Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / How To Get Paid in the Creator Economy 2026, with Gen-Z Media Founder Lauren Meisner (Centennial World)

Transcript

How To Get Paid in the Creator Economy 2026, with Gen-Z Media Founder Lauren Meisner (Centennial World) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Female Sign-Up Club podcast. Thank you for having me. I am so excited to chat to you today. I'm excited because I saw the video that you did on social media about launching Spawn Studio and I kind of thought it would be good to get on here and have a bit of a chat, especially around kind of the creator ecosystem for women in 2026 and how podcasters are growing and kind of like...
• 0:25
  lift the curtain on all this stuff that's really vague in the creator industry. I feel like sponsorships, brand deals, like often I'm like,
• 0:35
  This is the price, you know, what's happening here? I don't know. I have nothing to compare this to. I'm just like out here doing my thing. And I feel like a lot of creators, especially early in the journey, kind of feel the same. So I'm very excited to get into all of that. Yes, me too. I feel like 100% this industry is like the Wild West still.
• 0:56
  I agree. It is the Wild West. It's just like all over the shop and it's controlled by like so many different like weird players. But anyway, I digress. For context to the audience, Lauren built a Gen Z media business from just $5,000. And today we're opening up the books to understand her business model around women getting paid in the creator economy. Yes.
• 1:20
  So I want to start with kind of the breakdown of your business model for Centennial World. Tell us what it is, how you monetize it, what are the revenue streams and what the kind of what type of creative business this is.
• 1:35
  Yeah, definitely. So my career background before Centennial was I was a beauty writer in like mainstream media. So I have always been chronically online, like I've always been obsessed with whatever's happening on YouTube and like in the creator space. And so when I was writing for these titles back in, you know, 2017, 2018, 2019, I would pitch stories about whatever was happening in the online beauty space at the time, because again, we were covering beauty. So I'm like, okay, we need to be covering like, I don't know,
• 2:02
  Jeffree Star's palette launch or like Jaclyn Hill's lipsticks or whatever was happening in that space. And just being told like, no, we don't cover that. That's not like mainstream enough. Right. So this was pre TikTok blowing up and obviously pre COVID. So I knew that there was a massive gap in success.
• 2:20
  specifically Australian media, but like media worldwide, even at that point for a Gen Z publisher that specifically covered internet culture, not pop culture, not reality TV, but like internet culture. So that was the ethos behind Centennial or kind of the brand vision behind it. And over the years, we have evolved a lot. Like I said, this was pre COVID even pre TikTok really blowing up. So we launched in December 2019. And then by March, when's
• 2:49
  Yeah, literally. I know. It's so funny. And then by March, the concept of internet culture and what that even meant had completely shifted because TikTok blew up and all of a sudden everybody was covering this niche and everybody was at home. And it was just like a totally different industry, like honestly felt like overnight. And we were so early into the journey that we felt like we really didn't have our footing quite yet. Sorry, just to like stop you there. Were you already Centennial World at that point? Like you were called that you'd like launch the business? No.
• 3:19
  So we were Centennial Beauty. So we thought we were going to be more beauty focused because my former business partner and I were beauty writers at the time. And, you know, that was the niche that was like, it was, it was very short sighted of us. It was very like first business, like kind of vibes where we're like, oh, well, beauty is the biggest niche on the internet for young women. So it makes sense that we would be Centennial Beauty. And obviously that was where like our connections were and things like that. So
• 3:42
  It was fine. It served its purpose for sure. And it helped us get our foot in the door with beauty brands like right away and get those sponsorships right away and stuff because we had such a very clear niche. But literally by March, so like three or four months after we launched, we were already covering things that had nothing to do with beauty because that's just where Internet culture was going. And that's where attention was going. So.
• 4:02
  We eventually rebranded a few years later. And then at the end of 2023, we completely deprioritized our website. So we completely stopped being a dot-com publisher. We deprioritized our focus on like the written publication side of things. And we went all in on podcasting.
• 4:21
  And then it was, yeah, basically beginning of 2024, we went into daily podcasting. So instead of publishing, let's say, three or four news stories a day on our website, we publish those on podcasting now. And how many podcasts or like what was the cadence of, cool, we've just got one podcast, one vertical? Or were you like, cool, we've got three or four? Or is that now? Like, what was that kind of evolution like?
• 4:43
  Yeah, so we had, we always had a podcast from like, I don't know, February 2020 or whatever. That was always part of the brand, but it was definitely not like the focus of the brand. And then we went to twice a week podcasting at the beginning of 2023, and it was getting really successful and was always under the one podcast, like under the same feed.
• 5:00
  And then at the beginning of 2024 is when my business partner exited. And that's when I was obviously at a crossroads. And I was like, okay, what am I going to do? How am I going to keep this going? And even though the digital publisher side of the brand was not creator led, like it was not, you know, we were not the faces of that side of the brand, but we were obviously the faces of the podcast. And I was the face of the TikTok. So I knew that it being just myself, the podcast was going to suffer unless I changed it.
• 5:29
  Unless I really like figured out what we were going to do. So we had already made the decision when she was still in the business to let go of the site, essentially as a publisher. So that was like, thankfully, that decision had been made by the time she decided to leave, because I don't know what I would have done if that wasn't the case. And what we ended up doing was...
• 5:47
  We kept the same feed for the podcast that we'd had that whole time because it was like an internet culture podcast. So we already had that audience. And then that was the feed that I launched the daily podcast on. So it's called mini scroll, like the daily podcast. And it's the three biggest stories on the internet every day, Monday to Friday.
• 6:04
  So that was the show that I launched on that feed. And then we kept our weekly deep dives, which is like essentially like a video essay into like a bigger topic on the internet. So we had those two podcasts for the first maybe like eight months. And I was doing both of them. And I was like, I'm so burnt out. I mean, I wasn't doing them all by myself. My total question is like, it's going to go into burnout, but we'll get that next. Yes. And I've always had, you know, like I have a team and stuff helping me, but like hosting a podcast five days a week, it was just like a lot. Yeah.
• 6:32
  I think I used to record three times a week and even that was a lot. Yeah. And especially like an hour, an hour and a half. Like it's like a lot to be that on, especially in the earlier years where you're still trying to figure it out and you're more like, I didn't come from any kind of hosting experience. No journalism. I was afraid of public speaking, like afraid of two people or more. Oh, my God. To be talking in front of, like terrified, which is why I wanted to do it. Yeah, yeah. Because I wanted to get better at it.
• 6:57
  But at that time doing three, I was like, this is fucked up. Yeah. And then for you, I'm like, so how did you do that?
• 7:05
  Honestly, just pure like grit and determination. I was so burnt out. Now I am used to that cadence, obviously, and you adapt so quickly. But in those first six months, I have never been like more exhausted, more stressed in my whole life. It was such a huge transition because it was also a transition, not just from, you know, doing a twice a week podcast with a co-host to a daily podcast by myself, but it was also figuring out, okay, now I'm like,
• 7:32
  in charge of the business completely on my own. So I'm figuring out how to do everything inside of the business by myself. I'm suddenly a manager, a solo manager of three people, instead of having a business partner to help me with all of that kind of stuff. And I was really aggressively trying to scale at that point. I was like, okay, if this is mine, that means I can make all the decisions and like, let's just fucking go for it. And if I have to make all these changes, I might as well try and just like scale a ton. So it was, I took on too much.
• 7:58
  all at once. I hired a bunch of new people so far. I hired a bunch of new people at the same time. Like I really think in hindsight, I should have allowed myself to process the transition of going from a co-founder experience to a solo founder experience and figuring out what like running a business by myself looked.
• 8:19
  like at that point before hiring new people and taking on a daily podcast and those things. But I just wanted to do it all at once. And it was so full on. And then from there, going through that experience of feeling so burnt out, I was like, okay, we need to expand beyond just me being the face of the whole business if I'm trying to scale this, right? So I'm
• 8:39
  I knew that I wanted to have a brand that did not rely solely on myself as the face of it. So then that's when at the beginning of 2025, so about a year after we kind of started that, we launched a weekly mini tech podcast. So it's literally like the three stories in tech that are relevant for like Gen Z women on Wednesdays. And that's a show that I don't host. So one of my team members hosts that, Annabelle. And that was literally because I was like, you need to host something. I'm sorry, I can't do Wednesday.
• 9:09
  Like, I just need a day off. Like, I can't do this. And, you know, it was trying to find that balance of what is she editorially strong at if she doesn't want to talk about like the drama going on online? Like, what does she feel safe talking about? Yeah. What gives her energy and like what she can lean into and get excited about versus like...
• 9:26
  what the show already was. I'm draining myself from this. Totally. Okay. So we, that's how we came up with mini tech scroll, which is her podcast. So that's Wednesday. So Wednesdays, I don't have to record the podcast, thankfully. So I can do things like this, where it's like a day where I just have to myself. Yeah. And then still recording though. Yeah, literally. Still recording on someone else's show. I'm on it. Thank you so much. No, I love it.
• 9:49
  Like for me, I just love like building, you know, so like these kinds of opportunities, like that's what gives me that energy. So, yeah, we did that. And then we launched High Stakes, which is a weekly like celebrity beef podcast, which is hosted by two media girls, like not me. So we started expanding what we offered in terms of shows from there.
• 10:08
  Okay. And just like a few practical questions here. So you had the original podcast feed, all the content's going on there, or you've now got three separate, or at that time you have three separate feeds in addition, and you're cross promoting with micro kind of, you know, trailers, or are you just still posting everything on one feed and in addition to other feeds?
• 10:25
  No, so we have one feed that has, it's called Infinite Scroll is like our main feed. And that's where we have mini scroll, that's where we have the deep dives because the deep dives are like the infinite scroll. And then that's also where we have mini text. So we have the three shows across that one feed because they all are like the same theme and they're all Centennial owned shows. Got it.
• 10:44
  And then any external shows that we have. So if we have like a branded miniseries, sometimes if the brand wants, it can exist on its own feed or sometimes it can exist within that RSS if that's what they want. So we did like Touch Grass, which was a miniseries with Britta where I interviewed creatives who have to be like chronically online for their job and how they like touch grass, if you get it. And so that was- Whoa. Yeah. It took me a second, but I'm there now. Yeah, yeah. I was like, like grounding? Yeah, you're like, I'm what?
• 11:13
  So yeah, having those mini series that we produce sometimes with brands, occasionally they will want it on their own feed. So we'll do that. High stakes or any shows that come to me that are owned by the host. So like if it's an external podcasters and they're like, okay, we have this concept and we would love, you know, to pitch...
• 11:33
  to like join your network. Like I always allow them to own the IP of course. And so then they will have their own feed so they can always take that with them. All of our shows go on our central Centennial World, uh, YouTube channel. And then all those clips also go on our TikTok feed as well. So they can have their own TikTok like accounts if they want for their shows. And we are literally this week, we're just like, okay, we need to start one for mini scroll. It's kind of like our breakout show. And, um,
• 11:58
  We're just like testing to see if we put full length stories, which are like sometimes nine or 10 minutes long, like on TikTok, how they perform. Oh, that's interesting. So we literally just launched that like three days ago to see how that's going. So we're always like testing different things. But in general, like what we bring in terms of like to brands, for example, would be, OK, like we have these.
• 12:19
  like four podcasts that exist consistently. We can do mini series. We have the YouTube channel that has all the content on it. So if you are doing like a mini series with us or something, you will still get those guaranteed views because it's still going on our existing YouTube channel and our one main TikTok account. So that's kind of how we work. And then we have a newsletter too. But our newsletter is like, it's a labor of love, right?
• 12:42
  But it's not our main focus. Like, we just have too much to focus on. Got it. Got it. And also, it's like a different production team. Like, if you've got short-form video, long-form video, that's already, I feel like, two workflows. And then having, like, long-form written or any kind of written is just such a different, like... Skill set. Yeah. And such a different, you know, process. Yeah. Let's talk about, in the beginning, kind of when you were...
• 13:05
  your co-founder has left, you know, left the, left the vibe and you're just starting to, I guess, like kind of pick up speed, pick up momentum. Can you share anything around the types of numbers you had at the time and the types of deals that you were able to get at the very beginning? Yeah, absolutely. Our first deal ever, this is taking it way back. This is literally January, 2020. We were a month in and our first deal ever was with Matt Cosmetics and they came to us with
• 13:35
  We had like, I'm not kidding, like 100 followers on TikTok at the point. Like who had TikTok followers at that point? But it was literally brands throwing money at something that they're like, I guess that this is gonna be like a thing and we need to get in on it. And we found in the early, early days, like 2020, a lot of global brands didn't have approvals to have local TikTok accounts, but the marketing managers knew they had to have a TikTok presence to reach younger generations. And so we got a lot of deals, like just because we were super early on TikTok in that phase. Mm-hmm.
• 14:05
  And there seemed like there was going to be so much money. I remember we got that proposal and it was like three weeks in and we were like, we're going to be rich. Like, this is so crazy. Like, it's fucking happening. Like, it was actually insane. And then, of course, like, you come back down to reality when you actually start, like, building the business and you're like, never mind, this is actually really hard. But like, it was crazy.
• 14:25
  So crazy. And honestly, in those early few years, like we would get chunky deals like $20,000 $30,000. And in terms of our audience, like, you know, we would have anywhere from let's say like 10,000 to 20,000 listeners a month.
• 14:40
  sometimes and getting deals that size. But it's because we had, we always had quite big site traffic, but it wasn't necessarily like community traffic, if that makes sense. That's why we really decided to prioritize podcasting over our site anyways. I mean, that was just the direction of media to begin with. But regardless of that, like we could have...
• 15:00
  300,000, 500,000, 600,000 people on site a month, but they were not converting to proper audience members, like community members. It was just people like Googling, like what's happening between these two creators, clicking on the article and leaving. Right. Kind of stuff.
• 15:16
  Totally. So we knew we wanted to build more of like an actual audience experience anyways. So that was part of the strategy. But yeah, so we always had like the site, which I think allowed us in those early years to fall under like media budgets, which was so helpful for our money in the early years. Like we got really chunky deals for how big we were. Yeah, I remember like the...
• 15:38
  It was March 2020 or it was maybe like April 2020. And my husband was editing my show at the time. And we'd only just started like deciding, okay, I'm going to go all in and like do the show. I'd shut down my jewelry business and like the pandemic had started. And we realized straight away that we were like, okay, well, this isn't going to work. We need to hire an editor because like we're going to drive each other insane.
• 15:59
  And so I was like, cool, I need to get a deal. And I remember the advice at the time was like Tim Ferriss saying, you know, you need to have a minimum of 100,000 downloads on the podcast to be able to start going out to brands. And I was like, well, I can't wait that long. I think I had 2,000 downloads. Yeah. And then I just like started pitching brands and I got this deal for 25K US. It was like literally the first person on my list. And I remember being like, oh, wow.
• 16:24
  maybe the podcast could be a business. Like this is wild. And so by the time we signed and the time we started, I think I had 4,000 downloads. So it was like really early, early days. And just kind of, I guess when like that wave of podcasting was really kind of like becoming more juicy and exciting and what brands were doing with TikTok, I feel like they were also doing it with audio.
• 16:48
  Whereas like it's a different story in today's world, especially if you're just getting started. Can you share some examples of the kind of, you know, podcasting deals that you're kind of generating now or what you're seeing in the industry and how kind of, you know, are brands interested for like more of the mini series or are they interested more on downloads or like what are brands coming to you with?
• 17:12
  I find it's still very new to a lot of brands and agencies here, at least in Australia. Classic. Yeah, I think brands are much more comfortable with big ad buys, like across programmatic ad networks, like in Acast or something. We are finding though, over the past maybe six months,
• 17:38
  More and more agencies and really big brands are coming to us saying, OK, we know we need to get into like Gen Z podcasting, but we want a creative partnership as opposed to like a straight up ad buy that you would get with a network. So that's where we find the most success is working on them in this, you know, more traditional kind of like editorial partnership style with podcasting. Yeah.
• 18:00
  So like the Brita miniseries, for example, that was an eight episode miniseries where they had like full season branding, product placement in every single episode. And they didn't have necessarily like editorial oversight, obviously depends on the client. But, you know, like there are key messages that they want you to hit throughout the series and things like that, because it's like tying in with a larger creative campaign that they have going on, whether that's globally or locally.
• 18:26
  So that's one example. Those miniseries, a lot of brands are interested in those, but those cost a lot of money. For brands that want something... And what would you charge a brand for something like that? Let's just say it's an eight-part miniseries of 10-minute episodes. And within your production, it doesn't have to be that one specifically, but within the line item for you, your P&L is like, cool, I've got to pay for, whether you're doing it or not yourself, but the writing, or the scripting, the filming,
• 18:56
  the paid spend behind budget, whatever it is, like your kind of like costs and then what are you like charging those out at? Well, because we have a team in-house that does most of that stuff and like, because like we're a startup, so I'm scrappy. Like I will do the editing myself if I need to, you know? So every once in a while, we will hire an external editor for bigger projects like that. But a production like that,
• 19:23
  Okay, actually, let me tell you a funny story and then I'll tell you. Please, tell me a funny story. I love funny stories. The very first one we ever did of this, like the very first miniseries we ever did when we first decided we're going all in on podcasting and my partnerships manager had sold a miniseries to a brand and it was great, but we had no idea what to charge. Okay, we charged $20,000 because they were like, we will pay like today if you do it for 20K and we're like, okay, fine. Like, you know, whatever.
• 19:52
  So $20,000, we did this series. And to be fair, it was low production in the sense that like we did all the editing, like it was all in-house stuff, regardless. At the time, I was working with a PR agency to help get some press for this miniseries because it was like the first one we'd ever done. And so...
• 20:09
  I had sent like a lot of the information to this PR firm about like the deal so that they understood what they were looking at. And then the publicist that I was working directly with, she was like, you have undercharged this by like five times. She was like, we work with, you know, podcasters and stuff who are doing these mini series. And like, they are charging like six, like multi six figures for things like this sometimes. And I was like, that's what I mean. I'm like, we need to be talking about things. Totally. It needs like so much more transparency. Totally. This is crazy.
• 20:38
  And it is hard because, you know, when you are a startup and you're a lesser known brand, even though we've been around for seven years, like podcasting specifically, it's really only been two years that we've been like all in on podcasting. And, you know, like we are still we've never had a big break moment is what I say. So we don't have we've never had a moment that like all of a sudden the entire industry knows us.
• 21:00
  And everybody wants to work with us. I actually just still don't even think that's, you know, I think we have like 700 episodes. Like literally I've interviewed so many people and so many, well, so many people, so many women who are super successful and they say the exact same thing. There isn't like one moment where everything changes. It's just like the continual constant moments. And like you might have a spike, but then when it happens, you don't even really notice because you're just like, okay, well, the next goal and the next thing. It's never like an overnight change. It's always like, yeah.
• 21:29
  you're looking for that. And like, there are stories of that. But it's actually just that, like, compounding, staying in the game for long enough and the long term play. Yeah, it's literally like building brick by brick. Like I have been at every stage of this. And, you know, I didn't raise funding. I don't really have like a mentor, like a consistent mentor. So I'm really doing this like all on my own, like fully bootstrapped. And so yeah, like every single stage I have been at, because I've had to build every single stage.
• 21:59
  So it is still hard for us, even though we've been around for so long to convince the industry to spend like big chunks of money with us like that. Because like I said, we don't necessarily have that like huge brand awareness or that huge notoriety or have had that huge viral moment or whatever. So while it was great advice where she's like, you should have charged like over 100 grand for this, like they would not have paid 100 grand.
• 22:23
  for that. You know what I mean? So you do have to sometimes pick your battles there and understand what you are worth in the market in that moment in time. But now, I mean, our audience has quadrupled since we sold that. So we would not sell for anything less that maybe like 60 grand is probably like the lowest that we would sell a partnership like that for. And who would you go to pitch those kind of like concepts to? Would you be focusing on America or
• 22:52
  We focus on international brands, but our relationships are typically with Australian, like the Australian counterparts of that. So it would be like the Australian marketing managers and the agencies. So it would typically come out of Australian budget. We do have a US split to our audience. And that is something that like long-term, I would love to like actually properly crack is like getting some brand awareness out there in terms of like...
• 23:21
  working with brands and marketing managers and agencies and stuff. And that's like on always on the list. It's always on the list of like, you know what, I should do some US outreach and see because obviously, you know, even though we would be such small fish there, like obviously the money is so much bigger there. So it's always in my mind for sure. But yeah, we are working with for partnerships of that size. It typically needs to be like a multinational, like honestly, like billion dollar brand that has bigger budgets here.
• 23:49
  And that can be hard to find. Totally, totally. It needs to be like the Procter & Gamble's of the world and filtering down into their different verticals or their different brands. For anyone listening who is kind of in that early stage of podcasting, they haven't kind of like built out a proper sales process or a sales pipeline, could you kind of break down what the sales process is? So when you're doing the outreach, like what is your, you know,
• 24:14
  what's your rhythm? What's your ritual? Are you like, cool, every Monday I email 10 brands and I send them X, Y, and Z? Or are you like, I go full all out and like create, you know, a pilot episode and send that? Or what is your kind of like vibe for sales? Because I think that people don't really talk about what the actual sales process is behind the scenes that goes into getting these deals. And what a lot of people didn't realize was,
• 24:39
  when they started, including myself, is like, when you're an independent creator, you're a salesperson. Like, you're selling yourself, you're selling your product, which is your show or your channel or whatever, and you're basically wearing the sales hat. And so you've got to get good at commercial deals, pricing, pitching yourself, negotiating, whatever. And I feel like there's not a lot of info about that out there, especially when you're getting started. Yeah, absolutely. I...
• 25:07
  So I'm trying to think about how I word this because I love building a business, but the sales process for me, I learned over the years is something that I will always, which is like the worst process.
• 25:21
  place, like the worst way to be. So don't do this. I will always put it on the back burner. Like I will always choose to do something else aside from like cold outreach. Um, and so when my business partner exited, the first hire that I made was a partnerships manager because she was, my business partner was handling most of our partnerships at that point. So I hired a
• 25:46
  And that was great, but I actually do think I probably needed, like to what I was saying before, a bit more time to also just try doing it myself. So I understood what the entire process was. While we had been doing the business for like five years at that point, four or five years, and obviously I'd been part of the sales process and cycle for so long. Because in those early years, we were more of a traditional publisher. We had those really like strong existing editorial ideas.
• 26:13
  relationships with a lot of these beauty brands and we were more like beauty focused, like lifestyle focused. We didn't really have to try for deals. If we wanted to scale, we definitely had to try. But if we wanted to keep it like this nice lifestyle business where we were kind of complacent and allowing, you know, deals to come in, like it was a very...
• 26:33
  It was there wasn't a lot of friction there. We were able to make enough money. I always knew. I think we both knew that we wanted to scale beyond that. But that was neither of our necessarily like our strong suits was the sales side of things.
• 26:49
  then when she left, I brought in a salesperson and she kind of set up our processes for us. So there is like, obviously a very strong cold outreach approach to it. Um, she has since, since left and I did the sales for six months by myself before hiring somebody else. And I was like, I can't like, I, I really wanted to try, but I just don't have, honestly, a lot of it is just like the time, like anymore. Like I have, you know, a team to manage a business to build. I
• 27:18
  like speaking opportunities and things like that. Like I just don't have the time. And then I do a daily podcast. So like, I just don't have the time. It's a lot. And I also think it's like, it's such a skill to just stick to your superpower and actually be like forced to delegate elsewhere. And it's different when you're in the very beginning versus like more established and more in a rhythm. But yeah.
• 27:38
  it's really like, it's just such a superpower to be like, nope, I shouldn't do that. I need to figure out how to solve it. I need to figure out how to fund that role in the business or that task being delegated to someone else. Yes. And like, don't get me wrong. Every time, exactly to your point, I need to figure out how to fund this. Like that is the constant struggle of being in a startup or building a startup is like, how do I get out of the startup phase? How do I make sure that the money that I'm putting into this is going to pay off? And it's so hard and like making all of those mistakes.
• 28:06
  Like I've made so many mistakes. So it's so tough. But yeah, so what our process looks like is, first of all, understanding who buys, like who has the buying power, not just within the brand, but a lot of times, you know, the marketing team or the comms team within a brand doesn't even really buy, right? Who's the stakeholder? Like who's the decision maker that controls the spreadsheet?
• 28:31
  Yeah. And a lot of times for our industry, it's agencies. So, you know, in the earlier days of our business, it was a lot more, I would say like media buying and PR budgets were more separate. Now we're finding over the past few years, they're kind of coming together a lot more. So like PR agencies will often have creative content budgets and they didn't always used to. So that is kind of like...
• 28:54
  amalgamating almost and just being across the entire time like how the industry is moving and where the money is sitting it's honestly a full-time job in and of itself um but yeah like tons of cold outreach using every tool that we can like HubSpot Apollo like everything to just basically tap into that network that cold network um and then every time I do like a speaking engagement or something honestly we get
• 29:19
  steals from it. Like that has been a huge game changer for me is I started doing a lot of public speaking around like Gen Z and like new media and like internet culture at the beginning of 2024 around then. And 2025, I had a lot of speaking opportunities and we got some of our biggest clients from that. Oh, I love that. Yeah. And it's kind of like the thing that you, it's like,
• 29:42
  There's the strategy to it, but it's more like you've just kind of got to go out there and do it and be like, cool, if I just do this as many times as I can, like a numbers game, then I just know it'll kind of come back. But you can't plan for that like exact kind of conversion rate, I guess. It's like, cool, I know if I send 100 emails, I'm going to get roughly X amount back, which is going to convert to X amount of deals, whatever. Whereas like speaking is like...
• 30:04
  it can be hit and miss. You could be like, cool, I'm in the biggest conference ever. I think I'm going to get the most deals and then not. And you could be at the smallest conference ever and then be like, oh my God, this came out of it. And it was like, blew my mind, but I couldn't have prepared for that. Yeah. And like, I cannot stress enough that it just takes that many years in the industry and building what you're building.
• 30:24
  to get that kind of momentum and to get those speaking opportunities. Like, obviously, nobody would have been flying me around the world to speak anywhere. And you're two of my business. You know, it's because I've been doing it for six years. So everything, to your point earlier, takes so much time. It's just like compounding year on year, like day by day, honestly, at some times, some points in the business.
• 30:45
  And even, you know, seven years in, like, I have a head of commercial partnerships, and most of her job is cold outreach. Like, it's still just getting your name out there and just doing that grind. Like, it is just a grind. Okay, well, yes.
• 31:00
  It is a grind, but if we turn on the flip side of that, when we think about, you know, the opportunity for 2026, what do you think for anyone listening is like the underrated wildcard opportunity for women who are kind of wanting to like dip their toe in the creator economy or just get started or like try something? Because...
• 31:19
  Obviously, we know that especially with podcasting, it is that long term commitment. I think the stat is like most people give up after seven episodes or whatever it is. And the more you're in it, it compounds and, you know, everything grows, your brand equity, et cetera, et cetera. But what do you think the kind of like current opportunity is? Because when we think back to 2019, like you said, or early 2020, when like TikTok hit the scene and it was like, cool, there's so much opportunity here. What is the TikTok of today?
• 31:47
  Oh, I love that question. Okay. I think there's a lot of talk right now about like the intellectual influencer, right? And how expertise is something that...
• 32:01
  we are paying more and more attention to because it's becoming so confusing who actually is an expert and everybody can have an opinion online right so following voices who have legitimacy behind them is becoming more popular so i think honing in on that is
• 32:22
  And a trend that I'm seeing that you could kind of like combine a trend that I'm seeing specifically on TikTok is some of these voices that have a lot to say, like commentary or expertise. And they are essentially speaking to camera for like 10, 15, 20 minutes on TikTok. And I'm noticing that a lot of them, the way that they're doing this is they're, they're putting in their captions. I don't know if you've seen this or like text on screen and it will say, listen to this like a podcast.
• 32:50
  So it's like prompting the user to actually use TikTok differently and realize, okay, so this is a long video. Put it on the car. Yes, but I'm real. But when you get to it, instead of being like, oh my God, this is too long, you read that and you think, okay, maybe I will. So you'll put in your AirPods and you'll save that video. You'll save it. Yeah. And then you'll listen to it. Yeah. While you're like doing your dishes or something. Yeah. Yeah.
• 33:13
  I love that. That's clever. It's a different way. TikTok podcast. Yes, it's a different way to put out like kind of your commentary or your expertise. Obviously, Substack has been so big for that, right? And people kind of sharing their essays and thoughts on Substack. And so taking that, because I mean, I don't think Substack is going away anytime soon. And like we publish on Substack, it's obviously a very popular platform. But I think
• 33:36
  The written word, like it's having a moment. It's having like a viral moment. And I don't think it will last forever as nothing does. I think this is the new wave of that is taking that those ideas and, you know, your expertise and your commentary and putting it somewhere short for short form video on these platforms that are short form video in a longer form sense and telling the user how you want them to engage with it. Oh, that's really cool. I like that. That's fun. And so you're starting to do that.
• 34:07
  Well, I haven't actually prompted anyone to listen to it like a podcast. But as I said earlier, we literally this week have just decided we're putting full, not our full length episodes, but our full stories. So like literally just clipping it. So when I'm like presenting whatever story has happened this week on whatever episode, I will clip that entire story, including like my commentary, including the times that I, you know, where it's like very conversational in a podcast and I like mess up and make a joke, like whatever.
• 34:33
  And I will just like put that whole thing on TikTok. And honestly, it's been three days. And we have videos that have like over 100,000 views. And they're like nine minutes long. And I just can't believe it. Like, I can't believe it. It's so interesting. It reminds me of like, you know how Stephen Bartlett will have his moments. And like our version of a moment is a gem. So it's kind of like the, you know, the interesting framework that we clip out of the episode. And it's like even just that could be then just like put back onto TikTok and with the-
• 35:01
  the thing and maybe like a, you know, an upfront green screen or something just to like set the scene or set the tone. That's really cool. I like that. I'm going to give that a try. Very cool. Is there anything you think is like underrated? Like the wave is over, let it go in the past. You know, I actually think based on what brands want, brands don't want. Yeah. What, what's actually like the, the stuff that you're going to be able to commercialize versus like,
• 35:30
  See ya. Yeah, yeah. You know, I actually think from both a brand perspective and also just an editorial audience perspective is media that is delivering you the news or the story without commentary.
• 35:47
  Because with the rise of AI, anyone can find the bullet points on whatever story they want to find. So why would people follow your podcast or your media brand or you as a creator if it's not for your commentary?
• 36:02
  on what you think about this, your opinion on this. So I actually think that is the future of like creator-led brands and creator-led media for sure. There needs to be some element of human touch and the human touch is the thought process behind it, right, your opinion behind it. Otherwise, I can just find that summary on like Google Gemini.
• 36:23
  Totally, totally. I think like the world also operates and exists through the lens of storytelling. Like everything is a story because otherwise it's just words in the dictionary. It's us stringing together those words in a story that has happened to us or happened to someone else that's been passed along. And if you're not wrapping something in the story, then yeah, it's just a dot point.
• 36:46
  on chat gpt yeah absolutely and that's not to say that proper information is not so important like 100 verified sources and all of that like that's all so under attack right now so that is not what i'm saying it's more just we still need that human element behind it and and that is what ai is essentially i guess like it's something that it's taking away from the media industry on one hand but it's also giving us an opportunity to change
• 37:15
  You mentioned something just now that kind of like sparked a thought. It's not on my question list, but, you know, the world of social media is changing always, but it's also become, to me, what feels like quite toxic. People have, you know, the ability to kind of like cancel culture, the trolling, all these kinds of like the dark side of social media. Have you had any hard moments with social media or have you kind of like –
• 37:43
  You know, if you're chronically online, have you seen the kind of the negative side? Yeah, of course. I mean, it's hard because our brand covering internet culture, a lot of times we're covering personalities, we're covering like what's going viral, which always involves lots of different opinions and lots of different sides. It's really tough. We have absolutely had moments where I feel like, especially being the face of the brand that we're like under attack. I think...
• 38:10
  The downside of having a daily podcast is that there's a lot of opportunity for that to happen, for people to misunderstand what you mean because you're sharing so much all the time, right? And to be getting that constant feedback is so much. Like it is so overwhelming to have feedback every single day. But the benefit of that is that we are in our audience ears every single day. So they also know me. They know the team. They know us, right? And so that has given us this...
• 38:39
  opportunity, I think, to, let's say, have a stronger parasocial relationship with us in that sense. And therefore, as our daily podcast has grown and for, you know, gone on for longer and longer, they give us more the benefit of the doubt because they feel like they know us. So that has been like the benefit. But also the flip side of that is that is unfortunately like the reality of building something on the Internet. And like with thousands of people listening to you every single day, like that's the trade off.
• 39:09
  Totally, totally. It's such an interesting one. I always wonder, like, are we going to look back in 50 years time or 100 years time or 200 years time and be like, wow, I can't believe we were just allowed to like be on the Internet all the time, say whatever we wanted, look at whatever we wanted and like have no regulation around it. And I know regulation is, you know, starting to change with teenagers and things like that. But I'm like...
• 39:31
  The internet is kind of fucking weird. Oh my God. It's so weird. A hundred percent. I think we will look back at this moment in time, probably from, you know, 2020 when things started to get really heated online to let's say, I don't know how long it's going to last, but let's say we'll look at this decade and just be like, whoa, what the fuck was going on there?
• 39:52
  Yeah. And like the phone addiction levels, like it's insane. I'm so addicted to my phone. Me too. It's so bad. It's so bad. I really have to put it in a drawer at the end of the day or else I'm just like on it all the time. I know. I'm chronically online.
• 40:05
  Oh, my God, me too, of course. Like, I have to tell myself, okay, this weekend, like, you don't need to scroll. Because, like, I feel like I have to scroll every day so I know what stories to report on and stuff. So if it's the weekend, obviously, I'm not recording a pod. So I'm like, I don't need to scroll today. But it's crazy. It's just such an addiction. Yeah, I mean, I hear you.
• 40:24
  What do you think about when, you know, when you're thinking about kind of deals, creators, podcasters, influencers, whatever, what should you never agree to in a term sheet? Or what should you say no to? When is a brand taking it too far? Oh, I like that question. You know, we get a lot of asks from brands.
• 40:46
  brands who will say, and it's usually PR agencies, who will like dangle the carrot. So they'll say this brand, they're a brand that like really aligns with like who we would wanna work with, right? And they'll say, they'll represent this brand and they'll say like, if you just give us like some free coverage, like a few times, the brand will see what you can do.
• 41:08
  And then they'll work with you. And we would do that so often in the early days. And then I had one meeting where I was just so fucking fed up with this, with a brand that the PR agency had done this to us for like two years straight. And this is a brand that spends so much time.
• 41:25
  So often with women's media, like we know that they're spending, they have big budgets. And finally, I just had a face-to-face meeting with the publicist. And I said, we have made the editorial decision to never cover this brand again because you keep dangling this carrot and we feel like you're lying to us. And so stop pitching us. And it was a face-to-face meeting. And it was like the scariest thing that I had to do. I am severing the tie. And it was such like a, it was like,
• 41:51
  One of the first like big like girl boss moments where I was like, I have to stand up for the business that I've been building. And this was like years ago. This was probably like 2021. It was so long ago. So it was so early in the journey. And I was just like, I need to do this. What did they say?
• 42:05
  She said, okay, let me get back to you. She was like mortified and she felt so bad. Literally, I am not kidding. They immediately signed a $15,000 deal with us after I had that meeting and they're one of our biggest clients still. It's crazy. Yes, know your worth, know your value.
• 42:22
  That's the lesson. Don't do free content. I have so many friends that are in the influencer space and they do so much free content, content that is so beautiful. And they will allow the brand to cross post it with them. That is free. They have been like sent this product for free, let's say. And they think, oh, if I make a nice reel with this, then they'll spend with me and they will allow the brand to collab posts with them on this. Yeah.
• 42:45
  piece of content that honestly the brand probably could have paid or would have paid like 30 grand to make because it's so beautiful and I'm just like stop doing that stop giving people things for free or they'll never spend with you yeah yeah it teaches them it trains them you know something I really don't like about the creator industry and maybe we should do a follow-up episode on this about all the things that we don't like yes it's like a message to brands
• 43:10
  fucking payment terms like oh 30 60 120 days later I'm like absolutely not absolutely not like what do you mean my our latest invoice ever was nine months late exactly that's why we should never pay like I'm like you don't go to a like you don't just start working with an agency and be like I'll pay you in six months I know like they're like here's the payment link when do we start and you're like yeah yeah great amazing but
• 43:36
  But that's actually one of the things that came out of, we went through a really hard financial time when my business partner left and I was trying to scale too quickly. And I just got like way in over my head and we were in a very stressful cashflow position. And I talk very honestly like about that on my TikTok and stuff. Cause I do like founder content, which.
• 43:56
  Everyone needs to do, but it's like the worst. And, and in that period of time, something good that came out of that stress, and like nothing is worse than cash flow stress, but something really good that came out of that was us implementing a deposit system or a pay upfront system and understanding.
• 44:13
  We have never had any issues enforcing that since we implemented that. And we just say, these are our payment terms. You have to pay us a deposit or you have to pay us up front for this entire project. And I'm going to say like nine times out of 10, that's no problem. Same. I started like, it was also a while ago. It didn't come out of like a bad moment. Or maybe it did come out of a bad moment where like...
• 44:34
  I don't know, a brand was just like taking forever to pay and like I had to keep chasing it. And I was like, what the hell? Like I have to live it. I don't understand. And so from then on, I was just always upfront and being like payment terms are upfront, like or, you know, monthly, whatever it is, however long the campaign is going to be. But it's not afterwards and it's certainly not 120 days afterwards. Like absolutely not. You're a huge brand. Like you've got the budget.
• 44:56
  Yeah. No. 100%. It's tough, though, because you also have to like, especially in the beginning, be like, I have to be willing to walk away from this. Yes. And that's something, though, in those early years, and it was probably the same for you, that we didn't realize we could just set those terms. You don't have to follow what the brand does. You don't have to sign the agreement as is. You can be like, sorry, red line. This is how we do it. Yeah. And then you can negotiate, obviously, right? Like, it's not always going to be 100% on your terms,
• 45:26
  Yeah, yeah. So interesting. I feel like that just needs to like change in the industry like all around. Yeah, I'm really over that. I think it's hard with creators. I think it's probably different if you are a full time influencer, because we are getting like media budgets, podcasting budgets. I think sometimes it sits under different.
• 45:45
  decision makers and different budget buckets. So I do believe if you're like an influencer listening to this, I don't know if it's always going to be as easy as just like, oh, set your own terms. You know, I think sometimes it's a little bit different when it's business to business, but shoot your shot. And also when you're like able to just like send a, I think when you send a
• 46:04
  And you're like, cool, use your card or whatever to pay for it and then pay if it's a deposit or if it's just first payment upfront or whatever. Then they can do the bank transfer through accounting or whatever, but usually...
• 46:19
  someone who is at that kind of like manager, director, whatever level, they'll have their own company card for the ability to just quickly move fast and put in those kind of things. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about Spawn Studio. I feel like I asked you a lot of questions around the creator space. Yeah. I should have asked you afterwards, but tell me about Spawn Studio. Who's it for? What's it do? What's the vibe? Yes.
• 46:40
  Well, Spawn Studio is literally for the podcasters that we have been talking about this whole time who are maybe in the earlier stages or maybe just independent, whether you have a smaller show or a larger show. The biggest...
• 46:56
  The biggest inspiration, I'm trying to think of the right word here, the biggest inspiration behind why we launched Spawn Studio is I was looking for a resource like this that we could put Centennial on because we are independent, right? So we're not with a network like we are our own network. We do programmatic advertising through Spotify because that's who we host with. But we are not part of like a bigger ad network.
• 47:18
  So we do all of our own deals like in-house aside from the Spotify programmatic ads. And so I was looking for a platform, like surely there's a discoverability platform that we can put our shows on, right? And I found a couple mostly in the US. However, they had wild thresholds.
• 47:35
  Like on both ends. Okay, so like for independent shows that wanted to list, they would have to have like 50,000 listens an episode. And the brands had to spend at least $100,000. Like their budgets, minimum $100,000 budgets. And coming from Australia, which is obviously a much smaller market, I knew that those thresholds for podcasters, especially newer podcasters over the past couple of years, the industry is so different. Like it's very hard to hit those numbers now. It depends what niche you're in.
• 48:02
  If you're like super niched down or if you're like a really interesting historian podcast that has like a super loyal following that's like really hard to find but is also really niche. Exactly. And they still deserve to make money. Exactly. And the barrier to entry for podcasting is so much higher now than it ever was too because everything needs to be video. You need to be able to clip everything for every single fucking platform.
• 48:27
  Otherwise, how will anybody ever find you? So like the barrier to entry already costs so much more than it did even when we started podcasting. So these independent newer shows, like they deserve to make money still too, so that they can produce that content. And just because they have less than 50,000 listens an episode doesn't mean that they don't have a valuable audience. And then from the brand perspective, being in this industry now for so many years, like there's been so many times when we have had brands come to us and say like, you're
• 48:54
  whether they're a startup or a bigger brand, like we have a $2,000 budget. What can you do with that? And like, you can't go to a big network with a $2,000 budget, right? A lot of them will not say yes to that. But...
• 49:06
  Niche podcasters probably will. A lot of brands here are not going to want to spend minimum $100,000 on a campaign. So I felt like those barriers to entry that I could see on those or those thresholds that I could see on those existing platforms, they wouldn't work in the Australian industry, specifically in podcasting. So that was the main kind of reason why I started thinking about Spawn Studio. Spawn for sponsorship, by the way, not...
• 49:33
  What else is it? People, some people think I mean like Spawn of Satan, like S-P-A-W-N. I'm like, no, like SpawnCon. What? I know. Come on. I know. Absolutely not. No. And so I started thinking, okay, like, could I build a resource like this? And it's a global resource. Like, it's not just for Australia. But, you know, is there a resource that I could build with less resources?
• 49:55
  barriers, essentially, for both sides of the market. And then the other reason why I wanted to build it was because for us at Centennial, I would say about 80, 70 to 80% of our audience is through YouTube, like our listens. So we are largely discovered through YouTube. Most of our listenership is through YouTube.
• 50:16
  The measurement tools here. Does that thing go back and factor into Spotify? Like I use ACAST as my like hosting platform and they don't have video. So YouTube has to be a separate channel.
• 50:31
  Spotify, because it comes through Acast, we can't then go and back upload video to that. So it's like, apparently it's changing this year, but I'm pretty sure it's been changing for the last two years. So like, let's see, Acast, what's up? So do you, does that come through from Spotify and you're then publishing to YouTube? No, no. So we'll produce like the episode and we'll post the video, like we're hosted through Spotify. So we'll go on Spotify and we'll pull through as a video on Spotify and we'll pull through as audio on all the other channels. Yeah.
• 51:01
  And hopefully on Apple, it'll be video soon once they like connect that. And then we will upload that same file to our YouTube channel. So it's not all at once. Yeah, it's not all at once. But that's exactly to my point is that most of the measurement tools or like especially the main measurement tool ranker here does not include YouTube views.
• 51:19
  in terms of how they rank podcasts in Australia. And it doesn't include Spotify video views. And almost every podcast needs to be video at this point. So interesting. Yeah. So that's why a lot of the really big podcasts here won't fully do video, because that will lower their ranking. Because if like, if a lot of their audience starts watching them on YouTube instead, or starts watching the video on Spotify, instead of just listening to the audio, if some of those downloads go to video views, then it will lower their ranking.
• 51:49
  So for me, looking at the industry... That's interesting. I never thought about that. Yeah. And how audiences actually consume podcasts. Way more people are watching podcasts on YouTube than they are consuming it on like Apple Podcasts or Spotify in terms of like the actual audio. Video is the thing now. And that's how people like to consume podcasts. So if you're looking at audience behavior...
• 52:10
  It only makes sense that the measurement tools should, you know, account for that and those changes. So for us, like we've never joined Ranker or anything because I'm like, well, more than, you know, 70 percent of our audience would not even be included. That's not an accurate representation of what our actual audience listenership is. So on Spawn Studio.
• 52:30
  We report on listens, which is like a catch all term that if you join the platform, you'll be educated on what that means. And it's literally like include your monthly listenership instead of your downloads. That includes downloads, live streams, like a lot of people live stream their podcasts on YouTube or Twitch. That's still actually arguably a more engaged listener. Right. If somebody is watching your live stream doing that, I think that's so fun.
• 52:51
  I know. It does scare me. It scares me, which is why I haven't done it. But I'm like, how fun is this room? And how fun would it be to know that people are there? And how fun would it be to be answering questions in real time? To me, that just sounds so much fun. But also, I'm like, maybe we should do it together and set ourselves a challenge of being like,
• 53:08
  That would be so fun. Oh my God, we could interview each other. So then at least we have each other to be like, let's go on the journey together. I think that's actually a really, your type of podcast is a really good one for that because people can ask the guests questions and stuff. That would be really good for live streaming. Yeah, I often feel like the feedback, I don't feel like, the feedback that we get is they're,
• 53:28
  like my audience will say something like, oh, you asked the exact question that I wanted to know the answer of. And I'm like, cool. So what else did you want to know? Because I probably also want to know. Yeah, totally. A hundred percent. I'm like, you tell me. But yeah, so we have that education piece on the platform where it's like encompass when you are a podcaster listing your show. Don't just look at your downloads, look at your YouTube views, look at your live stream, your Spotify video plays, like include all of that because that is your listenership.
• 53:54
  So we're not, you know, a measurement tool. We don't have anything like that built in. It's all self-reported for now. I'm sure eventually, like if this really, you know, snowballs, we will build something like that into the platform. It's self-reported. And then we like fact check it essentially for the listings. But still, you know, that's important. That's like an important missing piece of the industry that I feel like brands and agencies so rarely understand. They don't know that those measurement tools don't encompass the full listenership of a podcast. And that's why a lot of podcasts are not video right now.
• 54:24
  Wow, I didn't know that. And of course, it makes so much sense, especially someone who's watching the video. They're like ultra engaged. They're actively watching. And then you can have product placement. There's so many other advertising opportunities through video. Yeah, I love that. OK, so for anyone who's listening, the early stage podcaster who wants to join Spawn Studios,
• 54:44
  What can you tell them advice wise around like or even just a bit of a guide on, OK, cool, if you're getting this many downloads across like video and your podcast, you know, where can you start like monetizing? Yeah. And when does it become attractive? We're in the very early launch stages right now. So we haven't like officially launched. We're going to launch in June. That's my goal.
• 55:07
  That's right. I saw your video like a week ago. Yeah, yeah. No, but we're in soft launch, so you can join. Like, anybody can join. We're trying to get a certain number of podcasters on the platform before I announce it, like, you know, on LinkedIn and, like, make it an official commercial push for brands. But we have brands on it, too, of course, like our
• 55:22
  commercial partners and some agencies that we work with that are testing it to like give us feedback and stuff. Because essentially it's a marketplace where you can list your podcast and you can be literally, you can have 500 listeners a month or you can have 500,000 listeners a month or whatever. And you can have a listing and brands can discover you through that. No one else can see your stats. So your competitors, when you're logged in or publicly, they cannot see your stats. So it kind of allows that level of protection.
• 55:50
  for the podcaster. So they know that they're not kind of like exposed in that way. But if a brand or somebody from a brand or an agency, they have to make, you know, a brand account with a company email, and then they can see the back end of your stats. So it allows you to connect and be discovered through then. And then they can essentially through there, and then they can essentially, when a brand finds a podcaster that they want to work with,
• 56:14
  They can like add them to a list of podcasters like their media plan, we're calling it, and then they can essentially send a blast out to all the podcasters that they want to work with. And then if those podcasters accept, then the brand will get sent their email address. So that's the function of the platform. But we have a lot of like resources and stuff because the idea to your point is that it's for subscribers.
• 56:35
  Some podcasters that are independent and just, you know, want to have that kind of landing page, that listing, whether they have a huge following or not. And some of the podcasters, even in the early stages, are like pretty new to this. So they might not know, you know, like that you should have a media kit.
• 56:51
  that you should do a post campaign report. So we have templates for all of that for the podcasters that join. And same for brands, like how to buy podcasting. What does podcast advertising do for your media plan? How to write a campaign brief for podcasting. Like we have all those resources. So if you're a podcaster and you want to list your podcast, just list it, girl.
• 57:10
  We'll take a look. Like, we'll list it. Like, you don't need to have any listener count. And there will be brands that want you. That's the point is, like, you could have 500 listeners a month, but that's still 500 people that are coming back every single day. And for us, or every single month, and for us, what we have found being independent and niche, like, we're a pretty niche, you know, show, right?
• 57:32
  and network is that our listeners are so excited when we have a brand deal. And that's what we always try and educate brands and agencies on is like the amount of comments that we get when we have a brand deal or sponsorship. People are so excited because they're like, oh my God, you're not some huge show. Like you're not some huge network. And the fact that this really big brand is supporting you, like we're so excited because we love your show so much and it gets to keep going then because we know it's being funded. So there's so much value in,
• 58:00
  the brand affinity that you get if you are sponsoring a more niche show, no matter the size. And that's what I would say is just apply like spawnstudio.com, submit, and we'll list you. It kind of reminds me of like,
• 58:18
  it's a brand retention tool almost because if you are also a smaller brand and you do want to kind of like get into like partnering with people who like actually really love your product or will just do like kind of like that really like the honest work versus like someone who's just like, you know, top of the charts, they're CPM only driven. They're not kind of like going that extra mile. They're more just like, cool, what's the read and host it's in. Which,
• 58:44
  Whereas this is like you find these people who are actually genuinely really excited about your brand. They then like bring their community to your brand in such a more exciting, genuine way. And I guess we hear this all the time with influencers when it's like, or I've heard this before. It's like brands will work with, you know, the top of the top influencers, multi-million followers, and it literally doesn't shift the needle, doesn't do anything.
• 59:06
  Versus like working with an indie creator or an indie influencer who has a really small following, but actually their audience is like so tapped in and they're like, I love that. I'm definitely going to try it. I'm definitely going to go check it out or whatever. And I feel like that kind of same logic applies to this.
• 59:23
  Yeah, absolutely. And we have even a section on the media kit builder where, you know, podcasters can put like audience comments, they can insert audience comments that they've had about past sponsors or whatever to show that engagement, because that's a huge part of our brand is how engaged our audience is when we have brand deals. And so we always highlight that we're like, you will literally get comments about this, people will be so excited that you have sponsored our podcast, like I'm not even joking. Here's all the examples. And so
• 59:49
  you know, allow, giving them the tools and the education piece that that's really valuable. Also as a brand, you could then be like, cool, here's my, you know, if you're a supplement brand, here's my interesting protocol that I've developed specifically for your audience. And here's a gift with purchase or here's a code or whatever. And then the audience is also benefiting from that. And like, you know, totally strengthening it in that deeper way. I love that. So cool. Yeah. For any brands listening. Yeah.
• 1:00:15
  Yeah, literally. For any brands listening and want to get in the podcast scene or maybe even like, you know, brands that are like, cool, I would love to have a podcast in-house, but I don't have the capacity to manage it, to produce it, whatever. Like go find the podcaster to do it for you. I listen to brands all the time. I'm like, I should be hosting your podcast. Yes. You need one. Yeah, a hundred percent. And, you know, a culty audience does not need to be a huge audience.
• 1:00:39
  And there are so many ways to measure cultiness. I feel like it's such an underrated, like quote unquote, it's not a real measurement tool, but like it's an underrated measurement tool in marketing. And I always say to brands, if you're trying to figure out if you will get engagement on a partnership, you know, look at comments on YouTube or TikTok or whatever, like wherever there is the capacity to comment, like Spotify, wherever you can comment, check the comments. Do people comment on those episodes? Do people comment on TikTok about...
• 1:01:07
  the creator as opposed to like the content right because tiktok just like goes out to the masses like is it obvious from the comment section that people are showing up for this person or is it or just came across their desk check reddit do people talk about them on reddit like there are so many markers that you can really look into if you're like doing your due diligence to see like is this creator no matter how big they are how small they are like are they culty and
• 1:01:36
  All right. Last question. If there is a woman who's listening right now, she wants to start a podcast. She's kind of like, yeah, this is on my goals for 2026. What is her roadmap strategy for the next 30, 60, 90 days? What should she be doing doubling down on, tripling down on and just being like obsessed with? Okay.
• 1:01:56
  For me, the way that I approach business is done is better than perfect. And that is absolutely true in content creation and podcasting because you will be really bad at it at first.
• 1:02:11
  So you will hate your voice at first. So you will get better and better and better. So you just need to start is like the number one piece of advice. Obviously understanding, okay, like what's my niche? Who's my target audience? Why am I doing this? Why am I qualified, quote unquote qualified to speak up here? And sometimes it doesn't need to be like for any really big reason. You could just be really interested in that. Right. But regardless, like what's your why behind it?
• 1:02:41
  Figuring out, okay, what kind of podcast does that person like to listen to? So for us, our daily podcast is around like 20 to 15 minutes. And the reason why it's like so much shorter is because we saw this trend in like mini episodes, right around when I was starting to launch. And so
• 1:02:59
  on YouTube being our biggest discoverability tool, people are not like people are sitting around for like, and watching an hour, two hour long podcasts on YouTube. But for the type of content that we create, and the niche that we're in, they are more used to watching commentary videos that are like 20 minutes long. So I knew that that would translate to the audience. So that kind of bite sized, you know,
• 1:03:21
  That made sense for us. So understanding, I suppose, trying to put yourself in the audience shoes, like, okay, so for this audience, what are they already consuming? What do they like is important for sure. And you can like ask ChatGPT about this. Like you can, there's so many resources now that you can tap into. Just like ask your friends.
• 1:03:38
  Totally. Well, think about what you're interested in. Totally. 100%. Look at your own personal consumer behavior when it comes to media. Yeah, 100%. So understanding all of that is super important. And then I would say having a way to prioritize video. And it literally can be on your phone. Like you can literally buy a tripod for your phone and set it up vertical. Vertical?
• 1:03:58
  horizontal. I was like, what's that? What's the specs? Horizontal and start filming it like that. You can start with like a little road mic that plugs into your phone if you need to, if you don't have a lot of funds, but it needs to be filmed. And there are so many tools out there now, like editing tools out there now where you don't need to learn DaVinci. You don't need to learn Premiere Pro. You know, you can edit within YouTube at this point, too. Like there's all these amazing tools out there. So literally just like getting in the weeds and like learning how to do everything
• 1:04:28
  And Riverside for like on kind of online recording is so good. Yeah. And Opus Clips for like clips that are not your hero clips are so good. A hundred percent. I remember when Opus Clip first launched, like whenever it was and where it is from then to now, it's so impressive. And so I can only imagine in the next year or in the next two years, which is also a problem because then it becomes more saturated, more the same. Everything's going to like look the same, which is.
• 1:04:56
  you should still try to find your hero style of content and make ways to stand out. But I do think you're right in the sense that now everyone is able to enter this world of new media. Everyone does have the possibility and the opportunity to do it just with a phone.
• 1:05:14
  Yeah. And I would say in terms of the social strategy, obviously, if you're already creating content on podcasts, clipping as much of that as you can. But also something that we don't do enough that I wish I had capacity for is, you know,
• 1:05:29
  obviously the podcast clips and all that kind of stuff, but also like the face to camera, you know, like if you see, let's say you're a pop culture podcast and something happens, being able to pick up the camera and speak to that in the moment instead of waiting for the podcast clip that you publish about it, having that kind of sense of urgency will be massive for your growth. That's what we found at least is when you can get on something really quick,
• 1:05:54
  it can be so massive. Yap about it straight away. Yap about it. Oh my God. I loved this. I feel like I learned so much from you that like, I've been in podcasting for such a long time now. And, you know, I still am someone who watches tutorials, keeps up with like what's happening online, all this kind of thing. But I learned so much from you. So I'm so thankful. Oh my God, I'm so glad. I'm so happy to have had you here. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you. Thank you.
• 1:06:19
  We should totally do YouTube live streaming. Let's do it. I'm keen. Like, let's start next week. Yes. Thank you. Thank you.
• 1:06:31
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 1:06:55
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• 1:07:18
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