Every year around this time, I get a little nostalgic. It is the anniversary of the week I took on my first real, paying clients in my podcast production business, and every year I use it as a chance to look back at how I got here. This year, I recorded that reflection from the lake, dog on my lap, camera battery dying halfway through. That is just real life sometimes.
Where Abbey Graves Productions Actually Started
My business was never the plan. In January of 2023, I started my own podcast called The Small Town Tourist, mostly as a way to keep my interviewing and audio skills sharp after leaving my job as a radio DJ. I was interviewing people doing cool things in small towns, and I was having such a great time doing it.
The Free Favor That Started Everything
That show introduced me to people, and one of those people was my friend Liz. She was my doctor at the time, and she also ran a cut flower farm. She had been thinking about starting a podcast, and since I already knew how, I offered to help her figure it out. I was not charging her anything. I was doing it because I believed in it, and she believed in it too.
That decision to help a friend for free ended up being the first domino. Liz had her friend Amanda on her show, Amanda asked how I had helped Liz get her podcast off the ground, and that introduced me to Amanda. Around the same time, I posted about helping people with their podcasts, and my cousin Megan reached out. She had been sitting on a podcast idea for a long time, and she finally took the leap. Those became my first real, paying clients.
My First Paying Clients and the Leap to Full Time
I never expected any of this to turn into a full-blown business. Not even a little bit. I figured I would keep working my government job and do this on the side to flex a creative muscle. But one client turned into another, and before long I was working a full 40 hour week and then coming home to edit until the early hours of the morning.
Going Full Time Within Nine Months
Nine months after that August, I left my job and took my client roster full time. That leap has led to things I could not have imagined back then: speaking on stage at PodFest in Orlando, producing podcasts for clients across the country, and even working with cattle ranchers in Australia. What started as one small, unpaid favor for a friend turned into a worldwide production business.
What Three Years of Reflection Has Taught Me
I think it is easy to get so buried in the day-to-day of running a business that you forget to look back and notice how far you have come. My friend Liz has a saying I still think about often: what gets measured gets managed. Reflecting on where you started is not just a nice exercise, it is how you figure out where you are actually headed next.
If there is one thing I want you to take from this, it is this: take the bet on yourself. Start the podcast. Take on the client. Say yes to the thing you are not sure you are ready for. You never know what it might turn into.
If you are ready to take that bet on your own podcast, my Bet on Your Podcast course is available now at a discounted price.
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