In January 2011 the Nerdist podcast recorded a live episode at SModcastle, the little Los Angeles theater Kevin Smith had opened the year before as the first stage built for podcasting. The episode came out on January 17, simply titled “Kevin Smith,” and somewhere in it he did what he spent that whole era doing: telling everyone within earshot to start a podcast. I won’t put words in his mouth. The gist, roughly, was that if you have a microphone and something to say, you have a show.
The idea took that advice as literally as it could be taken. There are a lot of Kevin Smiths. Enough that right now, somewhere, one of them is spelling it for a pharmacist who says “like the director?” So: a podcast where every guest is a different real person named Kevin Smith. Lunch gets delivered, a sponsor pays for it, and we spend half an hour on the name, the question they always get, and who they actually are, which is the part that matters. None of the guests directed Clerks.
The week had an anchor before it had a plan. On Tuesday, September 15, Tyler and I were in a box at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul for An Evening with Kevin Smith, the actual one.
So the lunch became dinner, and the one Kevin Smith we spent the evening with was the one the podcast was never going to book.
Then I decided not to make the podcast. I think I’d be OK at interviewing people. But for this idea to really work, OK isn’t enough. Every episode lives or dies on the conversation with a stranger who has nothing to promote, and that takes an interviewer who has put in the time to become great at it. I can’t give it that time right now, and it deserves more than a show I’d make between other things.
That’s the first time a week has ended with “no” instead of a launch, and I’m glad the plan already said no domain and no landing page. mylunchwithkevinsmith.com is still available. I didn’t buy it, so the only thing this idea cost me was a theater ticket, and I’d have bought that anyway.
If someone else wants to make it, please do. Book the first Kevin, get a sponsor to buy lunch, and have every guest name the next Kevin Smith so the show builds its own network. I’d be a subscriber.
The 1w1i takeaway: one week is enough to learn whether you’d be great at something or just OK. Knowing which ideas deserve more than you can give them is a result too.
— c