Category: InterviewCategory: Interview

I first saw Kareem Rahma doing Keep the Meter Runnin on Instagram. Then Subway Takes a bit later. Absolutely fascinating talk about his journey, and just how much work and effort goes into putting these sorts of projects together.

I love this part so much:

I had bet on myself so many times that I accumulated so much junk that was useful. Junk knowledge, junk information, junk intangibles. Like, that’s a lot of stuff too—the intangibles. Like, saying “100% agree” or “100% disagree” was not a part of the plan. It’s just what came out of me.

The biggest hook in the show wasn’t planned, it just happened. But it “just happened” because of the many years of accumulated “junk.” It’s easy to think of things that didn’t quiet make it as failures, but maybe it’s best to reframe those as “junk knowledge!”

I had a great chat with Brie-Anna Willey of Business for Nerds today, where we agreed that it’s okay to not be good at social media, that maybe we should make our websites more like IKEA instead of a grocery store, how your old work is new to someone, and lots more.

Here’s a bit from my interview with Rusty Pilgrim:

Q. I have to be honest —my opinion of marketing is pretty close to that old Bill Hicks joke where he says, “Are there any marketing people here? You? Great. Kill yourself. Seriously —kill yourself.” That’s more or less how I’ve always felt.

But your approach is completely different. In fact, it’s so different that I wouldn’t even call it marketing. Was there a specific moment or event that led you to take this path?

A. Lots of Seth Godin books, starting with Purple Cow. Make something remarkable, and people will make remarks. It five people like it, maybe they tell five more. If they don’t, start again. Either re-work everything, or play to the crowd, or double down and find the right five people who might enjoy what you’re doing.

Not everyone is going to love what we do, and that’s okay. Even the most famous people on the internet are complete unknowns to most of the world. So to me it’s all about making a thing that you can make, making friends, having fun, building community. If that leads to paying some bills, great. If not, at least you’ve enriched the lives of those around you.

How do you get more subscribers? Pitch yourself. Get awareness off your plate and go do fun stuff with other people.

Jason Mantzoukas loved the UK show Taskmaster so much he pitched himself to be on the show.

Everyone should just know how hilarious Jason Mantzoukas is, right? Instead of sitting around and hoping to picked to be on the show, he reached out. He put the ball in motion.

Jason could have posted every day on social media hoping that the executive producers would see how serious he was. Or, he could tell his manager. Send some emails. Get things into motion. We can do the same.

Camilla Wickman has a new album ‘Red Rock, Seal Skin‘ coming out August 22, 2025.

In this interview you’ll hear how Camilla started making frequent social media posts to promote their upcoming album, which felt out of alignment.

“There’s been a long period over the winter and early spring where I was just like, what now? You know, what does it look like to kind of try and play the long game, or just be authentic? And I think there was a minute there where I was like, maybe I just quit music.”

Thankfully there was enough goodness around to keep moving forward.