Latest / Abbey the Podcast Lady / Does a Big Podcast Partnership Fix Everything? How Michael Osborne Landed Smithsonian and Wondery Partnerships

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Does a Big Podcast Partnership Fix Everything? How Michael Osborne Landed Smithsonian and Wondery Partnerships · Abbey the Podcast Lady

• 0:05
  Hello, and welcome back to another episode of
• 0:07
  Abby the Podcast Lady. We have a very special
• 0:10
  guest joining us today that I am beyond excited
• 0:13
  for. I think you're going to get a lot from this
• 0:15
  conversation. Please welcome our new friend Michael
• 0:18
  Osborne to the show. Hello, Michael. Hello, Abby.
• 0:21
  Thank you so much for inviting me on. It's exciting
• 0:23
  to be here. I am so excited to talk to you. We
• 0:25
  got connected through the Podmatch platform.
• 0:28
  If you have not signed up for Podmatch yet, please
• 0:30
  do so. There's a link down in the show notes.
• 0:32
  It is a fabulous service that gets you connected
• 0:34
  with some really great guests for your show to
• 0:37
  talk about some really cool things. And we are
• 0:40
  going to be chatting today about what you pitched
• 0:42
  to me on Podmatch. And I was reading through
• 0:45
  it and I'm like, wait a minute, he's worked with
• 0:47
  Smithsonian. He's worked with Wondery. Like those
• 0:50
  are some pretty big names in the podcasting.
• 0:53
  industry. And I think a lot of people feel when
• 0:55
  they're just starting out like, oh, I'll never
• 0:57
  be that big or I have to work with them in order
• 1:00
  to be anyone in this space. So, Michael, let's
• 1:02
  start from the beginning. How did you get into
• 1:05
  podcasting? What was your kind of start with
• 1:07
  all this? Yeah, great. Yeah, thanks. So my origin
• 1:11
  story is that I was a sort of a refugee from
• 1:14
  academia. I was working on a Ph .D. in Stanford
• 1:17
  once upon a time in earth sciences. And year
• 1:20
  four of that degree, I was kind of in the doldrums.
• 1:22
  Year four is often a really frustrating part
• 1:25
  of a PhD experience, especially in the sciences.
• 1:28
  You get to a point where your head's so filled
• 1:30
  with jargon that every time you open your mouth,
• 1:32
  like nobody understands what the heck you're
• 1:34
  talking about. I was feeling pretty alone and
• 1:36
  isolated. And it's sort of a, you know, the last
• 1:38
  stop before the therapist's office. I went by
• 1:40
  the Career Development Center and there was a
• 1:42
  woman there who said. Have you ever thought about
• 1:44
  starting a podcast? I think that could be really
• 1:46
  good for you. You need a creative outlet. And
• 1:48
  it was really just a special conversation. I
• 1:50
  left that office and said, OK, I'm going to see
• 1:53
  if I can get this off the ground. And I should
• 1:54
  say I was a pretty avid podcast consumer at that
• 1:58
  time. One of the realities of being a research
• 2:00
  scientist is there's a lot of hours in the day
• 2:02
  where you're processing samples in the lab. It's
• 2:05
  sort of. boring and you're looking for anything
• 2:08
  to listen to, right? So I was like weighing on
• 2:10
  podcasts. As soon as this, you know, angel of
• 2:13
  a person suggested I start one, I was like, I'm
• 2:15
  going to do that. So that's kind of what happened.
• 2:17
  I ended up, went about it in kind of a weird
• 2:19
  way. I approached a program at Stanford and said,
• 2:22
  can I teach a class to students about podcasting?
• 2:25
  And I kind of incubated this show inside the
• 2:28
  classroom. So I had students talking to professors
• 2:31
  and that wound up being a really powerful educational
• 2:33
  experience. And we ended up getting a lot of
• 2:36
  good recordings. And that more or less set me
• 2:39
  on the journey. The show, we released it. It
• 2:42
  found an audience pretty early. This was in 2011
• 2:44
  or 12. So it was kind of early -ish days for
• 2:47
  podcasting. You know, I mean, it was... Yeah,
• 2:49
  that is... Yeah, it wasn't a household term at
• 2:53
  that point, right? It was really... It wasn't
• 2:55
  really until the mid -20 -teens that... everybody
• 2:58
  kind of knew what a podcast was. So yeah, I ended
• 3:00
  up launching the show. I did see the degree all
• 3:03
  the way through. So I'm technically a doctor,
• 3:05
  but not the one that can help you. I just have
• 3:08
  the letters by my name. But so I saw the degree
• 3:10
  through and yeah, that set me on journey. Ended
• 3:12
  up working for Stanford for the next several
• 3:14
  years after that, building out a podcast incubator.
• 3:17
  And I've been working as a producer and consultant
• 3:19
  for about the last 15 years. Literally the dream.
• 3:22
  Literally the dream. Yeah, I mean, thank you
• 3:26
  for saying that. I need to be reminded. I love
• 3:28
  podcasts, really of all shapes and sizes and
• 3:32
  concepts. I love meeting people who work in this
• 3:34
  space. The culture of podcasting, I think, is
• 3:37
  fantastic. And I would say I have really promiscuous
• 3:40
  taste. Like, I listen to a lot of different types
• 3:42
  of shows. I do a ton of, you know. Sure, plenty
• 3:45
  of news, but lots of pop culture and history
• 3:48
  and sports. I love, you know, business -oriented
• 3:50
  shows. I love what they call chat shows, narrative
• 3:53
  shows, and I kind of make it my, you know, business.
• 3:57
  to stay as up to speed as possible on all the
• 3:59
  different kinds of concepts and shows that are
• 4:02
  coming out. I think there's a great experiment
• 4:04
  happening online in this medium, and it's exciting
• 4:07
  to be a part of it. I couldn't agree with you
• 4:09
  more. I have a roster of 13 clients that I'm
• 4:12
  producing shows for on a given week, and no two
• 4:15
  are the same. And I think there's a lot to be
• 4:17
  said for that. I've been told by business coaches
• 4:20
  and stuff like, niche down, work with one sector
• 4:22
  of people. But I like everybody's shows and they're
• 4:25
  all different. And I'm learning something new
• 4:26
  from everyone every day. And that makes me really
• 4:28
  good at bar trivia. Amen. No, I, boy, are we
• 4:31
  right on the same page with that? Like the great
• 4:34
  delight of my work is that, you know, each client
• 4:36
  is, you know, bringing me into a world I didn't
• 4:39
  know about. And I really like, you know, it's
• 4:42
  like you're overturning rocks and finding all
• 4:44
  these gems out in the world for, you know, just
• 4:47
  businesses you never thought of before or ideas
• 4:49
  or concepts or ways of thinking, science, you
• 4:52
  know. parts of history and all kinds of, you
• 4:54
  know, at the end of it is stories. And it is
• 4:56
  the great joy of this work. So, yeah, I think
• 4:59
  we're both really lucky to be working in this
• 5:01
  space. Oh, yeah. Incredibly blessed. So let's
• 5:04
  fast forward just a hair here. How did you get
• 5:07
  in with Smithsonian and Wondery and these big
• 5:10
  names? Like what was kind of the process or the
• 5:12
  timeline for that? Because I think a lot of people
• 5:14
  would be very curious to hear about that, because
• 5:18
  I know when I think Wondery, I think armchair
• 5:20
  expert with Dax Shepard. Like that's a huge show
• 5:22
  under that umbrella. Yeah. And, you know, New
• 5:26
  Heights with the Kelsey brothers and Julia Louis
• 5:28
  -Dreyfus. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it is my big claim
• 5:32
  to fame that I've created three original shows
• 5:34
  at different points in time, and all of them
• 5:37
  have resulted in major media collaborations,
• 5:40
  major media distribution partners. My first show
• 5:43
  was an environmental show. We worked with Smithsonian.
• 5:45
  That collaboration came about in 2015. 1415.
• 5:50
  My second was a narrative show where it was,
• 5:54
  you know, so it was like high production value,
• 5:56
  a lot of scripting. We collaborated with PRX,
• 5:59
  which not an organization everybody knows about,
• 6:01
  but they do a lot of backend distribution for
• 6:03
  a lot of public broadcasting. So like The Moth
• 6:06
  and This American Life. And we worked with them
• 6:07
  in 2019. And then my most recent show, which
• 6:10
  is still going, Famous and Gravy, we collaborated
• 6:13
  with Wondery in 2024. Okay. So how did that come
• 6:16
  about? And, you know, those are three sort of
• 6:18
  very different moments in the... history of podcasting.
• 6:22
  And there are also, I should say, three very
• 6:23
  different shows. The first one was an edited
• 6:26
  long -form interview show. The second one was
• 6:28
  narrative. And Famous and Gravy is more like
• 6:30
  a designed conversation. I'd like to think it's
• 6:33
  innovative. All of them came about through, you
• 6:37
  know, certainly having Stanford attached to your
• 6:39
  name helps, right? If you've got an addstanford
• 6:41
  .edu email address, people respond. Let me back
• 6:46
  up, Abby, because I think that One thing I've
• 6:48
  tried to do is say, all right, if I pulled off
• 6:50
  that trick three times, what was common in each
• 6:53
  of those instances and circumstances? What created
• 6:56
  and led to, you know, those collaborations? And
• 6:59
  I'd say a few things. Number one is not surprising.
• 7:01
  It's networking. Almost all of them came about
• 7:04
  as a result of meeting people at conferences,
• 7:07
  podcast conferences, and other kinds of conferences.
• 7:10
  So that's thing number one is getting to know
• 7:11
  people. I've never actually pitched a show through
• 7:14
  what I would call the front door. It's always
• 7:16
  been kind of the side door where I met somebody
• 7:19
  who, you know, was like, oh, this is kind of
• 7:22
  interesting. And I tried to plant seeds inside
• 7:24
  those organizations. So that's one lesson to
• 7:28
  draw from it. A second one is, you know, on average,
• 7:31
  there was about three and a half years between
• 7:33
  when I launched each of those shows and when
• 7:36
  the conversations got serious about a partnership.
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  So one of the lessons I draw from that is that
• 7:42
  minimum viable product you know, something good
• 7:45
  enough to put out into the world, is not necessarily
• 7:48
  the same thing as, you know, partner -worthy
• 7:51
  show, right? There was continuous creative development
• 7:55
  and iteration and audience research between when
• 7:58
  I launched the show and when those shows came
• 8:00
  about. They also, and I don't think that this
• 8:03
  is coincidence, all of those partnerships came
• 8:05
  about after a production pause. So, you know,
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  I'd launched the show, I'd gotten into it, I
• 8:10
  wanted to be consistent, release it, you know,
• 8:12
  once a week or... whatever kind of schedule I
• 8:15
  was on, but then got to a place where it's like,
• 8:17
  you know, let's check in. Is this working? You
• 8:19
  know? Because I think that what can happen when
• 8:22
  you're in a state of active release is that you
• 8:25
  can lose the forest for the trees. And is this
• 8:27
  show really coming over the way I want for it
• 8:29
  to? So those are three, you know, kind of common
• 8:32
  observations across each of those collaborations.
• 8:35
  There were so many wonderful things that you
• 8:37
  just mentioned in there. The first one that I
• 8:39
  really want to touch on is you mentioned that
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  they came after a production pause. And I think
• 8:44
  that is something that is terrifying to people.
• 8:47
  Yeah. At least the people that I work with. Including
• 8:50
  me. Yeah. Yeah. But. It is so important to take
• 8:53
  that pause and reevaluate what's going on. I'm
• 8:57
  currently, actually, I stayed up too late last
• 8:59
  night and I've been in the process of rebranding
• 9:02
  this show we're currently recording because I've
• 9:04
  been doing it for 18 months now and there's enough
• 9:08
  there to realize, okay, what's working? What's
• 9:11
  not working? What is actually the theme of this
• 9:13
  show? Who is it actually serving? And so we're
• 9:16
  kind of in that like wishy -washy area at the
• 9:19
  moment, but we're working through it. I'm going
• 9:22
  to be taking an intentional pause with it so
• 9:24
  I can restructure it the right way. So I think
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  it's so important that you mentioned that the
• 9:28
  big things happen even after taking the pause,
• 9:31
  but that pause was beneficial. A thousand percent.
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  I mean, I do think it's the kind of thing where,
• 9:37
  I don't know, if you let it set it free or something,
• 9:39
  where by taking a pause, it is so hard because
• 9:43
  you've built a discipline of, you know, recording
• 9:47
  and releasing and promoting. You know, shows
• 9:50
  are, my experience is, every host I've ever worked
• 9:53
  with, like, loves the experience of creating
• 9:55
  a show. The stress and hard part is building
• 9:57
  an audience. And, you know, you wouldn't stake...
• 10:00
  with it if you didn't have faith that it's going
• 10:02
  to find its audience at some point so pausing
• 10:05
  it there's just great fear around it like what
• 10:07
  if i all the people i've brought in what if they're
• 10:09
  not there what if i lose them and i guess that's
• 10:11
  actually another lesson to share is that that
• 10:14
  has not been my experience that the people and
• 10:17
  it's you know speaks to the parasocial quality
• 10:19
  of podcasts the people who have found my shows
• 10:22
  i've been surprised each time i've come out of
• 10:26
  of a production pause, how much everybody is,
• 10:28
  for the most part, still there. And certainly
• 10:30
  the dedicated audience is likely to still be
• 10:32
  there. So, you know, I think, you know, have
• 10:34
  faith if you pause your show for you or anybody
• 10:37
  else, because you will come back stronger. You'll
• 10:40
  come back with more clarity, more direction,
• 10:42
  more fire, more specificity around who you're
• 10:45
  trying to reach and why. Yes, I think it's so
• 10:48
  important. I even think of some of my own personal
• 10:50
  favorite creators. One of them is Jenna Marbles,
• 10:54
  if you remember her from early internet days.
• 10:56
  She quit making videos back in 2020, and yesterday
• 11:02
  was her 40th birthday. She hasn't posted on the
• 11:05
  internet in six years at this point, but my feed
• 11:07
  was... Full of people wishing this woman who
• 11:10
  is MIA from the Internet happy birthday. And
• 11:12
  it's like your people are still there and they
• 11:14
  want something from you. Yeah, totally. Totally.
• 11:17
  Yeah. You know, well, I don't know. I'll let
• 11:20
  you respond however you want. I would also say
• 11:22
  as time's gone on, the audience research piece
• 11:25
  has. become more and more important to me in
• 11:28
  terms of because i think that's a good way to
• 11:30
  spend your time if you do take a production pause
• 11:32
  is you know get to know your audience and i say
• 11:35
  that recognizing that it's so much harder than
• 11:37
  it sounds that you know when you're a creator
• 11:40
  you spend a lot of time preparing for recordings
• 11:43
  you get the tape you want you put it out there
• 11:45
  you promote it but most of the time it's crickets
• 11:48
  even if your show is doing well you don't often
• 11:51
  hear back. You might get some likes on social
• 11:53
  media or occasional email here or there, or maybe
• 11:56
  a review pops up, but you know, it... takes sort
• 11:59
  of a lot of effort to get your audience to respond
• 12:02
  to you one -on -one. And that's something I've
• 12:04
  become over the last 15 years increasingly focused
• 12:07
  on is how do I have, you know, real engagement,
• 12:10
  real relationships with people in my audience?
• 12:14
  That's been, I got to say, one of the big unlocks
• 12:16
  for me in my most recent show. And I've got a
• 12:19
  thought I can share about that, but I don't mean
• 12:21
  to. lead the conversation too much there. But
• 12:23
  audience research is something I care quite a
• 12:25
  bit about. No, share that thought, please. I
• 12:26
  am here to learn and listen from you. You're
• 12:29
  the doctor. Doctor, doctor. Don't call me doctor.
• 12:34
  All right. No, no, it's cool. You know what?
• 12:38
  I need to not shy away from it. So yeah, okay.
• 12:40
  This is one of my favorite. It's kind of a trick,
• 12:42
  but something I started doing on my most recent
• 12:45
  show. So Famous and Gravy, just to say a quick
• 12:48
  word about it. It's sort of biography with a
• 12:50
  twist. It's sort of gamified biography. On every
• 12:53
  episode, we choose a dead celebrity and we are
• 12:56
  interested in the question, what can a celebrity's
• 12:58
  life story show us about ourselves? So we sort
• 13:01
  of use, you know, pop culture. culture biographies
• 13:04
  as a vehicle for self -reflection. The show,
• 13:06
  I think, is both fun, but I like to think also
• 13:10
  insightful and certainly vicarious. It's a way
• 13:12
  of having a designed conversation where we get
• 13:14
  to talk about a dead celeb and really reflect
• 13:17
  on where we are in our lives. I mentioned it's
• 13:19
  gamified, so it's built on segments and categories,
• 13:22
  and the opening segment is a bluff -the -listener
• 13:25
  quiz. So I will go to a celebrity's obituary.
• 13:29
  I will pull clues out of the obituary, and then
• 13:32
  I'll get on the call with somebody. I'll give
• 13:35
  them clues one by one, and they got to guess
• 13:36
  who the dead celebrity is. It's just sort of
• 13:38
  a fun device to begin the show. The reason I'm
• 13:41
  sharing it is that about, I don't know, 50 episodes
• 13:44
  into doing this, we started getting people saying,
• 13:47
  hey, I'd like to participate in the quiz. And
• 13:48
  there's a call out on every episode. Hey, if
• 13:50
  you want to participate in the quiz, send us
• 13:52
  an email and we'll do a recording. I've started
• 13:54
  using that segment as an opportunity to do focus
• 13:58
  group research with my audience. So in other
• 14:01
  words, they'll get on the call. We'll do the
• 14:03
  dead celebrity quiz, you know, have a good laugh.
• 14:05
  And then I'll say, hey, do you have five or 10
• 14:06
  minutes to hang around? I just want to talk a
• 14:08
  little bit. And I'll ask them. Five questions.
• 14:12
  How'd you find the show? However you found it,
• 14:14
  I want to repeat it. How do you describe it to
• 14:15
  your friends? Whatever you're saying, I want
• 14:17
  to make sure I'm giving you good language to
• 14:19
  share my show around. Would you make it longer
• 14:21
  or shorter? That's a way of getting at, you know,
• 14:24
  how engaged are you with it? What else are you
• 14:26
  listening to? I want to know kind of what company
• 14:28
  I live in and if maybe there's other collaborators
• 14:30
  out there, other podcasts I had to reach out
• 14:32
  to. And then what would happen if the show went
• 14:34
  away tomorrow? You know, what would you miss
• 14:36
  most about it? And that's a way of really getting
• 14:39
  at. probably the most fundamental thing, which
• 14:41
  is what is the need that I provide with this
• 14:44
  show? How does this fulfill something in your
• 14:46
  day? Why do you make time for my show? And if
• 14:48
  I were removed, you know, what would that void,
• 14:51
  you know, be in your life? It's kind of a profound
• 14:54
  way of putting it, but those five questions have
• 14:56
  totally unlocked. And so I think that something
• 15:00
  I've been trying to share with other creators
• 15:02
  and people new to podcasting is if you can build
• 15:05
  in a call -in segment. In my case, I made it
• 15:08
  this little bluff the listener quiz, but do you
• 15:11
  have questions that we could answer on this show?
• 15:13
  Any opportunity you can create to pop on a Zoom
• 15:16
  call with somebody in your audience, you get
• 15:19
  to see it from their eyes. And that's such a
• 15:22
  hard thing to know and understand when you're
• 15:25
  really, really close to your show and putting
• 15:27
  all this work into it. What's coming through?
• 15:29
  What's coming across? Because there's almost
• 15:31
  always a gap between what you... think you're
• 15:33
  doing and what you're actually doing. And only
• 15:36
  your audience can help you close that gap. That
• 15:38
  is genius. So my background, I come from the
• 15:41
  world of terrestrial radio. I was a radio DJ
• 15:43
  for 10 years. And so we lived, breathed, died
• 15:47
  by those Nielsen ratings books that got mailed
• 15:50
  out to people who may or may not even be listening
• 15:52
  to your show or know that your radio station
• 15:55
  even exists in their neighborhood. And we'd get
• 15:58
  all this feedback and it's like, but are these
• 16:00
  actually engaged listeners? Like most times,
• 16:03
  probably not. And the way that you're going about
• 16:06
  this, it's like, yes, these people actually,
• 16:08
  they care enough to reach out to you to be on
• 16:11
  the show. Like that is. exactly who you should
• 16:13
  be getting feedback from. Yeah. And then some
• 16:15
  of them are in my phone now. Like I get, you
• 16:18
  know, a celebrity dies and my phone blows up
• 16:20
  with people like, Michael, did you hear yet?
• 16:21
  Are you going to do this one on famous engraving?
• 16:23
  Which is like, awesome. I absolutely love that.
• 16:26
  I have this one. You know, I think that there.
• 16:28
  It's easy to be afraid in a way of like, who
• 16:30
  are these people and why are they connecting?
• 16:32
  The more I develop the ideas in my show and the
• 16:35
  more I am finding ways to really be myself, the
• 16:39
  people who are connecting with the show are exactly
• 16:42
  the kind of people I want to connect with in
• 16:44
  the real world. I'd also say to your point of
• 16:46
  Nielsen ratings. So my favorite way of doing
• 16:48
  audience research is to try and somehow, you
• 16:51
  know. However you got to manufacture it, you
• 16:53
  know, get a one -on -one conversation. I've also
• 16:56
  done other things where I have done surveys on
• 16:58
  the show. It's really hard to design a survey.
• 17:01
  I think there's people who have degrees in this
• 17:02
  stuff and I don't know how to do it, but I've
• 17:04
  tried to learn a little bit from that. I also
• 17:06
  have gone to Apple reviews and I'll sort of read
• 17:10
  through what are people saying about the show?
• 17:12
  How are they describing it in their own words?
• 17:14
  And one of the things I've done in this world
• 17:16
  of AI is try and take all of that, the survey
• 17:18
  data, the recordings of the focus group calls.
• 17:21
  the Apple reviews, feed it into, you know, Claude
• 17:24
  or ChatGPT and say, okay, this is what people
• 17:27
  are saying. You know, how would you describe
• 17:29
  my audience, Claude? You know, what is the need
• 17:32
  that the show is fulfilling? You know, come up
• 17:34
  with a theory, an avatar, and it may be right
• 17:37
  or wrong, but it does help. you know, it does
• 17:39
  move me closer to that abstract idea of who is
• 17:42
  the audience. So, you know, if you're a big time
• 17:44
  firm with a, I don't know, like Wondery and PRX,
• 17:47
  they do have, you know, significant marketing
• 17:49
  budgets and they can do a research campaign.
• 17:52
  But I think that there's a lot that independent
• 17:54
  creators can do, you know, with really no budget.
• 17:57
  to begin to learn who their audience is. 100%.
• 18:00
  So let's get back to a little bit of the Wondery
• 18:03
  and that sort of thing. So logistically, how
• 18:06
  did that work for you when you started working
• 18:09
  with them? Was there like a, because I think
• 18:11
  everyone has it in their head. They've seen the
• 18:12
  Alex Cooper makes X million dollars from her
• 18:15
  podcast by working with a big name, like from
• 18:17
  a real human standpoint. What is that like? Yeah,
• 18:20
  let me get more specific about the journey and
• 18:22
  what did and did not happen. I'll say there was
• 18:25
  never a big economic windfall for me. Famous
• 18:28
  and Gravy is a top 1 % show right now, but it's
• 18:31
  not 0 .1%. And if you run the numbers on advertising
• 18:35
  -based shows, you really do need to be in that
• 18:37
  0 .1 % for it to be really economically. viable.
• 18:42
  So it's not a full -time job, even if I want
• 18:44
  it to be, you know, I'm about break even with
• 18:46
  the ad revenue I'm getting and the production
• 18:48
  costs, which doesn't totally account for my time.
• 18:51
  So even with a successful show, I'm still losing
• 18:54
  a little bit of money on it. It's really valuable
• 18:56
  to me in other ways. And I'm happy to speak to
• 18:58
  that later. Let me get back to your question
• 19:00
  though. Okay. How did this happen? There were
• 19:02
  kind of two big pieces. One is that we showed
• 19:05
  up at a lot of, and I should say my partner,
• 19:07
  Amit Kapoor and I, he was critical in the early
• 19:09
  stages of the show and still is in some ways.
• 19:12
  We showed up at a lot of conferences and we're
• 19:14
  trying to, you know, meet with people. And we
• 19:16
  got, Ahmed had a small world connection with
• 19:18
  somebody who was fairly senior at Wondery. So
• 19:21
  he took an interest in the show. I was like,
• 19:22
  yeah, keep me up to date on it. The more serendipitous
• 19:25
  thing that happened is one of my old students
• 19:28
  at Stanford actually went and became a producer.
• 19:31
  And he was working at Wondery on a number of
• 19:34
  shows and really like deep in production, you
• 19:36
  know, not super senior. He got wind of the show
• 19:39
  and he dropped it into a Slack channel. said,
• 19:41
  this is kind of interesting. You all should check
• 19:43
  it out, which sort of planted a seed within the
• 19:45
  network. I share that because this whole idea
• 19:47
  of networking and going to conferences and trying
• 19:50
  to meet people who are, you know, target distribution,
• 19:52
  you know, people who you'd want to work with.
• 19:55
  There's nobody too low on the totem pole, you
• 19:58
  know, to collaborate with. My former student
• 20:00
  was reasonably senior, but he wasn't making decisions.
• 20:03
  But him dropping in on a Slack channel absolutely
• 20:05
  planted a seed. So that was a piece of it. Another
• 20:08
  lesson, this is actually true with all of the
• 20:11
  shows, and I should have shared this earlier.
• 20:12
  With each of my podcasts that has resulted in
• 20:15
  a distribution partner, in every case, there
• 20:18
  was an alignment between our show concept and
• 20:22
  their editorial mission. So my first show, it's
• 20:25
  a mouthful, it's called Generation Anthropocene.
• 20:27
  I can explain what that is later, but it's not
• 20:29
  really important. The Smithsonian was interested
• 20:31
  in doing more environmental content in the mid
• 20:33
  -20 -teens. They got wind of our show. They said,
• 20:36
  hey, this could be a good partnership. PRX was
• 20:39
  interested in doing something science -based.
• 20:41
  My show was called Raw Data, a show about how
• 20:44
  information becomes power. And so it was very
• 20:47
  much like I was describing it as a science show.
• 20:50
  And Wondery in the mid -20, I guess 2024 or thereabouts,
• 20:54
  was interested in having more history offerings.
• 20:56
  Famous and Gravy, I had described it as a pop
• 20:59
  culture show. It had been categorized as TV and
• 21:02
  film. But we took a look at it and we're like,
• 21:04
  actually, this is more of a history show. It's
• 21:05
  biography. And biography is very much a kind
• 21:08
  of history genre. So we changed our description
• 21:12
  of the show and our language. Well, we didn't
• 21:13
  change anything else, really. It was still the
• 21:15
  same show it had been. But we started sort of
• 21:17
  emphasizing that this is a history show. And
• 21:20
  I think Wondery was also just sort of interested
• 21:22
  in taking a chance on it. Other things that happened
• 21:25
  that are worth knowing about, we had shored up
• 21:27
  our IP. So we had created LLC and made sure it
• 21:31
  was clear that we owned it. The collaboration
• 21:33
  with Wondery and with all of these was we did
• 21:36
  actually retain ownership of the show. And so
• 21:39
  it was a shared model where... They're, you know,
• 21:42
  we benefit from their ad network and we're kind
• 21:44
  of working together, but we always had an eye
• 21:46
  towards, we may leave the network at some point
• 21:48
  and they were cool with it. I would also, okay.
• 21:50
  That was all the good stuff that happened. I
• 21:53
  would also say with each of these collaborations
• 21:55
  to your point earlier about people believing
• 21:58
  that's necessary to grow a show. I like that's
• 22:02
  the end result because there's kind of a mythology
• 22:04
  out there, right? In podcast land that I'm going
• 22:07
  to create a show. People are going to love it.
• 22:09
  I might get, you know, some big dog knocking
• 22:10
  at the door and, you know, all my troubles will
• 22:13
  be over. That has not happened to me. Yeah, I'm
• 22:14
  going to get me undies money and I'll never have
• 22:16
  to think about anything again. Exactly. I can
• 22:18
  just podcast in peace. Thank you, universe. So
• 22:21
  that has not been my experience. I think that
• 22:25
  networks are complicated, you know, organizations,
• 22:27
  especially marquee networks like. BRX and Wondery.
• 22:30
  And we certainly had very valuable conversations
• 22:33
  with the marketing team and some very cool things
• 22:36
  happened in terms of cross promotion. But in
• 22:38
  each case, and I've joined a number of networks,
• 22:41
  not just with these shows, but with others, it
• 22:43
  is hard to know kind of what they're doing to
• 22:46
  grow your show, how much cross promotion is really
• 22:49
  happening, how much marketing is happening and
• 22:52
  audience research is happening. And, you know,
• 22:54
  How proactive do I need to be about, you know,
• 22:58
  having meetings with them to learn updates on
• 23:00
  what's going on? And certainly with Wondery,
• 23:03
  I mean, I kind of felt like shy in a way. You
• 23:05
  know, I'm like, it's a small dead celebrity show
• 23:08
  here in the corner. And Julia Louis -Dreyfus
• 23:10
  and the Kelsey brothers are right over there.
• 23:12
  I don't want to bother anybody. And that's like,
• 23:14
  OK, dude, you got to act a little bit more confident.
• 23:16
  Right. Yeah. But I mean, what happened is I would
• 23:20
  say we certainly got. a lot of new audience.
• 23:23
  More than anything, the big benefit was stamp
• 23:26
  of approval, right? It was like, this doesn't
• 23:29
  happen unless your show is meeting a certain
• 23:31
  quality in terms of audience experience. And
• 23:35
  that's a big dopamine hit. But the work of growing
• 23:38
  a show and making it better is not done once
• 23:41
  you land one of these partnerships. And I don't
• 23:44
  know that it really should be everybody's goal.
• 23:47
  It might be. But I think it really does come
• 23:50
  back to that question of who are you trying to
• 23:52
  reach? And are those the same people that this
• 23:54
  network is reaching? We were kind of an odd duck
• 23:56
  in the Wondery catalog. You know, a lot of their
• 23:59
  shows that certainly high production value and
• 24:01
  original concepts. And so, you know, I'm proud
• 24:03
  of that. But, you know, I. Demographically, I
• 24:08
  wonder if it's the right audience. And then the
• 24:09
  other thing is like, this is kind of to the side,
• 24:12
  but Wondery ended up having a major reorg in
• 24:15
  2025. So our experience needs to be put in that
• 24:18
  context that, you know, we got an email in August
• 24:21
  of 2025 that, and this was all over the news
• 24:24
  and industry news, that Wondery had gone kaboom
• 24:27
  and a third of the staff had been laid off and
• 24:29
  that, you know, they were making all kinds of
• 24:30
  decisions because Wondery had been acquired by
• 24:32
  Amazon and Amazon is a, you know, fickle organization.
• 24:36
  That's a nice way of putting it. Anyway. That's
• 24:38
  very nice. So polite. I try and be diplomatic.
• 24:40
  But yeah, anyway. So good things happen from
• 24:43
  it, Abby. And I'm proud of it. Whether or not
• 24:46
  that is a goal people ought to set for themselves,
• 24:49
  maybe. I mean, like with anything, it's sort
• 24:51
  of, you know, case by case. I'm proud of having
• 24:55
  led to that relationship. But I also think that
• 24:58
  I want to throw some water on the idea that it
• 25:01
  solves all your, you know, money problems. And
• 25:04
  it's Ms. Salem once you get your foot in the
• 25:05
  door. That has not been my experience. I love
• 25:08
  that you make a point of saying that because
• 25:10
  there is this big idea of I'm just going to make
• 25:12
  big. I'm going to be Alex Cooper and then I'm
• 25:14
  just going to sit there and yak on a couch. I'm
• 25:16
  going to have my own brand of terrible Gatorade
• 25:19
  and everything's going to be fine. Yeah, I guess
• 25:23
  that'll be fine. I'll stomach the Gatorade totally.
• 25:26
  Yeah, I mean, you know, I started to say this
• 25:28
  earlier and I think this is I suspect this is
• 25:30
  somewhere where you and I would really agree.
• 25:33
  Value of... podcasting for me may be direct ROI
• 25:37
  and monetization, but most of the time it is
• 25:40
  really, really hard to make money from a podcast,
• 25:44
  especially if you're going with ad supported.
• 25:46
  Certainly, you know, I'm in a good position to
• 25:49
  shop around for sponsors and that's something
• 25:51
  I'm doing. And I want to be able to make ends
• 25:53
  meet, but so much of the value of podcasting
• 25:57
  is non -economic. It is the people you get to
• 25:59
  meet, the networking, the clarity you get to
• 26:02
  have about your your story and what that story
• 26:05
  means, I get pretty woo -woo with it pretty quick.
• 26:08
  You know, it's creative self -expression. It's
• 26:11
  an act of self -love. It's like any kind of creative
• 26:13
  undertaking where, you know, it's like learning
• 26:15
  to play an instrument or making up a new sport.
• 26:18
  Like it's an act of self -investment. And if
• 26:20
  you, you know, kind of make that the first point
• 26:23
  of value, then I think it's good because I think
• 26:26
  that's going to sustain you because it's precisely
• 26:28
  because it's so hard to grow a show and to...
• 26:31
  you know, justify the time and money that goes
• 26:33
  into making a good show. I couldn't agree with
• 26:35
  you more. I actually just pit, it's pod fest
• 26:37
  season, everybody. So I just submitted a speaking
• 26:40
  application to give a Pecha Kucha on the unseen
• 26:43
  ROI of podcasting because I think it is so valuable.
• 26:46
  I meet with potential clients all the time and
• 26:49
  I'm always so disheartened when their first question
• 26:51
  is, how do I make money off of this? It's like,
• 26:54
  no, no, no, no, no. Pump the brakes here. There's
• 26:56
  so much more than money to this. It's the first
• 26:58
  thing I say to people. Like, look, it's really
• 27:00
  hard. Pod fade is a real thing. Building an audience
• 27:03
  is really hard. I think the way I've heard it
• 27:05
  summarized is podcasts are not great at reach,
• 27:08
  but they are great at resonance. So I think one
• 27:11
  of my talking points is that I sometimes describe.
• 27:15
  podcasts as long form social media. And that
• 27:19
  description does a lot for me because like other
• 27:22
  forms of traditional media, it's long form, it's
• 27:25
  story oriented. You know, there's opportunity
• 27:27
  to kind of like pace things out. So if you're
• 27:30
  thinking about books or radio or movies, you
• 27:33
  know, you can draw on those storytelling models.
• 27:35
  But like social media, you know, it's democratized.
• 27:38
  Anybody can do it. There's a kind of creator
• 27:40
  economy out there. Podcasts are somewhere in
• 27:42
  between those two things. And the big difference
• 27:44
  between podcasts and other forms of social media,
• 27:48
  if you want to call it podcast social media,
• 27:50
  is the long -form piece, is that you're asking
• 27:52
  for more time. And what comes with that is grace
• 27:56
  and context and a little bit more patience, which
• 27:59
  is wonderful, but it does make getting attention
• 28:02
  hard because on short -form social media, it's
• 28:05
  all about trying to get... people to stop the
• 28:08
  scroll? How do I, you know, create rage or lust
• 28:12
  or hilarity or something that is like, all right,
• 28:14
  gotcha, you know? And I think there's a misperception
• 28:17
  with people are like, how can I make money in
• 28:19
  podcasting? That, how would I put it? I guess
• 28:22
  that the kind of numbers you can achieve with
• 28:25
  podcast audiences are comparable to the kinds
• 28:28
  of numbers you can achieve with Facebook, Twitter,
• 28:31
  LinkedIn. you know, TikTok, whatever it may be.
• 28:34
  And it's an apples to oranges comparison. So
• 28:37
  I think there's got to be a little bit of myth
• 28:38
  busting around that. Most people are... able
• 28:41
  to put that together when you explain it like
• 28:42
  that. But it is one of the sort of idiosyncrasies
• 28:45
  of podcasting. Yes, for sure. This was so great,
• 28:48
  Michael. This was just enlightening and wonderful.
• 28:51
  And I'm just so happy. I feel like it's you just
• 28:53
  have those good conversations and you just feel
• 28:55
  like a lighter human when you leave them. That's
• 28:57
  one of those for me. Yeah. Oh, thank you, Abby.
• 28:59
  I mean, and I could tell in our conversation
• 29:02
  before and talking with you now, like, you know.
• 29:06
  And one of the things I also love, among the
• 29:08
  other things I love about the podcasting industry
• 29:10
  is it really is a rising tide lifts all ships,
• 29:14
  you know, space where I feel like there's a lot
• 29:16
  of people who are running businesses that are
• 29:18
  sort of similar to what I'm doing. And I kind
• 29:21
  of feel like there's still a lot of room for
• 29:23
  more of us. I am really curious to learn more
• 29:26
  about, you know, how you're. 12, you mentioned
• 29:29
  12 or 13 clients. Is that what you said? Yeah.
• 29:31
  I mean, that's a rich roster. Yeah. And, you
• 29:34
  know, I'd love to sync up again and dig in more
• 29:37
  on how that's going and, you know, what you're
• 29:39
  learning about it. So I hope we can find time
• 29:41
  to swap notes on that at some point. I would
• 29:43
  love to. Let's plan for it. Wonderful. Well,
• 29:45
  thank you so much. And we will catch you guys
• 29:47
  next week on another episode of Abby the Podcast
• 29:49
  Lady. Before we go, Michael, tell them where
• 29:51
  they can connect with you. Yeah, I'm real active
• 29:53
  on LinkedIn. I run, and I didn't talk much about
• 29:55
  it, but I have a boutique. consulting and production
• 29:58
  firm called 14th Street Studios. And the commitment
• 30:01
  I have to anybody who's interested in starting
• 30:03
  a podcast or wants help with production is I
• 30:05
  will handle technical production, but the bigger
• 30:08
  commitment is that I'll listen to your show and
• 30:11
  I'll try and offer honest feedback about what's
• 30:14
  working, what's not, where I think real opportunity
• 30:16
  is. That takes the form of both active production
• 30:19
  as well as workshops. So if you're interested.
• 30:22
  Feel free to reach out. I'm easy to find on LinkedIn.
• 30:25
  And my website is 14streetstudios .com. Perfect.
• 30:28
  I'll make sure those get in the show notes as
• 30:29
  well. Awesome. Thanks so much, Abby. This was
• 30:31
  great. Thanks for being here.