This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, what's up, my friends? This is Chris Guillebeau, your host of Side Hustle School. Hey, what are you working on over there? What are you up to? What steps are you taking to get closer to that goal you have of creating an income generating project?
And also, what is your hobby or interest? Might that be a good choice for your first or next side hustle? Or perhaps should it just remain your hobby or interest? I go back and forth on this all the time. People ask me, you know, and the reality is both options are acceptable.
Just be careful of trying to split the difference. If there's something you like to do just because you like to do it, that's all right. You know, not everything has to be a money-making project, even though that's what I'm talking about here. But if you do want to make money with your hobby or interest, then that's also okay, right? And so part of, you know, this process I'm doing through the program this year is just kind of helping people figure that out for themselves, kind of play around with different ideas, and hopefully, you know, get them further along the way.
That is the goal. Now here, I've got a listener calling in today. This listener is calling from Hungary, actually. Shout out to everybody in Budapest. I've got listeners over there, that's pretty cool.
This listener has a podcast for owners of hybrid cars. He's also up and running. He's doing really well. Focused on the Prius for the past year. He's got a podcast all about Priuses.
Is it Priuses? The plural of Prius, not Prii. I'm gonna go with Priuses. But he wants to expand the audience to look at other electric vehicles. He'll talk a bit about that in his question.
How can you do it? What's his next step? I thought this was interesting. And in my opinion, there's both good news and bad news for him, just in terms of options and those next steps. So we're gonna delve into it.
How to grow a podcast for Toyota Prius owners. That question is coming up, and the answer as well, after this message from our sponsor. [Music]
Hi Chris, this is Valin from Europe, Hungary. I've been a listener for a year now, and love the show. I started my Side Hustle Prius podcast a year ago, sharing high mileage hybrid car ownership experiences, specifically on the Toyota Prius.
Due to its very specific target audience, the show quickly got a small and steady follower base, and could attain a sponsor for several months, who unfortunately pulled out due to COVID. I would like to extend the show with reliability stories of used electric and other hybrid cars to grow the audience and make the show an ideal channel for bigger companies to advertise on. My question is that how do you grow a podcast from a very niche topic to a broader topic? I would love to hear any advice and thoughts on this. Thanks very much, bye.
[Music]
Hey Valin, thank you so much for listening. Thank you for this great question. I hope all is well with you over in Hungary. I have not been to Budapest in many years, but I had a great experience there long ago. Anyway, let's not talk about me, let's talk about you.
Some good news and bad news here, I think at least. Balint mentioned this small and steady audience. He said, the podcast was actually able to grow right away because he had this really specific niche audience. I actually think that's really good. And it's great that he was able to get a sponsor.
Unfortunately, they had to drop out after a few months because of COVID. But I think let's look at the good news. Balint has done a really good job, great job actually with branding and positioning this show. So listeners, if you wanna check it out, that's priuspodcast.com, P-R-I-U-S podcast.com. And of course, if you are interested in hybrid or electric vehicles, check out the show.
I saw that it was on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. So probably it is elsewhere as well. He has frequent episodes, always good to be consistent. He's got a number of good reviews. And last but not least, he also has a very clear description of the show on both the website and in the podcast description area, which appears in Apple or Spotify or wherever.
And so he says, "When it came to buying my first car, I read all the reviews I could find and watched all the videos on what to look out for, but I felt somewhat disappointed. Even though there were materials covering the Prius, I found them geared towards people who had just heard about the car and wanted general information. Instead of someone who was looking to buy one, needing practical information." And there's a bit more and it concludes with, "I started the podcast to share the acquired knowledge on the Prius to help others with actual information on what to check on a used Prius and to talk with other owners from around the world about their experience in the industry." So it's just as he said, it's really specific. It's really clear what it's about. I think that's good.
So if there's any bad news, it's what's called the Prius podcast, right? So that's great for reaching Prius fans, but I'm not sure that people who are interested in Tesla electric vehicles, for example, would ever listen. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's a totally different market. So what should Ballant do? I think he's got a couple options.
I think one is actually change the name of the show, or change the name of his brand. Maybe he needs to become the electric vehicle guy or the EV guy, the hybrid guy. I don't know exactly what it is, but something like that. Kind of like our friend, Harry Campbell, the rideshare guy, to where he's commenting much more on the industry as opposed to a specific model. He could also start something new and try to bring over as much of the audience as possible, just recognizing that he won't be able to bring everyone over.
He might also want to, apart from that, whatever he does with the rebranding or not, consider other formats, both in terms of his deep love for Priuses and for the EV world in general. So the podcast is great, but since he's put so much work into it, could some of that content be repurposed for YouTube or elsewhere? Like he said, he went looking for information about buying a Prius and only found general information. He didn't find a lot of answers to the questions he had. So there are a lot of Prius owners out there already.
And of course, there are more and more people buying electric vehicles and looking at that for the first time every day. So I think he's in a good place, disappointing about losing the first sponsor, but hopefully there will be many more sponsors to come. All right, listeners, if you have a question, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. We will be featuring them throughout the year, along with updates from other listeners as they launch their projects. As I said, the Prius podcast, go check it out if you're into that.
And if not, well, we've got something else coming up tomorrow. I hope this is helpful to you. I hope you're taking action. I hope you're thinking about, what can I do? What's my next step?
What's my next option? How can I pursue that today? All right, that's my encouragement. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Sideupleschool." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
