On the 66th episode of Speedify Live we take a look into the world of trading card games as we talk to Brent Haliburton, host of the Trashalanche Pokémon Podcast, and father of two Pokémon TCG champions.

We discuss everything Pokémon TCG – from how it works to how someone can get good at it; as well as the Trashalanche Podcast itself, and how content creation actually works.

Here are our 5 takeaways from our chat with Brent Haliburton:

1. The Trashalanche Podcast’s process of producing a show is as follows: they use Google Docs to create a rough script of topics that is shared with everyone, including any guests they may have; the call itself is done and recorded in Zoom, and then the audio is edited and transcribed in Descript.
2. In order to make sure the Podcast reaches as many ears as possible, Brent and team use Buzzsprout: a podcast hosting platform that allows you to connect all your platforms from Spotify, to Amazon to iTunes and publish your podcast to all of them! It also provides basic stats from all platforms to see how many people listened. 
3. The marketing strategy for the Trashalanche Podcast for the first 60 episodes was quite unique: as Brent was transcribing the podcast, he would note down all the people they mentioned, and then tweet at them. This would help spread the word within the Pokémon community, and build connections too! 
4. Brent’s book, “How to Train Your Pokémon: Winning at the Pokémon Trading Card Game” is not only about how to play Pokémon, but more importantly, how to play well! He says it’s the book he would have wanted to read, as there are lots of guides out there that teach one or the other, but it’s rare that they focus on both.
5. When it comes to content creation, Brent says that in order to make a living, you have to invest time and energy, and do all these extra activities like tweeting, announcing streams and promoting yourself. It is a lot of work, just like any job!