James Colistra, Founder @ Wonderfish | Speak Your Dreams Into Reality

I ended up just getting the invite on my calendar from HR, and like there wasn't an explanation, but I kind of had a sinking suspicion kind of thing. And then after after that happened, I was kind of shook by it, but I was thinking myself, okay, you know, I'll be okay, and you know I'm gonna go find a job and whatever. But I I was most nervous at the beginning of telling my kids because I was worried that I was gonna kind of let them down. You do everything for them, and you want to make them proud, and they always were proud that I worked at Forbes. I waited a couple days when I first told my daughters. My daughter, my youngest was 8 years old and she looked at me in the eyes and she's, why did they get rid of you? You're the best. And that kind of like shook me. It kind of like affected me a lot because at that point in time, I kind of felt like that I had let her down. But then I started to really think about it and I was like, you know what? Like, I'm not going to let this change. I'm going to basically do everything that I can in my power to make, you know, make myself proud and to make Her proud.

What's up, everybody? Welcome to this episode of Forward to Extraordinary, a part of the Strictly From Nowhere podcast experiment. I'm your host, Justin Abrams, a serial entrepreneur in pursuit of wisdom with the goal of sharing it with all of you. And that continues for today. You know, one of the things that, you know, that I love to do is to bring on domain experts to kind of help us find our way and to learn from what's happening in industries from other professionals that have given their lives and their careers to those paths. And that's the same jam for today. Someone who's been kind of integral lately to some of the guests that we have had on the show. If you've seen Will Rubin, founder of Workmate, if you've seen Mitchell Jones, founder of Lava, they were on the show thanks to this gentleman right here, James Colistra. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. Founder of Wonderfish. Thanks so much for your time. I'm thrilled to unpack your zero-to-market journey. Welcome, man.

Thank you, Justin. You are doing it right as a podcast host. So thank you for giving me the platform myself and for allowing Will and Mitchell to come on. I think what you're doing is awesome. Just, you're going through the— you're kind of taking the bets that a lot of us have been scared to do. Like, I personally at some point want to do my own podcast, and I know it's not easy to kind of like go through those reps every day. And like the fact that I think you're— how many shows are you up to now and how many interviews are you doing? Like, it's amazing.

I know. I will— we will have finished the week between me and my partner at 9 episodes just this week. It's a lot.

It's a lot.

But do you wanna know what, man? Like the, uh, the barrier to entry has never been lower. It's never been more manageable. I talk about this all the time. I have no team dedicated to this. I'm editing across 5 different shows under one podcast umbrella. Like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, you know, Hercules over here. I'm just a regular guy trying to cut content. What, what I did have to do is I had to delegate a lot of my business. I run Cause of a Kind. We build software and websites for the rest of the world, and it's full-on agency model. And I had to be comfortable with letting a lot of those responsibilities go. in order to make myself available to, to be a full-time content creator, basically is what, is what my life is at the moment.

Yeah.

And it was all in this pursuit of trying to find product market fit, just like I do with everything else. And my, my vision was if the show finds its way, it will turn into a business, in which case I will do what I have done in the past, which is delegate the rest of those responsibilities. So here we are, just quintessential builder, builder. And I totally encourage you and will help you myself to find your way with the podcast. The hardest part is doing episode 1.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

That's awesome, man. Hell yeah. Well, it's a heck of a journey. And, you know, you're, you're on one side of the hedge. I'm on the other side of the hedge. You're trying to, you know, find your way to incredible talent and help these people be successful and evangelize their story. And one of the ways that you're doing that, maybe even a primary way, is finding partner podcasts. And I'm blessed to know you and I'm blessed to receive some of these individuals that you're successfully helping. But before we get into business and the reason why around Wonderfish, I love kicking these off and humanizing them a little bit. Tell me a little bit about you, your background, your human experience to get us started.

Absolutely. Well, not to get— I won't get into the professional side. So, I know you like to get into like the sort of personal human side first. I'm just, you know, people like to say like suburban New Jersey dad, like I'm kind of a basic suburban dad, but I have 2 daughters, which I mentioned to you. I have a 10 and 13-year-old daughter. They keep us really busy because they do a lot of competitive cheerleading. So as much as I want to have my own hobbies, I'm usually driving them around or flying them around to these different competitions. But it's pretty cool. It's a cool sport because they're doing all these tumbling. It's literally like gymnastics.

Totally.

Yeah, man, I enjoy being outside. I like barbecuing. I like hiking. I like going to the ocean. We go to Cape Cod every year and That's one of my passions. Just being in the ocean is pretty cool. Other than that, like, uh, I do spend a lot of time working, unfortunately, but it's something that I enjoy.

Isn't that the blend, right? Like, find something you enjoy doing, it never really feels like work. It just feels like the way. But, uh, also shout out to the Yankees right behind you. I'd love to see that on the shelf.

That's quite fun.

Me too, man. I'm Yankees all the way, all the way. No hate to anybody else that likes the Mets or anything weird like that. Yeah, too fun, man. Too fun. You know, what I, what I find really interesting just about the story and the focus, like, you know, I work around the clock too, man. I do. And nothing takes my attention away except for the kids and my wife. And, and I find that we share that in common. It's just this moment in life. And your kids are quite a bit older than mine. Mine are right now 4 and 9 months, little babies still. But man, I'm excited. I'm excited for what comes next and like, make, make their hobbies my own. And I can only be so lucky if they find their way to the things I enjoy. So yeah, exactly. I'm right with you, man. Well, tell me a little bit about the, the career path. I know you didn't start where you are at right now. I love, you know, the story arc towards entrepreneurship, but I don't think that's how you began your career. So bring me back to the early days of James.

So I, yeah, I mean, growing up, I grew up in upstate New York, actually real rural. Like people, a lot of people don't think about New York as being rural farmland.

Majority of it.

I grew up on like 5 acres. Yeah, I grew up on like 5 acres. New York is pretty, the state itself is pretty big.

Massive.

And I grew up on about 5 acres of land and there was a lot of like cornfields and wheat fields. So before I was an entrepreneur, building Wonderfish, I was building hay forts. I was building— I was actually in the fields like building— like if you— a lot of people realize that when you grow wheat, you know, it gets really tall, like these big stalks or whatever. I don't even know what they're called, but like the actual wheat, like it's so tall that you can actually tie it together. And I used to make forts out of that, like inside these like amazing like— Grain or whatever, wheat grain or whatever.

Maybe.

But then once, once you have hay in the barn, like that becomes another avenue where you could literally build forts and we would play basketball in the barn. We would, we had a creek down at the end of our road where we would go and get crawfish. So I, I mean, that's New York. People don't think about it that way, but I had a pretty good childhood, like growing up in the country. So, and then, you know, as I said, I played basketball, but Besides the fact that I, uh, couldn't, uh, I couldn't shoot, I couldn't jump. Like I was pretty much going to the NBA, but except for all those factors, like kind of working against me.

LeBron James.

So I decided, I decided at an early age, believe it or not, in high school, I decided I wanted to work in advertising. And I just liked the creativity aspect of it. I actually read a book called Hey Whipple, Squeeze This, which was about ad copywriting. So at some point I wanted, at one point I wanted to be an advertising copywriter through college. And that kind of shifted because I started to really like the consumer behavior and the strategy side of things. So I was trying to get involved in ad agencies. They call it account planning, which is like the— they write the brief that goes to the creatives. And it's really hard. It's actually really hard to get into because everyone wants to do that. It's super fun and the creative aspect of it. But I landed my first big New York City job at The Economist and just kind of fell into the media space. So I was a marketing manager at The Economist, the London— they call it a newspaper, but it's basically a magazine, right? And it was a great place to work. And I liked the aspect of working on new challenges for different clients each week. We had different advertisers. So I was on the integrated marketing side. By integrated marketing means every publisher has a lot of different platforms within So, you have the print, you have digital, you have events, you have research, thought leadership research. The Economist calls it The Economist Intelligence Unit. At Forbes, it's Forbes Insight. So, every— I ended up at Forbes is where I'm going with this story. So, I was working at The Economist, ended up at Forbes for about 10 years.

Wow.

But I was doing a lot of the same thing, like being the quarterback across all those different platforms and being very creative. And I was able, and that was why I wanted to get into advertising in the beginning is because the creativity aspect. AI is sadly changing the game a little bit. The need for human creativity is not gone. You still need to be creative, but the speed to creativity and the speed to ideas is so much, it's really shrunk incredibly to the point where I don't, I think the reality is you don't need as many humans on a creative team like that, which we're like, we were the idea people and coming up with the ideas and put into packaging and everything. So I think that's one of the reasons, a big part of the reason I was laid off. So I was laid off in January 2024 from Forbes. And I, it kind of hit me like a train at first because I didn't see it coming, believe it or not, because Forbes, we were always profitable. We never had any layoffs up to then. Even through COVID, there wasn't any layoffs. I ended up just getting the invite on my calendar from HR and like there wasn't an explanation, but I kind of had a feel, like a sinking suspicion kind of thing. And then after that happened, I was immediately, you know, I was kind of shook by it, but I was thinking to myself, okay, you know, I'll be okay, and I'm gonna go find a job and whatever. But I, I was most nervous at the beginning of telling my kids because I kind of was worried that I was going to kind of let them down. And, you know, you know, you, you have kids, like, everything— you kind of do everything for them, and you want to make them proud, and you want them to be, you know— and they always were proud that I worked at Ford. Orbs. So the first, when I waited a couple days, when I first told my daughters, my daughter, my youngest was 8 years old. And she looked at me in the eyes. And she's like, she asked, it was like a sincere question, because she's very empathetic. And she was like, Daddy, like, why did they get rid of you? You're the best. And that kind of like shook me and kind of like affected me a lot because at that point in time, I kind of felt like I was— that I had let her down. And but then I started to really think about it. And I was like, you know what, like, I'm not gonna let this change. I'm going to basically do everything that I can in my power to make, you know, make myself proud and to make her proud. And I don't necessarily need a big corporation or a big brand like Forbes to do what I'm passionate about and what I love, which— What I was doing at Forbes and what we as a company were doing was similar to what you do, where you give people a platform to tell their stories. And I think that was what was so exciting about it for me is like you have all these amazing founders and CEOs and executives and, you know, we were giving them whether it was an event stage or an article in a magazine or whatever it might be like, this is an opportunity for them to share their message and their story with the world. And so, I decided I'd launch Wonderfish and initially, it evolved into what it is today. 'Cause initially it was more so like a marketing agency, but that kind of, I kind of evolved it into now what it is today, which is focusing on podcast guesting, but it doesn't matter if it's a podcast or eventually I'm gonna give people other platforms besides podcasts. It's really about the opportunity to give people visibility. So I kind of, while I'm in the PR space, I kind of think about it as like visibility engineering, if you will.

You know, first of all, to anybody that's watching this, raise your hand if you resonate with James' story, right? Like, so many folks are going through the trials and tribulations of employment. And especially if you're at companies that ride the line of margin, especially if you're at publicly traded companies that have to, you know, withhold shareholder value. If you're at super venture-backed companies, like, The idea of spontaneous layoff is so common culture as of right now. And so your story and the fear and the shamefulness of it all, and dude, that's human. Like, that's as human as it gets. And that is like such a common American experience as of right now. It could have— it could even be global. And first of all, I commend you for your bravery. And I appreciate your transparency and your vulnerability. And I can see you getting choked up because it's still really— it's traumatic, dude. It's super painful. I've been there. And, you know, cheers to you, man, because it really is. It really is Forward to Extraordinary. It's the quintessential story of the show. And so when you pick yourself up by your bootstraps and you really have no other option to find your way, man, why did entrepreneurship call you? And so, maybe you could take me a little bit back to, you know, building forts out of wheat and how that all happened in your young life. But I love hearing the story arc of entrepreneurship because most people don't even realize how entrepreneurial they actually have been throughout their lives. There's so many little wrinkles of entrepreneurship. It's usually tied back to, can I exchange X for dollars? And I have come to know over many, many, many episodes and hearing everybody's story that it's not necessary. necessarily about money. It's, it's really about you and about your pursuit and about the way you see the world. And so I'm very much interested in why you think entrepreneurship selected you, because this is certainly not an easier path. It is easier to get a job and be employed and have security and like feel all of those things and wrap yourself in golden handcuffs again and When you're excellent, you find your way. This is the harder path. So, there must be a story there.

Yes. Yes. Well, I'll have to say that I kind of held myself back for a long time where I didn't see myself as an entrepreneur, even though I had a lot of entrepreneurial traits to me. And I had sort of side hustles throughout throughout my early career where my first, my first, I haven't ever talked about this publicly. I had this one company, it was called Earthworm. It was spelled E-R-T-H-W-E-R-M or something like that. It was like, I made a logo and I made a brand around like, and I came up with this one product. It was a biodegradable, it was a, oh, this is my, this is my Wonderfish coffee mug, but it was literally, I wish I had one on me. It was, I have like a box of them in the garage. I have a Wonderfish mug. Oh yeah, they were coffee tumblers, but they were made out of this material that's supposed to biodegrade when it gets into the landfill or whatever.

Interesting.

Because I was on this like eco-friendly kick and so I was all about saving— I thought I was going to save the earth with like selling these coffee tumblers. Like it never took off because I didn't really put that much enough effort into it. And it wasn't even like I had purchased or that I made them myself. I just found a company that was already making these and just put my logo on it essentially is what I was doing. I was trying to build a brand and just had no idea what I was doing. That was my first sort of venture. Then, I mean, that was like right after college. I graduated in '06, but I worked for a couple different ad agencies, ended up at The Economist. And when I was at The Economist, I, I've always loved hot sauces. I came across— well, I was into this salsa. There was— it was called the Brooklyn Salsa Company, and I was doing a little— prior to working at The Economist, I was actually doing a little bit of marketing for them. So I was always into this condiment space. And then I came across these like ketchups, and I was tasting these. Like, one of them was called Sir Kensington's, which ended up being becoming a big brand. And I think it got purchased by Unilever. And they were on the Forbes Under 30 list. But I said, I want to make my own ketchup. And I think that's one of the things about being an entrepreneur is when you see something out in the world, and you just think that you can do it better. And you can like, hey, why don't I take a stab at this? I think that's probably the most common trait of entrepreneurs. And then the other thing that I witnessed of being at Forbes and just being around successful entrepreneurs, like besides having that trait, the other trait that everyone has in common, the ones that at least that are successful are the ones that just don't give up and just keep trying because you're going to have so many different issues come up, snags in the road or whatever. But when I tried launching ketchup, so I launched— first, I just made my own ketchup in my kitchen, and I brought it into The Economist, and people were testing and they're like, this tastes really good. You know, I use like apple cider vinegar and tomato puree, and I did a chipotle spicy one. And then I ended up launching it in 2013 on Kickstarter. And it actually kind of took off for a little while where I was I had it in some local markets. I was selling it farmers markets and then a couple like smaller grocery stores in the in the New Jersey area, and it was it was doing okay, but it wasn't making a lot of money because in the business of food, it's a very low margin business, and the only way you're actually going to make a lot of money is you have to scale. And so I started going. I went to a co packer. They they made a prototype of it, but. it wasn't exactly like how I had made it. And I was very nervous about buying a big batch of it and like scaling it basically. Because I had a little girl at the time and my wife kind of said to me at that point, she was like, where are you going with this? Like, what are you doing? Like, because it was only paying for itself. It wasn't really making money. But my focus was on Forbes working at that. Once I got to Forbes in 2014. I only ran the ketchup for like two more years as a side hustle, and then in 2016, I I put a kibosh on it, and I kind of learned that if you're going to go all in, I think side hustles are great, but at some point, if you really want it to grow, you need to leave and focus on it. And I wasn't ready to make that commitment. But I miss being in that world of being in the ketchup or being in the condiment space. So I ended up doing. I still have a it's called the Secret Society. It's like an Instagram page where I review. hot sauces and stuff. So I guess that's like a long answer to your question of like, am I entrepreneurial? Did I ever see myself? I didn't see my— I saw it as like a side thing. And I always saw the founders that we were covering at Forbes as like, they were like the real legit ones. So I had to kind of change my identity once I was like, go from Forbes or laid off. I was like— having trouble, to be honest with you, getting back into this, into the corporate world. So being an entrepreneur was also kind of like a necessity in a way of like, this is going to be my calling card. I'm going to do everything that I can to find success. And I also saw a gap. Eventually I saw a gap in the podcast space, which is what I'm working on now, like fixing things that could be solved in podcast guesting and in that industry in general.

You know, something super entrepreneurial is also just like listening to the universe. Sometimes when, you know, when somebody who has spent some time in a career is in a position that you are and has trouble finding their way back into the corporate space, the universe is telling you to take a different direction. You could, you could force that through, you know, you could force your way back into it and the universe will resolve. But, you know, it sounds like you kind of listened to the universe. It's so funny that you, maybe you are the first guest ever to bring up hot sauce and to bring up a category. And, you know, you know my show. I've had lots of CPG founders, especially in perishables and shelf stables and all sorts. It's a fascination of mine. It's a special type of special breed of entrepreneur that goes down the CPG path. That is not for the faint of heart. You got to be a real risk taker for that one. But I find that so interesting because when I originally created when I originally created the show, I was watching a lot of Sean Evans on Hot Ones, if you're familiar with the show.

Yep.

And it's just like kind of the timeline if you think about it. And like maybe about 6 years ago or so, I was watching lots of reruns. And that's one of the core inspirations for starting this as an interview series was watching Sean's success. And he was doing something very interesting, which I have emulated, which is called fame jacking. which is host super famous people on your show and use their audience to help evangelize the story. And if you give a good enough show, a good enough interview, it's very natural. It doesn't— it feels very conversational and everybody wants to share it. And like, there's no ask. It's, it's, it's the easiest sale of all time if you're good at it. And so I find it very interesting because that is actually one of the inspirations. I don't think I've ever mentioned this. Like, it's one of the inspirations inspirational stories behind Strictly From Nowhere as a podcast entity, uh, was Sean Evans from Hot Ones. And then of course I emulate the other greats of today and, uh, Stephen Barlett from Diary of a CEO and, and, um, well, you, you, I've told you this, you are a really good, you're a great interviewer.

So kudos to you because you've definitely honed your skill in that regard. So thanks.

Yeah, it's repetitions, man. It's definitely repetition. So I got to ask you, I brought my Wonder Fish for today.

That's awesome.

Always a different type of necklace or something like that. But tell me, what's the story behind Wonderfish? Why is it like a puffer fish? There must be a story. Is it similar to mine where like I came up with a brand years ago for one thing and I was just tired of like dealing with the state and reclassifying names, so I just stuck with it? What's your story?

To be honest, like I struggled to come up with a name for a while because I wanted 'Cause at first it was, it was a marketing agency. So I wanted, you know, there's some, most agencies either have a person's last name or just like something random sometimes. But the reason behind, you know, like Strawberry Frog or something like that. But the reason, the reason behind Wonderfish. So I, in the, also the reason for the pufferfish. So a Wonderfish, if you Google it, is actually an anglerfish. It's called a trapjaw anglerfish, which is— there's a whole Wikipedia article about it where he says there was some sort of oceanographer that said that it was the oddest creatures of the ocean or something because they actually have a luminescent, so bioluminescent thing in their mouth that attracts. So I know there's something there about— so fishing in general, I love the analogy of marketing is kind of like fishing and then Wonderfish. I like the way that it sounded, just like it's just sounded cool to me, to be honest with you. So, but there, once I Googled it and saw what it was, I was like, oh, I have to name it Wonderfish. But the reason it's the pufferfish is because if you look at the image of the actual Wonderfish, it's so scary. It's like hideous. It has these giant teeth. And that wasn't what I wanted the brand to look like. I wanted it to be more friendly and kind of have like a fun vibe. And so that's why I just picked the pufferfish. I thought, I just thought it looked cool. I love it. I love it. So yeah, man.

We all, we all saw the true wonder fish, the, the deep sea angler in Finding Nemo, if you remember. And, uh, yeah, Dory and Marlin are trying to escape the jaws of this, like, ooh, this light, this little light.

What is that? Exactly.

Oh, that's so fun, man. And you know what you just did, which I find really interesting, you know, I'm a, I'm a career classic omnichannel marketer and brand development is something I just cherish and have become quite good at. You just gave a mini masterclass in brand inception and brand identity and logo design and your little thought process that you just rattled off just right now. That's a masterclass for somebody out there that's trying to figure out how do I, how do I build a brand from, from day one? How do I just build a logo or presence that's meaningful to me? I'm the first evangelist of that brand. Kudos to you, man. You just stepped right into it. And I think somebody will find super value in just like, how do I invent something from nothing? And you just put a couple of cool things together. And I love that. It's kind of a culmination of your hobbies and interests too.

Yeah. And if it's a unique name too, you're better off than something that exists because, you know, if you're using a name that's already been done, then it's kind of hard to get traction around it. And then if you're starting to look at like, even if something as simple as like getting Google alerts, like then you're gonna get Google alerts. If I called it like, you know, a common name that a ton of other businesses have, that's not really gonna be a good thing. But yeah, unique is always better.

I'm right with you, man. I often say like, what is a Google? You know, like, like if the name of the business is valuable and drives impact to the world, it will mean something. It does not matter what, what it's called. And that's why we stopped chasing brand names. And I'm still cause of a kind to this day. Like, I, I have a story. I know exactly what it means. But we've had such a departure from that original thing. And it was just like, you know what, forget it. Stop chasing that. Make that just a passionate pursuit. And if it becomes valuable one day, it will mean something. Just like, what the heck is a Google? What is a Yahoo? You know, I'm sure there's an origin story for those too. But if you're successful, it won't really matter. So don't get stuck up on those small things. Let me ask you, because lots of people have a goal of sitting on a podcast or building one of their own. I mean, I can't even tell you how many conversations I have had to try and give people the courage to either find their first podcast to join as a guest or to ship episode 1. And so I'd love from your perspective, you've hung your hat on the path of helping people to find their way on get to as guest appearances on other people's podcasts. I'd love to come up with a little bit of a formula. What are you seeing in the industry? What are things that folks can do to find their way to first guest appearance on a podcast? And do you see a little bit of a formula, like a framework that people can follow to give themselves the best chance of pursuing that?

Absolutely. I think that there's, there's a couple of things that you could That you can— the starting point. When I work with people, I mean, the number one thing that you need to start from. So, I actually have my own framework. It's called the F-word framework because there's always— everyone has to have like their own unique catchy thing. And my framework has 4 F-words. But the first one is frame and like knowing what your mission is. And that helps you really to establish yourself and to position yourself. And then there's feel, like having really emotional personal stories is going to help you. And then it goes all the way down to fear and fetch. Someone said to me, stop trying to make fetch happen. Fetch is actually the incentives or the call to action. But the fear thing is like talking about things that like you faced in your journey or your clients are facing and what were the kind of the things holding them back as far as Sort of like false beliefs, right? But back to like a framework for actually identifying shows, that's something I've been working on for a while. And everyone kind of has their own criteria or specific things that they do look for in particular shows. I mean, obviously reach and engagement are going to be huge. And your show is doing really well. I think you just surpassed over 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. And, but you're also getting a lot of engagement, you're getting people commenting and—

Yeah.

and people sharing and all that sort of stuff. But some shows are really good on YouTube, but then they might not be as big at like, I think I was talking about this with you where like, you're not, maybe you need to ask people a little bit more, like give us a rating on Apple because—

Yes.

You don't have a lot of that. And unfortunately, like there's a little bit of a, so like the Nielsen, if you will, of podcasting is called Listen Notes. And a lot of people will say, oh, we're in top 1%, we're top 5%. What does that actually mean? Well, the host of, or the, uh, sorry, the, the CEO of Listen Notes, he doesn't give the actual algorithm or the formula behind how you even get on there because he says he doesn't want people to game the system. But then it creates a little bit, it's kind of like they're the gatekeeper. It's a little bit of a mystery. I think what they are looking at is I do think they're looking at a lot of the Apple ratings and like the mentions and maybe, maybe social. I'm not exactly sure. So I like to tell people, take it with a grain of salt, like use it as a guide, but don't let that be the only signal. For example, for your show, the reason I think it's a really valuable show and the reason that I recommended you to my clients and why they agreed to come on is because you're doing so well on YouTube and you put most of your effort there. So it doesn't necessarily matter that you're not like top 5% or whatever it is, like your global ranking, because You know, you're not focused on those other aspects, which, you know, through time, I'm sure you'll eventually get more ratings and stuff. Some clients that are extremely picky, and I wrote about this on LinkedIn today, where it's okay if you want to be picky and say, okay, I want a very specific audience profile, or I want a very specific type of show or whatever, but you have to be very careful about being too picky because a big part of the game is, you especially in the long run, and it's kind of a long game, is about volume. It's about consistency and volume, which is like even whether you're going as a guest or you're hosting, you have to create a body of work because it's helping you get a footprint. And now in this age of AI, it's actually helping you get recognized and picked up by AI search. So that's a big part of it. But 'cause I have a client, his name's Scott Abbott. He has a whole coaching business, coaching platform called Boss Up. He's got like over 100 coaches that are in his community. Wow. And he just came out with a book earlier in the year, and he came to me and he said, I want to go on. At first it was like 3. At first he said he wanted to do like 6 podcasts a month for 3 months, and then he's like, I want to do 4 months. So it was all the way from, he started in December and he went through March. He's still wrapping up, but I ended up getting him on like over 30. It's like 35 podcasts. And he's a pretty relatively big name. He's got like a decent following. And there were shows that he picked that he decided to go on that some of my other clients were like, oh, I don't like that show for this reason or that reason. But I think what he was able to do is because he went on so many and he kind of like, I love you use the phrase increase your surface area for luck, which I think is so smart. Sure. You kind of, you're getting the repetitions in, you're putting yourself out there and not, you know, every show might not fit the exact specific profile that you want, but it's creating that body of work and it's creating that volume. One example, this is kind of outside the podcast space, it's back into the food world. We were talking about that. One individual who's really good at creating content and creating the repetitions is Dave Portnoy. So love him or hate him, but he's— yeah, I love Dave Portnoy. He's doing like—

Just from the character.

Yeah, he's doing like 4 4 or 5 pizza reviews. I mean, the guy's wealthy, but he still puts this work in. That's not easy to do. Every time he travels, he's got to go do— he batches them, he does a bunch, and then he's releasing them like once a day, like probably 4 or 5 a week, right? And he has his own framework or specific criteria that he looks at. But the thing about it is, is like not everyone likes the type of pizza that he likes. Like he likes a very specific type of style. It's kind of like bar pie. He likes it crispy. He doesn't like the Neapolitan. There's plenty of people that like softer, chewier, you know, Neapolitan, whatever. What is it called? Uh, uh, Neapolitan. Yeah. He automatically gives it a lot. I don't know where. What could we do better? It was like, he goes, that's a really good question. She's like, how do we make it spectacular? And he was like, you know, cook it a little more, make it crispier. But she was like, But you know what? That's not what everyone likes. Like, people complain and say that it's burnt. But it kind of reminded me of like, she's exactly right. Like, not everyone likes that particular style or that particular type of pizza, but Dave has become successful with just having an opinion. It doesn't matter what your opinion is. You just need to have some opinion, be consistent with it, get out there, go strong, create the volume, right? And That could apply to the podcast world too. If like you have some sort of— that's what I help people with, like find their voice, find an opinion. Eventually, like you're going to make a name for yourself and create the thought leadership consistency, the trust that you're looking for.

You know, I find that really interesting. One of the things that, one of the things that I use to try and select a guest, so there's really 2 paths. Either somebody comes to me and says they want to be on the show, or I am on LinkedIn or social media and I find somebody interesting that I would love to have a conversation with. But one of the things that I'm looking for to kind of qualify somebody is, have they taken the first step to having an opinion on a topic?

Mm-hmm.

Like, it, it's one thing to just exist and be like a voyeur of social media and just consume that content. It's another thing to be a creator and to participate in either your thought leadership or reactionary level content or opinions. or things like that. So I find it very interesting that you bring up Dave Portnoy and like, again, love him or hate him, like, I'm just a student of the dude began, I think, building a magazine in college. And like, here we are.

Yeah, Boston Sports.

One of the largest media houses on the planet right now, totally bootstrapped, has literally said, you know, fuck you to the world. And love him or hate him, man, like, it's just another student. Like, I would love to have him on the show and get the zero-to-market story. I think it's essential. But what I find really interesting about how, you know, I can layer into the advice that you're giving in this framework that you've created is one of the things that I am looking for is somebody that has free thought, somebody that has original ideas, somebody who has been sharing their experience. And this becomes an opportunity to add volume, to add a loudspeaker to something that they already are in progress of. So, one of the things is like, where— well, where do I begin? And I think from a guest's perspective, where can you begin? Own your social presence, own your thought leadership. And it doesn't necessarily begin day one with you joining a podcast. It might be some people's journey. It kind of begins with you speaking your reality into existence. And it's one of the things I'm looking for. I'm not looking for people that have like a famous following. I'm not looking for people that have, you know, super incredible record recognizable brands. While that happens all the time, it's not the criteria. I'm looking for interesting stories. I'm looking for people that have overcome tribulation. I'm looking for people that have, you know, real challenges that most of us can connect to. And mostly because, like, I don't want to get bored as a host in having these stories and learning something new. And every one of my guests has taught me something that, like, I will carry with me forever. And It's, it's started as a curiosity for me to gather as much wisdom as I could as an entrepreneur, to not step in shit at every possible turn and to really not feel so alone on the journey. Entrepreneurship is super lonely and we make lots of mistakes and sometimes those mistakes can be catastrophic. And so I implore people, and I think that you might agree with that, to start owning your story, start doing it in a way that you can tolerate. I'm not telling you to go and spend, you know, 5 hours a day on LinkedIn and you know, do all of that. This is not necessarily about commenting on other people's posts and trying to become famous and get more followers. It's more about your story and being authentic and working on the muscle, because this is really about repetitions, working on the muscle of telling your story in creative ways. And as a, as a show host, that's what I'm really looking for, is unique individuals that have pursued the path of entrepreneurship or leadership or operations or incredible little niches of industry because there's, there's so much for everybody to learn. And I want somebody that comes in, they're articulate and they, they're practiced. And while they might not be practiced on a podcast, I've been episode 1 for many, many of my guests, and it's my job to bring out your best character. And so I, I just find that getting people started talking about your story, writing your own little blog, getting a Substack, Start on social media, just text content only. That's a great signal for me that when we do record this episode, that episode is going to live forever. And it's just a piece of your journey. But I want it to be a significant and impactful piece to a foundation you've already created. So I love your framework. I love your story. You know, as we round third base in the conversation, I very often ask my guests, these conversations drum up some stuff in your mind. And the last thing that I want is for you to say, oh, I wish we would have talked about that. So I give you the last word, James. What comes to mind from the conversation? It could be a departure from anything we've talked about or double down on anything we've talked about. But anything come to mind?

Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna double down because I love what you were just saying. And one of the things I want to mention is this idea, like you talk about finding people that have opinions and stories. Sometimes I'll come across people. I actually just was speaking to this individual the other day. He was an energy executive and it was like, you know, you should get on podcasts. And, you know, he was a partner and I was like, you should go develop, you know, your, get your story out there, develop some expertise or share your expertise. He has the expertise. Right. And he said, you know, I don't really like having a personal, I don't, I don't like sharing my public. He didn't want a public profile. Like some people want to be very private. And that's understandable. I totally get it. It's kind of nerve-wracking putting yourself out there and sharing your stories and being vulnerable. But being vulnerable is the greatest gift I've found. Telling that story that I shared about my daughter, I was scared to even mention for the longest time that I was laid off. And I was actually inspired by a client of mine who went out. She was also laid off from Forbes and I got her on some podcasts. Telling her story. I was like, she could do it, I'm gonna do it. And once I started doing it, all these people, it resonated with them. They said, oh my God, like, thank you for sharing that, you know, messaged me on LinkedIn and stuff. But I would say we're moving so quickly in this technology age with AI. And the reason I would say it's— the biggest reason I think it's important to share your story is because it's one of our competitive advantages in the age of AI is to be human and to get out there and, you know, have a public profile. Like, that gives you so many advantages, whether it's helping close deals or just— I could list— I could go on forever. But perception— I'll leave you with this phrase. It's been around forever. I think a political strategist named Lee Atwater came out with this. It was, perception is reality. So, you might be the greatest entrepreneur in the world. You might be super smart. You know, great as Steve Jobs, but if you're not out there and you're not getting attention, like, so, you know, people might not be finding out about you. You're not creating those opportunities or the surface area for luck. So nowadays you kind of have to do that. So if perception is reality, media is shaping reality. Media is actually shaping people's perceptions. And taking it a step further, AI, in this age of AI, AI has kind of become the intermediary between The media and the humans where it's like, it's scanning the media and it's picking up the signals. And now the humans are going back to the AI and say, hey, who's a good software company in Long Island? Who's a good podcast guesting agency or whatever? And AI is picking up those signals. So if you're not out there, you're gonna get lost and it's not, it's just not gonna be a good, it's not gonna be a good situation. So that, that's kind of what I would leave you with.

You know what's great about giving advice is it's not always for everybody, but it's probably going to be for a couple people that are looking for the guts, that are looking for like that thing that tells them from the universe that you got this. So while the advice is not for everybody, there is somebody that will listen to this that will take the leap and go public and turn their LinkedIn profile from private to public and will create that first post and and will own their story because that's just what needs to be done. And it's not necessarily for everybody. So I love your position. For whoever needs that dose, that's the reality, right? And it's not gonna be for everybody and that's okay.

Yeah. And as much as like, you know, like I said, I was fearful about it. Once you break the seal and get out there and start doing it, it feels, you do feel better about yourself and kind of, it's kind of, there's a little bit of a relief of like, oh, I could kind of just be myself and get out there and talk about what I want to talk about. I think that's the cool part about it too.

I mean, man, the reality is like, I was scared for, I would say, years to release episode 1 of this podcast. And that's now years ago and hundreds of episodes ago. And I was scared. And let me tell you, I get the butterflies, I get nervous. I have to harness the adrenaline before every damn show. That's why we spend time in the beginning is because I'm the one with the freaking jitters. But I got to come up with some type of like, you know, initial introduction off the top of my head. I got nothing scripted. I'm like, I don't even know what I'm going to say because I'm nervous. That shit never goes away. But this is just about repetition. It's the same thing as your kids. They, they will be in for every game, for every competition. They will be nervous forever. The anxiety forever. But we harness that into adrenaline. And it really is just about taking that first repetition and just beginning. And so I love that. It's wisdom that I wish I would have had way back in the day. And I always told myself like, yo, just record the episode. You don't even have to ship it if you're not— I even tell myself that. I think I even told you that when, when I was asking for you to be on the show. I was like, dude, if it's trash, we won't ship it. And so like, just keep that with you. Like, just because you start the brand, just because you want to, you know, have a side hustle, like, remember, you're in control of however that turns out. You don't need to ship, you don't need to produce, you don't need to go public. Like, take it one little step at a time, create it, and then judge it. If you don't create it, there's nothing to judge. Yo, James, I enjoyed the show, man. You know, I'm a student of the industry. I'm trying to find my way. I have like no formal training in this. I have a small little network as far as the podcast community is concerned. I literally just pushed my way into existence and I said, I'd rather be canceled than irrelevant. And so, it's a pleasure to be part of your little world and to be a place where you, where you trust that you'll get a really good recording for your guests and for yourself. And I don't take that lightly. It's something that fuels my fire. So, James Colistra, you're a wonderfish, man. It has been a pleasure to host you and hear your journey from zero to market. And I wish you forward to extraordinary, man.

Thank you, Justin. You're the man.

Thanks, man.

You too.

Cheers.