Episode Transcript
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[Mark] (00:03):
What was the podcasting industry like
all those years ago when I first started? Ten
years ago, to be precise. And what does
it take to run a podcast hosting platform and
try and keep on top of an educational
podcast like the podcast accelerator? Well,
I figured I'd give you a look behind
the curtain, go a little bit deeper into really
(00:26):
what it takes to kind of do all of these.
podcasting endeavours and stay on top of it
whilst also keeping it fun because that
of course can be the challenge but instead
of forcing you to listen to me harp
on about the good old days of podcasting, how
it used to be and what it is like to
do a few of the things that I do. decided to
(00:49):
bring on someone who loves podcasting
probably more than I do. Someone who can truly
say he spends his time trying to make
the industry better, enjoying the podcasting
industry and getting to know everyone
within it. It is of course my wonderful co-host
and interviewer, Mr Danny Brown of course
from Captivate, our fantastic head of support
(01:12):
and experience and the founder and host
of the wonderful Pod Chat amongst many other
podcasts. What's up dude, how are you?
[Danny Brown] (01:21):
I'm good, I feel kind of strange
sitting in Gary's seat, because normally it's
you and Gary on the old Spark
Rebellion and all the cool nerd stuff. So it
feels kind of weird sat here.
[Mark] (01:30):
Well, you are a lot better looking than
Gary, a lot more charming and of course a lot
funnier as well. So Gary, if you're
listening to this, I mean everything. I mean
it all. But yeah, we're talking about
the Star Wars show that Gaz and I do, which
is a hobby show, sparkrebellion.com.
And this is weird because I'm going to put
this out the week commencing the 8th
of May, but we're actually recording this on
(01:53):
May the 4th, dude. So happy Star Wars
Day to you, my friend.
[Danny Brown] (01:56):
Happy Star Wars Day. Many many
years. What's that 40 plus years now? 77, 78?
Good grief.
[Mark] (02:02):
Wow, it's insane. I actually went to
watch Return of the Jedi as well in the cinema
the other day. It was fascinating to
see. It was fantastic, man. Really loved it.
[Danny Brown] (02:11):
That'd be cool to see that. And
I saw there was like some little Funko toys
there and some original Star
Wars memorabilia.
[Mark] (02:19):
Yeah, they were throwing all that out.
And then a local guy to us, Matt Ferguson,
did the worldwide global poster for
it, which is on Disney Plus as well. So he's
a guy from Sheffield, Matt Ferguson,
does a lot with Disney, and it's just been
really nice to be a part of that. But
something that we're a part of every single
day, of course, is the now big world,
a bigger world of podcasting. And I just wanted
(02:40):
to bring on someone that I know, someone
that I trust, someone that I class as a friend,
someone that I knew would do a good
job of chatting through. what it's like to
do the things that we do in podcasting,
just so I had the chance to, I think, share
some of the things that I rarely get
to share. So I wanna thank you for doing this,
mate, but I'm actually, I'm just gonna
hand over to you. I'm gonna let you run the
podcast accelerator. So for you, the
ever-present listener, you're in fine, safe
(03:06):
hands with Mr. Danny Brown.
[Danny Brown] (03:09):
Thank you, Mark, and I will try
not to break your show.
[Mark] (03:12):
Hahaha.
[Danny Brown] (03:12):
So yeah, I think what I'm looking
forward to is picking your brain about, obviously,
you've been in podcasting for
10 years, at least now. You've got the scars
and gray hair starting to show
for it. So I'm sure you've got a lot to talk
about. And I know with the podcast
accelerator relaunching, it's a good opportunity.
So kind of a catch up of the
show, the industry, what's coming down the
(03:32):
line, that kind of stuff. So
thanks for inviting me on to be that kind of
co-host for this episode.
[Mark] (03:38):
It's a pleasure, there's been a lot
of change just even in the hiatus the year
off from this show so it's been a big
a big industry shift you know a lot of things
kind of been tweaked some things have
stayed the same that I think will inevitably
always stay the same but yeah I'm looking
forward to digging him.
[Danny Brown] (03:55):
Yeah, and also the show, I mean,
it's four years old now this month. So Happy
Birthday Podcast Accelerator,
[Mark] (04:01):
Thank
[Danny Brown] (04:01):
probably
[Mark] (04:01):
you.
[Danny Brown] (04:01):
about the same age as Cactiway,
I would have thought. Four years old, 2019,
and it's got over
[Mark] (04:06):
Do you know what?
[Danny Brown] (04:06):
300 episodes.
[Mark] (04:07):
Yeah, sorry to interrupt on that. You're
right. That shocked me a little bit. I forgot
about that. Yeah, we launched Captivate
into like an alpha. Ian Anderson-Gray started.
He was the first user on Captivate.
And I forced Kieran to let him on in April
2019 when Kieran had gone on holiday.
I was like, it'll be fine. Just let Ian on.
It'll be all right. So yeah, that's
weird. And actually, I think on May the 4th
(04:29):
as well, Spark Rebellion launched as
well in 2019, which is.
[Danny Brown] (04:34):
Wow.
[Mark] (04:35):
Yeah, how bizarre. Never thought of
any of that.
[Danny Brown] (04:37):
a lot of birthdays and obviously
your little girl who obviously we'll mention
later, little Dory, she must
be approaching her first birthday now I think,
or over her
[Mark] (04:44):
Oh
[Danny Brown] (04:44):
first
[Mark] (04:44):
she's
[Danny Brown] (04:45):
birthday.
[Mark] (04:45):
beyond it, she's 15 months in 20 days,
which is
[Danny Brown] (04:48):
Oh my
[Mark] (04:49):
terrifying.
[Danny Brown] (04:49):
lord. So as I mentioned, I mean,
congratulations, happy birthday on the fourth
anniversary, fourth birthday
of podcast accelerator. What was the initial
goal when you initially launched
the show and how has that changed over time
for map ideas, etc.
[Mark] (05:08):
I think for me, the goal has always
been the same with any kind of content that
I've put out and not only content, but
any kind of product that I've put out, whether
that's my original excellence expected
content, whether that is podcast websites,
which we still have and we still run,
whether it's Captivate, whether the Accelerator,
my old shows, or Seven Minute Mentor,
Spark Rebellion. Number one, first and foremost,
(05:28):
to have fun. We've both been in corporate,
we've both been in jobs that we're not keen
on. We've both, even when I wasn't in
corporate, I left the corporate world. 18 years
ago now, which is terrifying. And even,
even, even having clients at an agency, you
do a lot of work that you really just
aren't that keen on because it's just the way
(05:51):
of having your own business. So everything,
my entire goal, the whole thing and the whole
idea for me in podcasting was to get
into this thing because I love it. Similar
to you get into this thing because I
actually love it. And I'd still podcast. you
know, even if I didn't work in it. And
in fact, I have podcasted, even though I've
had the podcast accelerator down for
a year. I've still done Spike Rebellion. I've
done the new show, It's How Old, which
you kindly shared yesterday, which is launching
(06:14):
shortly. So for me, it was very much
about like, find that fun first. And then when
it comes to, you know, can we make a
living from it? Let's see how that goes. And
I've always been quite sensible with
that. So when it came to launching the podcast
accelerator, it was sort of a continuation
of that. And it was really focused on Like
(06:34):
you know me, I'm pretty anti-guru. I
think there's a lot of people that see an opportunity
in industries or in things that are
doing well, dive in, sell a load of snake oil
and smoke and mirrors, and then bail
again. Like you see all the time, the people
in 2008 that were social media gurus,
18 months ago were NFT gurus and guess what?
Now they're AI gurus and each one of
them has been a podcasting guru and people
(06:58):
like that are cropping up all the time.
So for me, with the accelerator, it was sort
of a different offer. It was. almost
a promise of no hyperbole, no BS, no like getting
over excited about things that might
be a flash in the pan, getting over excited,
like remember Clubhouse, like we're
not
[Danny Brown] (07:19):
Yeah.
[Mark] (07:19):
getting excited about that, we didn't
get excited about that, we did it sensibly.
So it was very much a way of keeping
things grounded, but also I think an important
aspect of this is, I podcast, I've done...
I don't know, 1,300, 1,400 episodes of varying
podcasts, plus countless interviews
on other people's podcasts at this point. And
(07:42):
it was very important for me to understand
that I'm a podcaster, but actually what I really
do is I'm a product guy. I'm a sort
of lapsed developer and I'm really a brand
marketer. I'm not a technical marketer,
I'm more of a brand marketer. So all of those
skills, maybe outside of the development
part. are really things that people need to
(08:04):
grow their podcast. So it was how can
I fulfill all the promises, no BS, no hyperbole,
no getting people excited about things,
thinking it's a silver bullet, or I'm gonna
10X this and 50X this if you just sign
up for my 97 bucks a month course. But how
can I also take all these things that
I do every day with Captivate and that I've
done for the last 18 years for myself
and bring them to podcasters because they are
(08:27):
skills that podcasters need, even though...
No one tells you that they need them. So it
was, that's the goal with the accelerator.
And I've tried different formats. I've tried
short form, long form, we do interviews
and it's about being adaptable. So that was
the goal was to just give some no BS
education from the other, you know, I suppose
(08:47):
the elements of what I do for a living
that people don't see when they see me on a
podcast because they don't realize I
do these, you know, the actual nine to five
is this stuff. Bring that to podcasters,
help them to learn from it. and be there to
answer questions without trying to sell
them anything. So yeah, that part of it is
important.
[Danny Brown] (09:05):
And you'd mention, obviously,
experimentation with formats, length, frequency.
I mentioned you've had over 300,
332 episodes, I think, if I've got the exact
number right, in the space of
four years, which is more than one episode
a week, if you do it on an average.
So you were very, very busy, for want of a
better word, with the show and
all the other stuff. You've got Captivate,
(09:26):
you've got your other hobbyist
podcast, et cetera. But it went silent for
a year, a complete year. It just
went switched off. And you did publish an episode.
about taking a hiatus back last
April, I think maybe March. And it did go quiet
for a whole year. And you launched,
relaunched with a bonus episode last week about,
you know, they talked a bit about
the hiatus, you know, why you took it. And
(09:48):
you actually mentioned that you
had come super, super close to actually just
closing it all down, switching
it off, sending out a final episode. But you
changed your mind and here you
are with the new revamped relaunch show. And
I know you're, you know, you've
got a lot of ideas for how that's gonna look.
with a new format. So what changed
your mind? What excited you again about this,
the short and your insights?
[Mark] (10:13):
I think the thing that excited me about
bringing the accelerator back, and I do want
to kind of bookend this with, and I
mentioned this in the episode last week, I
legitimately recorded a This Is Finished
Goodbye episode. I recorded it, I wrote the
script for it, I'd done everything.
I think the reason that I brought it back and
(10:33):
the reason that I couldn't bring myself
to publish that was, I've always got something
to say. You know me, I'm always pretty
mouthy and I still do a lot of other people's
podcasts. But I was just burnt out.
You know, the reason I took the hiatus that
I mentioned in last week's bonus episode
was I was simply burnt out. There's only so
much content you can do about the same
sort of thing. So I think I had to restock
(10:55):
the mind a little bit on actually what
is important to people? What do people want
to hear from me? But also it was, we
had a lot of transition. behind the scenes,
even probably you didn't see it as even
part of Captivate, you know, when we integrated
with Global, there's just a lot of things
that you've got to do, just stuff that, you
(11:17):
know, with the best will in the world,
you wanna put an episode out on a Monday, which
is like the worst time to publish an
episode, because it's Monday. And that was,
I think, highlighted by the fact that
someone just needed something from me on a
Monday. So there was that element to
it where I thought, I thought, look, enough
(11:38):
time has passed now where we can, you
know, we're integrated well into global. We've
got brilliant product releases. We've
got a mega release coming out next week with
Captivate, which is a huge release,
which we'll talk about after it's been released.
But the ability to do the day-to-day
stuff, the stuff that I enjoy doing, has come
back a little bit more flexibly because
that major integration... Interglobal was done.
(12:02):
Also, of course, I had such a big personal
year with Doc being born and just kind of helping
Sam through that transition, me going
through that transition and just the bandwidth
and the brain space required to produce
good content, it just wasn't there. And I think
this is the thing. I went through so
many changes with the podcast Accelerator because
(12:26):
I wanted to keep producing good content.
And to me, that was reflective of how the industry
shifted. Like I started with a, I think
it was a daily show and then a five, five times
a week show and then twice a week. And
it went from short form to getting progressively
longer to the point where when I stopped
the show and went on hiatus last year, it was
very long form. You know, there are
some eight, 9,000 word pieces that I recorded
(12:48):
as audio, which are great, but they
require a day to do. And that to me was reflective
of like where the industry went. There's
enough podcasts now that you can get content
on anything that you want. So in order
to stand out, you've got to be really good.
And that was that evolution of the accelerator
was short form was good. Back then, it didn't
have to be as well thought out and well
planned because I still had a lot of good to
(13:10):
give and a lot of value and a lot of
actionable stuff. But as the industry has progressed
and more listeners come on board and
the industry started to fracture in some ways,
but unifying in other ways. I had to
just keep refining that and refining that.
And I didn't... Last year when I went
on the hiatus, it was sort of a, how do I keep
(13:31):
delivering this really good content
at a time where we've got a new child, we are
integrating into a much, much bigger
business than ours that thankfully leaves us
alone, you know, we still, we were pretty
autonomous, we do great work for everyone,
but still requires my attention. How
do I give the best content to the listener?
It just wasn't fair. to give substandard
content. Like I'm pretty open with that. And
(13:55):
I think part of, part of the responsibility
as someone that educates in podcasting is to
be really open and honest when you can't
give good content out because there are that
many podcasters out there that think
I wanna do great content, but I just don't
have the time to do it. What should
I do? Should I stop? Should I carry on? Should
(14:16):
I hate this? And I think I could have
sort of BSed my way through it. and produced
content that other people would have
thought was good enough, but I wouldn't have
been happy with it. And I didn't see
the point in doing like, you know, let you
carry on with PodChat because it's brilliant
content. Let the other people that are passionate
(14:40):
about the industry give that amazing
content at a time when I wasn't able to do
it because there's enough space for
everyone. So. What I think what reignited me
was, you know, all that burden disappearing,
you know, we settled into every... all the
new facets of life have been settled
into now. And I had people asking, you know,
(15:01):
I literally had people asking. Two things
actually, when are you coming back? Brilliant.
That was amazing to hear. The second
thing was, I got people asking, Mark, what
do you think about this? So it might
be like, what do you think about YouTube and
podcasting? What do you think about
this course I've been offered? What do you
think about this sponsorship deal? What
do you think about X, Y and Z? And I get a
(15:24):
lot of emails and DMs about this all
the time. And I thought to myself, people still
seem to want that straight talking advice.
You know, they're not looking for the, you
know, like when someone asks what microphone
to buy, they're not looking for the, well,
here are 10 and I'm not going to commit
to one in case it's wrong and you think I'm
an idiot. I'm not that guy, I'm the
other guy that's like, well, these nine aren't
(15:47):
very good, use this one. You know, I'm
very straight talking with that and people
seem to want that and the appetite didn't
disappear. I'll tell you what's fascinating,
a lot of people think that when you
go on hiatus you lose all your listeners. You
do not. I've had the highest download
episode last week when I put the bonus episode
out, the first six hours were the highest
downloads. that I've seen across the show and
(16:14):
that's with barely any promo.
[Danny Brown] (16:15):
Hmm.
[Mark] (16:16):
It wasn't featured in pod news on that
day. There was nothing special about it. I've
had the highest number of downloads
and the back catalog has continued to grow.
It has continued to receive downloads
that the high just that hiatus episode that
I put out like March 22, April 2022.
Thousands of people listen to it, which is
(16:39):
styling and that's continued to grow.
So I think that was the final factor was that
the appetite was still there. Because
I will tell you this just to long windedly
finish up this answer. The landscape
gets busy. All right. Everyone now has an opinion
on podcasting and you know, there are
podcasts about podcasting and how to grow your
(17:00):
podcast and this, that and the other.
And I think one of the other things that I
didn't mention in that episode last
week was sort of maybe the feeling that I didn't
have enough to say to compete with all
that other stuff because a lot of people, like
there's great people in the industry
like yourself and a lot of people like Ariel
(17:21):
and people like James and Sam and putting
out really good content, but there's a lot
of crap. There's a lot of people that
have got really dodgy clickbait titles that
are podcasts about podcasting. And I
thought to myself, can I really be bothered
trying to quote unquote compete with
that? And I just thought, no, there's no point,
you know? And that changed. That changed
this year when I realized I got my bandwidth
(17:45):
back. I've got everything back that
I needed. I'd seen people asking for it. And
I thought, do you know what? It turns
out people do want that straight talk. And
so, you know, sort of screw the gurus.
I'm going to come back and be a pain in their
neck again. So, yeah, a long winded
answer. But there was a lot to that. It's quite
a, it's quite a thinker that, you know.
[Danny Brown] (18:06):
And I think to that point, it
goes back to your ethos of putting only quality
content out, not just being like
the other 20, 30, 40 podcasters that talk about
podcasting, which shows, you
know, if you've got quality evergreen content,
the audience will remain. You
build up a loyal audience because they trust
your content beforehand. They'll
remain there for you, but you mentioned, obviously,
(18:28):
they're waiting for that to come
back. That's awesome to hear. We talked about,
obviously, that the show is four
years old. but you've been in the industry
for 10 years, let's call it a
good old simple decade, a nice decade, nice
round number. And there must
have been some, well we know there's been some
changes, but for you specifically,
what have you seen really different between
podcasting today and podcasting
in 2013?
[Mark] (18:53):
There are so many things that have changed
in the last 10 years, I think, of me being
in podcasting. The first thing I think
that has remained, that's the first place to
start, I think, is the sense of community.
I remember going to NMX in 2015 when we were
just, we'd just, we'd launch podcast
websites, maybe two months before, 18th of
February. 2015, we launched podcast
websites. And no one knew me. You know, I went
(19:18):
out and spoke there. I spoke at podcast
movement that the year I spoke at NME, NMEU,
Mike and Isabella's gig 2015 and the
community has remained. That was the big thing
that struck me. That's what sold me
on podcasting. You know, prior to that, I was
at 2013 was myself and Gaz with our
original show, Two Shots of the Head, Geek
(19:39):
Culture, DC stuff, brilliant. really
loved that show, just like really loved doing
it, but it was a laugh, it was a hobby.
And then 2014, I started my own personally
branded show, which led to where we
are today, being as a direct path between all
of that. So the big thing that got me
hooked on podcasting was the community, but
in particular, the independent community.
So I went to an NMX. Yeah, I went to NMX in
(20:06):
2015 and there was Rob was there, Elsie
was there, Todd, Rob Greenlee, Jess. Pretty
much that's it. I can remember, obviously
just eat and drink with them. I met Jonathan
Oakes from Trivia Warfare who just started
his show. So he's coming up on nearly a decade
(20:26):
as well. Ramona Rice, a few other people,
Jordan Harbinger, Pat Flynn, you know, all
those people. were there and I was sold
on this sense of community. No one knew me
but everyone embraced me. And it was
the same and I've always tried to foster that.
So that's the thing that stayed the
same amongst independent creators. That's why
(20:47):
I did so much travel and so many conferences
because of that. The thing that has changed,
there's a number of different things.
You and I have spoken about it before, and
I've written about this, bloody heck
I wrote about this about six years ago, the
fracturing of the industry, and I wrote
a piece a while ago, The Gap Between Indians
and Big Podcasting. And this idea that
the 99% of podcasting is made up of independents
(21:10):
like you and I, trying to make our way
in this hobbyist world. And then there's media,
there's The Wondery, Wondery was like
for me the big company that came in and- really
set out their stall as being, we are
a media company creating things with diverse
IP that can then be made into other
things. It's not just a podcast. And we've
seen that much more wildly now. So whether
it's, you know, whether it's Grim and Mild
(21:34):
with Aaron, whether it's, you know.
Pineapple Street, obviously Wondery purchased
by Amazon, all the Spotify originals,
Globals owned and operated stuff, the stuff,
First Action Bureau by Jerry Anderson's
crew, Jamie and his team. This is all IP that
has been created to be media. And that's
been the big thing because people worried about
(21:57):
that. Like in 2017, I remember doing
a talk at Podcast Movement. when all this really
started to kick off, you know, serial
was out, Sarah Koenig was the keynote or PM
in maybe Chicago, maybe Fort Worth,
maybe the one maybe where Kevin Smith was at,
which was like geek heaven for me, I
loved that. And it was, that was the time when
(22:19):
Indies like You and Me and The Hobbiest
that have got like 200 downloads an episode
really started getting worried. And
all these questions started coming out. What
does this mean for me? How do I grow
my show? How do I monetize? Then you had like,
and there's nothing wrong with this,
even though it's going to sound like there
is like the entrepreneur crew that was
like, oh yeah, you can make a pile of money
(22:40):
from podcasting. Eh, eh, you can, but
I can make a pile of money from being a brickie.
I can make a pile of money from tech.
I can make a pile of money from golf. I can
make a pile of money from anything that
I put all the practice time, effort and professionalism
into. That's not like, that's not rocket
science or wizardry, is it? So that element
fractured it where big podcasting came
around. And then the second thing that happened
(23:02):
around the same time for me, and this
is another big change, is tech started getting
interested. So like VCs, and we've had
it with Captivate, you know, I still get it
today, would you like investment for
Captivate? No, I'm good. And people trying
to buy tech, and we saw all these crazy
acquisitions, we saw Simplecast, we saw Stitcher.
(23:22):
change hands, we've seen all sorts,
glow, we've seen obviously, captivate become
part of global. And all of these acquisitions.
made the industry interest into people that
thought they wanted to be in an industry
where they could make a quick book. And that
(23:43):
was the big change. Now it's a bit different,
you know, that I think I actually think in
the last year that's changed. Maybe
we'll get to that. But so we saw all that go
ahead and that scared a lot of the independent
people. Those people, the very same people
like embraced me through community were
worried. What does this mean? So I think in
(24:04):
short, the way to summarize that is
when I got into podcasting, it was. It was
the best way to phrase this. It was
a media that had a foot in different industries.
So what I mean by that is it was sort
of like I can create my own content. This is
great and anyone can listen to it and
it doesn't matter what I talk about because
(24:25):
it's my podcast, but it's not an industry
as such. There's a little bit of ad revenue.
There's maybe like 180,000 shows. But
we're really like in the tech industry, because
we're a hosting company like Libsyn
or whatever. Or we're like a radio company,
so we're in the radio industry. But
now, podcasting is the industry. It employs
(24:50):
that many people and it's the, if you're
a digital marketer, you've probably got, for
if you work for a large enough company,
a budget for podcast sponsorships where you
didn't before. The whole programmatic
side has really matured. the whole way that
we measure things continues to mature.
So I think that's the big change. It's become
(25:12):
an actual bonafide industry. And there's
a lot that goes along with that, but I think
that's the biggest change. There's a
lot of sort of sub headers beneath that, but
that's the headline, I think. And I
think one of the pieces of advice that I think
(25:32):
I would give to anyone getting into
podcasting is to sort of ignore that. Like
if you create a YouTube channel, you
don't think, oh my word, I'm not gonna create
a YouTube channel because it'll never
grow because Netflix exists or movies. You
know, so why would you, I get people
all the time and you'll be the same, wow, is
(25:55):
podcasting too busy? Is it too late
to start a podcast? I know, of course not,
we better stop writing books. If that's
the way you think, you know, we better stop
making new films or. better stop creating
new Netflix series. All right, it's not, it's
not about that. And it baffles me, especially
the hobbyists. You know, a lot of people get
into podcasting and ask genuinely as
hobbyists, and they'll say, is it too late?
(26:21):
Are these good numbers? I'm like, well,
if you decide to play golf, right, if your
neighbor comes around and says, do you
wanna go out for a knock? You say, well, I've
never played before. And they say, well,
here's some spare clubs. Let's get into it.
You are literally not gonna go home
the next day and go, right. time to create,
grow and monetize my golf game.
[Danny Brown] (26:38):
I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.
[Mark] (26:38):
You're just not, it's like, it's nuts.
And it's so, I think that's another thing that's
been a, like a bit of a, almost like
running with a parachute on. It holds a lot
of people back, this idea that you have
to monetize the thing. When we all know that
to monetize something, you've just got
to be passionate about it, because then you
(27:02):
get good at it, you know. competence
leads to confidence and confidence leads to
consistency and consistency leads to
people starting to notice you and people noticing
you leads to money and that's just like
marketing. So yeah, that's been such a huge
shift, people worrying about it's now
an industry, is it too late for me to get into
(27:27):
it? How do I make money doing it? And
you know, better than anyone else, you know,
the way that you build fandom and the
way that you make money from fandom is like
to genuinely focus on building fans
and friends. And to bring this right back to
the beginning of the question and the
answer, like that's what people were doing
back then is embracing the people around
them and building them as an audience and friendship
(27:52):
group and so on and so forth. So it's
sort of ironic because a lot has changed, but
so much has stayed the same.
[Danny Brown] (27:58):
I wonder if part of that is down
to, and I know you've spoken about this before,
we see the community, the community
is awesome, but you also see maybe some old
guard podcasters or old guard
tech leaders, etc. The industry is what you
mentioned as the teenage stage.
You know, we've gone past the baby steps, etc.
We've sort of got a, we're a
foothold in the media entertainment industry.
(28:21):
We know what podcasting is, what
it wants to achieve, what we want to achieve.
But it's still very much all
down to... you need an RSS feed with a podcast
host or some kind of hosting
solution and an MP3 file for your audio. And
that stayed pretty much the same
since the first days of podcasting. And I wonder
if that reliance on RSS or the
idea of reliance on RSS might be holding the
(28:47):
industry back when it comes to
new podcasts coming on, other companies getting
involved, et cetera. Do you think
that's the case or? You think that we're just
talking about or concentrating
on the wrong thing there?
[Mark] (29:00):
Well, someone's after some social media
clips, aren't they?
[Danny Brown] (29:03):
Ha ha
[Mark] (29:03):
I like this.
I think the idea of RSS being at the
centre of podcasting is brilliant and open
podcasting is super important. Captivate
supports that through podcasting 2.0 and being
part of the PSP, whether you agree with
those initiatives or not, there's no harm in
them at the minute.
(29:25):
does an RSS feed harm the growth of
podcasting? I wouldn't say so because, like,
sort of who cares as a listener or as
a tech company? So take someone like Spotify.
And I've said this before in interviews.
I wrote a piece ages ago, like five years ago,
saying that Spotify did not need RSS
feeds and, you know, maybe they wouldn't use
(29:48):
them in the future. And I got absolutely
battered by all of the... People that are friends,
that's the irony. You know, you're silly,
you're naive, you don't know podcasts, and
they're like, you don't know tech. You
know, and it was, guess what? Spotify don't
need RSS feeds, they don't. Neither
does any player. They could choose to accept
(30:09):
via any other method, whether it's JSON,
which they wouldn't do because it's pointless,
it's essentially an RSS feed again if,
you know, for all intents and purposes. They
could choose to ingest via API. that
it literally makes no difference to the listener
experience whatsoever. But it's not
podcasting, right? So I see this on two hands.
(30:37):
On the first hand, I see the people
forging ahead without RSS regardless. And so
people like Spotify, who cares? They're
just going to do what they're going to do and
they're going to do it really well.
And guess what? I'm really sorry to say, but
they are going to make money and get
users doing it. because it's not a bad experience.
And you get a lot of people, I don't
like listening to podcasts in Spotify because
(30:57):
it's not the best podcast app. My mom
doesn't care. She ain't downloading Overcast
or Pocket Casts or Good Pods. She's
got an iPhone, she doesn't even know Apple
Podcast is on there. And I ain't telling
her because she thinks I work with computers.
So that's just a wasted Sunday. So the
point is that it... The tech companies that
are going to do it will take the lambasting
that they will get and they've weathered it
(31:20):
before, they will continue to weather
anything that the industry throws at them because
they know what users do. That's the
annoying thing to a lot of people in podcasting
is that people like Spotify come along
and they know what users do because they're
really good at it, because they're massive
and they've got billions and billions and billions
(31:42):
of events logged and data points tracked
to analyze. So of course, you know, they're
going to forge ahead without RSS. That
said.
The goal of podcasting and the point
of originally being a podcaster was to syndicate
things yourself using an open RSS feed
that anyone can read using a simple reader
(32:07):
and that should and will not ever go
away. And that's fine. And that is how it should
be and it will continue to develop.
It relies on a lot of other things developing,
so the apps developing, hosting companies
like Captivate developing. standardization
which is sort of happening. It relies
on users like caring which is the classic tech
(32:34):
adoption curve. They're not going to
care for a long, long time that we've introduced
a new feature. They don't care. They
don't care about value for value. What the
hell's that? Just give me some money.
You know, that's like again, you know, my mom
doesn't care. Like take it down the
next level. My brother who was more tech literate
and you know, much more tech savvy than
my mom. Go and spend this Satoshi. go do what?
(32:56):
Alright, ok, well it's sort of like
a pound, but imagine if a pound was really
not worth that much and you needed loads
of them, and you can't really grab them. So
you know that sandwich you're going
to get at dinner time, you can't get it with
that, sorry mate. He's not fussed, he
don't want to do that. So to him it's transient,
(33:18):
it's like yeah that's cool, that's for
the geeks. And that's a standard adoption curve,
like that always happens, look at Uber
10 years you know, to versus where it is now.
Look at podcasting 10 years ago, look
at AI, look at the blockchain at large, you
know, so that's not, there's nothing
wrong with that. That's just the normal adoption
curve. It's the cutting edge people,
the early adopters and so on, and that's just
(33:40):
how adoption works. So I don't think
RSS hinders it. I don't think RSS is going
away. I think we... all need to probably
stop whining about the fact that it's not a
quote unquote podcast if it doesn't
have an RSS feed because
like that is something that will hold
our thinking back and I'm not saying we get
(34:03):
rid of RSS I would never say that like
what would I do for work but the point is that
we can't I don't think we can close
our minds and our thought processes down by
saying that this is not the thing because
So here's the irony of that. If you start saying
(34:24):
things like, it's not a podcast unless
these conditions are met, and this coming from
a big, big, big advocate for open podcasting
and RSS feeds, but if you start saying things
like that and you advocate for the open
podcast ecosystem, by saying things like that,
you become the gatekeeper
[Danny Brown] (34:44):
Hmm.
[Mark] (34:44):
that you never... ever said should exist.
You are Anakin Skywalker becoming the very
thing that you said you were going to
destroy. And that's the problem. That you,
the balance is so tough with that. And
I think the only way that we can solve that
is to continue to be open minded and
say, look, you know what, maybe 10 years ago,
(35:05):
podcasts couldn't do this thing. And
whatever that was, like, oh, podcasts don't
have adverts. Podcasts don't have programmatic
adverts. Well, not right now they don't, but
who knows what's going to happen? Who
knows where they're going to be in 10 more
years time? So yeah, an interesting,
insightful question. And I think to summarise
(35:26):
it, we shouldn't get too caught up on
RSS. It's in its rightful place. It can develop,
it will develop. And that is the core
of open podcasting, which should and will remain
for the vast majority of podcasters.
However, those that feel less strongly about
open podcasting far less stronger than
you and I do and the other hosting friends
that we've got, they will forge ahead
regardless of RSS and that just comes down
(35:51):
to that fracture that we talked about
between indie and big podcasting and that's
just the way of the world. It's just
tech. That's the way it goes. So interesting.
Maybe we'll do this again in 10 years.
[Danny Brown] (36:06):
I might still have some hair
by then.
[Mark] (36:08):
I won't mate, definitely not.
[Danny Brown] (36:11):
It does remind me though, and
I'm glad you mentioned the open podcast project.
I can know you've got the podcast
in 2.0. We are involved in the podcast standards
project, et cetera. And it does
kind of go back to the community where we should
always should be thinking about
as a listener in the community. What's the
benefit to them? They don't care
about what happens behind the scenes. It's
like if you go to the movie theater
and you watch a 3D movie. you get the 3D specs,
(36:35):
it looks amazing. I went to see
the original avatar, and that just blew me
away. Like the 3D, that was probably
one of the best, only good one about 3D. But
as a watcher, I don't care that
you need X amount of lenses, you need them
all focused at the same time,
you need these colors lined up, et cetera.
I just have to put on the glasses,
and I've got 3D. So it's like podcasting. I
open my app, or I press play
on our web player, and that's it, I'm good
(36:58):
to go. So I think, yeah, it's
like you say, I'm hoping that, you know. the
vocal counter advocates, if you
like, I guess, aren't the ones that are listened
to the most, because I think
that would maybe, you know, possibly hinder
the industry as far as audience
and listener benefits go.
[Mark] (37:19):
Yeah, I agree. I think that the way
to progress podcasting and the way that podcasting
should and will continue to progress
is through balance. I think it's the only way,
you know, the... I don't think you can
think in any industry in such binary terms
as this is the definition of X because
it might have been, and I think that's why
(37:39):
people get upset by it because that's
what it used to be and that's the only thing
it used to be, but now it's such a diverse...
set of opportunities for businesses like Spotify
that want to come in and challenge it.
And like I said, I'm not advocating for Spotify,
but nor am I advocating for RSS. I'm
advocating for balance. I'm advocating for
let's progress the things that we are
passionate about, but don't close the doors
(38:02):
on other things. Because if we do, how
can we take the best elements from everything
to... give the very best to our creators,
to our listeners and so on. And you know, you've
only got, like you said, 3D. That's
a great example. We had the, you know, avatar
in 3D. It's fantastic. It was pretty
good. It looked well. But then guess what?
(38:26):
All TVs became 3D for a little while.
And then people realized it was crap. But what
else came out of that? iMacs, which
is absolutely brilliant and it is stunning.
And when it's used well, It's amazing
as an experience. There are certain films,
Spider-Man, No Way Home, any Star Wars
that you are only gonna see in IMAX because
(38:48):
it is that good. And that's like the
bit that came out of 3D. The rest of it didn't.
And that's the thing with podcasting.
It's like, it sort of iron sharpens iron sort
of scenario. You know, you have to put
up against something to develop, but the risk,
I think, for a lot of people in podcasting,
especially the industry, It doesn't sharpen
iron. What it does is it forces that
thinking to retract and to become stagnant,
(39:14):
to hold on to the things that were as
opposed to looking at what is possible. And
I do believe that's why we're fortunate
at Captivate to have such good balance. You
know, we implement a lot of great things,
but not rashly. And we did that with the podcasting
2.0 stuff. A lot of people, including
our previous advisors, were saying, you're
(39:34):
behind the curve with podcasting 2.0.
That's cool. Like, I'm behind your curve, behind
[Danny Brown] (39:40):
Hmm.
[Mark] (39:40):
actually your curve, but our users,
the people who will, if we introduce something
that is difficult and new for them that
they've got to spend time learning, may well
stop podcasting because they're worried
that they can't keep up. I'm actually in front
of their curve, and I know their curve,
and their curve is not where your curve is.
(40:01):
And again, that's how industries work,
that the early adopters, they're the real bleeding
edge people. There are the people that
are toeing the line between being interested
in the industry and sort of just kind
of being in it by accident because they're
creating it. So there's a lot that's
going on there. And I think the risk with the
podcast industry is that it becomes
not becomes, but. Some of the more prominent
(40:25):
voices remain binary. It's this or that.
And. you know, that's only a risk to them.
They're gonna be the ones whose curves
no one really cares about if they're not careful.
So you gotta watch that as a founder.
That's one thing that I'm conscious of. You've
(40:47):
gotta be sensible and you've gotta listen
and you've gotta be empathetic with things.
So yeah, again, a lot in that, but I
mean, we could probably do 10 episodes on that,
I think.
[Danny Brown] (40:55):
Hmm. It's like comparing the
Pirelli calendar to the Michelin calendar.
That's
[Mark] (40:59):
Ha ha ha
[Danny Brown] (41:00):
like
[Mark] (41:00):
ha!
[Danny Brown] (41:00):
a little bit differences there
for anybody that knows these calendars.
[Mark] (41:04):
That is, that takes me back to like
1989, taking my car to a garage
[Danny Brown] (41:10):
Mm.
[Mark] (41:10):
in like Barnsley in the north of England,
yeah. I get that, that's a reference that not
many people are going to get.
[Danny Brown] (41:16):
I know, no, we might have to
make this a video segment just to like, you
know, just throw that out there
on a snip or something. Now, mostly you mentioned
that the industry from a podcast
point of view, we're now looking at kind of
three distinct podcasters, hobbyist,
serious indie podcaster, then the multi million
dollar media companies. And one
of the biggest for all, especially the serious
(41:38):
indie podcaster and the media
companies is monetization. monetization, especially
the last couple of years, from
working with advertisers and sponsors to Spotify
paying for exclusives, with an
eye on attracting bigger advertisers to the
platform. And there's been mixed
results. I'm curious why you think it's been
hard for so many to effectively
address monetization.
[Mark] (42:08):
My microphone wouldn't unmute then.
I was gonna edit this out. I thought I'll edit
that out, but then this is an interview
[Danny Brown] (42:13):
I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.
[Mark] (42:13):
with me. So I'm just gonna leave it
in. That was funny. So podcasts, well, monetization
of anything, not just podcasts, is very,
very difficult because you have to get people
to do different things in a reasonably
standardized sequence. You have to get them
(42:36):
to look at something, listen to something,
move from one place to another to look at something
else or listen to something else, and
then do a number of different things to quantify
and qualify whether or not what they've
heard or seen or read or whatever results in
some ROI. And that's a really, like,
high-level marketing thought process. But it's
(43:03):
the same with everything, whether you're
selling software, whether you're selling cars,
whether you're selling Star Wars figurines,
guitars, or your audience on a podcast. And
the challenges, I think the challenges
came in the earlier days where there wasn't
much tech available to do decent programmatic,
decent dynamic ad work within podcasts. That's
(43:27):
getting better. That is getting better.
You know, we do it. Every other host does it.
But what happened was that the sponsorships
became like the be all and end all. And you
know, some people discovered the fact
that you could do fixed price direct sales.
And you know, obviously, Host Red was
the real queen of the crop when it came to
(43:48):
sponsorships because they performed
much better. But what that did was it left
creators with this problem. And it doesn't
matter the size of the creator, it still left
them with a problem. All right. So if
I'm a brand. and I think I'm gonna take a punt
on this podcast lark. I might allocate
three or six months or even 12 months to this.
(44:12):
But then I've got to go into a meeting
later, or I've got to look myself if I'm like
a small business that's took a punt
on a smaller podcast, and I've got to say,
what did that do?
And it's really difficult to understand.
Now, of course, we understand things like brand
uplift. We understand the way to measure
things like that. But again, like I said with
(44:33):
my mum earlier, you know, the equivalent
of my mum's listening mindset, which is I don't
care what happens as long as I get the
good stuff, is really, I don't care what happens
as a marketer as long as I get the results
at the end. But we can't show that, you know,
so we started doing things like Go to
this link with this coupon code, which is brilliant
(44:57):
for some things and rubbish for others.
Like, if I listen to a podcast, what are the
chances of me mowing the lawn and thinking,
oh, you bloody hell, you got me. That's right.
[Danny Brown] (45:09):
Yeah.
[Mark] (45:09):
I need this new mattress right now.
I'm going to stop this lawn mowing. I'm going
to get me a mattress. Doesn't work,
all right? So it's very often about brand uplift
and about recollection. And we know
that, you know, from the Edison data, from
the infinite dial stuff, We know that
brand recall is really high amongst podcast
listeners. For that reason, you get
piping into the beret of someone. So yeah,
(45:30):
I get that, but that's difficult to
measure. So what that inadvertently did was
it meant that in order to get the right
number out of the bottom end, just standard
marketing, you needed to put a pile
of numbers in the top, which meant that in
order to do that, you needed downloads
and you needed shows that had big downloads.
But that doesn't help you and I, the
standard independent podcaster, that's doing
this for a living. So that people to
obviously direct sell at fixed price. That's
(45:56):
great. I'm a big advocate of that model
because I think there's a lot of power in those
kind of niches or for our American friends,
the niches, but you're wrong, the niches. And
what went on then was people would,
they'd find themselves having the same problem.
All right, I will fix price this. I've
got 250 listeners per episode. Give me a grand
a month. It's a super tight audience.
You'll definitely sell some stuff. But then
(46:18):
they didn't because that... that relevance
at the right time is not right. I'm not ready
to buy the thing, but I know about the
thing. So I'm at the attribution back to the
podcast might not happen for six, nine,
12 months because I'm not ready for that mattress
until a year later, but I still remember
hearing it. So that caused a lot of people
(46:39):
to then fret about, and this is at every
level, by the way, this is not like just the
Indies. This is people
[Danny Brown] (46:44):
Hmm.
[Mark] (46:44):
like Spotify offering big MRGs, minimum
revenue guarantees to like Joe Rogan and whatever,
signing bonuses or whatever. That's
all stopped or certainly there needs to be
a damn good business case for that sort
of stuff and it's much lower cost than it was
two years ago because they're having
the same problems. I thought, well, how do
I quantify all this stuff? So what that
has led to is what we've always advocated at
(47:08):
Captivate and what any person with any
common sense whatsoever in any business role
in any business in any country in the
world has always advocated for eggs and bloody
baskets. Right, don't put all your eggs
in one basket. If you want to make money podcasting,
don't make all your money from sponsorships.
So this is about diversity in monetization.
(47:32):
And we're seeing this a heck of a lot
already. We're seeing it through memberships
and subscription models, exclusive access,
early access, windowed content. We're seeing
it through tips, listener support. We're
seeing all that sort of stuff that all the
best hosts are really doing very, very
well. There are some rudimentary implementations
of that. but it can still work. And
the point is that diversity monetization, spreading
(47:55):
your eggs amongst many different baskets,
activates a range of different fans. So it
will activate the casual fans that wanna
chuck you a fiver. It'll activate the people
like you do with PodChat that wanna
subscribe to the premium feed and get exclusive
or early access content. It will allow
you to do things like be selective over your
sponsors. And guess what? If you do
good work, you will get direct sponsorship,
(48:17):
which... Theoretically, if you carry
on doing good work, you should elevate yourself
to being able to do dynamic programmatic
marketplace style sponsorships, like spot sales,
where this is all fed through an ad
server. We enter the big leagues and we enter
the realm of CPM based, cost per thousand
downloads based advertising. So it's a progression,
it's diversity in monetization. And
those challenges exist at every single level.
(48:42):
I know some of the biggest podcasts
in the world who could and do. have CPM based
sponsorships, they bolster their revenue
with predictable recurring money that comes
in every month from their membership
subscribers. Because eggs in baskets. So it's
a challenge, but it sort of isn't as
well. And I think this is one of the, like
(49:08):
one of the frustrating things about
all the kind of guff that was perpetuated by
the online
2014 to 2018 ish when it was really
prevalent. Like the, create a podcast and you
will monetize it. I know you won't.
You'll know this better than anyone. Build
(49:30):
a website and they will come. No, they
won't.
[Danny Brown] (49:32):
Hmm.
[Mark] (49:32):
Open a shop, they'll come. No, they
won't. Put a song on Spotify, you'll get listens.
No, you won't. Put a YouTube video,
people will watch it. No, no, no, no, no, no.
It requires a lot of other stuff. Marketing.
So I don't like, it's not any more complex
than anything else, but the difference
is twofold across the entire podcasting industry.
(49:54):
Listening is passive. It's not active.
Like I'm looking at you now and we're actively
engaged. I watch YouTube, I'm actively
engaged. I watch The Mandalorian, I'm actively
engaged. Podcasting is passive. So I've
got to really get someone, you know, recollection,
boom, boom, boom, hit me with a brand,
hit me with a brand, hit me with a brand, hit
me with a brand, hit me with a brand.
So when I need the mattress, I'm like, that
(50:16):
bloody brand that I heard on that podcast,
oh, of course, that's what it is. The second
problem is that, you know, if you build
a business, you need to do all this same stuff.
You get your first sale through a lot
of hard work, a lot of marketing, a lot of
promotion, a lot of people knowing about
you. But a lot of the time that's your business.
(50:36):
90 odd percent of podcasters that we
talk to. are doing it because they love it.
That's the equivalent of me spending
two hours a week on my golf tops, going out
there after the two hours a week and
being like, why do I still slice it then? Because
I don't have the time to do anything
else. Of course, that's fine. It's a hobby.
(50:59):
So I think podcasting has these challenges
across the board. It
like literally learn marketing and understand
that it takes time. That's why we exist, is
to help people with that. So yeah, a
big complex issue I think that we could, again,
(51:22):
we could spend a heck of a lot of time
on, but it's, I think it warrants further discussion
probably later down the line. Maybe
we'll do this again with a couple of other
people on as well, but there's a lot,
there's a lot to that. But the basic, the basis
is anyone can only make money. if other
people know enough to want to be exposed to
(51:42):
what they do. That's it, that's just
the rule.
[Danny Brown] (51:46):
And it does seem that you mentioned
Spotify, you mentioned the CPI model of a lot
of the bigger advertisers. It
does seem that a lot of the news that came
out of the industry where Spotify's
cutting exclusives, Amazon cut exclusives,
podcast agencies or media companies
are closing down or laying people off. A lot
of that's based around those
that are only really involved in ad model as
(52:07):
opposed to multiple streams of
revenue. And that's, I know Captivates Our
goal with Captivate is to really
help the indie podcaster grow the shop, save
time, save money, but grow and
make money. So as you mentioned, you need to
learn marketing and you need
to allocate time to that to really bring the
audience in that helps you get
these listeners and XYZ into sponsors, revenue,
(52:33):
memberships, etc. If someone
asked you as a podcaster, okay, there's 10
different things that I can do.
What are the two or three things that I can
really focus on now to try and
get to that stage?
[Mark] (52:49):
If I was going to grow a fresh podcast
from scratch, I'd focus on two particular areas.
I'd focus on short-term, near-sighted
marketing, if you like, and long-term gain
marketing. So I'll start with that one,
actually. So the biggest thing you can do,
and you can even use, I'm sure there
are gurus selling courses on this. If you'd
(53:13):
like to know, there is some right charlatans
out there. Like you can even use chat GPT to
just say, right, what are people looking
for in my niche? You know, and so think about
this as keyword research because the
best way to build anything. is to always be
(53:33):
present throughout the research cycle
or the buying cycle or the listening cycle
or the whatever cycle is to be like,
you want to be the obvious choice. I used to
make an analogy when I was doing speaking
gigs around startups and business where if
you imagine a sale at the end of a corridor,
so you've got a corridor, you've got a leisure
prospect, the person buying the thing
that you're selling right down a hotel corridor
(53:54):
and at the end, there's a door at the
very, very end that you've got to get them
through in order to sell them the thing.
But out of each other door, on each side of
them, on the corridor, is someone shouting
an objection. What about the cost? What about
the guarantee? Can you really afford
this? Is it going to be crap? Is it going to
be any good? What about these missing
things? What about these things that you might
not need? Your job at every stage is
to be present enough to close down those objections
(54:19):
before they get to the door. All right.
So it's like, what about the price? No brainer.
Look at all the value. What about trusting
these people? Yeah, hello. They've answered
all these other questions. These guys
are the obvious choice for this. And it's the
same with podcasting. If you are present
for every time someone asks a question about
(54:44):
anything in your niche and you've got
a damn episode about it, you will gain listeners.
That is it. That is a fact. That is
a fact and I know that because that's how I've
grown this year. That's how I've grown
Captivate. Like how many times do we share
the, here's a trailer format you can
copy podcast episode, a
[Danny Brown] (55:03):
Hmm.
[Mark] (55:04):
lot of times, like if you Google podcast
network business plan, one of my episodes is
there just because that's the plan.
Okay. So that's the first thing. short term,
like near sighted stuff, you have to
focus on not necessarily marketing but just
(55:24):
promotion. Like just promotion. If you
don't have time to learn marketing, get really
good at saying, here's this new thing
that I've released today. Here's how you get
it and tell everyone you know about
it. And that's really high level stuff. There
are a lot of tactics that go with that.
Do you use social? Do you use video? How, you
(55:45):
know, what are your calls to action?
How do you structure that? What toolkit do
you use to do that? But that's the basis.
Here's new thing. you enjoy it and tell everyone
else that you know that might enjoy
it to also enjoy it. That's why, like for Spark
a Rebellion, a really good way to promote
that is just turn up at Star Wars Celebration.
(56:06):
Just turn up and have conversations.
Guess what? How do we grow Captivate? All those
speaking gigs, all of those conferences,
all those friends that I've got so that when
we launch Captivate, like the day we
launched Captivate, we were... greatly profitable,
literally the second that we enabled
the sign up screen. We had people signing up
(56:29):
because it was like, oh, it's Mark and
Kieran. That'll be good. It's Mark and
[Danny Brown] (56:32):
Hmm.
[Mark] (56:32):
Kieran. Oh, that'll be good. And people
told other people. So you've got to do the
same with your podcast. So yeah, that's
what I'd say. That's what I'd say. Again, a
lot to that, a lot we could dig into
with that one, but good question, dude.
[Danny Brown] (56:43):
So Mark, we talked about how
you got your fire back right at the start of
the episode, which seems a long,
long time ago. We talked about how you got
your fire back after a year away,
and it's clear, speaking to you now about some
of the topics that we've discussed,
there's a lot that you've got to say. So what's
next for the podcast accelerator,
and what's next for you, and what's next for
Captivate?
[Mark] (57:05):
Well, for me and the podcast accelerator,
it's more of the same. A lot of people say
that, like, what's next for you? Now
you're part of global. Are you off? Are you
going to do different things? Like,
no, this is just me. I could still be podcasting
even if I didn't work in it. So it's
just more of the same. It's, I said it last
week on the episode, you know, we've
got an amazing team with Captivate. You know,
you're a huge part of it. We've got
such a strong and confident team that I don't
(57:28):
have to do a lot of the stuff that I
used to do, a lot of the... The stuff that
when you have a team, it's like micro
management, but when you don't have a team,
it's just getting your hands dirty.
So I'm able to think like I used to do, like
some of the big picture stuff, like
the new features that we're putting out next
week, some of the longer term planning
for Captivate, some of the brand position with
(57:49):
Captivate, again, some of the stuff
that we're launching next week is very much
a sort of subtle brand repositioning.
So it's more of that, man. I love doing it.
I am very fortunate. to work in an industry
like you do that is just enjoyable. So it's
more of the same. The accelerator, it's
shifting to Thursdays from Mondays because
it's silly to put out episodes on a
Monday like what idiot thought that was a good
(58:09):
idea. It's gonna be a mix of this stuff.
So it's gonna be a lot of interviews with people
who are genuinely great at what they
do. It's gonna be a lot of my solo education.
It's gonna be round tables. So it's
gonna be very much education focused but probably
an industry. level if you like sometimes
you know bringing in education on the industry
(58:31):
because I think that's the thing that
the hobbyist podcaster sometimes feels alienated
by is what's going on that I don't know
about that I probably should know about and
do I need to worry about it. So there's
a lot of that going on. For Captivate, couldn't
possibly tell you, you're going to have
to turn up to the live stream on youtube.com
slash Captivate podcasting at 4pm UK
on the 16th of May. And I will say and I know
(58:55):
you'll back this up. The new set of
features that we're putting out next week are
absolutely insane. They are, it is the
most well done piece of kit, I think, on the
entire market, dude. I think everyone's
done such a good job of it.
[Danny Brown] (59:08):
Yep, no, I 100% backed that up.
I've just been doing some testing this week
and I've been blown away and
I had to share on Twitter. No screenshots,
obviously, because I value my
life and limps. But yeah, it's super amazing.
I can't wait for the podcasters
to get their hands on it.
[Mark] (59:23):
I love it man, I love it. Well listen,
thanks for interviewing me mate. This has been
a swap in roles which I'm fascinated
by so I really appreciate it dude and we've
mentioned it a few times but what are
you working on? What's the thing? What's the
thing? I know we've mentioned it a couple
of times but what's the thing that you want
people to get a hold of that you're
producing dude?
[Danny Brown] (59:43):
Yeah, so thanks man. I enjoyed
it. It's like it's different to be the interviewer
bit on someone else's show. That's
like as a new one. I might have to look into
that as a niche niche, whatever.
So yeah, you mentioned PodChat. Thank you for
that. That's fun enough on a
little bit of a spring hiatus, but I'm getting
I've got a bunch of guests lined
up for that. I do one minute podcast tips,
which I can't really explain
any more than that. Just one minute podcast
(01:00:04):
tips and no deep dives. Nothing.
They're just really short punchy things. So
you can basically find me whatever
podcast I do. I've got some really fun hobby
ones that I do. Now and again,
you can find all that at dannypod.com. And
obviously I'm on the Captivate
team, so you can find me online. Any Captivate
questions, either fling them
over at Captivate Audio on Twitter, or myself
at Danny Brown, CA.
[Mark] (01:00:26):
Legend, thank you my friend and to you
the ever present and always appreciative listener.
You are appreciated right back in return.
We've got a lot of content coming up, I've
produced a lot. We've got some great
interviews coming up talking about YouTube,
talking about community, talking about
monetization and of course some solo education
from me as well. So welcome back to
the podcast accelerator. Keep sharing your
(01:00:49):
voice because it matters to those who
hear it. Until next time, take it easy, bye
for now.