February 14, 2024 • 52 mins
In this episode, IndeCollective Alum and Ike Fontaine joins our Head of Community Jan Almasy to share his remarkable evolution from a touring musician to a podcasting and online business expert. Get ready to unlock the secrets of leveraging a niche audience for impactful client acquisition, and peel back the curtain on the networking and content strategy that can transform a single podcast episode into a multi-platform goldmine.
We'll tackle the practicalities and myths surrounding podcast startup—debunking the idea that you need fancy equipment to make waves in the podcasting sea. Whether you're contemplating a podcast launch or transitioning to entrepreneurship, we'll provide the reassurance and actionable advice to help you navigate these waters.
Lastly, we confront the emotional and social dynamics of embarking on an independent path, discussing the deep currents of friendships, the law of attraction, and the ripples of positivity we can all send into the world.
If our conversation leaves you raring to join an IndeCollective cohort or you're just curious about what it entails, learn more at: https://indecollective.co/program/
Follow Us for More Content on:
IG: IndeCollective | Freelance MBA (@indecollective) • Instagram photos and videos
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/indecollec
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome everybody to another episode of the Modern
Independent.
As always, I'm your host, janAlmacy, the head of community
here at Indie Collective, andtoday you are listening to an
episode of the Launchpad.
We have a couple of differentepisode types here at Indie
Collective, one of which is theLaunchpad, the other of which is
called the Seven FigurePlaybook.
In today's episode, you'regoing to be hearing from an
(00:24):
indie alum that is out doingamazing things in the world, and
you're going to hear a littlebit about their journey into
independence and the things thatthey're improving on and
continuing to improve on aftergraduating from the Indie
Collective curriculum as theymove through their independent
career.
Today, I get the chance ofsitting down with one of my
closer friends from the cohort.
We went through cohortstogether and now he is back as
(00:46):
one of our expert guides, mr IkeFontaine.
Ike is a Webby Award-nominatedexecutive producer and the
founder of the podcastaccelerator, through which he
has launched dozens of podcasts,accumulating over 80 million
downloads under his vision andmany of which ranking in the top
10 and top 100 on Applepodcasts.
He's also the founder of FutureMedia, an agency through which
(01:08):
he has partnered with largebrands and entrepreneurs to
develop a modern approach totheir content marketing.
Outside of his podcasting work,he is an active songwriter and
enjoys spending time in thewater surfing in Southern
California.
Ike.
Welcome to the modern,independent Hello.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Jan.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
How's it going?
I'm good man, I'm good, so Ialways like to start these off
very simply and kind of justgive the good people on the
other side of the headphonesthat are listening right now a
little bit of a background ofwho you are, where you're from
and how did you get started inyour independent career.
(01:45):
What was that leap like intobecoming an entrepreneur,
freelancer, independent,whatever you want to call it?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Totally there wasn't much of a leap.
I was always someone who kindof actually walked a different
path so I never traditionallyhad like a nine to five or was
employed by some largercorporations.
So I grew up in Boston and grewup in a very entrepreneurial
type family.
My father was a contractor,electrician farmer, my mom was a
(02:15):
scientist and I had to figurethings out on my own basically
and we you know veryentrepreneurial from a very
young age, working with my dadand his various pursuits, and
that just kind of launches meinto a career of music.
So as a on a record label,touring recording artists at 18,
and that went for about 10years and during when I was on
(02:39):
the road as an artist you knowwe had all this downtime in
between shows my always wantingto find like you know, I have
all these ideas and so I startedraising money for applications
and some advertising ideas andthat kind of led into eventually
(02:59):
like finding this VA companythat employed like people to
work for other, basically placedVA's in other businesses and
they had like this marketplacefor it and that was like a kind
of like a big break into theindependent world because I
didn't even know that likeindependent working or like this
(03:20):
was like before remote workingwas even.
It was kind of like not even athing.
Yet I would say like 20, 2010,2011, 2012.
And that was really the placewhere I got into this one
business and they saw I'm on theroad and like during our
downtime, like I'm quiteliterally like hopping on calls
(03:41):
with clients and like buildingemail campaigns, building
websites, building funnels,figuring out software,
infrastructure and basically thewhole through line was like how
do you grow a business onlinewas the whole thing.
And I'm like wow, okay, this isa crazy world.
One thing leads to another and,you know, just start working
with more and more clients.
You know I rise in the ranks atthis company and then, kind of
(04:05):
along the way, I realize, youknow, I love working for myself,
I love, you know, kind ofhaving autonomy and getting to
work on what I like to work on.
So I guess that's really wheremy independent journey kind of,
I guess, really blossomed.
I was always kind of on thisindependent journey, but that's
where it was kind of like wait asecond, I can do this full time
almost and I can continue allof my music and I can still make
(04:29):
this whole other like careerwork in the same time.
And then one thing leads toanother.
I started video marketingcompany, I started another, the
agency, and you know, podcastingstarted to be this thing.
That was like really churningin the background.
So I started just going more,all in and more all in on
(04:49):
helping businesses essentiallybuild client acquisition systems
through podcasting.
And that leads me to where I amtoday, talking with you at
future media.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah, I was going to ask like it sounds like
podcasting actually entered thepicture after a little bit of
iteration, like you were alreadyin the space.
You're kind of playing aroundhelping people grow to start out
with with you having your ownshow and playing around with
that first, or was it?
Clients started approaching youorganically and said this
(05:20):
podcasting thing is like reallycatching our eye, can you help
us get into this?
And then you just learned itbased on demand that was coming
in.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
And I was like I'm going to add a ladder.
I just got lucky.
You know, there are all theseclients that already had
podcasts and they're like wewant to make this better.
And I was like, oh well, Iunderstand marketing, I
understand content, I understandsystems, I understand, you know
, like sales and all this andgrowth, and I was like, okay,
cool, let me, yeah, let me start, let me start trying it out.
So, yeah, it was really justkind of like school of hard
(05:51):
knocks, just like startedworking on these podcasts and,
you know, had some success here,had some success here, and that
leads to the next thing.
And then it just starts tosnowball.
And I recognized, you know, atthe, at the heels of like a
growing podcast movement.
I was like, wait a second,there's more and more people who
are wanting to do this.
And then I started looking intothe numbers.
(06:12):
I started looking into, youknow, audience growth and like
just people who are creatingpodcasts and the number of
podcasts that are gettingcreated compared to other
platforms.
And I was like, wait a second,there's like a, there's like an
exponential curve that'sstarting to happen.
So that was, that was adefining moment where I was like
, yeah, now I'm going to juststart going in more and more.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Do you, do you have any of those numbers kind of
ballpark numbers off like thetop of the head just for people
to get a little bit of contextof how how many people are
actually in the podcast thesedays?
You're consuming that info.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yeah, I can speak to it from a to to perspective.
So, in terms of the number ofcreator accounts or shows, right
, like you have a podcast, thereare around 5 million on the
index.
Now, the important piece hereis that that's a total count.
So there's there's actuallymore like 2 million active shows
(07:04):
and the rest of them areinactive, dead.
People just thought they'dstart a podcast and not really
serious.
Like I call it the competitiveset.
There are around 2 millionactive competitive shows that
are uploading every single monthlike building, kind of like
doing it seriously.
The context is that you knowthere's 60 million active
(07:27):
YouTube creator accounts.
So, like, in comparison to likeother long format platforms,
like it's it's still early days,but it's a, you know, in 2019,
there were only about 600,000shows on the index.
So it's grown considerably justin a matter of a few years and
(07:50):
we're going to reach over justover half a billion listeners by
the end of this year and that'sup about 100 million.
So the amount of what's moreimportant is like the people who
are coming to consume, right,so there's actually it's really
interesting there.
The subsets of those people arejust like their college
(08:11):
educated, they have money.
They listen to more podcaststhan Netflix or HBO.
So they're the rabid listeners,rather consumers.
So it's it's interesting,definitely an interesting space.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
I think that's important for people to kind of
keep an eye on, because I hearall the time like oh, yeah, I
don't want to get intopodcasting because it's already
saturated or anything else.
And I did you say 60 millionYouTube accounts?
That was the 60 around there.
60 million, yeah, and then to 2million for the podcast.
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, so thinkof that arbitrage there, like
that, that gap between 2 millionand 60 million, and then also
(08:45):
the difference between and thisis a good lesson for anybody in
content or anybody that'slooking to put out, you know,
marketing material always try tolook for those platforms that
have a high gap between thecreator and the consumers, like
the number of consumers and thenumber of creators, right, and
that's why it's beneficial tolike catch some social platforms
(09:06):
earlier on and you see thesepeople rise to massive morality
because there's only 500creators on the platform at the
time and there's 10,000 peopleconsuming.
Then you have a higher chanceof your stuff entering the
algorithm.
Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada.
But think in your head mentally2 million active shows and 500
million listeners by the end ofthe year, that is a huge, huge
(09:29):
amount of listenership that youcould access.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
It's very exciting.
And then, even when we start togo into the benefits of, you
know you don't even need tobuild shows for a popularity.
Now you can build shows thatcan quite literally be sales
funnels, and it's that's whatgets also exciting.
So you can not only have asales ecosystem for closing more
clients, but then you have anentire content marketing
strategy and system around you,right, and all you have to do is
(09:59):
hop on a hop on a call with,with, with someone and record
all that content and then itturns into all this other stuff.
So it's like the.
I really started to see thepower of it Early on, when I was
like, wait a second, you couldjust do one thing and I could
feed everything else that you'redoing while having sales calls
with people.
I was like, okay, this might beworth the worth the energy,
(10:20):
right, right.
I'm glad that I stuck with it.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Well, and I love a lot of the things that I love
about the way that youarticulate podcasts and the
session that you teach inside ofthe indie collective cohort now
, and and just I mean theconversations that we've had
around operationalizing thepodcasting space, right, I think
that that's one of the reallyunique things that you're able
to bring to the table because ofyour background and kind of
rising up through the school ofhard knocks and having to be
(10:44):
that jack of all trades for aperiod of time, is you don't
look at podcast as strictly a PRthing, right, like this is a
part of a sales plan.
This can be a part of a salesstrategy.
Over archingly are there.
I guess this is a perfect timeto kind of get into, like some
of those benefits of podcastingin the different ways that it
can be used.
What are some of the mostcommon things that you come
(11:06):
across?
Or the when, when you'rebuilding out shows for people,
what are they?
What are they using for mostoften?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
to clarify what are they using in terms of the
strategy Like what's working orthe operational?
Are they kind of theoperational system side of that,
like?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
I guess the we can start with like the overarching
strategy, like why do they wantpodcasts, and then the
operations behind, like makingthose shows successful.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Yeah, I've kind of gone through all these
iterations of things that havebeen working and but iterating
on upon things that were like,okay, we could see better
improvement here, and Ibasically have gotten to a place
where you know you can build ashow that is one of your main
(11:50):
prospecting client acquisitionstrategies.
So essentially the concept islike hey, you build a show that
is centered around a mission foryour ideal prospects in the
world and what you do is you'reactually looking for your ideal
prospects, experience in theirindustry or niche, and you want
to highlight them because yourmission is to actually help
(12:11):
everyone in that space be better, you know, excellent and so
forth.
I'm just I'm kind of likecoloring with a very broad brush
now.
But the whole concept is whenyou marry that type of show
format with an outreach systemwe build outreach systems
through like LinkedIn now, sothe software system for that.
But when you tie that alltogether and you build an
(12:34):
environment for your idealprospects and you invite them
into a warm environment, itexponentially increases your
likelihood of conversion,because you're not doing cold
outreach, you're not doing somesort of cold knock or cold call.
It's actually more about themthan it is about you positioning
yourself in a place where youcan have a very nice
(12:55):
conversation and I find that 80%of the time guests that come on
my client podcast you know theyask about you, know how the
host can actually help them inthe world.
So it's a very easy way of notonly growing your authority and
influence and growing yournetwork generally, but it's just
putting yourself in consistentand rinse and repeat method of
(13:19):
talking to prospects and gettingthem into your funnel.
So that's like that's thestrategy that I'm seeing, just
like hit every single time now,and it's not like this mass
audience play.
It's actually a hyper targetedplay, just speaking to your
prospects.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah, I want to double click on that and drive
that home for anybody that'slistening.
A lot of times and I hear thisa lot from people that are
talking about starting podcastsall the time the temptation is
there to think I need to shootfor popularity, because I think
part of it is just we've been inthis ecosystem of looking at
(14:00):
people.
You know 100,000 followers,500,000 followers you know
you're not a macro influencer,you can't get brand deals unless
you have 50,000 IG followerswhatever, and that kind of that
mentality is like almost leakedinto other areas of life.
Right, I see people with emaillists and everything right.
I'm like you don't need it.
(14:20):
You don't need a 50,000 personemail list If you have 100
people on your email list andeach of them is an advocate for
your business and you'reconstantly keeping them updated.
Same thing with the podcastright, like you don't have to be
.
Actually, I would argue thatyou.
The advantage is not trying tobe a show for everyone.
People feel like they're a partof something special or they're
(14:41):
learning something, if theyfeel heard, spoken to and it's
like very directed towards them.
So I love the way that youframed that, where it's like
we're speaking to the experienceof the customer in the industry
and we're giving them advicebecause our mission is to, you
know, raise up the industry,yeah exactly, I love that
(15:01):
industry.
Yeah, yeah, I love that.
So have there been anyorganizations or like projects
that you've worked on thatyou've been like this was really
cool, like I really enjoyedgetting the chance to work on
this that you can talk about onthe show, I guess.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, there's a couple of parties that I can't
talk about right now that arevery exciting, but I can talk
about them maybe in the future.
I would say, as of recentlythere was a few consultation
style shows that have done along show with J Abraham and
(15:39):
Nixon.
Umber is called the OptimizedPodcast, so that one's really
cool, just because the nature ofthe show is kind of like
envisioned Shark Tank but forlike a live consultation call.
So 50 million plus businesseswill guest to be on the show to
basically have an hourconversation with J and Nick
where they will basically takethe one big Donovan.
(16:02):
Oh that the guests are theirissue.
Basically, they come to theshow with one issue.
We have a whole pre intakesequence to it and before the
guests even get on the show weessentially know all of their
issues in their business andthen, like the call is all about
just solving for that issue andthe type of content that you
(16:23):
can create when you just know somuch about the targeted issue
and the value that that persongets.
I'm really just elevating whythe system works so well.
But I was.
It was very exciting to like dothat iteration because it was
just so Shark Tanky.
It's just like they get on.
It's like the hard picture, thechallenge, exactly what they're
doing, great Hear, all thesolutions and I just like bam,
(16:45):
bam, bam bam.
So that was just that was.
I guess there's a lot ofdifferent shows that were
exciting, but that one inparticular I just like liked the
vibe of it.
It was just kind of like it wasa fun one.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, that sounds really, really cool.
I mean, and I think that that'sa unique way to look at it,
that you know, a podcast doesn'tjust need to be you monologuing
about something and it doesn'tjust need to be you recruiting
guests, right, like that was adifferent type of application.
This is like a, like a console,a live console, yeah exactly.
(17:20):
You're just a live console andthen you can repurpose that into
, you know, the podcast itself.
And one other thing that I findinteresting, that I think
you're really, really apt at, oryou found a really good way to
maximize, is that if you'rethinking about podcasting and
you think that the long formpodcast is the only piece of
(17:41):
content that you're going to getout of that, you're sorely
mistaken.
So what are like, what are someof the things that, like, after
that whole episode is created,what happens then?
Is it is that able to turn intoadditional assets outside of
the long form podcast?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah, right on, of course.
Um, yeah, we.
So the systems that we buildfor clients essentially can turn
one episode into around two anda half weeks worth of content.
That is short, mid, long formatvideo content for wide and
vertical based ecosystems.
It's text campaigns, it's emailcampaigns, blog articles and
(18:24):
website content.
So it's like an entire diversemap.
Um, there's a strategy to howwe go about doing that and how
we actually train producers andand I mean we do this at our
agency for people, but we alsotrain producers to to run these
types of systems Um, and it'sjust.
It's just how you can not onlyarchitect how the conversation
(18:45):
happens.
So we were just talking aboutlike the live consult vibe.
So now that we have a reallygood idea of like great the, the
one number one problem in allthe context around someone's
business, and we know how thatconversation is going to run, we
can actually create a blueprintor a template or a format for
how you go about extrapolatingthe different types of content
from that, right?
So what kind of reactions, whattype of questions, what type of
(19:09):
leading questions, what type ofum interactions that can happen
, and how you can pull those out, but then also look at all of
those interactions as apotential sales narrative.
So, like sure, you can justhave a clip that you like and
you can post that.
But what do 10 clips look like?
And how do you align them?
In a way, so it just speaks to a, a mission, it speaks to a
(19:32):
community, it speaks tosomething that someone wants, a
pain point that someone wants toto solve.
So, uh, you can create these,you can create these podcast
systems that that just kind ofdeal with such a huge pain point
in the majority of a lot ofcoaches, consultants and small
to medium sized businesses.
Um, uh, you know, when they sitdown every day, they're like,
(19:55):
wow, I can't solve this problem,for, like, how do I actually
create content, how do Iactually grow an audience, how
do I actually speak to my idealcustomer in the right way
without spending all the time inthe world?
And that's why talking to yourprospects on a podcast is one of
the best, one of the bestoptions, cause not only can you
actually drive sales engagements, but then you can create all
the targeted narrative that youneed to actually do.
(20:17):
The other uh quotients in thebusiness.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I also want to say too, like,if you, um, you know, if you're
just thinking about gettingstarted, and like, why is
starting a podcast?
Okay, all the content is great,and, like, you know, how am I,
um, I can pull all of thattogether and that's going to
create multiple weeks of content.
I'm going to have this machineand everything like that.
(20:41):
I know, when I first startedout podcasting, um, there was a
piece of it that I was reallysurprising to me, and it's the
ability to get into the room orhave conversations with people
that, like, were so far out ofmy network that, like, I had no
business having the opportunityto actually talk to this person.
(21:01):
You know, like I'm coming.
One of the things that's comingto mind is one of our first
longterm contracts.
I actually saw a Netflixdocumentary, was fascinated by
it.
E, like found the email for theperson that was featured in the
documentary, reached out tothat person's PR group, and the
PR group was like, yeah,absolutely, we'd love to book
you, you know, to have to havethis person on your podcast.
(21:24):
So the next thing I know I'm onthe show as a 20, how old was I
?
22, 22, 23 year old, like justlike I had just discovered Gary
Vaynerchuk, like the year prior,like I'm just starting, like
I'm going to be in a marketingfirm.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
And.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
I'm on the phone with this CEO of this biotech
company out of San Fran I livein Ohio and it was all because I
had a podcast and I was like,do you want to be interviewed on
the show?
You know, and I didn't realizelike what weight that actually
carried and the type of networkthat it allows you to access,
when you can just say, hey, I'dlove to have you on my show.
And then they spent that hour.
(22:01):
We spent that hour reallygetting to know each other and
you know me asking him in depthquestions, and we had the
meeting before the show to kindof discuss like what the
business was and what the goalsof the podcast were going to be.
And everything he emails meafter the podcast is like that
was great, I had a fantastictime.
Can I pay you to interview therest of my staff?
So, like, of course, and thenit kind of continued to grow
(22:23):
from there.
So that's one of the things Iwant to double click on too is
like, you know, it's the contentand the self promotion and all
that stuff is great once yougain the momentum and you
actually have everything figuredout.
But even before you start togain that momentum, or you have
services or you have clientsthat you're trying to you know
gain before you even know thatjust having the show allows you
to network so far beyond whatyou would be able to if you were
(22:45):
just cold deeming people online.
Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
I love that story, by the way.
That's a.
That's a great, that's a goodone.
Yeah, I mean the not analogy,but the way that you can
visualize this is let's say, youhave a group of people that are
all standing in a white roomand all these individuals you
know you don't really know whothese individuals are and like,
let's say, you're one of thoseindividuals and you need to
(23:10):
differentiate yourself.
You want to attract attentionto yourself.
What do you do?
And a podcast is kind of one ofthose things.
It's kind of like putting on abig hat and then you look at
these people in a room andyou're like whoa, that one
person's wearing a hat.
It's a really bad analogy, butwhen you quite literally build a
platform and you put yourselfout there as an authority figure
(23:33):
and you want to haveconversations and to improve the
world and improve a community,improve yourself, improve other
people, like that quiteliterally separates you and
elevates you from other people.
Not everyone can do this.
Not everyone.
Actually, everyone can do it.
Yes, it's whether they want tochoose to do it or not, right If
they want to elevate themselvesand attract some sort of energy
(23:56):
to them, like they need to dosomething different than other
people.
So what are you going to do?
And there's a lot of differentthings you can do.
We could talk about so manydifferent options, but
podcasting is kind of like oneof those things.
But in the professionalnetworking world and in the B2B
world and kind of almost in theB2C world, like when you're able
to, I'm only going to talkabout a podcast, I'm just going
to talk about when you were ableto build a platform to have a
(24:17):
conversation, so to bring peoplein, to highlight a community
element or our mission to helppeople in the world.
Like that differentiates youfrom everyone else.
And then it puts thatindividual in their cloud and
their authority right next toyou.
And what happens to yourauthority and your influence?
Boom, you just click up anotherlevel.
So it just rins and repeat andyou keep doing that.
It kind of you can.
(24:38):
You can see how thatextrapolated, regardless if you
have, if you have audience, likethat doesn't matter and it
doesn't matter if you have anaudience, like it matters the
activity of doing it.
I always like talking about,like a, the three quadrants of a
business.
There's attraction, conversionand retention.
Right, like a podcast can hitall three, but most importantly,
(24:58):
as, like independence or acoach, a consultant or a small
and medium size business owner,like we spend the majority of
our time probably on attractiontype activities, like getting
attention to us, getting clientsfiguring that thing out
Everything really allows you tofocus on the attraction.
Like double down your energy,right, cause we all will spend I
(25:20):
don't know how many hours aweek, right.
I usually say like you'llprobably spend six hours a week
in attraction type activities,either hopping on prospecting
calls or sales calls, on email,doing email, cold calling, cold
emailing, whatever it might be,and those types of activities.
Like if you just took apercentage of that time and you
just literally ask the peoplethat you want to network with to
(25:40):
come into an environment andyou can activate those people to
help grow your brand and yourbusiness and your authority, it
just it wins.
Like I don't know how toexplain it.
It's a, it's definitely.
It's definitely an exciting,exciting strategy.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Yeah, yeah, Agreed.
I mean, we see it all the timewith the modern independent.
I mean I think that themajority of people that I've had
office hours with this cohorthave mentioned the fact that
they like discovered us becauseof a referral from a friend, and
there's not many of them thatbring up like oh, I went to your
website and I was like browsingthrough that for hours or
(26:20):
whatever but, consistently I'vebeen like I've listened to five
episodes of the modernindependent and now I'm here.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
We live in a world with humans.
What do humans like to do?
Humans like to talk to eachother and interact with each
other.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Right.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, so it's like if you can just do more of that,
you'll be good.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Yeah, and they like to talk about themselves and
like, if you can hold space forsomebody to be proud of what
they've accomplished and likefeel really excited about things
, I mean that it just turns intoamazing content.
That relationship gets deeper.
We can talk about all of thosebenefits probably all day.
It's just it is something thatis truly amazing, and I like
what you mentioned, though, too.
(27:00):
Like you know, if you'relistening to this and you're
like I could never do a podcast,like there's no way I could
ever do that, like, like I wasmentioning, it's not so much
about everybody should be apodcaster, because not everybody
should be a podcaster, thatwould be.
You know that that's just notfeasible.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Everyone can't be a podcaster, Right?
Speaker 1 (27:18):
right, and but also, everybody can't be a YouTuber,
everybody can't be a greatblogger, everybody can, you know
, like, find the medium that youfeel the most comfortable with,
the most called to, and thencommit to that medium.
Yeah, and consistently put outyou put yourself out there, put
out content and ratchet thatstuff up one by one.
The same, the same idea asbringing somebody on a show as a
(27:40):
guest for an interview youcould have as a blog and say,
hey, would you be willing to bea guest blogger on my feed?
You know, or can I write anarticle about you?
Can I interview you for half anhour?
You know, and highlight yourbusiness is the same type of
principle and it makes it somuch easier to have those
initial conversations withpeople if you're not in their
LinkedIn DMs or in their coldemail or your cold emailing them
(28:03):
saying I'm so and so and I wantto sell you X, y and Z product.
If, if that conversationswitches from like that cold
email and sale to hi, my name'sso and so, I've really enjoyed
like X, y and Z thing that youdo I would love to highlight you
in insert interview or blogarticle or whatever like.
Would you be willing to have ahalf hour conversation.
(28:24):
Totally different ballgame,yeah.
Totally different ballgame,yeah.
So one thing that we talk aboutall the time inside of.
Well, I guess, actually, let meback up before I ask that
question.
So how did, how did you end updiscovering indie?
Was it?
Were you like a referral from afriend, did you?
Speaker 2 (28:45):
find us.
Yeah.
Shout out to Amory Elmary hey.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
And what I don't remember what were you 2021?
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Oh man, it's hard.
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Might have been fall 2021.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
I feel like yeah, I think it's yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Because I think we were, you were in one of the
same cohorts when we both wentthrough yeah, what was you know
going through that 10 weekprocess and like having to kind
of look at things in chunks andanything like that.
Is there anything that youremember like taking away from
that first cohort where you'relike okay, this like changed the
(29:24):
way that I'm approaching things?
Or was it the community thatyou felt was like the most
valuable portion of it?
Or like what was that first,that first indie collective
experience, like for you?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Well, the experience overall was amazing.
I ended up leaving indiecollective and launching
something I was wanting to dofor a long time and it was
incredibly successful right outof the gate and continues to be
to that day to today, which ismy, my group coaching
environment and I think justbeing in an environment with a
(29:55):
bunch of people who it's justyou can just do this iteration
thing within any, any collectiveand I think, like the A teams
are one of the most valuablethings that I personally
experience and there's valueeverywhere.
But, like, if there's one thingthat I had to pinpoint, it was
this kind of having anenvironment to see what other
people were doing but hear abouthow they were working through,
how they were solving problems,and I think I just let the fire
(30:16):
under my ass just to like do it,because I was around a bunch of
people who are just doing itand I think it's a big testament
to you know your community andwho you put yourself around.
So big, big props for indiecollective because I was like I
was able to look at so manydifferent aspects of being an
(30:37):
independent worker or buildingyour own consultancy or working
for yourself and all thesedifferent iterations of what
people were doing and all thisgreat information and then
actually having actually gettingto like apply the things that I
wanted to do in real time withpeople who are very supportive
and also moving and shaking wasjust in an amazing is a great,
great and a great energy.
(30:59):
And so if there's someone who,like, hasn't been through any
collective yet and they might beon the fence like I would
highly, I would highly recommendto take the plunge, because at
first I was like with anyinvestment, I was like hesitant
and just because it's things arerisky and you know we're we're
risk adverse creature and weknow we don't want to make a
change and like, is it reallygoing to do something?
(31:20):
You know, like all those likevoices but like community is
probably one of the bestinvestments you can ever make in
your life and any collectivegave that to me and gave me the
space to long to the nextiteration of what I was doing.
So big props.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
And so above, I've been hearing it more and more
that you know the education is,I will, the curriculum is great,
you know, by all means, likethose, there's a lot of I
remember going through my firstcohort.
There's a lot of.
You know terms that you mightbe hearing for the first time,
and so ideas like we I like tosay that we break your brain
(31:58):
into a million puzzle pieces inthe first three weeks.
Right, like designing forindependence.
Ask yourself questions that youmay not have asked yourself
before.
You know, shoot, say things outloud, say goals out loud that
previously you know like thoseare.
That's the place, the headspacethat we put you in the first
couple of weeks.
And then it's okay, get thatheadspace, we see where you're
(32:20):
at.
Let's start to get tactical.
How do you, how are youactually doing this?
And then take you and put youinto small groups where you're
like okay, now we're that, we'relearning the tactics, let's
start actually implementingthose things.
And and I felt that verypersonally and I hear it over
and over again inside of theoffice hours that once they make
it to that week four, week five, mark you know they've met
(32:41):
their a teams they're going to,they have the foundation pieces
at that point and they're justkind of I like to say they're
just kind of pulling on stuffright, like things are just
moving around in their brain orconnecting puzzle pieces.
The momentum really starts toshift and you really have almost
like collective permission froma bunch of people that you're
not as crazy as you might thinkyou are and the things that
you're trying to build areactually more possible than you
(33:05):
might imagine Do it.
You can do it.
Yeah, yeah, when, when you'relike a teams and stuff like that
, do you do you stillcommunicate with anybody from
the cohort like on a regularbasis, or is it kind of like,
whenever I have the opportunity,I'm hanging out with people?
Speaker 2 (33:25):
I'm still literally in a text group with my first
day team.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Really, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
And I meet and I meet up with.
There's someone locally herewho went through my second
cohort and we meet up every nowand then.
We talk, you know, on socialmedia every now and then and
like we're, yeah, so, but myfirst cohort were actually
always, always communicating,yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Yeah, I love that I'm also in the same boat, like I
meet with my 18 probably.
I think we told we tellourselves that we try to meet
together like once once a month,but it ends up being more like
once a quarter that we actuallyget the chance to sit down.
But it's kind of it's funnyit's we always kind of joke
inside of our email thread thatit's like it's a positive,
because two years ago we wereable to meet every month and now
(34:11):
everybody is doing so muchstuff that we're like oh, like,
we need to probably just meetonce a quarter so that we can
catch everybody up.
Yeah, because it's goodproblems to have.
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, agreed.
What like if somebody were toget started?
I know that one thing thatalmost everybody gets hung up on
(34:32):
is like equipment or you knowthings of that nature when it
comes to starting a pod or likegetting stuff.
Is there like a bare minimum,like supplies that you would
want to advocate for somebody totry out or have before they
dive into it?
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Quite literally what we're using right now.
We're using squadcast or Dscript now, in a sense, d script
acquired squadcast, right, soyeah.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
A couple weeks ago, or actually probably about a
month over the summer.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
And that's all you need.
You need a microphone of somecapacity, a computer and an
internet connection.
I used to I mean I've donepodcasts on every, on every
iteration of what it is.
I still run podcasts a day thatare incredibly high production
value.
You know, our hosts go intostudios in a very professional
recording studios, all the waydown to the systems that I build
(35:30):
now with clients which areincredibly fluid, easy to set up
, easy to execute.
We live in a world now where,like, technology is increased to
a place where I've been doingthis long enough to like be like
holy crap, wow, this is a lotharder and now it's like very
easy.
So, yeah, I mean the barebasics is like, honestly, I
(35:53):
always recommend people to getlike a nice USB microphone, but
you don't even need that, soit's like just your computer.
If you have a modern computer,your computer has a pretty good
microphone on it.
Now, let's say that I'm totallyadvocating for that, but you
can totally get it done with it.
Get a, you know, get a good webbased podcast studio, virtual
studio, like squadcast Riverside, and you are, you know, 80% of
(36:16):
the way there.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Yeah, I think that that is so, on point, I think
that a lot of the conversationsthat I have with people that
struggle with the idea ofstarting a podcast is because
they're they think that the tech, or like you need an audio
interface and a SM7B microphoneand you know all this other kind
of stuff and it's okay, maybein 2015.
I mean, and not even then, youdon't need that SM7B, but you're
(36:40):
still trying to edit usingstuff like you know, audacity or
logic, or garage band orwhatever.
Now, a lot of these virtualstudios like squadcast, for I
know for a fact partnered withDolby Audio, and they record
high fidelity audio right insideof the virtual studio.
Yeah, I'll note separate tracksand d-script allows you to edit
a lot of this stuff rightinside of the platform.
(37:01):
I mean, it is.
It is bonkers, how simple it isnow to actually get something
off the ground.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Yeah, I quote literally everything's now is
becoming integrated and seamless, so you an all-in-one platform
to do everything that you need.
You know I, you know I'm asinger-songwriter, musician.
I got a cabinet behind me foranyone walks in the video and
I've got about 13 microphones inthere.
Um, like, I have all the themicrophones under the Sun and,
honestly, like I don't end upusing any of them because it
(37:28):
doesn't really matter.
Obviously, you know themicrophone that I use every
single day is a, is a MV7, bysure.
It's what I'm, what you hear meon right now, which is like the
workhorse.
It just I do use it foreverything now, which is amazing
.
But like you just don't needfancy stuff to get things done
and I've tried everything.
It doesn't matter.
(37:49):
What matters is your intention,the mission, who you want to
talk to, how you talk to them,and that human to human
interaction right, like that'sjust most important.
People get hung up on all thetechnical, you know stuff, but
it's just like that's not,that's not that it's not right,
that's easy.
There's no excuse there now.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Right, right one that's and hopefully, if you're
listening to this and you'vebeen on the fence about starting
a podcast for a while, it'sreassuring, is?
It's just way simpler to enterthe market.
And and I Love the fact becauseI still do all of our editing
for the podcast and we record.
We record we try for weekly.
Sometimes it ends up beingbi-weekly if we're super busy,
(38:30):
like this past week we didn'trelease an episode because I was
super sick.
But I just record them and editthem live to keep things
current.
No, I don't edit them live but,like you know, same day.
Yeah, in the past I would haveto drop it in and out of two or
three different softwares.
You know one's cutting one'snoise, canceling, removal the
(38:50):
other one's really good at liketrimming Peaks and stuff like
that in the audio.
Right now I have all that indescript and now it's all in one
place and I click one buttonand it's to the point now where,
like it's all in descript andthen I put it into buzz sprout
For hosting and they haveco-host AI as a feature inside
of buzz sprout.
Now it comes up with my titlesfor me, gives me a draft of the
(39:11):
description, like the whole nine.
It's literally.
It is so nice Having it all inone place and I think all of
that together is under 60 bucksa month for the script and buzz
sprout and the AI that helps.
So, yeah, super, super easyaccess.
Okay, as we we start to get intothe the the last you know 10 or
(39:36):
so minutes here I'm wonderingIf you were.
I know we've been kind oftalking about advice all the way
throughout the show, but if, ifsomebody were on the fence
about going independent itdoesn't necessarily have to do
with podcasting, it can.
But if somebody were on thefence about going independent
and you had to go back and likegive yourself some pieces of
(39:57):
advice earlier on inside of yourprocess or your career, is
there something that you wouldeither tell yourself that you
know you're putting too muchemphasis on this, it doesn't
actually matter that much or,hey, you know, try this out, or
do this earlier Are there?
Is there something like a pieceof advice for somebody that's
kind of in that place?
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Yeah, I, I think the way that I look at it would be
just get really clear on thetype of lifestyle that you want
to live and the values that youhave in your life and, like, I
think the thing that attractedme to I don't say that I was
attracted, it was just kind oflike always, I was always like
an independent person but thething, the reason why, is
(40:37):
because I, you know, freedom isa Number one value, but freedom
not in the way that you don'thave responsibilities or
Relationships or anything butfreedom, and the aspect that I
have freedom of time andlocation.
You know I can work anywhere Iwant for the most part, and I
have no ceiling above me.
I have an untapped earningpotential and that is incredibly
(41:02):
Attractive and the reason why Ireally did what I was doing.
Now, if I'm speaking to someonewho is trying to make that
decision to to go from one thingto another, I'm sure it feels a
little scary, I could imagine,because you're doing something
that feels somewhat safe andthis other thing might not feel
safe.
I have a lot of friends thatcome to me who Ask me about my
(41:25):
journey because they see that Iown my own companies and that
I'm doing my own thing, and youknow they are very attracted to
that and I always kind ofrecommend them like, hey, don't
quit your day job.
Like, don't do that yet.
Like literally slowly start tobuild Something that works on
the side.
Like literally slowly Put,don't stop partying every
(41:47):
weekend, stop investing yourtime or things with people that
aren't really an asset to you,right?
I like to look at people whoare, like you know, assets or
liabilities, like and like justbe very careful with who you
spend your time around.
And I'm saying don't havefriends, I'm just saying just be
like smart, like if you want tochange your reality, like you
(42:07):
have to now start investing insomething that's gonna like do
that.
It's just slowly build that.
Be very conscious of your time,invest in yourself, especially
spiritually and emotionally,because you know, trust me,
going independent, full-time andworking for yourself like
you're gonna be Challing.
So you better be.
You better be strong in someway, you know In some ways and
be able to deal with the ups anddowns of like working for
(42:28):
yourself and having that type ofresponsibility.
But what's great is build thatside hustle, keep doing, get one
client doing that one thingright, get that process rinsed
and repeated down so you reallyunderstand how you can then get
another client and then anotherclient, and then another client
and then all of a sudden you'llstart to realize wait a second,
I'm making more money over herethan I am my, my, my day job.
(42:48):
I guess now I can sunset thisand I'll put in my notice or
I'll figure out what the nextplan might be.
Hopefully that was helpful.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Yeah, no, I definitely think it is, because
I think when you're on thatfence, I definitely agree that
it is scary and I also reallyempathize.
I actually was just having aconversation with a buddy of
mine the other day where we weretalking about graduating friend
groups and how we've bothexperienced in our lives he's
(43:21):
also an entrepreneur and we raninto each other at our 10 year
high school reunion and we weretalking about, you know, the
difference between how we feelas entrepreneurs versus running
into all of our old friends youknow from high school, and the
different life, the differencein between the lives that we
built over the last decade.
And me and him were really Kindof clicking on the fact that it
(43:43):
feels like to us that we've hadto graduate multiple friend
groups along the journey andthat it's not that we, you know,
chose.
Okay, you know you mentionedasset liability.
It's not like we consciouslywere like you are a liability,
like I'm not hanging out withyou.
It's just when we changed ourhabits, when we changed our
motion, when we changed ourvision, you outgrown the
(44:04):
pathways.
Yeah, the pathways justdiverged and it's like I'm not,
you know, I there's.
There are some people that I dohave a little bit of a
vindictive reason for the reasonwhy they're not in my life
anymore.
But the majority of people thatwas not like this.
You know eruption and then allof a sudden they're not in my
life anymore.
It was this, it was this, thisdrifting apart.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
It's, it's everyone's .
It's like back to, it's likethe spirit, spirituality side of
it is like everyone's on theirown growth path, and sometimes
growth paths.
You know you are up, levelingand upgrading at a rate which
you are finding your value,you're finding your calling,
you're finding your path, you'refinding what makes you happy,
what makes you turned on in theworld and when that value system
(44:46):
doesn't align with somebodyelse, it's just.
It's kind of like this on thisunspoken thing where you're like
it just it's, it happens sonaturally that you're like
you're not going to spend asmuch time with someone else who
doesn't have the same valuesystem, so you're not going to
run into them in the same places, because you're not going to.
(45:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you knowyou're not.
You're not calling them becausethe football game, not, not
anything against football.
I'm just like not a big sportsperson, but like this is
something for me.
It's like I'm not callingsomeone because of football game
, because I just don't care tospend my time with it.
It's just not something that'svaluable to me.
I like the idea of it.
I'll walk the Super Bowl everyyear, right, but it's not
(45:28):
something that so like thosetypes of.
I'm just not in those groups ofpeople.
I don't, I don't speak thatlanguage, right.
So anyway, yeah, it's.
Yeah, the value, the valuesystem is a big one.
The growth path is a big one.
Yeah, invest in your firstsorry, invest in yourself first,
before for anything else.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Yeah, yeah, I think it kind of is.
It comes back to the idea oflike the what do they call it?
Was it a law of attraction?
Yeah, right, like the energythat you decide to internalize
and the values that youinternalize and the energy that
you put out is the energy that'sreturned, and that is that
principle, right there.
It's just when, when you makethat shift, be conscious, be
(46:06):
aware, look around in your life,like, okay, who is naturally
wanting to spend time with me asI'm pursuing this new thing?
Who is somebody and I've had tocut people off for this before
who is somebody that is sayinglike, who do you think you are?
Like, are you better than us?
Or you know, like thatconversation kind of comes into
your head.
It's like oh no, I'm not.
You know, just because I don'twant to go party every weekend
doesn't mean that I think I'mbetter.
(46:27):
It's just that I'm spending mytime in another area.
If you feel that way, though,maybe we need to take a look
internally and be there.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Yeah, it's on you, that's on them yeah.
Yeah, maybe, maybe you feelthey're taking it personally,
Right Right.
If everyone didn't take itpersonally, you know it's like,
then everyone would just, wouldbe, would be just fine.
But we're human and we're notperfect, and you know we're
emotional creatures.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
Life is messy, yeah, life is messy.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
Yeah.
Yeah, and it's like you knowyou're not going to be able to
do that anymore.
You know, smile to more, smileto more people call people that.
You know, that you, that youlove and you know, just kind of
like, put good vibes out in theworld and it'll be a much better
place for it, not only you, buteveryone else.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Yeah, I love that.
I always advocate for peopleand like, if you get an
intuitive pulse to like reachout to somebody, just send them
a text, be like hey, I'mspeaking about you today, hope
you're doing good, that's it.
You don't need to do much more.
You'd be surprised how much joyyou could bring into somebody's
life just by like realize,especially if they're in a dark
place, and you pop into theirphone and you're like hey, you
know, totally random, haven'ttalked to you in a little while,
(47:28):
but you know, hope you're doinggood.
You have no idea how much thatcould bring into somebody's life
.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
And then it's infectious, and then they pass
it on.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Yep, yep, I love it.
Okay, so to kind of round usout here, I always like asking
this question to round out shows, because I just genuinely
interested in like what peoplefind as resources, and you know,
I think that people, especiallymembers of the indie collective
community, always have someinteresting thing that they
found that is fun for them.
So do you consider yourself areader, a watcher or a listener
(48:01):
and, depending on which one ofthose you spend the most time
with right, like reading books,watching YouTube or
documentaries, tv shows orlistening to podcasts, which one
of those views do you consideryourself more of?
And then could you recommendeither a book, a YouTube channel
or a podcast that you havefound interesting or valuable?
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Yeah, I love that question.
I'm.
It's funny, I want to like, Iwant to pick two, do it, but
yeah it's.
I think I'm definitely alistener.
I'm not much of a, I mean Ilike watching things, but like,
when it comes generally to who,I am, as per some, a listener
and and then a read and then areader, so and that's great
(48:43):
because I'm a podcasting.
So what I'm listening toprobably, it's kind of just
something that I've been payingattention to for a while.
Stephen Bartlett show, dario CEO, is just one of these shows
that took off and he's doingsuch a great job with.
He's really an interesting guytoo.
(49:04):
So I I like the way that he'sexecuting a show.
It's all about just like youknow business, but then it's
getting into social andemotional things and health and
wellness and just kind of likehe brings on such interesting
people.
So it's like every time that Ilisten to a show and was like
(49:25):
this is just like deep.
Also from a productionstandpoint, the way that they
produce their show is just likeon such another level, they do
viral trailers and everything isjust it's just like beautiful,
it's like a real entertainmentplatform now.
So I just recommend like, yeah,I have any.
That's what I'm listening to,what I'm reading.
Actually, funny enough, liketwo days ago, I just I was
(49:47):
watching it's watching something, and then someone mentioned
this book.
I don't know if I say I'm not awatcher.
I was watching something, butthey mentioned this book, so I
just bought it and it's calledthe fourth turning.
It's the subject lines like anAmerican prophecy and it's about
(50:08):
the cycles of history that willtell us about, like you know,
our next rendezvous with destinyor something like that, and
it's something that's likereally interesting.
It talks about the differentturnings and quadrants of
generational change and there'slike 80 year blocks with 20 year
turnings with each one and itwas fascinating because it
(50:31):
literally, just literally waslike a rinse and repeat of just
like history and 100 year blocksthat were just copying each
other and I was like, wow, thisis fascinating.
So if for anyone who's sointerested about generational
change and the moment that we'rein and what might be coming
around the corner and what wecan learn from history and I
think that's what's reallyimportant this book might be
(50:52):
very interesting.
I haven't read it yet.
I just bought it on Amazon twodays ago, but I'm excited.
So that's kind of like what I'm, what I'm looking at.
One thing I'm actively readingright now which I would probably
recommend to most would be it'sthe mastery of love by died
(51:12):
Lewis, don DeLewis, don MiguelRuiz.
That's what it is and that'sall about just leading with love
in life and it's it's served mein many ways and it's affected.
I didn't know it was going toaffect my business in the ways
it did, but I'm very glad that Ithat I read it.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
I love those.
I'm 100% going to get thatfourth turning book.
I just pulled it up on myAmazon right now.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
I'm super not the mastery of love.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
Come on, mastery of love also sounds like oh my God,
okay, well, and then if thelast one, if anybody is
listening to this and they'relike, wow, I sounds like a cool
dude.
I'm interested in what he'sdoing, where can they find you
(52:00):
online or where's the best placeto try to connect?
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Yeah, just Google me, ike Fontaine.
My agency is get futuremediacom.
I'm sure there'll be some linksin the show notes, so you find
me there, ike Fontainecom.
Yeah, lovely to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Cool, cool rock and roll Alright.
And then, if you are listeningto this and you were on the
fence about any collective, butnow you're feeling like I kind
of want some more information onthis, you can reach out to me
at yon looks like jam J and atchase the apex, not chase the
apex.
I'm going to edit this part.
You can reach out to me Yonlooks like Jan Jan, at indie
(52:35):
collectiveio.
That's I and D E collectiveio.
Or you can visit our website atindie collectiveco Indie
collectiveco.
I'm looking forward to hearingfrom you and until the next
episode, I hope you have a greatrest of your week.
Talk soon.
Welcome everybody to another episode of the Modern
Independent.
As always, I'm your host, janAlmacy, the head of community
here at Indie Collective, andtoday you are listening to an
episode of the Launchpad.
We have a couple of differentepisode types here at Indie
Collective, one of which is theLaunchpad, the other of which is
called the Seven FigurePlaybook.
In today's episode, you'regoing to be hearing from an
(00:24):
indie alum that is out doingamazing things in the world, and
you're going to hear a littlebit about their journey into
independence and the things thatthey're improving on and
continuing to improve on aftergraduating from the Indie
Collective curriculum as theymove through their independent
career.
Today, I get the chance ofsitting down with one of my
closer friends from the cohort.
We went through cohortstogether and now he is back as
(00:46):
one of our expert guides, mr IkeFontaine.
Ike is a Webby Award-nominatedexecutive producer and the
founder of the podcastaccelerator, through which he
has launched dozens of podcasts,accumulating over 80 million
downloads under his vision andmany of which ranking in the top
10 and top 100 on Applepodcasts.
He's also the founder of FutureMedia, an agency through which
(01:08):
he has partnered with largebrands and entrepreneurs to
develop a modern approach totheir content marketing.
Outside of his podcasting work,he is an active songwriter and
enjoys spending time in thewater surfing in Southern
California.
Ike.
Welcome to the modern,independent Hello.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Jan.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
How's it going?
I'm good man, I'm good, so Ialways like to start these off
very simply and kind of justgive the good people on the
other side of the headphonesthat are listening right now a
little bit of a background ofwho you are, where you're from
and how did you get started inyour independent career.
(01:45):
What was that leap like intobecoming an entrepreneur,
freelancer, independent,whatever you want to call it?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Totally there wasn't much of a leap.
I was always someone who kindof actually walked a different
path so I never traditionallyhad like a nine to five or was
employed by some largercorporations.
So I grew up in Boston and grewup in a very entrepreneurial
type family.
My father was a contractor,electrician farmer, my mom was a
(02:15):
scientist and I had to figurethings out on my own basically
and we you know veryentrepreneurial from a very
young age, working with my dadand his various pursuits, and
that just kind of launches meinto a career of music.
So as a on a record label,touring recording artists at 18,
and that went for about 10years and during when I was on
(02:39):
the road as an artist you knowwe had all this downtime in
between shows my always wantingto find like you know, I have
all these ideas and so I startedraising money for applications
and some advertising ideas andthat kind of led into eventually
(02:59):
like finding this VA companythat employed like people to
work for other, basically placedVA's in other businesses and
they had like this marketplacefor it and that was like a kind
of like a big break into theindependent world because I
didn't even know that likeindependent working or like this
(03:20):
was like before remote workingwas even.
It was kind of like not even athing.
Yet I would say like 20, 2010,2011, 2012.
And that was really the placewhere I got into this one
business and they saw I'm on theroad and like during our
downtime, like I'm quiteliterally like hopping on calls
(03:41):
with clients and like buildingemail campaigns, building
websites, building funnels,figuring out software,
infrastructure and basically thewhole through line was like how
do you grow a business onlinewas the whole thing.
And I'm like wow, okay, this isa crazy world.
One thing leads to another and,you know, just start working
with more and more clients.
You know I rise in the ranks atthis company and then, kind of
(04:05):
along the way, I realize, youknow, I love working for myself,
I love, you know, kind ofhaving autonomy and getting to
work on what I like to work on.
So I guess that's really wheremy independent journey kind of,
I guess, really blossomed.
I was always kind of on thisindependent journey, but that's
where it was kind of like wait asecond, I can do this full time
almost and I can continue allof my music and I can still make
(04:29):
this whole other like careerwork in the same time.
And then one thing leads toanother.
I started video marketingcompany, I started another, the
agency, and you know, podcastingstarted to be this thing.
That was like really churningin the background.
So I started just going more,all in and more all in on
(04:49):
helping businesses essentiallybuild client acquisition systems
through podcasting.
And that leads me to where I amtoday, talking with you at
future media.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah, I was going to ask like it sounds like
podcasting actually entered thepicture after a little bit of
iteration, like you were alreadyin the space.
You're kind of playing aroundhelping people grow to start out
with with you having your ownshow and playing around with
that first, or was it?
Clients started approaching youorganically and said this
(05:20):
podcasting thing is like reallycatching our eye, can you help
us get into this?
And then you just learned itbased on demand that was coming
in.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
And I was like I'm going to add a ladder.
I just got lucky.
You know, there are all theseclients that already had
podcasts and they're like wewant to make this better.
And I was like, oh well, Iunderstand marketing, I
understand content, I understandsystems, I understand, you know
, like sales and all this andgrowth, and I was like, okay,
cool, let me, yeah, let me start, let me start trying it out.
So, yeah, it was really justkind of like school of hard
(05:51):
knocks, just like startedworking on these podcasts and,
you know, had some success here,had some success here, and that
leads to the next thing.
And then it just starts tosnowball.
And I recognized, you know, atthe, at the heels of like a
growing podcast movement.
I was like, wait a second,there's more and more people who
are wanting to do this.
And then I started looking intothe numbers.
(06:12):
I started looking into, youknow, audience growth and like
just people who are creatingpodcasts and the number of
podcasts that are gettingcreated compared to other
platforms.
And I was like, wait a second,there's like a, there's like an
exponential curve that'sstarting to happen.
So that was, that was adefining moment where I was like
, yeah, now I'm going to juststart going in more and more.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Do you, do you have any of those numbers kind of
ballpark numbers off like thetop of the head just for people
to get a little bit of contextof how how many people are
actually in the podcast thesedays?
You're consuming that info.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yeah, I can speak to it from a to to perspective.
So, in terms of the number ofcreator accounts or shows, right
, like you have a podcast, thereare around 5 million on the
index.
Now, the important piece hereis that that's a total count.
So there's there's actuallymore like 2 million active shows
(07:04):
and the rest of them areinactive, dead.
People just thought they'dstart a podcast and not really
serious.
Like I call it the competitiveset.
There are around 2 millionactive competitive shows that
are uploading every single monthlike building, kind of like
doing it seriously.
The context is that you knowthere's 60 million active
(07:27):
YouTube creator accounts.
So, like, in comparison to likeother long format platforms,
like it's it's still early days,but it's a, you know, in 2019,
there were only about 600,000shows on the index.
So it's grown considerably justin a matter of a few years and
(07:50):
we're going to reach over justover half a billion listeners by
the end of this year and that'sup about 100 million.
So the amount of what's moreimportant is like the people who
are coming to consume, right,so there's actually it's really
interesting there.
The subsets of those people arejust like their college
(08:11):
educated, they have money.
They listen to more podcaststhan Netflix or HBO.
So they're the rabid listeners,rather consumers.
So it's it's interesting,definitely an interesting space.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
I think that's important for people to kind of
keep an eye on, because I hearall the time like oh, yeah, I
don't want to get intopodcasting because it's already
saturated or anything else.
And I did you say 60 millionYouTube accounts?
That was the 60 around there.
60 million, yeah, and then to 2million for the podcast.
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, so thinkof that arbitrage there, like
that, that gap between 2 millionand 60 million, and then also
(08:45):
the difference between and thisis a good lesson for anybody in
content or anybody that'slooking to put out, you know,
marketing material always try tolook for those platforms that
have a high gap between thecreator and the consumers, like
the number of consumers and thenumber of creators, right, and
that's why it's beneficial tolike catch some social platforms
(09:06):
earlier on and you see thesepeople rise to massive morality
because there's only 500creators on the platform at the
time and there's 10,000 peopleconsuming.
Then you have a higher chanceof your stuff entering the
algorithm.
Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada.
But think in your head mentally2 million active shows and 500
million listeners by the end ofthe year, that is a huge, huge
(09:29):
amount of listenership that youcould access.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
It's very exciting.
And then, even when we start togo into the benefits of, you
know you don't even need tobuild shows for a popularity.
Now you can build shows thatcan quite literally be sales
funnels, and it's that's whatgets also exciting.
So you can not only have asales ecosystem for closing more
clients, but then you have anentire content marketing
strategy and system around you,right, and all you have to do is
(09:59):
hop on a hop on a call with,with, with someone and record
all that content and then itturns into all this other stuff.
So it's like the.
I really started to see thepower of it Early on, when I was
like, wait a second, you couldjust do one thing and I could
feed everything else that you'redoing while having sales calls
with people.
I was like, okay, this might beworth the worth the energy,
(10:20):
right, right.
I'm glad that I stuck with it.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Well, and I love a lot of the things that I love
about the way that youarticulate podcasts and the
session that you teach inside ofthe indie collective cohort now
, and and just I mean theconversations that we've had
around operationalizing thepodcasting space, right, I think
that that's one of the reallyunique things that you're able
to bring to the table because ofyour background and kind of
rising up through the school ofhard knocks and having to be
(10:44):
that jack of all trades for aperiod of time, is you don't
look at podcast as strictly a PRthing, right, like this is a
part of a sales plan.
This can be a part of a salesstrategy.
Over archingly are there.
I guess this is a perfect timeto kind of get into, like some
of those benefits of podcastingin the different ways that it
can be used.
What are some of the mostcommon things that you come
(11:06):
across?
Or the when, when you'rebuilding out shows for people,
what are they?
What are they using for mostoften?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
to clarify what are they using in terms of the
strategy Like what's working orthe operational?
Are they kind of theoperational system side of that,
like?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
I guess the we can start with like the overarching
strategy, like why do they wantpodcasts, and then the
operations behind, like makingthose shows successful.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Yeah, I've kind of gone through all these
iterations of things that havebeen working and but iterating
on upon things that were like,okay, we could see better
improvement here, and Ibasically have gotten to a place
where you know you can build ashow that is one of your main
(11:50):
prospecting client acquisitionstrategies.
So essentially the concept islike hey, you build a show that
is centered around a mission foryour ideal prospects in the
world and what you do is you'reactually looking for your ideal
prospects, experience in theirindustry or niche, and you want
to highlight them because yourmission is to actually help
(12:11):
everyone in that space be better, you know, excellent and so
forth.
I'm just I'm kind of likecoloring with a very broad brush
now.
But the whole concept is whenyou marry that type of show
format with an outreach systemwe build outreach systems
through like LinkedIn now, sothe software system for that.
But when you tie that alltogether and you build an
(12:34):
environment for your idealprospects and you invite them
into a warm environment, itexponentially increases your
likelihood of conversion,because you're not doing cold
outreach, you're not doing somesort of cold knock or cold call.
It's actually more about themthan it is about you positioning
yourself in a place where youcan have a very nice
(12:55):
conversation and I find that 80%of the time guests that come on
my client podcast you know theyask about you, know how the
host can actually help them inthe world.
So it's a very easy way of notonly growing your authority and
influence and growing yournetwork generally, but it's just
putting yourself in consistentand rinse and repeat method of
(13:19):
talking to prospects and gettingthem into your funnel.
So that's like that's thestrategy that I'm seeing, just
like hit every single time now,and it's not like this mass
audience play.
It's actually a hyper targetedplay, just speaking to your
prospects.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah, I want to double click on that and drive
that home for anybody that'slistening.
A lot of times and I hear thisa lot from people that are
talking about starting podcastsall the time the temptation is
there to think I need to shootfor popularity, because I think
part of it is just we've been inthis ecosystem of looking at
(14:00):
people.
You know 100,000 followers,500,000 followers you know
you're not a macro influencer,you can't get brand deals unless
you have 50,000 IG followerswhatever, and that kind of that
mentality is like almost leakedinto other areas of life.
Right, I see people with emaillists and everything right.
I'm like you don't need it.
(14:20):
You don't need a 50,000 personemail list If you have 100
people on your email list andeach of them is an advocate for
your business and you'reconstantly keeping them updated.
Same thing with the podcastright, like you don't have to be
.
Actually, I would argue thatyou.
The advantage is not trying tobe a show for everyone.
People feel like they're a partof something special or they're
(14:41):
learning something, if theyfeel heard, spoken to and it's
like very directed towards them.
So I love the way that youframed that, where it's like
we're speaking to the experienceof the customer in the industry
and we're giving them advicebecause our mission is to, you
know, raise up the industry,yeah exactly, I love that
(15:01):
industry.
Yeah, yeah, I love that.
So have there been anyorganizations or like projects
that you've worked on thatyou've been like this was really
cool, like I really enjoyedgetting the chance to work on
this that you can talk about onthe show, I guess.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, there's a couple of parties that I can't
talk about right now that arevery exciting, but I can talk
about them maybe in the future.
I would say, as of recentlythere was a few consultation
style shows that have done along show with J Abraham and
(15:39):
Nixon.
Umber is called the OptimizedPodcast, so that one's really
cool, just because the nature ofthe show is kind of like
envisioned Shark Tank but forlike a live consultation call.
So 50 million plus businesseswill guest to be on the show to
basically have an hourconversation with J and Nick
where they will basically takethe one big Donovan.
(16:02):
Oh that the guests are theirissue.
Basically, they come to theshow with one issue.
We have a whole pre intakesequence to it and before the
guests even get on the show weessentially know all of their
issues in their business andthen, like the call is all about
just solving for that issue andthe type of content that you
(16:23):
can create when you just know somuch about the targeted issue
and the value that that persongets.
I'm really just elevating whythe system works so well.
But I was.
It was very exciting to like dothat iteration because it was
just so Shark Tanky.
It's just like they get on.
It's like the hard picture, thechallenge, exactly what they're
doing, great Hear, all thesolutions and I just like bam,
(16:45):
bam, bam bam.
So that was just that was.
I guess there's a lot ofdifferent shows that were
exciting, but that one inparticular I just like liked the
vibe of it.
It was just kind of like it wasa fun one.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, that sounds really, really cool.
I mean, and I think that that'sa unique way to look at it,
that you know, a podcast doesn'tjust need to be you monologuing
about something and it doesn'tjust need to be you recruiting
guests, right, like that was adifferent type of application.
This is like a, like a console,a live console, yeah exactly.
(17:20):
You're just a live console andthen you can repurpose that into
, you know, the podcast itself.
And one other thing that I findinteresting, that I think
you're really, really apt at, oryou found a really good way to
maximize, is that if you'rethinking about podcasting and
you think that the long formpodcast is the only piece of
(17:41):
content that you're going to getout of that, you're sorely
mistaken.
So what are like, what are someof the things that, like, after
that whole episode is created,what happens then?
Is it is that able to turn intoadditional assets outside of
the long form podcast?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah, right on, of course.
Um, yeah, we.
So the systems that we buildfor clients essentially can turn
one episode into around two anda half weeks worth of content.
That is short, mid, long formatvideo content for wide and
vertical based ecosystems.
It's text campaigns, it's emailcampaigns, blog articles and
(18:24):
website content.
So it's like an entire diversemap.
Um, there's a strategy to howwe go about doing that and how
we actually train producers andand I mean we do this at our
agency for people, but we alsotrain producers to to run these
types of systems Um, and it'sjust.
It's just how you can not onlyarchitect how the conversation
(18:45):
happens.
So we were just talking aboutlike the live consult vibe.
So now that we have a reallygood idea of like great the, the
one number one problem in allthe context around someone's
business, and we know how thatconversation is going to run, we
can actually create a blueprintor a template or a format for
how you go about extrapolatingthe different types of content
from that, right?
So what kind of reactions, whattype of questions, what type of
(19:09):
leading questions, what type ofum interactions that can happen
, and how you can pull those out, but then also look at all of
those interactions as apotential sales narrative.
So, like sure, you can justhave a clip that you like and
you can post that.
But what do 10 clips look like?
And how do you align them?
In a way, so it just speaks to a, a mission, it speaks to a
(19:32):
community, it speaks tosomething that someone wants, a
pain point that someone wants toto solve.
So, uh, you can create these,you can create these podcast
systems that that just kind ofdeal with such a huge pain point
in the majority of a lot ofcoaches, consultants and small
to medium sized businesses.
Um, uh, you know, when they sitdown every day, they're like,
(19:55):
wow, I can't solve this problem,for, like, how do I actually
create content, how do Iactually grow an audience, how
do I actually speak to my idealcustomer in the right way
without spending all the time inthe world?
And that's why talking to yourprospects on a podcast is one of
the best, one of the bestoptions, cause not only can you
actually drive sales engagements, but then you can create all
the targeted narrative that youneed to actually do.
(20:17):
The other uh quotients in thebusiness.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I also want to say too, like,if you, um, you know, if you're
just thinking about gettingstarted, and like, why is
starting a podcast?
Okay, all the content is great,and, like, you know, how am I,
um, I can pull all of thattogether and that's going to
create multiple weeks of content.
I'm going to have this machineand everything like that.
(20:41):
I know, when I first startedout podcasting, um, there was a
piece of it that I was reallysurprising to me, and it's the
ability to get into the room orhave conversations with people
that, like, were so far out ofmy network that, like, I had no
business having the opportunityto actually talk to this person.
(21:01):
You know, like I'm coming.
One of the things that's comingto mind is one of our first
longterm contracts.
I actually saw a Netflixdocumentary, was fascinated by
it.
E, like found the email for theperson that was featured in the
documentary, reached out tothat person's PR group, and the
PR group was like, yeah,absolutely, we'd love to book
you, you know, to have to havethis person on your podcast.
(21:24):
So the next thing I know I'm onthe show as a 20, how old was I
?
22, 22, 23 year old, like justlike I had just discovered Gary
Vaynerchuk, like the year prior,like I'm just starting, like
I'm going to be in a marketingfirm.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
And.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
I'm on the phone with this CEO of this biotech
company out of San Fran I livein Ohio and it was all because I
had a podcast and I was like,do you want to be interviewed on
the show?
You know, and I didn't realizelike what weight that actually
carried and the type of networkthat it allows you to access,
when you can just say, hey, I'dlove to have you on my show.
And then they spent that hour.
(22:01):
We spent that hour reallygetting to know each other and
you know me asking him in depthquestions, and we had the
meeting before the show to kindof discuss like what the
business was and what the goalsof the podcast were going to be.
And everything he emails meafter the podcast is like that
was great, I had a fantastictime.
Can I pay you to interview therest of my staff?
So, like, of course, and thenit kind of continued to grow
(22:23):
from there.
So that's one of the things Iwant to double click on too is
like, you know, it's the contentand the self promotion and all
that stuff is great once yougain the momentum and you
actually have everything figuredout.
But even before you start togain that momentum, or you have
services or you have clientsthat you're trying to you know
gain before you even know thatjust having the show allows you
to network so far beyond whatyou would be able to if you were
(22:45):
just cold deeming people online.
Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
I love that story, by the way.
That's a.
That's a great, that's a goodone.
Yeah, I mean the not analogy,but the way that you can
visualize this is let's say, youhave a group of people that are
all standing in a white roomand all these individuals you
know you don't really know whothese individuals are and like,
let's say, you're one of thoseindividuals and you need to
(23:10):
differentiate yourself.
You want to attract attentionto yourself.
What do you do?
And a podcast is kind of one ofthose things.
It's kind of like putting on abig hat and then you look at
these people in a room andyou're like whoa, that one
person's wearing a hat.
It's a really bad analogy, butwhen you quite literally build a
platform and you put yourselfout there as an authority figure
(23:33):
and you want to haveconversations and to improve the
world and improve a community,improve yourself, improve other
people, like that quiteliterally separates you and
elevates you from other people.
Not everyone can do this.
Not everyone.
Actually, everyone can do it.
Yes, it's whether they want tochoose to do it or not, right If
they want to elevate themselvesand attract some sort of energy
(23:56):
to them, like they need to dosomething different than other
people.
So what are you going to do?
And there's a lot of differentthings you can do.
We could talk about so manydifferent options, but
podcasting is kind of like oneof those things.
But in the professionalnetworking world and in the B2B
world and kind of almost in theB2C world, like when you're able
to, I'm only going to talkabout a podcast, I'm just going
to talk about when you were ableto build a platform to have a
(24:17):
conversation, so to bring peoplein, to highlight a community
element or our mission to helppeople in the world.
Like that differentiates youfrom everyone else.
And then it puts thatindividual in their cloud and
their authority right next toyou.
And what happens to yourauthority and your influence?
Boom, you just click up anotherlevel.
So it just rins and repeat andyou keep doing that.
It kind of you can.
(24:38):
You can see how thatextrapolated, regardless if you
have, if you have audience, likethat doesn't matter and it
doesn't matter if you have anaudience, like it matters the
activity of doing it.
I always like talking about,like a, the three quadrants of a
business.
There's attraction, conversionand retention.
Right, like a podcast can hitall three, but most importantly,
(24:58):
as, like independence or acoach, a consultant or a small
and medium size business owner,like we spend the majority of
our time probably on attractiontype activities, like getting
attention to us, getting clientsfiguring that thing out
Everything really allows you tofocus on the attraction.
Like double down your energy,right, cause we all will spend I
(25:20):
don't know how many hours aweek, right.
I usually say like you'llprobably spend six hours a week
in attraction type activities,either hopping on prospecting
calls or sales calls, on email,doing email, cold calling, cold
emailing, whatever it might be,and those types of activities.
Like if you just took apercentage of that time and you
just literally ask the peoplethat you want to network with to
(25:40):
come into an environment andyou can activate those people to
help grow your brand and yourbusiness and your authority, it
just it wins.
Like I don't know how toexplain it.
It's a, it's definitely.
It's definitely an exciting,exciting strategy.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Yeah, yeah, Agreed.
I mean, we see it all the timewith the modern independent.
I mean I think that themajority of people that I've had
office hours with this cohorthave mentioned the fact that
they like discovered us becauseof a referral from a friend, and
there's not many of them thatbring up like oh, I went to your
website and I was like browsingthrough that for hours or
(26:20):
whatever but, consistently I'vebeen like I've listened to five
episodes of the modernindependent and now I'm here.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
We live in a world with humans.
What do humans like to do?
Humans like to talk to eachother and interact with each
other.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Right.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, so it's like if you can just do more of that,
you'll be good.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Yeah, and they like to talk about themselves and
like, if you can hold space forsomebody to be proud of what
they've accomplished and likefeel really excited about things
, I mean that it just turns intoamazing content.
That relationship gets deeper.
We can talk about all of thosebenefits probably all day.
It's just it is something thatis truly amazing, and I like
what you mentioned, though, too.
(27:00):
Like you know, if you'relistening to this and you're
like I could never do a podcast,like there's no way I could
ever do that, like, like I wasmentioning, it's not so much
about everybody should be apodcaster, because not everybody
should be a podcaster, thatwould be.
You know that that's just notfeasible.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Everyone can't be a podcaster, Right?
Speaker 1 (27:18):
right, and but also, everybody can't be a YouTuber,
everybody can't be a greatblogger, everybody can, you know
, like, find the medium that youfeel the most comfortable with,
the most called to, and thencommit to that medium.
Yeah, and consistently put outyou put yourself out there, put
out content and ratchet thatstuff up one by one.
The same, the same idea asbringing somebody on a show as a
(27:40):
guest for an interview youcould have as a blog and say,
hey, would you be willing to bea guest blogger on my feed?
You know, or can I write anarticle about you?
Can I interview you for half anhour?
You know, and highlight yourbusiness is the same type of
principle and it makes it somuch easier to have those
initial conversations withpeople if you're not in their
LinkedIn DMs or in their coldemail or your cold emailing them
(28:03):
saying I'm so and so and I wantto sell you X, y and Z product.
If, if that conversationswitches from like that cold
email and sale to hi, my name'sso and so, I've really enjoyed
like X, y and Z thing that youdo I would love to highlight you
in insert interview or blogarticle or whatever like.
Would you be willing to have ahalf hour conversation.
(28:24):
Totally different ballgame,yeah.
Totally different ballgame,yeah.
So one thing that we talk aboutall the time inside of.
Well, I guess, actually, let meback up before I ask that
question.
So how did, how did you end updiscovering indie?
Was it?
Were you like a referral from afriend, did you?
Speaker 2 (28:45):
find us.
Yeah.
Shout out to Amory Elmary hey.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
And what I don't remember what were you 2021?
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Oh man, it's hard.
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Might have been fall 2021.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
I feel like yeah, I think it's yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Because I think we were, you were in one of the
same cohorts when we both wentthrough yeah, what was you know
going through that 10 weekprocess and like having to kind
of look at things in chunks andanything like that.
Is there anything that youremember like taking away from
that first cohort where you'relike okay, this like changed the
(29:24):
way that I'm approaching things?
Or was it the community thatyou felt was like the most
valuable portion of it?
Or like what was that first,that first indie collective
experience, like for you?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Well, the experience overall was amazing.
I ended up leaving indiecollective and launching
something I was wanting to dofor a long time and it was
incredibly successful right outof the gate and continues to be
to that day to today, which ismy, my group coaching
environment and I think justbeing in an environment with a
(29:55):
bunch of people who it's justyou can just do this iteration
thing within any, any collectiveand I think, like the A teams
are one of the most valuablethings that I personally
experience and there's valueeverywhere.
But, like, if there's one thingthat I had to pinpoint, it was
this kind of having anenvironment to see what other
people were doing but hear abouthow they were working through,
how they were solving problems,and I think I just let the fire
(30:16):
under my ass just to like do it,because I was around a bunch of
people who are just doing itand I think it's a big testament
to you know your community andwho you put yourself around.
So big, big props for indiecollective because I was like I
was able to look at so manydifferent aspects of being an
(30:37):
independent worker or buildingyour own consultancy or working
for yourself and all thesedifferent iterations of what
people were doing and all thisgreat information and then
actually having actually gettingto like apply the things that I
wanted to do in real time withpeople who are very supportive
and also moving and shaking wasjust in an amazing is a great,
great and a great energy.
(30:59):
And so if there's someone who,like, hasn't been through any
collective yet and they might beon the fence like I would
highly, I would highly recommendto take the plunge, because at
first I was like with anyinvestment, I was like hesitant
and just because it's things arerisky and you know we're we're
risk adverse creature and weknow we don't want to make a
change and like, is it reallygoing to do something?
(31:20):
You know, like all those likevoices but like community is
probably one of the bestinvestments you can ever make in
your life and any collectivegave that to me and gave me the
space to long to the nextiteration of what I was doing.
So big props.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
And so above, I've been hearing it more and more
that you know the education is,I will, the curriculum is great,
you know, by all means, likethose, there's a lot of I
remember going through my firstcohort.
There's a lot of.
You know terms that you mightbe hearing for the first time,
and so ideas like we I like tosay that we break your brain
(31:58):
into a million puzzle pieces inthe first three weeks.
Right, like designing forindependence.
Ask yourself questions that youmay not have asked yourself
before.
You know, shoot, say things outloud, say goals out loud that
previously you know like thoseare.
That's the place, the headspacethat we put you in the first
couple of weeks.
And then it's okay, get thatheadspace, we see where you're
(32:20):
at.
Let's start to get tactical.
How do you, how are youactually doing this?
And then take you and put youinto small groups where you're
like okay, now we're that, we'relearning the tactics, let's
start actually implementingthose things.
And and I felt that verypersonally and I hear it over
and over again inside of theoffice hours that once they make
it to that week four, week five, mark you know they've met
(32:41):
their a teams they're going to,they have the foundation pieces
at that point and they're justkind of I like to say they're
just kind of pulling on stuffright, like things are just
moving around in their brain orconnecting puzzle pieces.
The momentum really starts toshift and you really have almost
like collective permission froma bunch of people that you're
not as crazy as you might thinkyou are and the things that
you're trying to build areactually more possible than you
(33:05):
might imagine Do it.
You can do it.
Yeah, yeah, when, when you'relike a teams and stuff like that
, do you do you stillcommunicate with anybody from
the cohort like on a regularbasis, or is it kind of like,
whenever I have the opportunity,I'm hanging out with people?
Speaker 2 (33:25):
I'm still literally in a text group with my first
day team.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Really, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
And I meet and I meet up with.
There's someone locally herewho went through my second
cohort and we meet up every nowand then.
We talk, you know, on socialmedia every now and then and
like we're, yeah, so, but myfirst cohort were actually
always, always communicating,yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Yeah, I love that I'm also in the same boat, like I
meet with my 18 probably.
I think we told we tellourselves that we try to meet
together like once once a month,but it ends up being more like
once a quarter that we actuallyget the chance to sit down.
But it's kind of it's funnyit's we always kind of joke
inside of our email thread thatit's like it's a positive,
because two years ago we wereable to meet every month and now
(34:11):
everybody is doing so muchstuff that we're like oh, like,
we need to probably just meetonce a quarter so that we can
catch everybody up.
Yeah, because it's goodproblems to have.
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, agreed.
What like if somebody were toget started?
I know that one thing thatalmost everybody gets hung up on
(34:32):
is like equipment or you knowthings of that nature when it
comes to starting a pod or likegetting stuff.
Is there like a bare minimum,like supplies that you would
want to advocate for somebody totry out or have before they
dive into it?
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Quite literally what we're using right now.
We're using squadcast or Dscript now, in a sense, d script
acquired squadcast, right, soyeah.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
A couple weeks ago, or actually probably about a
month over the summer.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
And that's all you need.
You need a microphone of somecapacity, a computer and an
internet connection.
I used to I mean I've donepodcasts on every, on every
iteration of what it is.
I still run podcasts a day thatare incredibly high production
value.
You know, our hosts go intostudios in a very professional
recording studios, all the waydown to the systems that I build
(35:30):
now with clients which areincredibly fluid, easy to set up
, easy to execute.
We live in a world now where,like, technology is increased to
a place where I've been doingthis long enough to like be like
holy crap, wow, this is a lotharder and now it's like very
easy.
So, yeah, I mean the barebasics is like, honestly, I
(35:53):
always recommend people to getlike a nice USB microphone, but
you don't even need that, soit's like just your computer.
If you have a modern computer,your computer has a pretty good
microphone on it.
Now, let's say that I'm totallyadvocating for that, but you
can totally get it done with it.
Get a, you know, get a good webbased podcast studio, virtual
studio, like squadcast Riverside, and you are, you know, 80% of
(36:16):
the way there.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Yeah, I think that that is so, on point, I think
that a lot of the conversationsthat I have with people that
struggle with the idea ofstarting a podcast is because
they're they think that the tech, or like you need an audio
interface and a SM7B microphoneand you know all this other kind
of stuff and it's okay, maybein 2015.
I mean, and not even then, youdon't need that SM7B, but you're
(36:40):
still trying to edit usingstuff like you know, audacity or
logic, or garage band orwhatever.
Now, a lot of these virtualstudios like squadcast, for I
know for a fact partnered withDolby Audio, and they record
high fidelity audio right insideof the virtual studio.
Yeah, I'll note separate tracksand d-script allows you to edit
a lot of this stuff rightinside of the platform.
(37:01):
I mean, it is.
It is bonkers, how simple it isnow to actually get something
off the ground.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Yeah, I quote literally everything's now is
becoming integrated and seamless, so you an all-in-one platform
to do everything that you need.
You know I, you know I'm asinger-songwriter, musician.
I got a cabinet behind me foranyone walks in the video and
I've got about 13 microphones inthere.
Um, like, I have all the themicrophones under the Sun and,
honestly, like I don't end upusing any of them because it
(37:28):
doesn't really matter.
Obviously, you know themicrophone that I use every
single day is a, is a MV7, bysure.
It's what I'm, what you hear meon right now, which is like the
workhorse.
It just I do use it foreverything now, which is amazing
.
But like you just don't needfancy stuff to get things done
and I've tried everything.
It doesn't matter.
(37:49):
What matters is your intention,the mission, who you want to
talk to, how you talk to them,and that human to human
interaction right, like that'sjust most important.
People get hung up on all thetechnical, you know stuff, but
it's just like that's not,that's not that it's not right,
that's easy.
There's no excuse there now.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Right, right one that's and hopefully, if you're
listening to this and you'vebeen on the fence about starting
a podcast for a while, it'sreassuring, is?
It's just way simpler to enterthe market.
And and I Love the fact becauseI still do all of our editing
for the podcast and we record.
We record we try for weekly.
Sometimes it ends up beingbi-weekly if we're super busy,
(38:30):
like this past week we didn'trelease an episode because I was
super sick.
But I just record them and editthem live to keep things
current.
No, I don't edit them live but,like you know, same day.
Yeah, in the past I would haveto drop it in and out of two or
three different softwares.
You know one's cutting one'snoise, canceling, removal the
(38:50):
other one's really good at liketrimming Peaks and stuff like
that in the audio.
Right now I have all that indescript and now it's all in one
place and I click one buttonand it's to the point now where,
like it's all in descript andthen I put it into buzz sprout
For hosting and they haveco-host AI as a feature inside
of buzz sprout.
Now it comes up with my titlesfor me, gives me a draft of the
(39:11):
description, like the whole nine.
It's literally.
It is so nice Having it all inone place and I think all of
that together is under 60 bucksa month for the script and buzz
sprout and the AI that helps.
So, yeah, super, super easyaccess.
Okay, as we we start to get intothe the the last you know 10 or
(39:36):
so minutes here I'm wonderingIf you were.
I know we've been kind oftalking about advice all the way
throughout the show, but if, ifsomebody were on the fence
about going independent itdoesn't necessarily have to do
with podcasting, it can.
But if somebody were on thefence about going independent
and you had to go back and likegive yourself some pieces of
(39:57):
advice earlier on inside of yourprocess or your career, is
there something that you wouldeither tell yourself that you
know you're putting too muchemphasis on this, it doesn't
actually matter that much or,hey, you know, try this out, or
do this earlier Are there?
Is there something like a pieceof advice for somebody that's
kind of in that place?
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Yeah, I, I think the way that I look at it would be
just get really clear on thetype of lifestyle that you want
to live and the values that youhave in your life and, like, I
think the thing that attractedme to I don't say that I was
attracted, it was just kind oflike always, I was always like
an independent person but thething, the reason why, is
(40:37):
because I, you know, freedom isa Number one value, but freedom
not in the way that you don'thave responsibilities or
Relationships or anything butfreedom, and the aspect that I
have freedom of time andlocation.
You know I can work anywhere Iwant for the most part, and I
have no ceiling above me.
I have an untapped earningpotential and that is incredibly
(41:02):
Attractive and the reason why Ireally did what I was doing.
Now, if I'm speaking to someonewho is trying to make that
decision to to go from one thingto another, I'm sure it feels a
little scary, I could imagine,because you're doing something
that feels somewhat safe andthis other thing might not feel
safe.
I have a lot of friends thatcome to me who Ask me about my
(41:25):
journey because they see that Iown my own companies and that
I'm doing my own thing, and youknow they are very attracted to
that and I always kind ofrecommend them like, hey, don't
quit your day job.
Like, don't do that yet.
Like literally slowly start tobuild Something that works on
the side.
Like literally slowly Put,don't stop partying every
(41:47):
weekend, stop investing yourtime or things with people that
aren't really an asset to you,right?
I like to look at people whoare, like you know, assets or
liabilities, like and like justbe very careful with who you
spend your time around.
And I'm saying don't havefriends, I'm just saying just be
like smart, like if you want tochange your reality, like you
(42:07):
have to now start investing insomething that's gonna like do
that.
It's just slowly build that.
Be very conscious of your time,invest in yourself, especially
spiritually and emotionally,because you know, trust me,
going independent, full-time andworking for yourself like
you're gonna be Challing.
So you better be.
You better be strong in someway, you know In some ways and
be able to deal with the ups anddowns of like working for
(42:28):
yourself and having that type ofresponsibility.
But what's great is build thatside hustle, keep doing, get one
client doing that one thingright, get that process rinsed
and repeated down so you reallyunderstand how you can then get
another client and then anotherclient, and then another client
and then all of a sudden you'llstart to realize wait a second,
I'm making more money over herethan I am my, my, my day job.
(42:48):
I guess now I can sunset thisand I'll put in my notice or
I'll figure out what the nextplan might be.
Hopefully that was helpful.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Yeah, no, I definitely think it is, because
I think when you're on thatfence, I definitely agree that
it is scary and I also reallyempathize.
I actually was just having aconversation with a buddy of
mine the other day where we weretalking about graduating friend
groups and how we've bothexperienced in our lives he's
(43:21):
also an entrepreneur and we raninto each other at our 10 year
high school reunion and we weretalking about, you know, the
difference between how we feelas entrepreneurs versus running
into all of our old friends youknow from high school, and the
different life, the differencein between the lives that we
built over the last decade.
And me and him were really Kindof clicking on the fact that it
(43:43):
feels like to us that we've hadto graduate multiple friend
groups along the journey andthat it's not that we, you know,
chose.
Okay, you know you mentionedasset liability.
It's not like we consciouslywere like you are a liability,
like I'm not hanging out withyou.
It's just when we changed ourhabits, when we changed our
motion, when we changed ourvision, you outgrown the
(44:04):
pathways.
Yeah, the pathways justdiverged and it's like I'm not,
you know, I there's.
There are some people that I dohave a little bit of a
vindictive reason for the reasonwhy they're not in my life
anymore.
But the majority of people thatwas not like this.
You know eruption and then allof a sudden they're not in my
life anymore.
It was this, it was this, thisdrifting apart.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
It's, it's everyone's .
It's like back to, it's likethe spirit, spirituality side of
it is like everyone's on theirown growth path, and sometimes
growth paths.
You know you are up, levelingand upgrading at a rate which
you are finding your value,you're finding your calling,
you're finding your path, you'refinding what makes you happy,
what makes you turned on in theworld and when that value system
(44:46):
doesn't align with somebodyelse, it's just.
It's kind of like this on thisunspoken thing where you're like
it just it's, it happens sonaturally that you're like
you're not going to spend asmuch time with someone else who
doesn't have the same valuesystem, so you're not going to
run into them in the same places, because you're not going to.
(45:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you knowyou're not.
You're not calling them becausethe football game, not, not
anything against football.
I'm just like not a big sportsperson, but like this is
something for me.
It's like I'm not callingsomeone because of football game
, because I just don't care tospend my time with it.
It's just not something that'svaluable to me.
I like the idea of it.
I'll walk the Super Bowl everyyear, right, but it's not
(45:28):
something that so like thosetypes of.
I'm just not in those groups ofpeople.
I don't, I don't speak thatlanguage, right.
So anyway, yeah, it's.
Yeah, the value, the valuesystem is a big one.
The growth path is a big one.
Yeah, invest in your firstsorry, invest in yourself first,
before for anything else.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Yeah, yeah, I think it kind of is.
It comes back to the idea oflike the what do they call it?
Was it a law of attraction?
Yeah, right, like the energythat you decide to internalize
and the values that youinternalize and the energy that
you put out is the energy that'sreturned, and that is that
principle, right there.
It's just when, when you makethat shift, be conscious, be
(46:06):
aware, look around in your life,like, okay, who is naturally
wanting to spend time with me asI'm pursuing this new thing?
Who is somebody and I've had tocut people off for this before
who is somebody that is sayinglike, who do you think you are?
Like, are you better than us?
Or you know, like thatconversation kind of comes into
your head.
It's like oh no, I'm not.
You know, just because I don'twant to go party every weekend
doesn't mean that I think I'mbetter.
(46:27):
It's just that I'm spending mytime in another area.
If you feel that way, though,maybe we need to take a look
internally and be there.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Yeah, it's on you, that's on them yeah.
Yeah, maybe, maybe you feelthey're taking it personally,
Right Right.
If everyone didn't take itpersonally, you know it's like,
then everyone would just, wouldbe, would be just fine.
But we're human and we're notperfect, and you know we're
emotional creatures.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
Life is messy, yeah, life is messy.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
Yeah.
Yeah, and it's like you knowyou're not going to be able to
do that anymore.
You know, smile to more, smileto more people call people that.
You know, that you, that youlove and you know, just kind of
like, put good vibes out in theworld and it'll be a much better
place for it, not only you, buteveryone else.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Yeah, I love that.
I always advocate for peopleand like, if you get an
intuitive pulse to like reachout to somebody, just send them
a text, be like hey, I'mspeaking about you today, hope
you're doing good, that's it.
You don't need to do much more.
You'd be surprised how much joyyou could bring into somebody's
life just by like realize,especially if they're in a dark
place, and you pop into theirphone and you're like hey, you
know, totally random, haven'ttalked to you in a little while,
(47:28):
but you know, hope you're doinggood.
You have no idea how much thatcould bring into somebody's life
.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
And then it's infectious, and then they pass
it on.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Yep, yep, I love it.
Okay, so to kind of round usout here, I always like asking
this question to round out shows, because I just genuinely
interested in like what peoplefind as resources, and you know,
I think that people, especiallymembers of the indie collective
community, always have someinteresting thing that they
found that is fun for them.
So do you consider yourself areader, a watcher or a listener
(48:01):
and, depending on which one ofthose you spend the most time
with right, like reading books,watching YouTube or
documentaries, tv shows orlistening to podcasts, which one
of those views do you consideryourself more of?
And then could you recommendeither a book, a YouTube channel
or a podcast that you havefound interesting or valuable?
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Yeah, I love that question.
I'm.
It's funny, I want to like, Iwant to pick two, do it, but
yeah it's.
I think I'm definitely alistener.
I'm not much of a, I mean Ilike watching things, but like,
when it comes generally to who,I am, as per some, a listener
and and then a read and then areader, so and that's great
(48:43):
because I'm a podcasting.
So what I'm listening toprobably, it's kind of just
something that I've been payingattention to for a while.
Stephen Bartlett show, dario CEO, is just one of these shows
that took off and he's doingsuch a great job with.
He's really an interesting guytoo.
(49:04):
So I I like the way that he'sexecuting a show.
It's all about just like youknow business, but then it's
getting into social andemotional things and health and
wellness and just kind of likehe brings on such interesting
people.
So it's like every time that Ilisten to a show and was like
(49:25):
this is just like deep.
Also from a productionstandpoint, the way that they
produce their show is just likeon such another level, they do
viral trailers and everything isjust it's just like beautiful,
it's like a real entertainmentplatform now.
So I just recommend like, yeah,I have any.
That's what I'm listening to,what I'm reading.
Actually, funny enough, liketwo days ago, I just I was
(49:47):
watching it's watching something, and then someone mentioned
this book.
I don't know if I say I'm not awatcher.
I was watching something, butthey mentioned this book, so I
just bought it and it's calledthe fourth turning.
It's the subject lines like anAmerican prophecy and it's about
(50:08):
the cycles of history that willtell us about, like you know,
our next rendezvous with destinyor something like that, and
it's something that's likereally interesting.
It talks about the differentturnings and quadrants of
generational change and there'slike 80 year blocks with 20 year
turnings with each one and itwas fascinating because it
(50:31):
literally, just literally waslike a rinse and repeat of just
like history and 100 year blocksthat were just copying each
other and I was like, wow, thisis fascinating.
So if for anyone who's sointerested about generational
change and the moment that we'rein and what might be coming
around the corner and what wecan learn from history and I
think that's what's reallyimportant this book might be
(50:52):
very interesting.
I haven't read it yet.
I just bought it on Amazon twodays ago, but I'm excited.
So that's kind of like what I'm, what I'm looking at.
One thing I'm actively readingright now which I would probably
recommend to most would be it'sthe mastery of love by died
(51:12):
Lewis, don DeLewis, don MiguelRuiz.
That's what it is and that'sall about just leading with love
in life and it's it's served mein many ways and it's affected.
I didn't know it was going toaffect my business in the ways
it did, but I'm very glad that Ithat I read it.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
I love those.
I'm 100% going to get thatfourth turning book.
I just pulled it up on myAmazon right now.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
I'm super not the mastery of love.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
Come on, mastery of love also sounds like oh my God,
okay, well, and then if thelast one, if anybody is
listening to this and they'relike, wow, I sounds like a cool
dude.
I'm interested in what he'sdoing, where can they find you
(52:00):
online or where's the best placeto try to connect?
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Yeah, just Google me, ike Fontaine.
My agency is get futuremediacom.
I'm sure there'll be some linksin the show notes, so you find
me there, ike Fontainecom.
Yeah, lovely to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Cool, cool rock and roll Alright.
And then, if you are listeningto this and you were on the
fence about any collective, butnow you're feeling like I kind
of want some more information onthis, you can reach out to me
at yon looks like jam J and atchase the apex, not chase the
apex.
I'm going to edit this part.
You can reach out to me Yonlooks like Jan Jan, at indie
(52:35):
collectiveio.
That's I and D E collectiveio.
Or you can visit our website atindie collectiveco Indie
collectiveco.
I'm looking forward to hearingfrom you and until the next
episode, I hope you have a greatrest of your week.
Talk soon.
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