Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Friends, hello, and welcome to a Neverpost funding
update. I'm your Neverpostfunding update host, Mike
Rugnetta. The long and short ofthe news I have for you is the
following. One, we're not goinganywhere yet. Two, our runway is
shrinking, and we need yourhelp.
We are at a pivotal and,honestly, a little bit spooky
(00:22):
moment in our trajectory towardsbecoming a self sustaining
program. And I'm gonna let youall know where we are, how far
your help has already taken us,spoiler alert, very, very far,
the whole way, and, how we arethinking about what happens
next. So here we go. Up untilthis point, Neverpost has had a
(00:46):
financial runway built by clientwork that we all do together.
The bulk of this has beencovered by one client, in fact,
a single contract.
That contract just ended, whichmeans that we'll need to
establish a sustainablefinancial situation in one way
or another by the end of thecalendar year 2025. There are a
(01:08):
bunch of ways that we areapproaching that challenge, and
we are hoping that the way wecan do it is through listener
support, through memberships.This is both scary and exciting.
We've learned a lot workingtogether over the last year on
both Neverpost and our clientwork. There's a lot that we
wanna do with the show, andevery week, we learn more about
(01:31):
how to do it.
With the exit of our one bigshared client, we all worked on
this client work together. We'veencountered a kind of bargain.
We now have the time to try outmore stuff with NeverPost, but
none of us currently has a job.So this is a big inflection
point. If you like us and youwant us to keep doing what we're
(01:53):
doing with the show and maybehelp make it the thing we do,
please consider becoming amember today.
Now is the time. If you've beenwaiting for some any additional
motivating factor, you canbecome a member for $4 a month
on our website at neverpoe.st.While you're there, you can also
(02:15):
tip us any amount of money onetime. The links are in the show
notes. We're gonna be doing afew things over the next month
to help us towards our goal ofmaking the show financially
sustainable absent our clientwork runway.
We're gonna be doing a memberdrive, roughly a week of mostly
live streamed programming tohelp get some new members,
introduce folks to the show,talk about how we think about
(02:36):
and do what we do, and so on andso forth. We're gonna say more
about this in the coming weeksin episodes and in the
newsletter, but this is gonna behappening in late August. I hope
you'll join us. We're gonna beselling our first run of T
shirts, and they look red ashell. We already have the
designs done.
They're so, so good, so getreally hype about that. And then
(02:57):
we are also going to unarchiveour old membership levels
starting when this upload goesout. The $4 tier isn't going
anywhere. It will still get youaccess to everything, but the $7
and $12 a month levels willreturn, and they will both also
have the same set of rewards. Sothere is no practical difference
(03:20):
between $4.07, and $12 otherthan the final two are for folks
who wanna help out a little morejust because they can.
And if you choose to do that, mygod, do we appreciate it?
Alright. That's the bulk of whatI wanna say summarized. If
you're a freak for the details,the rest of this upload are
those. If you wanna bail now andgo become a member straight
(03:41):
away, I'm not gonna stop you.
In fact, I'm gonna applaud you.Good work. Nice job. Just what a
show. What a show.
Okay. So if you missed the stateof the pod episode at the
beginning of the year where wetalked about how we fund the
(04:02):
show and how it's going, let megive you some backstory. We all
work together at a smallproduction company called Charts
and Leisure doing client work.That means that companies hire
us to make media for them. Overthe last year and change, client
work money has paid our bills,meaning we could do the work of
Neverpost without being paid todo it, which, none of us are.
(04:24):
The contract for our biggestclient, the one providing
coverage for all of us to makethe show together, has ended.
There was always a chance thatthis was gonna happen, but it
happened a little sooner and alittle more, completely than we
expected. This effectively meanswe are all un or underemployed
at the moment. We have enough inmembership and ad money to pay
(04:45):
for the show's direct expenses,including for occasional
contributing producer segments.So we're not losing money, but
the show doesn't make us anymoney in a meaningful way.
So there's now a money vacuum inthe life of the staff that needs
to be filled. How it gets filledwill have a big impact on the
show going forward. So that'swhat I'm about to explain. The
(05:08):
ideal scenario is that we becomesustainable through membership,
and this means that we each getpaid roughly what it costs us to
do the work required to makeNever Post. We've made the show
for a year, as something that wedo between professional
projects, and you've seen whatwe can do.
We were an Atlantic best podcastof the year. We won a Webby for
(05:29):
our live show. We did a liveshow at XOXO Fest, the last XOXO
Fest. We won an honorablemention for a best single
podcast Webby. We were able tojoin Radiotopia, an extremely
fancy storied network.
We were featured on ApplePodcasts multiple times. Imagine
what we could do if this show isall we did. To pinch a phrase,
(05:54):
we are nowhere near our truepower level yet. This is where
you come in. If you join otherpeople listening to become a
member, if you aren't already,we stand a good chance of being
(06:14):
able to focus more and more ofour time on Never Post.
And who knows next year, whatsort of shenanigans we can get
even more awards for. I bet Ibet we can convince Georgia to
sing. Tonys, here we come. Okay.So now but seriously, what are
(06:35):
the other ways this can go?
It is possible that the show'saudience grows such that ads
contribute significantly tosustainability, but this is
unlikely. Ad rates are prettylow. Audience growth is slow for
us and everyone else. I mean,don't get me wrong. Please tell
your pals about the show.
Share your favorite segmentswith them. It really, really
makes a difference, but thenumber one thing you can do to
(06:56):
help us in the near term isbecome a member. It's also
possible that we pick up moreclient work. And if it pays well
enough and doesn't demand sixtyhours of work a week, we can
divide our time the way that wehave been up until this point.
Finding new work and, you know,doing it takes time.
And finding one client which canaccount for so much of our
(07:17):
income as a whole team at onceis really rare, but, hey, it can
happen. And if any of you outthere are looking to hire an
amazingly talented contentproduction team or work for an
organization who might beinterested in the same, you know
where to find us. But the morewe rely on client work and not
the work of the show to supportus I mean, what's to say that
(07:38):
we're not back in this exactsame situation in six months or
a year? It's exhausting. It Andalso means that we miss the
opportunity to see what we cando if the show is our focus.
It's also possible a percentageof the staff go get, like, jobs,
you know, like the normal kindwhere you're in an office at a
desk, and they sort of frown onyou making an unrelated podcast.
It's also possible we each landour own separate client work,
(08:01):
which could make it tough tocoordinate six people making a
show together. Or we land clientwork, but it's just it's so
demanding that making the showalongside it becomes too
difficult. The point being, theideal here is we get paid to
make the show that we make moreand better. This, of course, has
its own challenges.
We have to go into fundraisingmode at exactly the same time.
(08:21):
So many other people and placesand media outlets are doing
exactly the same thing because,I mean, you know, you live in
the world. You know what it'slike out there. You know, I feel
this as a consumer just as muchas I do a producer. And, to put
it succinctly, it sucks.
It it just it sucks all around.But we also know, that, you
(08:47):
know, you guys listen to theshow, and you believe in it, and
you're one of the many reallyincredible listeners who's
engaged with us and the worldaround us and the Internet
situation that we all inhabitand the media and information
environment. And we just we hopethat the things that we make are
meaningful enough that, you feelinspired to help out. So we're
(09:10):
gonna sell some t shirts. We'regonna reopen a few membership
levels, and we're gonna do amembership drive in August,
which we hope that you will joinus for and tell your friends
about.
And if we're lucky, it'll allmean that we get to twenty
twenty six, and we get to makethe best dang version of this
show that we know how towithout, going bananas, been
(09:33):
playing a lot of Donkey Konglately, or into debt. I'm I'm
crossing more fingers than Ihave. If you have any questions,
we would love to answer them.Send us an email, a voice mail,
a voice memo. Once we haveupdates for you on any of this,
it'll be in the newsletter, inthe news sections of the
episodes proper.
(09:53):
I I mean, thank you. Thanks forlistening this far, to this
detailed funding situationannouncement. But really, like,
just thanks a million for yoursupport, and especially for the
support of our members. Weliterally could not make this
show without you, and that isonly about to become more true.
(10:17):
It's tough times, but we reallybelieve in what we're doing.
We hope you do too. We hope thatwe can keep doing it together
the best way that we know how,and who knows, maybe even a
little better. Alright. I'll seeyou this Wednesday, in a couple
days with a full episode.
Friends, hello, and welcome to a Neverpost funding
update. I'm your Neverpostfunding update host, Mike
Rugnetta. The long and short ofthe news I have for you is the
following. One, we're not goinganywhere yet. Two, our runway is
shrinking, and we need yourhelp.
We are at a pivotal and,honestly, a little bit spooky
(00:22):
moment in our trajectory towardsbecoming a self sustaining
program. And I'm gonna let youall know where we are, how far
your help has already taken us,spoiler alert, very, very far,
the whole way, and, how we arethinking about what happens
next. So here we go. Up untilthis point, Neverpost has had a
(00:46):
financial runway built by clientwork that we all do together.
The bulk of this has beencovered by one client, in fact,
a single contract.
That contract just ended, whichmeans that we'll need to
establish a sustainablefinancial situation in one way
or another by the end of thecalendar year 2025. There are a
(01:08):
bunch of ways that we areapproaching that challenge, and
we are hoping that the way wecan do it is through listener
support, through memberships.This is both scary and exciting.
We've learned a lot workingtogether over the last year on
both Neverpost and our clientwork. There's a lot that we
wanna do with the show, andevery week, we learn more about
(01:31):
how to do it.
With the exit of our one bigshared client, we all worked on
this client work together. We'veencountered a kind of bargain.
We now have the time to try outmore stuff with NeverPost, but
none of us currently has a job.So this is a big inflection
point. If you like us and youwant us to keep doing what we're
(01:53):
doing with the show and maybehelp make it the thing we do,
please consider becoming amember today.
Now is the time. If you've beenwaiting for some any additional
motivating factor, you canbecome a member for $4 a month
on our website at neverpoe.st.While you're there, you can also
(02:15):
tip us any amount of money onetime. The links are in the show
notes. We're gonna be doing afew things over the next month
to help us towards our goal ofmaking the show financially
sustainable absent our clientwork runway.
We're gonna be doing a memberdrive, roughly a week of mostly
live streamed programming tohelp get some new members,
introduce folks to the show,talk about how we think about
(02:36):
and do what we do, and so on andso forth. We're gonna say more
about this in the coming weeksin episodes and in the
newsletter, but this is gonna behappening in late August. I hope
you'll join us. We're gonna beselling our first run of T
shirts, and they look red ashell. We already have the
designs done.
They're so, so good, so getreally hype about that. And then
(02:57):
we are also going to unarchiveour old membership levels
starting when this upload goesout. The $4 tier isn't going
anywhere. It will still get youaccess to everything, but the $7
and $12 a month levels willreturn, and they will both also
have the same set of rewards. Sothere is no practical difference
(03:20):
between $4.07, and $12 otherthan the final two are for folks
who wanna help out a little morejust because they can.
And if you choose to do that, mygod, do we appreciate it?
Alright. That's the bulk of whatI wanna say summarized. If
you're a freak for the details,the rest of this upload are
those. If you wanna bail now andgo become a member straight
(03:41):
away, I'm not gonna stop you.
In fact, I'm gonna applaud you.Good work. Nice job. Just what a
show. What a show.
Okay. So if you missed the stateof the pod episode at the
beginning of the year where wetalked about how we fund the
(04:02):
show and how it's going, let megive you some backstory. We all
work together at a smallproduction company called Charts
and Leisure doing client work.That means that companies hire
us to make media for them. Overthe last year and change, client
work money has paid our bills,meaning we could do the work of
Neverpost without being paid todo it, which, none of us are.
(04:24):
The contract for our biggestclient, the one providing
coverage for all of us to makethe show together, has ended.
There was always a chance thatthis was gonna happen, but it
happened a little sooner and alittle more, completely than we
expected. This effectively meanswe are all un or underemployed
at the moment. We have enough inmembership and ad money to pay
(04:45):
for the show's direct expenses,including for occasional
contributing producer segments.So we're not losing money, but
the show doesn't make us anymoney in a meaningful way.
So there's now a money vacuum inthe life of the staff that needs
to be filled. How it gets filledwill have a big impact on the
show going forward. So that'swhat I'm about to explain. The
(05:08):
ideal scenario is that we becomesustainable through membership,
and this means that we each getpaid roughly what it costs us to
do the work required to makeNever Post. We've made the show
for a year, as something that wedo between professional
projects, and you've seen whatwe can do.
We were an Atlantic best podcastof the year. We won a Webby for
(05:29):
our live show. We did a liveshow at XOXO Fest, the last XOXO
Fest. We won an honorablemention for a best single
podcast Webby. We were able tojoin Radiotopia, an extremely
fancy storied network.
We were featured on ApplePodcasts multiple times. Imagine
what we could do if this show isall we did. To pinch a phrase,
(05:54):
we are nowhere near our truepower level yet. This is where
you come in. If you join otherpeople listening to become a
member, if you aren't already,we stand a good chance of being
(06:14):
able to focus more and more ofour time on Never Post.
And who knows next year, whatsort of shenanigans we can get
even more awards for. I bet Ibet we can convince Georgia to
sing. Tonys, here we come. Okay.So now but seriously, what are
(06:35):
the other ways this can go?
It is possible that the show'saudience grows such that ads
contribute significantly tosustainability, but this is
unlikely. Ad rates are prettylow. Audience growth is slow for
us and everyone else. I mean,don't get me wrong. Please tell
your pals about the show.
Share your favorite segmentswith them. It really, really
makes a difference, but thenumber one thing you can do to
(06:56):
help us in the near term isbecome a member. It's also
possible that we pick up moreclient work. And if it pays well
enough and doesn't demand sixtyhours of work a week, we can
divide our time the way that wehave been up until this point.
Finding new work and, you know,doing it takes time.
And finding one client which canaccount for so much of our
(07:17):
income as a whole team at onceis really rare, but, hey, it can
happen. And if any of you outthere are looking to hire an
amazingly talented contentproduction team or work for an
organization who might beinterested in the same, you know
where to find us. But the morewe rely on client work and not
the work of the show to supportus I mean, what's to say that
(07:38):
we're not back in this exactsame situation in six months or
a year? It's exhausting. It Andalso means that we miss the
opportunity to see what we cando if the show is our focus.
It's also possible a percentageof the staff go get, like, jobs,
you know, like the normal kindwhere you're in an office at a
desk, and they sort of frown onyou making an unrelated podcast.
It's also possible we each landour own separate client work,
(08:01):
which could make it tough tocoordinate six people making a
show together. Or we land clientwork, but it's just it's so
demanding that making the showalongside it becomes too
difficult. The point being, theideal here is we get paid to
make the show that we make moreand better. This, of course, has
its own challenges.
We have to go into fundraisingmode at exactly the same time.
(08:21):
So many other people and placesand media outlets are doing
exactly the same thing because,I mean, you know, you live in
the world. You know what it'slike out there. You know, I feel
this as a consumer just as muchas I do a producer. And, to put
it succinctly, it sucks.
It it just it sucks all around.But we also know, that, you
(08:47):
know, you guys listen to theshow, and you believe in it, and
you're one of the many reallyincredible listeners who's
engaged with us and the worldaround us and the Internet
situation that we all inhabitand the media and information
environment. And we just we hopethat the things that we make are
meaningful enough that, you feelinspired to help out. So we're
(09:10):
gonna sell some t shirts. We'regonna reopen a few membership
levels, and we're gonna do amembership drive in August,
which we hope that you will joinus for and tell your friends
about.
And if we're lucky, it'll allmean that we get to twenty
twenty six, and we get to makethe best dang version of this
show that we know how towithout, going bananas, been
(09:33):
playing a lot of Donkey Konglately, or into debt. I'm I'm
crossing more fingers than Ihave. If you have any questions,
we would love to answer them.Send us an email, a voice mail,
a voice memo. Once we haveupdates for you on any of this,
it'll be in the newsletter, inthe news sections of the
episodes proper.
(09:53):
I I mean, thank you. Thanks forlistening this far, to this
detailed funding situationannouncement. But really, like,
just thanks a million for yoursupport, and especially for the
support of our members. Weliterally could not make this
show without you, and that isonly about to become more true.
(10:17):
It's tough times, but we reallybelieve in what we're doing.
We hope you do too. We hope thatwe can keep doing it together
the best way that we know how,and who knows, maybe even a
little better. Alright. I'll seeyou this Wednesday, in a couple
days with a full episode.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!