I'm Misha Euceph.
I'm a journalist focusing on podcasts.
I'm 24 years old and I make approximately $60,000 a year.
I was gonna go into public radio, but that opened up
doors for for profit jobs and I ended up
getting recruited by Sirius XM.
I worked there for a year and then decided
to freelance so that I could focus on original
production and pursue more reporting,
have the opportunities, so whether those are
full time jobs or consulting opportunities
where I consult with other people and help
them develop podcasts.
I think I was more passionate about the production
and story telling and journalistic aspect of radio
than I was about the tech side of it.
I started pursuing opportunities outside of work
while I was working at Sirius XM.
So, I started a podcast called Beginner, which started
getting a lot of attention.
I started freelancing and got published in notable
papers like the Wall Street Journal and I felt like
that was giving me a greater sense of validation
and excitement and challenge than I was getting
at my job, as much as it was secure and safe
and with a great team of people.
And so, I decided that I was going to freelance
full time and see how it worked out for a few months.
I'm 24, this is the time to do it.
If it doesn't work out I'll go back to a traditional job
and if I freelance I can always say that I tried
to build something up from scratch and that it either
worked or it didn't, but I learned something in the process.
And, if it works then I'll be able to make more money
and be doing work that I'm more passionate about
and that was really exciting to me.
I made that leap two months ago.
The first month was really hard.
There were many nights where I just lay on my bed
staring at the ceiling wondering why I did this
and then, slowly opportunities came rolling in.
There were a few things I knew that were gonna bring
me income, one of which was my podcast and the second
was something that's called tape sync, because
you have all this equipment.
You go and record for somebody who can't be
on location to record the interview and they conduct
the interview over the phone and you basically
make it seem like they're in the same room
and you provide them that audio and you're paid
a couple hundred bucks for an hour, which is like
way higher than you could get for baby sitting
or for you know, tutoring even, or something
that like I think requires more skill.
But, because it's so industry specific and you have
equipment that's very expensive, you know how
to operate it, you can make a lot of money off of that.
So, those were two things, my podcast and that
that I knew were definitely gonna bring in revenue.
And then, from there the rest was just kind of hustling.
So, pitching things to people, pitching podcasts
to top newspapers, I got approached by some professors
from notable universities that were really interested
in reaching a mainstream audience and they did not
have the skillset to produce a podcast and they felt
like a podcast was the perfect way to do it.
That's a really interesting project because their
research is something that I think deserves to reach
a mainstream audience and it's you know, paid very well
based on like industry standards for that kinda project,
so for me it's a great opportunity to help bring
something out into the public that I think is
really important, but also, moneywise it's kind of
a more steady, bigger paycheck than I would get
from you know doing tape syncs or one article here,
one article there.
And then, other than that I'm constantly pitching stories.
So, I just published two stories in the U.S. News.
I'm writing a bunch of op-eds and I'm gonna shop
around for months until they get published.
So, that's kind of what my responsibilities look like.
It feels a lot like running a business though, surprisingly.
I don't have a regular office.
At first I started out working at home and that was
a total disaster because I would get distracted.
I would you know, cook myself a meal or watch a movie
and I realized my productivity levels were way lower.
What I have done is I break it up into two coffee shops
during the day and I most often go to a place
in the West Village because I like the environment
surrounding it.
It's quieter than mid town, but it's more exciting
and fun to be around than up town.
It's also near the water.
It makes for a nice walk in the middle of the day, too,
if I wanna take a break.
And, I like the food that they serve, so that's awesome.
I go to one coffee shop in the daytime and I'll
usually run or go to yoga in the middle of the day
and then I'll switch up scenery and go to a different
coffee shop and that's where I do you know, all
the work that needs to be done on a computer.
A lotta days actually don't look like that, though.
A lotta days there's recordings and phone calls
that need to be made that I can't be in a coffee shop
making, or interviews that I need to go in person
and conduct, or for my podcast there's activities
that I'm learning.
So, I'm actually like going out and riding my bike
and actually recording myself or taking
a swim lesson and getting reported.
So, that also adds up to like different parts of the day.
The podcast that I'm producing is called Beginner.
It is about being an immigrant in America
and learning how to belong.
And specifically, it focuses on all the things
that I don't know how to do because I kind of missed
out on this crucial formative part of childhood
in the United States, so I moved here when I was 11.
And, for the first few years I was just focused
on like acclimating and you know, getting rid
of my accent, just fitting in.
I didn't know how to ride a bike.
I couldn't really swim.
I have no pop culture references before like 2010.
So, every episode of the podcast I learn
a different activity and it's recorded
and I kind of reflect on what it means to be
an immigrant and how that changes, you know,
my relationship to being American.
The podcast is surprisingly gotten a lot of attention.
It was on Spotify's home page for multiple weeks.
It trended on Pocket Casts which is one of the podcast apps.
I was interviewed on NPR about it which was pretty crazy
and very meta for a radio producer.
And then, I also was featured in The Guardian for Beginner.
So, that was really, really rewarding and worthwhile
and kinda validating at the beginning of this whole
freelancing thing that okay, I'm making something
that is valuable and I should keep going down this path.
A big milestone in podcasting is when you go from kind
of like perform a space advertising model to like
a flat rate and it means that you've reached
a certain number of downloads and average listeners
so I'm having that call this week which is really exciting
which means the check coming in from Beginner is gonna
be a lot more steady and a bigger check than it was
up until this point.
With a podcast that's highly successful, so if you have
300,000 listeners you can make as much as $150,000
off of the podcast, depending on what kind of advertising
deals you have.
Now, there's other models where you can have exclusivity
deals with platforms and they'll pay you more money
to basically buy your podcast for a certain exclusivity
window, or you can work for a brand or an institution
like a university and they'll pay you a lot of money
because they have the backing to actually pay you
for that podcast and they know that over time
they're gonna reap the benefits of that either
monetarily or through publicity or whatever it
is that their aim is.
So, at that point I realized that I didn't have to settle
for you know less than $100,000, which a lotta people
had told me that in journalism that's the max you're
ever gonna make and your lawyer friends are gonna
be very rich and you're not gonna be comfortable.
And, I also started thinking about there are other
opportunities that once you get a certain level
of expertise and a certain level of notoriety
that you can write a book.
There will be speaking engagements.
You can teach workshops.
You can become a professor, an adjunct professor
and there's income from that.
You can consult with other people and offer
your expertise and your skillset.
I think just realizing that there was so many more
ways to make money than just getting a job
and getting promoted was a really liberating thing.
I'm not gonna lie, my first month as a freelancer
I totally doubted all of it and I forgot about
all of those things that I was so delusively
optimistic about.
I was like, I'm not gonna make rent this month.
I'm gonna have to ask my parents for help,
like what am I gonna do.
As you gain momentum opportunities start
rolling in you know.
And so now, I feel like okay, now I'm in the groove,
like now I know that I can ask for this much
for this kind of project, and I can ask for
that much for that kinda project and people
are asking me to write things and asking
me to consult on things rather than me
pitching things to them.
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