From Metacast: the podcast about podcasting

Arnab and I love SquadCast and use it for recording of all of our episodes. It’s a tool that lets you simply have a video call with your guests while magically recording audio and video in high quality in the background. It works like a charm, we love it, and happily pay for it every month.

This week we had an opportunity to sit down with Zach Moreno and Rock Felder and chat about their journey of bootstrapping a company that has become an important part of the podcasting ecosystem. Funnily enough, it all started with Zach wanting to do a sci-fi podcast and realizing how hard it was to collaborate with people remotely. So they scratched their own itch and built SquadCast.

👉 Listen to Metacast: Apple, Spotify, CastBox, Google, YouTube 👈

Key Takeaways

Audio editing

  • Always record separate (“iso”) tracks. When you have isolated tracks for each speaker, it’s easy to mix them together but it’s hard (pretty much impossible) to go the opposite direction and split a combined file into multiple tracks. With isolated tracks, you can remove that pesky dog’s bark and other noises.

Process

  • An internet router is part of your podcasting stack. Internet speed matters in remote recording, so make sure you get a fast internet connection when collaborating with other people.
  • Adding video to your podcast is a heavy lift. Zach and Rock estimate that producing a podcast with video is ~4x more effort than just audio. Once you have a regular schedule with your audio podcast, are killing it, and have free time, go ahead and try adding video! If you’re struggling to keep your audio production going, maybe just stick with audio for now.
  • Record your audio using video calls in tools like SquadCast. Video helps you and your guests maintain eye contact, build a better rapport, and minimize collisions.
  • Offer a pre-call option to the guest. Pre-calls are a way to build rapport with your guest and get into the story before the recording. If time permits, offer a pre-call option to your guests but leave it up to them to accept or decline it.

Meta-advice

  • Scratch your own itch. Zach and Rock wanted to start a sci-fi podcast but quickly realized how hard it is to record audio remotely. So they built SquadCast to assist themselves and built a business out of it.
  • “Dogfood” your product, i.e. use your product yourself to better emphatize with your customers.
  • Podcasters are a friendly bunch, who often interview each other and help each other grow. Just reach out.
  • Podcasting helps you become a better conversationalist. You get trained in listening and asking good questions when interviewing guests. Podcasting pays off in real life.