thought she was cute, she looked cool. She's younger We'll talk about younger in a second but she looks that's not bad. She was younger, like our age age. She's our age, she was our age. So we, you know, the class ended, we went me and you went to go get lunch or something like that or walk around, and we ran into her later and I was like hey, you were, you were in that class a couple, like like an hour ago. Right, she was yeah. Yeah, that class sucked, right.
Speaker 2:That was my approach I was like that was his approach, just immediately talking shit. And she was like, yeah, you're right, that did kind of suck.
Speaker 1:I think she was caught off guard bro.
Speaker 2:She was.
Speaker 1:You just went up to her and you were like were you in that class? Excuse me, were you in that class? She was like yeah, yeah, I was he's like that just sucked.
Speaker 2:She ended up being rest of the day and we're supposed to meet up with them soon too yeah, very genuine. She gave us a lot of good advice, yeah yeah, like how to get more guests, like more guests that suitable for a podcast I totally forgot about that, yeah and um, she taught us some software they're going to be testing out pretty soon.
Speaker 2:Um, and then we met this other guy too that we hung out. We met him yet like the day before, but we ended up meeting and hanging out with him a lot today. Yeah and uh, we met so many new cool people, so many. One of the first people we met, the very first guy we met here at this podcast we just got to the convention, we're taking pictures and everything like that and this guy started coming up to us. I don't know if we talked to him first or he came up to us.
Speaker 2:It was like a little in between. Yeah, he noticed we were taking pictures and he was talking about what we were taking pictures with and he ended up being very odd.
Speaker 1:it was like it was a bad preview for the whole yeah, we were like, if people are going to be like this, the rest of the fest. Yeah, we don't know if we want to be here because you were like oh, where you from?
Speaker 2:and this guy acted like it was a trick question yeah, he was like um, he's looking around like where am I from, kentucky?
Speaker 2:yeah, I'm from kentucky. I was like, okay, and then he's like, he started trying to give us his backstory. Yeah, like I almost killed my parents or something like that. I was like what the fuck is going on. So we immediately got out of there. I was like, all right, man, we'll see you around, peace out. And then we met this other guy named julio who was like, who was not even a podcaster, but he has like his. He was there for the event, like he was yeah, he was working the event it.
Speaker 1:It was really cool.
Speaker 2:He gave us some advice about AI, and then we met the most interesting man in the world. One of the most interesting people in the world. Unintentionally, it was this guy named Wally. I can't remember his name.
Speaker 1:Shout out, Wally.
Speaker 2:We'll tag him, but he's a pro athlete for ping pong. He goes around the country. He has come from an incredible backstory between drugs and violence and, you know, abusive home. He flipped it around. He's a big influencer. He's been on big podcasts. He's been on many podcasts. He even said, like he doesn't have a podcast of his own, he's probably been interviewed by almost everyone there. Yeah, he's been interviewed by a lot of people. He said like two over 230 last year alone. That's insane because he has a crazy story.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you get on for one podcast and he tells you a story, he has like 90 more stories that you probably don't even know about yeah, like if you watch him on one episode and you watch him on another one, it's a completely different story and it's still really really good and he's talking about like he's writing a book soon, because he told us about a time like he went to go play pro athlete in north korea, that's, and he was trying to meet kim Jong-un there and he was going to go back. He got invited back because he said he was trying to be the next Dennis Rodman.
Speaker 1:He kind of looks like Dennis Rodman with the crazy hair.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was going to go back, but that was like 2016 when Trump was getting elected. Yeah, and he was saying, like Trump's coming out, like we're going to bomb them and all this crap, and I'm like I ain't going over there now Like they're going to take over shit Right. But he's very, very cool. We met him the next day. We got great advice from him about social media.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very cool guy. I'm glad we met him.
Speaker 2:And I'm trying to see who else we met my mind to it. I could learn on YouTube.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But we're getting the advice from networking. So some of these speakers are very cool. Some of them are yeah, some of them are very cool. There's a lot that aren't, but the ones that aren't are kind of using. This time it's like a half hour to 45 minutes each. They're trying to make it like their stand-up routine, almost.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it stand-up routine and I feel like it's also like kind of like a way to promote themselves. I feel like they're trying. They're like because, like I said out here, it's they're just trying to promote themselves.
Speaker 2:I feel like yeah, one specifically was that? Um that when I talked about that sucked the class inside cowboy girl yeah, she was teaching a class like, um, how to be, how to be a better storyteller, something like that she should work on herself I judge this girl immediately we're talking all this shit and then people are gonna watch.
Speaker 1:We're like they're not invited to podfest next year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're gonna be banned. But she wore like a black tight dress with like a hot pink cowgirl jacket. I guess she has like tassels and everything underneath her arms and everything like that and hopping cowgirl boots we're in orlando, florida, like this is not nashville or texas or anything like what are we doing here?
Speaker 2:I guarantee you she had a cowgirl hat probably oh, I 100, she probably did, and she was definitely a pick me girl. So she's giving us a story how to be a better storyteller. She hands out worksheets and all it says in there like who, what, when, where and why. Who who's in the story, why, why, why. What did you learn from this?
Speaker 1:when did it happen? I?
Speaker 2:was like this is stuff we learned in second grade, like what are we doing here? I thought you'd give me advice like how to structure it, like how to add details a little bit I wasn't a fan of that panel at all no, her rise to fame for her podcasting career and how she got invited here.
Speaker 2:She had one story she gets mostly. She goes go on a podcast, tell your story. Even if you don't have a story, you do have a story. It could be anything and she goes. My story is one day like I, I it was like a failed marriage proposal, something like that. So she went on a trip by herself to ireland and she got drunk and she got a dick tattoo on her. That was her whole story and she probably and this this panel was 30 minutes long and the time that finished she probably and this this panel is 30 minutes long and the time that finished she probably mentioned this dick tattoo at least 55 times let me tell you this.
Speaker 1:So she also. She wrote a book and I forgot I think the book was called why you should read this.
Speaker 1:No, it should be like open me or something like that open this book or some shit like that, and then under it was little letters. I thought that this it was gonna say the time I got a penis tattoo. I thought it was gonna say that, but it didn't say it was a whole personality. It was going to say the time I got a penis tattoo. I thought it was going to say that, but it didn't say that it was a whole personality.
Speaker 2:It was a whole personality. It was so distracting from the actual course I was like I don't even want to do this anymore that kind of gave me one-hit wonder vibes or TikTok viral vibes.
Speaker 1:On TikTok we got a lot of advice, but the advice that we didn't take is people were like, if this works, keep doing that. And I was like I'd like that, but to a certain extent so, like if that girl, like if the penis joke made her famous, she's like I'm gonna keep bringing it up, like no, it's only gonna last you so long. I feel like I mean.
Speaker 2:Any story can be interesting, though, depending on how you tell it like wally's do. You got an interesting story even if you just make up one do do?
Speaker 1:I have an interesting story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, I thought I'll put you on the spot.
Speaker 1:I mean I don't know if this is interesting. I thought this is interesting. So I'm a big. I'm a big science guy. I believe in science, you know. So originally I was supposed to go to to la and I was gonna go do some networking out there and learn more about video content, but instead this opportunity came up to come to pod fest, and for free. So I was like you know what, I'm gonna forget about la and I'm gonna go to orlando. And then I start watching the news and la is on fire I'm, like yo I was supposed to be in la.
Speaker 1:So I'm dude. Imagine if I'm out there over here like trying to leave. Like sorry, you can't leave sir. I think that's a cool story. Is that cool, yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's cool I guess put it on the spot, all right I ever tell you about the time I accidentally sneezed in chinese woman's mouth. Are you being?
Speaker 1:serious right now. This is a story.
Speaker 2:This is a story this is like pre-covid, so it's okay. So it was in chicago. It was in chicago like it was like right after high school. I think there's a bunch of us to get like in front of the bean, you know, just hanging out, you know, like the train station's like right there underneath, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I was like me and this one other person I'm like I'm gonna go um we're gonna go get dunkin for everybody, you know, get some donuts and coffee, because earlier in the day. So we went down there and like we're in line ordering and we get our stuff, and I have two coffees in my hand and like a box of donuts in my arms and I had a sneeze. I had a sneeze and I didn't want to sneeze in front of the person in front of me and I didn't want to sneeze in front of my friend. It was one of those big ones, like you know you, and there was like a chinese woman with her mouth wide open.
Speaker 2:I was like, all right, I'm. She was so stunned like, oh my, I'm sorry, like I was, like she was like I think I'm gonna get sick now. I was like I think you are really um, she can I, can I buy you a coffee? It's like you think a coffee's gonna make this better.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, it was funny. What when you said that? Can I tell you a story about when I sneeze? On a chinese woman's mouth. I was like what? When is this dude going to go with this story? That's crazy, bro. I mean, if someone sneezed on me, bro, I'd be pissed. Yeah, I'd be pissed. How would you feel if someone sneezed on you?
Speaker 2:Just how that woman feels I would be pissed.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was obviously an accident, but yeah, but yeah, don't let it happen again, rob I could have taught that panel better than that lady.
Speaker 1:Oh, 100, we both can't, but we're both.
Speaker 2:That's one of the things you're gonna, you know, one of your goals for next year, you said no, you too, bro. I want you to be a speaker at podfest oh, apparently anybody could be a speaker at these things and after hearing some of these people talk, it's pretty obvious.
Speaker 1:I think you just need to you just need to upload your presentation, but I think that I want to be a speaker for PodFest and I definitely think you can too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, what would your class be about? Because you can pick any topic you want to talk about.
Speaker 1:My class would be about social media showing your personality on there and then just content creating and then how to connect with your followers.
Speaker 2:That's one of the biggest things. I'm kind of mad that it's not a convention like teaching about social media, because there are things out there who almost say disregard social media.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, because, like I said, it's a lot older traditional podcasting. But my class would definitely be about that, because I think that one they're teaching us a lot about growing your podcast and the way that they talk about it is kind of like rebranding or kind of like just sponsorships and putting posters and flyers in your bakery and stuff like that. It's like the first thing is this, bro, this is this. Is what I think at least. The first step about growing your audience is that your audience has to like you and your audience has to know who you are.
Speaker 1:So if you're just posting new episode, this new episode, that new episode, this new episode, that they're going to get tired of that, First of all, which is what I've been doing the first two years of my doing this podcast. They want to see you at the movies. They want to see you eating the popcorn. They want to see you. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:They want to see you. They want to see you. They want to see who they're listening to. I know that's kind of controversial because it's a podcast, but they want to see who they're listening to and how they do it.
Speaker 2:I mean, one of the things you gave me is like I like shooting behind the scenes stuff. I think that's very cool. I love seeing the process.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I love that. We've been doing a lot of that out here.
Speaker 2:Do better we could do. I mean, we're just caught up like we're excited.
Speaker 1:That's what it is really and it does feel like we've been here for longer than we have. We still have all of today, all of tomorrow and all of sunday.
Speaker 2:We still have three full days technically yeah yeah and the reason we're filming so early is because, like, well, one, we have time to edit and you know like we're filming this in a great location and we want the sunlight and everything like that.
Speaker 1:You know why I love this, bro? It reminds me of the Bad Bunny album. Bad Bunny album, yeah. This whole little setup, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:I love the Bad Bunny album. Well, I like the five songs off of there Movie news real quick. You excited for him on Happy Gilmore 2?
Speaker 1:Him on Happy Gilmore 2? I don't like Bad Bunny. So I don't like Bad Bunny so his like smaller roles.
Speaker 2:He was in a brad pitt movie, for god's sake, yeah, no, I'm not the biggest bad bunny fan I'm. I like adam sandler, though, so I'll watch it for him, and then, once I see bad bunny, I'll skip it.
Speaker 1:You haven't even seen happy gilmore, right though? No, I've never seen happy, so whenever he has me on his show, I'm like dude, like I'll watch the movie. But then he references other movies and I was like yeah, I've never seen it right, I've seen. I've seen a good amount of movies, but not as many as you. I can't compare 250 to. I don't even know how many movies I've seen this year yeah, because I talked about in your review.
Speaker 2:I did 250 movies.
Speaker 1:I've probably, maybe, seen less than 10 movies this year I mean this from the beginning of the this year.
Speaker 2:I've probably seen like less than 10 how many movies?
Speaker 1:I mean, it's only january 10th. Yeah, just kidding.
Speaker 2:I mean like it's kind of wild as long as I haven't gone in the theater like the last movie seen in theaters was. A better man not now on a complete unknown and that was like like december.
Speaker 1:I've seen that have you ever done the math to see how many movies you've seen from this Seat's Taken day one to today?
Speaker 2:I have it written down somewhere Because I use Letterboxd now. I started using Letterboxd heavy last year. The first two years. I was just keeping track of my own, so I just got to add them all.
Speaker 1:So how many episodes do you have of this Seat's Taken? Over 150 now, so 150, and then most of them are two movies, probably like 50 good ones but every episode is almost almost every episode is about two movies, so that's 300. No, you've definitely seen.
Speaker 2:Well, the first like 50 episodes. I've been having people do three movies.
Speaker 1:Oh, that was hella a lot you're at like, you're definitely like 500 movies for sure easily for the whole park damn bro, I never knew there was 500 movies out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, one of these. I always get asked the question like what's my some of my favorite movies? That's like the hardest question for me.
Speaker 1:It all depends on my mood and no, yeah, I think when you ask someone what's your favorite movie, what's your favorite song, I even have trouble answering who's your favorite artist yeah and I think it's because mine's post. Everyone knows that. Yeah, but was he your favorite artist three years ago?
Speaker 2:probably okay I've been a diet fan. What about five?
Speaker 1:years ago he was up there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I think that a lot of it has to do with just your emotions and how you're feeling. And that's what movies you know, because I mean my, one of my favorite. I can answer my favorite movie, and the reason why I can answer is because to me it means so much. It's a high school musical three. Yeah, that's my favorite movie of all time and it's about how you feel. It's not about the quality of the movie Exactly, it's about how it feels and how it makes me feel, because to me, high School Musical 3, it's a timeless piece for me and I kind of relate to it a lot. With Troy Bolton we're breaking free Soul bread Fly Good, I clipped that shit.
Speaker 2:That was good. That's a karaoke song. Oh, we didn't go to karaoke yesterday. That would have been hilarious if you did. Uh, yeah, there's so many cool events.
Speaker 1:At things like this karaoke, there's a stand-up night, like a stand-up comedy night, um. One thing that I really liked um, this might be nerd talk for, for for you guys listening is the way that we upload our episodes is through a distributor and we distribute through buzzsprout shout, shout out buzz sprout.
Speaker 1:Buzz sprout is who hosts our episodes and they send them out. Um, I thought it was cool to meet buzz sprout. Yes, that was amazing, because buzz sprout is what makes our episodes possible. It's what um sends them out, like I said, to spotify into apple. So us meeting them. Not only that, if you showed them your stats, they rewarded you. So what kind of rewards did you?
Speaker 2:I got a lot of swag from them. Like they give you cool, like uh pins, congratulate. Like I had three years. So they gave me like a three-year pin. Um, over 5 000 episodes download, over 5 000 downloads. They gave me a pin for that. And um, it was like over 500 episodes, something like that they gave me.
Speaker 1:That too, that's awesome 150 episodes that's awesome. I love that. I think that's cool because it makes you the little pins like. It makes you feel good about your accomplishments.
Speaker 2:We're meeting other people besides like like there's company shirt who make these microphones that I really want like headphones to help you improve your podcast. You know we learned about like um like, like not the sound board, but like a video board yeah, to help us editing and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:We're learning so much out here you need a lot of money to buy all those things you.
Speaker 2:I mean, we've been doing it on a budget.
Speaker 1:You could definitely make it possible I think it's one thing that I learned that I liked a lot was that I've heard a couple people talking about monthly budgets for their podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's cool, because I just hit buy, yeah, yeah yeah, I mean, eventually I would like to do this like making an like an llc kind of business stuff like that yeah, we definitely gotta learn a lot about that. I mean, I would like to make merch like. I don't think people were like this.
Speaker 1:He's taking t-shirts yet I got some uh tips I can give you.
Speaker 2:You want to do it off camera or on camera let's do it on camera, okay, I'll do that later, it's okay, okay, so tips about merch, okay.
Speaker 1:So what I think that you should do is this this strategy works very well actually Make shirts for you and start off with that, make a cool shirt for you yeah. And then when people see it, they're like I like that, oh, I'll make you one next time I make them. So then the first time you just make some for you, then the second time you make some for whoever liked it.
Speaker 2:Well, I thought about doing like just giving it to guests or the guests too.
Speaker 1:That's another one, and then you could start selling it later but first make it like exclusive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that strategy works a lot.
Speaker 1:I also thought about selling popcorn buckets, but the only I like that, but it's. I think it'd be cool if you could take them to the movie theater. But I mean that's cool, for you know what I like that actually it's at a home, because that's movie night exactly because I never watched movies, so I never thought about that. But I like the idea of you know, it's a winter night, it's cold outside, let's watch a movie. Hold up, mom. Let me get my. This seat's taken, bucket yeah, I like that.
Speaker 2:I like that. Yeah, for those living with their mom still, yeah, that's us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is us. I'm not ashamed though.
Speaker 2:Um, I mean stickers is another big one too. Like it's easy, like we met. I met somebody here who sells stickers stickers for your water bottles but the thing is with that she's selling for four bucks a sticker I'd probably sell them for like eight dot, not, I thought, something for like a dollar or two, the most a dollar I would say it's a sticker.
Speaker 1:That's true, but you gotta make some profit, bro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you gotta make some profit, um, but I mean, there's a whole business strategy I want to get into, like you know, making this podcast into. It's interesting as fuck. I started this podcast as a hobby, like something to put my mental health towards, too, like so I can focus on. But now that I'm three years deep, anyway, I want to flip it a little bit, like okay, let's see if I can make some you know profit off of this. And like not that, like I didn't remember my first comment. Someone like it was like two years ago on tiktok. Someone like oh, like I didn't like this. I like this movie a lot, but this guy makes pretty good points. I fucking fell in love with that.
Speaker 1:That made you.
Speaker 2:That was like influence it shows like okay, what I say is having influence up yeah, that's awesome, bro. That made you feel that way too I mean you were there when I got recognized for the first time yeah, yeah, we were at a byway, right byway, you know, and um, this guy just recognized because of one of my guests, you know who reposted me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:He recognized me from that and that was really cool.
Speaker 1:No stuff like that. It's always an amazing feeling how? Because you would never think. And for podcasting it could be hard because it's just your voice, but that's why we do the whole video thing. But getting recognized it literally it feels amazing.
Speaker 2:What advice would you have for somebody who wants to start their own podcast?
Speaker 1:So this advice we got at PodFest and I think it's good advice. So the first thing is well, first, if you want to start a podcast, make sure that it's a topic or a category that you're really passionate about, so that way you don't get tired of doing it after a couple episodes, real quick.
Speaker 2:you know, what I'm kind of surprised about is how many christian podcasts there are out there yeah, there's a lot out here, but it's like I'm shocked.
Speaker 1:But I'm not shocked because I think florida is a very christian uh state scientology yeah, scientology, um, but yeah. So make sure that you have a, a topic that that you really um, that you really love, so that we don't get tired of talking to it. And I didn't understand what they said this, but they said that like upload or record more than one episode, at least six. I thought they meant record them and upload them all at the same time they did, really they did.
Speaker 2:I liked that idea. I liked that idea a lot. Because, like, okay, if I record an episode with, let's just say, like a big celebrity like tom holland, yeah, you're gonna be captivated. And my podcast like oh, if, especially if it's good. You know, like I want to see what else this guy got, and I already got like five other episodes out there too, you can check out too yeah versus tom holland. Like okay, now I gotta wait another week or two for the next episode to come out oh, I see what you're saying, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, um and then, but practice. Because my big mistake that I did is I started right away and I had a lot of technical difficulties and you get stressed out trying to fix them, but practice, record pre-episodes, listen to them, practice the editing, the video stuff. So, yeah, my tips are that Find a category that you really like, practice. And another thing is work with what you got. If you don't have cameras, use an iphone. If you don't have an iphone, then just use audio for now. You know, but practice is what you got. Because my my big mistakes is I don't consider it a mistake, but I'm very impulsive, so I kind of just hit by I do this, I do that and you don't have to do that stuff right away, because there's a lot of podcasters that we met and they work with minimum. A lot of them just use webcams, bro, like other laptops.
Speaker 2:So, um, yeah, and then it looks good yeah, and ask for help.
Speaker 1:Ask for help too, don't just do it by yourself do not be afraid to ask for advice.
Speaker 2:I mean, even if it's me and fernando, like if you're thinking about starting your own podcast, we are more than willing, willing to give advice on what we use and what we buy and how to structure it. If you want. We can give you recommendations on a lot of things.
Speaker 1:It is great for the mental health. Yeah, and, like I said, we're not professionals, but we definitely know what we're doing yeah, we know more than the average person.
Speaker 2:I would say, yeah, um, you know, just follow up with that. Like I didn't tell anybody I was starting a podcast when I first started it, you just dropped it. I dropped. I told, like you, maybe like two other people, I was doing it because, like I, I have a bad habit. A lot of people have a bad habit doing this. Like if you talk about something for so long, any like if I just, like last second, decide not to do it, you know, I feel like I let everyone down I'm, I'm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like I do that too, so that's why sometimes I try not to say anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you said you were gonna go running this morning too.
Speaker 2:Hey, yo don't call me out like that I did it yesterday, though I did it yesterday so I mean it is great to follow through with it, but before you release it, like we talk, record five or six episodes. The fifth episode he's like I'm not really feeling that second episode. Like you can take it out, it's not a big deal. Yeah, I mean you can always restructure it a little bit too, like you said. Pick up a topic you're passionate about. I'm movies. I love talking about movies, um, I mean what doesn't get bored of.
Speaker 1:What if I want to?
Speaker 2:like talk about tv shows next, or what if I want to talk about, uh, finance in my next podcast, something like that? I did have two other podcasts too that didn't work out, but, um, I'm not ashamed of them. I like I had fun. If anything, they were learning experiences. A lot of this podcast is trial and error.
Speaker 1:I forgot about that bro, the dolly show I had a podcast called um the dolly parton podcast we got sued with three other three other co-hosts, and we got a cease and desist.
Speaker 2:That was our goal, and then we I had another podcast with uh, our recurring guest, greg rosinski, called up the awkward bartender's guide, which he's gonna come back with, but he's rebranding that by himself, though, so I'm gonna help him out what was your role in those two podcasts?
Speaker 1:so, right now, and this he's taking, you're the host. What was your role in the other two podcasts?
Speaker 2:so the other, the dolly part podcast, had four hosts in general it was me Glenn Well, I've been on my podcast before too Glenn Brandon and Brandon Brogdon and Joey Rivera I mean because I already had a podcast. I was the one recording everything, editing everything. You were the producer.
Speaker 1:Pretty much I was the producer. Basically you were the producer for that. One Put that title on your name, bro.
Speaker 2:Producer Rob Brandon. I was probably the most one who was coming up with topics and stuff like that, coming up with games and stuff like that. We were playing on there. It was fun. But once you get to the point, if you're thinking about starting a podcast with a co-host, make sure you both are putting in work, because it drains that one person who's doing all the work.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Even if you're not the one editing or pitching everything. Come up with ideas, come up with a topic or something like that. Come up with something to show that you actually care about it, because that was the big thing about that podcast. And then the other one, the Agua Bartender's Guide. I'm not a bartender. He asked me to come on it because we had good chemistry together, which we did. You were the co-host on that one.
Speaker 1:I was the co-host but you were also the producer for that one yes, I've.
Speaker 2:I've recorded everything and edited and distributed and stuff like that. I learned a lot from that too, because, like I, I, you know, the sound levels in the first couple episodes weren't that great, but, um, I'm grateful for them. I'm glad I did them, though I had a great time. I'm still friends with all those guys. Um, they've been on this podcast many, many times yeah, um, you said you talked about co-hosts.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I feel like, because my old podcast I had two co-hosts and I kind of miss that, because it's like you can bounce off of each other, so it's like the main host and then the other co-host is like can ask the other questions you know what I'm saying, and it's, at the end of the day, different perspectives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, different perspectives, and when you don't have a guest, it can be, uh, just just like a co-host and host episode, and I do, I do miss that. I do miss that because there's a lot, like I said, there's a lot of things that I want to start.
Speaker 2:I've noticed in my episodes that I want to start um, fixing it is a lot harder for us, like we're finding guests every single week. So, like this week, I knew you were coming on this week, so I'm already working on like early this week I was already working on the next guest and then you're constantly worrying about them People back out in the last minute. It's frustrating, especially for me, because my guests have to watch the movie we're talking about, so it is tricky. But we did learn tips down here on how to find better guests, like because there's all like website who people go on.
Speaker 1:They're wanting to be guest not only that, there's a, a website that we learned about, on how to find guests from like outside of your city, from all across the country, and and you forgot one point you get paid for it you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wasn't gonna share that secret, but yeah, oh damn.
Speaker 1:No, we just we don't get paid.
Speaker 2:We don't get paid for any of this, it's okay, but, um, yeah, I mean that's definitely a way to meet new people because, like, probably the same 30 people do my podcast all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let me ask you this, rob Um, I don't know how much time we have left on your podcast and maybe not change, but or upgrade, because upgrade I think is a better word than change. What do you want to upgrade for this? It's taken.
Speaker 2:I want you guys to see me on YouTube. I'm starting the. I have a couple episodes like maybe like less than 10 episodes out there on YouTube, but I need to get back on there again too, cause I want like to put a face to the mic. Um, I don't.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't have a face for tv but right now you look dope as hell, bro, you look dope. Right now we're in florida we got the cool outfits, the sunnies. You got the headphones on with the mic. You look, we look badass right now, bro check it out.
Speaker 2:I'm excited that we're doing a lot of content filming out there, like we're gonna be posting a lot of behind the scenes from our trip here in podfest, so definitely check that out. What's your instagram so people can check?
Speaker 1:um, but also one more thing before I do that um, one thing that I've learned out here is that not that it doesn't matter, but views and followers are not.
Speaker 1:It's, it's not all about that yeah and it's hard for me to accept that sometimes, um, but we've met a lot of people who know so much and they're so knowledgeable no way more than us and they don't have they don't. It's like they have, just regular followers. They're not that many likes and you know what I'm saying, so it's not about that. It's like they have just regular followers.
Speaker 2:They're not that many likes, and you know what I'm saying. So it's not about that. It's not about that. I'm grateful for the ones who come back.
Speaker 1:next episode yes, exactly Because, yeah, I love that. But yeah, you guys can check me out on Instagram at FernandoXGimenez, and on Little Shy Podcast on Instagram.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you come on weekly. I was a guest on your podcast the same day. This is dropping too, so go ahead and go and listen to his, because we did talk about a lot more stuff that we didn't talk about here, about the pod fest yeah uh, we didn't talk about like how he fell in love within like two minutes um with a celsius representative yeah, she was really, she was beautiful yeah, he shot a shot with her and um she was beautiful he's we're gonna go against here.
Speaker 1:Talk to her today yep, I'm going to go get a pickup at Asosias but yeah, I'm excited for this trip.
Speaker 2:We're still halfway through it. Next week's going to be regular schedule programming, so sad no not sad. I'm excited for it's about Wolfman coming out with.
Speaker 1:Gregorzinski, oh, I'll name it Back to Work, back to Work. No, no, no about my podcast.
Speaker 2:Back to Regular Sched scheduled programming with Wolfman, with Greg Rosinski. It's supposed to come out this week but I had to push it back for the PodFest. But yeah, I'm excited to learn watching the movies. It's going to be a big year for movies in 2025. I'm excited to get into it. I talked about it in your review a little bit. Big events coming. My biggest goal is to go to movie festivals a little bit and networking with other podcasters. Still, we have another networking event we might go to in april in chicago. So if you're in the chicago area and if you see us, definitely come by and stop by. We'll give you advice. Like, even if you don't have a podcast, you can still go if you're thinking about starting a podcast yeah, definitely recommend it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, thank you, fernando, for coming on the podcast thank you for having me, bro, bringing me on this trip with you. I mean, that's a big plus um.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening. Stay tuned next week, where I'll be saving you a seat. Peace out.
