The Final Episode of No Sidebar … And the Start of Something New

The Transcript

The Final Episode of No Sidebar … And the Start of Something New

Brian Gardner: Hey, everyone. Welcome to the No Sidebar podcast. I’m your host, Brian Gardner, and I’m here to discuss the struggles around being (and becoming) a creative entrepreneur. Together, we’ll …

The Disconnect Between the No Sidebar Podcast and the Website

Darrell Vesterfelt: Let’s talk about that for a second, Brian.

Brian Gardner: Struggles? What?

Darrell Vesterfelt: Because the podcast doesn’t seem to be the same as the No Sidebar website.

Brian Gardner: Are you talking about that Tweet I got the other day?

Darrell Vesterfelt: Yeah, talk to me about that. What’s going on?

Brian Gardner: Well, we’re going to air our dirty laundry here on the show. By dirty laundry, I’m going to talk about something that’s bittersweet to me. I’m going to cut right to the chase.

Thank you, first of all, everyone, for listening to the show. Second of all, a few weeks ago, I got a Tweet. Someone Tweeted at me that the No Sidebar podcast and the No Sidebar website are very disconnected. I’ll be honest with you, my initial reaction was do not reply and get really mad about that. Then I realized the reason I had that reaction was there was a tremendous amount of truth to that.

It’s funny. When I started the podcast, I had ideas of it going somewhere. At the time, the website was heading in a direction that I thought was going to be congruent, but over the last few months, four months I guess, the site has digressed to a place that’s gone away from the original idea. That’s okay for the website, but the podcast has always felt like I’ve had to really stretch to connect the two. The Tweet made a real impact on where I’ve been at.

Why We’ve Chosen to Move On to a New Adventure

Brian Gardner: Also, it happened right around the time we were recording our two shows, and I realized something that I had been wanting for the first 18 episodes, which was that wing man, that goose, someone to co-host with me.

New to podcasting, like the interview format, but I was also really excited about how natural it felt to have conversation with you. You and I are bros. We’re good buddies, and we have a lot of stuff in common, business and personal. We started talking, and we’ve made some decisions.

Darrell Vesterfelt: It’s time for a DTR I think, Brian.

Brian Gardner: We are going to define our relationship, the relationship here. It’s bittersweet for me. The bottom line is this. The No Sidebar podcast is going to be ending. That’s the bad news. The good news is you and I have such chemistry, on screen and off screen. We are going to be starting another podcast around something that you and I are both very passionate about — entrepreneurial stuff, which includes membership sites, building an audience, connecting via social media, and stuff that’s a little bit more, I’m going to use the word ‘business-y.’ It is a little more business-y.

Darrell Vesterfelt: When you started the Sidebar podcast, you talk about the struggles of becoming a creative entrepreneur. I think our show is going to fall in line with that a little bit more. We have to move it away from No Sidebar because No Sidebar is about living a simple life, about simplicity, about minimalism. So it just feels like the two are becoming disconnected, so we really need to disconnect the name and focus on this new podcast.

We’re not really breaking up with people. We’re just focusing. It’s not a bad thing. It’s a good thing. We’re not cancelling something. We’re just growing and changing it into something else, which will be really fun I think.

Brian Gardner: Yeah. We live in a time where evolution and being agile, such an industry for agile movement and shifting and changing and stuff like that … and you’re right. It isn’t anything that we’re specifically ending. It does feel like that a little bit to me, and that’s okay because I think it does need to happen. I do realize that the website and the podcast were two different things.
They had the same name, which, in honesty, probably presented some confusion, and I get that.

I don’t consider it a failure. We all learn as we go. More than anything, this gives you and I a chance to start something with autonomy. This is going to be our thing, and it’s going to be an awesome thing. I know we’ve got people that we can have on the show. Kind of like the two guys up in the Muppets sitting up in the balcony. I love the idea of being able to talk candidly week after week about stuff that we would normally otherwise talk about.

Darrell Vesterfelt: We’ll have some awesome guests on, on the new show. We’ll get some cool interviews with people who are doing and creating online businesses that actually work and some people that we look up to. It will be a fun show.

Brian Gardner: When I say bittersweet about this, as soon as we made the decision to do this, and maybe because we had asked a few folks to leave reviews on iTunes, there have been a few. They’ve been affirming in terms of you and I being together. Even this morning when we jumped on, I was like, “Man, you should read the reviews.” It makes me sad to think that we’re going to not do No Sidebar because people are just starting to get excited about the podcast now that you’ve been on.

We’ve had some good chemistry and some great conversations. I really do hope that people will follow us over to the new podcast because it’s very relevant. There are opportunities out there for entrepreneurs that they don’t even know exist. This is going to be something that we get to talk about. I really can’t wait. It’s probably going to be a few weeks. We’ve got to kick off and get some shows under our belt, but I definitely am looking forward to it.

A Little Bit About What to Expect in the Coming Weeks

Darrell Vesterfelt: Me too, man. No Sidebar is an amazing thing. You said that there are just over 8,000 people involved in the community now, which is amazing. My wife and I would consider ourselves minimalists and essentialists, so No Sidebar has resonated with us so much.

What I’m really excited about for the podcast is I think a lot of people who are listening to this want to actually make their businesses work in a way that it’s not currently working. You and I are going to have conversations about, like you just said, there are things that people can do in the online business space that they don’t even know about yet.

We’re going to talk about cool projects that people are doing. We’re going to talk about strategies, tips, and things that we’re doing with you at Copyblogger and me and the clients that I’m working with. We’re just going to talk about making things work, actually working, and actually making progress for goals of making a sustainable business, turning our passions into dollars, and things like that.

I’m really excited about that because it feels like No Sidebar is ethereal. What we’re going to do is going to be very practical. There’s going to be very practical takeaways. There’s going to be very practical tips. We’re going to have conversations about things that actually work and actually you can dig into and dive into. You can listen to the show, and then implement it into your business, into your life that day.

Brian Gardner: This is probably a good time to cue up the song Happy Trails. Back when I was in college and we used to hang out at country western bars, they would always play that as the bar was getting ready to close. They would play Happy Trails, and everyone would get sad because they had such a good evening.

Darrell Vesterfelt: Last call.

Brian Gardner: Exactly. They enjoyed the conversation and stuff like that. I wanted to just personally thank each and every one of the listeners out there for listening, for hanging with me as I’ve cut my teeth and learned some things about podcasting, which I hopefully will take into the next one that Darrell and I will be starting.

What can I say? This is going to be a fun thing for you and I. I know we’re both looking forward to it. I hope listener’s come over and follow us there, leave us good ratings, and encourage us because this is going to be for them, you know?

Darrell Vesterfelt: Yeah. We’re for the people.

Brian Gardner: For the people. With that said, we are going to be signing off. I know the big question will be in the minds of everybody, is there going to ever be a resuscitation of the No Sidebar podcast to align with the website? I don’t have the answer to that question. If it happens, I will do it. Right now, my focus is on work. My focus in on the podcast Darrell and I are starting, and from there, we’ll take it.

Darrell Vesterfelt: It’ll be a …?

The ’80s, Scott Ian of Anthrax, and Michael Stipe of REM

Brian Gardner: Yeah. Just like every good series or show on TV, there’s a cliffhanger. There’s the ‘what’s going to happen’ type of thing. In the meantime, we’re doing a spin off. I’m very excited. Darrell is very excited. Stay tuned over at Rainmaker.FM. You will see in the coming weeks, hopefully, a new, shiny album art cover.

Darrell Vesterfelt: Is it going to have my face on it?

Brian Gardner: It is not, and you know that because you’ve already seen the artwork.

Darrell Vesterfelt: Oh, man. I know, I thought I’d still try to get my smiling face on there.

Brian Gardner: Well, let’s just give everybody a clue. Just think the ’80s. Think the ’80s.

Darrell Vesterfelt: Oh, yeah.

Brian Gardner: That’s a little bit of a clue. It’s very non-descriptive.

Darrell Vesterfelt: We can’t have the hair band though because we’re both bald.

Brian Gardner: Scott Ian from Anthrax was bald, I believe. He had a long goatee. Michael Stipe, another guy, REM. He was bald.

Darrell Vesterfelt: All right, we’re good then.

Brian Gardner: It works. Everybody, thank you so much for listening. We’ll see you soon.