Welcome to Podcast Insider. I'm Mackenzie Bennett, marketing specialist at Blueberry. And I'm Todd Cochran, CEO of Blueberry. Today, we'll discuss how anyone can turn their one person podcast into a full fledged media company. You're listening to Podcast Insider, a weekly podcast bringing insights, advice, and insider tips and tricks to help you start, grow, and thrive through podcasting with the support of your team here at Blueberry Podcasting. Welcome. Let's dive in. Todd, I know you're speaking from a personal experience here, so I think we're gonna have a really good episode. Yeah. You know, it was, we we're we're gonna go way, way, way back today because, you just never know what's gonna happen when you start a podcast. That's for sure. That is true. Yeah. Well, I like to surprise you with some topics sometimes and, sometimes when they're more involved in your background in podcasting, it's fun for me. You know, it really began and it's probably what happens is a lot of podcasters are like, I got this idea for a show and they're trying to make a decision whether or not they're gonna do solo, if they're gonna do some of the co host, if they're going to have a team and but I think a lot of people start out, you know, I think it's more often than people realize start out as being a solo solo podcaster. And, you know, I learned this very early on and, of course, there was there was none of the tools that we have now, but in the real the reality of being a content creator, editor, marketer, you know, all these things, all these hats you had to wear, you didn't realize it. And and the thing is we didn't even think about it in those early days. We're just okay. Let's get the show done. Now there wasn't social media in those early days so you didn't have that distraction, but you did have the distraction of how do I get people on my website? You know, how do I get traffic here? And there was other ways that we did that, which are now extinct. Some of those marketing ideas that we use in those early days are, you know, we we used to go to forums. You know? Who who yeah. I I don't belong to any forums anymore. Maybe a goose a a Google group or something. Like, all the comments on every different platform, that's the forums now. That's where people are learning how to do things. The closest thing I feel like people still have is Reddit and Discord. Yep. And and you really are the, the unpaid intern when you begin. You know? You're You're the social media manager, the IT department, sales. Really, there's Simultaneously CEO and unpaid intern at the same time. That's right. And Yeah. It's it can be overwhelming, especially if you're working a regular job, you have a family, you have a partner, maybe you've got kids. You know, there's there's always something. There's life. And, and and and that that doesn't change. And but one thing that we don't that we can't change is time. Time is That is true. Time is not infinite. I've always wondered what would happen if I had twenty six hours in a day and I would probably just be more tired. So, I think there's a meme out there that shows, okay, we're gonna all of a sudden that something happens in the in space and all of a sudden the Earth, slows down a little bit and we we have twenty five hours, I think there was, the general consensus is we would spend it sleeping. You know, that would be the the the extra time that Certainly what I would wanna do. But I but I don't know if we would would we would we use that additional hour to sleep? A phrase that I like, I'm showing my millennial is we all have the same twenty four hours a day that Beyonce does. Oh, that's true. And and she accomplishes so much that can be said about so many people. But, going going back to what you said of, like, when you were starting this and there were kinda less distractions, I think. There was there was probably more focus on, like and more time being spent on the technology, like the equipment, the gear that you were using, that type of stuff and figuring out like how do we make this get on to everyone's phone? People don't have smartphones yet. How do we get it on everyone's iPod? That type of stuff. Yeah. And I think now that that time, that twenty four hours that we have is just how is the technology changed to give us that time back. I mean, that's one of the reasons you made PowerPress. Yeah. And, you know, and one of the reasons too is, you know, the very early days, I think even new podcasters struggle with this today is I bought a $14 microphone from Walmart or someplace and that thing was, you know, tinny. Tinny was the you know, it was horrible audio. And, you know, so then I went and spent $50 or something at some place that sold microphones and I used that for the first year and, you know, things got better over time. But, yeah, we were overwhelmed with the tech and then trying to explain, you know, oh, I'm doing a podcast or what and get this cross eyed look and, oh, this you you can have an app. No. Actually, there was no apps. You could have a program to put on your desktop that if you plug your m p three player in, if you have one Yeah. It will sync and magically you can take this with you. And and people are like, why would I do that? And that's why people often listen to the shows on their computers. But, you know, luckily today, we have this opportunity to not have to be focused on the tech. We don't have to focus on worry about publishing our show. That is a very straightforward process. Even social is getting easier. So as a solo podcaster, you have this ability now to produce a pretty high quality content with a minimal amount of time. I still today take the same amount of time produce an episode as I did twenty years ago, but I get so much more done in those two and a half hours. You know? So much more done. And, before, if I did in those early days, if I would have had to have added social that that that that that that, I'd be like, no way. I I couldn't have done it. It had been ten hours of work just for one hour. One of those those things is, yeah, you're spending the same amount of time, but the quality of everything has just gone up. Yeah. I think that's across the board for everyone. And I think too what happens is then you grow. And I know for many, many years, I was solo, solo, solo. And then I made a little money, and I decided my time was valuable. So I actually, still to this day, I pay someone to do my show prep. Now I still have thirty to forty minutes of prep to do after they've done an hour and a half, but I got that hour and a half back. And for and Right. That to me was time is money. So it was well worth the the the expenditure of hiring that person to help me. And then in that person came from my show. So I, you know, I basically said, hey. I need someone to help do show prep. You gotta be geeky. You gotta like these topics. I'm gonna give you the keys to the car and how to find the content and it was just, you know, he's been doing it now for me for, I think, more than ten years and it's like my brother from another mother. He Yep. We're synced. It's very rare that I will throw something out that he has found in prep. I'll add some stuff from time to time. But so I think when it comes to outsourcing versus hiring, you should delegate what you can. Mhmm. Social media can be done by people that listen to your audience and sometimes they'll do it for free. It's very true. That's that's a fairly easy one to do as long as you have some someone trustworthy. Trustworthy. You know, you've built that relationship. You didn't you had this somewhat of a relationship with this person who helps you with your show notes or with your show prep Yeah. Before you essentially started working together in that capacity. And and I think it's also good that, I mean, I know some people are sticklers and they're like, I want this to be a % completely mine. My brain only is on this. But when you when you open it up to other people, the out like, whoever you're hiring or outsourcing some of the work to, it does evolve, You know? And it it becomes something bigger than yourself. And and I look at the evolution of my show notes over the last year. AI has changed completely. I I don't have Absolutely. I don't have to hire nobody. The AI is does the show notes, and I take five minutes to edit, you know, 500 words. And it's rare that I have to change too much. And it's it's good. And now I don't do any editing. I'm very some people this show is edited. Mhmm. But I don't edit my two primary shows. I because it was also this trade off. I had to make a decision. Yeah. Was it gonna be family? Do it I have enough time for family or would I sacrifice family time for editing? Because editing at the time was gonna have I'd have to sacrifice more time. I said, okay. I just cut the ends. It is what it is. I just had to learn to be a better podcaster. Especially when you have longer shows like yours when they're like an hour plus. That is insane to edit on a weekly or you were doing like sometimes twice a week for years there. So, yeah, that's a lot of time. But some of those tools now like Descript will help you with if if you're not too what's the word? I don't wanna use the word I wanna use. If you're not too wrapped around the axle. And you're just willing to take out some ahs and umms and not get too tight in it, you can be in and out of the script in thirty minutes. If you are an editor, if you wanna spend more time, you you again need two two, three hours. But then do you outsource that to someone? So then you have to find the right people. I think there's also like if when I was editing our episodes, when I was doing this by myself for, you know, years ago, I was getting fed up with the mistakes that I was making in the show. So I just stopped making them in general. They just I was like, I don't wanna edit that out next week. So I'm just not gonna do it. Right. Yeah. And I've done enough episodes now that even though I may say, it's it's just gonna have to live in the content. Person. And, you know, and be honest with you from episode to episode and this is gonna be true for creators. Some episodes I get doesn't man, I knocked that baby out of the ballpark and then sometimes I'm like, that one wasn't so good. And but also that becomes into a whole another topic that we're not covering today is sometimes you shouldn't record. You know? If you've got a cold and you're feeling like crap, don't record. Save it to another day. I mean, whenever we were picking a time to record this today, you were like, I'm gonna be better if we do it before, you know, 1PM in the afternoon. Right. You're like, I just am. Yeah. Because I'm overseas right now, and it's it's midnight here. So once it gets to about two, my clock starts you know, I start it doesn't matter that I'm working to five. I still am not as productive. But but I think as as shows progress, you find automation and processes that help and find people and then it turns into okay. If your if your show's growing, then do you monetize and There comes the gravy. I think after you've kind of gotten yourself into that good spot of I'm doing this. Other people are doing this. Mhmm. We're putting out, like, quality output every episode. Right. It has, like, a flow. It has a routine. It has something that advertisers can rely on. Mhmm. Like, it's it's predictable in that sense, kind of the way that, like, a safe driver is a predictable driver. That same goes for a podcast trying to get monetized. And I think a lot of shows now have realized that, the content they're creating can lead to a book. Mhmm. Courses and coaching. If you're building a really big audience, maybe some sort of event. Or merch. Merch. I've never I did merch, but my audience was never into my merch and maybe it's just because I'm not an artist. So the merch was just like logos of my show. It was who wants to wear a Geek News Central logo on their shirt. That's you know, that's you got to be a super fan to do that. I I I think, they kind of excel in the the comedy section probably where it's, like, you know, where it's jokes that you can put on a shirt, something like that. But, yeah, it's all of that is, you know, you can do memberships, exclusive content. We do premium podcasting here. So does Apple. Yep. All of those different things that you can really add to your show whenever you want. And there's been a lot of people that have, over time, as they built their show have built in a build into being a speaker, you know, paid speaker at events, keynoters, in in their perspective topic field that they're doing within their shows. So if you're a business show or tech show or whatever you're there there is a place for you to go and address your peers and or inform people. So there's all kinds of opportunities, and I think that's what oftentimes podcasters forget about. They get so focused on making money Yeah. That they forget about all the other opportunities that are available to them that their content is going to unlock. That's the real value in podcasting in my opinion. And the skills that you acquire doing it. Yeah. I remember the first time I was asked to speak to I went to Las Vegas and spoke to the Cook County. It was basically 500 or 600 teachers, and I'd never really done a keynote before and, that was, you know, your first one when you're you're in front of 500 people and you're trying to impress them, is and, of course, podcasting is new at the time. So it was pretty easy to have a, you know, good presentation. But still, you know, walking on that stage, your slides better be good or, you know, you don't you don't wanna get booed off. Yeah. But again, those are the you know, that was a paid deal. I I I earned my first real speaking check from that event. And, I didn't ever dreamed, you know, two years earlier that that would have even been possible. I actually saw something the other day that the the job market is not so awesome right now, for lack of a better word. And with with the introduction of so many different technologies and AI right now, a lot of companies are saying, like, they were coming out with, like, this is actually skills that we need you to have. And public public speaking was one of the ones on there. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Because it's like, you know, anyone can have AI write anything for you at this point, but you still have to be present and have that, you know, be able to converse with other people and really get your point across poignantly. And, I think podcasting is probably something good for a lot of people. I know we've had, podcasters who've done, like, Toastmasters before, which is just like a whole public speaking, Yep. Club organization. So it's it's definitely not a bad thing to have on your resume just saying like, yeah. I do a podcast because it does encapsulate so many different skills that you're that you're talking about. So there's definite levels too. You know, we've got an example of Bill Simon who started as the BS report as sports and pop culture podcast on ESPN and that grew into Ringer, which is a full fledged media company and there's, like, $200,000,000,000 or something that they were That's huge. They were bought for. And then you have someone that had nary a presence. I think a Ming Yang Fogarty and Grammar Girl. And she started with just this show. And then all of a sudden she's got 12 shows. And then she's basically being represented by a major media company and then she has multiple books. And now, basically, she still does her show, but everything is managed by her team and she has a full fledged media team and it just and she was she wasn't Oprah. She wasn't Bill Simons. So, again, the growth path is, possible for anyone. You don't have to looking hey. I was an aircraft aviation electronics technician. So, you know, anyone can do this. Right. Anyone can do this. And you don't have to have a complete grasp of the English language either because believe me, I've destroyed my fair share of, of words, speaking and written over the years. So thank God for Grammarly, at this point. But, you know, you can build, into something big and, you know, go back to the Bill Simons exam Simmons example, expanded beyond sports. Yep. Had a team of experts and of podcasters and journalists and, again, build a diverse network. And, you know, when we built tech podcast, we're just a bunch of hobbyists. We had no clue, but we end up moving in those early years, like, 20,000,000 downloads a month on that little network. Now that's That's amazing. Small considered compared to today. But, again, these are the folks that were had no media experience whatsoever. So I think this is the excitement about, the potential of becoming a full fledged media brand. Yeah. So when you are kind of in that stage of becoming a full fledged media brand, you were you were branding outside of just your podcast. You are a full website brand. You have your reputation. It is not just people know you in the app on their phone. Yeah. This is this is like a whole thing that people are doing. It has you have a newsletter. You have merch. You have products. You have social media content, you probably have some type of YouTube video presence For sure. In some capacity. Yeah. It it the list goes on and on. Yeah. And oftentimes, I think back to when we formed tech podcast, there was originally seven of us and we just said, hey. Let's it's so funny. We we we launched it as a business model as a coop and, here's one thing I've learned about coops. Don't build co op. Co ops don't work, because you know, everyone's supposed to in the co op do equal amount of work. Yeah. In a network, you're gonna have to have someone that's gonna be the lead. Someone that's gonna do the heavy lifting. The coop was was me, you know, doing the heavy lifting and and and, you know, bringing ad deals and the collaboration and organization and all that. But that partnering with other creators, we all rose together. Yeah. We had one team member. He was making so much money. He promised me. He said, Todd, promise, promise. Never ever never ever mention how much money I'm making from the show. And, it was a healthy 6 figures and he said, I'll be he's retired now so I'm safe. He said I'll be I'll be fired by my company if they find out I'm making this much money on this show. So, you know, so also for those of you that are building something like this and you're finding success, don't go to work bragging about it. Just kind of, you know, yeah, I'm the end of this podcast thing. Yeah. I got some merch. Yeah. The YouTube's doing okay. But just make sure if you need Move in silence. Move in silence and make sure that that you keep your JOB protected, because collaboration can lead to big things. Now I started a business early. I I was lucky enough to get a book deal, and the book deal was done on a October. But then when GoDaddy sponsored the show in 02/2005, I got to thinking, okay, which way to and and I went overboard. I went full c corp from the very beginning. That was dumb. I shoulda just went, with a limited liability corporation. You know, talk to your tax accountant before you do anything in forming a company or or get a tax accountant to ask which type of business you should form. AI is also not a tax accountant. No. It can mess you up. So I I I shut down the corporation in 02/2019, built a new company entity for my personal self. So now I have an LLC and it's easier tax wise. And it's is a corporation. I was paying taxes on the company earnings and then if I paid myself, then I was paying taxes on that. It's just too stupid. Just pay the taxes once, on the LLC. But, so again, talk to your tax accountant and find out what's right for you. I also did it for protection, and I wasn't being controversial. But if you are doing controversial topics, that might get you sued, it might be good to do an LLC or sooner than better and protect your home and any assets you have and put your show underneath the LLC. And, it doesn't completely protect you, but it does give you a little more It's certainly not bad advice. Yeah. But again It it does lead us into the example though of My Favorite Murder by Karen Killigraf and Georgia Hardstock because that show blew up. And that is I mean, murder's controversial. Mhmm. To talk about that for sure. And so they just started doing this as, you know, two friends together and it absolutely blew up. That show gets insane downloads. They have a wild community. They do live events. They've come to podcasting events that we've attended. They have a whole network now of similar shows. So I'm sure that they evolved from doing this just, like, together, you know, in their living room to an LLC, something like that. And they they probably went from zero to a thousand. And and also legal advice is good too. And there's a lot of, folks out there that do legal advice, a couple of podcast specific folks. I think of one Gordon Firemark that does legal advice, and it's not an endorsement. I just know him. And I He's just very relevant. He's very entertainment law. Yeah. So, you know, and it's it's good if you're seeing success to, you know, and maybe you need to have some papers formed and contracts and that kind of stuff. So, you know, just yeah. And you have to treat it as a business too. So and the advantages is if you're running it as a business, then there are x advantages of running in it as a business. But I would always say have a conservative CPA. Don't have a a CPA that is oh, we can take this one deduction that and this and that. That's where you run into getting trouble with audits. But a conservative CPA and a good lawyer will save the day every day of the week. Yeah. I mean, that right there, that sentence leads us into, wrapping up the episode is what are the lessons learned and the takeaways of people going from just, you know, doing this in at their house to a fully fledged media company still maybe in their house. Lesson learned, don't do a co op. And it's so when I so how I got how I transitioned the co op was we had an agreement. So the coop wasn't working. So I said, listen, we're gonna buy you I'm going to buy you out. Yeah. And I bought the seven out and, and and they got it under a different different legal so Entity. Entity and and and basically, it treated it as and and it still is treated as a true business. So, you know, just again, I again, ChatGPD is not a replacement for legal support, but I think that if you're going to go full fledged media company, it's good to have the right tax set up, the right, the right legal infrastructure. And but don't get scared. These are all good things. Yeah. You're you're protecting yourself, because there's something worth protecting there. Yeah. And, you know, the second company I formed, I used LegalZoom to set up the LLC and to make sure I had all the because I basically, knew what I needed, but I also know that I needed a binder of specific things, bylaws, rules, you know, these types of things and LegalZoom helped me with that. Now probably the lawyers off there like, oh, you shouldn't use them, but it worked for me in the second company that I said. But again, if you if you're feeling stuck, you don't have to be the next NPR, but but the right steps, you can turn your podcast in something much bigger than you ever imagined. I I remember coming home from because the show originated when I was on travel in Texas, and I came home and and I'm explaining this to Shoko, my wife at the time. And I'm like, I'm doing this and she's like pointing a finger at me and she says, okay. You got two years to figure out how much make money. And I had I wasn't thinking about making money, you know, but it put me in this mindset of, okay. You know, this this is costing money at the time and it was very expensive to do a podcast in the early days. I've got to figure out a way to make this sustainable and it really put me in the right mindset and I wasn't completely focused on the sponsorship piece. A book deal came before the sponsorship deal. So yeah, you never know what doors are gonna open up. Yeah. I think you, you hit the nail on the head there is you can't just think of yourself as a podcaster or content creator. You know, if you if you want to evolve like this, you have to just think of yourself as a as a entrepreneur in some capacity. And and Blueberry exists for one reason only. I was having a phone call in February. I was talking to Chris Redlinger from GoDaddy. We just finished the first month of sponsorships with her, and she said to me, do you know other podcasters that would like to advertise GoDaddy? And I said, yes. I do. And in back of my head, I'm thinking there's a business here. And that were formulated for a couple of weeks in my head. And then on my podcast, I said, I'm looking for a lawyer. I'm looking for an MBA. I'm looking for a graphics guy, and I'm looking for a programmer. And that led to a call that led to a business that led to Raw Voice that led to Blueberry and here we are. That led to 20 later with the two of us here. Right here. And it all came and it really centered upon a single phone call where I realized there's an opportunity bigger than what I can handle myself. And I thought I could have done this by myself. Matter of fact, for the first month I did because it took us a little while to get the business up and running, but I very I transitioned that into the business immediately because there was just no way I had enough CPU cycles. I was working a full time job, still in the navy, had kids, had a podcast. Yeah. There was no there was no time left. You you know, that twenty four hours, I was I used 20 of it up every day for years and, so here we are twenty years later. Yeah. So you never know. And then you don't have to be early. So, oh, Todd, you were early. Well, no. No. No. It came this idea came from a conversation with someone that was sponsoring the podcast. So it's not too early for anyone. No. People are successful every day. Every day. You just gotta be able to recognize when there's an opportunity and and, you know, willing to to go all in on it. And, believe me, it was it was a I I didn't never imagine. We would not still be around if we did not believe in people's podcast either. Yeah. You know, in in February when I started the show, never in a thousand years would I have imagined that twenty years later, we'd be sitting here doing, you know, preparing for a twentieth year in podcasting at this company. So Mhmm. Just don't know. Right? And some of you starting today and who knows where you're gonna be in twenty years. So Yeah. So it is possible to go from, you know, solo podcaster to a fully fledged media company. So what's your vision for your podcast future? Are you happy as a one person show or do you dream of building something bigger? That came from Chad's BDT by the way. Let us know on social media or send us a voice memo. We'll be feature you in a future podcast. Thanks everyone for listening. Thanks for joining us. Come back next week and in the meantime, head to podcastinsider.com for more information, to subscribe, share, and read our show notes. To check out the latest suite of services and learn how Blueberry can help you your project, visit blueberry.com. That's Blueberry without the e's because we can't afford them.
CHAPTER 1
00:00:00
Introduction to Building a Media Company
CHAPTER 2
00:01:00
The Journey of Solo Podcasting
CHAPTER 3
00:03:10
Balancing Time and Life as a Podcaster
CHAPTER 4
00:06:04
Evolution of Podcast Technology
CHAPTER 5
00:09:12
Outsourcing Podcast Tasks
CHAPTER 6
00:13:02
Monetization and Expanding Content Opportunities
CHAPTER 7
00:19:05
Real-World Success Stories in Podcasting
CHAPTER 8
00:24:05
Legal and Business Considerations
CHAPTER 9
00:30:08
Vision for Podcasting Future
CHAPTER 10
00:31:10
Closing Remarks and Call to Action
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