An interview based podcast documenting the experiences of combat veterans in Panjwai, Afghanistan

In 2012, myself (Curtis Grace) and Luke Coffey were part of an Infantry company that deployed to COP Sperwan Ghar, in Panjwai, Kandahar, Afghanistan. It was a fairly dynamic and violent deployment, but at the time we were more focused on surviving the experience than really looking at it for what it was.

Years later, we had decided to write a book about the experience, but kept running into memory blocks. It made sense to interview other people we served with , and at some point that morphed into creating a podcast about our experience.

It wasn't that we felt our experience was special or unique, we actually felt it was very typical and a great case study of young men at war in a particularly psychologically stressful environment. Our IED threat was quite brutal, and that in and of itself took a terrible toll.

So while we initially just planned to talk about our deployment, we realized as we got ready to promote the project that there might be a broader audience. So we decided that we would eventually talk to other guests in future seasons, and as a result our potential audience expanded dramatically.

Our podcast is really about the experience of combat in Panjwai. We honestly don't tell a lot of war stories, but we do tell parts of a lot of war stories. We ask our guests to go into what it felt like, and how that experience sits with them today. We discuss the topics of war in Afghanistan that are universal, such as the local people, the Afghan military and police, the Taliban, the terrain, etc.

A good portion of our listeners are Panjwai veterans, thought a very large percentage are actually the family members of Panjwai veterans. A lot of these guys don't talk about their experiences to their friends or families, but they open up to a fellow Panjwai vet. A lot of family members are understanding their loved ones' experiences for the first time through the podcast - My co-host's family included.
 

As I mentioned in the first question, the podcast was the end result of the plan to do interviews for the book. We both listened to podcasts casually, but not with any kind of regularity. We were familiar with the format and the genre, but had little experience with it.

We knew we wanted more of a Joe Rogan type experience, where each guest was their own episode, with not particular eye towards chronologically documenting the deployment. We were more focused on their individual experiences, and honestly, we had to try and accommodate people's schedules and willingness to chat. Also, we were new to this, so we wanted our first few guests to be guys we knew and trusted so we could fumble our way through figuring out how to host.

The initial goal was to tell the story of the 2012 deployment at COP Sperwan Ghar. What we've come to learn is that there is a LOT to unpack. Everyone has a different perspective, even if the experiences were shared. And while we didn't have any intent of being successful professional podcasters, we were also concerned with the cost to produce the project. We wanted it to be done professionally, so that it would be something we could look back on years later and not cringe at the quality.

We announced the project in September 2020 and started recording episodes in October 2020. The first episode released on January 1st, 2021.

We honestly could have released that first episode in October, but I am quite glad we didn't. It did end up going through several modifications and adjustments. We stuck with January 1 for a few reasons, the biggest of which was that we wanted to be ready for launch with a few episodes mostly ready to go.
 

We are a weekly podcast, so we drop a brand new episode once a week while a season is ongoing. We had a 6 week break in between season 1 and 2, mostly for my sanity but also so that we could make some adjustments to our branding and marketing for Season 2.
In terms of production time, we have gotten it down I think as low as it gets. We do a pre interview the week of the episode recording, and that is usually about 2 hours. The interview itself is usually a 3-4 hour ordeal with setup, coordination and completing the interview.

Editing usually takes about 3-4 times the length of an episode, sometimes more if we had to do multiple recordings or if we chose to add supplementary material like videos or photos. The initial audio edit is done in Audacity and that takes about 30 minutes. The initial video edit is done purely based on waveforms and takes about an hour to an hour and a half. The final content edit takes about 2x the time of the episode to complete, and this is where I am cutting up the audio and editing for content, removing ums and breaths, shortening gaps and removing off topic segments. This typically results in the shortening of the podcast by about 5 minutes on average, sometimes more if we really get off topic.

If i set to it, I can edit 1-2 episodes in a day if they are simple.

I am a full time student and only work part time out of boredom, so finding time actually isn't a huge deal most of the time. During stressful parts of the year, it definitely falls to the wayside. Usually the hardest thing is just sitting down and starting.

The podcast mostly funds itself, but I do have a little bit personally invested. Anything I buy for the podcast that I also have personal use for, that is the very last thing I pay myself back for.

We pay for social media scheduling software, Creative Cloud, our online-based recording suite (Remotely.fm) , Streamyard for our live episodes, web hosting, podcast hosting, etc. I pay for marketing out of pocket , but we don't do as much of that.
 

We have had some sponsorship, but honestly nothing major. A $500 sponsorship in Season 1. Our revenue is overwhelmingly based on our audience. We crowdfunded our release and raised a large sum of money to buy our equipment, and pre pay many of our services.

A key aspect of our model is to send "Podcasts in a Box" to our guests so that their audio and video quality is comparable to ours and also of professional-ish quality. We have 5 of those kits floating around the US and Canada.

We are kind of in the gray zone for sponsorships. We get about 2000-2500 downloads a month, but only 4-500 per episode on average. These are phenomenal numbers, but they aren't quite big enough to attract sponsors, and even if we were pulling 1000 an episode, we would be looking at fairly small income levels based on industry standards and increasing our work load unnecessarily.

We do a little bit of merch sales, but not much. We are still mostly funded by community donations and we are fully funded through the end of Season 2. We will likely have to seek sponsors and advertisers to support our 3rd season starting in 2022.

This podcast benefits me by seeing the positive effect it has on the veterans listening to it. For them, hearing these shared experiences is like a drug they cant get at home. They repressed a lot of this stuff for years so, to them, its cool to be able to open up their iPhone and listen to us on Spotify talk about the places they walked and the experiences they had. Its like watching a movie about your hometown.
 

We are split into two separate studios, one in Tennessee and one in Alaska. Also, almost all of our guests are remote, so we have several setups.

At each of our home studios, we use Shure MV7 mics, Logitech StreamCam webcams and cell phones for backup video. We also have a Zoom Livetrak L8 and Rode Procaster sound board, one at each spot, to use as a USB interface and to record backup audio in case our online recording is corrupted or fails. We also hav a set of studio lights and some tripods to enable all of that.

For our guests, we use JLAB Talk USB Mics and Logitech HD Webcams to ensure the best possible quality without literally sending them thousands of dollars in gear. For about $200 per kit, we get audio and video far better than the built in capability of any laptop or desktop.
We use Remotely. fm to record the interviews, since almost all of them involve at least one remote participant. . It is web based so it is easy for guests to join, and interfaces easily with the tech we use. It gives us lossless high quality video and audio files that I then plug into Adobe Premiere Pro and Audacity to start the editing process.

We edit the audio in Auduacity using a standardized process to equalize levels and loudness, but de-reverb and noise reduction is done in Premiere as needed (it is not always needed).

Most of our guests we select based on our personal knowledge (for those on our deployment) and recommendations/social media contacts from our community. We are seeking the right kind of guest, not simply someone who wants to tell their war stories, so we try to be pretty selective about who comes on the Podcast. We aren't going to do this forever so unfortunately we can't have everyone on. We also invest a lot of capital in equipment for guests so we want to make sure that investment pays off.
 

30% access our show through Itunes, 17% from Spotify and the rest are piecemeal 3-5%. We typically direct our web and social media traffic to Apple Podcasts or Spotify as they are the two biggest players in the market. Most people discover our show via social media though. Facebook and Instagram have healthy followings and steady growth. A large influx of new FB or IG followers typically manifests a bump in our download numbers.

We also post video podcasts to Youtube, and get a fair amount of traffic there as well.

Facebook Ads have been our most successful venture in marketing. We can see immediate audience growth with an aggressive ad campaign.
 

Invest early in the right gear. We went through several iterations of "the right gear". A $250 Shure MV7 is worth every penny and doesnt break the bank.

Record aggressively and edit deliberately. It is better to have a backlog of things to edit than to finish editing and having noting recorded.
Obsess over quality. Your audience does. Whether they admit it or not, they are judging your professionalism by the amount of effort you put into production. You dont have to spend 10x the length of your episode editing, but a few hundred on a good mic and interface vs an iPhone inline mic and garageband is a huge difference.

The Reddit r/Podcasting forum is a wealth of knowledge and people are happy to share experiences and recommendations.
 

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