033: Srini Rao of BlogcastFM | How to Turn Fans and Followers into a Small Army

Like so many in his generation, Srinivas "Srini" Rao graduated into a horrible job market. Except unlike many, he did it twice. The first time was after college. Rao graduated from UC Berkeley, finishing up school in 2000 just as the dot-com-fueled Bay Area economy was crumbling. The second time Rao graduated into a recession was after business school, which he graduated from in 2009. Not surprisingly, he suffered his way through a few years of working for various dot-com and startups that either failed or were acquired, leaving him out of a job. Rao's experiences led him to believe — quite understandably — that the corporate world would never be as secure and reliable as being an entrepreneur and finding a way to support himself based on his own skills and resources. Today, Rao is the founder of BlogcastFM, a podcast and site which started out focused on blogging, and branched out into focusing on other areas such as entrepreneurship, personal development, public speaking, surfing (Rao's personal passion) and writing. This side project quickly turned into a major source of business for Rao and it has allowed him to avoid working any of the dreaded "corporate jobs" he vowed to avoid. I've been listening to BlogcastFM since the early days (around 2010), and so when I saw Srini Rao was coming out with a new book (The Small Army Strategy), I thought it was a great opportunity to engage him in a longer discussion on the podcast.