Build Your SaaS

The CEO of Chartable calls up Justin to talk about bootstrapping and podcasting

Show Notes

Dave Zohrob, the CEO of Chartable, chats with Justin about bootstrapping a startup in the podcast space. We cover:
  • Why Jon and Justin started Transistor
  • Navigating co-founder relationships
  • How to stand out and build a podcast audience in 2019
  • Our thoughts on Anchor (this was recorded pre-acquisition)
This is a re-broadcast of the Chartable Radio podcast.

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  • Alitu.com: Alitu removes all the tech headaches associated with producing your podcast. They take care of processing, editing & publishing your podcast. Go to Alitu.com and check out their video demo.
  • Podcastinsights.com: If you want to get into podcasting, check out Podcast Insights. They’re a great resource for folks who want to start and grow a podcast. Podcast equipment guides, how to make money. Join millions of readers learning all about how to start, grow, and monetize a podcast at podcastinsights.com.
  • Want to podcast in 2019? Transistor is cooking up something special for the new year.

Show notes:

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Creators & Guests

Host
Justin Jackson
Co-founder of Transistor.fm
Editor
Chris Enns
Owner of Lemon Productions
Guest
Dave Zohrob
Co-founder of Chartable (acquired)

What is Build Your SaaS?

Interested in building your own SaaS company? Follow the journey of Transistor.fm as they bootstrap a podcast hosting startup.

Jason:

Hey, folks. Alitu.com polishes brands and publishes your podcast automatically. They've just released recording right within the app. You can upload your normal recording from Skype or whatever. But you can also record it all right there in the web app.

Jason:

It's a great service. I highly recommend it for anyone producing podcasts, especially if you're putting your podcast on transistor. Alitoo.com. Tell them that we sent you. It's good to talk to you again, actually.

Jason:

We we chatted on Skype as 2 founders who were nervously dipping our toes into the podcast industry. That was like I don't know. Was that a year ago?

Speaker 2:

No? It was like over the summer, summer last year.

Jason:

Mhmm.

Speaker 2:

So one thing I noticed when I was, prepping for this chat was that you are actually the 1st user in the database that's not me. So you have the user ID number 2 for Chartable

Jason:

No way.

Speaker 2:

Which is actually which is actually sooner than my cofounder, Harish. So, congratulations. Thanks for being such a great supporter of what we're up to.

Jason:

How did I hear did I hear about it from you during that call and then I just

Speaker 2:

signed up? Maybe. I don't know. Whatever it was, it was it was powerful. You're just like, you know

Jason:

No messing around.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. No messing around. Single digits.

Jason:

You must have convinced me.

Speaker 2:

I'm just a great salesperson as you can tell.

Jason:

I wish there was some sort of this isn't any sort of hint towards you. Maybe it is. I wish there was some sort of compensation for early users.

Speaker 2:

Well, when we launch our, like, cryptocurrency, you're you're gonna have a lot of, early mining power.

Jason:

Give give me some chartable coin.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. You got it. Chart coin. You got it.

Jason:

Give me something. When you sell to Spotify for $1,000,000,000, I just wanna have something. Yeah. I wanna have some digital tokens I can

Speaker 2:

I could trade in? Absolutely. Charitable coins will convert to Spotify coins, so it's gonna be

Jason:

Oh, good.

Speaker 2:

It's gonna be great. So let's talk about, transistor dot f m. Can you tell us a little bit about it and what it does and, how you ended up starting it?

Jason:

Sure. Yeah. So, we have to go back to 2014. I'm in Portland. It's, the fall.

Jason:

It's beautiful. And I'm attending a festival called XOXO, which was kind of an amalgamation of Internet culture and digital art and software. And, you know, there's kind of a weird creative mixture of folks. And I met this guy named John Buddha. We were talking.

Jason:

I just started a podcast called Product People. And he said, oh, I'm I'm, working on some podcasting stuff. You should try it out. And I you know, we just kinda kept in contact. Fast forward to the end of 2017, John is now working at Cards Against Humanity.

Jason:

And we've built a few things kind of along the way. And he says, you know, Cards Against Humanity just funded an entire year of a podcast called The Good News Podcast.

Speaker 2:

Mhmm.

Jason:

And I wanna build the podcast platform that it runs on. But I think I'd like to turn this into a business. And, in in the public relations version of this story, John begs me to join him. But in reality, I said, John, you gotta let me in. And, if if you've listened to our show, we have a show together called build your sass.

Jason:

John is a slow methodical thinker. He does not do anything quickly. And he said, oh, I'll think about that. And he thought about it for actually quite a while. Talked to a lawyer, talked to some advisors.

Jason:

And then sometime in January or February of 2018, we signed a partnership agreement and, kind of officially kicked off transistor.fm.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome. So it took a while to go from that that meeting at a conference to actually getting started.

Jason:

Yeah. We talk about that quite a bit on the show because I think, a cofounder relationship is a lot like, marriage in so many ways. You're you're signing a a big well, you're signing a legal agreement. Right? Right.

Jason:

In our case, I have 50% of the shares, and John has 50% of the shares. And, you know, that is a that's a big step, and you're going to be sharing a lot of ups and downs. And so we had some history. We'd gone to a bunch of events together. We'd hung out quite a bit.

Jason:

We had, we'd been able to work together on a few other projects. And so when this one came around, there was at least some history there. But even then, John really had to think about it before he committed. So

Speaker 2:

It is a big deal. I mean, you spend more time with your cofounder than you do, at least I do, than with my wife or the rest you know, my kids. Right? Which is kind of a weird thing to say out loud, but it's true.

Jason:

Yeah. When you say it like that, it's really it it's kind of a wonderful relationship though. I I think there's may I don't think there's been enough talked about or written about, co founding co founders. I've been really interested in the topic lately and, reading up on Roy and Walt Disney.

Speaker 2:

Interesting. I'm actually reading that Neil Gabler biography of Walt Disney right now. I don't know if you're reading the

Jason:

same one. That's next on my list.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Jason:

But the the the the history is that, really, most people think that without Roy, his brother, that Walt Disney wouldn't have been able to accomplish anything. Roy was, an operator. He was, very methodical. When Walt dreamed up the idea for the theme parks, Roy pushed back against it. And when Walt said he really wanted to do it, Roy said, okay.

Jason:

I'll go figure out how to do this financially. So there there's a lot, you know, often we we focus on the charismatic, you know, the charismatic Walt Disney. But increasingly, I'm seeing in a lot of businesses even when there's only one CEO you hear about in the background, There's some sort of operations person who's much more methodical. So

Speaker 2:

Yeah. For sure. It's super interesting. I definitely recommend that. I'm only, like, maybe a third of the way through that, that biography also.

Speaker 2:

But, yeah, seeing that dynamic of Walt, the crazy guy, who is pushing for quality and amazing art in all things. And Roy just saying pushing back and then finally saying, alright. If you really wanna do it, I'll find a way to to make it happen. Right?

Jason:

Yeah. What what's that one called again?

Speaker 2:

It's just called, like, Walt Disney. I'm sure there's some subtitle, but it's, like, some 900 page biography I'm reading in tiny little excerpts, on my phone while I'm, like, rocking, baby to sleep.

Jason:

Is it is it The Triumph of the American Imagination?

Speaker 2:

That's the one. Yeah. Alright.

Jason:

I'm gonna order this right now.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Awesome. Book book buying happen happening live on the podcast. So you guys decided to start a hosting platform for podcasts. There are plenty of those.

Speaker 2:

Right?

Jason:

Mhmm.

Speaker 2:

What in particular made you wanna start another one? And and obviously, you must have had some thought that we're gonna do something different. Right?

Jason:

Sure. Yeah. Well, let's just start with personal motivation

Speaker 2:

Sure. Yeah. For sure.

Jason:

I I think that doesn't get talked about very much. There's the the motivation to build something. There's the motivation, that comes from you know, I've been podcasting since 2012. I'd grown up listening to CBC Radio and loved radio. I would, you know, when I was driving in my car as a high school student alone, I would sometimes turn off the radio and pretend I was the host and practice in the car

Speaker 2:

That's awesome.

Jason:

As if, you know, I was in the conversation or, you know, the debate or whatever. And so personally, I've just loved radio, loved talk radio. And once I discovered podcasts, I'm trying to think what the first podcast I ever listened to was. You know, I probably dipped my toes in when the Ipod first came out. I I was a Dig Nation listener and watcher for quite a while.

Jason:

But I just yeah. I loved the the format. But also, personally, I was just looking for something new. And so, you know, John and I had both done things solo and done things some things together. But we had this feeling of, you know, I think it's time to invest ourselves in something bigger than what we would have done alone and really make it happen.

Jason:

And so, we were both kinda ready for a bigger project.

Speaker 2:

That's great.

Jason:

And so when this opportunity came up, part there's that motivation behind us, which is, like, we're just ready for something bigger. But you can't just go on that alone. You have to have okay. Is there even though you can't seem to the future, what is it about podcasting now that makes sense? Because I had given advice to folks for years.

Jason:

You know, they would approach me as a podcaster and say, I'd like to build a tool for podcasters. And I'd say, oh, don't. You know, the podcasting market is the worst. They're all DIY hobbyists. They don't like spending money.

Jason:

They will, you know, they will do everything themselves in order to save a few bucks. The prosumers will spend more money on gear, but in terms of building digital tools, they are notoriously bad. But what changed is, well, a bunch of things change. I think the prosumers themselves, started figuring out how to monetize their shows more easily. So now we have things like Patreon that, you know, even if you're only making a $100 a month, that's enough to kinda support your habit.

Jason:

Right?

Speaker 2:

For sure.

Jason:

We also saw kind of the rise of, a lot more individual brands, like personal brands, influencers. And, you know, these companies, and they're often companies of 1, they can make significant revenue, and they use all sorts of channels. They need to have a blog, they need to have a YouTube channel, and increasingly, they need to have a podcast. And then even you go up the chain, and there was companies we've just started seeing a trend. You know, Mastercard started a podcast through Gimlet Creative.

Jason:

Basecamp rebooted their podcast. CodePen has a podcast. So in our sphere, in the tech industry, we were noticing a lot of the companies who had a blog and had a Twitter and had YouTube, what they added in 2017 and 2018 was a podcast.

Speaker 2:

For sure.

Jason:

And so now we have, an economic model or a business model that makes more sense than just selling to consumers or prosumers. Now we have, this other market, which would be, you know, solopreneurs, very small businesses, all the way up to large enterprise companies like Mastercard. And they're going to need all sorts of podcasting tools and infrastructure. And so it just seemed to make sense with all of these things converging to launch something in 2018. The short version version of that is Josh Pigford.

Jason:

He's the founder of Baremetrics, and I was on a call with him. And I was having one of those moments where I was like, I don't know. Maybe this is all wrong, you know, like, podcasting. Maybe this isn't a thing. And he goes, Justin, if there was ever a time if podcasting was ever having a moment, it's now.

Jason:

If you were ever going to start a podcasting company, this is the time to try

Speaker 2:

it. Yeah.

Jason:

There's there's gonna be no better time. So, I think I think that is true. I think, we we still don't know where this is all going to lead. Podcast consumption itself is not really, growing that fast, but it it did seem like a good time to to at least try.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. For sure. I mean, it sounds like we went through some of the same, decision calculations, like, around the time we were starting Chartable, like, a few months after you guys started Transistor. Mhmm. There's just so much happening, in podcast land where, like, so many so many, like, rumblings in different directions and everything growing and moving and changing, where it's just like, seems like if you wanna take a bet, now is the time.

Speaker 2:

Right?

Jason:

Yes. Yeah. Exactly.

Speaker 2:

And it still feels like there's something that those rumblings continue and are growing. Right?

Jason:

That's right. And, actually, there was 2 more trends. Because I I think a lot of folks, whether I'm not sure who listens to the show, if it's just podcasters or industry people or

Speaker 2:

The best people in the world listen to the show.

Jason:

The best the folks listening right yeah. Regardless of what you're starting, whether it's a company or podcast, it's often helpful to see if there's a number of trends converging, not just one. And so, you know, we just mentioned all those things. So, like, even the fact that Gimlet Creative exists was a good sign. Right?

Jason:

There's companies willing to pay them. The fact that Pacific Content exists and is doing very well, it goes, okay. There's there's something there.

Speaker 2:

Right. Pacific content does these very high end branded podcasts for brands that must see, like, a lot of value coming out of it just to make that investment. Right?

Jason:

That's right. And the the other trends I saw was podcasting started to pass the coffee shop test. And the coffee shop test is if you're out drinking your espresso surrounded by normals. And and and normals is just, ah, some people don't like it when I say this, but geeks and especially, like, people in the tech industry, we're not normal. We we we are not the average user at all.

Jason:

Like Right. In the same way that I I just mentioned, you know, a lot of DIY podcasters, you know, they're they're unique. They're willing to do everything themselves. They're willing to spend 1,000 of dollars on home recording equipment. Like, that's not a normal thing.

Jason:

But when you're out in the world of normals, and there's no normal people but you know what I mean? In a coffee shop. And I was starting to hear people talk about podcasts in public, like, hey. Did you hear the newest Tim Ferris? I was like, Tim Ferris?

Jason:

And have you listened to the latest? And and when I started hearing those more and more and mind you, I'm not in a big center like New York, so maybe that was more common in New York for the past decade. But in Vernon, British Columbia, you know, I I think our population is, I don't know, 30,000 in this metro area. And there's a lot of rednecks, that to to hear people talking about podcasting was, oh, wait a second. Say, there's something going on here.

Speaker 2:

For sure.

Jason:

And then also, you know, I'd have a family reunion. And, you know, maybe the fur the years before that, people were talking about what they're watching on Netflix or whatever. Now folks are talking about my family is talking about what podcast they're listening to. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I started feeling like I was missing out, actually, when friends would say, oh, did you hear the latest, you know, x y z? And I'd say no because I well, just what didn't have a lot of, like, podcast listening time. Yeah. In my in my, like, noncommute day, I, like, walked 5 minutes to work. That's not really a lot of time to, like, squeeze in a podcast, you know, with, like, young children at home.

Speaker 2:

Right?

Jason:

Yeah. Although the good news podcast, little plug, that's only 5 minutes.

Speaker 2:

Okay. Well, there

Jason:

you go. Minutes of good news while you walk to work.

Speaker 2:

There you go. But I I just, like, kept you know, whether it's, you know, you need to hear it from, like, 5 people or 7 people before it starts to feel like a wave, I just, like, kept hearing it for again, from, like, normies. Right? People who are not, in the tech bubble. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And it's just like, okay. There there must be something happening here. Mhmm. And people also you know, one thing I noticed that people are so passionate about what they listen to, because it's such a personal thing, and they they end up with these personal relationships, the shows they hear, that, you know, you ask somebody you ask a true podcast listener, like, hey. What shows do you listen to?

Speaker 2:

And they will talk for a long time about the things that they love, which I think is amazing. Like, there's a there's a a deep connection there that I feel like is unique even more than, say, like, a Netflix show that people like.

Jason:

Exactly. And and that would be the the final trend. I think we noticed that was a growing discontent with the way that people were being tracked online, the way their privacy was being abused, the way that, you know, people were building in, addicting, behaviors into the apps that they use. And podcasting kind of seemed to stand on its own as, a technology that was more mindful, more slow, not as, not built to be addicting, not built to demand your attention and demand your eyeballs. Right?

Jason:

It's just it's very passive. You do it. It's unlike really most other forms of technology that the phone is in your pocket. You're not even paying attention to your phone. In this vein, you know, there's people buying dumb phones, like the punked phone that had no apps on it.

Jason:

Like, this this was a movement that we saw. In my mind, if you're gonna bet on a technology for the next 10, 20, 30 years, what what's it going to be? We've already seen how, how radio's lasted so long. It's still a dominant medium. Right?

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Jason:

It seemed like podcasting was a good bet for a kind of a long term play.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Jason:

So when when we put all of those things all of those observations together, it just seemed like, man, this is the time to to actually invest in this as a business and not just something that we're passionate about. Let me quickly do a sponsor read. Just want folks to check out podcast insights.com. If you are interested in doing a podcast like John and I are doing, sharing your company's journey, Maybe you are on the marketing team and your boss has said, hey, you need to get a podcast. Now, naturally, you're gonna sign up for Transistor, but how do you then produce the podcast?

Jason:

Podcastinsights.com has a a course. It's a 10 day course. It's free, and you'll learn everything you need to know from, you know, what equipment you should get. He's got a whole shopping list for you, how to record and edit, how to write show notes, how to publish and promote your show. All of these things that you need to learn, and he can teach them to you in 10 days instead of having to learn over years, like I had to.

Jason:

So go check it out, podcast insights.com.

Speaker 2:

And so you had you and John, your cofounder, had met, you had, had a courtship, if you will, for a while, and you had this you were sensing this building thing, and you decided to pull the trigger and say we're gonna do this. And this is early last year. Right? Did you did you have a sense of, like, of of your particular kind of take on what you wanted to build there as far as, like, we wanted the power of podcasts. Yes.

Speaker 2:

But, like, did you already know, like, what kind of angle you wanted to take at that point?

Jason:

Yeah. I mean, our first goal was just to get to basic feature parity with the other platforms.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Jason:

And, you know, that be before you can even move on to anything else, you have to build a foundation. So it's kinda like building a house. You know? If you're gonna build a a really fancy house on top, you basically build the same foundation everyone else has been building for forever. Right?

Speaker 2:

Right.

Jason:

And so, that that's been a big part of our work this past year. But we we did know that we wanted to talk to and listen to businesses in particular that were starting podcasts. And so I think one place this is reflected is our analytics dashboard is very much built with businesses in mind, and we're gonna keep iterating on this. But one behavior we've seen, for example, is that if you're in marketing and you're in charge of the podcast, every week, you are responsible for giving some numbers. It might even seem silly or superfluous to some people.

Jason:

Like, why what these numbers, they don't really matter on a weekly basis or whatever. But people need something to report on. That's one of the jobs to be done with, you know, especially any sort of reporting. You know, people are using it to bring to meetings, basically. And so we we've had a lot of feedback from folks about the kinds of stats they needed to report on and, you know, how they wanted those to look.

Jason:

And so I think we did a pretty good job of executing version 1 of that. You know, we've got a lot of things that are in the the cooker, that we think will differentiate us from from the other folks.

Speaker 2:

Is there anything that you can share right now about what what's on your roadmap?

Jason:

Yeah. And this is actually something I we we debate quite a bit on our show is how transparent should we be. Right now, all of our revenue metrics are public. Are we've been very public about all the decisions we make, and that I don't know if how much that's hurting us.

Speaker 2:

I mean, that's a pretty bold decision, right, to even share your revenue metrics. Most people keep that super close to the vest. Can you talk about why why you guys decided to do that?

Jason:

Well, I mean, in one sense, I feel I've always felt like I've benefited a lot from people that share what's really going on, you know, as they've built their companies. I don't think we'll do it forever. But, you know, in the $0 to the, I think, maybe $20,000 per month phase, especially because we're bootstrapped and self funded right now. It seemed to make sense.

Speaker 2:

For sure.

Jason:

Share it. This is what it's like. This is where we're at. And, allow people to see kind of behind the scenes of what we're doing. The the other advantage is that and again, this won't I don't think this will be a main channel forever.

Jason:

But we have a lot of folks that have signed up because they want to join us on the journey. And so they hear John and I launch a company and then start a show documenting the launch of our company. And they think, oh, we should do that at our company. And there there's this, yeah. We're we're kind of speaking to a specific niche there of maybe people in startups, maybe bootstrappers, people in business.

Speaker 2:

Or they have a relationship with you that goes beyond, like, a SaaS subscription.

Jason:

That's right. Yeah. And so, I mean, it's hard to really quantify this, but I'd say at least a third of our customers have come from, you know, our audience, people who are following the journey, people who identify with what we're saying, and a piece of that one way to stay connected with them and offer them maybe a bit more value is to say, okay. Well, let's show you what the revenue numbers look like too.

Speaker 2:

Right. That's very unusual. So you talked about the road map about you're not being sure how much to share there. Is there, like, a tension between kind of tipping your hand to potential competitors, or just you're not sure if you're actually gonna end up building everything you say you're gonna build, or or what is it?

Jason:

For sure. Yeah. There's tons of disadvantages. You know, we do have competitors. And, on one hand, I say, you know, it doesn't you don't really need to pay attention to competitors that much.

Jason:

It makes way more sense to focus on your customers, the people actually paying you for this. And sometimes, looking at what your competitors are doing is a distraction. On the other hand, you know, it you need to keep an eye on what they're doing. And, you know, I've before we started Transistor, I'd used about 50% of the other platforms. After we started transistor, I went and tried out a bunch more.

Jason:

You can't just be blind to what the competitors are doing. That there there's there's a both and there. And, I think it's better to focus more on what you're on focus more on observing the people you're serving. And, again, I think that goes for, whether you're starting a podcast or whether you're starting a company. But, yeah, there's some there's some disadvantages there to sharing what we're doing.

Jason:

For sure. Yeah. But I think one feature I can share, that we're working on is this idea of, dynamic call to action. So taking the idea of dynamic, ads and just expanding that to content, most of the shows on our platform are it's branded it's a branded podcast, right, for a business or for personal brand or for entertainers or for influencers.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Jason:

And so the you know, they might want to, promote an event that they're going to be doing. Hey. It's Marc Maron. You can catch me live in LA on March 19, 2019. Well, that segment, should be dynamic.

Jason:

Because if someone goes into the back catalog, they don't wanna hear about, you know, the events that are coming up in 2016. They wanna hear about events coming up in 2019.

Speaker 2:

For sure.

Jason:

And so, but you could you could expand that even beyond promotional things. But the idea is to use dynamic content, as a way for, you know, people like that to swap bits in and out of their back catalog.

Speaker 2:

That's super interesting.

Jason:

Yeah. And, it'll be that one will be a while. One one of the tensions we have bootstrapping this is that John was saying this the other day is he's the the primary software developer on the project. And he's, like, man, all the. I've kind of finished all of the easy stuff.

Jason:

And now carving out enough time to focus on a really big feature is tough.

Speaker 2:

But Yeah. There's always so much other stuff to work on. Right?

Jason:

The easy stuff, the easy wins I mean, sometimes those easy wins can add up to big wins, but some sometimes you just need a big chunk of time to, like, really dig in and work on a hard problem

Speaker 2:

for sure.

Jason:

And, he's still working full time at cards, so his his brain is in between both worlds.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. That's tough. So you guys are about, let's say, like, a year into this, this incredible journey of Transester.fm. How are you feeling in terms of motivation? How do you feel about your decision to make this leap?

Speaker 2:

Are you still feeling great about it?

Jason:

I mean, that's the question. It depends on when you ask me. Like, for for a while there, I was just finding because I have a business on the side of Transistor, right, that was paying my bills. And as soon as we started this company, I I was just investing so much time. It was way easier to spend time on transistor than the other thing.

Jason:

And there's a while there where I was, like, man, I we maybe we should look into getting investors. Like, I started getting desperate for money, basically, just to sustain ourselves while we're building this thing.

Speaker 2:

Mhmm.

Jason:

There's a few things that have changed. My my business is doing good enough right now, my other business. And so it's just kind of paying my personal bills while we we build up transistor. The other thing is that we're we're up to, I think, about $65100 in monthly recurring revenue.

Speaker 2:

That's great. Congrats.

Jason:

Thank you. Is for anyone outside of the SaaS industry, they'd be like, okay. Well, what's the big deal? But it is incredibly difficult

Speaker 2:

So hard.

Jason:

To build up monthly recurring revenue. And so, you know, our first benchmark is $10,000. I've sworn off alcohol until we hit that, number.

Speaker 2:

Wow. That's a motivator.

Jason:

Yeah. No no drinking until we hit 10,000 a month. And then, you know, after that, we'll go to 15 and 20. But at least now we have some revenue. And so that that helps to appease the conscious a a little bit.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I mean, you can't you can't be getting $65100 from a bunch of different customers every month and not be delivering something that's that's valuable. Right?

Jason:

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And the and we just see like, in some ways, we feel like, man, we haven't even turned on the the the, you know, we haven't even turned on the rockets yet. Like, we're still just kind of operating at this mode, but we could really, I mean, we're guessing that when we we put some of these other things in place, it's gonna offer a lot of value to folks that are, you know, again, running running a show not just for a hobby, but to earn some form of revenue or as a part of their business or as a part of their brand.

Jason:

We have these things that we think are really gonna help them. So, once we turn that on, it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Speaker 2:

That's such exciting. I'd love to, to shift gears a little bit, just kinda zoom out and talk more about, podcasts in general. We touched on a little bit when we talked about your process of starting Transistor. Mhmm. But you've done a lot of work in the past, helping, startups and brands, with their marketing and growth tactics.

Speaker 2:

Right? Are there is there anything, like, one thing or three things even that you wish that, like, new podcasters knew or thought about before they started their podcast?

Jason:

This is my favorite topic.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Jason:

And in some ways, people get tired of me talking about this, but I'm gonna I'll try to make it new and exciting right now.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Jason:

Okay. So Nick of Hot Pod Fame. If you're not you gotta subscribe to his newsletter.

Speaker 2:

Yes. Subscribe to Hot Pod if you don't. I imagine everyone listening to this show already does, but just in case.

Jason:

So he has this saying where he goes, I have this feeling that everybody's drilling for oil where the other guy found oil. And to me, when I look at podcasting, it that just seems so true. Like, somebody starts a certain type of show, and then, you know, hundreds of imitators kind of crop up and and and copy that show. Yeah. And to me, I could be wrong, but podcasting seems so young still.

Jason:

615,000 shows roughly. Right?

Speaker 2:

We we've tracked, 665,000 now.

Jason:

Okay. 600 and 65,000. That's compared to something like 36,000,000 YouTube channels.

Speaker 2:

That's crazy.

Jason:

We're we're not even in the same ballpark yet. And to some people, 665,000 shows sounds like a lot. But to me, I go, that's not very many. And a lot of those shows are not active. Right.

Jason:

A lot of those shows, you know, the there's a ton of opportunity in podcasting still. But the only way to capture that opportunity is you have to do something that is new or different or, you know, better than what everyone else has done. And, I I feel like I see too many folks starting the same kind of shows. And it seems like a shame because if you're gonna do something, evaluate it a little bit. See what's it going to take to, maybe not win, but what's it going to take to really make an impact in in in the genre?

Jason:

And you're not going going to do that by starting something that someone else has already done.

Speaker 2:

For sure. And so I think on the amateur side, an example that would be, like, another group of 2 or 3 dudes, like, joking about, movies or something.

Jason:

That's right.

Speaker 2:

And on the on the professional side, it seems like there's either, like, this huge true crime genre. And I know that's audience driven. Yeah. But there's, like, just so many of these shows. Right?

Speaker 2:

Mhmm. And then it also seems like there's, a new daily news show from a major media organization, like, every week at this

Jason:

point.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Which is which is great. I mean, I think it's amazing. I think there's there is something special about the daily format, and I think it is driving it's changing listener habits, which I think is good. But, also, how many daily shows with covering the same, you know, Trump stories can we can we hear, in a day?

Speaker 2:

And the answer is, you know, one listener is not gonna listen to more than one, possibly 2 for a super junkie. Right?

Jason:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and I think a lot of I'm I'm one of these people, by the way. They they can start a show, and they feel like, you know, by the force of their personality, people are going to to listen to to the show.

Jason:

Like, they're gonna discover it, and they're gonna hear you talking, and then they're going to want to listen. But my observation is that most podcasts, especially the ones that chart well and this will be interesting to talk about with you. Most podcasts do not build their audience in podcasting. Most of the podcasts that chart well have brought an audience from somewhere else.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I mean, I don't necessarily have data to to support that, like, off the top of my head, but that definitely seems true. And and that that audience could be, like, they're a celeb or they're, you know, or it's like ABC News putting out a pod, and they, like, promote the heck out of it. Right?

Jason:

That's right.

Speaker 2:

That's very different than, Justin and Dave, talking about their their show. Right?

Jason:

That's exactly. Exactly. And even NPR benefited from this. Right? They had

Speaker 2:

this

Jason:

huge platform on radio, and then they move over to to podcasting. So the the it's going to be difficult. Outside of actually, and it would be interesting if you ever found data on this. I've been noticing on on our end that keyword driven shows. So if you have, you know, there's a show that charts really well for a transistor customer called, Teenage Therapy, and it charts really well on Spotify.

Jason:

And my sense is that they are ranking well for the words teenage and therapy. Interesting. And so I think there are opportunities in keywords. That's one thing that hasn't been explored a lot, mostly because, the podcast directories are really dumb search engines.

Speaker 2:

So bad.

Jason:

They're they're they are terrible. And it you get wildly different, search results depending on what you search. I I did this on Twitter the other day. I I was searching for James Clear, the author, and I just went through all the podcast apps and just searched James Clear. Because the idea is if I search for his name, I should find the best interview episodes with him.

Jason:

Right? But so many

Speaker 2:

podcasts so idealistic, Justin.

Jason:

But you don't.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Jason:

But I I think there is an opportunity there. Again, when when we're talking about, like, how to start a new show and what what strengths and advantages and opportunities you could bring to bear. That's one of them that not very many people are focused on is keyword, targeting certain keywords, which has happened on the web and with blogs forever

Speaker 2:

Right. That no

Jason:

one is really doing. And there's opportunities there. You put the right I mean, some people are stuffing their titles with keywords, and they're getting

Speaker 2:

Yeah. They're getting in trouble for that now.

Jason:

Yeah. But the having a strong, strong queries or strong keywords at the beginning of your title. So if you're talking about real estate in LA, calling your show real estate in LA is a significant advantage over calling it Justin Jackson's, you know, real estate adventure. Like, that that's not going to perform as well. And I I think too many folks are treating themselves like big big media brands when they

Speaker 2:

haven't Trying to stuff their names into the title of the show.

Jason:

Yeah. The the ego. And I I completely get it. I mean, I understand why people wanna do that. But, you know, if your name's Conan O'Brien, put your name in the in the show title for sure.

Jason:

But if you're not quite there, I would not

Speaker 2:

Right.

Jason:

Put your name in the show title at all.

Speaker 2:

I think that's a strong suggestion. So, yeah, there's there's you're saying there's a underserved or underappreciated opportunity in thinking about how people actually find the shows in the first place. And then That's right. And then, taking advantage of that.

Jason:

That's right. And and just understanding that the medium, outside of keyword, like, targeting certain keywords, the medium does not lend itself well to, building an audience from 0.

Speaker 2:

Mhmm.

Jason:

Even even for like, if you have 10 friends that really wanna listen to your show, you're already ahead. Because then you could at least write those 10 friends a nice email saying, hey. I just launched my show. Here's how you can help. You can rate and review it.

Jason:

You can subscribe in Apple Itunes. That that seems to correlate. Is that true? Is that the the the main correlator?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Subscriptions is the show charts. The episode charts seem to actually be based on listening data, although we haven't found, like, a super we haven't been able to, like, figure out the algorithm there, but we're trying.

Jason:

Yes. Yeah. And so to to to have any sort of, existing fan base, whether it's your 10 buddies or, you know, it's a mailing list you've been building up forever, That that's a huge advantage.

Speaker 2:

For sure.

Jason:

And, I think I think some folks are they're, you know, they're launching a show, and they think there's a lot of money in podcasting for some reason. So they they think they're gonna launch a show and get advertisers right away, or they're gonna launch a show and they're gonna get Patreon supporters right away. And that is not true.

Speaker 2:

That is

Jason:

not true. Have an existing audience. That that is not going to work for you at all.

Speaker 2:

And the other thing that seems to be true, I saw a post from, Dan at Pacific Content is that, like, longevity is well rewarded in the podcast world. Mhmm. So that, you may not have enough much of an audience to start, or maybe it's just your 10 friends. But almost all the shows that are at the top of the charts have had 100 of episodes, which means that and if you assume, like, a weekly cadence is the most common, that means they've been doing it for years. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And and that's that kind of slow growth word-of-mouth. Like, you have to be committed to what you're doing. This is not a get rich quick scheme. Right?

Jason:

Yeah. That's exactly right. And I think this is why I'm actually encouraging people to read James Clear's book, Atomic Habits, because it it applies to every sphere. Whether you're podcasting, whether you're building a a newsletter, whether you're starting a company, it is tiny wins over time that make the biggest difference. And not just tiny wins in the sense that you you drag your tired ass out of bed every week and put your you know, sit down in front of a microphone and go, hey, everybody.

Jason:

Welcome back to the show. It's episode 322.

Speaker 2:

I think I've heard that show.

Jason:

You you have to have you have to be trying to improve every single week, but tiny wins. Not like going out and buying a $100,000 studio on episode 10, but, you know, okay. This week, we're going to we're gonna tweak this a little bit. This week, we're gonna move this around. This week, we're gonna swap microphones and see if that improves the sound quality.

Jason:

This week, I'm going to focus on slowing down so that I'm not talking so fast. There's all these things we can practice as podcasters. And, I mean, I've I've been podcasting since 2012, which is a tremendous long time. Yeah. But there's still so much I could improve.

Speaker 2:

For sure.

Jason:

You know, like, there oh, you've heard my podcast.

Speaker 2:

I have heard your podcast. I think it's great. And and James Clear was actually your guest on on the product people one most recently. Right?

Jason:

Yeah. Yeah. Product people 100. I I there's just so much wisdom in that approach of, kind of looking over a long period of time, but every week showing up and tweaking, tweaking, tweaking, trying this, trying that, it it's it's a long term game. And it but the nice thing is if you can keep improving consistently, you will be rewarded.

Jason:

And maybe what's nice for podcasters is right now, for example, the YouTube algorithm is going nuts because there's so much competition.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Jason:

And so, my kids really like Sundee, s s u n d e e. He's a he was a Minecraft YouTuber. And it's been interesting because he's on in my house all the time. Right?

Speaker 2:

Amazing.

Jason:

And and so I'm I've been able to see his evolution. And, you know, he has one episode where he's explaining to his viewers that he had to tweak all of his thumbnails because and all of his titles because now YouTube rewards, you know, all caps and, you know, these kind of bubbly letter, extreme, you know, thumbnails. But podcasters, you know, our podcasting was way slower. Yeah. And so there's opportunity for you to improve gradually.

Jason:

And, and, actually, in some ways, looking to places where things are moving faster like YouTube, Like, they optimize their thumbnails like crazy. When's I've never read a blog post about optimizing your album cover art or your episode cover art. Actually, Dan Meisner has written a little bit about this. But I'm just saying there's way more people could do.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Jason:

Right? To optimize their the discovery of their show, that the chances that people will will listen.

Speaker 2:

Right. Yeah. There's so many you have so many variables to tweak, and and it's it is a long game, but it's also not just about, like you said, just showing up and doing it. It's about saying, okay. This week, we're just gonna we're just gonna do it a little bit better.

Jason:

That's right. Yeah. Exactly. Now I also wanna say there's a Anchor has this, and they're a competitor, but whatever. They they they want to, democratize podcasting.

Speaker 2:

Uh-huh.

Jason:

I I've said from the beginning, I don't know if I podcasting needs to be democratized. In the sense that, we don't need more crappy audio. Right? And some people disagree with me. I that's fine.

Jason:

But at the end of the day and I guess it depends what you want. Like, if you just want to to record something and have no one listen to it, that's fine too. But if your if your purpose is to build an audience or grow an audience or connect with an audience, we don't need democratization. We just need better podcasts. We need better audio.

Speaker 2:

I can certainly see that. Yeah. I mean, I I see what they're doing, and they are making really easy to use tools. But Mhmm. Maybe one way to reframe what you're saying is that is is it that the tools aren't easy enough, that is preventing people from making amazing shows?

Speaker 2:

Like, it's actually still a lot of work to to make an amazing show even if you're just clicking a button to record.

Jason:

That that's right. Yeah. The the the accessibility, at the the accessibility won't create more compelling audio. And, again, not every some people should just be writers is what I'm trying to say. The like, they're it's okay.

Jason:

Not everybody is going to be great on the microphone. And, I mean, some people listening might think I'm not great on the microphone, and that's fine too. But I I think there's there's a a mistake in there to say, well, everybody can podcast. No. Not everyone can podcast.

Jason:

It's actually to create compelling audio is really not easy. And that's not to say you can't start at 0 and grow over time, but know what you're signing up for. Count the cost for what, you know, what you're buying here. And it's it's not just as simple as hitting record and uploading an MP 3 and then syndicating it to Itunes and Spotify and everything else. That's not enough.

Jason:

I I I'd like to see a little bit more of that. Yeah. Like and again, you can stack you you know, you might not be the best on the microphone, but you might be a really, I don't know, a really good researcher. You you might be, you know, you might not be a a super fast editor, but you can really think through the material and create a compelling narrative. Like, there's there you can stack a bunch of these skills together and still come up with something compelling.

Jason:

But I just as someone who sees a lot of new shows getting started and, you know, already being able to see the shows that don't work, it's because it's just they weren't able to build an audience. And the reason they weren't being able to build an audience is because there was nothing surprising or better or different about it.

Speaker 2:

Right. It's just hard work. Making something good, whatever medium you choose is hard work. Right? Mhmm.

Speaker 2:

And podcasting in particular is a is a it's a very different set of skills than, than you might learn anywhere outside of of audio or radio. Right?

Jason:

Yeah. I mean, like, when I listen to that Ira Glass and Alex Bloomberg interview on,

Speaker 2:

I'm without fail. Without fail? Yeah. Great great interview.

Jason:

Goddamn. Like, you listen to that and you go, I have so I I've gotta do so much more work. Like, I've still I've got I

Speaker 2:

I thought this time. I felt very inadequate was my response.

Jason:

But in the other sense, it was inspiring because to to hear people that have been doing this forever and to have some reverence for them and to to say, you know what? That is what it takes. It's not enough to just plug in a USB microphone and just get going.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Jason:

We have to and and to hear Ira's story about, you know, how he was able to creatively get himself on all of these, what do you call those? Syndicate stations?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. The the NPR affiliates?

Jason:

Yeah. And NPR affiliates. You know, he had to be really creative. He had to do things that were out of the box. He had to, kind of use really great writing to to write these promos and then do these promos for all these stations for their fundraising drives.

Jason:

And just hearing that, like, some people will go, well, you know, NPR, they had that built an audience, and it was easy for them, and they've been doing it forever. Yes. But they they worked hard at this for a long time.

Speaker 2:

Definitely recommend, anyone out there. If you haven't listened to that interview, it's super worth your time. There's so many insights, in a short amount of time with, Alex Blumberg and Ira Glass there.

Jason:

Yeah. It it's really great.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Fantastic. I think it's probably time to wrap up on my end. I'm probably gonna get booted out of this room I'm using as my temporary studio. Okay.

Speaker 2:

But I appreciate you taking the time to chat with me. I I wanna leave you with, like, one kind of open ended question, which is, like, what is your favorite podcast right now? And it can be hosted on Transistor or not. No judgments.

Jason:

Yeah. Oh, man. I'm I'm having a the the problem is I I listen to a lot of the popular shows. Yeah. And so,

Speaker 2:

It's okay to say something popular. Right?

Jason:

Yeah. But the thing about podcasting is often people will say the popular show, but really they also listen to all these shows that people haven't heard of. But one show I'll mention is Startups for the Rest of Us was one of the very first podcasts I ever listened to while I was driving to my corporate job 1 hour into the city and 1 hour home.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Jason:

And though those 2, really were kind of some of the first podcasts I listened to. And, they've been doing it forever. And, they every week, they record a new episode. And if you're starting a company or you're bootstrapping a company, I think it's a great a great show to listen to.

Speaker 2:

Alright. Startups for the rest of us. And this is, Justin Jackson, founder of Transistor.fm. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us. It's been a great conversation.

Speaker 2:

Really appreciate it.

Jason:

Yeah, Dave. I always a pleasure. Bring me up anytime.

Speaker 2:

Will do. Thank you.