Launch Day - Earlier than planned

It didn't feel possible. I didn't think it could be done. I could only think of reasons to say no.

But I did it anyway.

Last Thursday, the very first episodes of the Weight Loss Warrior podcast went unexpectedly live and became available out there in the podosphere* (may not be a real word). The surprise publishing was completely my fault and created a whirlwind 24 hours (I think I slept 3 hours) whilst I tried to play catch up and ensure everything else was ready as part of my launch process.

Why 5 days early Carl?

Great question! As you may know I have been working through a "start your own podcast course" as well as reading many articles, watching videos and scrutinising various other podcasts for inspiration and guidance. I have found some amazing resources and can highly recommend both Buzzsprout and Entrepreneurs On Fire.

I had reached a stage in my podcast journey where I was ready to upload and schedule the first podcast episodes, which was in truth quite a nerve racking time. Although nothing was too complicated, I had the fear that one bad move could result in me being banished from the kingdom of Apple or Spotify which would have been a major blow to my hopes of having a successful podcast.

I had also read that there was a review process that could take up to 5 days for new podcast shows. I wanted to upload the first episode asap, get it approved so that on Monday I could publish it. It turned out I was approved without realising and accidently hit "publish" thinking it was being sent for review.

Should I delete it? Would that create a red flag? Would my account be closed?!

After the initial panic, I realised I had overcome my biggest fear quite accidently. Monday would have been a huge drama and stress with me having last minute doubts and quite possibly finding a reason not to go live. At least this way the decision was taken out of my hands!

First downloads, feedback and support

I'll probably write a post on everything I use to create, produce and release a podcast in the near future. I'll warn you in advance for anyone familiar to podcasting that my setup is far from sophisticated. Although, that does give me optimism that as I improve and upgrade equipment etc, the quality of the broadcast will improve with it.

For not though, I'd like to touch on the feeling of seeing your own creation sat there on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. It's in other places too but these are the big daddys of the podcast world and it was quite surreal to see my name there among highly regarded and well established shows. Cue imposter syndrome....

I have analytics and software that tell me how many times the show has been listened to and downloaded, and to my surprise and delight I saw the first and founding members of the WLW tribe arrive. It's hard to put into words the feeling of knowing there were people actually listening to the podcast but what I will say is that for a good few hours I felt quite nervous. Would people like it? Had I made a huge mistake? Was I way out of my depth?

About 1 hour after publishing my introductory episode, Episode 1 and Episode 2 I received a message from my first guest, Michelle. To my absolute relief she was extremely happy with it and began sharing to her own Instagram account (Follow Michelle here). This was it, no turning back now!

My second guest, the amazing vegan runner Steve (Follow Steve here) was also extremely complimentary and this helped a lot to settle me and provide reassurance that this wasn't for nothing. What followed was nothing short of amazing though.

Over the next few days, I began to see people tagging the WLW in stories, congratulating my guests for their amazing job and expressing their enjoyment for the podcast. It was a moment I'll remember for a long time to come.

This was the proof of concept I had hoped for and it was pretty much at that moment I sat back, took a breath and gave myself permission to enjoy bringing the WLW Podcast to life.

Listen to all episodes of the WLW Podcast here