#How the Breakeven Brothers podcast came to be

My brother Bennett and I grew up close together: we enjoyed video games, sports, music, and so much more as kids. As we've grown older into our late twenties and early thirties, we are in similar circles on "Tech Twitter" and discuss the latest happenings about AI, technology, coding, business, and finance with each other. The Bernard family is always learning, growing, and wanting to build businesses, and part of that is putting yourself out there and being a human in the sea of the world wide web.

Ben and I chatted about it casually for a few months prior, "Wouldn't it be cool if we started a podcast?!" My first thought was of course, but I'm not sure what I can talk about nor would anyone really want to listen to me or him? We weren't known in any communities but we do have expertise in our career fields, but aren't the go to person for any specific specialization. Podcasts were hot around this time, software was being built, lots of new podcasts were coming online, it seemed like the thing to do.

So, how did we get there, finally? Like all great things, we just gave it a shot! We discussed purchasing decent equipment, since after all, a great microphone, crispy camera, and opportune lighting set up really shines through, especially since we went for a video podcast as well as audio. Once we got our equipment in, we set up our podcast tooling and websites: Transistor.fm for our podcast hosting and Riverside.fm for our podcast recording and editing suite.

#Hitting record on our first episode

Now that we have the "things" needed to have a decent looking podcast, what should we talk about? How do we define ourselves, what should I act like online, in front of the internet? Like any new endeavor, you are given an opportunity to define yourself to an audience... I had thought, should I be the iOS guy? The PHP guy? The Laravel guy? The Big Tech guy? Which persona would get the most viewership and why?!

However, as I quickly realized, putting on a different character hat for over an hour is really challenging and exhausting. In the podcast business, posting on a regular consistent schedule is key (yes I know, we are working on it...) and that means you are routinely recording an episode every week / every two weeks. Imagine the amount of effort to consistently be "something" else on camera, no thanks! I decided to bring my whole self. If that was boring, so be it! I didn't want to pigeon hole myself into acting a certain way since people might like it.

Was I nervous to record episode one? Absolutely! We had a talking points doc for episode 1 to discuss our family background... pretty easy topic for a new podcast. As we hit record on Riverside, it just flowed so naturally. If you think about it, I've talked to my brother for over 20+ years, so I know how he acts, reacts, and what he likes / doesn't like. That experience gives me the comfortability to be myself and for him to be himself, and we can bounce ideas off each other and riff until we get our points across. Our 1 hour 10 minutes podcast episode felt like 15 minutes. The best part is we had fun with it, it wasn't a drain, it wasn't fake, it was just us, being us, take it or leave it. I know we both aren't natural entertainers, nor extremely graceful and well spoken on the mic, but we do our best and talk about things we'd want to listen to and we try to share advice and stories to help others.

#Feedback and looking forward

We sent our first episode to friends and family, posted on LinkedIn about it, and tried our best to get it our there through social media. The response was overwhelmingly positive, I was excited to see people not be bored at our long conversation. When I edited the first episode, I counted the number of ums, ahs, likes, and it was staggering. It's a true skill to be able to think in real time, craft verbal responses to lead conversation in different directions, all the while reducing filler words and useless jargon to a minimum. Before recording episode two, I repeated to myself: "don't say like", "don't say um" and it worked, kind of. If I don't remind myself before recording, I snap back to being full of those filler words, so it's a work in progress.

I talked with Ben about defining our personas going forward - why are we doing this? What are we expecting to get out of this podcast: money, fame, credibility, a following, ...? We decided it's just our space to be ourselves and have some face time in front of the internet world. Yes, we'll try to make it look and sound good, but we aren't dying for sponsors or lying out our teeth to get a large following. We are doing what we like, even if it doesn't bring in all the big bucks or attention.

All in all, it's pretty darn fun doing the podcast, although it's been hard to be consistent with it. Geeking out about business and coding with your best friend is a joy in life. We both have a high drive for success and trying new things, and this scratched that for both of us, and we are just getting started. I'm excited to look back when we hit our 50th, 100th episode, it will be a fun journey full of funny stories, random sayings, and helpful advice. Breakeven Brothers forever!