Speaker 0 00:00:05 When a spree Devora told me I had to interview today's guest wealth. I jumped at the chance, but it's Bri being a spree. She had already shot off an email intro before I could even finish my research on podcast junkies, host Harry drin, like many of us, Harry has immense passion for podcasting, and he shares the stories of his guests on his show, which he headlines the podcast, his voice Perry. And I talk about his tenure in the podcast industry. What he's learned running his podcast, production company, full cast, and how he a non-developer is building a podcast app for podcasters. Like you, you're listening to the audience, podcast, your home to stories and lessons for podcasters looking to take their show to the next level. For people just getting started with podcasting to brands and celebrities monetizing their audio experience. The audience podcast has at all, never missed another show by subscribing at castles.com/subscribe that's <inaudible> dot com slash subscribe. And one more thing, we have a new course in the academy. Go to the academy. No, the there it's just academy <inaudible> dot com. It's a cademy.casto.com. Register for free and take the new course for setting up your website for podcasting hosted by guest instructor, Joe, Casabona check it out for
[email protected]. Okay, let's get into today's episode, Harry Grant, everybody. Welcome back to the audience podcast. Today's special guest Harry Duran, Harry. Welcome
Speaker 1 00:01:30 To the program. Hey Matt, thank you so much for having me. You are 200
Speaker 0 00:01:34 Or at least at the time of this recording, which is literally Monday, May 3rd, 3:08 PM. 259 episodes published to podcast junkies.com. You run an agency called full cast.com. You can find the
[email protected] and you have a new podcast directory app solution. We'll get, we'll get into it. The Panos fear.com. So I appreciate you taking a moment out of your busy day to connect with us here and audience.
Speaker 1 00:02:02 The other show that I forgot to mention is a vertical farming podcast.
Speaker 0 00:02:07 Oh, that's right. You did tell me about that. When we did our pre-interview
Speaker 1 00:02:10 Oh, farming podcast.com, then that was maybe more of a thought experiment to see if we could, as an agency find our own client. And I just basically started researching that industry figured out there was a big influx of like investment coming into the space and made it a conscious decision to target CEOs and founders. And so the caliber of the guests there has been pretty high. So that's going on season three or 30 episodes of that so far, let's just dive
Speaker 0 00:02:38 Right into it because you're a seasoned podcast. Or obviously everyone listening to this episode of the show are either beginner, podcasters, or seasoned podcasts themselves. We have a nice healthy crossover. Now we purchased three clips, podcasts. So we have a lot of veteran podcasters tuning into the audience podcast. These days let's just dive into what was not on my nose, the vertical farming podcast. How did you approach that differently? Like what was the, what did you do in the past that when you launched vertical farming, you're like, you know what, I am going to hyper-focus on a different caliber of guests. Let's start with that. How did you focus on that? Or why did you focus on that hyper caliber?
Speaker 1 00:03:14 I was having conversations with friends, colleagues in this space about getting more success with sponsors when your audiences niche. And I read a book by Peter Diamandis called abundance, and that was probably early 2019. One of my other clients gave it to me as a gift. And then I dug into it, devoured it in like two or three days. It's a really fascinating book because I love anything about future technology. There was a chapter on a vertical farming, or maybe it just a couple of paragraphs. And, uh, I had heard reference to it. And so it led me to a book by a guy named Dixon. <inaudible>, he's sort of the godfather. He wrote a book called vertical farming and his vision was like skyscrapers, like, you know, 30, 40 stories, high. It's a sense of all. It could be like a factory. It could be like a storage container.
Speaker 1 00:04:00 And so it runs the gamut and it's not just leafy greens. Now I've interviewed people who raise like insects for feed mushrooms, just it's a wide varietals. Strawberries now are being grown in like Abu Dhabi now. So it was fascinating. But what I realized, what was caught my eye was like $14 billion in investment by 2026 of money coming in. And as an agency had forecast, we're always looking for, to work with clients and businesses. And I'm like, what if, what if I created something specifically that was attractive to sponsors from day one? I made it a point because this is best practice for us to, to think about calling the show exactly what it is. Sometimes podcasts just get too fancy with their names. And I said, it's, it's about vertical farming. It's a podcast it's called the vertical farming podcast. I grabbed the domain.
Speaker 1 00:04:44 So if you actually Google those three words, it's the first listing on Google. And there's something pretty powerful about that because even in the categories we picked, we switched over to the nature category for one of them. And that caused the show to go to number one. I think it was in Kenya as a, as a, when I checked it a couple of months ago. And then since it's definitely ranked top 10, but that put us and, and, you know, qualified as, as the number one podcast, you know? So it was really interesting. All these little things we were trying, I grabbed the socials right away. So vertical farm pod on Instagram, on Twitter, I created a LinkedIn company page. So I wanted to just, you know, you can do things like follow hashtag vertical farming, see what other players are in the space. So that was happening a couple of months before I even started figuring out who to interview.
Speaker 1 00:05:28 And then I just looked who were the, the, the names in the space. And they sent out, you know, 20, 30 invites. The first couple are always challenging because you're a new person in the space. So they want to know more. So you're usually dealing with like gatekeepers, but I said, look, I want to speak to the founders and the CEOs. And I always tell people like it's podcasting people think of podcasting as a way to just get downloads. And I want to, I want to get to Tim Ferris status and I'm getting millions of downloads, but there's something valuable about creating a niche audience and also an audience people see the guests and they're like, oh, this is a higher caliber show than the normal. So, you know, cause if you talk to companies, they'll always want to put the marketing person in front of you.
Speaker 1 00:06:05 And it's so hard to actually get the founder of the people who started the company. And so I knew that's what I wanted from day one, because I knew the cachet of that would just be better and I've proved it out because I was having, you know, three or four conversations and in, and I was mentioning to people that I was looking for sponsors and the timing on it was interesting. Cause it was right when COVID hit. So I remember doing like my third or fourth interview in like March or April with a CEO from, uh, Scotland, David Farquhar from IGS. And he connected me to his marketing team in Chicago. And you know, they're like, oh, we're like spending, you know, we would go to conferences. We're not doing that anymore. And all that, how much are you spending at a booth? And he's like $20,000.
Speaker 1 00:06:43 And I'm like, well for less the podcast for you for less than half of that, I can, you can, you can, um, sponsor our entire season. And it was like a no brainer for them. And so that just kept it going. And I made sure, I always just, we go all out cause it's a full service. So what we'll do graphics, we tag the sponsor. We would, we go above and beyond. And I knew that I wanted those social platforms because I wanted to highlight the sponsors on those platforms as well. Cause typically podcasters, they just think about doing the ad read and a sponsor. They're happy to get that. They don't know what's possible. So if you're showing them, look, I'm going to mention in our newsletter, we're going to mention you on, we're going to tag you on social. Like I want to go above and beyond to show them that it's really a partnership that I'm building with them. And since then we just, I'm in middle of season three right now. And we've got a sponsor for every seat. Let's talk about
Speaker 0 00:07:29 That as somebody who's a creative, what was that process like? I mean, and this is all the background, the backdrop of this is you were already running a podcast. You already had the agency. So it's not like this was your first time showing up to be a podcast host. But how was that creative factor bridge? Do they come to you and say, Hey, great, here's the money? And here's the direction we want the show to go? Or did they just say here's the money? And you just run with it. You be the show runner and we'll let you take the creative.
Speaker 1 00:07:58 Yeah. Because it's my show at the end of the day, like I'm the host, um, we're the producer and we're partnering with sponsors for visibility to my audience and that's always how I've positioned it. So I definitely bend over backwards to get the mentioned, we'll customize the ad read. And, and quite honestly, normally when we edit shows, we do a cold open of a snippet, something the guests said in the case of this show, the cold open is like the ad read. So literally the first thing the listener hears is, is it's not me getting into it two or three minutes into my intro. It's, it's literally the first thing like this episode is brought to you by our title sponsor. So I'm putting them on this pedestal and saying, look, this wouldn't be possible without this. And, and they appreciate that. And some of them, for some of them, it's their first time doing a podcast.
Speaker 1 00:08:43 And so I think as podcasters, we sort of have that responsibility when we're working with new entrance into the space, like let them know what's possible with podcasts so they can start to spread the word and you don't want their first experience with the podcast and be like, yeah, I tried once, but it was like horrible. Like they messed up the pronunciation and I didn't get my, what was promised to me. And so I'm, uh, I'm consciously thinking about things like that. As far as the format, I'm very comfortable, you know, given the number of podcast junkies episodes, you just mentioned over 200, almost 260 episodes. So I'm comfortable having conversations on topics that I'm not necessarily an expert in, but I'm just, I just bring this natural sense of curiosity, engagement, active listening. And those are the basics like the one-on-ones for having a good interview. Do they
Speaker 0 00:09:26 Ever look at the, or did they look at the sponsoring this series that you were putting together as the standard marketing solution that they're so used to buying all the time? Maybe traditional? Well, you said they were going in person, maybe traditional print ads, traditional TV ads or whatever they might have running. What do they look at this as something like an experiment with air quotes. People can't see me, but I'm putting air quotes on it because sometimes they look at it as this is untraditional for us. We'll try it. But, um, well I guess what I'm trying to get at is like maybe they didn't have high hopes for it cause they just don't understand that space yet. Is that how they felt going into it? But here we are X number of months and years later that, oh, this is a thing that actually is serious.
Speaker 1 00:10:05 Yeah. Yeah. And I think what's interesting is they are going at it. I think all three of the sponsors, it's the first time with a podcast space, what they do know and what they do realize is they are seeing the show getting visible. So they'll, it's sort of like a brand now vertical farming podcast because it's, it's very clear what it is and, and, and people in the industry know what it is. And so they're seeing me active on social. They're seeing me active on LinkedIn. They're seeing me always tagging previous sponsors. So they've sort of had an experience of what that's like and the people who listen to it, a lot of people in the industry listened to it. And some of the feedback that I've received is like, I really love the way you are really clear about who the sponsor is in the beginning and you're spelling out their name.
Speaker 1 00:10:47 It's like the attention to detail is really interesting because I've had one of conversations with people who could be potential future sponsors and they appreciate that. And so when they see that I'm mentioning them in the newsletter, that goes out to several hundred folks on the newsletter. Now, then that's growing. And so I tag them and um, they get, they get prominent placement there, you know, so they can always see like what I'm doing for past sponsors. So it's very clear when you start to have true, true conversations. Now I've got three seasons worth of sponsorship that people can look back on. And so my sponsorship page, you know, shows that we take care of our sponsors, so to speak and we go above and beyond. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:11:25 I've, I've worked at companies before where they'd sponsor a podcast and as a podcast, or I'd see the conversations happening in like the marketing slack channel and be like, yeah, we're going to just try this thing over here and just like throw some money at it and just like, see what happens. But ultimately when, when the brand who's sponsoring, it looks at it in the same high value lens, they should is a perfect opportunity for them to like repurpose your content. That's being produced, like repurpose it and repackage it in a way that makes them feel like this is a valuable thing for both parties. Like, no, look what, look what we're sponsoring. Look at this art that's being created. Look at the response from other people in the, in the space, look at the response on social. And you know, it's almost like saying, yeah, you got a sponsor and you're going to help promote it too. Which some people might be like, why, why should I do that? Like, isn't that what I'm sponsoring it for? But no, you leverage it in the same way. And it can be very valuable. And I think a lot of marketing folks might overlook that once the check is passed to you, the host, they're just like, okay, job's done. Maybe, maybe if you want to prop it up a little bit more, it'll help both of you,
Speaker 1 00:12:32 Both ways. The other things they offer on our sponsorship page is at least one hour long interview with the founder of the CEO. And, you know, the goal is to inevitably get to all the ones that I want to talk to. But if you want to sort of skip the line and, and ensure that your, your company's getting the focus, it deserves, then you know, we, we make that time. I've done even two interviews through a season, David four-car who I mentioned earlier, he actually came back. He, he really enjoyed his experience because I already made him feel at home. He was relaxed. He said, the team really loved the interview because I try to pull out things that are more about who they are as a person, as opposed to just like the standard boilerplate stuff. So he got really good feedback from his team that they enjoyed hearing about their own boss on my show. And it's funny enough, he came back to me and during season two and he said, Hey Harry, can I get a copy of the audio for those two interviews? We're looking to raise our next round of funding and I want to play those for the investor. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:13:29 And I'm sure CEOs aren't used to being questioned that way either from like their own like marketing team. Like, Hey, we need to ghost write a blog for you. Like, please give us three keywords.
Speaker 1 00:13:38 What's interesting. But the other thing is, is because I'm new to the space, I'm coming at it from a place of like genuine curiosity. And I don't have like any preconceived notions about who these people are. And they may be like the best of the best in the space and people that I guess who are in it are just like, wow, you're speaking to these people, but they're just like normal people to me. And I just am able to establish a report pretty quick with them. And so, you know, by the time I'm done, they're just like, oh man, that was a really refreshing conversation. And time went by so quick. And so, you know, I think it's a universal skill. You can apply to all your conversations. If you just, you know, come at it from a level playing field and just take an active interest in so
Speaker 0 00:14:17 Lots of points of interest in that podcast or that, that approach to that podcast where you, for lack of a better phrase, really dumbed down the titling and the phrasing. And it worked cause like sometimes we do get lost in overthinking these real cute and creative names when it's like, if you just use keywords and people search for it in Google, they find it like it's a no brainer. You found an acute segment of folks that you wanted to interview and you went right at, you went right at sponsorship and maybe it was a little bit of you just weren't in this, this industry. So had you had the blinders on from being an industry? You might've been a little bit more timid to like, hold off, you know, imagine nobody ever knowing who like Tim cook is from apple and just like knocking on his door one day and be like, I want to sponsor my podcast and having no idea let's compare and contrast that to podcast junkies. It's a hundred year old podcast in, in terms of podcasting time compared to the vertical farming podcast. How have you approached that? And have you applied any of these lessons from vertical farming podcast to that show or the
Speaker 1 00:15:24 Origin story for podcast junkies actually is related to my passion for deejaying. Like I actually DJ'ed on vinyl. I have turntables, like I grew up like doing house parties. So that's in like my DNA. I'm extremely passionate. I just actually just finished up a mix over the weekend that I'm going to put on SoundCloud. So it's fun for me to sort of like work that other part of my brain. But I had created a mobile app with a friend of mine called know your DJ in a 2012 ish. And I wanted to start a podcast to interview what I thought was going to be DJs to promote the app. Cause I was a fan of a show called resident advisor where they did something similar. So I ended up at new media expo in 2014 in Las Vegas that now defunct, um, conference. And, uh, I sort of switched gears when I was there.
Speaker 1 00:16:10 I saw pat Flynn there, Amy Porterfield, the Friedman's craft. And I was like, these podcasts is interesting in a previous life. I also studied acting. So I was familiar with that show inside the actors studio. And I was like, what about a show like that? But for podcasters and you know, people know podcasters from the forward facing voice, they put on their shows. But a lot of times that may not be like the real them because you know, there's always, you know, what's happening behind the scenes. And I knew I wanted video from day one because these people didn't know who I was. And at the time a lot of people were just doing audio podcasts. And so I use Skype with call recorder, which was the combo at the time. And that allowed me to have the face-to-face conversation with them and build that relationship over time.
Speaker 1 00:16:51 Because again, no one knew me in the space. So there's a bit of a connecting thread there. I realized the podcast is a very powerful way for me to connect these people. I would go to podcasts and conferences and inevitably they'd be like, Hey Harry, that was a great hour long conversation we just had. Cause they had the face, our long face recognition. And just over time just started building up that awareness in the space. And in the beginning I had to do everything myself like every podcast or so it's the show notes, the editing, the interviews, the scheduling, the making, the graphics, the website posting the publishing and all the social media profiles. I had packets junkies. T-shirts made about handles out at podcasting conferences and it's a bright yellow artwork, a high contrast in colors. So just doing all the little things and how that led to forecast is I was working with a business coach and I realized all the stuff I was doing on my show would be valuable if I could do that for business owners and sort of that's how, what I was learning, what I was doing, crash test dummy thing with podcast, Jami junkies, it was building up what would eventually become our done for you offer with forecast, looking at the,
Speaker 0 00:17:55 I was going through the site. I can see the podcast junkies t-shirts on some of the hero images of the posts that you make. Is there one thing aside from making the audio and publishing and, and being consistent, is there one or two things that you think are really valuable that you do on your website? Like I noticed you have a blog and I, I know the answer to this, but I'd like to hear your version of it for people who are listening. I see that you have a blog. Is that something that brings in a good amount of traffic alongside the podcast episodes? Is there something else that people should be thinking when they look at your website? Oh yeah. I should be doing this too with my show.
Speaker 1 00:18:28 Yeah. I think, um, it, it is due for an overhaul because I'm always the, the interesting thing about this show is not only am I always tweaking things with the show itself, but even the website, I tried different WordPress themes right now. I'm friends with the creator of, um, podcast, page.io. So I've been, um, looking to eventually move that over because I'm trying to figure out, like to make it simple, best practice for the website is really to come and see as many of the episodes as possible. I think next level for me, because there's so many episodes now is to, is I'm wondering if there's a site or a builder to that allow me to categorize the topics. So it was like, Hey, if you're interested in this topic, then you should probably check out these episodes. Because I think as your catalog gets a little deeper, there's more of a challenge with discoverability.
Speaker 1 00:19:11 So that's something that I'm trying to figure out. I don't blog as much on podcast junkie sites, only when I want to do like posts related to what I do, their specific lead, which is interview other podcasts. So I created a comprehensive post about all podcasts, about podcasting, for example, or tools that we use at podcast junkies. So not a lot of, of blogging. I am trying to do more of that for our business on cast. So you'll probably see more. I must do more there, but it's interesting because the brand has pretty good visibility. If you Google the word podcast junkies, I haven't checked the latest, but I think anywhere from seven to nine of the, the links on Google shrunk page are related to my show. And if you think about it, they're links related to my availability on other platforms. So obviously the domain name is first and then it's the apple podcast link.
Speaker 1 00:19:58 And then obviously crime junkies, a huge show. So that's deals. Some of the thunder. Twitter is the, is the fourth one pod news. My profile theirs is his fifth pod chaser. Again, these are, if you think about sites that get a lot of traffic, pod news, pod chaser, I have a presence there. And then the I've submitted. It's funny cause I submitted my show to audible and now you'll see that the audible listing for podcast junkies is on there as well. So people try to, you know, have these arguments about whether it makes sense to be on YouTube. And if you just have a static graphic, I'm really doing it for the SEO. YouTube is the number two search engine. So I think, um, it's just a reminder that if you've got a distinctive name for your show and your show, you posted it, it's all these platforms that already have done the work to get high visibility, like a pod chaser, like an audible than that. That's just more places where people can you, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:20:48 I mean, you know, everything that we talk here at, at castles, we're on the audience podcast where he's talking about how to make a successful show. And a lot of it is everything else you do after you upload those episodes, which a lot of people are like, oh, I got it. I worked so hard to get this episode like done and recorded into like to do a podcast. And now you want me to do all these other things. Well, I mean, it comes over your view over a time. You don't have to do it all at once. If you're going to be super overwhelmed, but eventually making a profile at something like a pod chaser, claiming your podcast on listened notes or something like that. Let's just talk about pod chaser as an example I find and even pod Jacer. So I've done two anybody who's listening.
Speaker 0 00:21:27 I have two videos on our YouTube channel, youtube.com/casos about pod Jason or about listen notes. These are like these third party solution sites that you can fill out a profile. You can claim your podcast. You can engage with folks over there. I feel like even pod chaser, listen notes, it's still really hard to get people to engage. Do you have a call to action that you use on most of your podcasts? Is it asking for the review on apple, which has largely been debunked that it doesn't help SEO and ranking? Like, do you have that call to action that you send people to, or do you not really worry about like trying to get that five star review? I'm trying to get those ratings. Like where do you send people these days
Speaker 1 00:22:11 I'll covered two topics. There. One is the actual ratings and reviews. And I know a lot of like expert pro podcasters, veteran podcasts, there's they sort of like waved their nose that or misread that phrase. Right. But like, you know, they just look, um, think about reviews, another code that doesn't help the SEO. I don't do it for that purpose. I'll recommend a really good service called rate this podcast.com. I've had a couple of chats with the founder. It's a really simple service to the guy who actually used the founder of re phonic as well. So he's the brains behind that. But his first endeavor was rate this podcast. So I tell people, and this is exactly, we actually do this for clients. I'm like, if you're enjoying the show, please leave a rating review and rate this podcast.com/podcast junkies. There you'll have an opportunity to leave a rating and review on apple podcasts or podcast.
Speaker 1 00:22:56 The beauty of that service is it makes it easy. So you can pick whichever one you want to and that, and it gives you the screenshots at all this, all these little things that are best practices. And that I used to do before is like, take screenshots. They've done all the hard work now for you. So they hold your hand because I always cringe when I hear podcasts or say cold leaves, reading a review, like full stop. Like that's all they say, just like, listen, you keep thinking like everyone, isn't a veteran podcaster. It's hard for regular podcasts just to leave ratings and reviews much less like your grandma or your uncle. So just to say that, you're just assuming people are going to figure it out. And what's the adage about sales? Like a confused mind doesn't buy, well, the confused mind doesn't rate your podcast either.
Speaker 1 00:23:38 So I, I love what they're doing there. And the reason I do it is when I get them in, I read them out. I read them out on the, and then that's why I like, I like having that connection to my audience. I like knowing who's listening. I like knowing who likes the show enough to take the time to leave a rating and a review. And I want to, like, I always say you have to do the things that don't scale. And so these one-off things are really valuable for me to sort of build that connection to my audience. And that's why we do it. I've done it on the vertical farming podcasts, same exact thing. And I do it on there as well. So I think it's really valuable to have that opportunity for people to engage with you. And you can just make it as easy for them to do it now on being on pod chaser, purchasers, they just got, I think like for another $4 million, they'd raised a second round of funding.
Speaker 1 00:24:23 Like they're in the business of making sure people come to their sites. Like that's what their investors are hoping is going to happen. And, and we both know that it's in their best interest to do the best job possible to get people there. They've basically locked down the, the title I MDB of podcasting. Like they're not going to get unseated and they're cataloging, they've got this new podcast or taxonomy group. They just led, which is really understanding like these top 20 different categories for how you can label your role in podcasting. So my job is just to get on there and get my clients on there and make sure that they're listed as a host and or creator. And then let, let their algorithm like do the heavy lifting as, as I just demonstrated, like, um, I'm on the front page of Google with a purchaser link because they're doing the work.
Speaker 1 00:25:06 And all I have to do is make sure that again, to your point, what's the checklist of stuff. That's probably important that you do. Like when your episode is, is done. Naturally, if you've selected yourself as the host, that's going to automatically populate that, but put your guests on there and let them know that you're doing it as well. We, we send a really, really detailed like, um, notion page. Actually it used to be an email, but it's like, Hey Matt, thanks from the show here. All the places we shared it, here's your potty user profile in case you didn't know if you've been on other shows, you probably want to like when I'm educating my guests on what they can do, just all this, right. That feels like a rising tide lifts, all boats mentality. Like you have to educate people as to how to be the best steward for the podcast and community. Yeah. Nothing
Speaker 0 00:25:48 Grinds my gears, no pressure, but nothing grinds. My gears is when you have a guest on and they don't share the episodes, like when it's done, I'm like, man, we just spent so much time editing, producing, recording, and then putting you in all of our marketing assets and not even just for the audience podcast on my own personal podcast I've been doing for like eight years. It's like, oh, like just to share it. Just one tweet. It's all looking for,
Speaker 1 00:26:09 But you got it. You'll know. You've probably noticed to the extent that you give them the materials and make it easy for them. So our I'll share with you afterwards, if you want to put it in the show notes, but for podcast junkies.com for vertical farming, like when we send it to them, it's like, it's incredibly thorough. We embed the artwork we created, we embed the audio and we created, we write posts. We use a service called click to tweet. So even if the worst case scenario they want to do is click one link and share it. That's all they did. We can make that easy for them. We write the copy so they can either post it on Facebook or on Instagram. If the copy is the one they're going to put Instagram, I'll give them like the tag. So it has podcasts or if he's already tagged in it, it is literally dropped it easy.
Speaker 1 00:26:51 But I always have this mantra that says, you never want your guests working harder to promote the show than you did, because they've done you the service of being on the show. So to the extent that you can make it possible for season two, I had a mini on Fogarty from grammar girl on, you know, really popular podcast or, and when I sent her that at the time there was an email, she replied back a day or two later, she was like, Harry, I just wanna let you know that this was one of the best follow-ups for an appearance on a podcast I've ever received. I teach a course on podcasting at the university of Nevada in Reno, and I'm going to just incorporate this into my classes also. That was the best. Thank you. I could have received for something like that on the same
Speaker 0 00:27:27 Topic of the sort of third party standalone apps for podcasting you launched. Uh, I believe when you, when we first spoke to practice, sort of no code low code, you created, uh, the POTUS fear one, because it was kind of like, you wanted to learn this stuff. If I'm getting this correct. If I'm remembering correctly, you wanted to kind of learn it, get it out there. And then sort of this idea really started to unravel. So what is the POTUS fear and what's your future plans for your podcast marketplace?
Speaker 1 00:27:54 Yeah, I don't know if it's shiny object syndrome or just, just a digital hoarder. But I started noticing about two years ago, year and a half ago, like all of these entrants in the podcasting space and I'm just like, wow, this is interesting. And I started keeping an air table of them and it just started building up before I knew it. I had a couple of hundred entries and then anyone who listens to pod news, I have to like star those episodes because there's inevitably like another two or three companies being created every everyday. Now it used to be every week. So I'd just be like, I'd have to pause James's show and just be like, what am I your table? And just update this to keep up with anything. I think every domain that has the word pod in it has probably been taken at this point pod or cast.
Speaker 1 00:28:37 So then I was like, oh, this would be nice to share this information. And I was initially was going to hire someone to do this for me. Cause I was on the periphery watching what was happening in the no-code space. It's really fascinating. There's website builders, like a dollar card and web flow bubble builder. There's so many dimension. So just funny enough at the time on deck was rolling out. A new cohort on deck is sort of like an online university system and like model and each of their programs on for about 10 weeks, eight to 10 weeks. And you sign up as a co for a cohort and they've got 20 programs running right now. And the no-code one was the very first one they were running. And so I was interviewed for one of the slots and I got accepted. I met like those about a hundred folks in the space and it was just an incredible, incredible experience.
Speaker 1 00:29:21 Really gave me the fuel to, to get this over the edge. And this was my capstone project. And so I use web flow, a couple of other tools called jet boost and power importer to sort of glue everything together. But it was fun to see this as an experiment. So it has it's its basic functionality it's got, you can pick multiple categories and see which companies relate to that. And sometimes slowly testing it out. I haven't broadly like promoted it or published it. I mean like, um, marketed it up. I'll probably do a product hunt release as well, but it's been interesting. And so just something I'm going to build up over time. Eventually that side space will be sponsorships for people that want to sponsor like monthly sponsorships on the site and then companies can be featured there as well. And then you try to go for
Speaker 0 00:30:04 That acquisition from, uh, either listen notes or pod chaser or something like that. Sure, sure. What has you, I mean, we're in again, we're recording this early may. There's been a whirlwind of, of news and information around the podcasting space, apple and Spotify, both getting into the podcast subscription game. We've been doing that. And a lot of other hosts have been doing that now for, for at least a couple of years where you can get a private RSS feed and somebody can pay you, whatever you, whatever dollar amount you want to get access to this private podcast, or you use it as some kind of value add podcast, doesn't always have to be paid. Uh, it could be just for a private group to be company only that kind of thing out of this last couple of weeks of news. What has you either most excited or most concerned for the podcast industry?
Speaker 1 00:30:55 I mean anything that gets the conversation going or keeps it going around the podcasting space? I think overall is going to be good for the industry, the twist on the Spotify subscription model that I read recently, if you dig in a little bit, I forgot what's newsletter. It's hard to keep up, keep track of everyone's podcasting newsletter at this point, but it was one of them that mentioned what Spotify is doing is interesting right now they're not taking a cut. So as opposed to apple 30%, they're taking zero, but what's interesting. They're developing the authentication for the private feed as a login mechanism using oh author, not to get too techie, but you can apply that to any other subscription program that you're a part of. So if you're using glow, if you're using sub stack, if you're using any other way, member stack for people to connect with you and pay you already for a sponsorship, it's one step to say, Hey, by the way, do you want to get access to our private feed on Spotify authenticate here?
Speaker 1 00:31:46 And that I'm sure it connects you to your Spotify account, gets you in. There's no RSS to worry about. There's no private RSS. It's literally there and now you've been authenticated through Spotify. And I think they're going to wait for about a year before they even take a cut of that. And initially, do I think it's going to be 5%. So that's interesting. Facebook is allowing embedded podcast players in the feed. You know, for me, I don't do a lot on Facebook because you know, I've been trying to move my communities away from there. Cause it's just like a rabbit hole of just confusion and, and just distraction. So I'm doing less and less there, but that might be another way for me to think about if I am going to promote it, I'll probably use the Spotify feed if they're going to allow the player to be embedded and people to, to follow directly from there.
Speaker 1 00:32:28 So it's really a lot changing. So you have to, you know, I listen to pod news as, as, as, as a way to figure out what's going on. I also listen to podcasts in 2.0 Adam Curry and Dave podcast, which is, I don't know how much you follow it, but it's the podcast index. It's the alternative directory to podcasts. And cause they're trying to move away from apple being the, be all, be all for podcasts. That's really fascinating what they're really pushing the edge on. And it's this idea of instant payment for podcasts. So that gets super techie, it's bleeding edge, but I've played around with a, uh, an app slash podcast where called breeze. I've been able to set up my podcast there and get it on the blockchain, which was, which was interesting to figure out, but I tested it out. And I, for the first time in the last couple of weeks, I've been able to actually contribute to Adam curries and Dave Jackson and Dave Jones is a podcast podcast in 2.0, but immediately like loading and giving them, um, SATs, which are incremental Bitcoin payments and to their podcasts. So I, I really, it's really fascinating cause I feel like that's the future to just bypass, you know, these merchant accounts and just, you know, your goal should be to be able to get compensation to the creators directly in a field like super, super early days. But some of that stuff really fascinates me. Yeah. For the five
Speaker 0 00:33:47 People in the world who can actually set that stuff up and actually donate. I was playing around with it too the other day. It wasn't that I think it's another app. I have to get it for the show notes. Um, pod friend, is that?
Speaker 1 00:33:59 Yeah. Well there's only a couple, HyperCat your pod friend and breeze. There's maybe three or four that can accept those payments immediately.
Speaker 0 00:34:06 Even speaking of that. So again, if you're listening and you're taking notes about the show today, we were talking about getting on pod chaser and getting your links index into Google, you know, even go over to, uh, podcasts, index.org, make sure that your podcast is there. And then you can even turn on that. Um, I forget what website they integrate with, but you can turn on that value for value without all the complex Bitcoin
Speaker 1 00:34:29 Stuff. It's Parkchester wallet, podcasts or wallet.
Speaker 0 00:34:31 Yep. And you can just go, I think it's like one click you verify your feed sends you an email. It
Speaker 1 00:34:36 Was pretty, pretty straightforward. Yeah. I was listening to podcasts in 2.0 and Adam Curry was saying is like, we only got about 200 shows on the value blocker, blog, whatever it is, one of those blocks. But if you think about, if you can figure it out like super early, you know, it's been, it'll be interesting to see how you get set up because what's interesting about that model is you can allocate a percentage of your payments that come in to go to your editor, to go to your producer, to go to like the host. And it's a fascinating way to distribute nature. Everyone gets compensated. So it's, it's really interesting to see what's happening. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:35:10 It is. It is. And it is definitely cutting edge. You have to, yeah. You have to run a generator at your house and you put up a solar panel and Lincoln, I go all these things, but then you'll get a payments, but
Speaker 1 00:35:22 Then you don't get paid.
Speaker 0 00:35:25 It is fascinating stuff. Harry Duran, thanks for hanging out today and talking to us about all the things you do in the podcasting space. Um, the Pothos fear podcast, junkies.com, full cast dot and the hardest one of them all vertical farming podcast.com, anywhere else that folks should be going to
Speaker 1 00:35:43 Say hi. No, I think that's the main place. I think, um, I can also create a landing page at forecast dot C O four slash Casos. That would be good. And then I've created a notion page. I call my bio page. So I'll link to that and if anyone's interested, but also people that check checklists that are just getting started with, uh, all the basics about like get a good host, get a good mic for businesses that are interested in starting a show as well. Very cool.
Speaker 0 00:36:09 I appreciate the time today. Everyone else, castles.com/audience. We'll see you in the next episode.
