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Hello and welcome to Simplified. This is actually not an episode as such, right? This is three of us having a nice long conversation at a podcasting live. Yeah, that happened a couple of weeks ago.
Yeah, a couple of weeks ago, and about how we entered podcasting, how it changed us as people, how it changed us as, how we evolved as podcasters. Yeah, so the genesis behind this, when we were asked to come up to our podcasting event and talk, would the Simplified guys like to come and talk about something? We're like, hey, what happened? Was nobody else available, but we jumped at the opportunity.
So the three of us, me, Chuck, Naren, whose dulcet voice you just heard, and Tony, had gone down. And I think at the last minute, we decided that, hey, since this is going to be a 2022 year-end sort of thing, let's talk about content creation in general, rather than just talking about podcasts. And really, I think one of the aims that we had in the session was to kind of encourage everyone in the audience, and now, of course, the listeners of the show. If you have a content idea, just go for it.
I think that was one of the things that we wanted to say, because if the three of us, the four of us could bring it for so long, anyone could. And you do get better at it over a period of time. You know, there is a curve, it's steep at the beginning, and it sort of, you know, becomes much, much better as time goes on. And then you experience the joy of creating something.
Yeah, absolutely. And once in a while, and then maybe seven years later, you will be invited to a live recording as well. But enough of this intro was supposed to be damn short. Let us cut right into the chat that the three of us had.
That's again me, Chuck, Naren, and Tony, you'll hear us. And we will see you back at the end of this episode then. So enjoy this live-ish episode of Simplified. Hey, guys.
Hello and welcome to yet another episode. How many guys actually listen to Simplified over here or know what we are? It's okay. Especially the guys who we came to need to.
You can lie. Especially you can tell lies. There are two hands, which is like half the host panel of Simplified. Which is pretty much what we used to anyway.
So anyway, guys, welcome to this, whatever this is going to be. Simplified is a small show where four friends just get together and talk about random things and have a blast doing it and often forget that the record button is on. Yeah, and I'm Chuck. This is Naren.
This is Tony. And that is Shrikev pointing the general direction of Bangalore. He's not here today. And yeah, Naren, we can't do something for this.
Okay, let's simplify content creation. Actually, probably, yes, by now, simplification is just taking something serious and breaking it down to its simplest words, basically, lines that we can understand. And yeah, we just hope to make a few jokes and pieces of references along the way. Yeah, I think the host mentioned that, you know, Amit, obviously, like, legend in podcasting.
And he basically said, oh, you guys are perfect for this, which is what, telling people that anyone can start a podcast. Like, if these guys have run for, like, 300 episodes, like, why aren't you getting on with your podcast? Like, that's basically the spiel that we've got. Yeah, I mastered the art of looking wise.
And after we started Simplify, I mastered the art of sounding wise. So that's all. So you don't actually have to be wise or anything. You just have to look wise and sound wise.
And that is, I think, how most of our great leaders also make their mark, right? So, yeah. So, we actually simplify content creation. It's a good time to be doing something like that.
A lot of you might have thought, okay, can I start a podcast or can I start a newsletter or can I start X content creation project? And because it's around that time of the year as well, we're kind of making resolutions plans and all that. So we thought that would be a good thing to do. And why you should turn to us for inspiration is if the three of us, can do this, then I think anyone actually can.
So, yeah. Narayan, why don't you recount how we started Simplify back in the day? Back in 2015, when podcasting was still sort of like a... When OnePlus was in one, right?
OnePlus One. Yeah. I bought that for Simplify, by the way. Our first episode, our first episode was about the Greek economic crisis, ladies and gentlemen.
An episode, which was titled... This is my surprise. Surprise being... Never mind.
These are the kind of jokes that make it to Simplify. In about 30 seconds, we realized we really had no idea what was going on. So we started making a lot of fun jokes and... I don't know about fun, but jokes.
Yeah, jokes. Along the way, we figured out a few things. We realized that we were better without a script than with it. Case in point.
I don't know whether this could be better. Yeah. I think it's fair wanting to the audience. You're looking at peak performance because...
It may not look like it, but this is what peak performance of Simplify looks like. Yeah. Along the way, Shrikit and Tony joined the elite Simplified panel. Each of them bringing with them a unique set of skills to augment what Narayan and I already brought to the organizational people.
And yeah, it's been a blast ever since. I think we just... I think we learn a lot every time we do an episode. We learn about something.
We learn about each other a lot. And like I said, sometimes we just forget that the record button is on and we just have a lot of fun doing it. I think that is my number one... I don't know if we can call this a tip, but just have fun doing content.
If you are going to start off by saying, hey, I want to become the number one podcast in India or I want to make a lot of money out of it or whatever, I think you might be starting off on the wrong front. No, I think one of the things that we do as a podcast is still as a short. We actually have a fairly loyal fan base. So if you're starting out in podcasting, the only thing that we will say is that I don't think Chak and Narayan ditch the script before we go well into the podcasting space.
And you need to find your comfort with a co-host, with someone else who will probably back it up for you. It's always great to have a collaborator for two reasons. One is that you can bounce ideas of each other. But the other and more important thing is that it's a brilliant commitment device.
If you have a New Year resolution of sorts, you will realize that actually, like Pine who's sitting in the front row told us this, there's something called a fatty salts, which is basically when on... Anyone remember Foursquare? What a great time to be alive that was. So on Foursquare, they saw that the check-ins to gymnasiums and McDonald's sort of intersected around February 11th, right?
After which McD took over, right? And Jim just went down. And we all know that we make the same resolution every year and we fail to keep it. It is simply because there is no commitment device, right?
And having a collaborator, I think, is a great commitment device. Yeah, and I think one of the things I realized is the collaborator doesn't need to be somebody who has the exact same skills as you do. In fact, it's ideally somebody that's opposite. So if you are great at, say, storytelling, having somebody else who's a, I don't know, like a photographer or something might be a great compliment to your skills.
And this is not just for podcasts, but for newsletters or anything else. So yeah, that would be tip number two. I think tip number three would be don't try to find the exact... Don't try to find your perfect episode.
You know, number one. Don't wait for that perfect... Like, I hate the man with the vengeance, but one good thing Mark Zuckerberg has said is if you ship the perfect product, you'll probably wait too long. And I think that's true of content as well.
Don't try to have episode one or newsletter edition number one as a perfect thing I hope he doesn't use that strategy for his spaceship launches, but otherwise it's good. And there's another, so one of our sacred sort of canon Bible kind of thing is yes minister and yes minister. So in one of those episodes, Humphrey is aghast because Bernard has been telling people things. And so Humphrey is telling him, you know, Bernard, what will happen if people start talking about things?
He says, what? Eventually they start thinking about them. So this is what happens in podcasts. When you actually talk in yourself, as a podcast creator, in myself at least, it sets off a chain of, you really start thinking about things, you discover layers about yourself and other people and things that you didn't suspect exist.
Yeah, we now have a rule among three of us. Whenever an interesting conversation starts, we always stop each other like, save this, say whatever you're saying. Yeah, pretty much actually. I mean, it's fun to catch up with friends.
The best way to do it is build a podcast. Yeah, why don't you talk about? No, I mean, the audience for all practical purposes is invisible, right? So it takes away that barrier.
I mean, I can only do this because I'm picturing all of you in your underwear right now. So like no pressure. But otherwise, like the podcast gives you a perfect sort of mode for you to shut out the audience and just listen to your friend and do it. And like just building on what you said about like never being too precious with your content.
One thing that you've realized is like the episodes that we've prepped for the most and thought would be like super hits have never really done great. And then there'll be this random episode where we're like, okay, let's ditch this topic. And like apparently because he's like older in age than we are, he can no longer eat ice cream. You know, the wages of a lot of sin and I was told that I couldn't eat ice cream.
And as destiny would have it, I decided to do a contest on ice cream. All that pain came out. World being what it is, instead of laughing at all my, sympathizing all the pain, they started laughing at it, which made it a very good contest episode. But that's the thing, right?
So flow, flow is important. You just, it's an acquired skill. You start talking. You're very wooden in the beginning.
And after some time, it. Yeah, I think the nicest thing somebody said about our show was it just sounds like I'm eavesdropping in a conversation of four friends just having fun drinking beer in a bar or something. And I think, I mean, that makes us very happy if people think of us that, if people think of us that, honestly, when I started this, what, five, seven, eight years ago, whenever it was, we never thought that this would actually go somewhere. It was just, again, just an outlet for the two of us and say, okay, let's see what, and look where we are now, talking about podcasting in a five-star hotel.
Yeah. No, but I think like one of the things is that what we've already mentioned is don't be too precious about your content because like the only thing that can happen is no one pays attention to it if you can't hold their attention, right? Like it doesn't matter. No one's going to boo you.
No one's going to come up to you and say, hey, aren't you that guy who, you know, made that terrible podcast? People just don't care. So do whatever it is that you want. In fact, I would say if you reach the level where somebody has heckled you that way, there are probably 50 others who probably thank you saying what a great show you guys are.
Yeah, actually, yeah. And the other thing that people normally get stuck with is that they say, you know, you have to find your voice and stuff like that. I have a six-year-old daughter. The only thing she told me is, dad, please use your big boy voice when you go to record a podcast, right?
Because when I get excited, I apparently get very shrill, which is probably going to happen now. But on the podcast, like I have this like very subtle voice, like, you know, the sexy uncle who you can't see, who probably has gray hair, something like that. But like, you know, finding your voice is overrated. Just go for it and put yourself out there, right?
So just to wrap it up, don't be too precious about your content. But I would say be very conscious about your process, right? So the other thing that we've done, Chath and me had run a newsletter for 200 weeks, which we didn't stop because our fans wanted us to, but like just because we wanted to do different things. And to be honest, the thing that I think we're most proud about is the jokes that we edited out of that particular thing, right?
And after a while, it was like your own editorial voice. You knew that I wouldn't cover this particular news item or make this joke. And it becomes sort of like muscle memory. Yeah, it becomes muscle memory.
One cool thing to do is if you take any of your favorite content creators, right? It could be Simplified, it could be Amitwar Mas, the Seen and the Unseen, it could be absolutely anything, a YouTube channel, Instagram account. Go right back and see the first piece of content that they put out. You'll see it's super different from what they are right now.
Like Amit's show is a great case in point, the Seen and the Unseen, probably one of the best known shows in India right now. Also the origin story. The origin story, yeah, Simplified had a role to play in Seen and the Unseen, but that's another talk show for another day. Hey, this is the non-live Chath and Nareen back again to say that, hey, we're going to take a little bit of a break.
We didn't get a break when we were talking in the live episode, but we will take one now. So we're going to do that right now. It feels like everyone's talking about two things right now, pickleball and podcast. So what happens when someone who's lived her whole life on the board decides to bring those two girls together?
I'm Sanya Mirzam and I'm bringing you a brand new podcast, Serving It Up with Sanya. I've had some incredible conversations with friends, fellow athletes, artists and entrepreneurs. Each episode starts with a game of pickleball and once the rallies are done, the real talk begins. Serving It Up with Sanya, watch and listen on YouTube and wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
Namaste, sasya kaal, good morning, evening, afternoon. My podcast is Cyrus Says, where no guest, no topic and no filter is safe from Father Broca. That's me, Monday to Friday, Saturday, Sunday and we love kids. We chat with celebs you'll never meet, traffic jams on the streets and people from all professions.
Every Monday, I go live with the show, ask me anything AMA. Before the questions, I got a better than a Mumbai rich app driver. I even host a panel discussion called Cock and Bull, where we dive into current affairs and wonder why anyone even cares at all. And Friday releases are always surprise episodes for you all.
So tune in to Cyrus Fairs on YouTube and all audio streaming platforms. And welcome back. That was a little break and on to the My Wish show. Hope you enjoyed.
If you listened to the earlier episodes, they're all like 20, 30 minutes. Namaste is still kind of trying to find his voice, both in like, as in like, what are the kind of questions to ask and all that. And by about episode 50, he's kind of found it and he's also comfortable expanding the 20 minutes to an hour. And of course, today, he's one of the best known that sales of authority kind of comes out and of course, the show's very frequently tip five hours in length.
So he's kind of found his niche kind of, it's, I mean, very honestly, you know, it still surprises us when people say that they listen to the show as much as they do. We were given a very pleasant surprise on Spotify. It happened recently and we were like, oh, wow, that's, that many people actually like the show, listen to the show and it's the number one show. And only on that particular platform, which like, nothing even hold a candle to Amazon Music.
So like, you know, like, so many more people listen to us anyway, right? But, well done. Don't do it heck of me for the audience, right? Good save.
But yeah, that's basically what I'm trying to say is if you have a content creation idea or if you ever thought, hey, can I do this? Just start. Just start really. Don't worry about what people are going to think.
Don't worry about, are you ready for it? Don't worry about, you know, whether you're going to make money or become famous. It doesn't matter. Take out some time from your week.
Just start. It could be a podcast. It could be a newsletter. It could be a private Instagram account of your doodles for all your matter.
And when you're ready to release it to the world, it could be just stuff that you write on post-it notes and leave for yourself. Whatever the case may be, at the end of 60 days, you look back and say, oh, wow, there's 60 more post-it notes and random messages on them when I started. Then something will happen as a result of that. I think that's pretty much it.
Yeah, and I think the other thing that happens is over the course of producing enough content, you find that you've changed as a person. I don't know if any of you subscribe to the Ken and the Nadgav, which is PGK's take on some things that happen. And we found a link in that where he basically said, after a year, so it takes about 52 weeks, but he writes it on a Friday night and being in Vancouver, you can imagine how much of a difficulty it is to get out on a Friday night. So he changed that into channeling a newsletter.
And he basically said for the first 20 weeks, he'd be completely paralyzed thinking, what am I going to write next week? And it would take me an entire week to do that. And we sort of resonate with that, right? And like, but towards week 40 or so, and like probably as you get into it more and more, it just flows naturally around, I would say week 40, right?
So if you are going to start with something, whether it's a newsletter, whether it's podcast, whatever it is, don't look at the metrics for the first 40 weeks, right? Don't look at your Spotify after the first year. It is probably likely that no one... Yeah, it's like something that's easier.
But yeah, and you will find that after a while, you just get into that flow state where it's much easier to do it. And I think the, I think most podcasts, you know, as a content consultant, don't make it to an episode two. Yeah, this is nice. So around 90 to 95% of podcasts don't have a second or third episode, which I think is a fascinating, fascinating stat.
And just like, just kind of like underscoring Tony's point over here. I once asked Amit Amit Verma again, like, what is like, if you had one tip or one takeaway for a potential content creator apart from just start, what would it be? And he said something very nice. He said at the end of six months, if you want, if you haven't either learned something new or if you haven't enjoyed it, that is the time that you should stop.
that's pretty sound advice I think we are 300 episodes almost and I have a blast every time we record it also I am contractually obligated to say to the two of you it's a blood pact so our pact was if we get to 30 and neither of us have made it big in content creation we're going to start a podcast with each other and basically that's how we got it yeah that's how we got it yeah I think the idea there was it was basically during the pandemic and the only way you could there was this very active WhatsApp group of cricket lovers that we had and I was like listen it would be so much better if I could talk to these people because anyway we're not going out we're not doing anything that we've become much closer friends and this is like transcontinently in its truest nature one person is in Switzerland one person is in Australia one person is in Bangalore and now we're very very close friends and in fact the last episode that we did is with a podcast just called the Pakistan Cricket Podcast and we had a panel which was 50% India and 50% Pakistan and we called it the India-Pakistan Cricket Podcast probably in the history of content creation never has there been equal representation we're not chest bashing saying my country is the greatest it's about shared trauma from the defeat because India-Pakistan whenever the match is scheduled three days before you're in the zone you go through a variety of emotions but never you get to reconcile with the other side because all of your friends are probably like people you know but like this happened purely because we thought yeah why not yeah and to me as an outsider and semi-quicket fan to be listening to that that show has found a voice and many of the things that we spoke about and are proud of Simplified like we have like a certain way we start which is the running joke for Simplified is our producers have always please introduce the show before you guys start rambling and the running joke on Simplified is we still don't know how to start the show for 300 episodes we have like welcome to Simplified which is something something something sometimes we forget that and just jump right into the episode so that's like anything which Nareen will do for this episode there are certain jokes along the way which only people who listen to the show for a while will get shout out to anyone who wants a microwave from Micronesia again these are all just such in jokes and the same thing I see for Tony Scho and a lot of others very fans of the Bugle podcast for instance one of our greatest inspirations Andy Hotsman and once John Oliver and our rotating caster of comedians you will find your voice along the way you will find these little things that you do if anyone's listened to the scene and the unseen you know two years back I did this random joke thread on Twitter where I made puns on various things associated with the scene and the unseen which could be amid certain tics or questions that you ask all the time I had a dream yeah I had a dream those kind of things and I thought 10 people would get it because you know whatever it's a podcast it's a 5 hour episode and I got like some 200 tweets just on that thread and so many people resonated with the point I'm trying to make if you have a voice the sharper your audience it doesn't matter whether it's in fact I would say the sharper your audience the more they will resonate with you so yeah don't go too broad with your content I think people are looking for hey that show will give me this or this Instagram account makes me feel nice and happy or that photographer's output makes me feel just like how you might listen to a certain band when you're in a certain state of mind I think the same way with respect to content so yeah and I think marrying some of the points that we mentioned earlier like don't hesitate to get started but at the same time like Quentin Tarantino has said that all of what he does is inspired and same goes for content creation so remember when Chuck pitched the newsletter to me saying shall we do this the bugle but as a newsletter I'm like yes let's do it Chuck your other great podcast The Origin of Things so a quick plug for another show that I do I do a short format podcast where I basically talk about the origin stories of various bands this season I'm doing songs and music but it's a dramatized story and I reveal the name of the brand only at the end so it's a nice guessing game for the listeners what are they talking about and for me the challenge as a writer is always to let's just say challenge as a writer I always want to say that in a fan so for me the challenge as a script writer is how do I keep the person's mind over here while I want to put them over here so at the end like one spoiler I'll give you the brand was visually and I kept okay they should not think that it's a mineral water brand so I kept saying drink so that people would keep thinking monkey shoulder and the inspiration for that was very much a podcast called the way I heard it by a podcaster called Mike Rowe from the US and he did that exact same thing but for people and I thought hey that's a great idea and let's do it for brands so I think a lot of content creation projects really start out that way even if you speak to Amit Warna he will say yeah it's not like the scene on the unseen was the only original idea who was that who once said everything I do was built on the shoulders of giants so many years ago I mean the same thing holds true if not more even now even if you think of a super original band like the Beatles they will be up front that 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 you know my inspirations so yeah don't be afraid to get inspired by and put your own remix on top of this it's like Michael Scott saying you miss 99% of the shots you don't take hyphen Wayne Bresky hyphen Michael Scott and he's quoting a quote I mean the originality will at the end of the day come from your voice as you build the show so if by all means what it lets you get started is borrowing from something that's already been done by all means wouldn't it be interesting if we did this with this I think that's a great formula for you for 2023 good luck with your content creation efforts have a great year people are taking down notes people are taking down notes so now you know what to do we always end our show which stays something simplified so that was it that was us talking about our experiences and our learnings and how we you know how the whole experience changed us a little bit and I hope all of you found it I had a blast I don't know I had an absolute veil of a time it's also kind of interesting right like just like when you and I started this like what seven years or something ago I don't think we ever thought that this would have happened someday I mean it's not like and it was so different I mean it's laughable we wrote scripts we read out and then we had tough written the margin of the scripts and we would often times get so engrossed with each other's content of each other but one thing what we just said right now I think this is true of anybody who has ever created content not just in the digital age so many musicians some of my favorite bands have said in interviews that when we pick up the guitar at the age of 15-16 we didn't think that we'd be playing you have those dreams yes but you don't realistically think that they're going to happen I think in all those cases what ended up happening was there's a little bit of talent yes a little bit of luck also obviously but I think just a lot of hard work and consistency even if you take like you know heavy metal bands that you won't think these are like hard workers in the conventional sense these guys work their asses out to get to the same thing for the same thing for writers the same thing for so stay safe stay creative and stay simplified guys and see you next year