December 19, 2024 • 34 mins
Got feedback? Send us a text message.
Jessica Cordova-Kramer, CEO of Lemonada Media, shares the origin story of her company, which began after she and co-founder Stephanie Wittels Wachs both lost their brothers to heroin overdoses. After hearing Stephanie make jokes about overdose on a podcast, Jessica realized podcasts could save lives, leading them to create a company focused on making life "suck less" through audio content.
The conversation reveals Lemonada's strategic approach to content creation, including partnerships with high-profile talent like Meghan Markle, David Duchovny, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Cordova-Kramer discusses how the company maintains high advertising rates and fill rates by treating ads as content, with hosts personally engaging with brand messages rather than relying on programmatic advertising.
The discussion explores Lemonada's expansion into books through a partnership with Simon & Schuster, their careful approach to incorporating video content, and their position on AI in podcasting. Cordova-Kramer emphasizes the importance of maintaining authenticity in their creative work while using technology to enhance production efficiency, not replace human creativity.
We're sponsored by Buzzsprout. Start Podcasting. Keep Podcasting.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sam Sethi (00:12):
Hello and a welcome back to Port News Weekly. I'm
really excited, actually,because I've got a guest on who
we've had on the show before.
Her name's Jessica Cordova.
Cramer. Jason is the CEO ofLehman Out and the co-founder.
Hello, how are you?
Jessica Cordova-Kramer (00:26):
Hi, Sam.
I'm doing well. How are you?
Sam Sethi (00:28):
I'm doing very well, thank you very much. Now, I
wanted to get you on muchearlier in the year, but I'm
glad I haven't, actually, I'llbe honest, because so much has
happened for Lehman all the for2024. But the original idea to
get you on was when MeghanMarkle was signed by you guys
and then you had some big hitsstraight after that with David
Duchovny. And of course, you hadan amazing year with Julie Louis
(00:52):
Dreyfus. And again, it's beengrowing and growing. I won't go
through every one of youracquisitions will be here till
Christmas otherwise. So let'sstart off with 2020 for the
beginning, Yeah. Meghan MarkleAnd some of the acquisitions,
what was in the thinking there?
Jessica Cordova-Kramer (01:06):
Great question and I cannot believe
how many things have happenedthis year, not just for us but
for the industry as a whole. Sohappy to take you through it.
And I will say it's so fun forfolks to look from the outside
in at Lemonade as growth, but weare only posting about the fun
stuff we never post about thedeep long strategy sessions that
we're doing and stuff thatdoesn't go quite right. So I
(01:29):
always like to couch our successin it is hard work. What we do,
what our producers do, what ourmarketers do, what our talent
does, and everything you get toread about and see about is all
the good stuff, of course. Sohappy to talk about challenges
too, and we're all having themand I think it's helpful for
other CEOs and folks at mediacompanies to know for every nice
(01:49):
post we're doing, there's tenthings we're doing in the
background to problem solve andbuild this beautiful thing with
our team. But yeah, it's been awild year. Sam. We've been
working with Meghan on bringingher show archetypes to the
masses, and it had a phenomenallaunch. It feels like 16 years
ago now. We brought that showout to Apple listeners and out
beyond Spotify listeners, andthe reception has been warm and
(02:12):
wonderful and we had a greattime working with Meghan on that
and her team and Spotify. It wasa dream come true as well. So it
was really a lovely experienceacross the board and our
creative team, our marketingteam is deep in the weeds with
the Duchess now and we'll sharemore in the New year about how
that's going. But it's been areally wonderful experience.
(02:32):
She's brilliant and hard workingand the first person to be on
every single call she is. She'sreally just fabulous. And yeah,
we've been rocking and rollingall year long. Similar timeline.
We brought podcasts to thenetwork and Pen and Nova and
Sophie have been phenomenal towork with. The show has been
rising, rising and just gettingsuch incredible talent on it.
(02:54):
And it's a darling of brands andagencies as well. And of course,
David, the company's series cameout in May and we had planned
only 20 episodes with David, andhe just texted me yesterday and
it was like we just did 31because it's just been going
incredibly well. Alec Baldwinjust came on and they had a
fabulous that's been reportedeverywhere. And David is an
(03:17):
intellectual and a brilliantinterviewer and has been really
growing into his own. And theshow is a fantastic place to
talk with remarkable peopleabout the times in their lives
where things haven't gone asplanned and how that's shaped
them. Most recently, weannounced that happier would be
coming to eliminate it. SoGretchen and her team, plus two
(03:38):
other shows, happier inHollywood and Side Hustle School
are all joining the network inthe New Year. And we've just
announced that Talk Easy withSam Fargo, so we'll be coming
over as well. So that'sthrilling. I can't wait for
people to hear about that. Butwe're working with Melissa
McCarthy, Lupita Nyong'o, LenaWays we Ellie Kemper, All of
(04:00):
this happen this year and wejust are grateful for folks who
trust us with their brand andtheir message and their desire
to use podcasting to make lifesuccess.
Sam Sethi (04:10):
Now, often with such a large slate, you must look at
it and go, That's going to beone of our stars. Once there,
one in there that you went, Oh,that's really surprised me. I
thought that would be mid-tablein our slate, but one that you
thought, Well, that'll do well,but that won't be a superstar
hit. And then it suddenly went.
Is there anything that surprisedyou out of it all? Let me cheat
and give you three. One is anoriginal, which is David series,
(04:32):
which of course we knew it wasgoing to be great. We got the
pitch. Failure University withDavid, two company. We had
already filled up our entireslate for 2024, got the pitch
from CAA and I remember gettingthat thing and being like, God
damn it, because I was like,We're going to have to do the
show. Then we met with David andit was such a cosmic meeting. We
(04:54):
had the same sort of creativeforce and when I'm going out is
picking shows and when talent ispicking women on it, there's a
synergy there. When it works, wework with talent who have a real
message. They have a real Ybehind their podcast. So if you
look across our slate, you'llsee wildly different types of
shows and people and tremendousamount of diversity and all of
it. But everyone's got a realcentral why and it fits within
(05:17):
the make up less brand. AndDavid Show just was a home run
and he had never interviewedbefore. So we also weren't
exactly sure how he was going towant to be prepped and how he'd
want to work with us. But it hasbeen a dream come true. And
what's great about that show isit's created this beautiful,
safe space for incredible peopleto talk about their lives with
(05:40):
him. He's built a tremendousamount of trust with his
audience. We have GillianAnderson on a few weeks ago and
shortly after the election whereand I think everyone was,
regardless of their politics,just looking for escape. Then we
basically broke the Internetwith that episode. And then we
just had Alec Baldwin onyesterday. So I think that show
has been a dream come true frombehind the scenes all the way to
(06:02):
storming People magazine andjust being a topic of
conversation for folks and beinga beautiful podcast. It's won
awards already. It's beenthrilling. The other two quickly
mentioned we brought on a showcalled Pack One Bag that we did
not make, and it's an ad salesand distribution deal for us,
and it's a beautiful seriesabout one family's escape from
(06:22):
fascism in Italy right beforethe breakout of World War Two.
It's been taking every awardthat it has been entered for,
and my guess is it'll be a TVshow at some point. It's
phenomenal. David Modiglianimade that show and we were just
so lucky to get to work withthem. And then we haven't done a
lot of fiction in the past, butwe got this pitch. It was
(06:44):
another goddammit moment, gotthis pitch from Melissa McCarthy
and their husband, Ben Falcone.
For Hilda, the bar back. And wewere like, We're not going to do
fiction. But then we were like,Oh, we're going to do this
fiction. And that show it wasproducer Top 25. I think it's
breaking the mold. On whatfiction can be, and we love to
be a part of it. So those arethree had mentioned. different,
(07:07):
but as you said, they have acentral Y theme to them Now with
what you're doing and want totry and get behind the curtain a
little bit. You talk about theswamp moment. On the surface,
it's all lovely, but underneathyour legs are kicking like mad.
Now when they're kicking likemad underneath, you're having to
do a lot of planning andstrategy. How do you choose a
show? Because not every showthat comes to you gets accepted,
(07:28):
right? Not every show thatpitches up goes, Yeah, we're
going to do that show. So whatdo you set as an expectation in
terms of cost of show and return?
Jessica Cordova-Kramer (07:39):
Great question. Yeah, we are
constantly recalibrate eating. Alot of us at the company have
backgrounds in business oreducation, and so we love a
rubric and we love a widget andwe love an algorithm and we also
love we're artists, so we loveto pepper all of the science
with vibes and spirit andinstincts and creative juices.
The couple of things aboutlemons that I think are
(08:00):
different from other places I'veworked before. One, it's
incredibly consensus driven,it's very flat structured, and
so there's a lot of folks makingevery single decision. It's not
me or staff or me. I'm staff ina vacuum being like this show,
but not that show. We like thisperson, but not that person. As
a company, we're getting about50 or 60 pitches a week and we
(08:21):
have really great processes forlooking at each and every one of
them. If you're listening tothis and you've pitched us and
you haven't heard back from usin a few weeks right into Hear
Lemon out of Medium.com becauseI want to hear about it. But we
strive to at least be customerservice oriented with folks who
are sending us pitchesregardless of where they're
coming from, big Hollywoodagency or regular person sending
(08:42):
us their personal story. We tryto get back to everyone and we
look at everything as a team.
And then when we are seriouslyconsidering something, when it
gets to that level, we'relooking at everything from Does
it fit with brand? Does it makelike success in some way? It can
be comedy. We have three Tim onthe network, Scott Aukerman,
Lauren Lapkus, Paul Tompkinschatting about stuff and they
produce that show and it makeslifestyle class for its
(09:06):
listeners. It's got a big stickyaudience and it's a beautiful
series in so many ways, but it'scomedy at its core. And then
we've got shows like Our TrueCrime Upside Down, Slate, Blind
Alley, deeply reported narrativeand about domestic violence and
the criminal justice system forpeople of color in the United
States, women of color inparticular. And we've got
(09:28):
everything in between. Soeverything makes life suck less
in some ways. So we have thatsort of gut check around what
the content is, and then we'regoing to go down the rabbit hole.
On if it's a new show Is this apotential to break through? Is
the host really into it? Italked about the passion that
David and Julia and Stephaniewith last day and so many of our
originals have, and we arelooking for that real y from the
(09:51):
talent. And then we're going togo through the same types of on
audience potential,potential, whether the PNL can
be positive over a reasonableperiod of time. And then we make
our best guess and go, we'reusually not the top bidder for
any talent because we're a smallcompany and we are independent.
(10:14):
We are self-managed, our moneycomes in, it goes right back out
to pay our staff and theirtalent and very little overhead.
It's a pretty simple company andwe have to manage our finances
in a way that makes sense. Sowhen talent or choosing women
out there, choosing us becausethey know we're going to do
something different for them. Soalways looking to make those
(10:34):
matches as best we can and doright by everyone on the team
internally and anyone who comesand brings us their heart and
soul.
Sam Sethi (10:44):
Now look, this American Life put out a note
saying that they're going tostruggle with ad revenue.
They're seeing a massive dropoff in the amount of ad revenue
they're getting.
just with your CEO hat on, notjust purely lemonade, but just
across the industry maybe aswell. Is this something that you
(11:04):
are seeing and does that meanyou're going to lean into
subscriptions or are you goingto look at other forms of
revenue to monetize? Orconversely, are you seeing ad
revenue shoot through the roof?
And it's just this American Lifeis having a bad time. Where
where is it with you? well, acouple of things for us that
differentiate us from moretraditional media. One is we
(11:26):
have to be nimble. We have toassume the worst every week. We
have to plan for an environmentthat is ever changing. Stephanie
and I launched this company inSeptember 20, 19, months before
a pandemic, and we bootstrapped,we put our own money in, and
that's how we got the companyoff the ground. We got a small
(11:46):
advance from our sales supportnetwork at the time. Was would
won and hired a tiny team andthen COVID hit. And then it was
election after a wild electionin the middle of a pandemic and
global wars, strife, protests,you name it. We have been
running this company in thewildest of times and there has
(12:09):
not been a precedented day sincewe started it and let alone the
industry. Stuff from iOS 17 tomedia consolidation to the
impact of the world news on theadvertising industry, which we
know are hand in hand. So weactually have staff meeting
leaders talking about this withour team. We constantly have to
be in a conservative environmentas business leaders and as the
(12:31):
people who are responsible forour staff and our talent. And so
I think we go into 2025 with thesame level of careful planning
as we went into 24, 23, 22, 21and probably 19 as well. It's
hard to remember we broughtsales in-house in 2021, so we've
had our own sales team whichenables us to monetize our of
(12:53):
originals without sharingrevenue with the sales partner
and it enables us to bring salesand distribution partnerships
onto the network. And we havewildly different results than
the industry as a whole. And wehave had them consistently, even
as we've grown upwards of 50 to200% audience year over year.
Our CPMs are in the highthirties and low forties, or
(13:15):
Phil Reed is around 80%consistently year over year and
we are able to do that becausewe are working really closely
with talent and producers tomake those ads great and work
really hand in hand and in awhite glove way with agencies,
with brands, and even whenthings are going wrong, which
they inevitably do, approachingthe work with a high level of
customer service, which we'reable to scale over time. all to
(13:37):
say it's just dramaticallydifferent than, I think what
traditional media andparticularly public media is
able to do on the sales andpartnerships side. And we're
hopeful about 2025, but we'replanning for a more conservative
year just in case some of thefeelings are true. Our
(13:57):
subscription business is growing.
We've had a wonderfulpartnership with Apple Premium
just launching supporting Castnow, so we're excited about that
and our revenue has grownaround 40 to 70% year over year
since we've started, and we'reassuming a similar level of
growth next year. But we'restill not a big company. We
(14:17):
don't have a ton of cash like abig, huge media company that's
publicly traded might have andthis year will be turning a
profit. And that's exciting andhelping kind of get to be even
more independent. And all ofthose things. We did a raise
that was like three years agonow, and we've been operating on
our own steam for these past fewyears.
(14:41):
congratulations on reachingtowards profitability. That is a
hat tip we're getting there.
Well, for any entrepreneur whogets into that, well done. So,
yeah, one of the things that TomWebster put out was the number
of ads that he saw as an averagewithin a podcast was about three.
And we know that radio has gotabout six or seven. Do you see
that you will find that morepodcasts get out stuffed or do
(15:04):
you think that customers willpush back on that so hard that
whether you want to or not,you're not going to revenue
generate through that mechanism?
Jessica Cordova-Krame (15:13):
You know, it really depends on the show.
So if you have a creator lens onthe sponsorship, which we do at
Lemonade, and I can't speak forthe rest of the industry to some
extent, I'm just laser focusedon what we're doing. We see the
ads as content. Our team does alot of the work with the brands
to rewrite the scripts and havethem sound fun. And who doesn't
(15:35):
want to hear David Duchovny,Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Scott
Aukerman and Lupita Nyong'otalking about whatever? I'll
listen to a phone book if it'sinteresting enough. So we think
about the ads as content for us.
We don't stuff our shows, but wealso have to make the shows make
sense. If people want to haveart, it needs to be funded and
this is our way of funding it.
(15:55):
We're not shy about it. I don'tthink we should be shy about it.
I don't think we should hidebehind the fact that our hosts
are reading ads, and those adsare what fuel the team's salary,
my salary, the ability fortalent to spend their time
making podcasts and if they'regreat, people won't skip them.
Brands will be happy. They'llcome back. Our retention is
super high for brands andagencies, and if something isn't
(16:18):
working like swap it out, But wedon't do a ton of programmatic,
which is where I think you see alot of the stuffing. It's easy
to stuff, hard to put ten ads ina podcast if it's all just read
and thoughtful and has a reallyclear call to action. So that is
not to say the programmatic adsare bad, but I think that's
where you get a little bit ofthe strain. You're listening to
a show and then all of a suddenit's something else and it's
(16:40):
back to the show. It doesn'tsound like that when we're
making ads, it sounds a littlemore like it's part of the
content.
Sam Sethi (16:45):
Okay, let's cover a couple of other topics then,
where there's a video set withinLima. Now a big 24 question,
right? It's it's the YouTubeanswer. It's the Spotify about
to do it aren't so where do youguys it does it add value to the
podcast does it add aconsiderable cost I'm assuming
to the podcast production towhere do you sit?
(17:07):
is a nuanced answerfor me. So since I got into
podcasting in 2017 with CrookedMedia making a series called Pod
Save the People with Dre, I wasthe founding producer on that
series and I made it for threeyears and ever since 2017, and I
wasn't in podcasting before that,so it could have been happening
in 2016. It was like the mantrawas the future of podcasting is
(17:30):
video and I have always beenskeptical of being completely
true. And then I think mostrecently the mantra has become
is video eating, podcasting. Ithink video is critical. So
there's different things that weuse video for now at Limitada,
we have a handful of shows thathave a vibrant YouTube channel
(17:52):
and we're able to dramaticallyincrease revenue on those shows.
If there's an existing YouTubeaudience and video production
that happens. Podcast is a greatexample. Jose Andre This is a
great example. Meghan TrainorGreat example. We also use video
for Discovery and for socialmedia, and we've been doing that
from the very start. So thatcould be Zoom video, that could
(18:12):
be still photographs, that couldbe in-person video, a number of
different things that we'redoing that help with discovery
on TikTok, on Instagram and onYouTube and in other places. And
then there's the hybrid type ofvideo that people are doing that
I think can be great. And thenthere's the more expensive call
(18:34):
her Daddy or Joe Rogan typevideo. That also can be great,
but you've got to have theexisting Channel four. It's got
to make sense. And then there'sthe consumer side. How are
people ingesting podcasts andwhich ones are they ingesting?
Audio only versus video. And soas with anything, we are taking
a painstakingly thoughtfulapproach on a show by show basis
(18:55):
to figure out, does this makesense? Does it make sense to
weave in video sometimes all thetime or never on the show? What
kind of video are we talkingabout? Home kits where people
can record themselves with aguest together in a nice place?
Or are we talking about a realstudio or are we talking about
some of the incredibletechnology that's popped up that
is really just enabling ouraudio producers to have a video
(19:17):
capability on top of it and notcreate two WORKSTREAMS So for
example, Riverside. So it's aboring answer because it's
nuance and not like, yep,everything's switching to video
tomorrow. We also have the mostincredible producers and
engineers at Lemmon Auto. Weadore them. Folks have been with
us since the company started.
Folks who have come in who arenewer and as a whole, we're
thinking as a group like we'vegot to really make sure that
(19:40):
everyone's got the skills tocontinue their work in evolution
of podcasting, which probablydoes involve us knowing how to
use as an organization,Riverside and the like more
adeptly. But it's also not raceto the We've got to have
everything on YouTube,everything on Spotify,
everything with baked in ads.
And I'm waiting and this is astrong plea to the industry for
(20:05):
the moment where we can do onestop publication and die via ad
insertion, both in video and inaudio, our RSS feeds so that
we're not doubling our work,doubling our costs as creators.
word with the industry for you.
Jessica Cordova-Kramer (20:20):
Yeah, the short answer, it depends.
Sam Sethi (20:23):
Okay. Now, the other touchy subject that everyone
predicts is going to be withinour horizon of 2025 is A.I., and
some call it artificialintelligence. I call it assisted
intelligence. We've seen it usedin pre-production and in
post-production. We've seen itused, I think, well, in some
cases with Notebook Alarm, theSpotify Review of the Year,
(20:46):
everyone got a notebook albumreview, too. Where does A.I. fit
into Leonardo, if it does at all?
the camp ofartificial intelligence or
assisted atonement that's justhelping our creatives do their
jobs more quickly and easily. Soif the transcript technology is
enhanced or our sales team hasbooster or other products that
(21:08):
automatically scan contracts andput stuff in and just makes
their lives easier, great. Butfor us, we are creatives, we are
a creative company for artistsand we care deeply about the
authenticity of that work. Andso you're never going to see us
race to air ads or that sort ofthing. We want our staff and our
talents lives to be easier. Andif I can help with the products
(21:30):
they're already using, great.
But we're being really cautiouson the sort of creative bleed
side of things. When you listento a woman on a podcast, there's
nothing fishy happening and wewant to keep that pure.
Yeah, I tend to thinkas we get more A.I. out there, I
think people will want morehuman generated content, more
real authentic content frompeople to people, because we can
(21:53):
always get fast facts if wereally want it. If that's what
you need, I'm sure that you canget Chachi ABC to summarize
anything for you if that's thesum of what you're looking for.
And I don't think that's whatpodcasting is about. But anyway,
that's just me now.
Internationalization. Where doesLiman artists sit with
internationalization? You know,the slate that you reeled off at
the beginning was very American.
(22:16):
And I'm like thinking, okay, somaybe there's going to be an
expansion. Is that something inthe 2025 horizon?
spending some time in2025 thinking about it for sure.
We have a sizable internationalaudience, depends on the show,
but anywhere from 10 to 15% ofthe audiences listening abroad,
largely places like UK,Australia, some parts of
(22:39):
Southern Europe and then Asia. Ithink
as an industry have two thingsthat we want to think about.
Live world sucks everywhere inmany ways, so if we want to make
success here, a naturalextension would be to do the
same in other places. But we arean American company and we have
a unique perspective around whatlife is like here. And so if we
(22:59):
were to do anything global, we'dwant to do it in partnership
with local context and producersand creators and talent to know
what the world is like wherethey live. I don't purport to
think that here in Minneapolis,our troubles are the same as
they might be in India or Italyor what have you. And the other
thing that needs to happenoutside of the UK in particular
(23:19):
is priming the ad sales marketso that we can create the
content that we want to createin other places that it's
supported with and by brands andby technology and all of that.
And I don't think we're quitethere yet. So I'd like to spend
a little bit of 20, 25, not justin a box and limited order, but
thinking with our peers aboutthis question how do we take our
(23:40):
work and make it make sense inother places? And there's lots
of incredible producers ascreators, talent ad sales
networks popping up everywhere.
And so I think it's a lot ofpartnership and not just
pretending like whatever you dohere will work somewhere else.
you do occasionally cast youreye across other production
companies and you go, Oh, that'sinteresting what they've done
(24:03):
over there. We all do that. Isthere a podcast that came out in
2024 from another productioncompany that you thought, I
really wish we had that one.
Which one would that be? I wouldhave said normal gossip. The
team was literally obsessed andthis year
(24:24):
loved hysterical and they wonApple Show of the year, which we
won last year. Shout out Julia,Shout out Wiser than My Team
Shout out marketing team, whichI loved. I don't know that we
would have made that show, but Iloved it. And Hannah's Brown,
who scored a bunch of our stuff,I think scored that show.
There's a couple of shows onSony Slate that I love. Jesse
Tyler Ferguson series. JonathanMENSAH series. You surprise me
(24:47):
on that one. So I'm going to. No,no, it's Steve. It's good. I
have like scan the charts andsee what else I might be missing.
And lastly, a prediction for 25.
What do you see for the wholeindustry? Where do you think
we're all going? You've got yourfinger pretty much on the pulse
of it. Where would we all expectto be in 25? think that 25 is
going to bring a lot ofconversation around how to make
(25:10):
one plus one equals three in theindustry. So
together to solve some problems,problems like scale, problems
like to make incredible contenttogether. So more co-productions
(25:30):
than we've seen this year. Iactually was surprised by how
few there were, and I thinkthere's a ton of great content
that's not getting made rightnow because people are being
also included conservative aboutwhat to spend, where and why.
And I think this is happening inTV and film as well. So I think
podcasting is just part of thewhole media industry now.
(25:52):
There's incredible creators,wild stories that need to be
told and I hope we spend 20, 25figuring out how to get those
stories told. I don't thinkpeople will stop listening audio
only. So my prediction is thatwe will carefully think about
how video will fit in, and I'mseeing people reacting
(26:12):
positively to Spotify asopportunities for creatives to
post more video. But also theconversations I'm having are
around, well, let's do it whereit makes sense. We're not just
going to spend the money tospend the money, it's got to
have a very clear ROI and theindustry has grown up a ton in
the past decade and so peopleare thinking like that from the
get go. And that's reallyimportant. And I think back to
(26:33):
your question on the video front,the listening habits of so many
women are not video consumption.
We are listening to podcastswhen we're picking up our kids,
when we're getting the minutesto exercise every day, when
we're vacuuming in thebackground, when we're doing
quiet work. And we want to keepmaking audio for folks who are
(26:55):
listening that way. And we alsowant to lean into video. So I
think you're going to hear frommore companies or you're just
going to see the fruits ofpeople being thoughtful about
how video canpositively the bottom line and
find more audience, but also notrushing to throw billions of
dollars at it. Those would be mymain predictions.
(27:16):
Okay, so I'm talkingabout next year is going to be
about content, collaboration,communication and commerce. So
with what you're doing as well,you are slightly diversifying
out of podcasting into books,which was a different area that
I was curious, why did you moveinto books?
question. Sobackground before podcasting, I
(27:39):
was in nonprofit management.
Before that I was in M&A lawyerwhen stuff and I founded the
company. Having property as partof our value was a big part of
the drive. And when we foundedthe company, we also did this
exercise recommended by SimonSinek in his very popular TED
Talk from the early 2000, whereyou explore what the why is
(28:00):
behind what you're doing and whyat the time it's morphed into
Make Life Suck less. Butoriginally it was to make the
heart a little easier. And ourfirst How was podcast to get you
out of bed in the morning? Andwe have built that in the last
five years. We formed thiscompany to save lives. We did
not form this company because wewere like, Let's be media moguls.
(28:21):
That was never the plan and I'mstill not the plan. And then the
outer ring after the original,how was always additional forms
of intellectual property? Noteveryone listens to podcasts,
certainly not when we launchedthe company in 2019. More do now,
but we knew if we wanted to doour work at scale, we'd have to
translate it into differentforms of intellectual property.
(28:43):
So some of our series are beingconsidered for TV and film,
which is incredible. And thepartnerships that we launched
earlier this year with Simon andSchuster is about taking the
work that we built in ourpodcasts and translating them
into ebook form for podcastswhere it makes sense and working
with Simon and Schuster to lookacross their incredible catalog,
(29:03):
to think about what books mightbe great podcasts, what authors
might have great shows. David'swriting fail better, which is
going to be incredible. It'sjust phenomenal to think about
both his now 31 episodes andwhat he's learning about failure
from the podcast, as well as thereflections that he records for
Apple Premium, which are a lotof his thoughts about what he is
(29:24):
learning as he goes. And, youknow, David's an intellectual,
so and an author, and it makes aton of sense to be able to
create a capstone from the firsttwo seasons or however many we
end up having before the bookcomes out in 2026. And then it's
a core to our mission. I don'tknow if you know how the company
was founded, but Stephanie and Iboth met because we lost our
(29:45):
little brothers to accidentalheroin overdoses two years apart.
I heard her on a podcast. Ithought I was never going to
come out of this grief periodafter my brother died, and she
was the first person to make melaugh. And it was because she
was making jokes about heroinoverdose. She was funny as heck.
I was like, Podcasts could savelives. Let me stop this woman
(30:06):
and make her make a company withme that helps use podcasts to
save lives. And we did it.
That's just the most pithyversion of a very long story.
But now Stephanie's writing. Ourfirst show was called Last Day,
and it was a deep dive into thequestion of whether we could
have saved our brothers if wehad known different things. It
was a real quest for us. It waswildly popular and much needed
(30:28):
when it came out. Steph hosts Itturned out I had Doctor
Brilliant voice actress, andit's just completed its fourth
season and now Steph is writingthat book. What did we learn in
the course of making that firstseason around the opioid crisis
and our brothers? We were partof a big wave of harm reduction
ists with that show and opioiddeaths are still huge, but they
(30:49):
are way less than they were fiveyears ago. And so she is writing
a nice capstone about what welearned from that show. So the
books pieces, you know, a lot ofpeople who listen to podcasts
read books, and we want to reachpeople and we want to expand our
mission and our work and themission and work of the talent
that we think shares our ideals.
sorry for your loss.
I wouldn't know, and it's notsomething I was aware of. So my
(31:11):
thoughts are with you. Yeah, Ithink that reaching out extends
to books. But I was interestedthat you talked about taking
some of the talent from the bookcommunity back, but you didn't
call it an audio book. You callit a podcast. Was that very
specifically not to call it anaudio book, or was that just
something you just genericallyjust term?
Jessica Cordova-Kramer (31:33):
Yeah, we're not making audio books.
Simon and Schuster makes audiobooks, so if they put out a
brand new memoir from I thinkAlec Baldwin has one coming out
or it's out, he's just top ofmind because he was just like
David Show. If his memoir comesout and he records the audiobook,
that's the Simon and Schusteraudiobook. So we are talking
about true podcasts that mightcome out or around. Alec Baldwin
(31:54):
We are not currently workingwith him, just using an example.
They have Simon and Schusteraudiobooks and we don't have any
hand in producing audiobooks. Wedo have a podcast with Simon and
Schuster called Your Next Listen,which is fantastic, and just
launched last month and takessnippets of their actual
audiobooks and allows ourpodcast listeners to hear
(32:15):
chapters of them so they candecide whether they want to go
and buy the audiobooks. Butaudiobooks are not part of our
work with them, unless of course,our podcasts, like David's book
Feel Better, gets recorded as anaudiobook and it will
Sam Sethi (32:30):
Now, one last thing you talked about working with
Apple on subscription plans, andI'm sure that there'll be other
ones you talked about as wellsupporting cast. Would you ever
move into like Wondery have withWondery plus creating your own
community network?
community all thetime, creating content and
community is a big part of thenext phase of our work. We got
(32:52):
through our five year plan.
We've built an extremely largeaudience. I think we're fourth
biggest network on Triton'stable and about the 18th or 19th,
depending on the month ontrack. And that was a big part
of our drive for the first fiveyears. And now we have that big
audience. They're everywhere andwe want to convene them in
(33:13):
different ways. So for sure,thinking about I don't know if
it's necessarily an app, butthinking about everything from
live events to technologicalsolutions for gathering our
folks in a variety of ways sothey could interact with each
other around the issues and theshows that they care about,
interact with talent, interactwith staff. That is definitely
part of the dream.
(33:34):
Jess, I'm going toleave it there because it's been
an amazing conversation andthank you so.
Jessica Cordova-Kramer (33:38):
Much and thanks for being patient with us
through the year.
Sam Sethi (33:41):
I know it was well worth it. Everything good comes
to it's time. So thank you verymuch. Thanks, Jess.
Jessica Cordova-Kramer (33:46):
Thanks, Sam.
Hello and a welcome back to Port News Weekly. I'm
really excited, actually,because I've got a guest on who
we've had on the show before.
Her name's Jessica Cordova.
Cramer. Jason is the CEO ofLehman Out and the co-founder.
Hello, how are you?
Jessica Cordova-Kramer (00:26):
Hi, Sam.
I'm doing well. How are you?
Sam Sethi (00:28):
I'm doing very well, thank you very much. Now, I
wanted to get you on muchearlier in the year, but I'm
glad I haven't, actually, I'llbe honest, because so much has
happened for Lehman all the for2024. But the original idea to
get you on was when MeghanMarkle was signed by you guys
and then you had some big hitsstraight after that with David
Duchovny. And of course, you hadan amazing year with Julie Louis
(00:52):
Dreyfus. And again, it's beengrowing and growing. I won't go
through every one of youracquisitions will be here till
Christmas otherwise. So let'sstart off with 2020 for the
beginning, Yeah. Meghan MarkleAnd some of the acquisitions,
what was in the thinking there?
Jessica Cordova-Kramer (01:06):
Great question and I cannot believe
how many things have happenedthis year, not just for us but
for the industry as a whole. Sohappy to take you through it.
And I will say it's so fun forfolks to look from the outside
in at Lemonade as growth, but weare only posting about the fun
stuff we never post about thedeep long strategy sessions that
we're doing and stuff thatdoesn't go quite right. So I
(01:29):
always like to couch our successin it is hard work. What we do,
what our producers do, what ourmarketers do, what our talent
does, and everything you get toread about and see about is all
the good stuff, of course. Sohappy to talk about challenges
too, and we're all having themand I think it's helpful for
other CEOs and folks at mediacompanies to know for every nice
(01:49):
post we're doing, there's tenthings we're doing in the
background to problem solve andbuild this beautiful thing with
our team. But yeah, it's been awild year. Sam. We've been
working with Meghan on bringingher show archetypes to the
masses, and it had a phenomenallaunch. It feels like 16 years
ago now. We brought that showout to Apple listeners and out
beyond Spotify listeners, andthe reception has been warm and
(02:12):
wonderful and we had a greattime working with Meghan on that
and her team and Spotify. It wasa dream come true as well. So it
was really a lovely experienceacross the board and our
creative team, our marketingteam is deep in the weeds with
the Duchess now and we'll sharemore in the New year about how
that's going. But it's been areally wonderful experience.
(02:32):
She's brilliant and hard workingand the first person to be on
every single call she is. She'sreally just fabulous. And yeah,
we've been rocking and rollingall year long. Similar timeline.
We brought podcasts to thenetwork and Pen and Nova and
Sophie have been phenomenal towork with. The show has been
rising, rising and just gettingsuch incredible talent on it.
(02:54):
And it's a darling of brands andagencies as well. And of course,
David, the company's series cameout in May and we had planned
only 20 episodes with David, andhe just texted me yesterday and
it was like we just did 31because it's just been going
incredibly well. Alec Baldwinjust came on and they had a
fabulous that's been reportedeverywhere. And David is an
(03:17):
intellectual and a brilliantinterviewer and has been really
growing into his own. And theshow is a fantastic place to
talk with remarkable peopleabout the times in their lives
where things haven't gone asplanned and how that's shaped
them. Most recently, weannounced that happier would be
coming to eliminate it. SoGretchen and her team, plus two
(03:38):
other shows, happier inHollywood and Side Hustle School
are all joining the network inthe New Year. And we've just
announced that Talk Easy withSam Fargo, so we'll be coming
over as well. So that'sthrilling. I can't wait for
people to hear about that. Butwe're working with Melissa
McCarthy, Lupita Nyong'o, LenaWays we Ellie Kemper, All of
(04:00):
this happen this year and wejust are grateful for folks who
trust us with their brand andtheir message and their desire
to use podcasting to make lifesuccess.
Sam Sethi (04:10):
Now, often with such a large slate, you must look at
it and go, That's going to beone of our stars. Once there,
one in there that you went, Oh,that's really surprised me. I
thought that would be mid-tablein our slate, but one that you
thought, Well, that'll do well,but that won't be a superstar
hit. And then it suddenly went.
Is there anything that surprisedyou out of it all? Let me cheat
and give you three. One is anoriginal, which is David series,
(04:32):
which of course we knew it wasgoing to be great. We got the
pitch. Failure University withDavid, two company. We had
already filled up our entireslate for 2024, got the pitch
from CAA and I remember gettingthat thing and being like, God
damn it, because I was like,We're going to have to do the
show. Then we met with David andit was such a cosmic meeting. We
(04:54):
had the same sort of creativeforce and when I'm going out is
picking shows and when talent ispicking women on it, there's a
synergy there. When it works, wework with talent who have a real
message. They have a real Ybehind their podcast. So if you
look across our slate, you'llsee wildly different types of
shows and people and tremendousamount of diversity and all of
it. But everyone's got a realcentral why and it fits within
(05:17):
the make up less brand. AndDavid Show just was a home run
and he had never interviewedbefore. So we also weren't
exactly sure how he was going towant to be prepped and how he'd
want to work with us. But it hasbeen a dream come true. And
what's great about that show isit's created this beautiful,
safe space for incredible peopleto talk about their lives with
(05:40):
him. He's built a tremendousamount of trust with his
audience. We have GillianAnderson on a few weeks ago and
shortly after the election whereand I think everyone was,
regardless of their politics,just looking for escape. Then we
basically broke the Internetwith that episode. And then we
just had Alec Baldwin onyesterday. So I think that show
has been a dream come true frombehind the scenes all the way to
(06:02):
storming People magazine andjust being a topic of
conversation for folks and beinga beautiful podcast. It's won
awards already. It's beenthrilling. The other two quickly
mentioned we brought on a showcalled Pack One Bag that we did
not make, and it's an ad salesand distribution deal for us,
and it's a beautiful seriesabout one family's escape from
(06:22):
fascism in Italy right beforethe breakout of World War Two.
It's been taking every awardthat it has been entered for,
and my guess is it'll be a TVshow at some point. It's
phenomenal. David Modiglianimade that show and we were just
so lucky to get to work withthem. And then we haven't done a
lot of fiction in the past, butwe got this pitch. It was
(06:44):
another goddammit moment, gotthis pitch from Melissa McCarthy
and their husband, Ben Falcone.
For Hilda, the bar back. And wewere like, We're not going to do
fiction. But then we were like,Oh, we're going to do this
fiction. And that show it wasproducer Top 25. I think it's
breaking the mold. On whatfiction can be, and we love to
be a part of it. So those arethree had mentioned. different,
(07:07):
but as you said, they have acentral Y theme to them Now with
what you're doing and want totry and get behind the curtain a
little bit. You talk about theswamp moment. On the surface,
it's all lovely, but underneathyour legs are kicking like mad.
Now when they're kicking likemad underneath, you're having to
do a lot of planning andstrategy. How do you choose a
show? Because not every showthat comes to you gets accepted,
(07:28):
right? Not every show thatpitches up goes, Yeah, we're
going to do that show. So whatdo you set as an expectation in
terms of cost of show and return?
Jessica Cordova-Kramer (07:39):
Great question. Yeah, we are
constantly recalibrate eating. Alot of us at the company have
backgrounds in business oreducation, and so we love a
rubric and we love a widget andwe love an algorithm and we also
love we're artists, so we loveto pepper all of the science
with vibes and spirit andinstincts and creative juices.
The couple of things aboutlemons that I think are
(08:00):
different from other places I'veworked before. One, it's
incredibly consensus driven,it's very flat structured, and
so there's a lot of folks makingevery single decision. It's not
me or staff or me. I'm staff ina vacuum being like this show,
but not that show. We like thisperson, but not that person. As
a company, we're getting about50 or 60 pitches a week and we
(08:21):
have really great processes forlooking at each and every one of
them. If you're listening tothis and you've pitched us and
you haven't heard back from usin a few weeks right into Hear
Lemon out of Medium.com becauseI want to hear about it. But we
strive to at least be customerservice oriented with folks who
are sending us pitchesregardless of where they're
coming from, big Hollywoodagency or regular person sending
(08:42):
us their personal story. We tryto get back to everyone and we
look at everything as a team.
And then when we are seriouslyconsidering something, when it
gets to that level, we'relooking at everything from Does
it fit with brand? Does it makelike success in some way? It can
be comedy. We have three Tim onthe network, Scott Aukerman,
Lauren Lapkus, Paul Tompkinschatting about stuff and they
produce that show and it makeslifestyle class for its
(09:06):
listeners. It's got a big stickyaudience and it's a beautiful
series in so many ways, but it'scomedy at its core. And then
we've got shows like Our TrueCrime Upside Down, Slate, Blind
Alley, deeply reported narrativeand about domestic violence and
the criminal justice system forpeople of color in the United
States, women of color inparticular. And we've got
(09:28):
everything in between. Soeverything makes life suck less
in some ways. So we have thatsort of gut check around what
the content is, and then we'regoing to go down the rabbit hole.
On if it's a new show Is this apotential to break through? Is
the host really into it? Italked about the passion that
David and Julia and Stephaniewith last day and so many of our
originals have, and we arelooking for that real y from the
(09:51):
talent. And then we're going togo through the same types of on
audience potential,potential, whether the PNL can
be positive over a reasonableperiod of time. And then we make
our best guess and go, we'reusually not the top bidder for
any talent because we're a smallcompany and we are independent.
(10:14):
We are self-managed, our moneycomes in, it goes right back out
to pay our staff and theirtalent and very little overhead.
It's a pretty simple company andwe have to manage our finances
in a way that makes sense. Sowhen talent or choosing women
out there, choosing us becausethey know we're going to do
something different for them. Soalways looking to make those
(10:34):
matches as best we can and doright by everyone on the team
internally and anyone who comesand brings us their heart and
soul.
Sam Sethi (10:44):
Now look, this American Life put out a note
saying that they're going tostruggle with ad revenue.
They're seeing a massive dropoff in the amount of ad revenue
they're getting.
just with your CEO hat on, notjust purely lemonade, but just
across the industry maybe aswell. Is this something that you
(11:04):
are seeing and does that meanyou're going to lean into
subscriptions or are you goingto look at other forms of
revenue to monetize? Orconversely, are you seeing ad
revenue shoot through the roof?
And it's just this American Lifeis having a bad time. Where
where is it with you? well, acouple of things for us that
differentiate us from moretraditional media. One is we
(11:26):
have to be nimble. We have toassume the worst every week. We
have to plan for an environmentthat is ever changing. Stephanie
and I launched this company inSeptember 20, 19, months before
a pandemic, and we bootstrapped,we put our own money in, and
that's how we got the companyoff the ground. We got a small
(11:46):
advance from our sales supportnetwork at the time. Was would
won and hired a tiny team andthen COVID hit. And then it was
election after a wild electionin the middle of a pandemic and
global wars, strife, protests,you name it. We have been
running this company in thewildest of times and there has
(12:09):
not been a precedented day sincewe started it and let alone the
industry. Stuff from iOS 17 tomedia consolidation to the
impact of the world news on theadvertising industry, which we
know are hand in hand. So weactually have staff meeting
leaders talking about this withour team. We constantly have to
be in a conservative environmentas business leaders and as the
(12:31):
people who are responsible forour staff and our talent. And so
I think we go into 2025 with thesame level of careful planning
as we went into 24, 23, 22, 21and probably 19 as well. It's
hard to remember we broughtsales in-house in 2021, so we've
had our own sales team whichenables us to monetize our of
(12:53):
originals without sharingrevenue with the sales partner
and it enables us to bring salesand distribution partnerships
onto the network. And we havewildly different results than
the industry as a whole. And wehave had them consistently, even
as we've grown upwards of 50 to200% audience year over year.
Our CPMs are in the highthirties and low forties, or
(13:15):
Phil Reed is around 80%consistently year over year and
we are able to do that becausewe are working really closely
with talent and producers tomake those ads great and work
really hand in hand and in awhite glove way with agencies,
with brands, and even whenthings are going wrong, which
they inevitably do, approachingthe work with a high level of
customer service, which we'reable to scale over time. all to
(13:37):
say it's just dramaticallydifferent than, I think what
traditional media andparticularly public media is
able to do on the sales andpartnerships side. And we're
hopeful about 2025, but we'replanning for a more conservative
year just in case some of thefeelings are true. Our
(13:57):
subscription business is growing.
We've had a wonderfulpartnership with Apple Premium
just launching supporting Castnow, so we're excited about that
and our revenue has grownaround 40 to 70% year over year
since we've started, and we'reassuming a similar level of
growth next year. But we'restill not a big company. We
(14:17):
don't have a ton of cash like abig, huge media company that's
publicly traded might have andthis year will be turning a
profit. And that's exciting andhelping kind of get to be even
more independent. And all ofthose things. We did a raise
that was like three years agonow, and we've been operating on
our own steam for these past fewyears.
(14:41):
congratulations on reachingtowards profitability. That is a
hat tip we're getting there.
Well, for any entrepreneur whogets into that, well done. So,
yeah, one of the things that TomWebster put out was the number
of ads that he saw as an averagewithin a podcast was about three.
And we know that radio has gotabout six or seven. Do you see
that you will find that morepodcasts get out stuffed or do
(15:04):
you think that customers willpush back on that so hard that
whether you want to or not,you're not going to revenue
generate through that mechanism?
Jessica Cordova-Krame (15:13):
You know, it really depends on the show.
So if you have a creator lens onthe sponsorship, which we do at
Lemonade, and I can't speak forthe rest of the industry to some
extent, I'm just laser focusedon what we're doing. We see the
ads as content. Our team does alot of the work with the brands
to rewrite the scripts and havethem sound fun. And who doesn't
(15:35):
want to hear David Duchovny,Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Scott
Aukerman and Lupita Nyong'otalking about whatever? I'll
listen to a phone book if it'sinteresting enough. So we think
about the ads as content for us.
We don't stuff our shows, but wealso have to make the shows make
sense. If people want to haveart, it needs to be funded and
this is our way of funding it.
(15:55):
We're not shy about it. I don'tthink we should be shy about it.
I don't think we should hidebehind the fact that our hosts
are reading ads, and those adsare what fuel the team's salary,
my salary, the ability fortalent to spend their time
making podcasts and if they'regreat, people won't skip them.
Brands will be happy. They'llcome back. Our retention is
super high for brands andagencies, and if something isn't
(16:18):
working like swap it out, But wedon't do a ton of programmatic,
which is where I think you see alot of the stuffing. It's easy
to stuff, hard to put ten ads ina podcast if it's all just read
and thoughtful and has a reallyclear call to action. So that is
not to say the programmatic adsare bad, but I think that's
where you get a little bit ofthe strain. You're listening to
a show and then all of a suddenit's something else and it's
(16:40):
back to the show. It doesn'tsound like that when we're
making ads, it sounds a littlemore like it's part of the
content.
Sam Sethi (16:45):
Okay, let's cover a couple of other topics then,
where there's a video set withinLima. Now a big 24 question,
right? It's it's the YouTubeanswer. It's the Spotify about
to do it aren't so where do youguys it does it add value to the
podcast does it add aconsiderable cost I'm assuming
to the podcast production towhere do you sit?
(17:07):
is a nuanced answerfor me. So since I got into
podcasting in 2017 with CrookedMedia making a series called Pod
Save the People with Dre, I wasthe founding producer on that
series and I made it for threeyears and ever since 2017, and I
wasn't in podcasting before that,so it could have been happening
in 2016. It was like the mantrawas the future of podcasting is
(17:30):
video and I have always beenskeptical of being completely
true. And then I think mostrecently the mantra has become
is video eating, podcasting. Ithink video is critical. So
there's different things that weuse video for now at Limitada,
we have a handful of shows thathave a vibrant YouTube channel
(17:52):
and we're able to dramaticallyincrease revenue on those shows.
If there's an existing YouTubeaudience and video production
that happens. Podcast is a greatexample. Jose Andre This is a
great example. Meghan TrainorGreat example. We also use video
for Discovery and for socialmedia, and we've been doing that
from the very start. So thatcould be Zoom video, that could
(18:12):
be still photographs, that couldbe in-person video, a number of
different things that we'redoing that help with discovery
on TikTok, on Instagram and onYouTube and in other places. And
then there's the hybrid type ofvideo that people are doing that
I think can be great. And thenthere's the more expensive call
(18:34):
her Daddy or Joe Rogan typevideo. That also can be great,
but you've got to have theexisting Channel four. It's got
to make sense. And then there'sthe consumer side. How are
people ingesting podcasts andwhich ones are they ingesting?
Audio only versus video. And soas with anything, we are taking
a painstakingly thoughtfulapproach on a show by show basis
(18:55):
to figure out, does this makesense? Does it make sense to
weave in video sometimes all thetime or never on the show? What
kind of video are we talkingabout? Home kits where people
can record themselves with aguest together in a nice place?
Or are we talking about a realstudio or are we talking about
some of the incredibletechnology that's popped up that
is really just enabling ouraudio producers to have a video
(19:17):
capability on top of it and notcreate two WORKSTREAMS So for
example, Riverside. So it's aboring answer because it's
nuance and not like, yep,everything's switching to video
tomorrow. We also have the mostincredible producers and
engineers at Lemmon Auto. Weadore them. Folks have been with
us since the company started.
Folks who have come in who arenewer and as a whole, we're
thinking as a group like we'vegot to really make sure that
(19:40):
everyone's got the skills tocontinue their work in evolution
of podcasting, which probablydoes involve us knowing how to
use as an organization,Riverside and the like more
adeptly. But it's also not raceto the We've got to have
everything on YouTube,everything on Spotify,
everything with baked in ads.
And I'm waiting and this is astrong plea to the industry for
(20:05):
the moment where we can do onestop publication and die via ad
insertion, both in video and inaudio, our RSS feeds so that
we're not doubling our work,doubling our costs as creators.
word with the industry for you.
Jessica Cordova-Kramer (20:20):
Yeah, the short answer, it depends.
Sam Sethi (20:23):
Okay. Now, the other touchy subject that everyone
predicts is going to be withinour horizon of 2025 is A.I., and
some call it artificialintelligence. I call it assisted
intelligence. We've seen it usedin pre-production and in
post-production. We've seen itused, I think, well, in some
cases with Notebook Alarm, theSpotify Review of the Year,
(20:46):
everyone got a notebook albumreview, too. Where does A.I. fit
into Leonardo, if it does at all?
the camp ofartificial intelligence or
assisted atonement that's justhelping our creatives do their
jobs more quickly and easily. Soif the transcript technology is
enhanced or our sales team hasbooster or other products that
(21:08):
automatically scan contracts andput stuff in and just makes
their lives easier, great. Butfor us, we are creatives, we are
a creative company for artistsand we care deeply about the
authenticity of that work. Andso you're never going to see us
race to air ads or that sort ofthing. We want our staff and our
talents lives to be easier. Andif I can help with the products
(21:30):
they're already using, great.
But we're being really cautiouson the sort of creative bleed
side of things. When you listento a woman on a podcast, there's
nothing fishy happening and wewant to keep that pure.
Yeah, I tend to thinkas we get more A.I. out there, I
think people will want morehuman generated content, more
real authentic content frompeople to people, because we can
(21:53):
always get fast facts if wereally want it. If that's what
you need, I'm sure that you canget Chachi ABC to summarize
anything for you if that's thesum of what you're looking for.
And I don't think that's whatpodcasting is about. But anyway,
that's just me now.
Internationalization. Where doesLiman artists sit with
internationalization? You know,the slate that you reeled off at
the beginning was very American.
(22:16):
And I'm like thinking, okay, somaybe there's going to be an
expansion. Is that something inthe 2025 horizon?
spending some time in2025 thinking about it for sure.
We have a sizable internationalaudience, depends on the show,
but anywhere from 10 to 15% ofthe audiences listening abroad,
largely places like UK,Australia, some parts of
(22:39):
Southern Europe and then Asia. Ithink
as an industry have two thingsthat we want to think about.
Live world sucks everywhere inmany ways, so if we want to make
success here, a naturalextension would be to do the
same in other places. But we arean American company and we have
a unique perspective around whatlife is like here. And so if we
(22:59):
were to do anything global, we'dwant to do it in partnership
with local context and producersand creators and talent to know
what the world is like wherethey live. I don't purport to
think that here in Minneapolis,our troubles are the same as
they might be in India or Italyor what have you. And the other
thing that needs to happenoutside of the UK in particular
(23:19):
is priming the ad sales marketso that we can create the
content that we want to createin other places that it's
supported with and by brands andby technology and all of that.
And I don't think we're quitethere yet. So I'd like to spend
a little bit of 20, 25, not justin a box and limited order, but
thinking with our peers aboutthis question how do we take our
(23:40):
work and make it make sense inother places? And there's lots
of incredible producers ascreators, talent ad sales
networks popping up everywhere.
And so I think it's a lot ofpartnership and not just
pretending like whatever you dohere will work somewhere else.
you do occasionally cast youreye across other production
companies and you go, Oh, that'sinteresting what they've done
(24:03):
over there. We all do that. Isthere a podcast that came out in
2024 from another productioncompany that you thought, I
really wish we had that one.
Which one would that be? I wouldhave said normal gossip. The
team was literally obsessed andthis year
(24:24):
loved hysterical and they wonApple Show of the year, which we
won last year. Shout out Julia,Shout out Wiser than My Team
Shout out marketing team, whichI loved. I don't know that we
would have made that show, but Iloved it. And Hannah's Brown,
who scored a bunch of our stuff,I think scored that show.
There's a couple of shows onSony Slate that I love. Jesse
Tyler Ferguson series. JonathanMENSAH series. You surprise me
(24:47):
on that one. So I'm going to. No,no, it's Steve. It's good. I
have like scan the charts andsee what else I might be missing.
And lastly, a prediction for 25.
What do you see for the wholeindustry? Where do you think
we're all going? You've got yourfinger pretty much on the pulse
of it. Where would we all expectto be in 25? think that 25 is
going to bring a lot ofconversation around how to make
(25:10):
one plus one equals three in theindustry. So
together to solve some problems,problems like scale, problems
like to make incredible contenttogether. So more co-productions
(25:30):
than we've seen this year. Iactually was surprised by how
few there were, and I thinkthere's a ton of great content
that's not getting made rightnow because people are being
also included conservative aboutwhat to spend, where and why.
And I think this is happening inTV and film as well. So I think
podcasting is just part of thewhole media industry now.
(25:52):
There's incredible creators,wild stories that need to be
told and I hope we spend 20, 25figuring out how to get those
stories told. I don't thinkpeople will stop listening audio
only. So my prediction is thatwe will carefully think about
how video will fit in, and I'mseeing people reacting
(26:12):
positively to Spotify asopportunities for creatives to
post more video. But also theconversations I'm having are
around, well, let's do it whereit makes sense. We're not just
going to spend the money tospend the money, it's got to
have a very clear ROI and theindustry has grown up a ton in
the past decade and so peopleare thinking like that from the
get go. And that's reallyimportant. And I think back to
(26:33):
your question on the video front,the listening habits of so many
women are not video consumption.
We are listening to podcastswhen we're picking up our kids,
when we're getting the minutesto exercise every day, when
we're vacuuming in thebackground, when we're doing
quiet work. And we want to keepmaking audio for folks who are
(26:55):
listening that way. And we alsowant to lean into video. So I
think you're going to hear frommore companies or you're just
going to see the fruits ofpeople being thoughtful about
how video canpositively the bottom line and
find more audience, but also notrushing to throw billions of
dollars at it. Those would be mymain predictions.
(27:16):
Okay, so I'm talkingabout next year is going to be
about content, collaboration,communication and commerce. So
with what you're doing as well,you are slightly diversifying
out of podcasting into books,which was a different area that
I was curious, why did you moveinto books?
question. Sobackground before podcasting, I
(27:39):
was in nonprofit management.
Before that I was in M&A lawyerwhen stuff and I founded the
company. Having property as partof our value was a big part of
the drive. And when we foundedthe company, we also did this
exercise recommended by SimonSinek in his very popular TED
Talk from the early 2000, whereyou explore what the why is
(28:00):
behind what you're doing and whyat the time it's morphed into
Make Life Suck less. Butoriginally it was to make the
heart a little easier. And ourfirst How was podcast to get you
out of bed in the morning? Andwe have built that in the last
five years. We formed thiscompany to save lives. We did
not form this company because wewere like, Let's be media moguls.
(28:21):
That was never the plan and I'mstill not the plan. And then the
outer ring after the original,how was always additional forms
of intellectual property? Noteveryone listens to podcasts,
certainly not when we launchedthe company in 2019. More do now,
but we knew if we wanted to doour work at scale, we'd have to
translate it into differentforms of intellectual property.
(28:43):
So some of our series are beingconsidered for TV and film,
which is incredible. And thepartnerships that we launched
earlier this year with Simon andSchuster is about taking the
work that we built in ourpodcasts and translating them
into ebook form for podcastswhere it makes sense and working
with Simon and Schuster to lookacross their incredible catalog,
(29:03):
to think about what books mightbe great podcasts, what authors
might have great shows. David'swriting fail better, which is
going to be incredible. It'sjust phenomenal to think about
both his now 31 episodes andwhat he's learning about failure
from the podcast, as well as thereflections that he records for
Apple Premium, which are a lotof his thoughts about what he is
(29:24):
learning as he goes. And, youknow, David's an intellectual,
so and an author, and it makes aton of sense to be able to
create a capstone from the firsttwo seasons or however many we
end up having before the bookcomes out in 2026. And then it's
a core to our mission. I don'tknow if you know how the company
was founded, but Stephanie and Iboth met because we lost our
(29:45):
little brothers to accidentalheroin overdoses two years apart.
I heard her on a podcast. Ithought I was never going to
come out of this grief periodafter my brother died, and she
was the first person to make melaugh. And it was because she
was making jokes about heroinoverdose. She was funny as heck.
I was like, Podcasts could savelives. Let me stop this woman
(30:06):
and make her make a company withme that helps use podcasts to
save lives. And we did it.
That's just the most pithyversion of a very long story.
But now Stephanie's writing. Ourfirst show was called Last Day,
and it was a deep dive into thequestion of whether we could
have saved our brothers if wehad known different things. It
was a real quest for us. It waswildly popular and much needed
(30:28):
when it came out. Steph hosts Itturned out I had Doctor
Brilliant voice actress, andit's just completed its fourth
season and now Steph is writingthat book. What did we learn in
the course of making that firstseason around the opioid crisis
and our brothers? We were partof a big wave of harm reduction
ists with that show and opioiddeaths are still huge, but they
(30:49):
are way less than they were fiveyears ago. And so she is writing
a nice capstone about what welearned from that show. So the
books pieces, you know, a lot ofpeople who listen to podcasts
read books, and we want to reachpeople and we want to expand our
mission and our work and themission and work of the talent
that we think shares our ideals.
sorry for your loss.
I wouldn't know, and it's notsomething I was aware of. So my
(31:11):
thoughts are with you. Yeah, Ithink that reaching out extends
to books. But I was interestedthat you talked about taking
some of the talent from the bookcommunity back, but you didn't
call it an audio book. You callit a podcast. Was that very
specifically not to call it anaudio book, or was that just
something you just genericallyjust term?
Jessica Cordova-Kramer (31:33):
Yeah, we're not making audio books.
Simon and Schuster makes audiobooks, so if they put out a
brand new memoir from I thinkAlec Baldwin has one coming out
or it's out, he's just top ofmind because he was just like
David Show. If his memoir comesout and he records the audiobook,
that's the Simon and Schusteraudiobook. So we are talking
about true podcasts that mightcome out or around. Alec Baldwin
(31:54):
We are not currently workingwith him, just using an example.
They have Simon and Schusteraudiobooks and we don't have any
hand in producing audiobooks. Wedo have a podcast with Simon and
Schuster called Your Next Listen,which is fantastic, and just
launched last month and takessnippets of their actual
audiobooks and allows ourpodcast listeners to hear
(32:15):
chapters of them so they candecide whether they want to go
and buy the audiobooks. Butaudiobooks are not part of our
work with them, unless of course,our podcasts, like David's book
Feel Better, gets recorded as anaudiobook and it will
Sam Sethi (32:30):
Now, one last thing you talked about working with
Apple on subscription plans, andI'm sure that there'll be other
ones you talked about as wellsupporting cast. Would you ever
move into like Wondery have withWondery plus creating your own
community network?
community all thetime, creating content and
community is a big part of thenext phase of our work. We got
(32:52):
through our five year plan.
We've built an extremely largeaudience. I think we're fourth
biggest network on Triton'stable and about the 18th or 19th,
depending on the month ontrack. And that was a big part
of our drive for the first fiveyears. And now we have that big
audience. They're everywhere andwe want to convene them in
(33:13):
different ways. So for sure,thinking about I don't know if
it's necessarily an app, butthinking about everything from
live events to technologicalsolutions for gathering our
folks in a variety of ways sothey could interact with each
other around the issues and theshows that they care about,
interact with talent, interactwith staff. That is definitely
part of the dream.
(33:34):
Jess, I'm going toleave it there because it's been
an amazing conversation andthank you so.
Jessica Cordova-Kramer (33:38):
Much and thanks for being patient with us
through the year.
Sam Sethi (33:41):
I know it was well worth it. Everything good comes
to it's time. So thank you verymuch. Thanks, Jess.
Jessica Cordova-Kramer (33:46):
Thanks, Sam.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.