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Transcript

How'd You Find This Podcast? · We Are Spiraling

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hi everyone, this is Priya Anand, and we are spiraling.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: This week's mini sewed is a readout of a piece from my Substack newsletter.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's free subscribe at WeARSpiraling.com, and I often post the backstory behind episodes.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And if you sign up, you'll get an email every time we drop a new full episode or mini sode.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: We also do deeper dives for paid subscribers.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been listening for a while, you know that I was a reporter for more than a decade.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: And since I quit my job reporting on Silicon Valley to investigate curly hair, I now have the perspective of both a founder and a journalist.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Next week we have a full fresh episode for you.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: And in this mini sode, we're going to get into what it's been like to start this show from zero, growing it with no network backing, no paid ads, and what actually happened when we landed some pretty surreal press coverage.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone dreams about glossy articles, but it can be a double-edged sword.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with early press coverage.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: I was a journalist for more than a decade, so one thing I do know how to do is pitch.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: I know it gets covered most easily.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: News.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: I planned the first few we are spiraling episodes with that in mind, with the goal of landing coverage for the show within its first few months.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: We are spiraling ended up in the New York Times within two weeks after launch.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I still can't believe it happened.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: But what most founders don't realize is that while early press wins can offer validation, they don't always drive tangible outcomes.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: The same squeeze could get you a lot more juice later in your life cycle.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: I say this as someone who's been a journalist and a founder.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: The episode that got us major press coverage was my interview with Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the congresswoman from Florida and former head of the Democratic National Committee.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: You can find it on your feed if you haven't heard it yet.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's called The Politics of Curly Hair.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: In a previous Substack post, I shared the cold pitch that got us into the New York Times and We Are Spiraling's viral moment with Business Insider.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'll detail what happened afterward and what I'd do differently.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: To know what type of media or press you want to pursue, first you have to decide who you're trying to reach.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Defining those outcomes that you want will help you reach your audience.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And my goals for We Are Spiraling at that early stage when we had just launched the show, not rocket science.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Get the show in front of more eyeballs, ideally the right eyeballs or ears, I should say, so people like you know it exists.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I also wanted to establish the show's credibility.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: I was a serious journalist and I view my job here as real journalism as well.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: No matter how many dudes ask me how I'm going to come up with enough story ideas to make this niche topic a thing, I wanted to prove that our stories that we are spiraling are for everyone.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're not just for people with curly hair.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: When people ask me that question, something I often say is, well, are cooking shows only for chefs?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: From here, we have some easy ways to assess these outcomes.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Podcast metrics, how many listeners came through?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Did we see a boost in social media?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Did we see a boost in subscribers to the newsletter?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Put simply, do press hits actually help reach the goal of reaching more people and grow the audience versus serving as a vanity measure.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: The Tuesday before last Thanksgiving, Sarah Needleman at Business Insider reached out to let me know that her story about our interview with Wasserman Schultz had risen to number two on the website.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Then it jumped to number one.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: The thing about insiders' coverage, though, is they aggregate so much of the story that unless you really want the micro details and texture, you're probably good after reading the summary, which made it a mixed bag for me.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: On the one hand, the story went so gangbusters that they did a whole second story about why I started We Are Spiraling.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: I am so grateful and it felt like so much validation for the show.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: But on the other hand, very few people actually subscribe to We Are Spiraling.com.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: So here's my read.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was a win in terms of brand boost, and it was a miss on real ROI.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's this huge unknown.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: I actually will not be able to know unless you tell me how many of you actually found the show via business insider.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if that is you, please email me.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Priya at weare spiraling.com.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's P-R-I-Y-A at WeARSPirling.com.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Then there's a New York Times story.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that had gone live when I opened up an email about a new subscriber.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly, while I had it open, another one popped up and then another one popped up.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I checked my personal Gmail and there it was a subject line that read open thread, Black Friday, Zanga, L VMH, Prada, Curly Hair.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Curly hair.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right after Prada in the subject line.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: That was pretty cool.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: At least a few dozen subs came in within a few hours.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: We got a few hundred new followers of the show in November and then again in December and hundreds of new listeners.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: I can't really know which publication helped more people find the show because people don't always listen to a podcast immediately after discovering it.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And those stories only came out about a week apart.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, please smash the follow button in your podcasting app if you haven't already.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: It really helps us as a new show.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Getting featured by the New York Times and Insider two weeks into the show's life was obviously a massive win.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you're probably wondering why I said there's a downside at all.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it was so early in the show's life that we barely had a couple of episodes out, three episodes in.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: I had a handful of pieces up on WeArespiraling.com.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thousands of people visited the website in November and December.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't help but wonder if I had waited until later in the show's life cycle and built a larger back catalog of content before going to press, would more of those visitors have subscribed?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Would we have even more listeners today?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Would the show have grown even more in the last, you know, eight, nine months since launch?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'll never know.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: I have to just live with the fact that I might have been able to squeeze so much more juice out of the New York Times coverage than I actually did.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: I know that might sound absurd.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: My podcast with no ad budget was featured in the New York Times.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: What more could you want?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: But there is an important lesson here, which is that timing is everything, as is often the case in life.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Even your biggest wins aren't always going to feel like your biggest wins.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: They won't always feel like you maximize the efficiency.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: I am certain that at least some of you found we're aspiring, and my era, maybe, thanks to the New York Times and Business Insider.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I know many of you also discovered the show through the podcasting apps, discovery mechanisms, from social media clips, and in some cases through flyers I post around San Francisco.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And most of the guests who agree to come on the show, I think they're like the congresswoman.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: They say yes because the premise of we are spiraling is something they believe in.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: That hair is a piece of your identity.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: They feel seen by the interview request.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: They've never before been asked how their hair influences their identity.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And they want to share why they believe hair is an extension of your spirit.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, that's one of my favorite episodes.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't gotten a chance to listen to it yet, find it on our feed.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Lastly, the most important takeaway.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Validation from press is temporary.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone wants it, but it really isn't everything.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: What matters much more to me is that so many of you are listening and have told me how much this show means to you and that you look forward to it.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: I make We Are Spiraling from my apartment, no fancy studio, with just Will, who you always hear a shout-out for in the credits on audio engineering.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Your messages make it so worth it for me.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed this behind the scenes mini sode on what actually happens when you get press and what doesn't happen, subscribe to our Substack at WeARSpiraling.com.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And please do let me know how you found us if you have a second to DM on social media or tag us in your stories.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: This show is produced by Citizens of Sound and hosted by Myura, my hair care line that launches this fall.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: You can get the wait list at MyuraBeauty.com.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Theme music by Lop Gun, who also just so happens to be curly.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: We have a great episode coming next week.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to you then.