Ep. 112: From Hobby to Side Hustle to Digital Production Company (Guest Jaime Legagneur from Flinstone Media) [Expert Bonus Series]

If you have a passion that you want to take from a hobby to business, don't let the lack of office space stop you! Sometimes when following our dreams, we need to do it scrappy. Who needs an office? All you need is a flat space, and if it is branded with Hello Kitty, that's even better!

In this inspiring episode, we are joined by Jaime Legagneur, the founder of Flintstone Media and featured on several podcasts. Discover how Jaime gave up a high-paying job to be closer to her family and build her desired future. Jaime went from a podcast enthusiast to a sought-after expert in the field. Whether Jaime is behind the scenes producing shows or holding the mic, she lives and breathes all things podcasting. 

As part of the expert bonus series, this snippet is from a more extended interview, which will be released soon. 

SHOW NOTES:
Contact and Follow Jaime Legagneur: Instagram - TikTok - Twitter - Linkedin
Flintstone Media: Website - Free Tips - Facebook - Link Tree - Linkedin
Podcasting Your Brand Podcast (Formerly Business in the Bedroom)
Expert on Owwll: App - Podcast
The Florida Podcast Network - Website - Fresh Mix Podcast - Finding Florida Podcast
The Official Podcast for Podfest Expo: Podfest Podcast

For more info, see complete show notes:  https://www.getthebalanceright.net/blog/episode112

CONTACT HEATHER:
Contact Heather: Instagram - LinkedIn
Profit Tracker Tool: Download
Get the Balance Right Coaching: Website
Book a Discovery Call (via Zoom) - Schedule
Heather & Get the Balance Right - LinkTree
Zeitzwolfe Accounting: Website - Facebook

Contact Heather: Instagram - LinkedIn - Email: heather@GetRadBiz.com
Get Radical With Your Business: Facebook - Website
Book a Discovery Call (via Zoom) - Schedule
Zeitzwolfe Accounting: Website - Facebook

Transcript

Have you been wanting to follow your passion, that side hustle that you want to turn into a full-time gig for yourself?, if you've ever thought about making your side hustle into your full-time hustle? But you were like, what am I going to do  but you just want to make it happen. 

Well, maybe you take over your dining room table. Or maybe you actually spread everything out on your bed, in your bedroom and work from there that becomes your office. Well, today's show is going to be an inspiration for you because my guest is Jaime Legagneur, Who has become.  A very sought after podcast producer. And she is a total delight

 Jaime started her podcasting production business in her bedroom. We hear , how her career in podcasting started. In her bedroom. All right, let's do this.  

Interview

Heather Zeitzwolfe: You have a podcast that has morphed over time, but in the beginning it was called business in the bedroom,

Jaime Legagneur: Yes, it was

Heather Zeitzwolfe: which when I heard about that show, I was like, what is this about? Cuz you never know when podcasting, what things are gonna be about.

Jaime Legagneur: Exactly. That's the beauty of podcasting. You can do anything in this space and you can find anything in this space. So knowing I had a title of visits in the bedroom was gonna turn some heads, but it's interesting because the people who that show was designed for immediately know what I'm talking about.

They resonate with it because I've built my business in my bedroom, literally on my bed, with the baby next to me on my laptop doing stuff after hours on weekends, late at night, middle of the night, whenever. And so Side hustlers trying to build their business. That's often their atmosphere too.

They're doing it in the bedroom, just like I was

Heather Zeitzwolfe: The first thing I thought about was the image of you sitting on that bed over a laptop, didn't your back start to hurt working in the bed

Jaime Legagneur: You know what? I'm so excited. You ask me that question because I get to tell you something I've never really shared with anyone before. So in my early twenties, I was highly obsessed with hello, kitty. 

Heather Zeitzwolfe: Oh, me too.

Jaime Legagneur: Still am a little bit. More than a little bit. I have a tattoo, but whatever I love hello, kitty.

So back in the day I got this little fold. Table. I think it's intended for a preschooler for whatever. I use it on my bed and it's perfect height to bring my laptop up. So I'm not hunched over and hurting my back. So my hello kitty table saved my back. 

Heather Zeitzwolfe: Shout out to hello, kitty. Wow. That is so funny. So when you first got into podcast production, was it a side hustle? 

Jaime Legagneur: I was a data analyst for 15 years. Yeah. So I was writing SQL code thousands of lines of computer code and automating systems and things like that.

That was me. I was like data nerd to the max. And but by that point, I was actually bored and really feeling like in a rut. I thought if I started business, , it might be my parachute out of data analytics.

Heather Zeitzwolfe: did it start off as a side hustle in the bedroom and you were still a data analyst or what was going on there?

Jaime Legagneur: Yeah. So I was still a data analyst and I started my company as digital marketing. Social media website, design development digital PR basically I realized I was really good at getting people's. Goals to come to fruition. It started off as just that 

 I thought I would be building websites and doing social media for the long haul, but I ended up completely falling in love with the craft of podcasting.

Completely falling in love with it at that point I was , in a position where mentally I had. Allowed my mind to go in that direction towards independence, but I was still a single mom with all this responsibility on my shoulders and a really.

Well Paying full-time job with benefits. And it was like one on one, not guy, a devil in an angel, but one, one opportunity on one shoulder, one opportunity on the other. And I had to really dig deep and figure out what do I want? And I realized I don't want this. Every day rat race, where I don't feel like I can dream as far and as big as I want to.

I want to dream as far and as big as I want to and make those dreams happen, I want to Be there for my son when he's sick and , he's not feeling well. I want to be able to go to his school to celebrate his birthday and bring cupcakes. And I wanna be able to decide that schedule myself.

 I opted for option B and ran with it. And it did start off as a side hustle and is the podcasting was a hobby. And when I fell in love with the craft of podcasting, I said, no, This is what I need to do. Because this is eight years ago. So the challenge was most of the time when I brought it up with someone, it was like, what's a podcast.

No one even knew what it was. And I'm like, how am I gonna build a business to provide a service that they just don't even know. Is a thing. Then there was a challenge of, I have to create the awareness, the industry. And so I started a meetup group and all this awareness, basically I evangelized the heck out of podcasting, every opportunity I had, every stage I could get on every microphone I can get in front of every meeting I could make happen and just made it evident that this is a really cool thing to do.

And slowly started to. Take on one client at a time until , I built it up. It's been a great adventure.

Heather Zeitzwolfe: On your podcast, you had talked about going to Podfest and how that really catapulted things, because then you started to meet people and everything. In between that time and in the beginning how were you getting clients and what were you doing for them?

Were you doing show notes, editing? Were you doing all this stuff?

Jaime Legagneur: Yeah. Great question. . Most of the revenue came in through social media, digital marketing, and PR. That was the core of the business.

That was how I had the bread and butter coming in while I built up the awareness. So I could build up a want for podcasting services. . I was working for a , gentleman named Jeremy Pound, who was at the time, had a company all about website design development.

So I was learning a lot from him while I was also building my business. One of his website, clients started a podcast and just needed help. Adding an intro and adding the outro. It was the simplest first client experience ever because they didn't want any other editing and it was great, cuz I barely knew how to edit myself.

Heather Zeitzwolfe: That is so funny.

Jaime Legagneur: That was the first ticker in the box. But. It was really just a one off thing through my, website design development. So the podcasting really took a while to become a business. I think my first true podcast client meaning taking them from, I have an idea.

Through I'm launched through now, we're producing episodes. That first client probably happened about , two thousand fifteen thousand sixteen. But , it was just one at a time. It was just getting one client and figuring it out and nurturing my process for it. But still the website stuff was still the bulk. So my time it was really tough cuz like to say I was always creating new ends of the candle to burn because I needed to make ends meet cuz I believed in my vision for what this business could be as a podcast production house, I just needed the industry to catch up to where I needed it to be.

And I had to get that work done. It was a process.

Heather Zeitzwolfe: and now you have a team working for you. What was the in between where you're doing all of the work and then you start to farm it out and I'm assuming that the people that work with you, are they all contractors 

Jaime Legagneur: they are all contractors right now. , they have dedicated roles in the company. Their faces and profiles are on my website. They are part of our team. They have an email address, all that kind of stuff, and they are dedicated to particular shows. So each client has, they're dedicated, editor, their dedicated post production person.

 But how it got started man. I was exhausted it came to a point where, I was, mothering and businessing all day long and then I put him to bed and then I'd business for another two hours and then I'd go to bed for two hours and I'd business for another two hours.

Then I go to bed for two hours. I'd wake up and I'd mother and then da, start it all over again.

Heather Zeitzwolfe: convenient that it's in the bedroom

Jaime Legagneur: it's kinda like it had to be

Heather Zeitzwolfe: wake up and then you roll over. Where's that? Hello? Kitty table.

Jaime Legagneur: there we go. but what that did was it broke my sleep cycle so much. I was mentally exhausted and I don't think I. Truly recognize the signs until it was too late. I remember the night I felt the first pain, like something broke. I'm like what just happened? And that was the beginning, of a three to four year long migraine, chronic And

Heather Zeitzwolfe: no.

Jaime Legagneur: in the midst of that, I recognized I can't do this. I have to figure out a way to scale this business and be able to bring other people on. But I couldn't imagine how I could afford. I was barely able to keep my own things going. How can I afford to pay someone else? I didn't see it. But then the light bulb went off and the light bulb was this, that some of my clients. There's some work, obviously that's overhead, that's just part of part and parcel of the process. You gotta do it. But , for the stuff that my clients are paying me to do. That bucket of things I can pay someone else to do. And then build off the profit. When that light bulb went off, then it became, okay, what do I want somebody to take on?

What is that role gonna look like? And how do I figure out just enough to get them going? That I can slowly build enough profit to create that cushion over time, and then eventually bring on, one, it was one person at a time. Very slowly. Very strategically because I'm a single mom and that's the priority. And I couldn't let any of that falter. So it was one tiny little step at a time.

Heather Zeitzwolfe: Yeah congratulations. And that is the way to build a business because now it frees up your time to work on that bucket, which is so important.

 bringing in you have more time to bring in clients. 

Jaime Legagneur: Hundred percent.

Heather Zeitzwolfe: You have to have time for that. If you're always stuck in the weeds, you don't have time to go out there and speak and sell and do all those things

Jaime Legagneur: Exactly. To your point until I could get all these other things done, . I needed to have time to make the calls, make the meetings da, and I didn't have that. , but like about two years ago, everything finally came together.

Heather Zeitzwolfe: That's really cool. Gem. Thank you so much.

Jaime Legagneur: Thank you. I appreciate it. 

Heather Zeitzwolfe: How do people find.

Jaime Legagneur: you can just find me@flintstonemedia.com.

Literally everything is linked there