Module 3 Week 2

Module 3, Week 2

It has become obvious to me throughout my progression of the course that my venture needs a business team. With this blog post, I’ve decided to look at who I currently have in my business team. In addition, I will discuss who else I would like to add to my team to make it a “perfect” team.

For this podcast venture, I will need a three or four partners.  Specifically, the partners I pick will need to share my vision and determination of promoting small “independent” comic books as well as writers of fiction who are looking for a different way of getting their work out into the world through an oral format. The three partners that I have already chosen fit the criteria nicely.

My Partners:

Scott and April: Owners of “A Hero’s Legacy”: Without the “Independent Rack” section of their store, I would not be able to have easy access to the kinds of comics I want to discuss on the podcast. In addition, to sharing my vision and determination of introducing readers to books not published by DC or Marvel, they inspire me to broaden my horizons as a comic book reader in regards to the kinds of stories I read, the characters and fictional worlds they interact in.

Stacey: Much like Scott and April, Stacey’s creative writing skills and the story she has produced through those skills has inspired me to broaden my horizons as a reader of fiction in general through the story she has written. Plus, her confidence in her skills as a writer to put her story in a public forum where people can listen to it and critique it; (like my podcast) provides another source of inspiration for me to take my thoughts about the comics I am reading and share them with my listeners as opposed to keeping them to myself or sharing only with close friends.

If I had my way and could make a “perfect” team, one other person I’d bring into the fold is Aubrey Sitterson. His sword and sorcery serial I listen to called “Skald” was the main inspiration for why I decided to have this podcast focus on oral storytelling in addition to comic books. Speaking of comic books, Aubrey is a published comic book writer. His most recent work for IDW publishing; “Street Fighter Vs G.I. Joe” is a series I read regularly and enjoy very much. His knowledge of working in the comic industry would make a great interview topic for a future episode of my podcast if I could get him on. It would help listeners who are creative writers with getting advice about crafting characters/worlds, how to keep the story arc flowing smoothly, ways of getting their work more visibility and published.

http://skald.podomatic.com/ (This link takes you to the “Skald” podcast I mentioned. Here, listeners can jump right into the latest installment, or go back and listen to previous episodes. It will hopefully give my fellow classmates some things to comment on as to what to do, and what not to do in trying to make an enjoyable audio experience that they would listen to weekly.)

Module 3 Week 1

Module 3; Week 1

I decided to write this blog post about a podcast I listened to called “Startup School Radio”. The episode I listened to was an interview with Weebly founder David Rusenko. Below are my three takeaways from this podcast: 

Two of the hardest problems an entrepreneur faces are building a team and product market fit.

This is a challenge that I can relate to during my progression of this course, specifically, when it came to building my team. It was not difficult to find comic book readers/fans to bring onto the team to have as guests/co-hosts, what was difficult are finding comic book readers who read stuff outside of DC and Marvel. I spoke with lots of great people who are comic book fans only to find out that they only read stuff from DC and/or Marvel. As a result, I did not bring them onto my team because reading/discussing non-mainstream comics is what I will do to stand out from the other comic book podcasts that already discuss DC and Marvel comics. Another issue I faced when talking with these individuals was that some were only a fan of one company or the other; (If they were a DC fan, they only read DC Comics. If they were a Marvel fan, they only read Marvel comics.) This mindset of “brand loyalty” in comics is something I have never agreed with. I the reason why I disagree with this mindset is it limits a reader’s horizons since they are only reading stuff from one company and never giving any other comics/comic publishers a chance. This prevents the reader from discovering new characters/teams to invest in emotionally and new storylines to follow. My conversations with these individuals also followed a similar pattern when I asked how they got into comics. The majority of people I spoke to had begun reading comics only after watching certain comic book based movies. An example of this is an individual who began reading Batman comic books, but only after watching the “Dark Knight Trilogy” (“Batman Begins”, “The Dark Knight” and “The Dark Knight Rises”) or, someone reading comics about the “X-Men” or “the Avengers”, but only after seeing movies based off these characters. 

While getting feedback on your product is critical to making sure you are solving the customer’s problems, if you let customer feedback dictate every move you make in developing your product/service, you’ll stray from your original vision and the end product may not be something you and your target customer like.

I found this surprising. The reason why I say this is that I have always heard the old tag line; “The customer is always right.” As a provider of a product, (a podcast) I need to “listen to the audience” and adjust my product according to what the listeners are telling me after hearing my podcast. However, this interview has taught me that I should know what the podcast is going into the launch so that I stay true to my original vision and try not to let every bit of feedback affect the podcast. This is why I think working on the business model canvas as much as I did was necessary. The canvas helped me layout/organize my vision for what the podcast will be going into the launch on “Free Comic Book Day” and I can take feedback from listeners and see if it helps improve any of the blocks on my canvas. What I also fond surprising is David’s comment about only needing feedback from 3 to 5 people. An example for my venture would be to get 3 to 5 people to listen to an episode of my podcast on “Free Comic Book Day” and get feedback from their comments but also their facial expressions when they listen to the show. Is the listener smiling/laughing because they are enjoying the content? Are they expressing a more focused expression because they are having a difficult time hearing what my co-host(s) and I are saying indicating issues with sound quality? 

Contrary to what many people think, people actually want to pay for stuff. The question becomes how you “fairly” price your product/service. Do you do “Freemium” or a “Pay to Play/Listen” system?

I had originally developed in my “Plan of Attack” a one-hour format of a single episode of my podcast. However, after listening to this interview I think that a better change would be to take this one hour format and break it into two (roughly) thirty-minute podcasts. This would combine aspects of both the “Freemium” and “Pay to Play/Listen” methods. To elaborate, the comic book discussion on a single issue or trade paperback would always be free. Since it is ultimately an opinion piece, (much like a review in an on-line newspaper or column on a website, but delivered in an oral format.) The other part of my podcast in which I read stories written by other people on-air would be free at first, but after a set “trial period”, the user would then have to pay to continue listening to the story. The idea is the listener becomes engaged and emotionally invested in the character(s) when I am reading the story that the “What happens next?” feeling is strong enough to where they would be willing to pay to hear the next installment. The hope extends to my friend Stacey and anyone else I bring onto my in the future who writes fiction. The hope is that they will push themselves as a writer and experiment with new writing styles, introduce new characters, plot twists etc. to up the quality level of this part of my podcast that in turn makes the listener want to continue paying for this product.