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

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

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

and experience and the founder and host of the wonderful Pod Chat amongst many other

podcasts. What's up dude, how are you?

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.

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

May the 4th, dude. So happy Star Wars Day to you, my friend.

Happy Star Wars Day. Many many years. What's that 40 plus years now? 77, 78?

Good grief.

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.

That'd be cool to see that. And I saw there was like some little Funko toys

there and some original Star Wars memorabilia.

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

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

hands with Mr. Danny Brown.

Thank you, Mark, and I will try not to break your show.

Hahaha.

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

line, that kind of stuff. So thanks for inviting me on to be that kind of

co-host for this episode.

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.

Yeah, and also the show, I mean, it's four years old now this month. So Happy

Birthday Podcast Accelerator,

Thank

probably

you.

about the same age as Cactiway, I would have thought. Four years old, 2019,

and it's got over

Do you know what?

300 episodes.

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

as well, Spark Rebellion launched as well in 2019, which is.

Wow.

Yeah, how bizarre. Never thought of any of that.

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

Oh

first

she's

birthday.

beyond it, she's 15 months in 20 days, which is

Oh my

terrifying.

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.

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,

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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.

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,

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,

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

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

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

that's with barely any promo.

Hmm.

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

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

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

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

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.

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,

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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.

I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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?

Well, someone's after some social media clips, aren't they?

Ha ha

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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,

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

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

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

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

Hmm.

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,

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

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

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.

I might still have some hair by then.

I won't mate, definitely not.

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,

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

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.

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

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

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?

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

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,

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

behind the curve with podcasting 2.0. That's cool. Like, I'm behind your curve, behind

Hmm.

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.

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

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

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.

Hmm. It's like comparing the Pirelli calendar to the Michelin calendar.

That's

Ha ha ha

like

ha!

a little bit differences there for anybody that knows these calendars.

That is, that takes me back to like 1989, taking my car to a garage

Mm.

in like Barnsley in the north of England, yeah. I get that, that's a reference that not

many people are going to get.

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

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.

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

I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Yeah.

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,

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

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

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

to then fret about, and this is at every level, by the way, this is not like just the

Indies. This is people

Hmm.

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

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.

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

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,

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.

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

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

a website and they will come. No, they won't.

Hmm.

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.

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

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.

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.

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,

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

what they do. That's it, that's just the rule.

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

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,

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hmm.

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

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

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.

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

because it was like, oh, it's Mark and Kieran. That'll be good. It's Mark and

Hmm.

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.

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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

voice because it matters to those who hear it. Until next time, take it easy, bye