Spread News Of What Columbus Has To Offer

My name is Cory Leo, I am a college student in Columbus, OH.I have a heavy background in the underground Hip Hop scene in Columbus. My podcast is called Gab Street, and we interview people in Columbus who influence the culture and/or the economy and let them show the work they do to improve our city. 

Our listeners are 25% female and 75% male between the ages of 18-30 who are either already contributing to Columbus or are eager to put faces to the rapid growth we are currently experiencing.

I've been surrounded by people who had no idea how rich the local culture is for years - people who would benefit from it in finding their passions and not just vying to leave what they might call a "flyover state." I listen to a few podcasts - H3 and Joe Rogan on a national scale, Super Duty Tough Work and Pre Dead Boys on a local scale. My initial goal was to gain more practice speaking in a long form medium and improve my conversational skills, but this evolved over the course of 30+ episodes. I started the podcast with a friend of mine in February 2019. We released our first episode the week we recorded it.

I release an episode of the podcast once a week on Wednesday mornings. Producing each episode is a total of 6 hours of work, on average, including research, recording, and editing them. My day job is technically college coursework, so I just lay down a time during the weekend to knock out the production of the show. I spend $14 a month on distriution costs and a few bucks on stickers or business cards here and there. I fund this podcast myself.

I do not currently take sponsorship but I am accepting offers. No revenue is gained from this show. I had a sponsorship before, but it left along with my co-host because it had family ties. We were receiving between 200-300 downloads a month with that sponsor, and we are still around that number now. Podcasting benefits me by exposing me to facets of my local culture that I would not be exposed to otherwise and allows me to have a real reason to meet the people I look up to the most and ask them questions in a way that benefits them.

I use a Yeti Blue microphone and Audacity. I find guests to interview usually through them contacting me to be on the show because I've interviewed someone they know. I prepare each episode by doing a deep dive into any and all information that my guest has provided about themselves to the public and asking them questions about that. I then use local musicians' music as transition breaks between topics. I interview all of my guests in person.

I market my show through Instagram, a mailing list, and through word of mouth, through business cards or just telling them about it. Listeners mostly listen through Spotify. Instagram has been the most useful.

I've learned that changing things up isn't always the worst thing in the world, and that it's worth it to experiment with the way you put things together. I've also learned that people will say yes to requests more often than no, about pretty much anything. Having something to offer to people, rather than just asking for engagement, is the best way to reach people. Super Duty Tough Work is the perfect podcast for anyone creating independently.

gabstreet.podbean.com or @gabstreetpodcast on Instagram. You can email us at gabstpodcast@gmail.com too. Search for us on ko-fi.com as well.