Latest / Story Scaling / Navigating Success in the Podcast Industry: PodMatch Founder Weighs In

Transcript

Navigating Success in the Podcast Industry: PodMatch Founder Weighs In · Story Scaling

0:00
Speaker 1: We are podcastvideoscom.
0:01
Speaker 1: Our goal is to educate, enlighten, engage and entertain.
0:05
Speaker 1: We believe in the power of love and transformation through storytelling.
0:08
Speaker 1: Welcome back everybody to Story Scaling.
0:15
Speaker 1: I'm Dan Kraft, the editorial director here at podcastvideoscom, and with me today we've got Alex Sanfilippo, the founder of Podmatch.
0:23
Speaker 1: Hey, we've got Alex Sanfilippo, the founder of Podmatch.
0:25
Speaker 1: It's not a dating service, people, you're connecting hosts with guests.
0:31
Speaker 1: When they're out there looking, there's plenty of people who want to be guests.
0:35
Speaker 1: There's plenty of hosts desperately seeking more guests.
0:41
Speaker 2: How did you put them together, dan?
0:42
Speaker 2: First off, thank you so much for having me.
0:43
Speaker 2: I really appreciate it and thank you for clarifying.
0:45
Speaker 2: It's not a dating app.
0:46
Speaker 2: Fun side note story to start with, which maybe makes it sound like I'm not gonna be a great interview, but I promise I'll bring it back.
0:51
Speaker 2: When we first launched, the banks and stuff like that were already using AI.
0:56
Speaker 2: So this is going back some time when we launched and it was before it was kind of mainstream, but it was trying to figure out what everything was, because people were so bad at titling what things are.
1:04
Speaker 2: So it changed podmatchcom to matchcom and I cannot tell you how many angry husbands we had saying you have to explain to my wife that I do not have a matchcom subscription and legitimately, we had people reaching out like that, and that's some of the early phase problems we ran into.
1:19
Speaker 2: But yes, we do not connect people for dates.
1:21
Speaker 2: It is podcast interviews.
1:22
Speaker 2: We just use a similar idea to make that happen.
1:26
Speaker 2: Man, I'll be real, I didn't know what I was getting into when I started.
1:30
Speaker 2: I remember being at a big conference.
1:32
Speaker 2: I was speaking at a podcasting event in Orlando, florida, at the beginning of 2020, just before the world shut down.
1:38
Speaker 2: There's about 2000 people there.
1:39
Speaker 2: But I made a point that when I got off of stage I was going to ask as many people who talked to me what it is that they were struggling with in podcasting.
1:45
Speaker 2: And I wrote down a lot of things.
1:47
Speaker 2: I had pen and paper.
1:47
Speaker 2: You and I are both pen and paper guys, so like I had physical, physical pen and paper in my hand.
1:52
Speaker 2: Just because people take that very seriously, when they see that oh, he's actually writing something down, like people are like more interested in getting into a conversation.
1:59
Speaker 2: You've seen that over the years for sure right.
2:01
Speaker 1: We used to try to get it pen and paper before the TV cameras showed up, because when I worked at the newspaper, because they would always clam up when they saw the camera, Powerful.
2:11
Speaker 2: See like, right there, we could end right here.
2:13
Speaker 2: That's a big takeaway for anybody getting into this type of thing.
2:15
Speaker 2: You're going to be interviewing, like when you write something down someone knows like, they kind of feel like, okay, I said something valuable.
2:20
Speaker 2: So side note there.
2:21
Speaker 2: But I wrote down a lot of different things that day.
2:24
Speaker 2: But there was one trend which was I'm having trouble finding the ideal guest for my show, maybe not just guests.
2:29
Speaker 2: In general, most podcasts, especially these days, they have options.
2:32
Speaker 2: They just don't have the right options.
2:33
Speaker 2: And so I realized I'm like okay, so we can't just build like a directory, because then it's just more of the same.
2:38
Speaker 2: They can find if they have a sports podcast.
2:40
Speaker 2: My 15 yearyear-old cousin, I promise you wants to be on your podcast.
2:43
Speaker 2: Should he be?
2:44
Speaker 2: Absolutely not Love him to death, he would be a terrible guest.
2:47
Speaker 2: But yeah, he wants to be on your show.
2:49
Speaker 2: But it's like okay, how do we put those ideal people together?
2:50
Speaker 2: And so I came home and I put in a whiteboard and, dan, I'll be real, I had nothing.
3:00
Speaker 2: I was like from God.
3:01
Speaker 2: I felt like was just like just gave me this download of like what if it worked like a dating app?
3:05
Speaker 2: But instead of connecting people for dates, it connected them for podcast interviews, and so that's exactly what we sought out to build, and it happened to really hit.
3:13
Speaker 2: It landed really well, and the thing is, I got those people's information that were telling me that was their problem, and so the day we launched, I emailed all of them and it ended up being about 100 people that I was like, hey, can you test this?
3:23
Speaker 2: Can you tell me if this is solving the problem that you claim that you have?
3:26
Speaker 2: And that's kind of how the whole thing got rolling.
3:29
Speaker 1: A little bit of a beta test from the people.
3:31
Speaker 1: You had already gotten feedback from Correct Yep.
3:37
Speaker 1: You actually showed up in my inbox one of my newsletters the day.
3:42
Speaker 1: We're recording this, because now you're rolling out a little more of a tool that will not only give a guest and a host a match, but it will sort of throw out why, what's bringing you together, how they were chosen.
3:55
Speaker 1: Can you delve into that a little bit?
3:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely.
3:58
Speaker 2: You know it's funny.
3:59
Speaker 2: I listened to one of your episodes that you did, and it was with your internal crew there.
4:03
Speaker 2: Uh, it was titled ai, promises and pitfalls.
4:06
Speaker 2: Yes, which I encourage everybody who's listening to this.
4:08
Speaker 2: Finish this episode, but take a side note, maybe write down a pen and paper.
4:11
Speaker 2: Uh, check out the episode.
4:13
Speaker 2: It aired on august 16th 2024, uh.
4:16
Speaker 2: And then again, that was ai, promises and pitfalls, and you all were joking about, like.
4:20
Speaker 2: The first time you heard of ai, you were like what is this terminator?
4:22
Speaker 2: Right, and for me, I immediately thought of the Matrix and Terminator.
4:27
Speaker 2: Those two things came to mind.
4:28
Speaker 2: I'm like both terrible endings, right.
4:30
Speaker 2: I'm like uh-oh, what are we doing here?
4:33
Speaker 2: And we actually started working with AI in 2020.
4:36
Speaker 2: And so my co-founder, very smart developer, he started building something out internally to use, knowing, hey, we might not use this for a while, because he had a very good point AI is only as good as what you feed it, right, garbage in, garbage out, type of mentality.
4:50
Speaker 2: And so we needed some good data.
4:51
Speaker 2: So we have been building on the back end for four years and now we have four years of data, four years of information that people give us during the second their profile and using their accounts and stuff like that.
5:02
Speaker 2: So we just officially rolled out the first front facing version of our AI, which will tell you why a match might exist.
5:10
Speaker 2: So for you and me, dan, it'll say, hey, there's a reason that we put the two of you together.
5:13
Speaker 2: Dan has a long background in journalism and a newspaper and Alex, you have some background in blogging.
5:20
Speaker 2: Right, I'm just using the example.
5:21
Speaker 2: It might put those things together and say, hey, this is what we know about both of you.
5:29
Speaker 2: Here's where the synergies exist and the idea behind it and the reason I'm really excited about it is the biggest complaint I shouldn't say complaint.
5:32
Speaker 2: The biggest request that I've been getting from podcasters, both guests and hosts, over the last six months has been can you help me with the research process?
5:39
Speaker 2: It's a lot of work figuring out where the synergies exist and we call this phase one of three.
5:45
Speaker 2: We have three phases and the whole idea is to cut down the amount of time that you have to spend doing the research.
5:49
Speaker 2: Now, I am big on doing the research.
5:51
Speaker 2: This is simply giving you a direction that you might be able to follow, but someone still.
5:56
Speaker 2: But we'll never make it that we say you don't need to do any research.
5:58
Speaker 2: No, this is just saying, hey, this is where your research should go.
6:01
Speaker 2: I guess I don't know how you would tie that in with newspaper.
6:05
Speaker 2: But how would you tie that in, sorry?
6:06
Speaker 2: How would you tell them?
6:07
Speaker 1: like a jumping off point, for you know where you would start.
6:10
Speaker 1: There you go.
6:10
Speaker 2: That's a great way to say it.
6:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, spoken from a true professional.
6:13
Speaker 1: Thank you, um now, what, what, what kind of?
6:17
Speaker 1: Scared me, honestly, a little bit when I was researching you.
6:20
Speaker 1: It was like, oh, this this is not your first foray into, let's see if this is a business that works.
6:26
Speaker 1: You may have started more companies than my own boss has, which is a really high bar.
6:31
Speaker 1: To clear, you've been all over the place.
6:35
Speaker 1: Podcasting is the latest.
6:37
Speaker 1: Let's see aerospace real estate virtual tours group ministry.
6:43
Speaker 1: That looks like it was mostly an online thing.
6:47
Speaker 2: You've you started them up all over the place, Most of which have not done well.
6:54
Speaker 2: I like to say I'm a real entrepreneur, which means you're going to fail a lot.
7:00
Speaker 2: Failing forward is kind of the idea.
7:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've done and tried a lot of things and really, Dan, a lot of that just came from my own curiosity as an entrepreneur.
7:08
Speaker 2: I did a long sprint in big corporate, did 15 years working for a big organization which I actually really, really loved.
7:15
Speaker 2: I had a blast.
7:16
Speaker 2: It was bittersweet.
7:17
Speaker 2: The day I left.
7:17
Speaker 2: I left to pursue pod match and podcasting.
7:20
Speaker 2: Full-time was ultimately what kind of led me there.
7:22
Speaker 2: Everything else was kind of on the side, just side hustles, because I've always been someone who enjoys that and sure, some of it has been really successful, Others haven't, but it's always just been.
7:31
Speaker 2: It's kind of led me to where I am I've brought.
7:37
Speaker 2: Almost recently I actually did this.
7:38
Speaker 2: I wrote down a whiteboard everything I've learned along the way and all my failed and successes along the way.
7:41
Speaker 2: So failed attempts, success along the way, like what did I learn from those things?
7:43
Speaker 2: Am I using them today?
7:44
Speaker 2: And I found that I was using almost all of them, which is like really cool to be able to see.
7:48
Speaker 2: So for anyone who's like an entrepreneur or creator, like don't stop just because something isn't working.
7:54
Speaker 2: You're going to be able to use that as for momentum at a later date, that's got to be an impressively sized whiteboard.
8:03
Speaker 2: Something like that.
8:06
Speaker 1: So, going back though, as I look through some of the other things you've done, as I look through some of the other things you've done pulling used golf balls that's just a kid on the hustle the aerospace just looking in the background, I was like yeah, it was aerospace, it was government.
8:20
Speaker 1: That's all we're really going to say about that.
8:22
Speaker 1: So we'll skip over that part.
8:23
Speaker 1: But one that kind of struck me was you set up a deal where you were offering virtual tours of homes and businesses for a couple of years, so you had a video background coming into podcasting.
8:38
Speaker 1: Obviously, this is something that really grew from audio, and video is well, as far as we hope anyway, it's something that's going to catch because it's sort of in our name.
8:48
Speaker 1: But you had some video background.
8:51
Speaker 1: Did you jump natively into an audio video set or did you try the audio route alone first?
8:57
Speaker 2: So I going back to like the virtual tours days, uh, that was like I'm going to use a different time and this was like for real estate specifically.
9:04
Speaker 2: So it was never.
9:05
Speaker 2: I was never in any of it, right.
9:07
Speaker 2: And so for me it wasn't like it didn't feel scary because there was never like hey, here's this place.
9:12
Speaker 2: It was back before.
9:13
Speaker 2: That was a thing.
9:13
Speaker 2: It was more so just kind of dragging your mouse around, like looking at the different rooms and stuff like that, which was really fun.
9:20
Speaker 2: And for me I was more on the technology side of that which I liked.
9:24
Speaker 2: So I had a team of photographers, video people, all that stuff, and then editors and it was kind of just like working through it.
9:31
Speaker 2: It made me very passionate about real estate for a time, like it was just really cool to see.
9:34
Speaker 2: But it felt totally different.
9:36
Speaker 2: And the first time I actually got in front of a camera Dan, it did not translate, which I learned instantly because I totally froze up the first time I had a camera in front of me, didn't know what to say, didn't even know how to like articulate anything.
9:48
Speaker 2: So, sure, maybe I knew a little bit like the tech side of it and understood, like how this all works.
9:53
Speaker 2: But the second that camera, the little light came on.
9:56
Speaker 2: It was in front of me.
9:56
Speaker 2: I totally froze up and it terrified me.
9:59
Speaker 2: I wish I would have been giving myself some reps back then, but I was definitely not doing that at that time.
10:05
Speaker 1: In my newspaper days we used to duck the TV cameras to try and stay out of their shots because we would tease each other back in the newsroom.
10:11
Speaker 1: Oh, I saw you on TV.
10:12
Speaker 1: To try and stay out of their shots because we would tease each other back in the newsroom.
10:19
Speaker 1: Oh, I saw you on TV.
10:16
Speaker 1: Even I saw your car.
10:16
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I can't help where they pointed the camera.
10:17
Speaker 1: But uh, you know it's a little bit different experience to be pointing the camera at something instead of having it pointed at you.
10:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, it really is.
10:27
Speaker 2: And for me, like this is another like little practical application moment.
10:31
Speaker 2: If you're maybe a podcaster who's just doing the audio, but you're saying I really want to do video, for me the way I got comfortable with it and this maybe isn't what like a like on air on video expert would tell you but I literally just put my iphone in the uh, in my blinds, like it would sit inside, like the blinds, and I hit record.
10:48
Speaker 2: I did that every day for months and I got really comfortable because I'd rewatch them and they were icky to rewatch and listen to, right, but it taught me the things I knew I was good at talking about and the things I wasn't and how to articulate.
11:02
Speaker 2: Well, that's a simple practice for, like, overcoming that imposter syndrome or fear.
11:05
Speaker 2: So I hope that's valuable for someone to hear.
11:07
Speaker 2: But I think that being on video makes you better at audio at this point and so I really have been suggesting that you should really.
11:14
Speaker 2: I mean, it's the future and again, it just makes you more well-rounded, like, why not Right?
11:21
Speaker 1: I look back at some of the early ones we did and it was like I, I, okay, I'm in the frame, I think I'm speaking, you know, fairly coherently.
11:28
Speaker 1: There's not a lot of stumbles, but I am nervous enough that I'm going on the table the whole time and realizing that my microphone has picked it all up.
11:38
Speaker 2: When I came from big corporate, what I used to hear and I'll do it right here pen and paper right, I have one in front of me.
11:42
Speaker 2: I don't know if you'll ever hear this, but when somebody is talking in a boardroom, they're just pushing the pen in and out and you're like, will you please stop?
11:49
Speaker 2: But they were someone that you worked for, so you had to just learn to love that terrible noise.
11:54
Speaker 1: I left my pen out of reach for exactly that reason.
11:57
Speaker 2: Very smart.
11:59
Speaker 1: That's a pro move right there.
12:00
Speaker 1: So obviously we've been talking a lot about Podmatch, but you have several related or other podcasting area outfits going on.
12:14
Speaker 1: You do some education.
12:15
Speaker 1: You've got your podcasting made simple, which is, it seems like, where you really started to catch some attention in the first place.
12:24
Speaker 1: You do some industry speaking.
12:26
Speaker 2: There's Pod Lottery, podstyle Is that still a thing clothing for podcasters.
12:33
Speaker 2: We've actually it's interesting A lot of these brands like if you keep on going through the list, like that, that pod style is like where the list begins that we've like removed or we've brought it into pod match.
12:42
Speaker 2: The idea is, because it's a lot and I don't want to confuse people, um, I want to bring it all into pod match and so we've done that.
12:48
Speaker 2: We've sunset some things, including that for a little, people were like asking about like the t-shirts I was wearing, like I'm wearing one right now that says the words seek to serve, and people were like, really like it.
12:56
Speaker 2: So I'm like, okay, let's just set up a shopify store and give people a code they can, they can get it, and then, sure enough, we did that.
13:03
Speaker 2: And then we start having people say, oh, it didn't fit, can I get another size?
13:05
Speaker 2: And we started doing that.
13:07
Speaker 2: I'm like wait a minute, we're a software company, we're not a clothing company.
13:09
Speaker 2: Like, if somebody wants it, we will ship it to them for free.
13:12
Speaker 2: If they ask us, they're like hey, I really liked that, give us a size and address and we will just ship it to them.
13:16
Speaker 2: But we're not getting into that type of thing.
13:17
Speaker 2: But at first I was like, oh, people want it, let's do it.
13:26
Speaker 2: And me, being that I don't know that, that entrepreneur that likes trying things, uh, that was very big on the podcast side.
13:31
Speaker 2: So podcasting, made simple as the name of our show Uh, I speak a lot in the industry.
13:34
Speaker 2: I do a lot of the education stuff because it can very easily tie into what we do at pod match.
13:38
Speaker 2: But the rest of the stuff, we're bringing everything into it and the last thing we need to move down is actually you just mentioned that pod lottery, which is basically a review swap system for podcast guests and hosts who want more Apple reviews on their show.
13:51
Speaker 2: It is Apple based yes, it is, and we're about to expand it.
13:55
Speaker 2: We're going to bring it into Podmatch.
13:57
Speaker 2: This is some inside information.
13:58
Speaker 2: We're bringing it into Podmatch.
13:59
Speaker 2: We're going to expand it to multiple platforms where you can leave each other reviews and all that type of stuff just to help podcasters get some early recognition.
14:06
Speaker 2: We both know how difficult it can be to get a review on your podcast, but that social credit goes a long way, so we want to be able to help you part of that.
14:14
Speaker 2: So that was kind of like our first attempt.
14:15
Speaker 2: We're bringing that into Podmatch and that's kind of like the last thing that will be our hub for literally everything we do.
14:21
Speaker 1: Start up 30 companies and then combine them all down into you know one or two you can manage.
14:25
Speaker 2: Yep, not a great, not great advice, but it's actually worked really well for us.
14:30
Speaker 2: Every time we bring something into pod match, we get this, this great spike of more people joining the platform, so we've been able to leverage it, but I wouldn't recommend it as an approach to take yeah, we, we sell the merchandise too.
14:41
Speaker 1: But uh, it turns out that if we give it away, that that people want it a lot more yep, yep, it's smart.
14:49
Speaker 1: So um the idea that you're looking for guests for hosts, hosts for guests.
15:00
Speaker 1: Where do you see the bigger demand there?
15:02
Speaker 1: Is it hosts that are looking for guests or is it guests who are trying to jump onto as many podcasts as they can for visibility recognition?
15:11
Speaker 1: What's the bigger consumer market there?
15:16
Speaker 1: Is it the hosts that really need the guests or is it vice?
15:18
Speaker 2: versa.
15:19
Speaker 2: It's definitely.
15:20
Speaker 2: It's turned into the guest needing or wanting more hosts, so guests wanting to be on podcast it.
15:26
Speaker 2: But, dan, you and I both know it hasn't always been like this.
15:29
Speaker 2: If I go back to 2019, I could not convince people to be on my podcast and I had an entrepreneurship show that was very high.
15:36
Speaker 2: I mean mean it was ranked.
15:37
Speaker 2: It was on the top charts of Apple all the time.
15:39
Speaker 2: I'm very thankful it did very well.
15:41
Speaker 2: I could not convince people to be on the show because it's like why would I ever waste my time being on a podcast?
15:46
Speaker 2: And has that shifted right Now?
15:49
Speaker 2: I get emails from people all the time like, hey, I need to be on 30 podcasts this week, right, and that's an exaggeration.
15:54
Speaker 2: But people are like I have to be on that many.
15:55
Speaker 2: I'm like why, right?
15:56
Speaker 2: Um, that's always my question.
15:58
Speaker 2: But yeah, we're seeing that people have noticed the power of podcasting but don't want the work involved with podcasting, so they want to be in the guest seat instead.
16:06
Speaker 2: And so people go after reps, which I don't think is I don't like necessarily agree with that.
16:11
Speaker 2: Uh, that style of like just get on as many as you can.
16:13
Speaker 2: I think there's something you said for getting on the right ones.
16:16
Speaker 2: Uh, and actually, uh, you had a conversation with uh Kyle, uh Kelman.
16:21
Speaker 2: I think it's how you say his name, yeah and listen.
16:24
Speaker 2: That was a great episode.
16:25
Speaker 2: Again.
16:25
Speaker 2: Another one I'm on a reference back to your audience that came out on September 13th 2024, something that you all both were saying was everyone has interest, uh, in your topic, can now find it, and the problem is when someone's like I want to be a guest on all the podcasts, like okay, well, if that's not your topic, the listeners are not going to be interested, and so I think that's just super insightful that, as guests, we should take a step back.
16:45
Speaker 2: So, yeah, we're seeing more demand on people wanting shows to be on but not wanting to start their own shows, or maybe curious about starting a show but just don't really even know where to get started at this point.
17:01
Speaker 2: But we've definitely seen that shift and I'd say it's reaching a point where it's becoming out of balance.
17:03
Speaker 2: But most hosts will tell you the guests that reach out have never done any research on the show at all and they just want to promote their book, their coaching service, whatever it might be right, which is, again, really the wrong reason to be on podcasts, because listeners are smart.
17:12
Speaker 2: They can tell if you're showing up to sell or if you're showing up to add value.
17:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have several client shows here that some of the guests are folks that have books out.
17:21
Speaker 1: They're not here just because of that.
17:22
Speaker 1: A lot of them have additional background.
17:24
Speaker 1: But that seems to be a timing thing for a lot of hosts.
17:26
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, this would be a good time to bring them on because they do have a new book out which has worked out pretty well for for some of them, um, but yeah, it's.
17:41
Speaker 2: It's not something you can can lean on, for sure, and I, for like for the record, my favorite people to interview are people with books.
17:43
Speaker 2: It's so easy for me to navigate a very coherent conversation because they know the topic and if I'm going picking out even just a few chapters I want to hit points on they.
17:50
Speaker 2: They can speak very, very clearly to it because they wrote the book on it, right, and so I'm not saying I don't interview authors.
17:55
Speaker 2: It's the author that says I need to sell more books, I need to be on your podcast so I can sell more of my stuff.
17:59
Speaker 2: Right, versus, I'm going to show up because I have a message and I wrote it in this book and I want to see how it can serve people.
18:04
Speaker 2: Right, there's, there's a different mentality there, sure.
18:07
Speaker 1: Sure, True, true salesman versus you know somebody who's got something to say, Right, so, um, and yeah, that's sort of how we got into the business too.
18:18
Speaker 1: Uh, it's funny that you say people are now moving to the idea of I'm not going to bother with the show at all, I just want to be a guest.
18:25
Speaker 1: Uh, you know, we we saw a lot of pain points in show development before you start recording and releasing, and then in in the editing and support side of things after you record that.
18:36
Speaker 1: You record that editing software is hard to learn.
18:38
Speaker 1: It's kind of specialized.
18:39
Speaker 1: People give up on shows because they're not going to edit them to any sort of quality.
18:45
Speaker 1: They're not going to pay for the pretty expensive software in some cases.
18:48
Speaker 1: So bring the show in, We'll handle that stuff for you.
18:53
Speaker 1: And that's sort of where we think we found a groove as well.
18:56
Speaker 2: I mean it's really smart.
18:57
Speaker 2: I think you're going to see more and more of a market for that, because many people that I found that start getting on podcasts, especially when they do have a book, a coaching service and they're doing really well.
19:05
Speaker 2: They come to me all the time saying, and Dan, for everyone listening, you're like, oh, you all should just partner up.
19:10
Speaker 2: I will be sending people to Dan, so no one needs to like email in and say, guys, you all should be doing this together.
19:21
Speaker 2: We figured that out already.
19:21
Speaker 2: But people are saying, hey, I want to start my own show, but, alex, I don't want to do anything other than show up and record when it's time for me to do that.
19:25
Speaker 2: And, uh, that's where I think what you have is going to really, really shine with that person that has kind of broken through the mold or or reach that certain point of expertise or even credibility in their space where, like I'm ready for that next level, you all are going to be shining more and more in the recent and distant future.
19:44
Speaker 2: I'd say.
19:45
Speaker 1: That's sort of the plan.
19:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm glad to see that it makes sense to somebody outside the organization.
19:49
Speaker 1: So no, we should also tell listeners, though, of course.
19:54
Speaker 1: When we started talking and trying to set this up, you were like, well, do you have a PodMatch account?
19:58
Speaker 1: It was like, well, actually, given our business model, we don't, which was sort of embarrassing.
20:04
Speaker 1: But because we use the subscription model, the hosts, the people running these shows, do most of their own guest coordination, and some of them I actually haven't seen a couple of them to double check, but I believe some of them do use Podmatch, others don't.
20:21
Speaker 1: Some of them focus more locally than other shows.
20:24
Speaker 1: Others use this Riverside setup that we're on a lot more often.
20:29
Speaker 1: We've had people record from Israel, south Africa, plenty of places where the time zone actually becomes the biggest problem yeah, that that is an issue.
20:43
Speaker 2: It's funny inside of pod match we tell people their time zones and do they align at all when they say they're available to record?
20:47
Speaker 2: For that exact reason I love putting together people around the globe.
20:50
Speaker 2: But there's some people like, hey, I'd love for having my podcast.
20:53
Speaker 2: I'm like cool, you record starting starting time.
20:56
Speaker 2: It starts at midnight my time and goes till 3 am.
20:59
Speaker 2: Right, I'm sorry I can't be up in the middle of the night trying to record.
21:02
Speaker 2: It would not be a coherent conversation.
21:04
Speaker 2: So I'm with you.
21:05
Speaker 2: It's cool that you all have kind of built that out and it's just a matter of now, like okay, how can we do this right?
21:10
Speaker 2: But I think that that's always like people are willing to flex a little bit with their timing and stuff, which I think is just really a beautiful thing to get on any podcast channel, like a global perspective on a topic.
21:21
Speaker 2: I think that's like a really beautiful thing.
21:25
Speaker 1: That makes this medium so special.
21:26
Speaker 1: The other thing is that there's a big difference in how you need to coordinate that, timing-wise and guess-wise, if you're going to go with sort of a live stream or a very quick turn, versus something that is prerecorded and you know it's going to be a week or two before it goes live.
21:41
Speaker 1: You've got more flexibility in those situations, right.
21:45
Speaker 1: So, alex, what else?
21:50
Speaker 1: What haven't we hit?
21:51
Speaker 1: This is always my favorite question.
21:54
Speaker 1: What else do we need to talk about?
21:55
Speaker 1: This is always my favorite question.
21:57
Speaker 1: What, uh, what else do we need to talk about?
21:58
Speaker 1: Do we need to let people know about before we?
21:59
Speaker 1: Uh, we get out of here and, and you know, you can go to lunch.
22:01
Speaker 1: I'm not quite there yet, uh.
22:04
Speaker 2: I think that the the big point that I've been really trying to hit home is that, uh, podcasting on the hosting side has a really really high failure rate.
22:12
Speaker 2: And I find this really sad because I believe that people get started because they have a passion, a purpose, a desire to serve, they have some idea in mind and they just give up way prematurely.
22:20
Speaker 2: The best example I can give is I always go back to American football, NFL.
22:26
Speaker 2: Listen, there is no NFL player that started as a kid who quit after 10 weeks, 12 weeks, 2 years, 5 years.
22:35
Speaker 2: Right, saying this is just not going gonna work for me, right?
22:37
Speaker 2: No one in the NFL has ever done that.
22:38
Speaker 2: They, at this point, train since they could walk.
22:41
Speaker 2: Their parents are throwing them a ball.
22:42
Speaker 2: They're like you better figure out how to catch that all the way until they get there.
22:44
Speaker 2: That's the only way you make it that far.
22:46
Speaker 2: But for some reason, in entrepreneurship, in podcasting, just in being a content creator, we give give up so fast.
22:53
Speaker 2: And it's because we're always looking ahead at the people that have made it and we're like well, how do we get there?
22:57
Speaker 2: Well, you spend 20 years working on it, right?
22:59
Speaker 2: You're comparing your year 20, someone else's day one, your day one often, and so when I look at, I just have like a little bit of data here that I'm actually gonna read off, but making it to eight episodes, less than 50% of people who start a podcast make it to eight episodes and then 50, which, if you're doing a weekly show, this is one year.
23:16
Speaker 2: 11% of people make it that far.
23:19
Speaker 1: And then part of why we push our subscription model to go for a year.
23:22
Speaker 1: It was like, guys, if you're going to commit to trying this, you need to spend, you know, a year.
23:26
Speaker 1: Get 50 episodes out there, let's see if it's catchy, let's see if it's working.
23:31
Speaker 1: If not, maybe we tweak it, maybe it's done, it does happen, but you've got to give it that amount of effort, that amount of time to develop itself out.
23:47
Speaker 2: To me.
23:48
Speaker 2: That's the key that I want to end with here.
23:49
Speaker 2: My thought here I just mentioned that 50 episodes reaching that 50-episode mark about for your weekly show just over like just under 11% chance of making that far.
23:59
Speaker 2: What I'm getting at here is you need someone in your corner.
24:02
Speaker 2: Yes, you can podcast by yourself and do it all completely alone.
24:06
Speaker 2: You don't need pod match.
24:07
Speaker 2: You don't need podcast videos, calm to help you, don't?
24:10
Speaker 2: You don't need any of these things.
24:11
Speaker 2: But your chances of making it on your own are very, very slim and that's why I always recommend hey, if you're serious, like from day one, start investing in yourself, start investing in what it is that you're building.
24:23
Speaker 2: And the thing is like mentioning that makes more credibility.
24:26
Speaker 2: Uh, like, if you're, if you're a listener to find out oh, I'm using someone's recording studio for this they know that you're serious.
24:31
Speaker 2: If you do that, not hey, I'm in my closet just trying this out.
24:34
Speaker 2: Not hey, I'm in my closet just trying this out.
24:36
Speaker 2: Like I'm not saying there's a problem starting that way, but people who are listening also know you're in your closet just trying this out.
24:39
Speaker 2: Like you might not be here in a few weeks, people know that.
24:41
Speaker 2: But if you're like hey, I've got a one year subscription with uh, with podcast, videoscom, I'm committed to doing this for a year.
24:48
Speaker 2: You're telling your listeners up front, okay, I can hang with this person, they're going to probably be here and continue moving forward.
24:54
Speaker 2: And so, again, that big point I want to get out here is like think about how many people don't make it in podcasting and to kind of counteract that, invest in yourself from day one.
25:04
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, and and and.
25:05
Speaker 1: If you are going to hide in your closet, maybe start with audio only, so they can't tell you know just by looking that you're in your closet.
25:11
Speaker 2: It's a great point.
25:12
Speaker 2: It's a really good, it's a pro tip.
25:15
Speaker 1: Yeah Well, we're a very amateur one, I'm not sure which.
25:18
Speaker 1: So, Alex man, this has been awesome.
25:21
Speaker 1: I do appreciate you taking the time out.
25:23
Speaker 1: I know it took us like a month to set this up, but we're all busy because apparently this podcasting thing might be sticking around for a while.
25:32
Speaker 2: It seems that way, dan and I think we're both very grateful to be hearing that and really thank you for having me today.
25:37
Speaker 2: This was absolutely a blast.
25:37
Speaker 2: I've been listening to your podcast and loving the work you guys do, so I'm really just honored to be here today.
25:43
Speaker 1: We appreciate you taking the time out, man, and I'm sure we'll do it again.
25:46
Speaker 1: Sounds good, so all right.
25:48
Speaker 1: Well, everybody from the podcast video studio.
25:52
Speaker 1: I'm Dan Kraft.
25:52
Speaker 1: This is Alex San Filippo of PodMatch.