How Ben and David bootstrapped the Acquired podcast

Episode Transcript
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Justin Jackson (00:12):
This past year, Acquired, the business podcast,
had a breakout season. Everybodywas talking about them. The
hosts, Ben Gilbert and DavidRosenthal were profiled in Fast
Company Magazine, where theydescribe the podcast as the
number one tech podcastsensation. Their clips started

(00:32):
showing up everywhere on mysocial media feed. They had
chart-topping episodes onNintendo, Nike, and Costco.
They interviewed the CEOs ofNVIDIA, Uber, and Charlie
Munger. And this was the yearthat Ben and David both went
full time on the podcast. Thisis now their full time job.

(00:53):
This past year is also the yearthat they switched their podcast
hosting to Transistor. I thoughtit'd be interesting to sit down
with David Rosenthal, one of thehosts, and talk about their

entire story (01:07):
How they got started, how they built momentum
over time, how they were able todouble their audience every
single year since 2015 when theystarted the show, and how that
momentum ended up attracting anincredibly valuable audience
that they've now monetizedthrough advertising.

(01:27):
David also had a unique,countercultural perspective on
podcast advertising that I thinkyou're gonna find fascinating.
There's so much in thisinterview that podcasters,
creators and indie entrepreneursare going to find super helpful
and inspirational. I'm excitedto share it with you. Here is my

(01:47):
conversation with DavidRosenthal of The Acquired
Podcast.
So, David, to get started, maybejust describe in your own words
what is the Acquired podcastabout.

David Rosenthal (02:00):
Oh, boy. Well, we actually just changed our
tagline by unanimous vote of theboard of directors, which is
just Ben and me, live on ourholiday special episode. We used
to be the podcast about greattechnology companies and the
stories and playbooks behindthem.

Yeah.

And now we are the podcast about just great
companies and the stories andplaybooks behind them.

And this is actually the interesting part of
your story. So you and your cohost, Ben, you do the Acquired
podcast together. How did thepodcast get started? Bring me
back to that point.

Yeah.

What year? What was going on in your lives? What
was the beginning of all that?

Everything was totally different, and to say
that we didn't imagine where itwould go is The understatement
of the century. So, Ben and Iwere venture capitalists. I
guess you could say we sort ofstill are, although Acquired is
our full time thing now. We werejunior VCs at a firm in Seattle

(03:06):
called Madrona.
Madrona is the biggest venturefirm in Seattle. They were the
first investors in Amazon, biginvestors in Snowflake, and many
other great companies. Great,great firm. Top firm. And we
were Kids there. There'sprobably, I don't know, 20, 30
people at the firm, and we werejunior, mid level folks. But we

(03:31):
were young and we didn't havekids.
And one day, Ben had gottenreally into podcasts, and We had
become friends, and we weregetting drinks one night after
work, and, he said "hey, I kindawanna start a podcast. I've got
a couple ideas. Do you wannariff on them?"
So we did. And, I don't rememberexactly how it happened, but his

(03:55):
version of the story, which Iwill assume is correct because
my memory is too hazy, was thesecond idea was Acquired. And
the idea at that moment in timewas to do a podcast about
technology acquisitions thatwent well, because we were
venture capitalists and wethought that was the idea: let's

(04:17):
learn how to have an acquisitiongo well so we could be good at
our jobs.
And when he told it to me,according to him, I said,
"that's such a great idea! Ilike it so much I'll do it with
you." And that's how it allstarted. And that was very soon
to be nine years ago. So almosta decade ago.

And you two met at work? You were work buddies?

Yes. We actually met before. I was
already part of Madrona, and wewere trying to softly recruit
Ben. Ben was a superstar PM atMicrosoft and we met at one of
the partners' houses, GregGottesman, who's been a great
friend and mentor to us both,and Ben and Greg went on to

(05:01):
start Pioneer Square Labs inSeattle together. We met at his
house for a Passover Seder.

Okay.

That was the first time we met.

You two are junior venture capitalists at
this firm and Ben has all thesepodcast ideas. He says, "what do
you think about these podcastideas?" He was thinking about
doing them himself?

This is where I don't know if Ben even
remembers, but the way Ben tellsthe story, and I'll accept this
as being as close to fact as wehave, Was that he had been
thinking about podcast ideas. Hehad been wanting to do it.
He's a little younger thanme, and he had just joined

(05:42):
Madrona. He also, in his words,he liked me. He wanted to be
friends with me, and I thinkalso wanted to learn from me, so
he was kind of looking for anexcuse to do something together.

Got it.

So he wasn't necessarily asking me to do it
together, but I think he washoping I would become
interested.

Did you have any idea that the dynamic you two
have would be the dynamic? Thisis my understanding of it. I
could be wrong. But myunderstanding is that you do
most of the research andscripting, and he handles most
of the business stuff and thenSome of the business analysis at
the end of each episode. Is thatroughly correct?

So my role in research is to research the
history of the company. Andthese days, we're covering 100
year old companies.

Yeah.

His role in research is much more about what
is happening now. So I spend alot of time reading books. He
spends a lot of time talking topeople in the company, talking
to people around the company,talking to analysts, talking to
all sorts of folks. And he'llbring that to the episodes.
On the business front, and formany years there was no business

(06:55):
front to the podcast, now italso takes up quite a bit of our
time and energy.

Yeah.

I don't know what he would say. I would say
we kinda share things equally,but we have very complimentary
natural tendencies. So we canget into it if you like, but we
tend to focus on differentthings, although we make every
decision together.

Did you have an understanding early on that
there would be thatcomplimentary skill set was
there? Or were you just two kidsthat we were excited about an
idea?

We were two kids excited about an idea!
Yeah. Certainly, one of thethings that has made the
partnership work and be kindamagical over the years is that
we have this greatcomplimentaryness to our
skillsets, our personalities.And so I think even back in the
day, that was part of theattraction to one another. Ben

(07:53):
and I are deeply, deeply alignedon, like, what we want for
Acquired, what is important,what is, you know it feels sort
of hokey to say, like, our corevalues, especially since the
company is me and Ben. Like,it's not like we have a, you
know, mission statementplastered on our walls here. We
don't have an office. It's justour homes. But whatever the

(08:15):
equivalent of that is, we are,like, rock solid aligned.
Yeah. And then everything elsearound it, we have this
complimentary skill So so I cantrust that, you know, Ben can
just go off. Like, he lovesdesigning our website and
tweaking an update. Like, it's IHe's on paternity leave right
now, and I logged on to ourwebsite the other you know, this
morning, and, he changed thecolor scheme on our about page.

(08:37):
Like like, he just he's such anerd about that stuff.
He can go do that stuff, and Icompletely trust him that, like
Yeah. Whatever he's gonna do isgonna be awesome.

So starting the podcast, it sounds like you both
had this curiosity that wassimilar. And then would you say
the other motivation was justprofessionally like if we can
dig into this and understandwhat makes a great tech
acquisition. We'll be better atour jobs.

Yes. Yes. When we again, not on day 1, but
pretty quickly. I think we hadanother you know, went out and
got drinks and came up with sortof three goals and three reasons
that we were doing Acquired inthe early days, and this has
changed,

That's what I wanna see! Where is that early
Google doc!

Yeah. Yeah. I think we actually made a Google
doc. I think it exists.

Yeah. I wanna see that. That because that's
usually, that stuff is sointeresting. Like, here's the
doc where we brainstorm.

Oh, man.

Like, wouldn't it be great if we could
accomplish this? So, yeah, whatwere those three goals?

In priority order, goal number 1, most
important was we wanna learn, toa point of, like, hey. That's
kinda why we started it of, likeMhmm. In theory, this should be
what we're trying to do as VCs.This was back you know, IPO has
happened, but this was back inthe day of, like, M&A was the
primary outcome for venturebacked companies. Yeah.

(09:58):
You know, I think if we werestarting it today, it would be a
slightly different frame.

Yeah.

But learn, number 1. I think Number 2 was
grow our network in the sort oftech venture, startup community.
We we never were even in theearly days, we were never a
guest driven show, But we alwaysoccasionally had guests. Yeah.
And that really continuesthrough to today. You know, most

(10:25):
of what we do is just Ben andme, but we have guests. And we
were super lucky when we startedby virtue of being at Madrona.
Madrona's influence in theecosystem, particularly in
Seattle, we could get somepretty great guests even in our
first couple episodes. Mhmm.
So that was kinda stated goalnumber 2. And then stated goal

(10:45):
number 3 was to increase ourinfluence and, you know, our
awareness of Ben and me asventure capitalists in in the,
Seattle Tech and broader US techecosystem. This all changed a
lot, but that those were theoriginal goals.

As far as goals go, those are great. It's like
we're doing this because we wantto learn. We're doing this
because We wanna grow ournetwork. You know, like, we're
we're doing this to help ourcareer. And as far as starting
podcasts, those are actually,pretty realistic, you know, in
the beginning, and, you can'tyou can't lose if that's the

(11:23):
goal.

Totally. Especially the number one of
learning. And the I mean, thatprobably still is, in many ways,
our number one goal today, butIt never was although that third
goal was about our influence, wenever ever ever in the history
of the show have had, like, Wewant to get to x listeners,

(11:45):
followers, subscribers, revenue.Yeah. Never. There's never any
goal associated with that.

I'm looking at your first episodes Pixar,
Instagram, Twitch. Those werethe topics for those episodes.
You were reviewing thoseacquisitions. How'd they go?
What what was the response tothose initial episodes?
Because part of what you're alsolearning is how to do a podcast.
Yep. So what what was, like, theexperience of, you know, making

(12:12):
those first episodes? And theneven more so, like, what was the
response? How what where did youstart?

So this is a really different time for
podcasts and for us. A reallydifferent time. So...

It was October 15, 2015.

I didn't really think about it as doing a show
or, getting better at the showor anything. I thought about it
as Ben and I would have theseconversations anyway. This is a
fun way to sort of put somestructure around it. And I think
For at least the 1st year,probably 2 years, maybe longer,

(12:57):
I'm embarrassed to say, but Iput zero thought into, for me,
at least how I was coming acrossas a host on the show. I was
just like Let her rip havingconversations with my buddy.

Did you did you share it? Like, who did you
share it with? Who who who islike, okay. I gotta I gotta send
a link to The guys at work, Igotta send a link. Who are you
sharing it with in the earlydays?

Yeah. Yeah. So then on on that front, I shared
it with some friends and family,But I didn't think too much
about it. Again, especially inthat 1st year or 2, I really
didn't think of it as, like, oh,I'm starting a podcast. I'm
like, I it really was justhanging out with my buddy, Ben.
Love this. Ben shared it withmore folks, And Ben was very

(13:42):
involved in the Startup Weekendcommunity. Startup Weekend was
this amazing organizationactually headquartered in
Seattle, but it was Globalorganization, where they would
put on what was called StartupBegins. It's a nonprofit. And,
The idea was just to get morepeople interested in building
things and encouragingentrepreneurship, and Ben was a

(14:04):
facilitator.
So he would travel around theworld, and put on the startup
weekends in cities all over theworld. This is while he was
still at Microsoft. And so kindathrough that and through his
network and Microsoft And, he'djust always been kinda public,
and he was not big on Twitter byany means, but had a had a
following. So he shared it withA lot of folks in that

(14:27):
ecosystem, and that helped seedthings. We were also really
lucky to be at Madrona, whichkinda had a platform in and of
itself, especially in theSeattle tech ecosystem because
there were a few other venturefirms and and still are there,
but, you know, it's not likeSilicon Valley, San Francisco,

(14:47):
and the Bay Area where I am nowwhere there's literally a
million venture firms.
It was, like, there's Modrona,especially back then, they were
the biggest. There are a fewothers. If you were in the
ecosystem, you paid attention towhat was going on in Madrada.

I just I love this picture you're painting
because it's actually I think,it's almost the perfect reason
to start a podcast. I was just Iwas happy to do it. I was happy
to do it if nobody waslistening. And to be that
passionate about The topic, tobe that passionate about the co

(15:23):
host and your relationship withthe co host already, that just
feels Perfect. It just feelslike so beautiful.
And then for this to kind ofgrow organically out of that, it
it just happened. I mean,actually, another thing I was
I've always wondered is acquiredhas this characteristic that

(15:45):
that I think a lot of peopledon't think about when they're
making a show. So I'm wonderinghow strategic this was. You have
scannability. If I say, hey, youhave to listen to Acquired,
people search Acquired on theirpodcast app.
They scan through the episodetitles, and it's like Nintendo,
Charlie Munger, Nike, TaylorSwift. And I've seen this I

(16:07):
recommended it to my brother.And, you know, I'm my brother's
a big, like, oil worker dude andmuscled and, like, tattoos and
motorcycles. And I'm like, yougotta listen to this podcast.
It's fascinating.
And he's like, alright, brother.And then I he called me a bit
later and he said, oh, Ilistened to the show. He's like,
I love it. I'm like, whatepisode did you listen to first?

(16:30):
Because that's alwaysinteresting.
He scrolled through some titles.Taylor Swift, brother.

And and Amazing.

You have this this you know, even your first
three episodes, they're all,like, interesting companies.

This was never a a a any strategic thought put
into it. We're just kindafollowing our own interest, but,
yeah, there's something foreveryone in our catalog. We've
got Taylor swift. We've gotBerkshire Hathaway. We've got
standard oil.
We've got NVIDIA. We've got,visa. You know, we've, we've got
Costco, Go. We've got LVMH.Yeah.

And and you it almost opens up this perfect
what would we call it? Thisperfect cycle of curiosity,
which is I might not even bethat interested in Costco, but
Like, just seeing the name, I'mlike, oh, actually, I am
curious. Like, how what there'sa bunch of open threads there

(17:26):
that I'd like to see closed. Andso And even early on, it's like,
okay. Oh, Halo.
Oh, that's interesting. I'vealways wondered how that turned
out. You know? Yeah. And youhave you're you're kinda
answering questions that peoplealready have floating around in
their minds.
But this was mostly just youguys were interested and you
were you're solving your ownquestions.

A 100%. I I, I mean, it's almost embarrassing
for me to think that, but it'sfun to look back. Like, there
was no strategic thought putinto any of this. It really was
just Ben and I were nerds. Weliked hanging out with each
other, and, I think I think ifyou were talking to Ben, he
would he was a little morestrategic about this, or to the

(18:10):
great benefit of the show andand, you know, and me in the
long run.
I very much in those firstcouple years was literally just
like, oh, cool. Once or twice amonth, I hang out with my buddy,
Ben.

When When did you know like, when was the
first time you noticed thatpeople were listening? Like,
when did that happen?

We were lucky because of Ben's existing kind
of influence network and andMadrona's platform that we got a
little bit of an initialaudience. I mean, a little bit,
like, Few hundred peoplelistening in the 1st year. Few
hundred, maybe a 1000 people inthe 1st year. And then But it
was such a different time.People were looking for new

(18:50):
podcasts, and the players outthere, You know, Pocket Cast,
Overcast, you know, even Apple.
Spotify wasn't in the game atall at this point in time. They
were looking for new shows tofeature, so we got featured by
all the major players andplatforms Fairly early on. I

(19:12):
think some of them in the 1styear. By the end of year too,
we've been featured by all

of them,

Which was interesting. Right? It none of
them, even Apple, none of themdrove huge numbers With one
exception with 2 exceptions,we've never had huge spikes in
growth. As you know, podcastingis not like a, a medium where
you see, like, crazy Viralgrowth. Viral growth happen.

(19:40):
But I think it was, like, enoughto help us and, actually,
particularly Pocket Cast.

Oh, interesting.

Got us, enough listeners that it kinda kept
that momentum going, such thatby By the end of year 2, into
year 3, year 4, you know, we andI at least were Aware like, oh,
it you know, a decent number ofpeople are listening out there.
It's many 1,000 people out therethat are listening by year 3,

(20:08):
year 4. So So that was kind ofthe the journey. And then but,
again, I never really thoughtabout it that much, in the
context of This was always likea hobby for me and a way to
learn and get better at my jobwith some ancillary benefits.
And then around 2018, I startednoticing at first slowly and
then a lot more quickly thatwhen I would meet and interact

(20:30):
with people, They knew me in thecontext of the podcast much more
than in the context of being aventure capitalist.
Mhmm. And this was bizarre tome. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I'd meet
with, you know, tech foundersand other folks that, you know,
is a VC you meet with, you know,the ecosystem tech execs and
whatnot, and I'd be like, great.

(20:51):
Let's talk about, you know, thecompany you're starting or the
company you might start or, youknow, my portfolio company you
might join and they'd be like,Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. But,
like, your last episode, let'stalk about that. And so that
started to happen.
And that's when I really waslike, oh, wow. Okay. Maybe I
should, like, reframe how I'mthinking

about this. That's such a beautiful moment
when that happens. It's so funto have people, like, recognize
you and go, I like your show.

It it was it was so beautiful, so fun, All
those things. It was alsoincredibly cognitively
disorienting Okay. For me andand lots of other people, you
know, kinda In my world andwork, like I say, it was, you
know, 2018 when this reallystarted happening, maybe a

(21:42):
little bit in 2017. Podcastswere starting to get a little
more mainstream, but the ideathat a podcast would be the main
thing you did if you weren't JoeRogan, Like, was kind of insane.
And especially working inventure, you know, which is a
corner of finance, like, youknow, you work hard, like,

(22:05):
people take it very seriously.
Like, it started creating a lotof cognitive dissonance,
especially people I worked with.Be like, What are you dealing
with? You know, like, you're aventure capitalist. You're
supposed to be being a venturecapitalist and doing whatever it
is venture capitalists aresupposed to do. That's right.
Why are you wasting your timewith this podcast? There's the
time, but then also, like, thisis a distraction. People wanna

(22:27):
talk about the podcast. We needto talk about What we're doing
here at b BC. And and so for me,I start feeling like, gosh.
I don't know. I don't know aboutthat wisdom. I think there might
be something more to hear thanthis, but for a lot of people in
my life, they were like, Theytook the opposite direction.

So there there's a moment, you know, your first 3
years, you're just doing it forthe love of the game. Then 3
years in, you notice, okay,people are listening to this.
But it created the thiscognitive dissonance, like you
said, of Now people knew thatyou're doing it. Your secret was
out. And now people are like,what what are you doing?

(23:08):
Like, why are you investing inthis? Was your reaction Like,
no. This is gonna be my fulltime job one day? Or was your
reaction, this is gonna help mycareer, and this is gonna help
me be a better venturecapitalist? This is gonna bring
me deals?

Well, it was a few things. It was, my main
reaction was, like, this is myhobby, and I love doing it. So,
like, why would I Stop. Youknow, that's kinda how I'd
always thought about it. And,probably most friction was with
with folks was around.
I was like, No. Like, kinda I'vealways been doing this. It
hasn't hindered my day job, andI really love it. And, like, the

(23:44):
idea that I would Dial back,especially as it's becoming more
successful is, like, well,that's just crappy. But then
also is when I started to seefrom interacting with people in
my day job as a VC, I started tosee like, oh, I really think
this will help my day job.

(24:04):
I really think there's a lot ofpotential here. And that's what
was, you know, I think for mostpeople, even just, like, Crazy
to fathom in 2018. But I saw itin the conversations that was
happening. You know, companies,Founders, executives that
otherwise I as some random VC,you know, wouldn't take my
calls. All of a sudden, they'retaking my calls.

Oh, that's cool. That's cool. And and what was it
about this time you start whendid you start getting sponsors?

It was slightly before that. So We our very
first sponsor was SiliconValley. Rest in peace. I mean,
it still exists, but in a in adifferent form. And they paid us
$5,000 to sponsor.
I believe I can go dig up thecontract. I think it might have
been, like, A whole year

Okay.

Of the show, which is

And you're in about, what, a 1000 downloads
per episode at this time, orwhat was the numbers you said?

That was, I think that was 2 years into the
show. So, no, we're probably at,call it, 5, 10000 downloads an
episode at this point in time.But the reason we did it and and
we had to, like, call in majorfavors with SPP to get them to
do it. We were, like, it's notabout the money. Should have
said also when we're talkingabout our goals in the early

(25:20):
days, Ben and I had as anexplicit nongole, like, line
item number 4 in the Google Doc,It is not a goal to make money
or monetize a podcast.

Yes. Which is so key.

And we kept that for a long time.

And I think it can add so much pressure on a
creative endeavor to say we'vegotta figure out how this makes
money. To just remove that offthe table and again to just do
it for the love of the game; Ithink is such a healthy
approach. But then, so whatchanged? What made you feel like
you wanted to do that deal?

So the reason we did it, and we literally went
to our good friend who wasrunning SVB in Seattle at the
time who we knew throughModrona, and we said: "Can we
please can you please sponsorthe podcast? You pick a number,
whatever it is. It's not aboutthe money. We don't care if it's
$1."
We think having Silicon ValleyBank is our sponsor will add to

(26:15):
the brand of the show and makethis like, it will make it more,
It'd perhaps make the content alittle better, but it it was
just, like, establish this thingmore as, like, a Hey. This is
for real in the tech ecosystem.
You know, to our sort of pointsnumber 2 and 3 of increase our

(26:35):
network and influence, It wasthrough the lens of that that we
decided to approach SVB of,like, oh, because back then,
SVB, they were Silicon ValleyBank. They were the bank of
startups of the technologyecosystem. Like, oh, this will
really be a great brand halo forus.

Yeah. Add some social proof, add Some
legitimacy.

So we did a lot of things for that sponsorship
that ended up becoming hallmarksof The show and how we work with
sponsors and partners now, wedid things like we put the SVB
logo on our album card. We putit on our website. We the
sponsor Slots that we did withthem weren't reads. We had folks
from the bank on at the top ofthe episodes to give

(27:19):
perspectives and tie like Yeah.The reason we did all these
things was we were borrowingtheir brand.

That's so fascinating, because it's a
great attribute of the showright now is that, like, when
you do an ad, you often talk tothe advertiser and It becomes,
interesting part of the show.Very feels organic. Feels like
it fits.

We do it in lots of different ways now, but
that spirit we've had all theway through, and I think is one
of the things that, hopefully,makes us a great partner to our
sponsors and, I think makes usdifferent from almost really any
other podcast out there. Weapproach the sponsored content
with the lens of, like, how dowe make do you how do we use

(28:04):
this as an opportunity ratherthan a tax on the show? Yeah.
How do we make it interestingcontent? How do we make this,
like, Ben and I talk about itnow, like, an 11 star experience
for our sponsors and ourlisteners, Which is a Airbnb
term.
Brian Chesky talks about howthey do used to do a thought

(28:25):
exercise of what is an 11 starAirbnb stay look like? You know?
It's like, oh, the host picksyou up at the airport, you know,
you know, limo and cooks youdinner and all. And so I was
just like, Okay. What is an 11star podcast ad?
And it looks as little like atraditional podcast ad as
possible.

Such an interesting ;arallel is that in
Airbnb, you have this idea of"the host." But in podcasting,
we also have this idea of "thehost" And paralleling those two
is like so great. The host says,"hey, come on in. I'm gonna give
you a great experience Duringthis show, you can trust me.

(29:03):
This is going to be a reallywonderful use of your time. I
really like that." There'ssomething about, You know,
making it, comparing it to thehospitality industry, that's so
great.

That's exactly how we think of it. So fast
forward to today, it waschanging now. We for the first
time next season, we're gonnahave Fortune 500 companies as
our sponsors, which is a wholeanother ballgame. But even, you
know, before that, like, for thelast couple years, a typical
sponsorship for us is a growthstage, market leading, private,
B2B technology a company.

(29:38):
Vanta, Vouch, Modern Treasury,Statsig, Crusoe, always selling
to other enterprises As aventure backed startup itself,
typically having raised, youknow, call it a $100,000,000 or
more. And so we go to thesecompanies and we say, okay.

(29:59):
You're not buying a podcast adfrom us. Like, you're gonna get
a podcast ad. Like Yeah.
Sure. But, like, We're gonnabecome partners to your company.
What does that mean? When you doyour annual customer or partner
conference, which oftentimesthese companies are getting to
the stage where they're doingthis for the first time. We're
gonna be there with you.
We'll emcee the conference.We'll help drive traffic to the

(30:20):
conference. We will do dinnerswith your top sales prospects
the night before, the night. Oh,wow. We will, We will do an ACQ
2 episode with you, the CEO ofthe company, because a, you're a
market leading interestingcompany of yourself, so that's
great.
But also now Here's this 90minute, 2 hour, you know,

(30:43):
exploration and and discussionof what the company is that we
can now mention, Linked to inthe core sponsorship on the main
show so it drives people downthe funnel. Because these are
all you know, all of oursponsors, their products are
multi tens of thousands if notmulti hundreds of thousands of
dollar ACV products. Then wetake it even we've taken it even

(31:04):
step further over the pastcouple of years. We'll invest in
your company. Vanta, we'veinvested almost $10,000,000 in
Vanta.
So it's like It's all of this 11star experience mindsets. Like,
okay. You could pay money for apodcast ad or It could look like
this. Like Is it and it that Ilove that picture that you're
painting.

The the experience of that Is I think a
lot of folks want advertisersbut they don't really think
about what the advertiser isgetting in return. And that list
you just gave us is such a goodexample of there's a lot of
value there. There's like theyget this this This content

(31:46):
asset, like, hey, let me let meserve you by having you on the
podcast. I'm gonna produce apiece of media That you can now
use with here, here, and here.You can have your own content
team take off with it.
You can like....

Post it on your own website. Do all sorts of
stuff.

It's just that's such a gift. And I I think Your
approach to this, is somethingthat more podcasters should
emulate, which is, You know,it's everyone wants to just be
well, they think they wanna bethe podcast that just does
HelloFresh ads.

(32:25):
And, first of all...
I don't think they realize

There's nothing wrong with that.

There's nothing wrong with that. But I don't
think they realize how if youwanted to stand out, there's
millions of podcasts that wannado HelloFresh ads. But if you
wanna stand out, you can carveout your own world where you say
we're not in that we're not inthat category. What we're doing
is we're giving people an 11star experience. And this is how

(32:51):
we do it.
And it's it ends up being a hugegift to them. They're giving us
money but We are giving themthis big big gift gifts in
return that they can, you know,leverage. It's just it's
fascinating.

It's gifts, but it's also, like, it really is a
partnership when we think aboutit. Like, we get things out of
this too. When we go emcee, Youknow, modern treasuries,
customer conference, orwhatever. Their partners that
are there are the largest banksin the world. So, now, we're on
stage MCing, hosting thisconference, and then doing a

(33:26):
fireside chat.
We did a fireside chat at theend of the day with Brad
Kerstner from Altimeter. We arebeing held up on stage as, like,
you know, on a pedestal to the30 largest banks in the world.
Yeah. And, like, and JPMorgan isour presenting sponsor next

season. Wow.

We didn't meet them at the modern treasury
conference. We knew them before,but, like, all of this helps,
like It's a true partnership,you know.

It's it's it's the same way that you think
about producing compellingcontent for the audience. It's
like what would be a compellingoffer for a sponsor That is just
it's just right there, you know,like this is compelling. It's
we're not like pushing somethingon somebody, they're being drawn
to us because This offer hasjust a lot of value in it. They

(34:12):
can see it. Yeah.
We don't have to we don't evenhave to tell them. They can see
it, The evidence of it rightthere.

2 other things I would say. 1, this approach
works so well for us becauseIt's what our audience is. Like,
I think, you know, we're talkingabout the HelloFresh. Yeah.
That's like, or any kind of, youknow, programmatic stuff.
Programmatic stuff is great.Like, you know, and, like,
there's a world for all that.That is mostly a world in mass
market consumer podcast. We arenot a mass market consumer

(34:40):
podcast. You know, Our biggestsegment of our biggest audience
segment is founders ofcompanies.
So, like, you know,understanding our audience and
then what the right, you know,Segment of sponsors and partners
and advertisers is for that isgreat. We're we're we happen to
be in an extremely high value,high LTV segment, which is

(35:02):
awesome. But I think the lessonapplied, you know, whatever it
is that you're doing, like, youcan be very thoughtful about who
the natural. And for us, thiswas just like, oh, back to the
Troll. And for us, this was justlike, oh, back to the SVB,
conversation of that as ourfirst sponsor.
Like, oh, great. That is likethat brand helps helps us with
the brand that we wanna createhave acquired for the audience

(35:23):
that we wanna reach. Like, howcan we get alignment between Did
you

always wanna Reached those people from the
beginning?

Yes. Because we were venture capitalists. And so
we were like, to the extent wecared about who was listening,
it was, Oh, we want founders ofcompanies that we could
potentially invest in or peoplewho might, in the future, start
companies we could invest in, orwe want folks at Microsoft and
Google and Apple who might buythese companies to listen. Oh,
we want, you know, investmentbankers at Goldman Sachs who

(35:51):
might take them public tolisten. Yeah.

I think you also have this dynamic
us listen to podcasts likethis." I've often seen people in
the tech industry recommend yourshow because it's like, if
you're in the tech industry,like people like us, what kinds
of shows should I be listeningto? And inevitably Acquire is on

(36:14):
that list. And I think eventhat's a great thing for
podcasters to think about, like,When people are recommending
shows, like, what kind of peoplelike this should listen to a
show like this And Yeah. Figureout how you can cultivate that
in kinda everything that you do.
Because honestly....

Which podcasts are so good for. It's the best
medium for this kinda thing.Like, tribes get created around
podcasting.

Absolutely. And, like, your topic could actually
be there's another audience thatcould have found it interesting.
You know, there is a consumer,like, oh, this is just
interesting. How I

Built This exists. That is the that is the
alternate version, and it's agreat show, but that's the
consumer version, mass marketversion of Wired.

Yeah. I love that. What So did the show just
keep growing organically, or wasthere a Yeah. Like, was there
ever, like, just a big surge?

Yeah. Let's talk about Well, one other thing
I wanna say on on sponsorshipbecause I think it's relevant
for anybody who has a podcasttoo, and we then we can talk
about growth. But, The otherthing that we've really embraced
from the get go andunintentionally and are now very
intentional about, You'retalking about HelloFresh ads and
podcasts. Probably, I don'tknow. 90, 95% of podcast

(37:31):
advertising out there right nowis direct response.
You know, "enter this code andcheck out," direct response,
driving a transaction to happen.Usually consumer transaction,
usually a low-dollar-valuetransaction. We've embraced we
are not direct response.
Like, hopefully, some directresponse happens; that's great
(we have landing pages for allof our sponsors). But, like,

(37:55):
these are extremely consideredpurchase decisions that are very
high value. And they're notgonna be made because somebody
heard a podcast ad. They aregoing to be influenced and
considered over a set of months,if not years.
Yeah. What we are really, reallygreat at is raising the esteem

(38:20):
for a product and a company inthe eyes of their customers,
investors, partners, etcetera.And so, that's what we focus on.
We don't focus on, like, hey,buy now. Hey, use this code.
And I think this, you know, I'vebeen surprised that How slow the
whole podcast industry has beento move to this type of brand

(38:43):
advertising. And brandadvertising is By far the, like,
bigger part of advertising.Like, you walk through any
airport, and you realize this.You read any magazine or any
newspaper. Like Yeah.
Cartier isn't trying to get youto buy their jewelry right now
when you see their ads. They'retrying to build their brand.

Exactly. If you see an ad for, Like, I'm trying
to think of an ad that peoplewould like IBM often advertises,
You know, like, you should useour mainframes or whatever. And
it's like, why are they doingthat? Like, they don't want, you
know, the average consumer togo, "oh, yeah. I should go
buy a mainframe;" they're justtrying to raise their awareness

(39:24):
of the brand.

Awareness, interest, esteem that the
audience has for the for thecompany, for the brand.

You've almost done the reverse
beginning, you were using SVB'sbrand halo, but now you're doing
the reverse. Now you are you areoffering your halo to a brand to
say we are going to reallyemphasize who you are. We're
gonna raise your profile. Andwe're gonna do it organically.

(39:54):
We're gonna do it over time. Andit's going to compound and
eventually people are will haveheard it so many times that it's
gonna be like the next timeFolks are like, we need, you
know, we need this kind of thingin the boardroom.

We need a compliance solution. You know?
We need, we need our businessinsurance, You know, etcetera.
Like, which is not gonna be thenext time they listen to a
podcast episode. Yeah.
Yep. But it very much still isbidirectional. Yes. Now the
Acquired brand is a part to thepoint where it has a ton of
value and we can do that for ourpartners, but we still think
about it of our partners doingit price too. Whether that's

(40:33):
large companies like JPMorgan'sgonna be our presenting sponsor
next season, we absolutely like,that is adding to our brand.
But even the startups too, wewanna work with the very best
startups, and we wanna be knownas, like, oh, the Very best
startups that are gonna createthe most value, that are gonna
be the best investments outthere. They're the ones that
part are part of the acquireduniverse that adds to us too.

If I think about your last 6 months, your last 6
months are just incredible.

Well, you see the data.

But but even in terms of awareness, it's like We
we did Charlie Munger's firstand last podcast interview ever.
We did you know, we interviewedthe CEO of NVIDIA. We like,
There there is and then thesebig episodes that just seem to
resonate across the at least my,You know, my sphere of the world

(41:27):
is like everybody's talkingabout the Nintendo episodes.
And, you know, Daniel Ek wantsto sit down with you in the same
way that Daniel Ek wants to sitdown with Charlie Rose. You
know?
Like, it had that feel to it.Was there a A point where it
just all culminated and then youpassed a line and you were like,
wow, like we are really on adifferent level now. Like this,

(41:50):
this has taken off because nowit's like everything that you've
built and experienced and doneis all just Feeding you new
opportunities. Like, it reallyis a compounding machine that's
just like

It has become a compounding machine. Yes. Yes.
Hey. Thank you for that.
And and, like, yes, it's totallywild and surreal. On the growth
question, though, so I would,There's 2 answers. Mostly, 90%
of the growth is that it'salways been constant, And

(42:27):
steady. We have more or lessgive or take for the past 8
years. We've doubled theaudience every year.

Okay.

And it's that's pretty pretty, like, locked in.
Like, we've never we've nevertripled, And we've never only
grown

50%. Thing.

You know? Like, the the band of growth, it
pretty much is a 100%. Yeah.

Measure that in average downloads per episode?

So, yeah, we we have we use kind of a custom
metric for us, Because it tiesto how we structure our
sponsorships of number ofdownloads an episode gets in the
first 180 days Okay. So thefirst 6 months. Because our
sponsorships are 6 months long.So that's why we've and

(43:13):
Transistor and you guys havebeen so great in helping us,
like, you know, providing customdata feeds for us for that.

And it fits your content too because you these
are episodes that have a longshelf life. And so

Yes.

Yeah. Interesting. Okay.

And so even for episodes older than 6 months,
they continue to get a lot ofdownloads, And that's why we now
sell the back catalog separatelyas a separate sponsorship
product. In aggregate, Our backcatalog episodes. So our
episodes we're switching howthis is done, but you can
generally think of that as ourcorpus of episodes that are

(43:50):
older than 1 year Get, almostalways pretty much guaranteed
over a quarter 1000000 downloadsa month. And If, you know,
sometimes some companies in thenews that we covered 2, 3 years
ago, there's a big spike indownloads for that episode.
Like, it can get 300, you know,even even more, sometimes, you

(44:11):
know, more downloads than that,1,000 downloads per per month
Wow.
Which is a which is a greatnumber of downloads. Wow. But
yeah. So so 90% of the growthhas just been doubling every
year. It's people telling theirfriends.
It's organic. Like, that'sThat's how it's worked. We have
had a couple spikes. The firstspike that we saw was, As

(44:35):
Spotify really got into thespace in a big way and started
getting bigger, we, They alsoare so great, especially
compared to Apple who doesnothing about having podcaster
relations and, you know, Partnermanagement and all that. So we
have great folks at Spotify.
We know lots of people there allthe way up to Daniel Ekman of

(44:57):
great relationships. We know 0people at Apple. 0. So as they
saw that we were you know, hadtraction traction on the
platform, they Featured us acouple times. The Taylor Swift
episode was the first time thatthey cross promoted that episode

(45:18):
to people who listen to TaylorSwift and liked business
podcasts.
Oh, wow. And so we got a nice anice little spike there. It
wasn't wasn't huge, huge, butnice, nice little bump in the
graph. When that happened andthen the, the, but the, we never
had any really, really hugespikes until, interviewing
Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIAand interviewing Charlie Munger

(45:42):
in the past couple months. Thoseepisodes just went, like, Crazy.

Why did you get those in particular?

I think they you know, it's funny because
Both Jensen and and Charlie didlots of other media, did and do
or do and did lots of othermedia. I think there's in both
cases, we had done 3 episodes, 3acquired episodes of Just Me and

(46:12):
Ben on each of those companies.3 on Berkshire, 3 on NVIDIA. So
Ten hours of contentrepresenting hundreds of hours
of research that we'd each done.Yeah.
So when we sat down with the 2of them, you know, Ben and I
talk about this a lot. I don'tthink we don't think we're the

(46:35):
best interviewers in the world,far from it. Many other people
are just much better naturalinterviewers or More practice at
interviewing folks and the like,but nobody else had ever
interviewed either the 2 ofthose people that had done so
much work on the companies. So Ithink they were really special
interviews we were able to dowith people who were just in the

(46:58):
zeitgeist.

I think the other thing, the other factor,
is you've got your fan base thathas been hearing you Fan out
about both of those peopleforever. And so when it finally
happens and it's like, Oh mygosh. My guys are interviewing
their favorite guys. It's likeit they there's a natural like,

(47:21):
I wanted to share it justbecause it's like Look, they
they got their dream. Like, theygot their dream interviews.

And I I think we have a

fan base that is This is one of the beautiful
things about podcasting is thatyour audience often ends up
being your cheerleaders, youknow. And then when you achieve
something great I mean, MarcMaron had this too with the
Obama interview. Anybody thathad been following his story,
And it's just like cheering Markon. Like, you can do it. And and

(47:51):
all of a sudden, it's like he'sgot the president in his garage.
People talked about it becauseYeah. It's like it's almost like
at Thanksgiving, you wanna justshare, like, hey, I gotta tell
you what What happened to mybuddy? It's not really my buddy,
but, you know, it's it's my guy.Like, this happened for him.
With Jensen, you had this Clipthat was

This moment. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Like, could you wanna talk a bit about that?
Like, was that planned or

Sir, no. No. No. Not at all. So at the end of
our interview with Jensen, We asour closing question, Ben and I
thought we were being so clever,so fun.
You know, we knew all about thehistory of how the company was
started. The company wasstarted. Jensen and 2 of his

(48:42):
good friends decided to startthe company over breakfast at
Denny's one day famously in19.93 and, you know, from
Denny's to $1,000,000,000,000company. And so we thought, oh,
this would be really fun. Youknow, Jensen, Imagine Jensen was
30 years old when he started thecompany.
He's 60 now. He's just crazy. Hehe doesn't look 60 years old.

(49:04):
And we said, you know, Jensen,if it were magically if you're
magically 30 years old againtoday in 2023, and you're back
at Denny's With your 2 bestfriends, 2 smartest guys you
know, and you're talking aboutstarting a new company, what is
the company you're talking aboutstarting today? We thought this
So fun.
You know, maybe he'll saybiotech. Maybe he'll say AI. You

(49:24):
know, maybe who knows what he'llsay. And he just looked at us
And said, I wouldn't do it. Andso if you watch the clip or
listen to the episode, I startedlaughing.
Cause I assume he's joking. Likethis is the CEO of the media,
like, but he wasn't joking. Hewas dead serious. And, I said,

(49:47):
you know, I hope we haven'tcreated too much of a problem
for him. I I mean, I don't thinkwe These things are not problems
for for Jensen, but it's createda lot of he's had to deal with
talking about this clip sinceobviously He's glad he started
the company.
Yeah. But what he was trying tosay was This journey is hard.

(50:13):
Like, really hard. That's what

makes it such a great clip. Is it just The it's

just good. Yeah.

It's vulnerable. It's real. It's raw. And it's
human. I think that's the bigpart that resonated with folks.
It's like, okay, wow. You alwayswant like peek on the inside.
And When people actually respondto that with vulnerability, it's
so refreshing sometimes. It'sjust like, okay. And of course,

(50:42):
all of us know, Like, he's proudof what he's done.
Like, you can you know that, butjust having the honesty of like,
listen, this is super, supertough. And I gotta be I I gotta
be honest about it. Yeah. Butthat clip, I saw

that everywhere. Super cool.

Do you remember what brought you to Transistor?
I'm I'm always fascinated whypeople switched. What
precipitated that?

We were with Libsyn for a long time. The OG,
o o g, podcast host. And, we, Iwas trying to remember if it was
before after. It was it wasbefore, but then, ultimately,
you know, the SVB, well, SVB,collapsed, famously in March of

(51:28):
this past year, which was rightaround we were already talking
about transitioning to to youguys. Their ads were still in
those old episodes when theystarted sponsoring.
And, you know, we were like,gosh, like, A lot has changed
since then. Obviously, a lot haschanged since SPV. And to what

(51:50):
we were talking about earlier,our back catalog, our episodes
tend to be evergreen. They'regetting they were now then
getting, you know, a 100000, a150,000, 200000 downloads a
month. Like, this is a we shouldbe selling this inventory.
So we started, process of, hey,we need to switch hosts to a
host that will support us to dodynamic ad insertion in our back

(52:15):
catalog episodes, but in the waythat in, like, the acquired way
to do this. And I can't evenremember if Lipson they probably
have some sort of DAI solution,but it was not what we needed.
And We evaluated every host outthere in the space, including

(52:35):
many of the big ones, One ofwhich may or may not be owned by
Spotify. But, you know, what wefound was at Everyone we talked
to, they either 2 categories. 1,the hosts weren't sophisticated
enough to on the technology sideto do what we wanted, Or they

(52:55):
were just way too bigcomplicated enterprise y and
they were oriented aroundNetworks, networks and agencies.
We don't work with agencies aswe work directly with companies
as our sponsors, And we haveACQ2 as our second show, but
that's we don't have other showsin the network. We don't have

(53:16):
other hosts. We're never gonnabe part of a network. And you
guys are just this incrediblesweet spot for us of you have
great technology. You werewilling to work with us and,
very generously build a lot of,analytics and data that We
needed for our business, whichwe're very, very appreciative

(53:38):
of.
Technology side was fantastic,And you weren't so, like, caught
up in this network world, thatwe could use you in the way that
We wanted to run the acquiredbusiness. So it's been perfect.
We're so so happy with you guys.Wow.

They I I remember I I think I I looked
back. I got an email from DavidSherry, saying hey, you've got
to meet my friend, Ben. And Iwas a fan of the show. And I
remember meeting with you andBen initially and being like,
You know, Transistor is a smallcompany. I just wanna make sure

(54:15):
that you know that, you know,we're small and we're not as
sophisticated, you know, some ofthese dynamic ad insertion
products are very complex andvery sophisticated.
Yep. And, yeah, I was

I was And we were like, great. You are you
are an elite boutique, and weare an elite boutique. And,
like, this is this is a matchmade in

heaven.
That's It's beautiful. I I, andit's interesting actually to
hear the the moment, like, theactual crux was we need to
Remove all these old ads thatare no longer relevant, and we
need to get, you know, somedynamic ad insertion going.

So that was the that was kind of the crux of the
decision. But then, I thinkbeyond that too, even just for
our everyday, you know, currentseason, current episode hosting,
What you guys have what youalready had and then what you've
built for us around theanalytics, immensely helpful.
Ben was doing so much manualwork with our oldest to try and

(55:19):
get to that 180 day, metric thatwe use. I mean, he had lots of
Zapier's apps and spreadsheetsand Google docs and like an
insane amount of stuff that youguys have, not only simplified
for us, but like, we feel a lotbetter about the quality of the
data too. We before, we werealways like, alright.

(55:42):
This is kinda like we know thisis directionally correct. We
think it's as good as we canget, but the precision here is,
Perhaps lacking.

That's wonderful. Well, that's great.
We've we've really enjoyed it'sbeen fun for us because we were
fans beforehand. And so to haveYou come on board and for it to
work out, has been really great.And to just also, Again, your
last 6 months.
Alright. I mean, your last yearhas been so fun And just fun to

(56:17):
watch, I think. Oh, well, thankyou. It

Well, it's it's no coincidence that it coincides
with our Move to transistor iswhen all this great stuff has
been happening.

Yeah. What sorry. What do you mean by that?
Just because you were able tofocus on

Working with you guys really has helped us
focus and, get better analytics,focus on the content, but I
think also Allow us to, youknow, in our sort of marketing
and selling process to oursponsors and our partners, You
know, be a lot more crisp aboutthat. Like, before, whenever

(56:53):
we'd get into discussion aroundanalytics and whatnot, we'd
always be like, well, Ben hasall these spreadsheets and,
like, we're pretty It's right,you know, and it's the best we
can do and now we can be like,no no. We're like very confident
in our data.

You got it. It's solid. That is so great. I
there's a dozen questions thatI'll have to ask you another
time. You've been so generous.
Is there anything that Youhaven't been able to

say that you're like, oh, we should say I've

got I've got something else I should say
about it could be for aspiringpodcasters. It could be
Something about your experiencethat you think is relevant.

Well, actually, I have two thoughts. 1, to
continue The conversation aboutyou guys and Transistor and our
decision process and thenexperience switching over to
you, there's It's related towhat I was saying earlier about
podcasts and podcast advertisingbeing stuck in performance

(57:48):
world, and people notappreciating what the true
Potential and power of this isso much of the tech and the
other hosts, other platforms outthere are built for networks,
And networks are built foraudience scale and for
directions and for like heavyprogrammatic advertising. But

(58:10):
that is not, like, if you thinkabout what the core, elements
and advantages and beautifulparts of the podcast medium is
it's not that. It's the oppositeof that. It's the relationship
between the host and thelisteners.
Yeah. So, And so, like, as Ilook at, like, the podcast that
I admire out there, and I thinkthe ones that are the most
successful and that are thefuture of the industry are not

(58:33):
the mass produced network drivenshows. They're the, you know,
they're the the, Huberman Labs.They're the, Tim Ferris shows.
They're the I mean, call herdaddy's part of Spotify, but,
like, it's it's Mhmm.
Those. It's the boutique,Highly, highly passionate about

(58:53):
their show and their craft. Youknow, it's David Seneret,
founders. It's, you know, it'sall all those folks. So I think,
for you guys, like, Transistoris such a great platform for
that.
You know, for the independentshows that it's, like, The
life's work of the host wherethey aren't employees of some

(59:14):
big network that's churning outtheir 57th show, that a lot of
the other tech in the industryis built for. Like, I hope you
guys are on the precipice of,Yeah. You know, having a lot of
success.

Think we could position ourselves for that.
What what's the Is therepositioning or a headline that
comes to your mind that thatyou'd think about?

Well, it's different in many ways, but I
think about, like, in theventure world, you know,
benchmark versus, like,Andreessen or something like
that. Like, You know, we've doneepisodes on all these, you know,
investment in VCs and investmentfirms. You know, Benchmark is
the elite boutique partnership.There's 5 partners. There's
nobody else.

(59:59):
They're all, like all of theirinvestments, they're very high
touch with the founders. They'reon the board. They're like, you
know, You are it is the, they'relike the Jerry Maguire of VCs.
And then most of the other VCsout there are Big industrial
conglomerates, multistage, many,many, many billions of capital

(01:00:21):
under management. You know,they're the They're the agencies
that Jerry Maguire was leavingwhen he started, you know, in
the in the movie.
And, I I think you guys couldposition as, you know, sort of
that, you know, the benchmarktype approach of We are here to
support, you know, for let'stake a Huberman lab, right?

(01:00:44):
Like, you know, they're aboutique team that are Highly,
highly dedicated to what theydo. They you know, maybe they'll
sell the but I I don't thinkthey'll ever sell the to my
mind, they'll never sell thepot. They're Gonna be a well,
there's, like, 5 people involvedin that. They work super hard.
They care so deeply about whatthey do, And they probably want
a lot of custom really, youknow, stuff, and they're never

(01:01:07):
gonna join

Justin Jackson (01:01:07):
the network.

David Rosenthal (01:01:08):
Never. Yeah. So, like, you guys should be the
perfect platform

for them. That boutique independent show.
That's what I that's what Ithink I'm gonna be thinking
about, is what's the language?How do those shows describe
themselves? Like, you use thisyou use the words independent.
You use the words boutique. Nota network. Not an agency. I

(01:01:33):
Yeah. Yeah.
It'd be interesting to thinkmore

I think cell phones too is a big part of it.
Cell phone, I think, is a bigpart of it. Like, which is
related to not being part of anetwork, but like, you know,
Andrew and his partners in theshow, They own Huberman Lab.
Huberman Lab is not like adivision of, you know, the New
York Times or

something like that. Yeah.

And so thus, all of the Success, all the
audience growth, all thesuccess, all the revenue, that
is money in their pockets. Like,they own the equity value and
the revenue

from that.

And that's just such a powerful driving force
versus if, like, you're anemployee of a network that makes
a show.

You're it's funny because your show is all
Often about these big like,you're you have a venture
capital background but you'reyou're really passionate about
building a bootstrappedBusiness.

Yes. It's it's quite ironic.

Because the yeah. That's the that's the
spirit For sure. Yeah. I'm gonnathink about that. That that's
really wonderful.
Cool.

And I guess the the other thing I'd say of that
is that, like, The potential forthat and for you guys is so big
because it's, you know, a fewyears ago, I think people
thought in this industry of,like, oh, it's be the Gimlets.
It's gonna be the New YorkTimes. It's gonna be the all the
NPR shows that are gonna winand, like, no. No. No.
No. They're losing. Like, TheHuberman Labs are what Yes.

(01:02:56):
Like, you know, they're gonna bethe biggest part of the
industry.

Yeah. You're right. And in that sense, this
is very timely because The thethe headlines right now is that
podcasting is is is, dying orpodcasting is in trouble.
Podcast industry is on fire.And, you know, from our
perspective, we've we've grownevery year that Transistor has

(01:03:21):
been in business since 2018.
And the we still see lots ofpeople that want to start shows,
but they're independent folks.And they have lots of different
motivations. But you're right interms of like it was like the
whole world was betting on bignetworks Yeah. Big shows. Yeah.

(01:03:42):
And even you look at, you know,Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm
Gladwell had a great show. Andthen they Turned it into a
network, like we're gonna makethis into something bigger.

Yep. Yep. And,

and you look at what's happening in YouTube, and
it's, I mean, Mr. Beast is thebiggest example of this. But Mr.
Beast is the independent, oneshow media company. And They
just put everything behind that,you know, that's the all the
wood behind the arrow is justfor that.
And Yep. Not a network. Disneydoesn't own it. There's no, like

(01:04:18):
Yep. There's no investors in it.
It's just an independent mediabrand. And

And the same thing is happening in podcasting
for sure.

I love this idea of the independent media brand.
Like, this is the year 2024 isthe year Of the independent
media brand. That's yeah. That'scool. You know, in our industry,
everybody is always, you know,there's 5000000 podcasts and the
average podcast gets this manydownloads.
And I keep saying, the truth isthe average podcast is actually

(01:04:48):
not that good. Like If most ifmost podcasts are just not very
good or okay, you've you to meare such a great example I'm
saying we are gonna producecontent at this level. We are
gonna take the researchseriously. We're gonna take a
whole month to produce anepisode. You're not on this
treadmill where you have toproduce an episode every day or
every week.

Oh, gosh. Yeah.

You're taking the time to do something that's
exceptional. And in that way,you really are like Hardcore
history, except you actuallypublish every month. You know?
We've yeah.

We do always joke. We love Dan and our core
history. I'm like, yeah. Thisthis is our joke of, like, We
stay motivated to, like, keepworking hard. Dan works hard
too, but, like, we gotta publishat least once a month because
otherwise, like we just we can'twe can't fall into that hole.

But a month a monthly cadence is enough time
to have, to produce a show thatis a very high quality. And the
truth is is that none of likeall of the things we've
discussed, Any sort of marketingtactic or positioning tactic or
advertising tactic wouldn'tmatter if the product Yeah.

(01:05:59):
Wasn't excellent. And I loveyour focus on quality. It really
shows.
And I think that's what's drivenJust year after year, it's just
like we're gonna gain more andmore people because I can
recommend an episode to mybrother with confidence And know
that he's gonna have a goodexperience. You know what I

(01:06:19):
mean? And so yeah.

Well, thank you so much. That's the, that is the
best compliment you could payus, and that's what we we, we
always strive for. And I I guessthat that's the last thing I
would leave the audience withtoo for anybody who Has a
podcast thinking about startinga podcast? Like, the don't 1,
don't let that be a barrier andbe too scared to start because

(01:06:43):
it seems like, oh, well, to havea good podcast, I would need to
dedicate my whole life to it.Like, no.
No. No. No. No. Start small.
We started small. We did alittle to no research for our
first Yes. Episodes. But At thesame time, you can make
something excellent, if youscope down small enough, and

(01:07:03):
then you can, If as you havesuccess, you can expand that
scope one time. And it is muchbetter to make something
excellent than to make somethingnot excellent.

So if

that takes more time, if that takes more effort,
it's what like, always better tomake something excellent.

David, Thanks so much for doing this. We gotta do
it again. Listen.

Thank you.

We gotta catch up again. Yeah. Just real big
fan of what you're doing, And Ican't wait to see what happens
in 2024.

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