
Ep 49: Amanda Guest of BFF.fm on lessons learned running a community radio station
Amanda Guest is the founder and GM of BFF.fm, an internet community radio station based in San Francisco, CA. Amanda has a long history of working in college and community radio while balancing full-time jobs in marketing and publishing. We talk about that, lessons learned in running a community organization, the importance of process and delegation, the future of BFF.fm, the Bay Area music scene, and a whole lot more. Listen above or on iTunes or Spotify.
Show notes
In this episode, we talk about:
- her past as a college radio host and GM
- how she got space for the studio
- how BFF.fm was born
- changing their revenue model to shift the financial burden from the DJs
- fostering a supportive and tight-knit community among their DJs
- managing full-time work with running a radio station
- working to make the station sustainable long-term through delegation and new revenue models
- their approach to curating live shows
- the state of the music scene in SF
- hard lessons learned in treating the station as a business vs fun project
- processes and structures they’re putting into place now
- the process of giving up control as a founder
- the importance of your team knowing and embracing your vision
- the role of design in audience engagement and donations
- the relationship between corporate funding and the arts
- how to apply to be a BFF.fm DJ
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Amanda on Twitter
- BFF.fm
- The Secret Alley
- Amanda’s Top 30 BFF.fm hits show
- No Magic with Ben Ward
- WMWM Salem 91.7
- The Bold Italic story about BFF.fm
- Bandcamp IRL in Oakland
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