Four lifelong friends discuss life, memories, parenting, and more through the lens of their small town upbringing.

The four of us Jason, Ben, Ryan, and Chris went to high school and played sports together. Over the years our friendship has remained solid and now 15 years later, we are all teaching high school at our alma mater. We discuss everything from parenting mishaps to awkward moments with a light hearted approach. Our goal is to bring a little bit of advice and a lot of laughter to our listeners. The friendship we've created over the years allows us to have organic and honest conversations that oftentimes turn into hysterical stories.
 

We all enjoy listening to other podcasts. I (Jason) teach a high school course that has a unit on podcasting and starting pitching the idea to Ryan. The two of us convinced Ben and Chris that it was a good idea, so we started getting together and telling stories. Our initial goal was to provide recorded memories to listen to later in life. We shared it with a small group of people and received good feedback which led us to start trying out the podcast thing for real. Our goal now is to bring people a family friendly podcast that provides some laughter and enjoyment.
 

Given the fact that we all four work together, we meet up at one of our houses right after work and record for about an hour. Being that we are teachers, we utilize the days off work to get together and record an episode or two so that we stay ahead. Right now we record about 6 days before the episode releases. I (Jason) have gotten pretty efficient with editing and can usually spend a couple hours late one night to edit the podcast for the following week. We pooled our money together to get the equipment for the podcast and spent a little over $1,000. We have gained some revenue through ad space and merchandise sales. We generally spend that money on marketing or equipment. Our biggest marketing tool has been social media, creating engaging posts and shorts. They don't all gain traction but we are growing. Another thing that has helped us is listeners have been leaving ratings and reviews.
 

We do take on sponsors that are a fit for our podcast. In other words, we don't promote everyone. We try to promote podcasts, businesses, and services that we think fit the needs of our listeners. We didn't gain our first sponsor until we were over 20 episodes in. I don't remember how many downloads we were getting at the time. We gain sponsors a couple of ways, one through a third-party host that links businesses with podcasters, and the other way is simply reaching out to businesses. We are currently around 4,000 listens per month now, which isn't a lot to some people, but it is to us. The biggest benefit to podcasting for us has been our friendship, it has been so much fun and we feel we have gotten pretty good at it.
 

We use a Rodecaster Pro II as our audio mixer. The software I use to edit is Adobe Audition. We don't have guests on each episode but the ones that we have done so far, have all been in person. However, we have plans to interview future guests who are further away via Zoom.
 

Most of our listeners find us on iTunes or Spotify.
 

Honestly, I would say just go for it. If you have the idea, you are over halfway there. I search everywhere for resources to grow our podcast, tips for engagement etc. I would also talk to other podcasters if you are able. Find someone in the business that you admire/respect and ask their advice.
 

You can find our story and links to the podcast at www.hometownhasbeens.com or find use on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music. Feel free to reach out to us on social media or send us an email at hometownhasbeens@gmail.com