Meet Marcus Engel
Founder of 301 Studios, podcast host, and creative marketeer
Hustle Global (HG): Where are you originally from? Where are you currently located and running your business from?
Marcus Engel (ME): I am originally from a tiny village in Bavaria in the South of Germany. Since 2018 I am located in Amsterdam and I am also running my business from here in my studio in Amsterdam East.
HG: Tell me about your business. What’s your mission? Who’s your ideal customer?
ME: I am working on many different things at the same time, but my main activities are being a full-time podcaster and creative marketeer and I also run a podcast production agency.
I have not met a client yet, that I did not surprise with a creative (podcast) concept that totally hit the nerve with their target group. But generally, I am talking to business owners with more than 20 employees, I think that’s the smallest company size a podcast project makes sense for. With my business, I love to think differently about content, creativity, and marketing and to make brands uncomfortable by combining their brand guidelines with my concepts. Then I know I did the right thing.
HG: What does “hustle” mean to you as an entrepreneur?
For me, “hustle” means: Chasing something day in and day out no matter the circumstances.
HG: What’s your day-to-day like as a business owner?
M:
TLDR: Check out my weekly Vlog to know what I am up to every day/week. Luckily, every day is a little bit different, I stopped working in my 9-5 because I despised the monotony in my job.
For my podcast business, I spend a lot of time in my studio accompanying recordings, editing the episodes, and preparing new episode launches. If I am not in the studio, I work with clients on marketing projects, think about creative campaigns, or record videos for my vlog. I can really say that no day is like the other, which is a curse and blessing at the same time.
HG: What do you wish you had known before starting your business?
M: For me, it is two things, the first hard lesson was “no one comes to save you”. When you have an idea and you finally decide to act on it, you need to be out there selling your solution. In the beginning, I was way too passive, always hoping someone would reach out to me asking for my groundbreaking solution to help them. This is not how it works and while this sounds very obvious it’s much much harder when you have to balance sales, marketing, operations, life, friends, and everything in between.
The second thing which goes hand in hand with my first point is “Start as early as possible”. If I had known how long it takes to find the right proposition, create a sales pipeline, and actually sell, I would have started two years earlier to create content, build a network and pipeline, and only then fully jump on the solopreneur train.
HG: What has been your biggest obstacle so far? And what did it teach you?
M: My biggest challenge is by far sales. I am a creative through and through and pricing my services is extremely difficult for me. When you start your own business you are extremely passionate about a certain subject, in my case, it was podcasting. You quickly realize that pricing your business like a passion project only gets you so far. Yes, you will get clients, yes you are happy, but ultimately you will experience growth pains once you want to outsource certain parts of your business but realize you did not charge enough. So the learning is don’t price your business like a passion project.
HG: What challenge(s) are you facing right now?
M: I am at an interesting crossroads currently, where I can either fully focus on my own podcast and content creator career or lean in more to build a bigger podcast agency. The biggest challenge in building the agency is still to convince businesses why they should start a podcast.
The common misconception is still that, “everyone has a podcast” which is very far away from the truth. On the other hand, building my personal podcast which gained a lot of traction in the past weeks, requires time and focus which is sometimes difficult to balance. In the next couple of weeks, I will have to make a decision about which road to take, which is a very luxurious position to be in.
HG: What has been your biggest win so far? And how did you celebrate?
M: Opening my studio, where I can record my podcasts. I started recording podcasts in my closet with a microphone I bought from a shady guy on Marktplaats and 3 years later sitting in a studio with 4K cameras was and still is mindblowing to me. I did not particularly celebrate the moment (definitely something I have to get better at, but I was very proud after the first episode was recorded).
HG: What has been your most successful marketing strategy? What were the results?
M: I have many creative outreaches, the one I personally liked the most was when I pitched my podcast services with a podcast pitch show on Spotify. Super personalized, super relevant, and very effective with an almost 60% response rate. I recorded a 60-second audio pitch for a potential lead, mentioned the lead’s name, used their logo as a podcast cover, and uploaded it on Spotify. I then contacted the lead and asked them if they knew that their company had a podcast show on Spotify with the episode link. I truly believe creative approaches like this make a difference. We get so used to pitching on Linkedin with plain messages, that this is a refreshing approach that a lot of people truly appreciate.
HG: Name one book or resource that helped you the most with building your business. How did it help you?
M: Noah Kagen’s Million Dollar Weekend. It taught me that speed is everything. While you are busy, planning, reiterating and almost philosophizing what your ICP wants or doesn't want, there are other people out there testing if this is actually true. Testing, talking to your ICP, and going into action mode immediately is the single most important thing for a business owner. I have been in the backroom for way too long, strategizing what the best approach is. A podcast guest in my podcast recently said, “As a solopreneur, you have to have a window shop, if people walk by they can see what you have in store”.
HG: How do you incorporate wellness and self-care into your daily routine to avoid burning out?
M: I could write here about how sports, walking, and meditation help me to stay sane. The current truth is that I have long working days 7 days a week, hustling in all areas of my life. It is always easy to say what is healthy and good, but when things go sideways with your business there is no one to save you except yourself. The good news is that things seem to get a bit more calm and sorted out and then I will try to implement those healthy routines back into my life.
HG: What tools or technology do you use daily to improve workflows, operations, communication, etc. in your business?
M: I like to use Notion for my workflow, to compile ideas, and to organize my whole business there. It is simple but very effective. Other than that, I mostly use WhatsApp and Slack to communicate with my clients, suppliers, and business partners. I use Canva for design work and the whole Adobe suite for my editing workflows.
HG: Are you currently using any AI tools in your business or personally? If so, which ones? What do you use them for? And how have they benefited you/your business?
M: I use ChatGPT a lot (hint develop your own GPTs) this is a major time saver. My GPT knows exactly what I am doing, who my clients are, and what my business is about.
Whenever I write a prompt or mention a name it knows exactly what to do. For instance, if I tell it to “write an episode description for Cyber Security Talks, with the following key points”, it knows exactly what to do. I use Opus Pro Clip to create podcast clips at scale and I use Jasper.ai for blog posts and post inspiration for myself.
HG: What’s one thing you do every day to keep your business on track?
M: Check my bank account.
HG: How would you describe your working style in 3 words (or less)?
M: Courageous, fun and creative.
HG: What 3 tips would you give to aspiring and fellow entrepreneurs?
M:
Have a proper plan in place for when you transition into entrepreneurship. There are many things you can do as a side hustle before you officially launch. I see many people just start, post it on Linkedin, and 3 months later have a paid job again.
Search for an accountability partner. Find someone who is in a similar situation to you, and create accountability towards each other with concrete goals, milestones, and check-ins. This really helps you stay on track if you know “someone is watching”.
Hire a business coach early. In the early stages, it pays off to invest in a coach to sharpen your proposition and have someone on the other side who has been in this situation many times before
HG: Lastly, what do you love most about being an entrepreneur? And what would you change?
M: The freedom is something that is pretty damn cool and the fact that you can literally do business with everyone is very daunting. If you have a cool idea you can just reach out to people and pitch it and that kind of freedom and the world of opportunities is something I do enjoy a lot.
The only thing I’d like to change is sometimes the uncertainty, you have to get pretty used to things that are not clear, whether it is if the client will sign, the next big thing you are working on, or if the concept/idea will really resonate with the audience as you promised the clients. So you have to become very good at being uncomfortable a lot of the time.
About Marcus and 301 Studios
I am a full-time marketing creative, podcaster, and podcast producer. Over the past years, I have worked in the sports, automotive, and blockchain industries on both the agency and client side with the biggest names in the industry. 3 years ago I started my entrepreneurial journey in Amsterdam. In my free time, I like to work out, watch football, and spend time with my dog.
301 Studios is a full-service podcast agency based in Amsterdam that is helping companies win in the audio space. The agency focuses on developing, producing, editing, and distributing new and exciting podcast concepts and projects.
🛜 Where to find Marcus & 301 Studios online: website, Instagram (personal), Instagram (301 Studios), LinkedIn (personal), LinkedIn (business), Spotify, and YouTube.
📣 For media opportunities, email Marcus.