Extra - Stupid Enough To Resume A Podcast

It's been 2 years - and you need an explanation. In this extra episode, I will be going over the Solo return of the podcast - why we stopped, and why I want to bring it back.
by Saqib Tahir

Transcript

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Hello. Okay. So, it's been two years. Last time I did a recording for this podcast. And now, we... Not we, I'm sitting alone again and recording here. This like extra mini episode is just gonna be in case an old listener is listening to catch up with them. And if you are not an old listener and you are a new listener, then you should go and watch this episode first. Listen. And then come back here because that will give you the necessary context on what I'm about to go. Just some quick updates as to like why am I starting this podcast again? Why did I think of it after two years and now I am alone? The first thing is why did we quit the podcast two years ago? The reason for quitting was basically this. Primary concern was time management. Khyam and I were co-hosts. We were doing a job, a joby job of 9 to 5 type. And there is a lot of work in it, as you all know. And in a week, we did a podcast, it took an hour to listen to an episode, but in making it, we both had combined 10-15 hours of effort. And taking out those 10-15 hours every week, it's becoming harder and harder. Just like our local routine is, we must be living with our families. Right? So we were like, okay, time management problem. It's getting more and more frustrating every week. We have to take out this much time, record an episode, edit it, and then publish it. Second issue was, and this was more of like... I would say like, think of it as an excuse or an excuse. Or at least I feel it like that. That we might have different feelings. There was just no ROI. And ROI doesn't mean that we started podcasting to make money. Or we thought that we would become very rich or earn a lot. That was never the goal. That still is not the goal because there is no scope for podcasting in Pakistan, especially audio podcasting. At least we thought that we would get ROA in the sense that people will listen, engage, it's a tech podcast after all, and maybe a little bit of response would be received, people would say that, reach out or at least have a discussion. The issue was that two years ago podcasting was still very new and then nothing like that happened. But once we stopped podcasting, like six or seven months later, there was a spike. People started listening to our old episodes. And with a trend like, okay now we were doing it ahead of our time. And that's why we stopped because when we were doing it, nobody cared. Last thing I would say is that our podcast format was weekly tech news. Right? Tech news comes, we cover 3-4 topics, move on to the next week, so on and so forth. And even though I was very experienced in the technical background or tech field, Kyaan was experienced in the business side of things and startup side of things. We were still early in our career. the insights and the things we had to say about different things. They weren't our own opinions. It was mostly like mixed opinion of YouTube, which we have seen, read books, read articles, because we ourselves didn't have that much of a hands-on experience. That has changed in the last two years, because in the last two years we both have basically two, three extra work experience in two years because we left our typical job style of working and went to like freelancing, consultancy, business and that kind of thing. So you know that the experience of a person is very rapidly increased. So why am I back and why isn't Cam back? Well, time hasn't been an issue yet, even after these two years and Cam might be back in a future episode. I'm not saying never. But I have thought alone that there are some reasons I think that there needs to be a tech podcast. Look, it's been two years. No one has made a tech podcast in Pakistan. And again, as I said, podcast is not a popular format. I get that. And that's why people are not making it, but YouTube has not made much difference. And neither has there been much difference in any other content format. The same tech news outlet, two years ago we were seeing articles, pro Pakistani, this, that, I don't want to take any more names, but that is still going on. Nothing has changed. I left podcasting two years ago. Go to Google right now, write in top tech podcast in Pakistan. And TechMidfun, which is this podcast, will show up. Number two, pay behind thought behind things, which isn't a tech podcast. So I don't know how Google is doing its thing. But just to say that honestly, no one else has done it. So I'm like, okay, maybe I'll have to do it again. So that sense of commitment, responsibility, whatever, I insert English word that doesn't come to my mind. Secondly, I feel like especially because I've transitioned to software side of things. in my career and so on and so forth. I have much more experience in tech field and now because for the last year I have been doing some coaching and mentoring stuff on the side for people career wise, freelancing wise. I just have more to talk about and more to say about. So even though the tech news is boring or you have never been from Pakistan, you shouldn't care about that. I want to mix the format a little bit that it is more personally opinionated and I want to talk about the things. I want to talk about or especially I want to go to another format which I will discuss in a while. Lastly, the thing that I think we should start this podcast again is like, I think there is demand. I don't know, maybe YouTube, YouTube is making difficult work. A lot of people realize it. They start making good videos 10-12 times and then get tired. That's it. Podcast is like a healthy middle ground. I have tried writing for the last two years, I have tried newsletters, articles, I have tried Discord, I have tried community building, I have tried Facebook groups, I have attempted a lot. But voice is just a format I think I like. And even though I am talking to myself in a closed room, I think I'm just good at talking or like I would like to think so that my talking skill set is the best among my other skill sets. So I should just utilize that and yeah, podcast is the best way to do that. So I'm going to get better and better at it and try to, you know, improve that skill set with every episode going forward. For people who care, some personal updates. Very quick. I have two daughters now. I have become a father. It wasn't like this last time. As I said, I left my job and went to the freelancing and consultancy side. Did pretty well in freelancing, I would say. And now I'm trying to learn consultancy and trying to... turned business consultant because Pakistan me a career path and like as I said, I became an active member of a couple of communities and also started a site thing say yesknexus.com which is be a podcast there is another website now just come mentioned down the road which is called the wanderedbro.com more focused towards career and coaching and mentoring mindset shift kind of content because I made such a massive transition from job to business. I want to share stories from that as well. Okay. So lastly, what will the new format be like? As I said, I have to give two people, I'm alone for now. And it's not feasible that one person sit and record for two hours or one hour because it will become really boring. So for the next five to 10 episodes, it's going to be an experiment, honestly. But the goal would be that the episode would start, that would roughly be the same thing. 3-4 tech topics, 1-2 business topics, and the short and short ones that we used to do, I will try to put in. But the second half of the episode, I'm going to focus on experimenting with different things. And if you have any suggestions, you can email them at podcast at sknexus.com. But basically, I will share some of my experiences, work related, career related. Some I want to experiment with new styles of episodes. like, instead of YouTube video, why not do it in a podcast format, the audio review, right, of different products I use, because I do use a lot of tech, relatively speaking, to an average Pakistani, because I like CS. So maybe that works. And again, you know, maybe do some like bring on guests. I don't know. I am still like the OG podcasting mindset. I don't think I'll be good at it. I don't want to try that. But all in all, at the end of the day, I have some inspiration from Ask Anjee Swarup's style podcast that people send their questions and the person answers them according to best information. A lot of ideas, a lot of different variations I want to try. And I want to keep things as they were before. I think we were going over tech in business. The only slight addition would be that we will talk about a little bit of our career, but it will still be dive to tech. And if you remember in an episode, we mentioned that tech is in everything. So when you say it will be dive to tech, basically, from your tailor to your e-commerce giant to your fintech app, tech is involved in everything. But the mission is still the same for the podcast. And going back to the first episode, which you have heard, that TechMate Fund is for the common man. I'm not targeting tech enthusiasts because again, they are listening to MKBHD, Linus Tech Tips and watching them. I watch them every week. So I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to do as good a job as they do. But my mission here is that I want to spread awareness of tech to more people who are not at the level where they are watching Linus and MKBHD. But they are not going to pass by so much that they are not interested in tech. There's somewhere in the between and I think there is a big... a group of those people. If they don't listen to the podcast chat, then it's a bit of a challenging problem. But yeah, this won't be a fully tech enthusiast show ever. There will be another topic chat, enthusiastic, in which I am personally enthusiastic. But, you know, general awareness for tech and you know, the impact of tech on our lives. That's the mission of this platform. And let's see how it goes again. So yeah, I'm back. And as you know, stupid enough to resume a podcast. As always, thank you for listening and sending me feedback, questions, as I said, on podcast at sknexus.com. See you next time.