How Funny Business “reset” its strategy to better serve its community

Earlier this month I was a guest on the Funny Business podcast, hosted by Robbie Hicks and Lachlan Bradford, to talk about the latest developments in the small business scene. 

On its Spotify profile, Funny Business describes itself as “a podcast for free-thinkers and creators exploring business culture and performance in Australia and abroad”. 

But when chatting with the hosts, they joke that they “didn’t really expect Funny Business to do what it did”. 

What it did, exactly, is build a growing online community; its Slack channel has around 600 members alongside its active and supportive network across LinkedIn and Instagram, and nearly 400,000 downloads of its podcast. 

And while “that’s all cool to us,” Hicks says, “we’re not playing the numbers game”. 

Instead, Hicks and Bradford choose quality over quantity and want their community to shape what they do. 

The Wellbeing Newtwork

It started on April 20, 2020, when the two long-time friends decided to start the podcast together. 

Hicks was working as a lean agile practice leader for an Australian tech company, while Bradford was working in recruitment.

They both understood the business scene and wanted to talk about it more with like-minded individuals, especially at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic was making it harder to keep in contact with people.

After recording five episodes a week on the podcast, “it just grew legs”, Hicks says, referring to the online community the hosts started to recognise. 

So then the two hosts — along with a former business partner — decided to “have a crack and start something”. 

The three built The Wellbeing Network, a “content-creator, agency networking type-of-thing” that saw the team producing other podcasts, building a community around their knowledge and interests, and offering professional services such as recruitment. 

“Our point of difference was that we’d worked in these tech companies, so we could help coach them [on recruitment], and also help inject a bit of fun and positivity into their own digital strategies.”

At the same time, the team was trying to record and publish five Funny Business podcasts a week.

And despite being able to scale the business successfully under this new direction, including expanding to having 10 staff working under them, Hicks and Bradford realised in doing so, they had changed their relationship with their community.

“We were trying to sell to people and ask them to come and join companies, and it changes the narrative of how we interact with the community,” Hicks said.

“It goes from being from being all-welcoming and the ‘learn, grow and find new stuff’ [angle], to all of a sudden putting a transactional barrier between us. 

“It felt yuck.”

“Do it on your own terms”

The pandemic changed a lot of things for a lot of us, and Hicks and Bradford are no exception.

Hicks is now a new father, and the two decided to look at 2022 as an opportunity to take control of all the changes that were happening in their lives.

“This year is all about reset,” Hicks said.

Now the podcast is published three times a week — down from its original five-day schedule — with one episode featuring a guest, one episode covering the week’s top news, and one episode covering the industry’s latest trends.

“We’re way more excited about what we’re doing now,” Bradford said. “Because at the end of the day, it’s about the impact.”

The two used to look at Funny Business as an amazing tool that helped launch their business but now, “the strategy is to go all in [on the podcast]”, Hicks says.

By scaling back, Hicks and Bradford are now able to continue growing their brand around the podcast through events, community activities, and sponsorship with other local, like-minded brands — such as the sponsor of their guest pod, Heaps Normal.

The pair are keen to expand their impact on the sector, and find a better balance for themselves and their own lives while doing so.

“How do we still have a life based around fun, that’s not as crazy intense?” is the question they say they are both asking themselves.

And their biggest message for their community is exactly that: to dream big, but to have a life while doing it.

“Do it on your own terms,” Bradford said, when asked what their advice to others wanting to build a business.

“There’s all these cookie cutter methods out there, but you really can make a living being you.”