How We Started a Podcast in 24 Hours
We are Harvard Ventures and this is the story of The Bottom Line, a podcast about entrepreneurship, innovation, and everything in between.
Saturday, March 23rd was the date of our first all-hands board meeting after a very abrupt evacuation from campus the week prior. With minimal news from the college and much uncertainty regarding the outlook of the pandemic, it was unclear how we could proceed with our goals in the new environment. While at Harvard, students are considered far away when they live in the Quad, a mere 10 minute walk from Harvard Yard, but in this remote world, our members are spread across states, countries, and even continents. Much like startups faced with new economic and technological challenges in light of the pandemic, we quickly realized we had to adapt.
It was clear that Zoom was growing in popularity as the medium through which culture would flow within the virtual environment. Although it’s difficult to exactly emulate in-person interactions through video conferencing, we realized the platform could allow us to expand our efforts more than ever before. Now with no need to worry about the cost, catering, or venue, the barrier to entry for hosting and attending events became much lower. Additionally, quarantining at home has granted many of us the gift of free time, a concept especially foreign to Harvard undergraduates, which would prove to be very valuable for the launch of TBL.
With the ever growing presence of social media, we already lived in a virtual world. It was time we learned how we could take advantage of it.
This is the story of how we started our very first podcast in less than 24 hours.
It was at that first virtual board meeting where we had the idea to launch a podcast. Our board immediately fell in love with the idea. We believed it was the perfect way to connect with students now and in the future across different time zones. We quickly got to work brainstorming our vision for the content of our episodes and the brand we wanted to develop for our initiative. We wanted our podcast to specifically cater to undergrads and to answer questions particularly relevant to our journeys in college and in the early stages of our careers. We hoped that like us, many of the experts in startup-land would find themselves with some extra time during this trying time and could offer very meaningful insights and advice to our audience. We were right.
That same day, we decided to reach out to secure our dream guest for the podcast, the famous Shark Tank investor and entrepreneur, Mark Cuban. Within a few hours time, Mark Cuban had accepted our request for an interview, all before we had even decided on the podcast name. We learned quickly not to underestimate the power of the cold email.
Our team was of course ecstatic by the news and we went into overdrive preparing for the interview and solidifying our goals for the podcast. Deciding how we wanted to portray our brand was certainly no easy task. We went back and forth several times about our selection of potential guests, interview questions, and the general podcast mission. It seemed impossible to cohesively synthesize all of the ideas we had come up with. As we developed our plan, we approached our adviser Paul Bottino, an executive director and lecturer at Harvard, for guidance. His response was:
“Brand won’t be damaged by the mistakes you make, but will be built on the successes and successes often require risks.”
We realized that despite some uncertainty of the outcomes, we needed to take the risk and fully commit to our project. After much thought and deliberation, we decided to name our podcast The Bottom Line where we would get to the bottom line about the hottest and most controversial topics in startups and venture capital.
By the end of March 23rd, we had put everything into motion for the launch of our first podcast episode. In the words of Walt Disney, our advice for you to get started is to simply “quit talking and start doing”.
And that’s the bottom line.
Follow us on Instagram, Medium, and Facebook. Listen to our podcast TBL. And for more information check out our website.
