My 90-Minute Podcast Workflow: Record, Edit, Ship — No Studio Needed

Y'all always ask me how I keep In Da Streets Radio moving without burning out or hiring a whole team. Real talk: I got it down to 90 minutes from hitting record to the episode going live. I'm walking you through my exact workflow today — tools, steps, no fluff. If you got a phone or laptop, you can do this too.

Step one is prep, but I'm counting that as part of the 90 minutes. I use Notion to keep episode outlines, guest contact info, and talking points in one spot. Free tier works fine. Before I go live, I spend maybe 10 minutes reviewing my outline and testing my mic. I'm on a Blue Yeti USB mic (around $130, been rocking it for years), but honestly a decent headset mic or even your phone's earbuds will get you started.

Recording happens in Riverside.fm. I pay for the Creator plan ($24/month) because it records separate high-quality audio and video tracks for me and my guest, even if the internet gets shaky. My guest just clicks a link — no download, no account needed. We record for 30-45 minutes depending on the vibe. Riverside auto-saves everything to the cloud, so I never lose a file. Pro tip: I always do a 10-second mic check before we dive in. Saves you from finding out later that someone sounded like a robot.

Once we wrap, Riverside lets me download the tracks instantly. I pull the MP3 audio file and drop it straight into Descript (I'm on the Creator plan, $24/month). Descript transcribes the whole thing in under five minutes and lets me edit the audio by literally deleting words from the transcript like I'm editing a Google Doc. I cut out the 'ums', long pauses, any technical glitches, maybe tighten up a rambling section. This editing phase takes me 20-25 minutes max.

Next I export the cleaned-up audio from Descript as an MP3. Then I hop into Canva Pro ($13/month) and spend maybe 10 minutes making the episode artwork using one of my saved templates — I just swap the guest photo and episode number. Canva lets you resize for every platform in one click, so I grab a square version for the podcast and a wide one for social posts.

Now it's upload time. I use Buzzsprout for podcast hosting ($12/month for my plan, but they have a free tier that gets you started). I drag the MP3 in, paste the episode title and description I already wrote in Notion, upload the artwork, add my intro/outro music (I use royalty-free tracks from Epidemic Sound, $15/month), and hit publish. Buzzsprout auto-distributes to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, everywhere. That whole upload process is like 15 minutes.

While Buzzsprout does its thing, I'm already in Buffer (free plan) scheduling social posts with clips and the episode link. I pull a 60-second video snippet from Riverside, add captions in Descript or CapCut (free), and queue it up for Instagram and TikTok. If I'm feeling it, I'll use ChatGPT to punch up my episode description or generate three different caption options for the posts. Takes another 10 minutes.

Total time? Maybe 90 minutes if I'm focused, sometimes two hours if I get distracted or the episode ran long. But here's the thing: I'm not waiting on anyone. I'm not sending files back and forth. I'm not paying a editor $150 per episode. I learned these tools one at a time, and now I move fast. You can too.

Real costs: Riverside + Descript + Canva + Buzzsprout + Epidemic Sound is about $88/month for me. You can start way cheaper — use Zoom ($15/month) to record, Audacity (free) to edit, the free Buzzsprout tier, and Canva free. You'll still ship episodes. You just might take a little longer until you level up.

Drop a comment or DM me @ninacapone if you want me to break down video podcasting or how I repurpose one episode into 10 pieces of content.