A Weekly Show Through An Asian-American Lens

My name is Kevin Xu. I host the Model Majority Podcast along with my cohost Tony Nagatani. The Model Majority Podcast is a weekly show that tries to raise the Asian American voice in U.S. public discourse and drive more political participation and civic engagement among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. (Thus, the name our podcast turns the "model minority" stereotype on its head...get it? :) )

My background was originally in political organizing, doing campaign work for the first Obama presidential campaign in 2008 (where Tony and I met as campaign staffers). I then went on to work in the White House and Department of Commerce. I now work in tech, where I tried unsuccessfully to start a health insurance startup, then ran the U.S. operations of an open source database startup, and now doing a bit of seed investing in open source tech companies.

Our core listeners are grassroots organizers, college students, and Asian American young professionals. We are also garnering some international listeners, since we have had guests and discussions that cover international affairs, like China, North Korea, etc., which are not just personal interests of mine, but hot topics among Asian diaspora living abroad.

We started this podcast in early 2017, mostly as a get-something-off-my-chest side project because we were so distraught by the election of Donald Trump. Our first episode was in fact on the same day Trump was inaugurated. We've involved into a mini-platform since then for all politically engaged Asian Americans. We set up the infrastructure of producing a podcast over the 2016 holiday period (e.g. setting up a website, learning how to set up podcast feeds, buying microphones, etc.), then just wrote an amateur script for episode 000 to lay out the rationale for the podcast, and recorded it. We've been releasing a weekly episode ever since, save for the occasional week off during Thanksgiving.

I was listening to quite a bit of podcast before making our own, primarily political news commentaries and entrepreneurship related podcasts, like Gimlet's Startup. My very first podcast listening experience was Serial in 2014, while on a road trip through Utah's Zion National Park.

Before we committed ourselves to this project, Tony and I did a gut check that unless we can keep podcasting on a weekly basis, we won't do it, because we don't want to be a flash-in-the-pan. Without consistency, we won't be able to build an audience, make any impact (however small), and will be insulting our own self-esteem (we like to think we are dependable, pragmatic, trustworthy people who do what we say.) We've kept this bargain in tact for 3 years and counting.

Since the project initially started as our own commentary of news, drawing from our personal experience working on campaigns and in government, we recorded every Saturday morning (no more sleeping in) and released the new episode every Sunday.

After we started doing guest interviews, it became a lot more time consuming. I ended up taking on most of the work in finding, booking, and interviewing guests, because my work schedule was more flexible. This was on top of recording our own bit every Saturday.

Generally, I do more of the scripting to carve out the contour of our conversation, while Tony does all the post-production editing (because he works in Hollywood and is a pro!). Typically, we turn around an episode from conception to finish in 6-7 hours worth of work, though the time it takes to brainstorm and lock down guests can vary widely.

We originally funded the project out of our own pockets: the microphones (~50 bucks each), Libsyn hosting (~$20 / month), G-Suite, Skype (to do long distance calls), and Call Recorder (dual-track recording software on Skype, which we use to interview guests and record our own discussions because Tony and I live in two different places). We also set up a LLC on LegalZoom (~$300) for good legal hygiene.

One year after we started, we put up a Patreon campaign to get some additional support, and have been lucky enough to be supported by our Patrons ever since. (Thank you!!) The Patreon funding has been able to support the podcast operationally, and fund the occasional reporting trip, e.g. the Democratic primary debates in Detroit and Ohio.

We haven't made any money from sponsorship or any other revenue stream off of the Model Majority Podcast; money either came from our own pockets or Patreon support. It's mostly a labor of love.

I've gained a lot personally from interviewing and listening to our guests' stories, many of which are inspiring and/or informative. Some of these people I know before, but didn't know so deeply until I interviewed them. Most of our guests are strangers who are accomplished in their own right and whom I have no business bothering otherwise, until we built this podcast as a platform to share their stories. Through that, I've gained a lot of friendship, which is invaluable and will compound for years to come.

The so-called "stack" we use is: ~$50 microphone with a USB interface, Skype + Call Recorder, Adobe Audition (for editing). The vast majority of our interviews are done via Skype, which presented an interesting learning experience when it comes to managing the pace and cadence of our interviews when you can't see the other person's face.

We initially tapped our own network of Asian American political folks, some of whom quite high ranking (Cabinet-level, Congressman, etc.) to grow our guest list. Then we began cold outreach to people who wanted to interview via email or twitter. We also get a fair number of referrals from previous guests, as well as (lately) people who approach us proactively to be guests.

I prepare each interview by going through the guest's bio, public statements or previous interviews (if any), and media coverage to find nuggets of his/her personal story that I find compelling, in order to come up with questions and topics of discussion. But mostly, I just start the conversation with an open-ended prompt, and listen intently to follow up, which can yield very raw personal content that are quite fascinating. We try to generate ever-green conversations, and rarely be "news-y" (except in our own weekly commentaries), so each episode can have a longer shelf life of relevance.

We promote mostly via Twitter (which doubles up well as a source of guests), email (occasionally), LinkedIn (occasionally), and more recently Instagram, using audio clips from each episode. We quite frankly haven't found our sweet spot when it comes to marketing, and still experimenting constantly.

About 75% of our listeners come through iTunes/Apple Podcast, while the rest is an assortment of Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, CastBox, etc.

When we were first getting started, I basically followed the instructions of the Smart Passive Income blog's posts on starting a podcast, which was more than sufficient to get going. We probably should have researched a bit more on launch strategy though (e.g. release a batch first, then follow your regular release schedule, etc.) Over time, it was challenging to not fall into a comfort zone and just go through the motions once you have the basics down.

If you are thinking about starting your own podcast, I recommend doing a gut check like we did, and commit to either a regular release schedule that is reasonably challenging (weekly or every two weeks is a good place to start) for at least a year, or a season-based approach (e.g. a batch of 10 episodes), so you won't become a phantom podcast. Podcast is long-tail content and grows slowly over time, so don't quit too early when the initial high of launching something wears off. After you are getting used to producing consistently, try consciously to stay "uncomfortable" and iterate on your content, in order to keep growing (and keep things interesting for yourself). I get a lot of ideas from listening to podcasts I like/respect. One example is Software Engineering Daily.

To find us, just search "Model Majority Podcast" wherever you listen to podcast.

You may also find our commentary in news outlets here and there on U.S. politics and Asian American political empowerment. Our voice was quoted in the New York Times and the New Yorker this year, which was a pleasant surprise and nice vote of confidence.

Personal Twitter: @kevinsxu
Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinsxu/

Podcast Twitter: @modelmajorityp
Podcast Instagram: @modelmajoritypodcast
Podcast Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/modelmajoritypodcast
Podcast website: modelmajoritypodcast.com
Podcast email: hello@modelmajoritypodcast.com