Joel Nicoloff on Building a Podcast From Scratch
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/12/14
Joel Nicoloff is the co-host of The Six Cents Report with Darnell Samuels. A podcast that “uses theology and economics to analyze events that Impact Canadians.” A creative mix and an intriguing duo. Both have been interviewed. Nicoloff is first, as I met him at the Economics for Journalists conference of The Fraser Institute. Here we talk about the report and him.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Actually, I’ll open on that. I start every interview with the question: May I have consent to record? I might say, “Please.” I might not say, “Please.” Because it is an important part of the ethics of journalists or media people, you want to make sure you are transparent, yes?
Joel Nicoloff: Yes! Of course, also, you want to make sure in case there was any miscommunication beforehand. They know now. You are being recorded.
Jacobsen: [Laughing] That’s correct. I always say, “Do you know what my first question is?” They go, “No.” Every single person goes, “No.” I say, “May I have consent to record, please?” And so, that’s important.
Now, you’ve run a podcast for a decent amount of time. You are wrapping it up. So, this is really an ideal time to reflect and get your insights on getting a structure together that works for a two-person podcast. So, first of all, who are you? How did we meet?
Nicoloff: Yes, my name is Joel Nicoloff. I am a co-host of The Six Cents Report. We met at the Economics for Journalists conference by the Fraser Institute out in Vancouver.
Jacobsen: Now, what made you sign up for this Economics for Journalists conference in the first place?
Nicoloff: My co-host, Darnell, has gone to both the Economics for Journalists and Policy for Journalists and highly recommended them. When Fraser sent out applications and requests for referrals this year, Darnell referred me, and I figured, Why not apply? I do have a fairly solid foundation in economics, as I obtained a B.Com and currently work in the accounting world in my day job. I thought the connections I could make within the journalism industry would be beneficial to me, as well as provide an opportunity to refine my ability to communicate these principles in a layman’s sense.
Jacobsen: What was your big takeaway from that conference as a final note on that?
Nicoloff: For me, my personal takeaway was really niche in regards to our work on the budget and teasing out the economic and political aspects of a government budget. In addition, the component on behavioural economics was beneficial because I have always had some pushback regarding the way terms were used in this area of economics. My understanding of behavioural economics was improved by being able to tease out some nuances by asking our leaders some very specific questions.
Jacobsen: Now, what was the original idea behind founding a podcast?
Nicoloff: The foundation, for me anyway, was just listening to the conversations guys like Joe Rogan were having and wanting to be involved. I have always been relatively willing to engage in debate and conversation. I probably sent a voice note half-jokingly to a couple of buddies, saying I wanted to create a podcast and call it something like “I Want to Argue With You.”
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Nicoloff: About two months later, Darnell asked me, “Do you want to do a podcast?” Instantly, I said, “Yes.” That was probably in April of 2017. Over the Summer of 2017, Darnell and I started planning it. We launched our first season in December 2017.
Jacobsen: How many episodes did you produce? What was the approximate frequency average over those years?
Nicoloff: Right now, we are sitting at 180 episodes. We have our final 7 to be published. Episode 181 will be coming out once we finish the production. We call the episode “The Beginning of the End.” Some of that stuff I talk about here will be in there. We will finish at about 187. In terms of frequency, our intention was to publish content with consistency, and so our approach was to release weekly episodes in a season. In Dec 2017, we released our first season and published 16 episodes, and then in season 2, it grew to 24 episodes. Then we released about 40 episodes per season for the next three years until 2022 when our 6th season got cut short at 20 episodes, which was the beginning of the end in that sense. Darnell had started the teaching profession and building a curriculum, which makes life exceptionally difficult. New teachers, the first couple of years, very little free time. We actually have a podcast episode where the topic of creating a curriculum was discussed – episode 153: Why Dystopian Literature is Important
Jacobsen: With The Six Cents Report as a podcast, what was the orientation around the use of theology and economics to look at events happening in Canadian society?
Nicoloff: For me, I am a little bit more trained in economics. Darnell is a little bit more formally trained in theology. I would say I am a backyard theologian. He is a backyard economist. So, we both brought a little bit of economics and theology. The idea was that we wanted to talk about ideas. So, we took issues that affect Canadians. Usually, we would take an article as a means of representing other points of view and just dig into particular issues and analyze them by applying our worldviews as well as economic principles. At the same time, I’m not trying to be exclusive. In this sense, if you don’t have the same beliefs or worldviews, the discussion may still be useful or valuable to you because we are attempting to engage in a manner that represents other views fairly.
Jacobsen: What episode was the most controversial?
Nicoloff: [Laughing] It is an interesting question. I’m sure Darnell would answer differently. We never got cancelled or people lambasting our takes or anything like that. In episode 75, we interviewed two people from another podcast called Teachers Like Us. It was around the time of a teachers’ strike in Ontario. The four of us were recording around Darnell’s kitchen table, and at about the 50-minute mark of the conversation, we got into the concept of white privilege and what that entails as a term and its usefulness, or lack thereof. There were two very different perspectives going head-to-head. In episode 181, Darnell tells the story about this episode, and he does a great job, so I’ll leave you with this….the episode ended up being 2 hours
https://www.sixcentsreport.com/e/teachers-like-us-strike-6cr-75/
Jacobsen: How far was the development of The Six Cents Report? Was there a backdrop where there was a lot of improvisational commentary at the time that was very well thought out coming out on both sides?
Nicoloff: We were, probably, right in the middle of it. I’ll find the episode number for you. We’d finished two seasons’ work. We were recording our third season. We were past 50 episodes. That was partly why we were able to find somebody who had their own perspective and had their own cone, to be able to engage us rather than just two guys with a couple of episodes.
It was a good back-and-forth, in my opinion. Darnell and I provided our analysis of the concept, and they articulated both their personal perspectives as well as their experiences in the classroom.
Jacobsen: When it comes to process, the construction of a single episode. How did you come up with the topics and then make that into proper watchable or listenable content for the audience?
Nicoloff: The manner in which we created an episode was largely the same every time. What differentiated us was how we talked about ideas. We really limited the number of episodes that were time-sensitive. While we have a couple of episodes on elections and our perspectives on party platforms or things like that, it would be very relevant to the election that is about to happen, whether an Ontario election or a federal election. For most episodes, we looked for an article as a launch point for a topic. If you look at Canada’s euthanasia laws and things like that, there are some significant ideas that underlie it. While we would use current articles to assist with representing other viewpoints fairly, we didn’t want the conversation to be dependent on that article or its recent publication. We wanted to have conversations that were “evergreen.”
We definitely wanted to avoid having episodes or conversations with the impetus of “Got to be the first one out. It has to be relevant to the headlines today.” We were really focused on using articles in the news today to have a more meaningful conversation that would stand the test of time. That might be a bit extra. With that said, I do think we created a lot of content that, if I showed it to my kids ten years from now, 15 years’ time, the ideas and perspectives in there would be a good starting point for a conversation with them.
With respect to the process of planning an episode,
Darnell, working with our producer, started to do time stamping. So, really setting a high-level template for episodes, largely, would be three bullet points, three questions, or three key aspects of the conversation. We would then to some extent, we would shift in between, but they wouldn’t be significant shifts. It really helped us stay on time, but also, our episodes were not edited for content. We edited for quality or any technological issues that may have shown up because those are inevitable, but we didn’t edit for content. We didn’t go, “Let’s ramble on this topic for an hour and a half and then cut it down to three minutes.” We could have been doing a live show all along in terms of the manner in which we did it. When we were planning an episode, whether it be from an article or a topic in general, e.g., euthanasia – in other words, the MAID program – in Canada, we would focus on three key ideas? This also gave us the ability to tell the audience what the episode is about at the start without necessarily knowing what each other was going to say. The standard for our episodes was to start with a little banter and then provide a preview of what the conversation was going to be. In some sense, do you want to stick around or not? I’ll know if I want to stick around for the third part or not. Most of the time, Darnell would prepare the time stamping a couple of days in advance of our planned recording session. It really helped us work well together because we both could prepare better. Asking ourselves, “Can I speak on all three of these things? If not, maybe I have a little more homework to do.”
Jacobsen: What about making sure the fidelity of the content is appropriate for the audience?
Nicoloff: Yes, so there is a level that we identify as our niche. Canadian economics and having a theological side to it. A lot of the time, I say morality instead of theology because it is more intuitive in terms of what I mean by that and more inviting to those with a different worldview. For any episode, we would try to hit two of the three. We were sort of a niche content. Let’s stay in our lane. By having a very economics or a very theological primary component to what we were doing, then just making sure it is relevant to Canadians in general because our audience wasn’t only Canadians; probably, 50% of our downloads come from the United States and other countries. We wanted to go into Canadian-centricpics.
Jacobsen: In terms of the actual product itself, I don’t mean the content of what was talked about, but the quality of the audio and the video, when you had video, for the podcast itself. How do you make sure that it is of sufficient quality for the audience?
Nicoloff: Yes, for Darnell and I, it is a matter of making sure that we have a good setup. That was both video and audio. Early on, our audio was recorded in a makeshift studio. We’d do recording sessions with our producer. Over time, we migrated over to an online platform. Can you get wired internet as opposed to wireless? Being aware of the technological requirements, I don’t need to go and spend $500 on a microphone, but I can’t get away with $20. So, finding that balance between funding this out of pocket – how much is the right dollar amount to spend? Just have the basic foundations to avoid technological pitfalls, in the sense that I know if someone’s audio sucks for the podcast, I’m going to turn it off. Prioritizing that, similarly, it is with video. Darnell makes a joke because of his skin colour. He has to have perfect lighting. I’m in a different dimension than myself, but I joke that I am so white I’m almost see-through. So, there is a level that I have to care about lighting, too. All of that. Where in my house am I recording? Generally, I record in the same place most of the time. I had a particular setup. I tried to get wired as opposed to wireless. The next level becomes the guest, just doing a little pre-emptive in communication. Ask about their technology setup and, in general, be proactive to minimize the amount of troubleshooting when it’s time to record.
Jacobsen: You mentioned self-funding. That’s an important concept in the media and journalistic landscape of the 2010s and the 2020s so far because of the reduction in finance and the reduction in jobs in the industry. With self-funding, these become passion projects. You’re making these calculations about how much you want to invest in the instruments for the trade, the podcasting. How do you make that balance between funding it appropriately and keeping the passion thriving for the project without having that pressure stop the project one year in rather than 5 or 6 years in?
Nicoloff: Yes, primarily, I think it came down to both Darnell and I valuing what we were doing rather than “this has to make money.” So, in my sense, I really valued the communication skills that I was continuing to develop in myself. This applies in other areas of life, from parents to even career. If I can continue to refine that skill, I will reap the benefits. I think the reason we continued as long as we did was because we both had benefits beyond just the product and hoped that it would be successful. There was an aspect of “I really want to keep doing this passion project.” Another aspect of that was being transparent/negotiating in some sense with our spouses to make sure, “Hey, this is what I need. What do you need?” It is a huge time commitment, too. There were times when my wife would take my kids to my parent’s house so I could record. My wife would make sure the kids aren’t running in the room that I am recording in. Different things play into really planning it and preparing to make sure that that commitment wasn’t wasted. Darnell is coming prepared. I am coming prepared, such that we know that we don’t want to waste each other’s time. The commitment from each other was important, too. Because, as Darnell came to a place where he was really burdened in time to continue, we were having conversations about it. I was aware of where he was at, such that I wasn’t getting disgruntled towards him. I understand where he is at; the other side of that financially is knowing what you want to spend. I could have easily built or almost built a podcast studio and spent a couple of thousand dollars on equipment. But would that be the right thing to do until I know that I will reap long-term benefits financially? I think our attitude was, “Sure, if we got there, we’ll spend the money. But right now, let’s spend what’s necessary to spend.” Microphones are a good example. Do your due diligence, do your homework, and find out what other people use; sure, could I have spent double what I have spent and increased sound quality by 10% or 20%? Sure. But that’s not a good return on my money. Not spending $20 and spending $100, you’re going to get a 500% increase in quality. It is setting a budget to some extent, knowing what that cost is going to be, being comfortable with it, and really planning that out. If we get to the next tier, then we will spend money on the next tier of equipment. You don’t have to do it all at once, in a sense, in terms of building out your technological solution. You can do it in stages as appropriate.
Jacobsen: Did any conversation happen around these funding platforms, crowdsourced funding platforms to help boost some of the projects?
Nicoloff: Yes, we looked at a couple. I used Podbean due to the technology, publishing, and hosting side of things. They had a – monetization option, but it required a significant increase in subscription in order to use it. So, we created a “buy me a coffee” page and . we had some support come through that. Re: ally, it was a question, like “If I went with the Podbean route, what would be the benefits? Maybe the spending will help my scale in the future, but it didn’t help today because I don’t know if I’ll get the benefit from the e-money extra.” Largely, I would say the monetization platforms don’t necessarily help you grow. They help you when you grow into the appropriate stage. For most podcasts, I have heard a statistic that 95% of podcasts get under 200 downloads per episode. We were pushing that 200 downloads per episode threshold. We had quite a few episodes that exceeded that threshold. I recall a podcaster saying it wasn’t. Their podcast reached 20,000 downloads per episode; monetization opportunities really presented themselves. That was through a partnership or various options that would exist on a medium that has an audience of substance. So, I was very in tune with those kinds of things and aware of what was best for what we want to be; let’s spend money for where we are and use platforms like “buy me a coffee to cultivate” more engagement from the audience that we already have and look to the quality of our product to continue to grow our audience.
Jacobsen: What would you consider something difficult to overcome in the midst of developing a podcast? Also, and potentially associated, what was something you wish you knew in your first year that you learned near the end?
Nicoloff: Something difficult to overcome was really the coordination. At the end of the day, early on, it was coordinating three people because our producer would largely be involved while recording. We did grow out of that. In that, I basically would do the production side while recording – a little bit of multitasking is involved there. Really, it was the coordination of schedules. Coordinating with two people and with three people, you might ask the question, “Why not do the podcast alone?” I would say that Darnell and I doing our podcast together is something I value greatly; I don’t know if I would ever want to do a podcast by myself. I have a couple of friends who do podcasts by themselves. The workload is substantial, from recording to publishing and promoting. There’s so much to worry about – the technological side of it with the equipment, recording, producing, publishing, and then the social media side of it. Not to mention the actual creation and continuous cultivation of content. There’s also the marketing of an episode or any graphical representation if you’re going to do a different graphic for every episode. There’s a lot involved.
In terms of what I wish I had learned earlier, it was probably how easy I could do the producing side of recording the podcast on video; we use a platform called Restream. The first couple of episodes, we did with our producer, and then he taught me. Then I ran with it. I would have liked to go to the video a little sooner. I think I am just learning how that side of a video podcast works. If I had known that, we probably would have started at episode 100 instead of 160.
Jacobsen: What would you make for your recommendation for individuals looking to start a podcast, whether it is straight audio or has an audiovisual component?
Nicoloff: I think this is one of the best pieces of advice that I came across, which I recommend to everybody. This is once you’ve made the decision to publish or to create a podcast: Launch with more than one episode. The day we launched, we had five episodes published. The rationale there was that your audience would want more after one episode. So, by having a mini-catalogue available, or let’s say you publish one a day for the first five days, even though you move to a weekly or a monthly schedule, something that gives your audience enough basis to say, “I want to subscribe.” Or they can really gain an understanding of what you’re producing and if they want to follow you; from planning or a “should I do this?” side of things, I would say, “Try.” Maybe even do a practice episode, or, in our case, Darnell and I planned a number of episodes out in such a way that, Arguably, we did a mini-podcast while we were thinking if this episode would be a good episode. “What would you talk about? What would I talk about? Early on, Darnell and I would almost always have a pre-recorded conversation so that we would understand what each other would bring to the table. Later on, we didn’t need to do that because we knew, for the most part, on any given topic what type of bent or what aspect of the conversation the other person would specialize in, if you want to call it that. I think, in this sense, if you look at the multitude of options, are you doing a podcast where you are by yourself, where it is your musings, your attitude, and your thoughts that will draw people in? That’s a very different thing from a conversation or interview. I think it’s really important to narrow down the type of content that you’re going to do. I should say the medium in some sense of what you want to do with that podcast: audio, interview. Our podcast, we knew what our niche was. I’m not saying you couldn’t change, but know what lane you’re going to be in. Largely, you want to sort those things out first; your ability to launch something that has longevity will be much greater than if you say, “I am going to start recording. I’m going to put it up on YouTube. I barely have a name. I barely have a logo.” For example, take a look at pictures on our website and the images on iTunes or any podcast catcher. Before we even launched our episode, we spent money to have a photographer take pictures. Because, again, we wanted a full package, “Here is what we are doing.” Doing a little bit of prep work to launch well is really important in order to have longevity. Of course, if you’re Jordan Peterson and already have a million viewers because you stirred up the world, you can do what you want, and people will just tune in, but that’s not true for most of us.
Jacobsen: Even with The Six Cents Report closing down or finishing up, do you have any hopes or dreams, or plans, or reboot at some point in the future with another podcast or the same podcast, or something with a similar nature and just production with audio content or audiovisual content talking about finance or theology, whatever it may be?
Nicoloff:. The idea for Darnell and I was, at this point in our lives and careers, that continuing to publish a weekly podcast was not possible. We wanted to close out well. Currently, episodes 175 to 180, we sort of just finished and fell off. I think of the last five episodes. 3 or 4 of them, I was interviewing people by myself due to scheduling difficulties. For these episodes, we brought back past guests and covered topics that made sense for me to do on my own. It wasn’t like we were totally going sideways with what we were doing. But we didn’t like the way it finished. So, we wanted to finish well, such that if we never recorded again, we gave our audience an appropriate farewell. I say that to say that, to some extent, we don’t know if we will ever do something again. Because we are not in a place to move there together, at least.
For myself, I think that the passion behind why I created the podcast hasn’t gone away. What avenue that passion comes through, I don’t really know. I do have a desire to do something. But it could be very different. Within my career, I actually work with a lot of charities and non-profits. So, I see a high value in the leaders of those organizations understanding economics. There is a potential that I try to cultivate something, like a talk. As an idea, I have been brainstorming in my head the idea of a talk or presentation titled: Why pastors should understand economics. I know I still have a passion for continuing to engage ideas. On the podcast, I’ve said many times, “I despise politics, but I really am interested in the ideas that underlie politics.” That’s still true. I know, for me, there’s some desire to do something. But I really haven’t figured out what that would be.
Jacobsen: Joel, any final thoughts on the conversation today?
Nicoloff: I touched on this a bit before about the various aspects of what we do, but our longevity was really because we all took a role. Our producer was a friend of ours who had a lot of radio experience. We leveraged as much of his knowledge and experience as we could. I took responsibility for the technical side of the publishing. And deciding what platforms to use. Podbean was the platform I chose for hosting and publishing each episode. Alternatively, I could have gone with Anchor, which was free, but you couldn’t do a show notes page. I knew we needed to have show notes for the type of content we were doing. Many of my perspectives were likely going to be new for listeners, so we wanted to provide support for these ideas.
Darnell took the lead on cultivating the episodes and was fully responsible for social media and episode promotion. When it came to producing, we knew we needed to pay a producer or have the producer on our team. I think that was so fundamental for us to not be burned out by this project.
We all had a role to play in different areas. Lots of hands make heavy work a lot easier. Unless you are exceptionally gifted in video-audio editing and graphic design and you’re technologically competent on some level of how podcasting works, RSS feeds, and so on. You might struggle.
Jacobsen: Joel, thank you very much for your time today to talk about the construction of a podcast.
Nicoloff: I’m glad I could help. I look forward to the magic of what you do in turning it into something else.
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