Index 👀
- I make an attempt at introducing myself 👋.
- I say I like podcasts and do a show and tell 🧒.
- I get invited to do my first podcast interview 🎙.
- I relive my interview experience 😈 or 👼?
- Audience feedback and key takeaways
I’m an avid consumer of podcasts. Pods I subscribe to, typically and broadly fall into the business and science categories. In case you’re interested in exactly which ones, screenies below. I use an app called Pocket Casts (iOS, Android, Web & Mac OS) — yes you’re welcome!
Allow me to self indulge and give a primer on yours truly. My name’s Terence Tam, I was born and raised in beautiful Sydney, Australia 🇦🇺 to Chinese migrants 🇨🇳. I strived to fit into the stereotypical Asian family values which boils down to letting your hard working parents live through you in the form of personal and professional accolades in <insert musical instrument 🎹> and <select high esteemed vocation 👨💼>. I longed for the suit and tie to appease my parents. And at the tender age of 17 years old, during my first year of university, I applied for and through a combination of begging, brown nosing and blood oaths I got hired as the youngest employee in Asia Pacific for a large US banking conglomerate. Yay for corporate overlords 😈. I did the hard yards juggling studies, long work weeks and what crumbs I had left of a social life into and during the 08–09 financial crisis. After leaving the bank and wondering whether to finish the economics & finance degree or pursue some other vocation Asian parents would approve of and simultaneously worship. I formed a company to try my hand at starting a business, what exactly, at the time I didn’t know 🤔. Fast forward to today and I’m founder at fledging B2B marketplace that has grossed A$60M+ and still trying to figure the business game 😅.
Back to the topic of podcasts. I really am voluminous on podcasts, I listen to them at 1.8x, fast forward through ads and rewind on the bits of deep insights. When listening to business/news podcast, I’ve begun to automatically reduce the content to components and their interlinks. This habit is efficient, I smash through pods but its purely devoid of enjoyment. Because its like playing chess ♟, as the game progresses the conclusion is evident and in most cases isn’t worth following through on. Nothing is more of a kill joy than knowing the outcome, be it a movie or sports match.
I stumbled on a website called Failory, an online community about entrepreneurship that specifically focuses around failed startups and the lessons learnt and passed on by the founders themselves. Its fantastic, lots of well meaning and smart founders and adventurers sharing their blueprints, roadmaps, micro wins and losses. I’ve set out to give Failory’s bossman a thumbs up 👍 who by this stage I now knew his name as Rich Clominson. We got chatting, Rich said he was working on the next set of interviews for Failory’s podcast and invited me to be a guest which I totally jumped on being the noob that I am. Fast forward a few months and travelling around Europe, I skimmed the preparation and was slow to reply to him and his team (I swear I’m sorry Rich/Brandon!).
D-day had arrived and I hadn’t mentally noted the calendar event as it was held on my weekend — because we Australians live in the future 🤓. Brandon and I got on our Zoom call and after warming up our vocals we were ready to belt out a perfectly unison melody of pure blissful entrepreneurial insight full of riveting details about the risk and rewards of a startup founder. Please someone hit me with the reality stick 🏏. Brandon and I got a handful of events details and chronology wrong. We recorded the intro, twice..yay! I did 2% preparation and now I’m paying the price in beads of facial sweat, what a legend. Legendary f-wit that is, yours truly 💖. Brandon got on and did a mercy killing. We pummelled through my background and focused on the the failings of my food delivery foray and landed with the grace of a wrestler on my current somewhat successful business, Reflow Hub. Honestly I did try to bring value to the interview. I thought through the questions held at my throat with desperation and considered my responses as logically and mechanically as possible. All those hours of listening to podcast on autopilot, distilling the content into its components and interlinks FINALLY kicked in and gave me a space to breathe. Muwahahaha I’m such a mastermind 😈. I’m killing this interview — or that’s what I thought. Fast forward two months of nose picking, bum scratching and pestering emails to the team at Failory about when my podcast episode would drop, it finally came. I virtually ran to my email inbox like the child I am on Christmas Day (yes I know its actually boxing day that you open presents mmmkay 🙄). I cringed so badly listening through the episode. Terrible voice, cadence and delivery. Horribly meandering responses.
Honestly I had considered asking the Failory team if we could either redo or scrap the episode entirely because I felt so embarrassed. And at first, my family had brought up that the podcast episode should be released about now (damn their selective memory). I linked it to them and they enjoyed it! Waaaaaaah 😱😱😱 ? They had their suggestions and as my confidence grew and shame subsided I decided to share it with friends who gave me similar opinions and suggestions. And here’s the sentiment of what the varying and overlapping things they told me:
Terence, everyone hates the sound of their voice and the way you spoke on the interview is how you speak everyday — unfortunately we’re all use to it now. Delivery can be improved and that comes with practice and live experience. You can’t get learn to ride a bicycle by reading a manual or simply wanting to.
What you think is unimportant and low value is because you’re at a different stage of your startup journey. You’ve been at it for +10 years hands on, reading, breathing and living in the space. Don’t assume and ELI5 (Explain Like I’m 5 years old).
We enjoyed listening to your story, the thoughts and feelings that was occurring at the time and the retrospective later on.
All the self-esteem and confidence elements aside. My key takeaway from the feedback I heard is that people inherently enjoyed the narrative and not the “blueprint” or mechanical timeline of events. This was a real smack in the face and reminded me of why I love podcasts like Freakonomics, Every Little Thing and Planet Money. For me, it’s because they provide an alternative lens to interpret a narrative and all its pieces. And as a startup founder, we are all seeing the needle in the haystack and chasing after it. So if I can leave any message with you that is:
Get better at storytelling, that is to say, get better at communication; speaking, writing and presentation. It’s what helps your counterparts in understanding your intention, remember your message and responding to your story.
To follow my own conclusion, I decided to write this article no matter how bad and cringeworthy. I’ve written and posted it and if I want to forget about it I had better write more to bury it into the depths of the interwebz.
So thank you reader, for joining me ✌️
I should probably apologise in advance for typos, grammatical errors and amateur writing skills — I didn’t proof read or edit. Just a straight write up through because knowing myself I won’t get back to this if I don’t do this in one shot.
