Building Podmatch: A Solution for Podcasters | Alex Sanfilippo

Yeah, so what I started doing at that company that led to PodMatch is I started a bunch of little side hustles. So just things I do in the evening. I mean, I tried everything from like web design to consulting in the space and really all fell flat. And so I realized I'm like, uh-oh, maybe I'm not good at this entrepreneurship thing. Maybe I'm not as creative as I thought. And those were kind of the things that were going into my head. So what I finally decided to do, and maybe some people are like, that's brilliant when I say it, but maybe it was just, I don't know what to call it, but maybe it was just me being like very, like, I felt like I needed something. So I started a podcast. To talk to people who had successfully left a 9-to-5 job to become full-time entrepreneurs. Really, I did it— I had the listener in mind, but I was very curious myself because I wanted to do that. And so I was just chatting with people on how they actually made that happen, and it ended up being a really good show. And two things happened. One, I learned how to actually leave a corporation, like the risk that was involved and the way to kind of mitigate some of it. But more importantly than that, I think, is I learned I wanted to be in podcasting.

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Welcome to another episode of The Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. Shout out to our one listener in Show Low, Arizona. No idea where that is, but it's a great name. Joining me today is Alex Sanfilippo with PodMatch. Alex, welcome to the show.

Christian, thank you so much for having me. As a listener of your show, I'm actually really excited to be on this side of the microphone.

Oh, you're welcome, but you may, you may regret that. So PodMatch seems like a fascinating story from the outside. I'm curious what the story is from the inside. How did PodMatch come into being?

Yeah, um, and I'll go back a little bit of ways, as I know there's some story to be told on this podcast, which is one of the things I actually really like about it. It started as me wanting to get out of corporate. I think that that's not an uncommon story, right? I think it's very common that people say it started as that. I actually loved my corporate job, but it hit a point where it was a privately owned company that then went public. And when it went public, I found that my— I don't even really know how to say it in like a nice way, but my ability to perform well was diminishing. Like, I was really good when I could be what is now a coined term, intrapreneur. So an entrepreneur working inside of an organization. So it was a small company. We were agile, we could do things quick and kind of make fast adjustments, try things, break things, and come back. But as soon as we went public, there was actually one thing that happened that made me realize it was time to move on. And I'll quickly share that, but I'll never forget it. At this point, I was actually C-suite in the company, and I was overseeing 5 divisions of the company. It was a big multibillion-dollar organization. I'm very thankful to have been part of it. And one of our divisions saved a— cut costs by like a full 10%., which was like unheard of. Like, it was huge. And so I walked down to my CEO's office, who I reported directly to, to tell him the good news. I was trying to make myself look pretty good. And so I sit down and I was like, hey, Paul, did you see the numbers for this department? And he just goes, yeah, I saw them. And it was the way that he said it that I was like, not the reaction you were expecting. Yeah, exactly. And at first I thought maybe, like, maybe he didn't understand. So I kind of leaned in. I'm like, hey, so you saw we saved that 10%? Like, it wasn't extra cost. And he just goes in a very kind of annoyed way. And I could tell it wasn't at me. It was just with the system itself. He goes, yeah, I know, I know. He goes, but we didn't tell shareholders. We didn't tell the board that we were going to do something that big. And he goes, just don't do that again without us talking about it. We have to really plan stuff like that. And I really, Christian, I expected a pat on the back. I'm going to be real. And instead I walked out of that office, his office, and was walking down the hallway to mine, which really wasn't far from his. But it was the first time in my career that I felt like it was actually a long walk. And during that time, I just kind of was like, you know what, as much as I've enjoyed this, I think I've overstayed my welcome, right? Like, and that's the only term I could come up with. I just felt like, man, maybe it's— maybe it's time for something else.

How old were you at the time?

Oh no, the age thing. How old was I? I think I was— I was probably 30. Okay. Maybe 31. I was very young to be in the position I was in. I did work very hard in that corporate job, but I was very young to be where I was. I will openly admit that.

Yes. So, I mean, it sounds like it was, it was a culture shift that really drove you out. And I think, you know, I've never worked in really large organizations. The, the largest I worked for, Deloitte, was, you know, is, is the largest accounting firm now. It wasn't at the time. But I totally understand that the culture is different. And I, and I'll tell you why I think it's different. I think it's different because they are primarily reactive. And your story is exactly echoing that sentiment. Would you agree that culture in those organizations, as much as you've experienced it, is reactive?

Yeah, I really do. For lack of a better term, I'll just say, like, the staff— and I don't mean this to be mean— we turn into like a cog in the system, more or less. We're just keeping the thing rolling. And here's the thing, like, the whole organization worked hard to get to that point, so I kind of understand it. I just think for creatives especially, that is not an environment that we thrive in.

No. So you're sitting there, you've had the long walk. Did you say, I've got to move now, or was that something that took time to kind of percolate?

I think I said I need to move now, but my actions didn't necessarily align with that. Uh, first off, as a creative, don't sit in inaction. This is just like a little side note here. It's better just to take action if you don't know what's going to happen. It took me too long to, to leave. I believe that was year 13 of my career. I didn't leave till year 15. Maybe it was year 12. I think it was actually year 12. I didn't leave for— and yeah, you know what, actually real quick, I do want to call out an episode of your show that I really enjoyed. It came out on January 9th, 2025, and it's with someone, her name's Sunny, and it was Overcoming Fear in Entrepreneurship. It's a great story of resilience, of breaking through, of not letting fear hold you back. Everything I needed was in that conversation, Christian. So I encourage anyone hearing this and you feel like maybe you're like me and you're like, man, I feel like Alex who was stuck in that job for 3 years longer than he wanted to. Please go listen to that episode, pause this one and come back. But that is a real gift of an episode. So I just want to shout that out because what I realized, Christian, is I was just— I was scared. I mean, you grow to a level of comfort, like the perks, the benefits that come with it. I was terrified. I'll be real. That's what it comes down to.

Yeah. At that age, did you have children? Did you have a family at that point?

Just a wife, no kids at that point, and still no kids today, but maybe later. I'm still terrified of that, but that's probably I'm probably on the wrong podcast for that one, right?

Well, I, I, what comes to my mind is I was like, well, go take action. And I'm like, oh, that, I don't want to say that.

Yeah.

All right. Um, so, you know, no, because I started my business at the ripe age of 26. I had fear, of course, but I had some intuition, some prescience even at that age that like, that fear was not going to go away, that it was only going to get worse or harder to overcome as my situation changed. As at that point, I did have two children, but like, as I grew in my career and my responsibilities, it was going to be harder for me to make that choice. And, you know, I try to put myself back into that mindset of like, what were you thinking to quit your job buy a franchise with borrowed money and, you know, with 2 kids at home and 2 kids and a wife at home, like, what were you thinking? And like, well, no, I wasn't, clearly. But fear is just— it's in you. It really doesn't matter your external circumstances. I talk a lot about, you know, stress being relative. So like, it doesn't really matter. It might not be stressful to someone else, but it doesn't matter. It's stressful to you. So, okay, how did you decide to start PodMatch? Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that full commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now.

Yeah, so what I started doing at that company that led to PodMatch, I started a bunch of little side hustles. So just things I do in the evening. I mean, I tried everything from like web design to consulting in the space and really all fell flat. And so I realized, I'm like, uh-oh, maybe I'm not good at this entrepreneurship thing. Maybe I'm not as creative as I thought. And those were kind of the things that were going into my head. So what I finally decided to do, and maybe some people are like, that's brilliant when I say it, but maybe it was just I don't know what to call it, but maybe it was just me being like very, like, I felt like I needed something. So I started a podcast to talk to people who had successfully left a 9-to-5 job to become full-time entrepreneurs. Really, I did it. I had the listener in mind, but I was very curious myself because I wanted to do that. And so I was just chatting with people on how they actually made that happen. And it ended up being a really good show. And two things happened. One, I learned how to actually leave a corporation, like the risk that was involved and the way to kind of mitigate some of it. But more importantly than that, I think, is I learned I wanted to be in podcasting. And so from there, I really just kind of followed the entrepreneurial framework that made sense to me. And I'm going to way simplify what a bunch of people told me, but basically what it came down to was just 4 steps. Number 1, find an area of passion. For me, that became podcasting. Step 2 is to get into the community, be part of it. So I started going to all the podcasting conferences, speaking at them all, and then find a simple problem. That those people are dealing with. And then 4, offer the fastest possible solution. And I'll never forget it. It happened when I was on stage at Podfest in Orlando, Florida. It's still a conference that happens today. I was on stage in 2020, right before the world shut down. There's about 2,000 people in the room. And right when I got off stage, I just had pen and paper. I asked every single one of them. They would talk to me. People are nice, so they just come up and talk to you, right? So I just kept on asking like, hey, what are you struggling with in podcasting? Because I wanted to solve that problem. And I heard a lot of things that day, but 100 people told me, hey, the amount of time it takes to book a guest or to get us together is really difficult. It's hard to find that next ideal person. And I heard that 100 times. And ultimately, that's what led me to create PodMatch, which simply put is a tool that connects podcast guests and hosts for interviews and handles all the administration processes in between that. And for lack of a better term, I always say it works kind of like a dating app. I've never used one. I've been married too long to do that. But I always say it works probably pretty similar to that. But instead of catching for dates, it catches people for podcast interviews., and that's really how the whole thing came to life and ultimately caused me to leave my, my corporate job.

So you started PodMatch in 2020?

Correct. Yep. June 15th, 2020 was the, the early launch date.

So you're coming up on your 5-year anniversary.

Congratulations. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it.

So you knew all about coding, so you knew how to write the application, right?

Oh, of course. No, absolutely not. I couldn't imagine. Again, listen, the Profitable Creative. I don't know if this is where the tech guy belongs, right over here. So I actually, I made a phone call when I had the idea. I whiteboarded out and it was actually March 10th, 2020 is when I really had it all mapped out. And I made a phone call to an old friend, somebody I'd known for a long time. He was in my wedding about 10 years before that time or something like that. And I was in his wedding. Anyway, we had known each other for a long time and we'd always talked about doing some sort of project together. We just didn't know what that actually looked like. I think we were just kind of wishful thinking. Well, I called him, I pitched the idea to him, and I didn't know this, but 2 days before that, he had just completed a multi-year contract he'd been working on. So he was like, hey man, I actually have capacity. He goes, and I don't know anything about podcasting, but this sounds like really cool. And so we immediately, I just called up someone who had, I guess, been like a family lawyer. And I was like, hey, can you just draft up 50/50 paperwork so we can just start clean? And we hit the ground running literally that next day. So March 11th, 2020, we started I just showed him pictures of it. I'm like, could this be built?

Basically.

Today's episode of The Profitable Creative is brought to you by Core Group. Are you tired of doing it all yourself? Do you feel like you have no plan? Let Core Group guide you to build the business of your dreams. Core Group, your go-to accountant for creatives.

Right. So there's so many questions I want to ask you. So, okay, so essentially you're a software company, right? Right, and it sounds like you're working off of this, uh, there is a paid version, well, I guess it's all paid, right? I mean, okay, so, but there is a network effect to it, like the more people that get on it, the, the faster it grows because they're feeding off each other. But is, do you find 5 years into it that you serve, or, or, or your users tend to lean towards guests or hosts, or Is it fairly split?

Yeah, it's fairly split, but by design. And I won't say that doesn't take work. Uh, more naturally, more guests show up than hosts. And just for everyone listening to this, if you're like wondering how the podcasting industry works from that perspective, right now at time recording this, there's a 44 to 1 ratio. 44 people trying to be guests on podcasts with 1 per podcast is looking for guests. And it makes sense if you think about it. Like maybe as a listener, you might not know this, but Christian's job today is much more difficult than mine. He's thinking about you and me at the same time. And then he has work to do after I leave and I don't, right? So it's a lot more work. So it's very easy to get into podcasting as a guest, not trying to say you shouldn't, but it's much easier. And that's why we kind of see this out of balance, but with our software, we've worked very hard to always be pursuing more podcast hosts. And we find the guest side sort of just based off the numbers takes care of itself really well.

Yeah. Cause I would assume a lot of those guests are not. Seriously committed to the extent that they want to pay for a service to be on shows would kind of be my guess.

Is that— Yes, correct. And that's, that's the most common email we get as a team is from someone wanting to be a guest on podcast, making it very, very clear to us they would never pay to be on a— they'd never pay to be like on a, on a platform. And it should always be free for them to get on every show. And they're like, by the way, by the way, do you know Joe Rogan? I'd like to be on his show. You know, that's That's our most common thing. I'm like, okay, so wait, hold on. You want me to introduce you to my Uncle Joe? He's not my uncle, right? I don't know him either. And you also just want everything to be free for you. And to me, that, that's— we did that on purpose. We used to have a free tier, but I found that the guests showing up— and I'm not trying to say that there's not a space for this, and we— there's alternatives to PodMatch that people can find that are totally free. So I encourage people to go look at that. But we found that people who were signing up were serious. They really saw value in their message so much so that they said this small amount of monthly subscription fee is nothing because my message is worthwhile. It's typically people that didn't want to show up very serious. And that's what we saw when we had that free tier. People would show up and they'd kind of disrespect the host. They'd make it seem like it was an honor for the host to get to talk to them. And really, that's just one, it should never be that way. But I think that that's actually backwards if I had to pick a side.

Of course, of course you would. And I appreciate it. So I'm going to ask a few questions that you're perfectly acceptable if you don't want to answer them, but you had a partner that could do the coding, so you didn't have to invest in coding, which is expensive. So that kind of— I'm going to pause. Yes or no?

Yes, that's correct. Yeah, we're completely bootstrapped. We, we made an initial investment of $5,000 total, each putting in half, and then we've never looked back since then.

How hard was it for you? I mean, and, and SaaS is again, uh, probably not a business model that most of our audience is familiar with, but, you know, it's, it's very expensive upfront. Costs of, of client acquisition, there, there's a cost, but cost of servicing the client once they're on board, you know, your profitability is usually pretty, pretty strong. But then you run into, well, they want new features and there's these things that, you know, they want, you know, you can't just create it and be done with it. So how long did it take you to get to the point of profitability?

Yeah, real quick, you mentioned SaaS, and so software as a service, in case we haven't mentioned that, because I'll be real, when we first launched, someone's like, oh, so you have a SaaS product? And I was literally like, what? I was like, I went to my phone, like I had it like under the table. I'm like, oh, software as a service. Yes, that is what we have. Listen, I came from big corporate. I came from the aerospace industry. When someone told me you have a SaaS product, I was like, what is this person trying to say? I'm sassy? Like, what is it that they're getting at here?

Right?

Yeah, so, and a lot of people might not have that, but I do want to give one little caveat to keeping the cost low. And this is actually what we did. We started with a no-code solution for the first version, alpha of Podmatch. We specifically use Bubble. I think it's bubble.io is the website.

Yeah, I've used Bubble.

Okay, good product. Yeah. And so for a lot of creatives, it gives you a very, like, it's just the world we live in now. You can get a very, or I should say, much more affordable introduction to creating some sort of software product. And allowing your creativity to flow through it for, again, a much lower rate and just to see if it's worth spinning up. Now, since then, we've completely moved to a custom blend and all that. But back to your question, I just want to kind of give that caveat because I think people might, might actually be interested in that sometimes and find some creatives starting to move toward that. We were actually profitable by month 3, very little profit. I want to, I want to acknowledge, but the reason for that is because again, like going back to the kind of framework I shared, the area of passion, but the second part, is being in the community. When I was writing down that information, people were telling me when they said, hey, I said, hey, what are you struggling with? I was writing down their name and email address as well. And so I emailed those 100 people the day we launched and said, hey, you said your problem was this, does this solve it? And so I just sent it out to them. And listen, the timing was everything too. We launched in summer of 2020. And so we launched it, those people all shared it. And I'm very thankful, like I had no social presence, but we had two different billionaires reshare it and say, I'm joining this platform. If you want to talk to me for free, this is how you can do it. And so overnight we really blew up and, and for me, I can't take credit for that. The timing, the idea, yes, that stuff worked, but I didn't know that that was going to happen. So yeah, by month 3, we're profitable, very little profit, but it was enough for my co-founder who was used to making a lot more money than I ever made being a, it was a database builder for the DOD working on nuclear, on specifically on nuclear projects. I don't know what price tag they had on it, but I imagine it was substantial and super dorky, but he immediately was like, I'm leaving my job. This is, this has legs. I'm going with it. I took me a little bit longer than him. I was so scared going back to the fear thing that held me back a lot. This was that showing up once again, but from month 3, we really started turning a bit of a profit.

Are you still afraid? Or if at 5 years, do you feel like you can let your breath out?

Yeah, it's a good question. You know, um, I left my corporate job December 7th, 2020. And I'll tell you what, that was a bittersweet day. But leading up to it, what I realized I was missing once again was, was actually courage in my life. I was kind of run by fear in many ways without even being like conscious. It was very subconscious. I questioned my creativity, not because of my own creativity, because I was worried what other people would think. That's another form of fear. It was for me. And so, and I questioned profitability. I mean, everything in the title of your podcast, The Profitable Creative. I was fear-ridden, like riddled by all those things. But I'll tell you what, when I learned this idea of courage, and I realized it was the thing I was missing, I held on to this quote, which is, "Courage means being afraid and doing what you have to do anyways." Yes. And when I learned that, man, I walked into my CEO's office, leaving on very good terms. By the way, my last year at that corporate job was actually potentially my best year I ever had there. I worked really hard and I wanted to make sure I ended that season right so I could start the next one on the right foot. And I put in my notice and it was a 90-day notice because I was— it was public company and I was higher up in it. So I agreed to 90 days. But when I left that day, December 7th, I actually believe I left all fear in that office with me. I walked out the door and I'm not like a really like emotional— I shouldn't say I'm not. I think I'm emotionally stable, but I don't really cry a lot like that. Doesn't like— that's not a natural thing for me just to be like, oh, it's beautiful out, right? But I actually, I boohoo cried on my way out the door. Just me. Me by myself sitting in my car, but it's because I felt a weight lifted of being free from something I knew it was time to leave years before I left. But also, I think it was the weight of fear that I was holding on to that I left there. I'm not going to say I'm fearless, so I don't calculate things right. Like, I'm a creative, but I also love spreadsheets and love to make sure we're making the right decisions. But it hasn't held me back since then. I actually truly believe I've been freed from that. And it was that whole idea of understanding it takes courage to make it as a creative and to make it as an entrepreneur.

It does. And I think back, if you haven't listened to the episode with my daughter in it, I recommend it because I find her entertaining. She decided out of college to be a figurative oil painter and went out on her own, and that was not what she went to school for, and moved to Dallas, then moved to Hollywood. And the gumption that she showed in doing that, but more than just doing it, but saying, I'm not going to let somebody else dictate to me what I think is good. I mean, and not to say that she didn't have— she had reaction to it. She had a TikTok go viral early on, and she paints some things that can be a little bit controversial. And she got a lot of good feedback and a lot of bad feedback. And I, as her father, I'm telling her, well, like, look, you, you either— you're either going to live or die by it. Like, if you, if you want people's adoration, you got to take their criticism. Or, you know, you, you can just ignore it and do what you do. And, and that's what she's done. I mean, she's— I don't think she was following my advice. I think I was just reassuring her that she doesn't have to listen to that. She knows what is true in her heart to be what she's creating, and she does it.

You know, can I ask a— is it hard for me to ask a question? I don't know.

Absolutely.

Okay, I'm just making sure. Real quick, you can't call an episode like that and not give a reference, so it's October 22nd, 2024. It's titled The Connection Between Creativity and Divinity, and that's Mackenzie Brim. Please go check that out because I have not listened to that one yet, but I will be right after this. That's my next stop. So thank you for that.

Thank you. Thank you for—

yeah, you called it out. I'm like, people are going to wonder where to go. We got to give it to them.

Um, cleaning out my, uh, lack of production.

Okay, so, um, well, real quick, my, my question there, if it's okay—

oh, I thought that was the question.

Go ahead. No, no, I wanted to highlight that real quick, but my question is, you told her that that she doesn't have to necessarily take it all in, right? What people are saying when it's criticism and stuff. Myself as an entrepreneur, as a creative, and I know the people that are listening as well, what we produce, what we create, that's our baby, for lack of a better term. And when someone tells you you have an ugly baby, how does that— even if you don't agree with it, how do you process that? Like, and obviously your daughter had some people hating on what she was doing. How did you help her understand how not to process that in like a way that hurts your creativity. And I'm just curious from your own experience, and that's probably, that's a big question, but I wonder if you have any thoughts on it.

Yeah, no, but it's a good, it is a good question. I think every entrepreneur, not just creatives, but every entrepreneur goes through am I crazy moment and the second guessings, and that's absolutely normal. I think that what sets entrepreneurs apart is that they have the ability to see things as they could be. And they're willing to sacrifice to make it happen. I had Todd Henry on the show, and you know, the Accidental Creative author, he's written several books. Anyway, he was talking about just what you were talking about of like courage is not a lack of fear, it's doing the right thing anyway. And he also quoted in that book that the Greek word for passion, I don't remember how to pronounce it, perikolos or something like that, but it actually means suffering in a literal translation. Translation. And you have to be able or willing to suffer for your passion. And I think that's the distinction, is that, you know, it's not that those words don't hurt, but they're not as important as what, what you see.

And I have never heard that before. You have to be willing to suffer for your passion. That's good. Thank you. I was taking notes here. That helps me a lot. That's really great.

As a Christian, I'd grown up hearing— I didn't grow up Catholic, but I'd heard The Passion of the Christ. And then, of course, I saw the movie, but I didn't ever understand that. I always thought that an odd word, right? But then when I understood the Greek, the literal Greek interpretation, I'm like, oh, okay, that totally makes sense.

That's exactly— so I'm a follower of Jesus myself, and that's literally like the exact example I thought of. I'm like, oh, I actually get that now. It's so funny that you just said that. Like, I for the first time that just hit. I'm like, oh, wait a minute, that's what that means.

So you work with your wife?

I do, yes.

Yeah, let's talk about that because that didn't work out for me. I mean, I'm still married, but my wife doesn't work here anymore.

Thanks for— thanks for that disclaimer. I think that's a good one for everyone to know.

Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that full commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now.

Yeah, my wife had just sold a business at the end of 2019, and she decided she wanted to take a break. She owned a boutique, she had brick and mortar and also online. And listen, by the grace of God, she sold it at the end of 2019. She wasn't gonna hold on to another year, but someone was like, hey, we would like to buy out before Christmas. And I was like, I can have a wife on Christmas? Like, I will take it, right? Because retail, you got to work. And so, so I was really happy with that. So she was kind of like, we both agreed that she would take 3 months off before she'd get into anything, or 4, maybe it was 4 months. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was, she was gonna take a little bit of time off, because it was a lot to build that and stuff like that. And so she just started doing like little things to help me with the podcast I was running at that time. And we were getting ready for Orlando, that big talk. So she was kind of helping with that. And then she saw me doing this PodMatch thing, and she very quickly reminded me that I'm a creative and some of the administrative stuff, like getting dates right, doesn't always work for me very well. And she's like, hey, can I jump in and help with this? And I was like, oh yeah, that'd actually be great. And so kind of naturally, she just kindly pushed me in the right direction and pulled all the things that were, were not working for me there. Basically, the way I put it is she's now, she's a partner of the company. So there's 3 partners now. It's me, Alicia, and Jesse. Jesse's our technical co-founder, Alicia being my wife. And she's like the engine that keeps it running. She handles all the support, all the administrative stuff, all the standard operating procedures, the documentation, and she's just really good at it. Super high capacity. And, uh, so yeah, we do work together and that's kind of her role and my role is more this, I suppose.

Yes. She's very attentive, by the way. I mean, very quick to respond and always super helpful. So she does her work. She does her role well.

She loves to hear that stuff. I'll definitely pass that along to her. She, I don't think she gets enough encouragement, which is probably a flaw on my part, but I will, I will pass us along today.

You're welcome. So I'm going to go back because that's what my brain does. It bounces around. You said that you focus your efforts, marketing efforts, in obtaining hosts. Did I hear that correctly?

Yep, that's correct.

So tell me why you came to that decision and then how you do that.

Yeah. So I actually originally was kind of prioritizing guests because I knew some hosts, right? When we launched, I had that list of 100 people that are all hosts. I was going after guests, but I quickly realized there's a really high churn rate in podcasting. People who start podcasts do not stick with them. As a matter of fact, the data at time of recording shows that you have just over a 45% chance of making it to 8 episodes. And then past that, so more than 50% of people don't even make it to 8. And then if you look at 100, it just gets less and less and less. And so when we started getting a lot of guests onboarding, listen, if you've got 10, 20, 30-year experience doing something, you don't wake up one day and be like, eh, forget all this, I'm going to do something else, right? Like, no, that's your experience. You stick with it. So we found that guests were— I mean, like, they were retaining extremely well. They were never leaving. And some of them, they all— they weren't trying to get on podcasts every day. And I think I actually agree with that. It's better to have a cadence. Many of them were once a month. Some people were even once a quarter. They want to be on 4 per year. They just want to be the right ones. But they were staying. That was the point. But hosts were leaving. And I actually told my co-founder Jesse, I'm like, dude, we must be doing something wrong. These people are leaving. So I just started— we offered an offboarding call. People could delete their account and immediately say, hey, could you book 10 minutes? We just want to hear why.. And thankfully a lot of people booked. And of course there was some of the standard ones you'd think. People were like, your product sucks, right? You're the worst. Those are there. But the mass majority of people were saying, hey, I'm not just leaving this, I'm actually shutting down my podcast completely. And that's when I realized, I'm like, oh man, that's— we have to focus on finding them because they're not going to hang around. And now some do, of course, some people make the test of time, which I love seeing, because they're typically the really good shows. But I made the decision at that point to kind of flip it over to that. And then we, internally, we said, hey, if this is like a dating app or like a wine night at a restaurant, ladies' night, then hosts are the ladies and guests are the guys. If you bring hosts, then guests will show up. You bring ladies, guys will show up. That's just the nature of how it works.

That's a great analogy.

Thank you. I appreciate it. I came up with it and Alicia and Jesse said that they're like, that's such a dumb way to look at it. I'm like, but it's right and you know it.

No, that's brilliant. That's brilliant.

Thank you, Christian Brim. I'm, I'm, again, I'm sending this along to my team when this is out. So we just decided to make that focus and kind of how we started doing that is going back to events like Podfest, which is a big conference in Orlando. Podcast Movement is another one that one kind of travels around sponsoring a bunch of virtual events and me going on podcasts, especially with ones that have creatives like this listening. Many people who listen are probably considering starting a podcast or perhaps they're already in the works, already have one. And so this is kind of our way to connect. So it's always been very organic. For me, some people call that like the hustle. This is just what I love to do. The hustle to me is having to figure out advertising and stuff like that. So we just don't do any of that right now. And the growth has been very healthy. It's not so fast that we can't maintain good quality in the community side. It's not so slow that we're necessarily worried about anything. And so the fact is that this works right now. So for the time being, this is sort of our ongoing strategy that we have is just to get in front of them and really do our best to serve the host very well.

I think you do a very good job of it. I, I don't have anything to compare it to because I started a podcast on a whim, which is maybe what a lot of people do and why there are a lot of churn, or people don't realize how much work's involved so that they, they get frustrated with it. And, you know, I, I guess it's kind of like anything else in life. You can have the best product, best service in the world, but if no one knows about it it doesn't matter. So, and getting that critical mass to make money off a podcast is not easy. I mean, I'm fortunately sitting here not relying on the podcast to earn a living because I wouldn't even be eating beans, I'd be eating dirt. So what do you— people that are new into podcasting, what are your recommendations to them? You know, your top 2 or 3 Assuming that they've already made the decision to go into it, like what, what do you, what's your advice to them?

Yeah, the first one would be to keep it a hobby as long as you possibly can. Listen, the notion of making money, that's, that's great. Um, but I always tell people like start a business instead of starting a podcast. If that's the goal, like this is a creative outlet that can definitely support a business. It can support a brand in many ways, but I find the people that do it the best, they're excited about it. They like it. They don't have to have it tied to a dollar. So they're not always thinking about the the business side of it. They're thinking about the creative side of it. And with podcast listeners, people— podcast listeners are smart. I mean, if you look at some of the data on them, they're some of the smartest people on the planet. They can— they want to grow their creativity. They want ideas. They don't— they can kind of feel if it's like sleazy in a way to kind of funnel you into something, right? And so the purity of podcasting, I think, happens when you keep it a hobby. And so the second thing I mentioned is just the benefit around doing that. Which is for me, like, I was really not well spoken when I got into this. Like, I wasn't used to talking in front of people, really. And I would ramble too long, maybe still do a little bit. I'm working on that. But in general, I've become a much better speaker. And it doesn't scare me when I go to a conference and they're trying to capture testimonials. And we've all— if anyone's been to a conference, that happened. A camera ends up right in front of you. Hey, tell us what you love about this. People are like, uh, and I can just go into this mode of like, I know how to share this. I know, I know what I'm doing here. And you can kind of grab it. I'm not trying to toot my own horn or anything like that, or say that I'm, I'm an incredible speaker. But the reality is, after you get reps, you learn how to speak really well, but also you learn yourself really well. And so for me, it's that own self-discovery. I think you and I both have met a lot of people like this, because most people are— they don't really know how to articulate where they've been and where they're going necessarily. That's very hard for them to kind of share their own story without having people prompting it. But after you kind of get honed in, you learn how to share things in a way that others understand. Including your business. The best example I can give of that, and this will— and I'll move on to my last point here, but is the first time I went to a networking event and I had PodMatch. There was probably 100 people there and I met them over the course of a few hours. The first person took me about 5 minutes to explain what PodMatch was. I just kept on talking, talking. The next person about 4 minutes, the next person about 3, then 2, then 1. My point is, by the end, because you were getting tired, right? By the end of the night, though, I learned to articulate it and get no questions within 15 to 20 seconds. And you're like, wow, I know exactly what that is. And that sounds really cool. And you get that by the reps. And so I think for a lot of us as creatives, it's hard for us to explain what's going on in our head. Podcasting on either side of the microphone helps you be able to articulate that really well and get the feedback. So you know how people, how they're like relating to that and if it's really making them understand in a big way. So again, keeping it a hobby, the benefits of it speaking, And the third thing is just the awareness of what you do. I find that if you have a podcast, you're automatically held to or thought to be on a different standard. It's an authority booster. People look at like, oh wow, you have a podcast? Like, okay, that's pretty cool. Right? And so it holds this level of prestige or this, this like, oh wow, this person has like a podcast. Like they're, they're the real deal. They're not messing around. And from that alone, like totally worth it. I know like a book, a lot of people say like a book can do that as well, but I've, For me, a podcast does that. Anytime I go somewhere networking, I'm like, oh, first and foremost, I'm a podcaster, also a software founder. And people are never like, ooh, talk about the software. Like, you have a podcast? Every time, right? They're like, right, well, what is it? My podcast is about podcasting, so it's always a weird conversation, Christian. But, uh, but nonetheless, I find that those three things kind of paired together are some of the beauty of what a podcast can provide a creative.

Yeah, there was two things, let's see if I can remember them, that were salient, uh, that I was going to follow up with.

Like I said, I should learn to speak in smaller sound bites. I'm a work in progress.

No, no, you're fine. I just, you know, I just, my brain wanders. So the first thing I was going to say is that just the, your description of the, the, uh, network dating there is really illustrative, illustrative of the problem of a creative and a visionary. I thought for a long time that I communicated well until I went through an exercise called the Vivid Vision. It was created by Cameron Herald. He was one of the original founders of 1-800-GOT-JUNK, and he did it as a template. And there's really not a template, but it's speaking about the business in, in 3 years in the present or past tense. And what was interesting about it is, is I was, writing out our first vivid vision, I realized that I didn't have clarity on some of those things. Like I just had a vague idea of what the vision was for myself. And then I realized, well, if I'm not real clear on it, how can anybody else be clear on it? Right. So I think creatives and the rest of the world, there is a communication gap, but it can be bridged. And, but it, it does take effort because it's not natural because people don't think like we do., and it's hard to get that across a lot of times. The second thing I was going to say was the podcast notoriety. That's funny because I have a long-term friend of mine that I saw her the other day and my wife, uh, she had pulled my wife aside and said, does Christian still work with Core? Uh, I see all of this podcast stuff on his social. And I'm like, and I'm like, that's really weird. She thought like I had sold my business or something like that. Cause I have a second podcast. That I do that's on entrepreneurial mental health and mindset. So weird.

You see, it's got that, it's got that thing about it, right? People are like, oh, this has to be all you're doing. I mean, I'll never forget this when I was transitioning my podcast from being that one learning to become an entrepreneur, right? I shared it earlier. It was called Creating a Brand. It was like the art of creating a brand, how to build one for yourself. And then I moved that to Podcasting Made Simple because my audience changed, right? Now I serve podcast guests and hosts. So it's It's about either side of the microphone, leveling up your craft. But during that transition, I posted a picture that said like, farewell creating a brand on it. It's just like something I wrote on a piece of paper and posted it. And I even said like, I'm moving from this podcast to another. And people were like, man, like, how— like, are you going to be able to make it without that podcast? Like, like, from the financial aspect, I'm like, you know, I never made a dollar from it, right? Like what people thought that that was like the thing that was bringing me like revenue, but it's just the It's the persona of it. And so I hear you, people are like, wow, how can he stop that? That's like a huge production he's got going there. People don't know it was me.

I'll see if I can squeeze you in.

Right.

I know on PodMatch you guys help people monetize their podcasts, but I think that the threshold is 1,000 downloads a month. Does that sound right?

Not on PodMatch. No. When we help people monetize—

No. Oh, I'm thinking of Buzzsprout.

I'm sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Buzzsprout. You're correct. Yes, that is correct with them.

Okay. So If that's a threshold to get paid, what is the average podcast download a month? I can tell you ours is 100. Now that's not a lot, and that's doing 2 episodes a week, but it's growing. I mean, you know, that's the thing, but I'm just curious what the averages are, if you know.

Yeah, I do know. And real quick, I always compare podcast listeners to people sitting in seats. With the host and the guest on stage, because that's the best comparison we have. And social media, I'm not dogging it or saying it's bad, but it's different. It's when people— that's where people go to kill time, right? Podcasts are where people go to learn, to level up, to be inspired, to laugh. Like they want something from it. So I always tell podcasters, think about yourself on a stage. So like to me, a room with 100 people in it with me on stage, like I'll show up there every week, right? No problem. But I pulled up the current averages and in case anyone's like, hey, I'd like to see this, it does change every month, but not by much. If you go to podmatch.com/report, we update these numbers here. So right now you're in the top 50 percentile of all podcasts. So top half, if you have 28 people listen in the first 7 days of a new episode being released. And then if you have 100, let's just say this is your number, Christian Brim, but if you have 109 people listening in the first 7 days of an episode being released, then you're in the top 25 percentile. Wow. And so here's the thing, podcasts, again, they aren't big, but we have to have the right mindset. It's people's lives. It's like them sitting in seats because If you get up to the top 5%, it goes over 1,000 people listening the first 7 days. But I'll be real, like, I've only spoken in front of a crowd of 1,000 or more a few times in my life. Like, that doesn't happen very often. So like, yeah, to us, it's been preconditioned by social media thinking the same thing. They're not. They're very different. And the value of a small niche-focused podcast listenership is a beautiful thing.

Yeah, I had no expectation when I, when I started. I had zero business intent. I just didn't like— nothing against the shows that I was on when I was promoting my book, but I just didn't hear the conversation that I wanted to have. And so that's why I started it with no other expectation. But I think to your point, I don't know that I would want— and maybe I would— 1,000 per episode, but it's not about the numbers. It's, it's the quality of the content and the community that we're creating. My intent in this show is to help people, uh, navigate that business side of a creative business better, to learn from the experience of others that they might not be able to, uh, overcome or, you know, avoid the landmine. And as long as we're doing that, then I'm sitting here.

That's such an— you just brought up such a key point, I think, when it comes to podcasting. I'll give an example of another friend of mine. She has a logistics podcast and she's real like logistics management and she—

who doesn't want to listen about that?

I mean, come on, right?

Yeah.

I'm like, come on, who doesn't? She said she about, I think, I think every month she's got 300 people who listen and a lot of people be like, oh, that's kind of small, but they're all Fortune 500 C-suite people that are listening. And so it's like, you can't also, you can't compare people's audiences, right? Like, no, you can't. And so for her, does she want 10,000 random people? No, nothing against if someone has like a lifestyle podcast and just like random people to listen. But like, which for her business in her life, that way she can really help people is more beneficial. It's that couple hundred people that are listening every month that are real movers and shakers. And what she does for work is she consults with those businesses and you best believe they're the ones getting on the phone trying to call her. She does not want more people listening to her podcast. She has all the business she can handle and she wants to keep a good reputation and do a good job by those people that she's serving. And I think that that's a perfect example also that you just shared about the same type of thing.

Well, Alex, I feel like we could probably talk for another, uh, 45 minutes, but I'm, I'm going to wrap up. Um, how should people find out more information about PodMatch if they want to?

Yeah, Christian, thank you for the opportunity. Uh, if you just go to podmatch.com/free, that'll give you 5 quick wins you can read in less than 5 minutes, whether you're a guest, a host, aspiring guest, aspiring host. Uh, it's podmatch.com/free, and I don't want your email address or anything like that. It's literally just a way that you can kind of get an introduction to see if Podcasting is Right for You When You're Just on the Mic, or How to Level Up, or if maybe PodMatch is something you can use. And again, that's just podmatch.com/free. But Christian, I really respect what you're doing here. Again, as a listener, it's truly an honor to be here with you today.

Well, it's an honor for me that you're a listener, so I'm— we're mutually honored. And we'll have those links in the show notes for everybody. Listeners, if you like what you've heard, please like the podcast, rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you've heard, you can drop us a note and I'll get rid of Alex. Until then, ta-ta for now.

And that's a wrap for today's episode of The Profitable Creative. Until next time, you money lovers. And don't forget, Profit First for Creatives is live via Amazon.

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