Launching something new

My leap of faith into releasing a product

Did you know I run a podcast?

My friend Charli Marie and I have always had these hour long discussions with each other. We’d talk passion, share our goals and seek advice from one another on how to move forward.

Then we both had a lightbulb moment and thought ‘What if next time we chat, we sit in front of a microphone and record our conversation? What if, this could be a podcast?’

So, the next time we chatted we recorded our conversation. Then we did it again a few more times, playing with the editing and seeing if we could mould it into something not only listenable, but valuable too.

That was two years ago, and since then we’ve recorded 103 episodes and receive over 10K listens of our show, Design Life each month.

For two years we’ve been recording weekly episodes and supporting the show out of our own pockets. We’ve always said no to sponsorships, as we felt it interrupted with the flow of the show and we didn’t want to waste a second of our listeners valuable time.

We started looking for an alternative way to keep the show running. Surely there’s a way for a podcast to sustain itself without ads?

For a while we considered selling products (which we’ve done briefly). Then we considered doing something like a Patreon. Eventually we started discussing what it would be like to run our own community on our own platform. How great would it be for our listeners to have a place to come together, converse with one another and receive extra behind-the-scenes value from the show?

Eager to see if our idea would work, we opened up a free beta. Would anyone actually be interested in this idea? Who would join? Would our listeners care?

Turns out they did care, a lot.

Hundreds of listeners joined the beta. There was so many of them joining that we had to close registration. For three months we did several live streams, had deep discussions with members, provided tonnes of advice and created several downloadable resources.

A few weeks ago we felt it was time. Let’s do this for real.

This week we opened the doors of the Design Life community. You can read more about it here, but what I really want to share with you is that you don’t have to follow the status quo.

So many people have asked me ‘Why don’t you just take sponsorships? That’s what every other show does’. Yes, the sponsorship route would have been predictable, comfortable and easy. But I know I wouldn’t have enjoyed it.

I’d rather spending my hours conversing with passionate listeners and helping them get their dream job, than emailing demanding sponsors back and forth.

So, the community is now born. I don’t know what’s next, and I have no idea whether it will work, but I do know that I’m damn excited.

Does this sound interesting to you? → Sign up to join the community — only $9 p/m

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About the author

Hi I’m Femke — a designer, writer and podcaster who overlaps between a day job, freelancing and side projects. I love to help other creatives be the best version of themselves. I’d love to get to know you more, say hi on Twitter 👋