Viking Geek Turns Podcasting Pro

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

Two weeks ago on the podcast, episode 1725, I told you the story of a dinosaur loving couple who starts a website and podcast all about their prehistoric passion. It was a great success and it continues to be. They went on to do it full time. So today we're moving further along in history to look at another passionate podcaster making a good income with a topic you might think it's hard to be profitable. What is that topic? It is

Vikings. Vikings, as I said, further along in history. So in this story, a teenage history fan starts a podcast about Vikings that grows to 50,000 downloads a month. He then becomes a podcast growth consultant, bringing in a full time income. Lots of good lessons here.

Also networks like Upwork offer a lot of opportunities for new freelancers, but they're also pretty crowded. So what can you do differently to charge more money? While the teenage podcaster figured that out too, his name is Noah, Viking Geek Turns Podcasting Pro is our story. It's coming up after this quick message from our sponsor. When Noah Tetzner started his podcast at the age of 17, he wasn't expecting it to become the start of a career. This was 2018 and back then he was just someone who was interested

in history. And it just so happened that Vikings were all the rage. The History Channel was running its hit series Vikings and author Neil Gaiman published a book on Norse mythology. Noah wanted to be part of the conversation, but how? Following his interest, he decided that podcasting was the path. At that point, he didn't have much knowledge on Vikings.

So he began by hosting interviews with recognized experts in the field. Launching his podcast History of Vikings, he reached out to world-class academics about topics seldom discussed outside of the classroom. Topics such as the role of women during the Viking age and how Vikings and Muslims of that period interacted. This turned out to have a wider audience than Noah could have anticipated. By having experts on his show, the History of Vikings podcast began to gain credibility, especially since he also secured distribution partnerships with other content creators where he could promote their platform and vice versa. Reaching

50,000 downloads a month within five months, Noah soon discovered he was being approached with offers of sponsorship, media coverage, and even a book deal. Towards the end of the year, Noah decided to take his newly acquired knowledge of podcasting and operate as a service. Dipping his toes into the world of consulting, he approached companies in the homeschool industry. Why homeschool? Well, he was a homeschool graduate himself, and he knew that homeschooling companies often didn't have a marketing department. At the same time he was working the homeschool

angle, he also decided to offer his services to a wider audience. He did that through Upwork. This was when Noah first caught his break as a consultant. Noah was offering podcast growth and monetization services, which allowed him to stand out, especially since he had proven results with his own history of Vikings podcast. Amid all the others offering services for $10 to $20 an hour, Noah doubled down and referred to himself as the person who grows podcasts to $50,000 a month and sells lucrative sponsorships. This wasn't easy

because it was the opposite of what everyone else was doing, but in just two months he achieved top rated status on the platform. It meant that he was in the top 3% of all freelancers with earnings of over $2,000 a week. But interestingly, as Noah's reputation began to grow, he found that he no longer needed to rely on a platform like Upwork. Word of mouth had brought him several client referrals, and he had no time to handle requests coming from the platform. With an established reputation, he could now strike out on his own. So far so good, but what's been difficult?

Well, when Noah first started out, he struggled with everything outside his business work. In his words, "I struggled to break away from the computer. I felt anxiety when I wasn't working on a project. I started to burn out and resent the very thing I loved most, helping people grow and monetize their podcasts." It took a while for him to establish some clear boundaries. He set reminders to read and exercise, and he made sure to spend time with family every day. Looking back, he says

that he should have set a schedule before he even started, since it becomes so much harder once you're constantly working. But hey, let's give him a break. He was only 17. And these days, he's working on a new podcast, nothing to do with Vikings, one dedicated to helping business owners generate revenue through the power of podcasting. Awesome. Congratulations to Noah. I love these success stories of young entrepreneurs,

people experimenting. Let's say young people of all ages, because it's not just 17-year-olds who are doing this. I hear from people of all different backgrounds and ages who are pursuing projects. And here in this story, it's like you've got a very specific interest, Vikings. Like that dinosaur podcast that turned out to generate a full-time income and basically create a whole dino empire of its own. So it's the right topic, the right specific topic,

at the right time, because you have this coinciding rise in interest. You notice that people are more interested in learning about this thing. And you're like, "I want to learn about it, too." And because the Viking podcast world is pretty small, just like the dinosaur podcast world, you have the chance to get in there and do something before anyone else. All right. I hope you enjoyed this story. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action

is so much better. Today's show notes, including links to everything mentioned in the episode, Noah's website, perhaps some Viking resources, who knows, just go to sidehustleschool.com/1739. Thanks for tuning in. As a reminder, we have a new episode every single day, seven days a week. So I hope you'll subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts.

My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School. From the Onward Project.