Add RFC: Podcast feedback #286
Conversation
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FYI, I just went through and did a bit of reformatting as I was it was a bit dense to read so many bullet points! |
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| ### Should we release any of the content we have so far? | ||
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| **Recommendation:** Aggressively edit the content from the episodes with Cory and Raquel. We have about 50 minutes for each episode, but we can cut out content that didn't land and try to aim for tighter episodes closer to 20 minutes in length that are made up of the best content we recorded. |
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This sounds sensible to me. I think the 20 to 30 min window is about right, especially for a single topic. If you think there's a good episode in each of these, we should go for it.
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| ### Should we do audio and video? Or consider starting with audio only? | ||
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| **Recommendation:** Starting with both audio and video was likely a mistake since we ended up with too many variables to worry about. Having said that, my recommendation is that we stick with both. Part of the original goals for the podcast were to open the door to video content and work towards improving our ability to produce video content internally. |
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I'd like to know more context here – e.g. how much more work is doing a video version and an audio version?
If the difference is negligible, it's fair enough to do both, but we shouldn't just continue because it was one of the original goals
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| ### Should we have separate edits for audio and video? | ||
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| **Recommendation:** Long term, definitely. But in the short term, we should focus on aggressively editing content and keeping it tight even if the video versions end up feeling a bit janky. |
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Tbh, I think they should always be the same in content. I think we'll just get better over time, so it'll require less editing.
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| ### How long should each episode be? | ||
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| **Recommendation:** The shorter the better. We should aim for 10-20 minutes, with a maximum of 30 minutes only if we have a ton of great content. |
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I think 20 to 30 makes sense, but 10 seems a bit short. We could probably go longer if we had more than one topic, or an interesting guest. If we wanted to go long, we should think about having different segments
For example, you could have:
- 5 mins or news and reaction to stuff going on in the tech space
- 20 to 30 mins on a specific topic / an interview
- 5 to 10 mins Q&A answering questions from James' social / the mailbox etc.
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| ### What should we name the show? Something obvious like Product Engineering? | ||
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| **Recommendation:** I prefer "The Product Engineering Podcast" since it's obvious in terms of the value proposition. But a lot of people liked "Quick Calls with Jimmy Hawkins" and I don't feel strongly either way. |
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We haven't tried that hard to find a name yet, so we should explore more options. My take is "The Product Engineering Podcast" is a bit long-winded, and Quick Calls is funny at first, but a bit too vague.
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| **Recommendation:** This sounds obvious that we want content that's clearly valuable to listeners. But the answer here will dictate a lot of the episode content. Do we want to get to know the people behind the product? Do we want to share stories about how PostHog and the products have come together? Or should we script a topic and try to stay on it as much as possible? | ||
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| I generally lean towards us creating a podcast that follows the success of our newsletter with a clear value proposition. "Here's how to do X topic based on our lived experience and lessons learned at PostHog." The drawback is that the conversations could get visibly boring if we try to stick to a script too tightly. |
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I think you're correct. The key here is they should be things either we, or our guest, has strong opinions on and can speak on with authority. This + preparation should be enough.
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| ### How do we balance the quirky, fun tone with serious content? | ||
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| **Recommendation:** We have an over-the-top jingle and potentially a puppet in the branding for the show. But the conversations are "fundamentally a business talk". We can potentially balance the two, but it can admittedly come across as awkward and make the content seem dull when the fast-paced intro segues into a conversation. |
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I don't think we need to overthink this. Just be ourselves. We need to think "how do we make this entertaining".
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| ### Should Bijan host the show? | ||
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| **Recommendation:** We likely have a lot of people internally at PostHog that would be better at hosting. If Bijan continues to host, he'll have to rapidly improve at asking questions and directing the conversations. |
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| ### Should we continue with the podcast as a goal? | ||
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| **Recommendation:** This is a meta question, but it's worth asking. We have excellent written and social content. But it seems like we've struggled with audio and video content. Part of the reason for the podcast was to make an intentional effort to improve in this area. But it's conceivable that we're not currently well-suited to creating this kind of content. And if that's the case, it's worth considering pivoting away from the goal before sinking additional resources into it. |
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- What do you think?
- How much time does each episode take to make atm?
| - Introduce the show, the topic, and the guests. We tried long intros, short intros, and no intro. There definitely _needs_ to be an intro, but it should be as concise as possible. | ||
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| ### Cadence | ||
| - Release one episode every other week, alternating with the newsletter release. |
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+1 to this. I think weekly would require a more newsy format.
| - Avoid "this is what we did at PostHog" content. Instead, content should follow this format: "We did this... and this is how you should think about the problem more broadly." | ||
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| ### Tone | ||
| - Avoid coming across as salesy. If you notice the word "PostHog" is coming up 100x in an episode, you did something wrong. |
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I wonder if we should just make an explicit goal that podcasts should always have an external guest / expert? I suspect we'll always fall into this trap if it's just us.
This document is an exhaustive aggregate of all the feedback we received from recording initial episodes of our PostHog podcast. It's intended to turn all that feedback into actionable takeaways and a list of decisions we need to make about the direction for future episodes.