In the spirit of not overthinking this, I will be quick.
Most people are starting new projects in January or September, I tend to start them during summer. It has its ups and downs.
A year ago, I started a subscription for my tech podcast, did a campaign and it wasn’t a dud, which is nice. Some listeners pointed out they subscribed out of pity, because I shouldn’t have started this in summer.
Well, I take any reason for support. Also, there is almost no competition when it comes to these kinds of campaigns during that period, so that was an upside.
As for starting new projects, this summer wasn’t different.
An AI course: vlastnaappka.sk
First, just before the summer I have finished working on an online course (Slovak only) with a friend, Marian Kubacka, who is a PPC specialist during the day and an AI madman during night.
The idea was three-fold. Because I host a tech podcast and there is increasingly more and more AI news and from time to time, listeners reached out asking for some help, having a relieable material would help.
I do have a list of courses in English that are pretty good, but the native language seems to be winning for most.
Second, working on something propels you to learn more about it, tinker with it, get a deeper understanding of the topic. I like to learn, but it gets harder and harded finding time for it.
Third, the business angle. Would an online product work as a revenue diversification with my audience? Yeah, turns out it works if you find the right fit.
Anyway, the course is here (Slovak only) and so far we had really good feedback.
A new newsletter: biznis craft
I have started a new newsletter for entrepreneurs and business operators in Slovak called biznis craft – sign up for free (there will be soon an English version, you can sign for that too).
I partnered with a business community called Bezcyklenia on this one.
The aim is to bring service journalism to an underserved community and reach them in the inbox.
There is a lot of business and economic reporting, but at the end of the day, 99% is useless for day to day, week to week operations.
So the idea is to filter out the fluff and only leave the actionable parts. I am also doing original reporting for this, conducting interviews and speaking to experts.
Why?
Since I left the newsroom where I worked for a decade, I have also started operating my own business, brought all the projects under one roof.
And as I wrote above, I learn best by figuring things out. One example, the platform the newsletter runs on is Beehiiv, so that’s another built-in lesson, learning how that works. So far I can only recommend it.
Anyway, if you are interested, follow along and subscribe here to biznis craft.
A new website (a redesign): skpodcasty
Years ago, we started a database for all the podcasts in Slovak. For some reason, no podcasting app had a similar feature. You just couldn’t and by this day can’t filter podcasts based on language (Apple Podcasts added the feature a while ago, but most languages are missing, including Slovak).
Last week we have launched a large redesign, that runs on EmDash, a new CMS built by Cloudflare.
And to top it off, we add the first ever YouTube podcast chart in Slovak. YouTube has launched podcast charts last year, but only for USA, Canada and Mexico. We wasn’t waiting around any longer and introduced our own version.
Anyway, even though I wasn’t the lead project manager on this one, I did work on it closely and the result is really great (I think).
That’s it for now.
Well, there is more, like I am part of a new project from Google News Initiative called Emerging News Voices Growth Labs. But more on that some other time.
Hit reply if you want to talk.
