From Hobby to Business: The Powwow.com Journey | Paul Gowder

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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. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Cookson, Oklahoma. I have lived 55 years in the Sooner State, never heard of Cookson, Oklahoma. Uh, so thanks for listening. Maybe I'll find you someday. Anyway, joining me today, Paul Gouder of powwow.com. Paul, welcome to the show.

Thanks so much. I appreciate you having me on. I'm looking forward to it.

Perfect. So I said in the green room that we might have to discuss your shirt. For those listeners, it is a, I would say, Episode 4 vintage Star Wars shirt. Kind of looks like the images from the original, um, poster. Honestly, um, that's a cool damn shirt.

Thank you. Yeah, so, um, I have a whole collection of Roosevelt's— name the company, R-S-V-L-T-S, um, pronounced Roosevelt's. They do some incredible shirts on not just Star Wars but Disney, Marvel, Harry Potter, all kinds of, of different IPs. Um, but I love this one because it reminds me of The sheets I had as a kid is the same pattern. So yeah, I love the Star Wars.

They didn't get the intellectual property not locked down on that. They should have got a trademark on— yeah, who knows. Anyway, Paul, why don't you tell the listeners what it is that you do at Pow Wow?

Yeah, appreciate it. So PowWows.com is a place for anybody to come explore, experience, and we help you connect with Native culture. And of course, we have many Natives around the country and North America that also use it, but we really just want to help elevate the Native culture, help people find events, find Native artists, and just really get people more exposed to the culture and help educate. So that's what we've been doing since 1996. Looking forward, we're excited. Almost 30 years coming up in January that we have been running the site. And so we help, we do all of that, what I said, in a variety of ways. We have, of course, some writers. We publish original content. We do, uh, live streams of powwows. We're doing 25 to 30 powwow live streams a year, uh, as well as we do lots of photos, videos, and all the other things on social.

I love it. Now you're located where?

I am in Lexington, South Carolina.

Lexington, South Carolina. All right, interesting.

Not—

that would not— I would have figured you'd been in the West somewhere.

Yeah, it's, it's not the, uh, hive of— we have a few powwows around here, but we are not the center of the powwow world here. So unfortunately for me,— to get anywhere, I've got flights. Some other people on our team, they live more centrally located and they're able to drive to, you know, multiple powwows every month.

So are you from South Carolina?

Grew up in Sumter, South Carolina. My dad moved there. He was in the Air Force, so we ended up there. He was at Shaw Air Force Base and we moved around a little bit as a kid. I don't remember much of that. But yeah, Sumter is where they kind of chose to— where he retired from the Air Force. So that's just where we stayed.

I love it. So what tribe are you affiliated with?

So I'm a descendant from Cherokee on my dad's side. And, uh, yeah, Cherokee.

Perfect. Uh, I don't know if you know that we, uh, are broadcasting from Oklahoma. Nice. Um, and I— it's an interesting story. So, um, I, I've got a couple of interesting stories. One that I just found out when I was age 54. Um, But growing up in Oklahoma, obviously the Native culture was ubiquitous. But it was funny, they sent around a survey in school every year and they asked the students if they, you know, had any Native heritage. Actually, I think it was actually the term Native blood. Yeah, but I'm not, I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole. Have you read the book Bloodlands? No. Okay, I recommend that one. Um, anyway, well, it was just the whole idea of this blood quanta being a measurement, uh, where essentially once they got it down far enough, you were no longer Native. Like, you're, you're white if, if you get down to a certain percentage. In any case, my, my dad, I would ask him, and I knew that we have Native heritage. And I'd say, well, don't we need to fill that out? And he goes, no, no, no, that's not for us. And I don't know if it was, you know, he didn't want to be— to claim to be Native, or if it was some kind of welfare program that he didn't want to associate it with himself. But I found— I found at an early age this strange paradigm that I knew I was— I had Native heritage, but I wasn't allowed to talk about it. And as I have grown old, and I am old, it's something that actually that I have come to embrace, and not for the reasons that I wanted to have a community, or I was looking for an identity. But, you know, it's, it's part of who I am, is part of my heritage. Um, even to the point where, uh, I am, I'm currently writing a novel. Uh, it may end up a novelette, I don't know. I, I originally wanted to write a screenplay, but that's way too hard. So, uh, I, I, I'm, I'm hoping to write finish this novel and then have someone else adapt it to a screenplay. But the original idea was a movie, um, and I'm sorry I'm rambling, but living in Oklahoma my whole life, uh, my family is Choctaw. My wife is actually Choctaw too, which we're probably cousins. Um, in any case, I, I, uh, didn't know that there was a separate Choctaw tribe in Mississippi until I was like 45, and I got called as a professional witness in the tribal court. And so I make my trek down to Mississippi, and I'm like, I had no idea there was a separate tribe. I thought all the Choctaw were in Oklahoma. And, uh, it got— it planted a seed. And I, in, in my mind, uh, what had happened was when the feds had come in and done the forced relocation, uh, my thought was, well, uh, there were a bunch of badass that just went into the hills and said, fuck the feds, and hid. And this was the story I had in my head, right? I was like, that'd be a cool story to tell. Um, then I do my research and I find out now they actually didn't do that. They, they were, uh, they chose to stay and were allowed to stay, but that's a completely story. In any case, I have— the novel is around— it's a love story, and I've titled it Dancing Rabbit. And the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit is the final treaty that forced the relocation of the Choctaw people to Oklahoma. But it's— I looked, and there's no there's no movie about the Trail of Tears. There's lots of documentaries, but there's no movie that's set. And then I'm like, how can that story not be told?

Like, that, that's true.

Yeah, right. Um, uh, obviously it wasn't just the Choctaw that were relocated, but like, that's, that's my story. So in any case, I'm writing a book. Um, we'll see how it turns out.

Nice. Yeah, it's interesting. There hasn't been any kind of You would think that's a subject that would have been explored with some kind of screenplay.

Well, there probably has. No one produced it. That's a completely different animal, getting it produced. But, you know, I kind of feel like just living my life and my generation is it's one of those things that up until this point, I don't think it was sellable. I don't think anybody wanted to go watch that and hear that story because it's not a good story, right? And, um, they'd prefer it be in this, uh, antiseptic, uh, documentary where, you know, it's more like going to a history class. But I have this story, uh, that I'm telling. It's fictional, of course. I mean, some of the characters are, are real, but And that's the compelling thing, is the story, the people, like what actually happened that not just like statistics and numbers and dates and places like history is told, but the story of the people that lived it. Right. That's the compelling stuff. And it is an ugly story. In a lot of ways. It's a complex story, and I don't know if it would ever be produced. I don't know. We'll see.

You know, it's one of the things— there's probably not a good story arc because there's, there's not the happy ending. But interesting, I worked with A24, Studio A24, a few months ago, and they let me see a preview of Warfare.

Oh, that's such a good movie.

Yeah. And it kind of reminds me what we're talking about. Like, it is— it's not a story arc. It's here's a moment in time and here's what happened. And I don't know that you could have produced a movie like that 15 years ago. But no, really, it's a really compelling story.

But it is—

it is— it's not an arc. It's not, you know, here's the characters and here's where they end up.

Right. This isn't Lord of the Rings where they're going off on an adventure.

Yeah.

And I went to that movie with my wife, and after she goes, that was awful. And I'm like, what do you mean? That was— I mean, like, the— but she didn't mean it like an awful movie, but it was just, you left feeling shitty. Like, it was not right. And the vast majority of entertainment is not designed to make the audience feel shitty. That's not And, and I, I mean, I think my story, although it is shitty, I think it, it's, it's, um, compelling enough that— and, and there are good elements of it that, you know, it's bittersweet. And, and I think that— I think it's sellable. I don't know though, I'm not a movie producer.

You never know.

And, and historical films cost an ass ton of money to produce, so I, I don't know if, if it'll ever make it, but I feel compelled to write this story. The other funny story about my, my family— so I don't know why I'm telling you this. Um, the, uh, movie Killers of the Flower Moon came out, and, uh, went to go see it, and then I went to, uh, go visit my parents, and my dad is telling me, uh, a story And the name is escaping me. The, the, the woman, the main character that, um, they were trying to kill in the movie. Do you remember? I don't remember her name now. Anyway, um, she, uh, was married to my great-grandfather. So after— have you seen the movie?

Yes.

Okay, so after the movie, DiCaprio goes off to jail, right? She marries my great-grandfather, who's a white man, and she ends up dying while they are married. And he basically leaves town because all the Osage think that he had something to do with her death because that was what was going on. I don't know if he, if he was or he wasn't, but he moved, got divorced, and remarried my great-grandmother, who was Choctaw. Maybe he had a type. I don't know. In any case, we, we, my family I was 30 years old before I knew that my grandfather had half-siblings. Never talked about it. Like, it was just one of those things that was, was never talked about because they didn't speak. What they didn't speak about was, was when Johnny Cobb died, he had the head rights. And so they were supposed to go to his daughters, but he had decided that he was going to split it equally between all of his children, not just the ones that were Osage. And that caused this rift in the family. Right. And fast forward, my, my grandfather died about 5 years ago. And my grandfather had told his sons, my dad and his two brothers, that they would get the head rights, but he never put it in a will. And so my dad and my two brothers, uncles, won't speak to his, his wife, not their mother. Their mother had died over these fucking head rights. How many generations? And it was fascinating to me was like, there was a line in that movie was like, this is cursed money. It's blood money. And it was so fascinating to be like watching this movie and then realizing that I saw it in real life. Like they were still fighting over it and it wasn't much money at this point. Right. And it just, anyway. Sorry, Bloodlands, the book I referenced, is about, uh, the Osage murders. Um, so I think it was— I think it was the first book that, that was written. It was not the same as Killer of the Flower Moon, but it was good. Anyway, I'm going to shut up now and let you talk since I invited you on the show. It seems only right.

Oh, good.

Okay, go ahead. Do you have any opinion on anything I said?

Now I'm curious to see where your book goes though.

Yeah. Yes. Well, you know, speaking about creativity, it's, it's, um, I found it a real challenge because, uh, have you read, uh, The War of Art?

No.

Okay. Um, in that book, I'm so embarrassed. I can't remember the author's name. It'll come to me in a minute. He wrote The Legend of Bagger Vance. Uh, he was a novelist and then a screenwriter. Uh, but in the, in the War of Art, he, he talks about, um, the resistance. And like anytime you are trying to do your creative purpose, you run into this resistance and it manifests itself in a lot of different ways. Procrastination, uh, minimization, fear, or whatever, but it keeps you from doing your thing. And I've really struggled with writing this book. I've been working on it for close to a year, and I'm maybe 20% done. And, you know, it's just that, like, that's real. Like, anytime you're trying to do something truly creative, you can find all the reasons in the world not to do it. Do you ever experience the resistance?

Oh yeah, yeah. I have a list here, and I've got a huge to-do list.

There's, yeah. I get it. Yeah. So what is it that you— why is it— I mean, did— well, let me ask a foundational question. Did you start Pow Wow?

Or did you— the website? Yes. Yeah, I started it. Yeah.

Okay. What was the— why did you start it?

So 1996, I'm in grad school at the University of South Carolina and Uh, I was studying what? Uh, I got a master's in public administration.

Okay.

Uh, I was taught how to be a bureaucrat.

You have to go to school for that?

Yeah, apparently. Um, but yeah, you know, in my spare time I was playing with the whole HTML, building web pages. I've always loved to tinker with technology. So, um, at the time I had friends that were just introducing me to powwows and I was learning, you know, how to make the outfits and what the songs were, all that. So I, I built a few pages, just not, you know, back then there wasn't blogging or anything like that. I just built pages because it was a subject that I was exploring. So I just threw up pages like, hey, there's what this is, and here's what this is, and here's some pictures I took. At the same time, I built another website. Um, I actually built a website on vintage Star Wars toy collecting. Going back to our previous conversations. Um, but that was in 1996. Disney had not bought Star Wars. There were no other movies. Um, nobody really cared about vintage Star Wars toys except, like, you know, 10 of us on, um, bulletin boards. So, right, that website's still out there in its state of 1996. But the POWA website, um, people started coming, started asking questions.. They wanted ways to, to talk with each other, not just to me, but, you know, they wanted that ways to interact. So, early on I added a community. Back then it was, you know, forums. We didn't have Facebook groups.

It was forums.

And the community grew and it was, it was never, I never sat down like, hey, I'm going to become a, you know, entrepreneur. It was, it kept growing and kept growing. At some point there were bills. It's like, okay, well, how are we going to pay for this thing? So it was a kind of an organic thing that turned into more. I ran it as a side thing, just something I did in my spare time while I worked in state government in South Carolina and retired, you know, after, you know, I was actually able to retire from state government a few years ago and now do this and other stuff full time. So Um, but yeah, it was never— I never set out to build a business. It was just the community just kept coming and we just kept building.

Field of Dreams. If you build it, they will come.

Who knew? I, you know, we didn't even know that that kind of stuff could happen in '96.

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 got you interested in powwows and dancing?

And it was— that was when I was first learning about, you know, what my actual family heritage was. And I had some friends that were going to powwows themselves. And so I was like, hey, tell me more about this. And so they took me under their wing. And, you know, those early days of learning powwows, I had people that we'd go and spend a weekend at their house and we'd, you know, make crafts all weekend and then we'd go to powwows and dance. Yeah. So it was just the beginning of really figuring out all that stuff. So I liked the, you know, learning new stuff. I like the the meeting of people and, you know, sitting after a powwow dance, you know, sitting at the campground and all of us fellowshipping and, you know, food coming out of everywhere. And we, you know, sit around all night long just eating and talking. So that was how I was introduced to powwows. And so like, this is really cool. I want to talk about it. And so it was just a place for me to— I never thought anybody would come. Really, it was not meant I didn't even build— they were in the beginning, they weren't even— I didn't have good navigate— navigation. We didn't know, you know, you didn't know what like breadcrumbs and SEO and backlinks and internal linking structure. And I didn't know any of that stuff. That stuff didn't exist. So it was just literally just a hodgepodge of pages thrown together.

So, so how have you monetized the website? I mean, like, do you sell ads? Is there— do you do sponsorships? Like, what, what do you do?

Yeah, as it's grown over the years, and we've, we've done lots of different monetization revenues, right? Currently, um, we have several different revenue streams for the website. Um, we, we are a part of Media Vine ad network, so they do most of our ads on the website. We do, um, we have some direct sponsors we work with. Um, so we have some, you know, brand deals, that kind of thing. But we also The powwows, those 25 to 30 powwows that I was talking about, they hire us to come in. So that's a service we provide to the powwows where we come in with our camera equipment and do the streaming. But then, you know, we also make money from YouTube and Facebook and all the social networks. And we have a few digital products and we have a Shopify store. You know, it just all adds up to be able to, yeah, to build what we have.

That's cool. So, so Do you know if the people, the traffic, are, are natives, or are they people that are not native that are wanting to learn more?

It's a mix. I mean, you know, the first 10 or 15 years it was mostly powwow people because it was— that was who was coming to our forums, that was who, who was interacting. Um, but with social media and how we've grown, um, our Facebook page is, is has really, really grown over the last few years. Um, so I know it's— just looking at the Facebook page, you know, it's more than, um, just powwow people. This past weekend, our livestream— we had two livestreams going at the same time. Um, one of them had 500,000 viewers over the weekend from— wow— um, 67 countries or something. So, um, yeah, it has grown tremendously. Um, so we I try, especially with our newsletter, I try to kind of provide content for whether you're, you know, a powwow person, you're a Native person, you're looking to connect with, you know, make sure you stay connected, find where powwows are. We kind of have some segmentation and some messaging for those folks. But then we also have some more of like what to expect at your first powwow and what does all this mean, you know? So we try to do content for both. Um, and then on social media, really the goal is just to educate, highlight, um, and elevate the culture.

That is, that, that's a great story. I love that story. Um, have you seen, uh, I don't know why I'm asking this. I'm just going to ask it. Have you seen Reservation Dogs?

Yes.

I, okay. I'm going to withhold my opinion. Uh, you tell me your opinion. Of the show?

I thought it was hilarious. And I know, I know some of the folks in the show. I've been able to interview a few of them, but like the Little Mike and Funny Bone, I've spent time with them at several powwows. So those guys I actually know. So it's fun to see them in roles. I think it was a a very innovative show in telling a contemporary story of Native life. Not as— when I interviewed some of them, some of the folks from it, you know, one of the things I kept saying was it's really cool to have a modern show about Native culture where we didn't— where powwow wasn't the feature, right? So many times that's, that's the default that you go to in TV or film, it's like, oh, okay, we're going to talk about Natives. Well, it has to be at a powwow. And while we're a powwow-focused website, I thought it was really cool that I think there was maybe only one powwow scene in the, in the whole series. So I thought in that perspective it was really good. I think it was also a really cool way to highlight some of the, some of the issues that people on reservations and in some of these tribes are facing. In a funny, approachable way for people outside the culture. It was fun to hear some of my friends talk about the show with me that maybe didn't know about these things beforehand and hear their perspective. So that was interesting. So I loved it. I thought it was a really cool show. I wish it would continue. But, you know, those, those guys that— I don't know if you go back and look at some of the early YouTube videos of the 1491s, Those are some of the guys who wrote and produced it. They're just, they're just really creative and funny people. So hopefully we'll see more from them in the future.

Yeah, I'm glad you liked it because I didn't want to have to disagree with you. I love the show. Some of the funniest shit I've seen in a while. Crazy. But, but to your point, I, you know, I looked at it as it didn't do the Hollywood stereotypes. Right. And it felt— but it wasn't irreverent. You know, even though the humor, there was humor, it wasn't irreverent. But like the spirit guide is my— the spirit guide warrior, Yoho! I mean, he is my favorite character in that whole show. I mean, it's just— because you could do it all the wrong ways, but they did it the right way. Um, so, uh, go watch Reservation Dogs. Not Reservoir Dogs, that's totally different. Reservation Dogs.

Yes.

Um, yeah, and then I'm— I also thought it interesting because they, they filmed that all in Oklahoma and we don't have reservations here. So, uh, yeah, interesting. Um, it was— yeah, and it was set in Oklahoma and I'm like, well, that's strange, we don't have any reservations. Um, which is a strange word to use anyway. You know, I didn't know growing up in Oklahoma, had said that phrase many times, off the reservation, didn't understand that it was potentially offensive. Right.

Like there's so many of our phrases.

Yeah.

When you go back and look at some of the stuff.

Yeah, right, right. But I'm kind of one of those people, you know, that I don't intend to— I mean, I used to try and intend to offend. I try not to intend to offend anymore, but, you know, sometimes things are said that someone may take offense to, but understand I don't intend any offense. And I think that's what's missing from the dialogue, not just with Natives, but just in general, is that people are looking to be offended as opposed to, you know, Certainly there are people out there saying things to be offensive. There's no question about that, but then there's this vacuum where it's like, "Well, I can't talk about this. I can't say this because I don't want to offend anybody." Then I'm like, there's so much out there that needs to be discussed, but we're afraid to discuss it because we don't want to offend anybody.

Thoughts? It's an interesting time. Yeah, I, um, we have some Facebook groups, we, and of course the Facebook page, so we have a lot of interaction and people posting comments. And sometimes it's frustrating because the littlest thing can set people off, and, and then we, we get into these, you know, flame wars and going back and forth. Um, I, I like to focus on the positives, and I think if we If we can shine the light on more stuff and if we educate more people, then we raise the bar for everybody, right? So that's what we try to do with our content is I don't— there's a lot of issues out there and we definitely like missing and murdered Indigenous women. We try to highlight that when possible. But as far as like the controversy, controversial topics, I like to just focus on the positives and really try to shine spotlights on like Native artists and people in the community doing cool things. There's plenty of other spaces for those other topics, but I want to— I want to help. The more— I guess my philosophy is the more we can educate, the more people will understand, and the better the understanding, the more they'll care about it and the more they'll protect it. So yeah, maybe we can we can prevent people from doing offensive things if we can educate better.

Yeah, I think that's spot on because it's too easy to be othered, you know, like, you know, and when you truly understand someone and their culture, you can't really just think of them in terms of a faceless group that you, you know, put, put, put in a box and say, you know, this is what they are. I think about like growing up, I was raised on old Westerns and my grandfather loved old Westerns. He watched The Rifleman all the time. But, you know, there was this Hollywood portrayal of Natives for decades, and it perpetrated this otherism. Like, you know, I remember talking to people when I was young and they'd find out that I was from Oklahoma and they'd say, "Do people live in teepees?" And I'm like, "What?" Like, that was a serious question, right? 'Do you guys ride horses?' I'm like, 'No, no, no, I don't. I mean, I can, but—' Um, and, and then it kind of shifted. I think maybe with Dancing with Wolves was probably the first mainstream that was not that. And there were a lot of good films, but Hollywood's really shaped that, um, up until the, the current time. But I think what's, what's fascinating to me is, and maybe it's because I'm in Oklahoma and it's more prevalent here, but like how timely this is. Like this is, you know, Native culture exists and persists and flourishes in the modern day, and there are a lot of people that just don't have any clue that it's going on. Right.

Right. And, you know, there are people that— again, you're talking about our different audiences. You know, there are people that come into our Facebook group and they'll ask questions, and the questions could be construed as offensive, but they're not coming from an offensive place. They're coming from a place of ignorance. They don't know. Correct. So my approach with that is, you know, I try to cut off or, you know, kind of get ahead of any kind of blowback they're going to get. And like, okay, let's— before we just throw them out of the group and, and, you know, run them out of town, let's tell them what they did wrong. Let's explain to them why it was wrong, and let's educate them on what the correct thing to do. Because if we just throw them out, they're just going to go into it. They're not going to know what the issue was. One of the things that happens all the time in, in the Facebook group, and I finally We now have a rule in the Facebook group. You specifically, if somebody uses the word costume, you cannot reply to that and be and tell them it's wrong because it's people get offended by the word costume. Well, nobody's coming in asking about costumes as trying to be with malice, right?

They don't like a clown costume or Halloween costume, right?

Yes. That is not the correct term for for powwow outfits or regalia or, you know, whatever the dance clothes is, you know. Um, but they don't know that. So if we just wholesale go after them, they're not going to—

they don't know what they did wrong, right?

Right. So yeah, it's those kind of things that I, I, I really want to focus on. Let's educate, let's teach them instead of just being mad about it. Now there are, of course, there are things like when somebody in the news says that we didn't kill enough Indians. You know, there's— that is maybe from more of a malice place. You know, I don't, I don't know what her intentions were, but those— that's a different subject, right? That's not what the people in our Facebook group are doing for the most part.

Yeah. I mean, and this is the thing, I don't— the treatment of Native tribes by the federal and state governments is, it's an abomination. It really is. I use the term fuck the feds because like, I don't, I mean, if you as a citizen of the United States, Native or non-Native, you don't know that story, then you don't know how much you You should distrust your government. And this was way before the internment of the Japanese in World War II or any of that stuff. Like, I mean, like, and so the way they treated natives was awful. But the reality is, and I'm not here justifying what the government did, but the reality is from the time that the Europeans showed up here, there was going to be conflict because it was a fundamental conflict of technology and culture, and they, they could not coexist in the big picture. They tried, and they did it for a long time. They coexisted, but at one point, the, the technology was going to prevail. The, the, the, the Europeans had the better guns. They had the better technology, and they were going to prevail. If you look back through history of the world, and this may sound bad, but, you know, when the Romans came in, they would just kill people. Like, they were not interested in your tribe, your culture, or preserving it. It was like, you assimilate or die, just like the Borg. I mean, it was And so in some ways you can look at the story of Natives in America as an attempt to do it the right way, but it was never going to work. I mean, it just wasn't. But it did work in the sense that Native tribes have continued and thrived and the culture still persists and In that way, it is a success story.

There's still a long way to go. Yeah, there's still some issues we need to deal with.

100%. Yeah, but you know, that can be said of a lot of people in the United States. I mean, again, going back, fuck the feds. I don't trust them. But any case, I want to talk about Andor real quick. I don't know why. I also want to talk about Andor. Um, what do you think of the show?

I love the show. I actually, uh, I have a friend, we play disc golf every weekend, and he yelled at me the other day. He's like, why have you never told me about the show? I was like, Chris, I did tell you about the show. Um, but it just flew under the radar for so many people. Um, yes, it did. I, I— you've watched the second season? Yes. Okay. Um, I love seeing the Star Wars world expanded with these new characters and these new plots. I, and I love the detail and the minutia of, you know, seeing what it was taking to build the Death Star, you know, and not knowing really at first, like, oh, that's what they're doing. Yeah, that all that kind of backstory and the politics and the espionage. Yeah. Yeah. All that stuff is, it was really, I think it was a cool way to tell a different story in the Star Wars universe. I hope we see more of that. Um, I think The Mandalorian was a good attempt. It— first season was good. First season was good. We strayed away as we went on. Um, Boba Fett was disappointing. Um, but yeah, I love seeing the Star Wars universe expanded. Um, you know, I've got Star Wars all over my room. You know, I've got my R2 here. Yeah, so for me, any, any more content I can consume in the Star Wars universe is, is always good. Um, but I thought Andor was really above what, what they had done for a long time.

Yeah, and I don't, I don't follow Disney, uh, well enough to know why Andor was different, but it, it is definitely different, and it's not the normal crap that Disney has produced in, in the universe. Um, and my son and I were talking about it. We're watching season 2 together. We haven't finished watching it, but, you know, As he said, there's like so much there because he was all into Clone Wars, all the animated. And so like, you know, he grew up watching that too and was much more familiar to the universe than I was. I'm like, I didn't even know that existed. The books, I've never read any of them, the comics, whatever. And he's like, there's so much material here that Disney could draw from. Like, what? Why do they produce crap? And I'm like, I, the only answer I have is, is that just like most of large companies and virtually all of Hollywood is risk-averse. They just, they don't, they don't want to take any risks. Yeah.

It was also, um, with the streaming wars, you know, they produced way too much Marvel. They produced way too much Star Wars content trying to you know, make Disney+ such a vi— you know, a must-have streaming platform, um, and try to keep up with the Netflixes. Yeah, I think there was definitely an oversaturation of content, um, so I'm glad to see them slowing down on some of that.

Um, well, I mean, you'd think they'd get sick of wasting money. I, I don't, I don't know.

Ah, you know, I don't know. Um, you need— but you never know. Like, everybody's saying Elio was a box office failure, but they're expecting it— or, you know, I've heard some people talk about that once it hits streaming, it's going to go nuts. I don't know how that converts. I don't understand the streaming model and how that actually converts to, to revenue. But, um, yeah, it's such a weird time now for content.

Um, yeah, and well, and to, to, to a I look at Spotify, and to me it's easier to see it in the music than it is the movies. And it's like, um, there was a book that came out 20, 25 years ago called The Long Tail. Um, I don't know if you read it, but it was basically talking about the internet's impact on things like that and how you could, you know, because of technology, really make money off of very, very small segments of the market. And, but, but, but then you still have the Spotifys or the Netflix that come in and suck all the oxygen out of the room, and you— they still control the gateway to the technology. So like, you, you still can't self-distribute a million-dollar production, right? You've got to have someplace to, to put it. And, but I think the technology will finally evolve that it's not going to be the YouTubes, that, that, um, that you're going to be able to go to alternative platforms and find the content that you want, that, that smaller producers, music or video, can, can make money off of.

Yeah, that's— and that's the issue now. I mean, whether it's video content or blogging. There's so— with AI and all this, it's, yeah, how do we continue to pay creators to produce content but let the Googles of the world make their money? It's a really interesting time for that. I was just— before this, I have a group of friends that we're all in kind of the same space, and we were on a call talking about, you know,, it's different creators. There was a travel person, there was a recipe person, um, you know, a pretty wide array of content creators. And, you know, right now it's, it's tough to be a content creator in a lot of ways because of all the AI and other things going on. Um, but we're all still hopeful that there is a model out there, um, that will continue to support small creators and surface the content. Content. But, you know, for so long, Google organic search was that way. With that changing, what will be the next way?

I don't know. But I don't know, but I think—

continue to want the content, right? That's the thing.

Right. And I think that the— I think the AI kills— I think AI is what kills the big boys, right? Like, you know, AI is going to kill LinkedIn and Facebook and Google. Because it's producing so much and so much crap. I think it actually gives birth to these miniature— we'll call them miniature Netflix, where it's a subscription service. It's based on the same technology, but it's hyper-focused. And they're not going to have hundreds of millions of users. They're going to maybe have 10 million million users, but it's economically viable. And I think that it's going to be centered around authenticity. I think, you know, it's going to be kind of like, not that the content creators can't use AI to produce the content, but it's not going to be AI-produced content. And there's going to be, I see, two. There's, there's going to be the AI world where, where we live now, and then there's going to be the people that are seeking authenticity, that want a certain type of content, and they want to trust it. And that's, that's what's the new opportunity.

Yeah, it's how do you continue to be authentic in a, in an AI world?

Um, you don't play that game. I, I don't think you win it. If nothing else, you drown. Because there's so much out there that you—

no one's ever going to see you. Yeah, yeah. Um, I'm actually working on a talk now I'm going to do at a conference in August, and, and that's one of the things I'm talking about is in this world of AI content, how do you stand out and how do you raise yourself above the noise? And, um, for any entrepreneurs out there, my, my thing is we, we've got to go back to some of the original things, and that is community, that is email. Those things can— will continue to be successful. I'm— I've been bullish on email for years, but I am doubling down, um, and doing even more with our email community and really focusing on what we can do with that because it's a— it's a great way I can talk directly to my audience, um, without an algorithm deciding who gets to read it.

I'll go a step further. I'll go a step beyond email and say newsletters, magazines. Yeah, like I could see a resurgence of that where it's not like they were in the past. They're, they're, they're hyper-focused, small subscription, but people are paying for it because they want the authentic content. Yes, it's— I can totally see that happening.

Yeah, and I think Substack is, is a place that's kind of like that. Um, I just don't know if Substack has the, the mass reach yet for creators to be discovered on it yet. Um, but I understand what they're trying to do, and the model is cool for, for you to have that kind of magazine or very specialized content and people pay you for it. That's cool. I just— they've got to get to the point where, like with Facebook, you— it's easy to surface and discover new content on on Facebook and some of the other platforms aren't there yet for discoverability.

I agree. Well, real quickly, what kind of coaching do you do? You said you do coaching. Yeah. What do you do?

Oh, thanks. I love helping entrepreneurs level up their business. And I do that, like I was just saying, I do that really helping people find who their community is and how to serve them through email newsletters, building email segments. So do we do a lot of that, really learning what your audience, how they break down, and let's create segments and sequences that will serve them. As well as, you know, how you do community building and how you can really grow your business with whether it's with Facebook groups or other kind of community or social media. So yeah, that's really where I focus on is helping people understand their businesses and using these tools like email to to, to go forward with their business.

And how would people find you if they wanted to learn more?

Yeah, I'd love to, to, for you to come over. Um, paulgatter.com is, is the place where I do all of that. Um, if you're interested in, you know, seeing some of the things I do with, with email, paulgatter.com/email-tools. I go through kind of my favorite ways to grow my list. Um, at powwows.com, our, our email list is about 100 110,000 subscribers, a very active list. And so if you want to see how I do that, paulgatter.com/email-tools. Lovely.

Listeners will have those links in the show notes. If you like what you heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you heard, shoot us a message and we'll get rid of Paul. Until then, ta-ta for now.