Alex Sanfilippo: Building Community and Innovation Through Podcasting

I do really believe 100% from every part of me that everyone has the capacity to be able to do the things that they want and not to be held back by the mental baggage that's in our head that we want to push through.

Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. In each episode, we get down and personal with people who go after the.

Things they want to make all their.

Wildest dreams come true. Join us as we unveil and dissect a formula for what it takes to do the thing. Here is your host, Stacy Lauren.

My gosh, you guys, I am super excited. I have the. I don't even know. I just am. Every time I get to talk to you, no matter what is going on, I just feel so fortunate to know you and to be a part of your world because you just come from such an amazing place of just service and value and giving. And so I'm just, I'm really excited to have you here. And for those of you that don't know who this is, I have Alex Sanfilippo. He's the founder of PodMatch. And I had actually, we've gone live a few times in the community and he's just over delivered every time that he's been here. But I actually had some questions about something that I was working on and I wanted to brainstorm and I'm like, why don't we brainstorm it live and let people see how you could actually use a platform, whether it's a podcast or a community, in a way of just even leveraging the ideas that you have so you could create something in a really cool way. And then the other thing is, you're going to announce something cool that you're working on that you're doing that people might even be interested in. So.

Hi, Alex, Stacey, thank you so much for having me again. And, but by the way, it's a mutual feeling. This is what, like, this is the reason I believe in the power of community. It's like everything that you said, like, oh, man, I'm just, like, excited. Like, when we get to hang out, we get to, like, learn from each other, right? Like, I literally feel the same way. I'm like, wow, I didn't know Stacy feels that way. That's how I feel every time we're like in a room together, so. But we play off each other really well and I think that we raise each other's bars, right? Like, it's like, oh, hey, here's how we both level up. So, yeah, I'm super excited to Be here and you practice what you preach. I mean, I love the fact, like, we're doing like a live brainstorming mostly. We're like, can you not tell anyone we talked? Right. Like, we don't like, I just to get some stuff out. I'm not, like, confident yet. So let's not tell anybody. You're just like, let's just. Let's just do it. And I respect that. So I'm glad to be here.

Yeah, it's so cool. And actually, I think. Oh, yeah, Paul's here. Thanks, Paul. And Wendy's here. Wendy.

Hey.

Wendy B. And Benjamin. Good to see you guys. And yeah, when he said how to level up, I did a live. So I do this a lot where I do lives and I let people a lot of times it's like sometimes in like, different paid programs that I have, but sometimes it's in the regular group. But I'll let people see my brainstorming process. For example, when I was working on promoting my TEDx talk, I went live in one group and I was showing like, okay, this is who I can mention it to. This is what I can say. And since I help people build audiences, it was kind of cool. And Paul specifically was like, oh, you're showing us momentum marketing. Because the more you say things out loud, then more ideas come up. And that's what you just said. It's like this live brainstorming. And I think that's what I love about a podcast, right? Is you're able to say all these things out loud, then you get the feedback from the people, which then opens up the other portal to expand your idea even more.

Right? Yeah, I couldn't agree more with all that. And by the way, you mentioned your TEDx talk. I've told you this too many times already, but brilliantly done. You don't know this, but I've permanently worked it into a couple of my trainings that it's like the extracurricular, like, so at the end of it, like every month, I do multiple trainings per month. So like twice per month, there's two different ones at two different groups where it's like, hey, okay, now I need you to go watch this TEDx talk again. If you haven't, if you've seen it or here you go. It's just that good. It's one of the best I've ever seen. It's just like a core of what I believe. So whoever you brainstorm that with, you all did a good job. If any of those people are here with Us today. Great work. And if you haven't seen the talk, you need to, you need to go to YouTube and see it.

Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, it's funny because a lot of it was on, you know, it's kind of like with action, right? You get clarity. And so there was one point, I think it was during my Bucket list challenge where one of the, I don't remember what the dare was, but I kept seeing people say, like, I want to travel the country and meet my people. My people, meaning the do the thing community. And I love that I have that goal. Next year actually I'm going to be traveling and meeting a bunch of people and I cannot wait to do that. But I also realized people were not realizing that it wasn't just the people and do the thing right. Just like it's not just people in Pod Match, it's like we have our own communities. But if you want to exercise, then you've got to join an exercise group. Right? Or if you want to do a TEDx talk, you got to join people that want to do a TEDx talk. And so that's what every, so every line of that talk was like trying to answer an objection that I got to see people struggle with as I was experimenting with the whole formula.

Yeah, yeah.

So, okay, so here's the first thing. So you guys, just so you know, so I want to brainstorm with Alex because he built this amazing platform with, it's like software, which, I mean, that's gotta be, I don't even know money wise or any of that stuff and like what that was like. And I have just a, it's a vague idea. I have no idea if I'm doing it or if I'm gonna find someone else's that's doing it. But I, at least right now I need a really good resource to be able to send people when they're like, I want to join a group. And so I am using, just so you know, I just decided this yesterday, I'm going to use my talk for right now as a way to create these kinds of conversations. So anyone that has a community, I want them putting in the comments. Oh yeah. And I do this in my community. And then they could put the goal that they have for their community, what their community stands for. And then anyone that doesn't have a community and they want to join one, they can say, this is my goal and this is my community. And then eventually I'll be able to like go back to all those people and maybe create Something. Does that make sense when I say that, by the way?

Yeah, it's kind of. It's. It's. It's mostly. That's like a database, more or less. And I'm Maybe it's simplifying a little bit, but more it's. It's something like sort of like a CRM type of thing where you can see all the information, but it's somewhat interactive because they need to be able to access it as well. Is that right? So there's some sort of communication inside of it. Yeah.

Well, so technically, I'm like, I'm gonna start it with just the TED Talk in itself and have people just comment straight on there. So when I do. So that way, even if I don't create anything, let's say someone wants to join a group, you know, because I'm like, I help people create conversations. That's my whole community around a shared goal. So right now, the shared goal for the talk is join a group. And so now I'm like, why wouldn't I then have everyone that wants to join a group just comment and say what group they want to join, and everyone that has a group say, this is my group. Come join it. Wouldn't that be so cool? So in my mind, it's like step one, right?

Right.

Yeah.

I'm between you and I have talked about this before, and it'd be good for everyone else to hear, but I'm a very big fan of just starting where you are, like, test the waters first. And I mean, you're. I think you kind of wrote the book on this, so I don't mean to, like, preach to the. Preach to the choir here. By the way, do you like that I put a comment on this live thing here? How great is that? You feel like when you step up, going places, like, I'm like, florida, come on.

Um, talented.

So I, I, yeah, I'd had a comment on Facebook. I like the idea of just starting with that to see if there is momentum in traffic. I think you're. I think you already know that there will be, though, so I'm not telling you to skip that. But, like, because you know, this already works and you've kind of already tested the waters a little bit, maybe that step isn't quite big enough. I mean, do it. You have something. Right. But just start thinking, okay, like, I'm doing this as a temporary hold as I build out the next thing, versus I'm testing it again. Cause I think it would be, if I'm not mistaken and correct Me, if I'm wrong, that would be like a duplicate of what you've already tested. Like, you already know that this is a need and a want, or do you not?

Oh, yeah, I definitely know it's a need. Especially right after my talk. That's what everyone came up to me after, and they're like, what group do I join? And so. So, you know, and then as I'm trying to figure out how am I promoting my talk? I'm like, wait, I could just promote my talk by them sharing what their community is. So anyway, so that's first level, but then second level, I was wondering when you created Pod Match and you guys, just so you know, Alex is also going to be sharing some news in a little bit and talking about something really cool that he's working on right now that you might have an opportunity to do, potentially. We haven't talked about if you still have spots open for it, but. So we're going to go there too. But for now, we're brainstorming.

You better. Born to the end. Hey, everybody, you got to say you have to stay here for the full four and a half hours. I'm just kidding. We're not going to get out.

You got to help my brain work.

At midnight Eastern time, we will be making the announcement. No, we'll be quicker than that. Anyway, sorry, continue. I got you off. I'm going to grab pen and paper. I'm listening. But I totally. It's literally right there. This is the beauty of life. Do you want to talk? No, I'm listening. I'm just grabbing.

I love it. Yeah. So, yeah, I think I was just most curious. When you started podmatch, how did you actually start before you created the software? Because I imagine when you're creating a software like that, it's gotta be expensive. And I don't know if you got investors. I don't know what all that was like, but I'm imagining there was. I mean, that's a tech thing. So, like, what was the. Before that part?

Yeah, so it was the validation phase. So it started in March 2020, right before the world shut down. I was speaking at a podcasting conference in Orlando, Florida, about 2,000 people there. And when I got off of stage, I. I had pen and paper and I would ask anyone who would talk to me and people like, after you got stage, people are nice. They're just going to say, congrats or you were terrible. Right. No one said that, thankfully. That would crush me. But I'm like, someone hated this and they're going to call me. It never happens. Imposter syndrome. And so what I did is I just asked every single one of them like, hey, like, thank you for being here, appreciate it. Hey, what's something that you'd say you're struggling with in podcasting or what's like a pain point that you have? And I would write it down and then I'd get their email address, I'd get their name, email address. And then I just kept on asking people and I did hear a lot of different things, but I heard about a hundred people say exactly the same thing, which was Alex, I'm having trouble finding the ideal guest for my show. And the kicker was the ideal guest, it's not guests. There are directories exist. And let's just be real, at this point in the world, my 15 year old cousin would love to be on your sports podcast or your comedy podcast. Should you let him on 100%? No. Right? So it's not like there's not people who don't want to be there. It's the ideal fit. And that was like the real kicker. So I went home. Long story short, this was a longer processing it sound. I whiteboard the whole idea out. I basically was like, you know, what an industry that does this? Well, I thought I've been married too long to use a dating app, but I thought dating apps, at that point, I'm like, oh, they connect the right people together. Can we build something like a dating app that connects podcast guests and hosts for interviews instead of kind of go for dates? And that's where the whole concept came from. So I validated that there was a need with a hundred people's contact information, stuff like that. And the pain point was software. I mean, I guess I could have done some of it manually, but like I, I really knew that this was, that this was the thing. Like I, I knew after talking to those people, getting some additional feedback from them, I knew that I knew that we were supposed to do this. So I'm not an, like, I'm not a developer. I don't have any, any history in that stuff. And so I immediately called up a friend who I had known for years. We were in each other's like weddings many years ago and he was a great developer. So I just like, hey man, I know you like usually have big contracts, like, what are you working on right now? Do you have time for me to pitch an idea? And the timing just worked out. He's like, man, I just ended a multi year job like a contract. He goes, so I'm wide open. He goes, I was going to take some time off, but I'm open to like starting something small. So what we did is I just had our Lawyer draft up 50, 50 documentation is actually three is me, Alicia, my wife, she's also one of the, one of the partners, and Jesse. And so what we did is I just started working with Jesse and we just built an MVP minimum viable product as simply as we possibly could. We started on March 10, 2020, and by June 15, 2020, we launched that, yeah, very early beta. We had no logo, I had typos everywhere. Every page took 10 minimum seconds to load. Right. Like all those things. But what I did is I emailed those a hundred people who said they wanted this solution and asked them two questions. Can you set up an account? And if you do, tell me, does this work or not? Does this solve the problem that you told me existed? And so at that point, the response again, I'm like, hey, dude, you should get a logo. Hey, dude, you have 10 typos on the homepage. Hey, man, it's taking too long to load. And I would just keep on saying, not my question, does it work? Because we didn't want to invest more time and energy into wanting to figure out, does it work? So that's like the whole journey of how it kind of got started. And we focused on continuous improvement after we validated once again the problem. But to me, we kind of like went from just that research into a soft launch, like a late alpha, early beta type of thing. So I don't know if that helps you at all, but that's kind of like how it works on my side.

My mind is blown right now because I love how you're kind of describing what my process is for building community. I start with a hundred people, I find out exactly what they're struggling with, and then I help them do it right. And then they give feedback anyway. It's. It's crazy when you think of, there's something about that number 100, right, where it's not too overwhelming, you're still able to like, get it. And you ended up meeting them at a conference too, which is really great. And then I love also the minimum viable product because a lot of people will wait until it's perfect before anyone sees it, but you're like, no, listen, you told me you had this problem. And then you're not listening to the noise when they're telling you all the other stuff that's wrong. You're like, does it work. Right. And that's so many lessons in that because you didn't get caught up in the perfection of it.

And I'm thankful to have a business partner because this would have. We didn't, we didn't raise any capital. We self funded. We each put $2,500 into an account and we launched as the business account. We said when that runs out, we'll reevaluate if we want to move forward or not. And thankfully we never had to put more money in. We were able to build some. Not that we built it like it didn't happen overnight. I don't want to make it sound like we launched with those hundred people and we were millionaires the next day. Right. Like it wasn't like that. It's still a process and a journey, but it was bringing enough to pay for itself in that 75. The whatever. The $2,500 each came back really quick within just a few short months. We, after launch and we had that back. So the beauty of having a co founder that's a developer is you can do this stuff, but it can also be a bit of a. Like, I'm just going to warn you, it can be a problem as well having a co founder that's a developer because you will start saying, let's develop this, this, this, this, this. And the problem is those things probably already exist. And so one of our initial downfalls was me telling Jesse we need to develop this. And. And finally we like sat down. I'm like, hey man, I'm making big mistakes. Because at one point we were like, hey, should we like build our own version of Slack so we have something internal to communicate with? No, we should use Slack. Right? It's like $15, 20. I don't know what it is now. Like, it's not expensive. And I'm like, why would we spend six months doing this when it's not our thing? So a little bit of a warning. Don't abuse a developer if you have them. As a co founder, you have to always keep the main thing, the main thing. But my point here is that there might already be something exists that can work perfectly fine for you. But I need to hear a bit more about. That's why I kind of have pen and paper here. So like, I want, I want to keep on hearing you talking about track.

Yeah. And I know you mentioned Mighty Networks before, so I had just looked at that yesterday and they look like they're kind of more focused on the. It looks like an amazing platform, but it Looks like it's focused on the online stuff. So I'm basically so imagine. So the whole thing, the TED Talk, all this whole thing is about my people, which is being with people that have a shared goal. So number one thing I need to help people with is what's the goal that you want to achieve? And so when I do a dating challenge or the bucket list challenge or whatever it is, and I'm giving them a dare, and I'm like, okay, now join a group to help you do this thing you want to do, right? So if someone wants to go skydiving, that's the thing that's on their list that they want to do. They're not going to accomplish it, most likely by just staying in my group. They need to join a skydiving group. They could still be in my group, but they have to join a group where people are actually wanting to skydive. And my best example is, and I should have used it in the talk, but it was the running one, which is, and I still am trying to figure this out, this is kind of take us on a side tangent, but you guys that know me know that I like to do that. But my people is different than like minded people. Everyone keeps referring it to like minded, but it's not. Because when you have people that have a shared goal, you can have different religious beliefs, you can have different political beliefs, you can have different values, you could be different races. You know, you can have all kinds of people on every.

Oh yeah.

The only thing in common is the goal. And if you think about the military or you think about running was the example I was going to use where we are basically wanting to run a marathon and I've got supportive, encouraging, like minded friends, but if they're not runners, I'm not going to run a marathon.

And so yeah, I mean that's, that's like right there. I mean a lot of your community may have already heard this, like the world needs that message because we're like, oh well, I can't run with them because they're voting differently than me, right? Like that's it. I don't really have that example. It's just an extreme example. It's like, wait a minute, no. And like, just because someone votes the same way as you does not mean they're good accountability for you to run. If they're like, dude, you're crazy, I'm going to bed. Right? That's not helpful. So real quick, so step one is what's determining the goal, right?

Like, yes, it's like, you're taking my brain and you're putting it on a paper.

Yes, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. And so this is the shared goal. And there's buckets for this, right? It's not just like, hey, pick literally any goal on Earth. It's like, hey, we need to actually hone it in. Or is it, hey, pick anything?

Well, so here's the thing. It's a great question because so one of the things. And I'll keep referring to the talk because I thought so much about each piece, but when you join, do the Thing is kind of like a mothership, right? Of like, that's the mothership where it's like you just want to get out of your comfort zone. Depending on what challenge I'm running, then I'm taking you in a little deeper. Right. But if it's just the do the thing right now, the collaboration network, because that's where we are, that's kind of like the mothership. Imagine how many people you're getting exposed. Exposed to. Right? So if you want to run a master class, there's someone here that can help you with that. You want to build an audience, someone here can help you want to lose weight. You can have. Because you're with people at the collaborations. And so it's almost like there's some people that they just want a starting point. So it's still a goal. It just depends on how defined the goal is. So I always say it doesn't have to be like, people talk in smart goals, but there's some people that the smart goal paralyzes them. And that's why I say just have a rough draft goal some want to do. And so that would be. And like, when I help people, I'll help people on Eventbrite, I help them on meetup, and I have this whole directory. I'll go to the library, go to a community center. All this stuff. I've worked through a bunch of stuff because I've been doing all these challenges helping people join groups, but it's just kind of a messy process. But if I'm working with someone, let's say I'm talking to them about. Let's just say dating, because that's fun. We. You mentioned dating for. Let's bring it all back to dating, because that's the easy.

Let's do it. It's. It's. It's easy and everyone loves it. It's fun.

Right?

So Hallmark exists for a reason.

Exactly. So my dating strategy with my group is, you Want to get off the dating app? Well, then stop going to a bar to meet someone that is going to drink with you. Go somewhere of who you want to meet. Do you want to meet someone where you can go hiking? Do you want to meet someone where you can go biking? Do you want to meet someone that is, I mean, an investor? Do you want to meet someone that is a leader, right. Or a business person? Then at least put yourself in those environments. It doesn't mean the person is going to he then, but you're meeting people in that space which gets you in the room with the people that then know the people or they are the person. Does that make sense? So it's kind of like, yeah, a.

Great example of that for me. Like I'll, I'll merge fitness and dating. I had a friend recently asked me. He's like, dude, I really. He's single and he's like, man, I really want like a real go getter woman. Like a woman that's just like, gets after it that like has these goals and crushes it. He's like, where do I meet that person? I'm like, you find the gym that has a session at 4:30am and you go to that session because I guarantee you she's there. There's no one getting up at 4:30 in the morning to go to a gym that isn't like, has a real vision and goal for where they're going, right? And he's like, brilliant. I don't know if he's going to do it because he's like, ooh, 4:30. I'm like, I promise that's where she is because she's more driven and motivated than you are.

So I love that you actually took the attributes and then you. Yeah, that's so good. Yeah, it's so true. And I think. Or there's people. I think I saw Mel Robbins. I want to approach her at some point because she did a podcast episode where she talked about how hard it is to make adult friends. And she even talked about this episode about. She ended up a friend wanted. I don't remember the exact story, but something about gardening. And they ended up inviting her to do this planting event. And she was like, it was so much fun. I loved it. And the common goal, right, was this planting gardening thing, but not Mel Robbins is amazing. But she didn't get it that it was the shared goal. She's like, okay, so my challenge for you is to go say hi to a friend and yeah, like more generalized. It wasn't like now find people in a group. Right. And so like whether you're gardening, whether you're crafting, whether you're running, whatever that goal, dating, like whatever that goal is, there needs to be something in some kind of directory.

Yeah. So after. Okay, so there's, there's a step zero which is figuring out the. Figuring it out. Helping someone hash it out.

Almost.

Right. And then step one is actually determining the goal. So it's like figuring out like, okay, what is your goal? And helping someone kind of figure that out, but they know it. Step one is, okay, what's that goal? That's that shared goal. What's the next, like what happens next after that?

Like you showed me that. And I just saw Wendy's comment. Let me just see what it says. Oh yeah, Dr. Michelle said, yeah, that makes sense. That's good. And then Wendy said, the goal isn't enough for me. I need the mindset behind the goal and the motivation of all of us to be like minded. Your example of meeting someone to date in a bar is a good example, not enough to have the goal of dating. Yeah. I'm realizing I just monetized this directory potentially because technically if they haven't done the find your voice challenge yet, that might be good because that helps you get the clarity of what even you want and what group to join, which kind of answers Wendy's concern, which is the mindset because that helps them tap into it. So anyway, I'm just thinking that could be actually a good.

So step one is. Thank you, Wendy. Step one is find your voice challenge. Step two is the shared goal. Yeah, right. Okay, that's great, Wendy. Thank you for helping us.

Wendy.

Yeah.

You just helped me monetize this directory.

So let's, let's move on to what's number three. What comes next?

Yeah. Okay.

Is that actually getting people into a group or is there something a step between that?

Well, I think it's. I guess the question is what's in there? Do I want. Because again, eventbrite and all these other ones. Meetup. Meetup is groups. I mean, I should probably look at that a little bit more to see what it's missing that I feel like people are still aren't getting. I mean, other than it doesn't have the shared goal. But one of the problems with meetup, maybe I don't know the filter, so I can't say for sure. But I feel like whenever I'm helping people with that, I feel like there's events. Right. So we have events, which technically that is A group of people. Right. It doesn't have to be some ongoing. That's why I put that at the end. I was trying to think of all the things that would work for this, which is groups. It's a class, it's a community, it's an association, and it's all of those wherever groups of people congregate. Right. Because that's where the mothership is, where you get to kind of do all that. And then there's online and there's offline. Right.

So I'm just making sure. I understand. You're not controlling all these groups. You're just helping people find the right ones for them.

Helping them find it.

Okay, sorry. Okay. In my head, I was like, how are you going to manage? I get it now. Now I was like, wow, this is a lot, Stacey. Now. Now I get it. So you're. You're more or less making the introduction.

I'm the aggregator. Yeah. And then. Okay, kind of like what you're doing for Pod Match, I think. I think. Right. Is that the same thing?

Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's all automated. Right. We run through AI and through matching algorithms and stuff like that. So, yeah, it's like, the thing is, like, I guess where I'm still struggling is like, what is that? Third, they do the find your voice challenge. They know what is they're looking for. They've identified the common goal. That's just step two. They find the common goal. The next thing is, do they then start looking? They're. They're looking for a group. Right. Is that, like, what I'm understanding? They're looking for that group and then. Okay, so, yeah, I don't. I don't know. It's like, where you have to pick sources that you trust.

Right.

You have to be your sources or ones that you trust. And I guess it doesn't really matter where they are, does it? Like, if it's like. Or where it's listed. Right. Does it really make a difference?

I don't know. How do you control the podcast hosts? Because I. I always imagine that they just put their platform on there. Is there a control. Is there some kind of, like. I can't remember. There's like a. Because maybe I don't need to control it.

We don't know. And actually, like, one of the things I'm. From day one, I can still remember on the whiteboard that literally said, like, we want hosts to maintain creative freedom.

Yeah.

Like, and still this day, if you. If I send out, like, a press release, which we have One coming out next week. I think that's what we're talking about later. It literally says, our goal with this project, and I'll leave that blank for now.

Yeah.

Is to help independent podcasters maintain their creative freedom. And so for us, we don't want the control of it. We are going to do our own reference check, right. Before we bring people into what we do to make sure. Okay, listen, like, this is from a global perspective, morally sound. We have our limits and stuff like that. But yeah, so to me, as long as you pick groups that. Okay, hold on, let me. Let me backtrack. Groups want people. And so, like, the power is when who has the people? And, like, power people. Like, I'm not trying to make you sound like a dictator, right. But people look to you as their leader, Stacy, and you have that. That influence in their lives. So all the. They should be attracted to you, the events, the meetups, because you're the one that has what they say they need to make it success. Success, which is people. Right. So, yeah, you being the hub, where it's like, hey, bring them here. Right, and we'll help. And I think meetup has done okay. They've raised their prices a lot, which makes me think maybe it hasn't done as well recently. They've, like, I think they 10x their price, something ridiculous. It was like, crazy. I don't know if it's doing well because you can list the group, but that doesn't guarantee that people are going to find it. And so people that are leading groups, paying for, like, hey, there's nobody coming because they're not finding it. And it's because meetup has the groups, not the people. And the power is with people always. And so you have to think about that, right? Like.

Cause I see it being kind of easy with, I guess, because I know how to build the audience. Right? So it's like. See it being like, where almost like the Facebook group or whatever school or any. I see some school stuff in the comments, but basically any kind of whatever community platform I use that's a free platform that then says, okay, great, do you want to find your group now go to this directory, right? Or they just did the find your voice challenge, and it says, now directory. And then the communities that I help build, those will get a certain stamp saying, this is certified from do the thing or something.

Do you think that, like, you'll have, like, one group for each type of thing? Or could you have multiple, like, let's use someone. You said someone in the group. I mentioned something at like school, right? What would you say? Like let's say it's like, I don't know, like something schooling related. Can there be multiple groups about that if they're exactly the same or would you kind of pick one and say that's it?

I guess the easiest to manage way I'm even thinking. So like Vicky Pool's in my program right now and she is the community stand up and standout. And she just started doing these really fun virtual parties. They're called stand up and stand out parties. And right now she's doing them online and it's almost kind of like, you know, you go to Toastmasters. Toastmasters has a very structured process. Perks are really fun where you basically. I'm not saying Toastmasters is great, but there' not a specific kind of structure right now. It's more like you have three minutes or two minutes to do your elevator pitch or whatever you're wanting to say. And then you can also say what you're struggling with and why you can't say it right. So it's either way. And then she's eventually wants to now do these, these stand up and stand out parties in person. I can imagine that getting big once she gets it going and that could be something like it'd be cool for someone like her to feature her group in this directory, right? And then it's like okay, now it's online but then it's also in these cities, right. Or there's Ro, who I know from my singles community. She has these in person dating events and it would be cool to be able to give her space in this directory to be able to say this is in Pennsylvania or the tri state area, whatever. This is where you sign up for the dating app.

You can hear me, right? I don't know what you can hear you?

Yeah, let's see. Oh no. Wendy. So Wendy asked us, thank you for these questions by the way, because you're helping me get clearer too. But Wendy said does every and person come through you? No, I'm thinking they don't. I think it'll, I, I have the ability to like do it because I know how to build an audience so that part's easier. But the people that actually want to come on their own through other people, then they can. It doesn't have to be through me, but I will certify the ones that I've helped create because then I know they're almost or if they've had the find your voice challenge embedded because that's Going to be a big bigger goal I have where I'm embedding find your voice into various communities to kind of give it the do the things, safe community mark kind of thing. So. Yeah.

So real quick, if my camera or mic shut off, it'll just be. So we have that, like, oh, we have like a hurricane on our coast right now. So, like, I'm. I'm good. Like, it's all. We're all safe. But, like, if something like that cuts out, just know that's. That's what we're experiencing. If I just straight up disappear, I'm probably fine, but means my power is not, so. Okay, so I have some thoughts here, but is there a fourth step? So, like, find your voice challenge. Right. To get them to figure out the goal. Right. And then step two is to. To what's the goal? To get in that shared goal. And then it's to find your community. And what comes after that.

Yeah, find your community, maybe. I mean, this kind of opens up.

If it does, we don't need to go there. I mean, if you feel like that's kind of what we want to talk about, let's just go there then.

Well, I was gonna say, what if you could rate it, like, do a review of it, But I feel like that kind of. Is that opening up a crazy town of.

So I'm. What I've learned in software specifically, I think this applies to a lot of things outside of software as well, is that add features as they're requested, not as you think. People may never want that and they may never voice it because it may never be a problem. So don't create a problem that doesn't exist if people start asking for add it. And the thing is, that's not hard to do. That's actually pretty simple. Yeah, but make it a value add to show your community that you are serving them because they're asking for it. Which I don't mean that to sound manipulative in any way. The way we position it within PI match is, hey, if they don't want it, let's not build it. We'll keep it here as a list. We even know how to do it. But if someone asks for it, we'll be like, straight up, like, oh, we'll do that quick. And they're like, dang, you did like two weeks. And we're like, yep. Right. We were ready to do it. We just need someone else to tell us that. So I wouldn't stay away from features until it's requested. Right. And then Also, you can look at data and see. Okay, would this serve better? If it would serve better, go for it. Like, we just added a feature. While we're adding a feature next week that no one asked for, but we can see how people use podmatch and know that it will be beneficial to them. So features come later anyway. Okay.

So that's really good advice.

Cool. Glad it helps. So those are the steps, right? Like, we got through it because now I want to kind of, like, get practical here. The one thing I noticed is you do have a. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Yeah. No, I was just thinking. I'm like, what else would be next?

Let me give you room to process. Sorry, I. We both move fast, but take your notes here.

Let me know if I'm missing anything, you guys. Yeah. Wendy really likes your ability to keep it simple. Jane said, I see a directory also. Is there one already? I think Meetup is the closest one. My tribe is people who want to learn common sense information about getting healthy. After studying nutrition and supplements for over 40 years, I teach healthy eating, vibrant living. That's amazing. I love that. That's so important, too. Yeah. So I think. I think that's it. I mean, for now, I'm going to just have minimum viable product in my mind.

So.

Yeah.

So when I think about this. So I think you've got the find your voice challenge down. Helping both, that helps them find the goal, getting to that shared goal, breaking into categories, that stuff's pretty simple. Where you're going to run into the problem is connecting the person to the community and where the reason I think this is also really great that we're talking. Not to, like, make myself sound great, but we have built a dual avatar system. It takes podcast guests and podcast hosts to make work. You need both platforms, the communities, and you need people. So you're also building a dual avatar system. From a software perspective, it's considered a very, very bad idea to ever do that. Almost no one ever succeeds with it. I'm very thankful we made it. But of course, dating apps have all made it. Apps like Airbnb have made it. Right. Where it takes two people, takes the house, and it takes someone who wants to rent the house. Right. So there's two different avatars that they have to address, market to serve and stuff like that. So it's a matter of choosing which one is the one that you have to work to get. And to me, if I think about, sure, it might be meetups and stuff like that, but I think events, like, compared to an Event is like the platform. Right. Or the community itself is like the event. The biggest struggle that every event has and their. Their nightmare that keeps overnight is is anyone going to show up?

Yeah.

Which means if you have people, then the platforms will follow. Right. If you have a ton of platforms, doesn't mean you can get people. Because every event space is like, yeah, free press. Absolutely. I want that. Right. Help me get people. If you're like, hey, I've got thousands of people looking for groups. You will attract all these people and probably never have to market ever again as long as people know that you exist. So, yeah, you're building a dual avatar system. It's not making that connection really simple. But prioritizing your marketing efforts on the right one, which in my mind is the people. Because the people, like I said earlier, people have the power in this scenario.

Yeah. And then I'm also. I'm just. It's funny. Yeah. And thank you. And thank you also, Wendy, because I'm realizing how I didn't think find your voice was connected to this group directory. Because I'm realizing it's also good for the company that's coming in where by them being in there, they might want to put that into their community. Right. So then people are actually getting to know each other. Because one of my goals with that challenge is to embed it into a community. But also before people go to an event, I want them to do the challenge because it gets them from being strangers to friends in a short amount of time. But then this also, I did this with staffing too, where I had the people to the companies. And then it. We like did a pivot though, where it was like, when the recession happened, we had too many employees available and like, not enough companies. But then when construction in 2007, when everything went crazy, then it was like, oh, my gosh, you couldn't get people fast enough. We were just like, the person had the most. Anyway, so I have done this before. But you're right, I never was able to pick a person. I always had to like, okay, now we're going to get clients. Now we're getting employees. It was always this, like, kind of double thanks.

You know, I. I got a thought here. Well, real quick, I don't mean to jump ahead, cut you off a little bit. I'm so trying not to do that. Stacey. I'm a work in progress. Are we ready to talk for a minute here about like some tools maybe and just some ideas, or are we not there yet?

Is that I'm a Hundred percent, yeah.

Just making sure we have. I'm not jumping ahead, right? Like.

No, it's great.

So what I immediately thought of and just how much you think of this, I've tested this. It doesn't really work for the business I have, but SMS marketing, so text message marketing, I did some demos with it with a prior company and stuff like that and we had like 99% open rates on, on like text message marketing. And that's basically if you read anything about it. Text message marketing people pretty much open all their texts. Right. So I'm like almost wondering and I'm looking at a company right now that I used and it looks like they do some stuff like this. What if they go through find your voice challenge? That's part of it. Or they maybe they even go to the video and they have a tech, a phone number they can text which you can use automations. So it's not you doing it. The automations are to help them find their goal. Right. And it's either, hey you, if you don't know the goal then let's do the find your voice challenge and it'll send them there. If they say they know the goal is like fitness or running a marathon, they put that in it can automatically put it in this bucket that says hey, here's a link to where you can see our groups, communities related to that specific thing and you can have all that be automated where you don't have to touch it. But again then you have all these phone numbers where if you do want to blast something out, you can do that pretty easily. Right?

Yeah.

I don't know if that's really the right way to go about it, but I'm like, man, that's a simple way to build an easy system that someone can basically just kind of like opt into. And then at that point if you have encouragement that you want to send, like getting a weekly text message can be really nice.

Yeah, I love that.

Any thoughts on that?

Yeah, I really like it. Can I ask you a question?

Please? Yeah.

Okay. Do you have a goal right now of something that you're not doing that you want to be doing? Is there anything that you're working on?

Not really. Well, you know what, there's one that I know I need to work on. I haven't brought myself to do it, but I'd like to improve my soccer game. I play, I play in a league, I'm a captain of a team and sometimes I feel like I'm one of the weaker players. I'm good at leadership, but not great at playing. So I would like more, I'd like to add more value on the field outside of just like motivating and like leading a team. So that's a goal that's coming up for me that I have not taken seriously yet.

And you're already in a group. It sounds like I play on a.

I lead a team. Yeah, but, but leading a team, everyone tells me like that's not what makes you a better soccer player. You need to be practicing with people and playing pickup and stuff like that almost every day. So. And I don't have that right now.

Would you have to join another group in order to get that or would it be in the same group?

It wouldn't be the same. It would have to be another group.

Okay. And so what would you, when you're looking for that group, what would you be looking for? So the soccer of people that want to be more advanced. Right. Probably would be the goal.

That'd be. I. But specifically, see I'm not like looking to go semi professional or anything like that. So I would look for people that are in their 30s specifically that want to actually improve their touch as a soccer player so that like just better ball control and stuff like that. So yeah, specifically like people that are my age. I'll be real. I don't want to train with a 20 year old who's like not afraid to break his legs. Like I just, yeah, I'm like, I stand and work so I would like to keep that. So yeah, but I would need to find something like that. And I've never looked for that. It might exist. I've just never even started the process.

And so I may need to find. I might need to have an age thing on there then too. Then it sounds like. And maybe even gender. Just so then because there's going to be some women, some men, you know, kind of thing. I'm just thinking of what else.

Okay, so what you are describing again, it really. This is a, it's a database that you're describing more than anything else. And it's just a matter of can people access that information? Yeah, right. That's a big thing. And somehow you want to filter for them. There might even be some fancy AI tools at this point that can do that. But I kind of like the human touch of it. You talk too much about finding your people to basically interject a huge AI, right?

Yeah. But if it's an automatic matching. Wendy said, does she need to focus on really strong SEO for this?

Oh for. I'M guessing that's like about like finding people for it, finding platforms and stuff. You can. That's one strategy. I think probably the best strategy though is to like there, there are websites that list out like all the events in this category or you can go to meetup and do some of your own searches, cherry pick your favorite ones. Right. People seem to come to you. So it'd just be a matter of getting people to refer other people as well. I would start that route and if you feel you got traction, you can build out the time and the budget to do an SEO strategy. Sure. That's just another strategy take. But I don't the way that you operate, Stacy. I probably wouldn't start with that. You do such a good job without it that.

Yeah. So and so with the database then what would be. Is there a database recommendation? The starting point, because you mentioned the text message and then it would lead to maybe the database. But what would that be?

Yeah, I mean so if you want to go like full custom, like if you wanted somebody to build it for you, there is a no code solution called bubble, which is bubble.IO maybe. I don't know. Everyone uses fancy bubble IO and I'm not telling you to build it. I know. Yeah. Full stack, no code app builder for everyone. App means web or it's both web and mobile. So. And I would not start with like a mobile app. Just some advice I got. I'll say it this way. With PodMatch, we won't even do a mobile app until we have a hundred thousand people actively using it every week, which we may really made. That's bigger than the podcasting industry because people say if you don't have 100,000 people using something every week, then building an app is typically a mistake because it's. It's so much work. So like it'd be web based. But I know people that are bubble developers. So no code developers. What I like about this is it's inexpensive and very fast to spin something.

I love that. Oh yeah.

And actually that's how we launched Pod Match. We launched Pod Match, the mvp. After that we went. We have a. It's full custom code now but to launch mvp. And the reason people like how'd you do it so fast? We use a no code solution just to test to see if it worked. It was literally a database we built. So it was. Yeah.

So it's cool. So just so everyone knows and I want you to notice regardless of. And I love that you guys are here hanging with us is the reason why this is so powerful, it's kind of what Alex said. It's like being able, whatever that idea that is softly in your head that you're like, I don't know if I want to do this. And then you're able to get it out and you're putting it with people. Now all of a sudden, the clarity happens. So I didn't connect the dots to where the money would come from yet. It was just sounded like a fun idea because after the talk, I had a bunch of people come up and they're like, what group do I join? I had no idea. I'm like, just friend me on Facebook and I'll help you figure it out. I didn't have anything to give them other than my collaboration group, but that's not. And I have communities I build, so I can always refer them to one of those. But that's not enough. And so that's where the idea came from was kind of people asking me and me not knowing. But now I'm realizing after talking to you and doing this in the group, I'm glad we did it with the group too, because originally we were thinking about doing it alone, which is. It's so cool. Is now I'm like, oh, now I can monetize this easily. I just see it. It's right directly in line with all of the stuff I'm doing with me helping people build communities, me helping people find their group. So anyway, I'm really excited about that. So, yes, I would love to be connected to somebody. And then this now, this kind of leads in perfectly to now, your new thing that you're working on now. And I don't know if there's still spots open because I even signed up for one. I was so excited. But this would be something, I think, that would go into my directory too.

So, yeah, I'm writing it down to make sure I don't forget to make that introduction. So.

Or.

Or I might forget. So I wrote down real quick before I share that. Is there. I know we're like. We're kind of like at times like that. Was there anything else that you feel we got some good clarity here? I'm making sure there was nothing that we missed.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. It's huge. Yeah. I'm so glad that I have it recorded too, because I could listen at 100%. Yeah. Unless you had anything else to add before we moved on.

Now you, like, tease monetization a little bit. So my, My. Not that my head always goes there. I Think that there's a lot of value in just putting the platforms and people together, but your own verified communities or the challenges you have going on, I think that that's where the payment comes in. And because you own the network, you own the list, you can very easily promote it to this. So if there's 10,000 people using it and there's 3,000 groups on it, or a thousand groups, whatever it is. Right. You can basically say, hey, people, here's what we got going on. Groups. If you want to teach them to level up and build better engagement, then do some stuff there as well. And it turns into mostly high ticket, which is probably already your monetization strategy. And I love it because it's all value driven versus trying to milk everything you can out of it. Right. It's like, hey, who wants to further dive into finding your voice? Who wants to do this challenge type of thing? So anyway. Yeah, so I just want to kind of end with that. Yeah.

And just so everyone knows, typically, I don't think with the money first, it's always with me going after the fun. But it's only this is. I'm going to be putting money in in order to. That's why I have to know. Yeah, I have to know that there's a money at the end. But, yeah, so that's why I'm like, oh, now it's actually directly connected to everything. After this conversation, I'm realizing it's exactly in the sphere of the work that I'm already doing, because I can tend to go on a tangent and go on another direction, which I don't want to do right now because I have so much that I'm doing. But anyway, no, it's directly connected to everything. And it answers that question of what group should I join? I'm like, oh, go to my blah, blah, blah database or whatever it's going to be.

Yeah, I think you got something here for sure. And I'll introduce you to my buddy Dan, who's that bubble guy. He's. He's affordable. But I was thinking there is a cost. So I hope, because I've seen too many people build something with no plan to ever monetize it. And even though it ends up serving, a lot of people end up shutting it down. Yeah, it's terrible because they're like, oh, I can't help people anymore because I ran out of money. I'm like, well, you should have found something along the way that you do it. I know that you're good at that. And last Little thing here is like maybe other people's groups there can get verified as well. If they pay to be trained by you. Right. They have to join like a cohort of how to be a better leader of a community and to foster relationship. I don't mean to give you more ideas. You've already got plenty, Stacy.

Yeah, I like it.

Yeah.

And I'm wondering too, is this what about the people that don't have a group like the collaboration network? Because that's it almost solves the problem I've been having with the collaboration network, which is people are wanting to collaborate with people.

I think that's always something that you facilitate. To me, that's one of. That's your group. Your group is. Is that.

Yeah.

Unless maybe I don't know enough about that. But yeah, I don't know on that one. Other than the fact that I say like that's when they come to you and they, you do it live or something like that.

Yeah. I'm just thinking, okay, an example is what we're doing right now. Right. Which maybe it's just group leaders. Find group leaders. Maybe that's all it is. There could be a piece there. Kind of like I'm working with Deidre now. I'm going to be on her. I don't know if she's a Nancy. So I'm doing something with her that's really cool and that's exciting. We're doing all these amazing collaboration partners.

Dietree is incredible.

Oh, I, I, I'm amazing. I'm in love. Yeah. I'm so excited. And I'm love with Cap Show. It is literally. And it turns my dares into everything I've been trying to train manually is now done in a minute and it is magic.

Yeah, it's, it's amazing. Yeah. Well, okay, well, I know we're short on time, so you want me to flip into what I was talking about or you have something else?

Yeah, yeah. I was just thinking I added another piece where I just need to think of how can the groups then also connect together. So it' just the groups with the people. Like, oh, the people could connect, the groups could connect. So anyway, there's a lot there I could play around with.

But this is, I would add that as a later layer. Like you can do that manually for a while but like again, that's a feature that maybe you add later.

You're right.

And yeah.

Minimum viable. Yeah, yeah.

And I like, you're right.

I gotta write that on my whiteboard.

Keep it simple. I'm not gonna call you stupid. I'm gonna say keep it simple, Stacy. That's what KISS stands for. Keep it simple.

No, I love it. Instead of stupid. Yeah.

Yep. Yeah.

Hey, tell us what you're working on, Alex.

Yeah. So in the name of what you're doing, building community, bringing your people together, right? When I was doing some deep dive research into podcasting, I actually had one on one conversations with 1600 podcasters. Most of them stopped podcasting. Some of them are doing good in podcasting in a smaller segment that were doing really great in podcasting. And I wanted to learn from all these people. And so I'm going to, like, figure out what made them work, what made them not work. And there was 10 major deciding factors. And number 10 on the list, which I later found probably should have been number three. People just didn't notice it if they were in it, which was having an actual community around podcasting, not even with their listeners, an actual community around what is that they do. And what I realized is podcasters are so segregated and it's very one dimensional. You're editing, you send out the world. And if you hear back from somebody, it's typically just text, right? It's email. It's a message of some sort, right? And so it feels very lonely. And a lot of people quit when they're lonely or they tell their friends and family. I was editing a podcast, only, like, why were you doing that? It's like, well, that's what you do when you start a podcast. Like that sounds stupid, right? Like, people don't understand that aren't in it. And so I started, like, I became a big proponent of pushing people to events. And then I had this realization and it's that community is not formed in rows. It is formed in circles. Community is not formed in rows, it's formed in circles. And when I had that realization, I realized, shoot, this is helpful. But it's still all of us in rows, which means we might all be alone, just learning from somebody. Just like if we were listening to a podcaster that's a little bit further along than us, that's on it. Like, that's in our ears, right? And so I started becoming more proponent of, like, what does it mean when you get around a circle? Some sort of meetup group, Some sort of just like going to dinner with other podcasters that are in your city? Like, what happens when that is a connection? Those individuals don't stop podcasting is what I found. They stick with it because they have a tribe, they have a Community. They have a common goal of serving listeners. And they can talk about how they hate editing, right? How they are sick and tired of their hosting provider. Right. How they love Captcha, they can talk about these things with. Because if I told anyone in my family, oh, I love this app called Captcha, let me tell you what does. They'd be like, hold on, please don't. Right? That's like. And rightfully so. It's not interesting to you unless you're a podcaster. Right? And so I was just. I got really big into this thing of like, hey, we need to build some in person podcaster groups, like, around. We'll start in the United States, because that's what I know. And we're just gonna start finding people that can facilitate this sort of community, saying, hey, I'm a podcaster. Who else wants to go to dinner? And just no real agenda. If you want a speaker, fine. But if you'd like, my favorite is just, let's sit here and talk. Like, what's working for you? What's not working for you? What's the struggle? Did you get to hear from a listener? Like, let's. Let's talk about that. Let's celebrate that together. Right? And so the whole idea is just to start launching in person podcast meetup groups to help to help build the community around this thing. Cause it's a really lonely space. So that's it. That's my whole pitch for you. There's.

It's so cool. And so I signed up because I'm like, that would be cool to be able to. And I had looked because I think on your application it was like, are there any other meetups there? And I looked and I only see when. Pod, what's up? Pod, the big tour that comes around.

Oh, yeah, the Pod tour from PodFest.

Yeah, they. They do a meetup and. But I haven't seen an actual group. And so there's that. But yeah. So is it still open for other people to.

Oh, yeah. Yep. Our goal is to have 10. We've been going. I see your name coming up closer on the application list. We're going through them one at a time. We've only approved two so far. Finding. Listen, I'll be real. Finding people that want to actually lead is tough and that are like, ready to do it. They have the right mindset. Because I'm not trying to be rude, but many people, they instantly said, like, how can I monetize this? I'm like, that is not the point of this. Right? Like, the point is not to figure out how you can get all the rest of the podcasters to pay you money. Right. Like, not why we want to do it. Right. And so, and so I. That, that's me. The immediate no red flag. It's like, hey, this is. There's not going to be like, you're saying, let's meet at this barbecue place. Like, it's not like, hey, and pay me a hundred bucks so I can. So we have to be really careful with it because a community's only as good as a leader often. Right. You need somebody who's like, really passionate about building community to lead, not passionate about something else.

Yeah. You know, who might be good for you to talk to. I don't know if, you know, shut up and write. They do. Oh, it's so fun. They do these meetups around people writing their books or they do writing or whatever and they basically go to these coffee. So they have the same kind of thing where they have the leader that runs the. The event, but it's global. He has hundreds of thousands of people that are doing it. And anyway, if you want a connection, I can connect you to him. Rennie is his name. He's really cool. But it might be good because he's been doing it for a while and he's doing these in person events that are led by people that he's. I don't want to say certifying, but approving it sounds like similar.

Right. Which. Yeah. Which is exactly what you're going to be doing. It's what I need to be doing. Right. Like it seems like, like, yeah, it's just somebody with the right heart to serve before they earn a profit. It has to run these type of things. Right. So we have to make sure that, that, that exists. So thank you. I'll reach out. I'll look that up and then reach out to you. So. Okay, shut up and write runny. I'll go look it up. Yeah.

And do you want me to put a link in the chat for people that might want to.

Yeah, yeah. You want? Yeah. Do I. You don't have the only candy, right? I can look it up. No, I should have thought it.

Yeah.

That's on me, not on you. Let me grab the.

Oh, good. Yeah. Charlotta says it's back to the face to face communication. Yeah. At least he said, what a great brainstorming session. And then Jackie said, watching two great thinkers doing their thing is just fascinating.

I love this slightly add maybe a little bit. Right. Like we. A little bit of tangent but we do it.

We have to remember there used to.

Make it fun though.

Yeah. I, I attract people for like they're amused of that side tangent scroll.

That's good.

Yeah, I just put it in, you.

Know, I put in our chat here. I don't think I actually go put it in there.

Who would you be looking for? Because I'd love to share it with my community in terms of letting them know. Who would you be looking for to lead basically says, apply to partner with Pod Match on hosting an in person podcast or community meetup group. And so the. And they're getting maybe do you have a few minutes just to talk about what kind of comes from this in terms of basically Pod Match is approving you to host the meetup group.

Yeah. So. So first off, like, to me, like the, the right leader is somebody who's a passionate podcaster, like passionate about podcasting the art of it. Cause I, I know some people that are podcasters, they're not passionate podcasting. They're passionate about building a really big audience or making a lot of money, which is nothing wrong with. But I wouldn't want them to lead it. I want the one that's like, I just love this podcasting thing. Right. Sure, I might make money with them. I grow a big audience. Like, but. But whatever. I love this podcasting thing. And so I found those are the best group leaders because they show passion about it. They're not like, cool, I'm tired. We talk about Mike's, how much money are you making? Right. Like, I just don't want that to become the conversation. So the good leader is the passionate podcaster who's passionate about podcasting. If people decided to join, like for us, listen, I would love to go all over the world and lead a group. Every single week. Is not realistic, not humanly possible. Right. So what I'm doing with this instead is just like, can we just equip other people to do this? And what we want to do is we've already built geotagging into Pod Match. So we, if somebody likes to do in person interviews, which happens to be most people on both sides of mic, say, heck yeah, I'd be open to it. Right. They give not their full address, but basically city zip code. And so we have that information on most podmatch members. So when someone signs up to lead a meetup, we're able to email everyone automatically. That's within X miles from there. So let's just say it's like easy to get around your town, which is not Your town, Stacy, and your town might be 10 miles, right? Some other towns might be 50 miles, and they can get there really fast. So we kind of like, determine that based off of, like, drive time and stuff like that. And we just tell everyone, hey, Podmatch, we've got a meetup going on here, and. And this is where you can learn more about it. We post it in our community as well to help spread the word. Like, that's really important to us. And then financially, we want to help back it a little bit. We're not looking to rent giant venues because it turns into an event. We want it to be somewhat simple, but we want to make sure that we give a little bit of financial support to cover the cost as well for the one who's leading it and giving up their time to go meet some other podcasters. And that's really it. I mean, my ask is always just to mention podmatch. So, like, if you go to, like, a. Like a co working space and you buy everyone pizza, just say, hey, Podmatch, got the pizza for everybody. I. I use it or have someone talk who uses it type of thing, right? Like, that's the only ask. But I don't want there to be some script. I don't want it to be hard promotion. I just. Here's the thing. Like, the win for me is people keep on podcasting. People keep on podcasting, they keep on using Pod batch, right? So if I have to say, what's in it for Alex, it's just people stay with it. And at the end of the day, like, I really don't care if everyone uses Pod Match. Like, I don't mean to, like, sell it short or tell you not to use it. I really care about independent voices getting heard and elevated throughout the world. And I find that podcasting is the best way that's happening right now. So I want to see more independent voices sticking with podcasting so that we can change this thing, right? In a very positive way.

I love it. Yeah. It's almost like it's funny. People think I'm a coach, right? But I'm not a coach at all. It's a group strategy that I do. But when I help someone start a podcast, that's kind of my version of coaching. Because all of a sudden, I've been able to take someone that didn't have their voice in the world, and then now they're able to put their voice in the world. And so I've told people if I could do anything for free all day long, it would be to help people set up their podcast.

Right.

And so anyway, this is so aligned and I don't know, I guess I could add that in, right, for my group where, like, if they even want to start a podcast, maybe I say come 10 minutes early and I'll help you set up your podcast. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, anything like that.

Like that.

Yeah, it'd be fun. Oh, listen, if I had someone to sit with for 10 minutes on the technical side of, like, okay, what is an RSS feed? Right? Like, what's a hosting provider? If someone could have just explained to me, it would save me days, maybe, maybe weeks, but.

Yeah.

Well, thanks for giving me the platform to talk about that. This is fun. Yeah.

Thank you so much. Yeah. I just appreciate you doing this. Thanks, you guys, for joining us on our brainstorming session. It's so fun when you have no idea what it's going to be and it ends up being like, oh, my gosh, I'm doing a global directory.

I love it.

All right, you guys have a good day. And, oh, tell them where to find Pod Match. Again, if you don't mind. Just.

Oh, yeah. Listen, if you're a podcast guest host or aspiring podcast Guest or Host, podnatch.com forward/free is the place to go. It'll give you five quick things that will help you on your guesting or hosting journey. You can look at those for free. There's no email address needed or anything like that. Just a pure value add to help you, again, go further, faster as a guest or host. And again, that's podmatch.com free.

All right, Alex, thank you and thank you guys. Do the Thing. Don't wait for opportunity. Create it.

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