Stephanie Postles | On the Homefront with Jeff Dudan #78

Welcome, everybody. This is Jeff Duden. We are on the home front today with Stephanie Postals. Welcome, Stephanie.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Yeah. Very excited that you're here today. I had the opportunity to meet you over the last couple of months and learned about your podcasts and your interesting take on the podcast industry and how you've built a really powerful business off of really interesting business model. Before we get into all that, would you care to take us back a little bit and tell us who is Stephanie Postals?

Yeah. Who am I? It's such a good question. So maybe I'll go. I mean, I'm like, wow, where do I even start? When I was four, it's the one we am I? Yeah, I'm like, that's still a question. I'm constantly figuring out, who am I today versus yesterday. But if I maybe go back to younger days, earlier days. You know, back in Maryland is where I grew up, Eastern Shore, Maryland. And I grew up in a very scrappy household where it was known that you go and you do what it takes to get what you need to get what you wanted. And so from very earlier on, like age 7, I just remember raking neighbors yards, doing really random things for people, putting some little stickers on the mailboxes for our neighborhood. I mean, anything that myself and I have a twin sister and brother could do, we were out there hustling, hustling all of our older neighbors to just give us a dollar to rake their yard for, like, two hours. And so that was kind of the early days of just doing what it took, learning a lot. Got into the restaurant industry at 14, rolling silverware for about eight hours a day during the summers, just all day. Outback Steakhouse rolling silverware. And at.

At 14.

At 14. Definitely highly illegal. Now when I look back, I'm like, pretty sure I know why I was getting paid cash now and why I say sign. No paperwork to get into that place and Red Lobster too. I was like, just in the back, just rolling silverware for so long. But that was kind of the moment when I realized I don't like hourly pay. This doesn't work for me. I'm, like, working so long, so many hours, and it doesn't feel like I have a way to compound this quick enough to get where I want to go. And I knew what I wanted. I knew I wanted to get off the Eastern Shore of Maryland. I wanted to expand my horizons. I just didn't see a way out, really. I mean, my family was not wealthy growing up, but what I did have was a really smart dad who was brilliant when it came to finances. Lost a shit ton of money in the stock market, though. So I also watched that too, where I'm like, he's really smart. And whoa, over hedged and lost everything. And it took. I mean, fast forward to today. I still don't know if he ever really climbed out of what had happened back then, but he taught me a lot about finances. And he offered to open up a custodial trading account for me when I was 14. And he showed me, you know, how to read different stocks and how to think about diversifying. And for every hundred dollars I would put in, he would put in a couple dollars, too, just to kind of incentivize me to, like, put some money in your E Trade account and just play around. And that was when I started seeing that there was a way out in different ways. Maybe it was going to be investing, maybe it was going to be starting my own company. I didn't know what it was going to do, but it just couldn't be an hourly thing. So that was my aha moment. Stayed in the restaurant industry for a while because then I realized bartending could make you outsized returns for your investment of hours.

That's right.

Yeah. I was like, this is actually pretty good. Now that I'm not on the hourly wage system, you know, I can use this personality for something and get paid. And then it got to 21. I had a finance degree at that point. I got out of college in three and a half years and I got an investment finance degree just because I was like, I don't want to invest other people's money, but I want to know how to do it myself. And that was when I realized I don't know if degrees really matter that much, because I actually learned more just investing my own money in my custodial E Trade account than I did going through and learning the technicalities of how to do math by hand, which is. I'm like, this is dumb. I don't know how to do this, and I don't really want to, but got out of school, got recruited by Fannie Mae, got to get into the whole mortgage space. After all of that had crashed. It was a really interesting boot camp to jump in, learn what the housing crisis was about, see how many people were underwater, and then rotated through different finance and economics groups for about two years, maybe 2009.

You were in.

That was 2011.

2011. Okay.

Yeah.

So we were still clawing our way out of it.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean the numbers were still, at least when I went in there, I was like, whoa. I didn't even know this was still a thing. And it definitely was. There was just so, I mean, there's so much data to look at. And that was when I started realizing like, if you have access to data like this, you really can create a lot. You can create a lot of. I mean, we were writing housing reports, I was so new and young, but because I had this power of data all around me and I was learning how to use SQL code to pull it, I felt super, like powerful on top of the world. I can do anything if I have a lot of data and I can tell people a story around this data. Because most people don't know, you know, maybe how much in fees they're paying just to see if they actually own their land or how, you know, what should your debt to income ratio be and what did it look like back in 2007? So super interesting. But then I started looking around one day and this was what I thought I always wanted. And every day I was like, I manifested where I got. Every day I would wake up in Maryland in my parents home and I'm like, one day I will be in Washington D.C. and I will be in a white walled building with people in suits and it's gonna be so impressive and I'm gonna be so fancy. And then I remember looking up one day and I'm like, oh shit. I just got myself into this. I thought my way into this scenario and I put myself exactly where I imagined every single day was without realizing it until a couple years in where I'm like, I really don't like this. I don't like corporate, I don't like corporate finance, I don't like economics, and I don't like, like being so far detached from the consumer where it's like you don't even know who you're serving really. And so that was my first moment realizing one, the power of your mind. And I got myself into this. Now I need to figure it out. And thankfully the universe came in and provided and Google reached out and recruited me. And that was where kind of like many, many things changed.

Were you, were you a big reader growing up? I mean, I would think you would have to be.

Yeah, I definitely read a lot of books, a lot of business books. So the one part I kind of left off was that from about maybe senior year of high school, all the way up through Fannie Mae, I was always tinkering on things and I Was always thinking, how do I build a company, how do I build a product, how do I drop ship? I was looking into things that probably most 14 year old girls were not looking into. And I knew that because I had my twin sister reading the exact opposite from me. I would look over and she'd be reading these really sad like teen drama girls dying from cancer, cancer when they're 15. And I'm like, oh my God. I'm like, we're so opposite and we're twins and I'm over here reading, you know, how to create a brand that lasts a lifetime or something. So definitely read a lot. My, my mom took us to the library quite often. We could get, you know, any books we wanted. And yeah, so I was always tinkering.

Who is the entrepreneur that you saw? Because generally. So an early entrepreneurial experience is almost always an indicator of future entrepreneurial success. People that are thinking that way and, and always trying to maximize their time and scrap for a buck. Um, when you find successful people, you, you go back and, and that's what you find. But generally they were exposed to somebody. Was it, was your dad an entrepreneur? Was it somebody else that you knew that you knew or, or the other side of it is you just needed money. Like that was mine. Like I needed money.

Yeah, I needed money because my parents couldn't pay for us. My mom was a teacher and then we had a family of five and my dad didn't have a job a lot of my life. I mean he was a stay at home dad for a while after the stock market stuff and then had jobs, but really he didn't have one. And till today, still he's at home. So I think I just saw to me like a scarcity mindset and then what it looks like to be confined in a salary and how I would see people around me wanting this. These big visions of like, I want this, I'm gonna have a boat, I want like a condo in Ocean City. I mean big visions. But even me when I was younger being like, well, if you don't change something drastically in your life and make some humongous decision that's outside of the path you're on, there is no way you're going to get there. Like, there is no amount of interest that you're going to save or even a certain percent on the stock market that will get you there most likely. And so that's, I think it was more of the need of like, okay, I can't do that. And it was just seeing what I didn't want. And I didn't have anyone around me. My grandfather was in finance. My grandmother was a teacher. The rest of my family's in Germany and other places. And I think it was more just the need for. I want to build up, make money.

I remember. And I don't know where it came from, but having a real fear of being trapped.

Yeah.

And so taking. When I. When I looked at. When I graduated college, I didn't. I didn't take one job interview because I thought about it, and I'm like, oh, I remember. Here's Ernie and Julio Gallo. They were recruiting on campus. They wanted to interview me. And, you know, I was like, well, you know, in the job, and I read the job description. I'm like, well, you can be a wine distributor, so I can go around to do whatever they do with their wine, to put it in stores and whatever. And I'm just like, yeah, but if I do that, then I'm trapped, and I'm trapped inside of that. So I think I've spent early in my career, in my first life, it was the avoidance of being trapped. And how that's manifested with me is I wrecked. I react negatively to leverage. I don't like. Now I'm. I'm. I. I be very careful to put myself in situations where I lose. Lose my leverage. And sometimes when I've gotten situations where I've lost leverage, that's where I've lost money. So I don't know. But, yeah, we're. We're. We're un. We're unemployable. Stephanie is what we actually is actually what we are.

I think I felt trapped, too, but in a different way. I was trapped to the Eastern Shore of Maryland. I was, like, just looking around. And no one ever left. And no one in my family ever left. Everyone just stayed there. And I saw how a mindset can get trapped in a location of just how easy it is to not know what you don't know. And so just be like, okay, I have a finance degree. I'm going to go and work at a bank. That's the. Or the hospital. Like, that's the two best options for having a finance degree in my hometown. And just knowing that no one leaves and you stay with your family, and here's my mom, like, she wants us nearby. And your grandkids, like, it was just such a. Yeah. A culture to stay there. And I just didn't know any different. But I had a feeling if I just got out for a little bit, I always thought if I go to D.C. i'll come back. I'll come back to home, and I'll just go and test it out. I just want to try it. But then once I did that, then I kind of realized, oh, no way. I cannot go back somewhere where it feels like any of my ideas were. Yeah. Squashed by anyone I was really around. Cause they just couldn't imagine things that I was talking about. And then when I went out to California and started working at Google, then I'm like, oh, my gosh. I really didn't know what I didn't know. I mean, I. You just. The more you move around, the more you try, the more you experiment, the more you realize, like, how limited your mindset is and how small you're thinking until you just go. And I mean, to me, try things that are riskier. Which now it sounds like you don't want to go too risky. I'm like, I just want to try it all. I want to live my life and try everything. And even if it fails me in a big way sometimes, I'm pretty confident I can recover. I can get out of it eventually.

Yeah, for sure. So Google was recruiting, and was it one of the puzzles where they put it up on a billboard and you have to. And only the smartest people can figure it out, or no. Did they tap you on the shoulder?

Yeah, so they tapped me on the shoulder, but they did not tap me on the shoulder for my corporate history. They. On my LinkedIn, I had listed a couple apps that I had built. Uh, I had magazine, I had written some books I had published. So I had all these side projects of things that I had launched over the many years. And they reached out and they were like, we have a couple jobs we want to interview you for. And when I got there, I realized they didn't even ask me once about Fannie Mae. They didn't even care any bit about my technicalities of finance. They were just like, we do have these jobs here, but we actually really just like all these startup projects that you've been doing. So tell us about those. And so that's when I. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, like, I don't. How Google works the book. I've referenced it several times, but basically built their entire company on smart, creative understanding, how to identify those people. And that just. Just putting them in and giving them a lot of latitude to be great and to create. That was your experience.

Yeah. And I'm sure. I know it's not that for everyone, but when I came out, I interviewed for about five different teams. And I got offers from all five, four of them, and they were finance offers. But four of them felt very much like I was going to become a part of a system. It was YouTube, it was ads, it was, you know, the very well known brands who were already built, built up. And so it felt like I was gonna be going in there just being a part of the financial system to report to Sundar. One of them though felt complete opposite. It was a group called JIO and it was Maps, Street View, Google Earth. It was a whole mix of groups and they had never really had a finance person. They had a billion dollar P and L. And so when I was interviewing, it was very much like, well, we don't really know what you're going to do. So like if you can come in and just like help, tell us what to do. But then also we need you help over here and we need you to probably come to Japan and figure out Street View cars there and can you help us acquire this satellite company? And it was just all over the place. And I was like, yes, this is my style. I don't love structure. I don't like someone coming in and being like, here's your 10 things to do and then you're done. I want chaos. I like chaos. That's where it's fun, where I get to come in, build the systems, build the structure, and then get pulled into different things where I'm expanding my excitement into virtual reality and then into something very different in Google brain. So I took that offer and had the best time there. I mean, it was so much fun and so much chaos. And I saw what it looked like to really work under a really great manager. And it also re made me realize how terrible my manager was at Fannie Mae back in the day where I was like, and it's good to have both. I was so grateful. I'm like, I didn't know. But then when I had a really good one, who the one I was working for at Google. I mean, she would put me. I mean, there were no levels, there was no hierarchy. It was just like, here's Steph, go present this to the CEO. You want to do that with the budget? Okay. I mean, there's so much free freedom to make the choices I want and then have the chance to present it. Whereas at, you know, corporate jobs, you're usually just doing the data and then like your manager's presenting and getting all the credit. And I just didn't realize who I was working for in corporate finance. Back in the day versus yeah. How it could work if you really have a manager who stands for you and you know, wants to promote you.

Many, many times, you know, as couple, both of us building companies and I'm, I'm just, I'm the autonomy guy. Like I, I, I'm, I'm not a great manager. Right. In terms of the blocking and the tackling. Well, part of it is definitely I've never, I've never had a job.

You've never had a job? Like not even one job?

No, no, I had lots of jobs like, but not like a real job, you know, like a professional, like an adult. I've never had a, I've never had an adult job. Yeah, I've never worked in corporate, so I didn't, so I had to go out and get all of the training and stuff and, and all that methodologies. But you know, you know, voracious reader, lots of professional training, lots of all through the years and all that stuff just from, you know, the organizations and things like that that you go to. But I still always come back to if you want to have great people and you want to have a players you've got, you can't define tightly the boundaries in which they're going to run around and do it. I mean, you use your culture and your values to set the fence. So you give people a big, a big yard in which to run around. You make sure that there's a clear mission, clear goals. Everybody knows like who, who, what we're really trying to accomplish, who the customer is, keep them front and center. You know, we build franchise brands and everything we do is keeping the franchisees at the center of everything that we do and every decision that we make because that's going to keep you, that's going to keep you on track as, as to what's most important. But then, you know, as we build, we get all kinds of different managers that come from all kinds of different backgrounds and people want to put, and constraints and these types of things in there. And you know, really great people love to operate in a scrum or a small team to create things to be brilliant, to, to test and fit to see if it works. And you know, if you over, if you over manage and you over checklist things, then that tends to be what, just what people do. Now we also run a call center. So you got to have a checklist.

For a call center.

You got to show up at this time like it's, that's much more structured so you know, the right level of Autonomy based on the team and based on the goals and the responsibilities of that area is. Is critically important. But I've read how Google works more than once. I highlighted it. I keep going back to it because that's the kind of company that I'd want to work at. That's the kind of company that I'd want to build. And, you know, I believe one day they'll be very successful.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm. I hope so. I mean, I don't know, with all this stuff coming out right now, I'm like, oh, looking a little bad, looking a little. Little scary with how fast the market's developing. So to be a big company now.

They'Ll figure it out.

Figure it out, because they were really fun and the smartest people in the world that I was working next to every day where I'm like, 100%.

Yeah, 100%. Awesome. So how long were you there? And, you know, how did that run its course for you?

Yeah, I was there for four years or so.

Okay.

And after about two years, I started getting a little bored because I had a process built. I was like, okay, this is how we run the finances for this group, is how you all get the budgets. It's how we do experimental projects. And so then my manager was like, well, let's put you over here. Let's try and promote you into this group. And so we tried and we tried to move me around in different ways, but in the meantime, I started Mission. Mission started, though, as a very small side project on a platform called Medium. And I started it with my ex husband now. Ex husband. But back then, it was just a blogging platform where we were just submitting our stories to our, you know, our Medium publication. And we were trying to pull other people into the writing of it as well. And so we were reaching out to all these writers, like, hey, would you want to come and submit your story here? We saw a really great story you posted here. Can we put it on our publication? And so it was really just this very scrappy act of. We wanted to tell the stories we wanted to tell. I wanted to tell the stories of these executives that I was sitting next to at Google and some of the trends that were happening in Silicon Valley and then also just stories that I thought were really interesting that needed to be told, and we wanted to promote other people's work that we liked as well. So that's how that started. It was super slow on the side, a lot of working on the morning, working on it throughout the day. The evening trying to just pull people into the vision of like, you should write for us for free and give us your content and we'll put in our publication that one day will have a lot of views. It doesn't right now, but I think it will one day. So that was how it started. And then over time, it actually did grow and it became the top publication on Medium. It had millions of people viewing our publication every month. We had hundreds and hundreds of some of the best writers who were actively pursuing us because they knew if they put their article in our publication, they were going to going to get a lot of views on it. And so it started just taking up a lot of time. And we thought we should monetize this because right now I have no incentives to be working with all these writers who are texting me all day and begging me to approve their content and edit it and asking me about metrics and why they are something. I mean, it's just so much time. And so we thought we should get a sponsor for this publication because there's so many millions of people coming and reading our content. Why not? I think that's how this works in this world. If you have a big audience, you should get a sponsor. And so we struck up a couple very, very small ad deals, just banner ads. And we put these banners on the publication. And very soon after, the Medium team, who was on their own trying to create their own publications, and they were competing with us and they were trying to get our writers to go to them and they were trying to write similar content. So it's kind of already was feeling a little bit weird where I was like, don't you want this? Like, don't you want us to have people coming here? And now you have these competing publications that of course you're going to win. This is your platform. You know the rules. You can change the rules whenever you want. But we kept building, we put these banner ads on, and then soon after, about two weeks later, Medium was like, you can't do that. You guys are not allowed to run any ads on your. Any of your stories. And we're building an ad platform and you have to run through us. And that's the only way it can work. At that point, we didn't have any of our readers, contact information, emails. I mean, we really didn't even know who we were really talking to. We just knew it was a lot of people. And that was kind of the aha moment of we don't want to build anything on someone else's Platform, like, we don't want to be. I mean, they can just change the rules anytime they want, and it's their platform. And then you're shit out of luck, and you're like, okay, I just kind of built a business on someone else's platform, and now, you know, I can't do anything with any of this. And so that was back in 2017, and podcasting was still pretty new back then, but we saw the potential. And one of the stories that we had written on this medium publication was called the Story, and it was telling the unknown backstory of people who changed the world. And we would keep their identity hidden until the climax. So very hero's journey. But we did it for a reason, because we saw that a lot of people in the Bay Area were very pessimistic towards people who were literally changing the world. They were like, oh, f elon Musk. Oh, that person's stupid. Like, we're like, man, I feel like this person did a lot before what you see now. So maybe if we just tell you the story in a human centric way without telling you who they are, you'll have a little more respect towards what these people are doing.

Yeah, some objectivity there, right? You know, like, okay, I'm judging it on the merits of the fact pattern that I'm reading. And when you get to the end of it, and I tell you what, Mike Rose podcast, yeah, he had little bits on, like, the 15 minute things, but, like, he had a podcast and he would do the exact same thing. And at the end, it was. It was always some, like, hook about, and that's, you know, that's how this was. That's how Pringles were made or something, you know, and it was all. But, like, it was. You never knew where it was going in the story. And you couldn't click away because you had to hear the end now that you were invested in it. So what. What a brilliant strategy.

Yeah. So this format's definitely not new. I mean, I think there was a radio show in this exact format a long time ago that did really well as well.

Okay.

But, yeah, this one, it was just super fun. And we got to tell so many stories and look into so many people's backgrounds that, you know, a lot of them I just didn't know about and didn't know all the stuff they had done to get where they were. And so that medium or that story really took off the whole. All of them did. And that was when we saw, like, man, this could do really well if it had audio, if it had something to really pull you into the story. And so we took this format and essentially pitched it to Salesforce because they were already in our network, we already had someone connected there, and we just pitched it to them and said, hey, do you want to sponsor this show? And so that's how the company Mission really turned into a media company, was because of realizing, like, we have a great story here, it's already doing well in written format and we think we can turn this into a podcast as well.

Yeah, so it's. It's podcasting in reverse.

It's for that one. It was.

Yeah. Finding a sponsor who, who would be, who would be the perfect fit for the show that you want to produce and then building the show for the sponsor.

Yeah, we don't build it for the sponsor though, so they can always sponsor our stuff, but it's not theirs, which is very intentional. But yeah, for almost all of our shows since. And now fast forward to Today, we've built 33 different podcasts and we call them shows because they're also all in video like this. They've got video clips and all that. But fast forward to today. We do. Before we ever build a show, we also already have a sponsor probably lined up for it.

Okay.

But Mission, it's still a Mission owned show. We're hosting it, we're growing it, producing it, distributing it. And then we've got these big sponsors like Salesforce or New York Stock Exchange. They're sponsoring these shows because it's aligned with what they want to do. So. So it is a bit different of a model.

Sure.

And like I said, it was very intentional because I saw what media was turning into on medium and has always been that way of just race to the bottom, you know, get as many views, as many clicks as you can fear based. And I just didn't want to operate in that model. So I thought, how can we, like, how can this be sustainable? How can we do this long term? How can we actually partner in a way that isn't just more, more, more, but quality, reach the right audiences, get the right guests on, have good content and just create a sustainable company instead of one that probably will, you know, be competing with the Gimlets and the Wonderys who are all just trying to get more eyeballs on them, on everything.

What is your strategy around talent?

Yeah. You mean like the host of the show?

Yes.

Yeah. So.

And how can I be one? How can I be one?

Well, look, you're already one. You're already a famous Host?

No, this is just an audition for you.

Oh, man. I knew there was an ulterior motive.

Yeah, there always is. There's always an ask.

Always. Yep. At the end. So most of our hosts are Mission employees. I do this because I. I'm unsure. I. And I never want to say never. And I. My. Most of my strong opinions are very weakly held, and so they can always change if I get better information. But I'm not sure if I want to deal with talent, really. Someone who, you know, there's so many creators out there, amazing ones, but they want what they want, and they're the star of the show. And that's great. If you're already getting millions of views and you've got your audience, like, keep doing it, and then get the brands who want to reach the consumers. Get the B2C brands who are selling the socks and the meundies, like, perfect. But if that's not you already and you don't have that, and then you want to be, you know, a host, for instance, I just think it can get tricky around making sure that Mission, my company is happy, the host is happy, and then the sponsor's happy, and there's so many people to keep happy. And I find that if someone is like, I'm the talent, it can turn into a bidding war. It can turn into, okay, well, even though Mission, this is your show now, I've got this captive audience, and it's, you know, this is my thing. And I mean, we've seen many podcast hosts run up the price of, like, continuing a podcast. And so that was also just a game that I didn't really want to play. And I do hire hosts outside of my employees. Sometimes if I create a show and we have a sponsor and I'm looking around and I'm like, man, I really don't have someone on our team who is a subject matter expert about that. And so, for example, Experts of Experience is a show that we have, and it's around customer success, customer experience. And I was looking around, I'm like, I don't know anyone on my team who can really speak well to that, which most other topics, I'll say you can. I've hosted a commerce show. I've hosted a marketing show. Most other things, you can learn pretty quickly just by interviewing 20 people. And all of a sudden you're like, okay, like, for E commerce. I'm like, I can talk to you about supply chain and logistics and all the things now, just from researching, getting on some newsletters and then interviewing. But Some things I think you might want to be a bit more of an expert in, especially if we're bringing on the Fortune 500 to get onto a show as guests. Like that's who you're gonna be talking to. And so for that show, I was like, we need to find a different host outside of the mission team. And so we found an amazing one who was recommended to me, which I also think is very helpful when your friends are sending people to you. Cause they're like, you know who Steph likes, we know what she's looking for. And finding someone who this could really benefit them. So it's a win win. It's not someone who is desiring to be the talent and the influencer or anything like that. It's someone who, you know they are in customer success, customer experience. They want to start a newsletter, they do some consulting work and this is a great opportunity for them and us. So I try and find win win scenarios like that. Where it is, it's just a win win and it's not someone holding power over the other.

You make an excellent point. And I just want to double click on it for the audience because it went by really fast. And it has to do with, when you're building a business, where do you allow yourself to be middled? Like, where do you, where are the opportunities of failure for you? Because, so I'm big on collaborations. When we were there, when we were together, we were at an event and there was sessions on collaborations. And collaborations are great because everybody's sharing their expense in a way to build a project. And okay, that's great. But at the same point, if you don't have control over it now, there's different leverage points inside of that project, inside of that deal. And then, and like you did on Medium, you built this great property and you spent all this time and energy and skill and expertise to pull that together. But at the end of the day, you didn't have control over it, so you decided you had to go another direction. So by having control over who the hosts are, you know, you just can't be middled and you can't be leveraged by something. So. But guess what? You have to pay those people. So, you know, the bigger budget you have or the more risk you're willing to take, you can definitely shift the, the risk in your direction and, you know, minimize it and things like that. So for people that are building a business, it, it's. Those are decisions that you make every day. And sometimes it's not at startup because you do whatever you can to spin the wheel and get the business going. But then as you grow your business, you're going to be faced with these things. And I see it a lot in technology. I see it a lot with marketing vendors. Hey, we have this incredible platform, and it does everything, and we'll just drive all the leads and we'll do that. I said, well, okay, what about the data? Well, that's going to be on our platform. I said, well, then, you know, how do we.

If.

How do we disengage? How do we break up and how do we get our data? Oh, well, we're going to have all the data and, you know, so it's. There's no build. You just start right now. But just realize, long term value. 84 of the value of transactions today are in the IP and in the data. So, you know, if you, if you abdicate your data, which is probably the wrong word, somebody can look that up. If you, if you let somebody else own all. All your data, then you've really devalued your business. So I just wanted. I just. That it's really interesting to me that you came to the decision to employ all of your talent and. Because the other side of it is, I was thinking. I was actually thinking it was going to go the other way because I was thinking about the analogy of reality tv. You know, I've done some reality tv and it was amazing. It only costs about a million dollars to produce an episode of Undercover Boss, where, know, an episode of Friends, a million. It's, you know, $10 million. And it's all in talent, so it's the same production cost. But, you know, so the reality TV is so pervasive because there's no cost for the talent. People just do it for free. They'll do it for their 15 minutes of fame. They'll, for whatever reason, they want to do it. And podcasting's, you know, a lot the same way. I mean, you just, you know, we're just regular people, but, you know, trying to build a platform. So anyway, interesting, but sorry for the digression there, but I just found that to be a really thoughtful strategy that you employed there.

Thanks. Yeah, it was very, very helpful, for sure. And, yeah, you just see how when your employees get the choice also to work on things that maybe they might feel they're not even qualified to do, and they're like, I mean, I remember a couple people I hired. They're just like, wait, you're gonna put me in front of Fortune 500 chief marketing officers. Why? I don't even know marketing. Like, you don't need to know marketing marketing. You just need to like, know how to pull out a good story and know what things to drill in on. You just have to be curious and be smart. Like, go read some newsletters, you'll figure it out. But I mean, it doesn't. For most of these shows, it doesn't take someone who is an expert. And actually when someone is an expert in the space, then they're just gonna do all the talking. And I'm like, that's not what I want. Like if you're, if you're too much of an expert and you're like, well, I've been a CMO for years, who's probably going to run the conversation? So I'm like, I would rather have someone who, you know, is actually a little bit more of a newbie and ask the questions that everyone wants to know anyways. And yeah, if you can be a heartfelt person who just wants to bring out a good story, you can interview almost everyone. I will say our one show that that does not work for is IT Visionaries, where we interview chief technology officers and chief information officers. So very technical IT people. And thankfully I did have someone on my team who has a background. He used to be a CIO at this big company and so he had the background. But that's one where I'm like just being loving and heart centered. Doesn't work for like that group. You really actually have to know it. But for the most part, many people can host if they're just curious.

Yeah, makes sense. So what was your breakout podcast?

So, I mean, right now of all the years, I'd say the one that I'm hosting, Mission Daily is probably our breakout one. That one gets million to 2 million downloads a month. Okay, so that one's our top performer. But I will say most of our shows, we don't, we don't just want more, we don't just want more downloads because our shows are focused on a niche audience. They're focused on having the chief marketing officer listen to it or the, you know, the customer experience officer. So a lot of our shows, we don't want a million downloads on it because we're actually probably not reaching the right people if we're getting that big of an audience on a C level marketing show.

Okay.

And so most of our shows, we don't view it that way. We might view the, like, the success for those shows as who were the guests that came on? Like, oh, we Just had today, the CMO of Sotheby's come on. Like, that's a pretty big company and that's a great person to have on and to share their knowledge. And they've never really done a podcast before. Like, those are the metrics for success for some of those shows. But then Mission Daily is much more entrepreneurial focused. I mean, I talk about so many contrarian things sometimes on there. I think, of course it's going to draw a bigger audience because I'll talk about almost going bankrupt, getting divorced when I'm pregnant, building Mission backup, crypto, psychedelics. I mean, I talk about so many things that are a little more click worthy, where people, they just want to listen to that more. It's just a bigger audience. So that one does do well.

Most shows that I've seen fall into categories of either educate, entertain, or even inspire. When you're looking at a show, most of yours are going to fall in the educate category.

Well, do you remember when I pulled out my notes about this too, where I was like, that was like, the vision of Mission is inspire, educate and entertain in that. Yeah. Where we both were like, what? We both have the same vision statement for our companies.

Yeah. And you asked me, said, well, what does the show do? I said, well, we educate, entertain and inspire. And you're like, and you pull it and you had it on your paper. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Yeah. So I mean, I'd say a lot of our shows, we want to do all of that. Yeah. So it's in that order though, for us. Inspire, educate and entertain. But a lot of the content we're like, just because it's executive, you know, executives being featured doesn't mean it has to be lame. It can still be fun, interesting and exciting. And how you can cut these clips up can be fun. So I think you can do it with all kinds of content. Everything is just how you structure a story and how you can relate to that person.

So what makes a good guest for Mission Daily?

So for Mission Daily, I sometimes have guests on there. It used to be very guest driven and then we kind of shifted away from it. But guest driven as in it'd be the people that like authors like Annie Jacobs would come on or. Sure, Marissa Mayer came on. So it was like higher profile people in the Bay Area where it's like, those people were very exciting to have on back then, started this show. And then over time it just, to me, I'm like, those conversations weren't always the most interesting. Sometimes they were. But Sometimes if someone was a brand name, they came on, you're like, ah, you're a little too, like, PR focused talking. And that's not fun for me.

So a little too. Little too careful.

Yeah. So it shifted a bit away from that, where now if I have someone on, they're probably my friend. They're probably someone that I think is just doing fun things. And, yeah, I want to bring, you know, more attention to what they're doing. So that's kind of what's happening now. So right now, it's mostly just me and then my COO at the company, who he's been at Mission for a long time. He has seen Mission through so many ups and downs, and we have a very great dynamic because he's so opposite from me. I'm like, woo. Spiritual, like, doing things over here. And he is very, like, logical. Just not woo at all. And so it's an interesting dynamic because we're always on such opposite ends of the spectrum when we go through just different topics.

It's interesting. So what's going on with Coachella this year? Tickets are available. Have you. Have you heard that?

No, I don't. I've never been to Coachella. So what's up with Coachella? I feel like that's what younger people go to. Right?

Well, I would have thought. Well, that's why I thought you would have been there.

No, I go to Burning Man. Burning Man, Yes. But Coachella just feels like. I mean, I'm sure it's cool. I don't know. But, yeah, I would probably keep going to Burning man instead.

Yeah, absolutely. Are you going this year?

Yeah, it'll be my third year.

Nice. Okay. I think we talked about that too, actually.

Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

So, well, awesome. So your vision for the podcast going forward, what's the next iteration on this? Have you thought about how to grow it? I mean, obviously, it's. It's doing very well. It's got to be very rewarding financially and otherwise, what's. What's next for you?

Yeah. So next is because you're bored by now.

I know you're bored by now with this you've been doing.

I did, actually. Someone called me out. They were like, wait, are you just bored because Mission's working now? Because they're like, you seem like you were having a lot more fun when your company was almost bankrupt and you were getting a lot more exciting out of, like, excitement, out of saving it, and they're like. And now it's stable and you're talking about Moving on. So for Mission, I mean, I am still so excited about bringing more like B2B enterprise SaaS companies into sponsorship of our model because our model at Mission is so different than any other podcast. And so just bringing more tech companies into it to show them how to really use media strategically and how to actually get an ROI on media. So I still love that space. We have more new sponsors coming on than we have before, and really fun ones and great ones that I'm super excited to work with, which is, I think a very big shift this year is anyone I work with gets to be fun. I get to like the team, I get to like the product, and I get to like the partnership, which was not always the case. And there's been a client in the clients in the past that we actually had just be like, we're not working together anymore. And that's a new thing for me. And so this year just finding really innovative, amazing SaaS companies who want to tap into the sponsorship model.

Why are people like that, Stephanie? Why are people like that? You know, I don't know.

And I think when you're an entrepreneur, you just say yes in the early days because you're like, well, I have team members and I've got payroll and I have things to do and I just have to pay my bills. And you say yes. And then six months later you're like, God, this person's annoying. Like, why, why am I. Why am I letting them pay me pretty small amounts at this point?

I don't know why people like, it's being hard to work with makes the work harder. And it's, it really does. I. And it's, it's, you know, I, I don't get it. I do pick and choose a lot.

Who.

And some of the networks that I know you go to and that I'm involved with, man, it just seems like these are really high level people. They set a financial bar where if you want to work with me, I just hired somebody and great marketing mind. And literally he said, it's, it's $25,000 rate card. And then he wouldn't tell me with any detail what he was going to do.

Yeah, he wouldn't like.

And then so I just said, well, give me some references. So I call these references. Like, this is the best person ever. They've 10x'd my business. Just do everything that they say. It's so great. And I really had some great conversations with this person and I liked him, but he had just, he had just decided he didn't want to fight over money. And he knew that he was good and he knew that his reputation and his references. So I just paid it. And then we had our first call, and it was the greatest thing ever. I'm like, this. This is the most brilliant marketing mind I've talked to. And it just. And he. And he says, that's included. That's. I said, well, tell me, how's it going to work now? We're doing it all. We're doing it all. We're going to handle it. It's only going to take this long. We've already got started on and it was just. It was the best experience, but, like, the $25,000 was a qualifier so that he didn't have to work with people that he didn't want to work with, and he didn't have to jump through hoops trying to sell it. And I think kind of the higher up you go into things, you know, you're going to find people out there that take that position. And I, you know, I just find it really interesting. But, man, I do. I just want to work with people that are up to something, going somewhere creative. They're cool, they have good perspectives and, and they're out there. You just have to.

It takes a while to learn that. Yeah, I mean, I think. And you can't demand those things up front. Like, you have to work with shitty clients some, like, in the beginning to then figure that out. And like, that's something where I'm like, man, started this company in 2017, and as of, like this year, I'm finally like, no, now I can demand that I want to work with cool people. It took that many years of really taking what I had to to build a company. And I think, yeah, so you have to be at a certain space in your life and with referrals like he has and a background to be like, okay, now I've elevated and I don't need to actually prove myself because my referrals will speak for me. So that's pretty baller. He sounds great.

So if somebody came in and bought the whole thing from you today, of course you've got a young family, but you were completely free to go and do anything that you wanted to do, and you had no more. They didn't even want you involved at the company anymore. Where would you. Where would. Where would your feet be in three to six months?

Well, I mean, I actually think about this often because I think it's a good thing to think about. It is it would probably be Doing something similar to the things I'm doing now around these new shows I'm launching. So we have all this business tech content, executive content, founder content. That's been our network for, you know, since we started. But this year we had a goal to launch 10 new shows in Q1. And these 10 new shows were not business, tech or any of that. They were very outside of that space. They were around spiritual, you know, concepts or ones called, like, sacred echoes. And it's highlighting these spiritual sites around the world. And, you know, what's happening there, just showing, like, the unification of experiences of what's happening in Russia is happening in Sedona. It's happening in here. And so these things I didn't care about 10 years ago, but then after, you know, many different experiences and having kids and all this kind of stuff, fast forward today I care about a lot of different stuff. And so that kind of content we're putting out, we have a show coming out on shipwrecks. I've got kids content coming out, which I have four kids. So looking at the media space for kids is, like, appalling to me. And my kids don't do screens. And so it'd be good for them to listen to good stories with good intentions behind them. So just launching new shows and probably getting into comedy and some reality tv, which, now that I know that you did, that might talk to you, but trying new things in media, because I do think media has the power to impact and influence generations to come in such a great way if you have good intention behind it. And so that's what I would still do. Just. And I'm doing in a different way. Even if I had all the money right now and mission was fully taken care of, I'd be like, okay, what new things can I launch that will change the world?

Well, so what's beautiful about that? Answer is you're already doing it.

Mm, yeah.

Yeah.

But it's because I was asking myself that question a year ago, two years ago. Um, because building a company is not always, you know, like, it's not probably where you can make the most money always. And so I think it's good to step back and check of, like, is this still worth it? There was many times where I'm like, I could just jump back to my job at Google and make more money right now and have a way easier life working nine to five than I am right now worrying about X, Y and Z. And so there was so many times of me thinking of, like, okay, would I want to do that because, you know, that's a lot easier. And yeah, asking myself that question and being like, okay, I still would do this on the side, though. I would go back and I'd work at Google and then I would start doing this on the side again and then I'd be back here again. So it's definitely not the money that's driving this always. And, you know, it's nice, but it's a good question to ask yourself.

I'm interested in the kids content. We were just asked to do a collaboration with a charity and a pretty notorious popular figure. They've got about 15 million followers on different platforms and things have a pretty good name. And they were interested in doing content, entrepreneurial content, but focused towards children. So they wanted to say they have these foundations and they do a lot of stuff around children. They said, we want a safe place to be able to send people to, to build so that they're, you know, young people can get entrepreneurial content, but it's going to be, you know, clean and, you know, what they would want to see. And so we've got, you know, this on the home front podcast here and I thought, hey, we can build a whole of library of content in that way. I mean, it would just. For me, for us, it would be easy because it's the direction the horse is already going to and it would just be getting the right guests on and then making sure that the content and which is, you know, my background is in coaching. Lots of kids stuff, man, just all about that. So I, it's very, it's an interest that I have something that I'm interested in and I, I'm. I hope, I hope we can pull the project together because I think it would be great. And also I think we'd be bringing in a lot of viewers into something like that. So, I mean, the market's there.

Look, the, the numbers and I see the need and I mean, it depends on the age group, but I mean, yeah, that kids project, ours is@mission kids app.com and that's where it's showing all the different kids stories that we want to tell. But yeah, I mean, depending on the age group, there's really nothing for ages like 5 to 8 or so, which is such an important milestone. And like that time of life is so influential before age 7. Sure. So if you have stories that are in a way that kids can understand with the characters that they get to know and love and you're learning. Yeah, grit and resiliency and entrepreneurship and, you know, Long term thinking and compound interest. Like, I mean, if you're learning about these things through a story, like, that's what changes the world. Like, stories, other things that spread through generations. So I love that. Let me know how we can help with that too, because that's something I'm super passionate about. Yeah, for sure.

All right, well, all those things, those are some unpopular topics for kids you just mentioned, but I know. Very important.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, take it or leave it. Click, click away if. Click away if you must. And the comedy angle. Are you a frustrated. Stand up?

So this actually comes because so many of my friends, they're just like, Stephanie, you are so ridiculous and funny and like, why don't you do more of that? And my mind feels like it's a constant circus of, like, just immature. That's what she said. Jokes. Even when I'm like, talking to executives, I'm like, I need to hold back from the ridiculousness of my mind. And so I started thinking more about this and just thinking of like, man, comedy is one of the highest forms of intelligence. I think if it is doing, like, to me, I mean, I don't know if you've ever seen Joe Rogan. I'm here in Austin, so I saw him and I'm like, he's got a lot of truth in there, a lot of messages, and people aren't offended, mostly because it's through humor. Same thing with south park, same thing with Silicon Valley. Don't look up Book of Mormon. Like, these all have interesting messages in them. And yes, to me, that's how you spread awareness of things without overly triggering people. You'll still trigger people because any, like, many people will get triggered just by you saying hello. So it's not about that, but it allows for a message to spread and the right people will look further into it. And so that's why I think it's a very powerful medium. And I really want to get into it. And I just think it'd be fun. Like, just. Why not?

Yeah, I've got that eye too. And it gets me in trouble because I think everything's funny. Like, I mean, we. Yeah, I mean, it's just everything I look at is just like, oh, man, I got the joke right away. I mean, but you know, you can't when you're in business.

You.

You gotta, you know, you gotta pick your. You gotta pick your shots. Have you been to the Comedy Mothership?

Yeah. Yep.

Have you? I'm coming out. Oh, are you gonna be. Yeah, I haven't picked the date. But I'm just, I'm coming. I. I gotta be there. I've got a friend who's been going out there and hanging out a little bit, so I'm probably gonna hook up with him and go out and do a trip out there, but I'll let you know.

Yeah, I'll definitely come. You just have to make sure Joe is actually at the comedy club. A lot of times it's like Joe and friends and then it's just his friends. And I'm like, yeah, actually, you know what?

That'd be okay. Like, that I want to see his club and, you know, see what he's built there. And I'm sure there'll be good acts and all that kind of stuff, but yeah, we can inside scoop and. And figure out when he's going to be there. That would be great. So. Well, look, this has been awesome. I really appreciate you coming on. Had so much fun talking to you. I'm so glad we got a chance to meet this year.

Same. Yeah, me too. Thanks for having me on. And yeah, 100% blessed on mission Daily. Sometime, by the way, bring you on my show.

Hey, well, look, I wasn't gonna ask, but. Okay, how about. How about next Tuesday?

We'll get you both.

Last question for you, Stephanie. If you had one sentence to speak and make an impact into somebody's life, what would that be?

Wow, that's a really big question. Probably that. Let me think about this one. It would probably be understanding the power of your thoughts and just realizing how your thoughts are creating your reality. And how when you start seeing that and you realize that you are 100% responsible 100% of the time, everything around you is being created by you and your thoughts and your actions and your energy that you're putting towards those. Those thoughts, I think your life can change. And there is one book that I recommend for that as well that is super old, called the Game of Life and how to Play it by Florence Scoville Shin. She wrote this book in 1925 and her concepts are so interesting around this, around what's showing up in your life. And it's like, this is life. How do you actually play this game? It's a mix of spiritual and religion in a way that is grounded. And I actually could get through it because I'm not a super religious person. I didn't grow up in the churches. I didn't, you know, so this was a helpful book to bring it all together. But that's a good one to start that. If I were to go back, I would have started reading that because that would have helped me realize why I ended up at Fannie Mae.

Nice. Perfectly said. And Stephanie, thank you so much for being on.

Yep, thanks for having me, Jeff.

Yep, this has been Stephanie Postles. I am Jeff Duden and we have been on the home front. Thanks for listening.