Serial Entrepreneur Reveals Why 90% of Podcasters Quit (& His $6M Solution)

[00:00:00] Tim: Have you ever mapped out what it costs to do podcasting at a high professional level? So we got hosting, website, video editing, audio editing and transcription, an interview platform, and social media management.

[00:00:13] And that's just for the foundation. We're not even talking about more advanced features like live streaming, e-commerce, a core slash community platform, and email marketing.

[00:00:25] If you're not careful, you could easily push into the two to $300 a month range, before you've made a single dollar for most busy creators with a nine to five, it's really hard to make this equation work - especially when you've got limited time to invest in monetization efforts or skipping around from one platform to another. So a lot of people end up waiting around dreaming of what they could build someday, which honestly means never.

[00:00:50] My guest for today's episode built a platform specifically designed to address that he saw the cost and complexity that was keeping so many creators on the sideline, and he built an all in one solution. Like we're talking, hosting, editing, social distribution, course platform, e-commerce, and more, all rolled into one. And it's gonna cost less than all those tools would cost individually and operate at a higher level of efficiency as an integrated system rather than a bunch of independent platforms.

[00:01:22] The person who created this is Nathan Gwilliam. He's an entrepreneur and content creator who has built major businesses before, most notably including adoption.com, where he was chairman and CEO of the world's most used adoption site platform that's helped to connect thousands and thousands of families.

[00:01:40] So he really understands what it means to build something with a mission behind it; something that's more than just another product to sell. And I do feel it's that same sense of mission that is driving Nathan's development of Pod Up, which by the way, is already waitlisted and that tells you a lot about the demand for this service.

[00:02:00] And in this conversation, Nathan and I talk about the real cost of podcasting in terms of time and money, why podcasting remains one of the least competitive spaces in the creator economy, and what we would do differently if we were starting a podcast from zero with no audience and a very limited budget.

[00:02:19] So if you've been sitting on that podcast idea, I hope this episode is gonna give you both the push and the roadmap to get started. So let's get into it.

[00:02:27] 

[00:02:31] Tim: Hey, Nathan, welcome to the show. 

[00:02:33] Nathan: Thanks for having me on today, Tim. 

[00:02:34] Tim: Yeah, so you work with a lot of podcast shows. What do you advise to shows that are getting to that point where the audience is starting to grow, there's an opportunity to scale, but they're not sure where to go to take it to that next level. 

[00:02:47] Nathan: Yeah. So, so let's go even more foundationally because to be able to grow and to be able to monetize, you have to have time. And one of the biggest reasons why people don't grow and monetize their shows is 'cause they're investing all of the time that they have available in the production part. 

[00:03:06] Tim: Right, 

[00:03:06] Nathan: and, and there's no time left to take it to the next levels. I was in that same spot when I started my first show.

[00:03:13] I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've sold three ventures, and when I was selling adoption.com, my last one, I was working with a mentor, and the mentor made me a promise. His name's Russell Brunson. I think he's the best digital marketer of this generation. Russell promised me that if I published every day for a year, I'd be financially free.

[00:03:30] And so I did that. I started a show. I was a content creator like your audience, and I started with a video and then I repurposed it into various different forms of content, audio. Video, short video, a blog, all different types of social content, website, newsletter, that kind of stuff. And I published every day for a year, and I got about three months into this.

[00:03:52] And I had the realization that I needed 30 different technologies to do this show. Because I wasn't just trying to publish some audio. I was trying to make a venture around this and that. Those technologies cost almost $2,000 a month. And they just took way too much time and effort and they were missing so much of the functionality that he needed, and they weren't integrated hardly at all.

[00:04:14] And they just consumed so much time. And even after I'd booked the guest and recorded the episode, and edited the episode, I still had to pay someone four hours every day just to get all the publishing done and get all the syndication done. And I mean, it was just incredibly consuming and expensive.

[00:04:30] This is back in 2020, and this was before even all the AI tools existed. And one day in frustration, I just told one of my coworkers, someone's gonna create this all in one platform. Kind of like Shopify created the all in one platform for e-commerce. They brought together a hundred different e-commerce tools into one platform. So an entrepreneur could build a venture around e-commerce.

[00:04:51] And I could just see that someone was gonna do that for podcasting, to bring all of those different tools together with one username and password for one low price and add a whole bunch of functionality that I couldn't even afford or didn't even exist. And that was my aha moment. And so I, luckily, I had sold some ventures and I had some capital. I went and I hired a bunch of talented developers. And, we've been building this now for six years, almost six years. We've put almost $6 million into this.

[00:05:18] And, we now have 60 tools that are integrated and there's tools to create your podcast, and it's not just a podcast anymore. It's called Pod Up, but it's become so much more than just podcasting. It's really a content engine. It's how creators can create their platform that they own and how they can then grow it, and then how they can monetize it.

[00:05:38] And we have 18 different AI tools, and I think we have the best podcasting platform on the planet. For example, after you get done recording your video, you can push a button and it will repurpose that, that long form video for you into like 15 or 20 different pieces of content. So it can make your blog post and it can make your social posts in different formats for you. It can create short videos for it. It can give you keywords and your hashtags and do all sorts of different things for you all at once. And that's just one of our tools. That's the repurposer.

[00:06:11] It has 11 different monetization tools. You can, if you wanna do courses, you wanna do e-commerce, you wanna do coaching,, and sell ads or do sponsorships. It's all built into one platform. 

[00:06:22] Tim: Well, you're touching on a lot of really important things there. I certainly know what you mean when you're talking about tools, like there's tools for email marketing, there's tools for production, hosting, post-production, repurposing.

[00:06:35] Like, I think podcasting is more expensive than a lot of people realize, and that's why in a way, it remains one of those parts of the creator economy that has less competition than some of the other parts, 

[00:06:47] Nathan: and that's why people quit before their 10th episodes, like you were saying.

[00:06:50] Tim: That's true too because it starts to become expensive, and it's not just requiring a lot of time, it also requires money, and so it's a hard platform to stay on if you can't monetize it. But it sounds like you've got some tools there integrated with Pod UP that will help with that.

[00:07:06] So I think that's, a good place to start maybe is like what are some of the monetization tools and how do creators that, you know, how are they using them to really take their podcasts to into monetization so that they can fund all of those other things that we need to do. Promotion and, you know, all, all of the other production related things.

[00:07:27] Nathan: Yeah. So Russell Brunson, one of the things he's famous for saying is, if you wanna make a million dollars, the fastest way to do that is to create a thousand dollars product and sell a thousand of them. Right?

[00:07:39] And if you can have a thousand dollar digital product, and I'm not joking, this is, this is real. And, and there's been lots of people that have, have made a lot of money off of this strategy. You go create a course. You bundle it with stuff like group coaching, and monthly challenges, and things like that. And you go sell a thousand of those. And if you're selling a thousand dollars digital product, you could even spend $300 to acquire every new customer and you still make a great profit and you can go find them with Google ads and Facebook ads.

[00:08:07] So, if you talk about what's a fast way to make money to fund some of those other things, that's one of the fastest ones out there is go build a master course and go sell. Sell it for a thousand dollars and go sell a thousand of them. And that's a great way to get that first initial capital. And you can do that within Pod Up.

[00:08:22] That's one of our tools. It's a courses platform. You don't have to go get Teachable or something else. It's already built into your content engine. And it can be your courses or you can invite members of your community that are experts to come in and build courses, and then you can do revenue shares with those as well.

[00:08:38] Tim: Yeah, and I think Podcasting's well aligned with those higher priced products because it is that deeper format, and tends to be more serious listeners and buyers that would invest the time in listening to a podcast, whether it's like audio or whether it's on YouTube or what have you. So I could see that being a real opportunity.

[00:08:58] So you've launched a lot of successful initiatives in digital marketing, including creating and selling numerous companies, contributing to a top five Facebook app, and building these massive online communities with millions of followers. What are some of the hallmarks of your approach that my audience could adopt to scale their own content business?

[00:09:18] What do you think has been, I guess to put it succinctly, what's been the secret to your success? 

[00:09:22] Nathan: There's a lot of secrets there. If you get down to what is really the secret of success, I think you let God be your business partner. If I had to get down to one secret, don't try to do it yourself. Make sure you're doing something that it is helping do good in the world, and that's something that is in, involve him in that, involve prayer and have him as your business partner. There's been so many times that I, I could not have gotten through it without his help and of everything, that's my secret to success. God is my secret to success.

[00:09:50] Tim: The larger mission, right? The why behind what you're doing,

[00:09:53] Nathan: And if you're doing his work, and you're doing good, and you're helping people, I think you, you merit a level of help based on that motive. I found in my career that's different than if you're just making, trying to make money.

[00:10:04] If you're trying to help people, even if you're doing adoption or you're helping people podcasting, like that's still God's work, helping people provide for their family or helping people get kids in their family. 

[00:10:13] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:10:14] Nathan: Do his work, involve him, and whatever your faith is, whatever your religion is, you'd probably be far more successful in trying to do it by yourself. 

[00:10:21] Tim: Yeah, absolutely. And so, as the owner of Pod Up, you've worked with a lot of podcasters who have have grown successful shows. And based on that, how would you advise beginner podcasters to focus their efforts as they're trying to develop their shows.

[00:10:35] Nathan: So some of the people that fail, they consistently are trying to monetize immediately. Then they get frustrated immediately, right? When it doesn't, you know, after less than 10 episodes, it's not already covering itself. And podcasting is not a get rich quick scheme. It's a, it's a long-term retirement strategy, right?

[00:10:55] Tim: That's a good way of putting it. 

[00:10:56] Nathan: Yeah. And if you're expecting it to be profitable by the 10th episode, don't do it. It's not gonna happen. Like, it'd be very rare for that to happen. You gotta go in and make a year or two year commitment and just put in the reps. It's like saying, I'm gonna exercise 10 times and I'm gonna give up because my, I don't look like a bodybuilder after 10 workouts.

[00:11:14] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:11:14] Nathan: It just doesn't happen that way. You gotta put in the reps for a year or two years you'll see great results if you do that, but just don't set unrealistic expectations. 

[00:11:23] Tim: Absolutely. 

[00:11:24] Nathan: Yeah. So some of the growth strategies for those podcasters you were asking about, I have a show called Podcasting Secrets, and I interview some of the most successful podcasters, and I ask 'em that question, what's your greatest secret to grow your podcast?

[00:11:37] And almost all of them give the same answer. And they say it's getting on other shows that have similar audiences. So, you can't do that from day one. Podcasters don't want people that, you know, have two episodes on their shows. Generally hard to get on on other podcasts when you're just beginning. But if you get up and you get going and you start getting some traction and it's, it gets really easy to get on these other shows.

[00:12:01] Like in the last week, I think I've been on four shows and. That is the strategy, right? You're, you're drawing from those other shows to grow your audience and you're helping promote them. They're helping promote you. Every CEO, every content creator wants to be on more podcasts.

[00:12:18] The secret is, if you do your own podcast, instead of having to beg those other people to get on their podcasts, you become a peer and you just trade 'em. You let them on your show and you go on their show. Yeah, it's super easy and you don't have to pay 'em for it. 

[00:12:33] Tim: That's right. Yeah. I think I've experienced exactly that with the development of my own show, like the first 10, 20 episodes, and really just asking people who I, I'm friends with them on social media.

[00:12:44] But then as you establish more credibility, certainly, you know, you get some people that start to reach out to you and then you know, you, you are able to show that, you know, the show's an ongoing concern. And if someone's going to be on it, they know it's gonna actually be produced and that there's an audience there.

[00:13:02] So yeah, I could certainly see that, if you keep going, that's where the opportunity comes from. And then you start to define, well, who your audience really is. 'cause certain shows will resonate more than others, right?

[00:13:12] And so you start to see, oh yeah, when I talk about this, it tracks a wider audience and therefore, I should do more shows like this. That's where you can kind of maybe follow up with some monetization 'cause you've understood now who is interested in the show. 

[00:13:26] Nathan: Yeah. 

[00:13:26] Tim: So yeah, I think there's a lot of, lot of good advice there.

[00:13:29] Well, can you tell us a little bit more about Pod Up, like how you've said there's all these tools, but how does it differ from you know, using some of these other services that offer similar services. 

[00:13:41] Nathan: Yeah, so there really is nothing similar to us at the moment. There's competitors out there, like you look at Riverside or you look at Libsyn and they're really good platforms, but Riverside might have five tools, right? They do a really good job with the recorder and maybe the editor and maybe delivering some ads, right? Maybe live streaming. They've got a few of the features.

[00:14:01] We have 60 tools, right? If you use Riverside, you're probably gonna have to get 12 other tools or 15 other tools at least to do your podcast. And we allow you to bring it all into one platform. You don't have to like download these big video files and try to send them and upload 'em to the other files, like do everything from within one platform and.

[00:14:22] I think that it's like Shopify. Can you imagine doing an e-commerce venture and having to go get 20 different tools, right?

[00:14:28] To do your e-commerce venture, you need a coupon. If you had to get a coupon manager and an inventory manager and try to integrate 'em and make 'em work together, and yeah, that's a pain. Even shopify's coupon manager and their inventory managers; they're not the best of those tools out there, but because it's all brought together, it's all there. It's so much easier to run that 

[00:14:47] Tim: Yeah. I think it's what dissuaded me and others from like WordPress or some other kind of solution like that. Right. Perception is it's a lot less user friendly and a lot more different tools that you have to work with.

[00:14:58] Nathan: That's right. 

[00:14:58] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:14:59] Nathan: Right. And then there's an update and then some of your tools did update and some didn't update and you can't upgrade because some of them didn't. And like it is just too much hassle. 

[00:15:08] Tim: Yeah. So, you're giving me a sense there about how it compared. Price wise, have you done the analysis of what it would cost to have all of the other tools

[00:15:16] Nathan: Yeah. So it depends. It depends. It depends on how many tools you actually buy. I, with me, it was about $2,000 that we save, right. And we just ended our Black Friday sale and you can get all of our tools for $149 a month.

[00:15:28] Yeah. So $2,000 compared to 149, it's like a less than a 10th of the cost. Right. It's just a fraction. Not everybody does all of those tools because they don't have time. They're so busy in the production, they don't have time to go create a course. They don't have time to go create an e-commerce site. They don't have time to go create a membership site. They don't have time to go run dual stream live streams, you know?

[00:15:49] And so the first secret is you gotta free up your time up. I think Pod Up saves me at least 80 to 90% of my time compared to what I was doing back in 2020. Right? Because of all the, those tools working together and the ai and, and so that's the first step is, is use tools that won't consume so much time so that you actually have time left over to focus on growing your podcast and monetizing business. If you don't do that, you will never grow and monetize your podcast.

[00:16:18] Tim: Yeah, and I feel like even if we go back a few years to say like 2020, the amount of automation you can do now is so much greater than what you could do back then.

[00:16:29] Nathan: Yeah, that's right. AI has changed everything. If you use it, well still come up with great original thought. 

[00:16:36] Tim: Yeah, 

[00:16:36] Nathan: but use AI as a tool to help you do it so much faster and do it so much better and grow it better. 

[00:16:43] Tim: Absolutely. So, so what's the strategy that you're using to take things to the next level with Pop Up right now?

[00:16:49] 'cause a lot of the people in the audience, they're, aspiring creators and entrepreneurs, and they're thinking about these same questions right now. 

[00:16:56] Nathan: Yeah, so there's three different ways that they could interact with Pod Up Think of like this, line, the spectrum. And on this side you have people that maybe don't have a lot of money yet, but they have more time.

[00:17:10] So if that's the case, they probably just wanna license Pod Up Do the do it yourself version and use the software themselves to publish the show and use the growth tools and use the monetization tools that are there. On this side of the spectrum, are people that they have some more money, maybe they've made it as a creator, they're an author, they've got books, they've got revenue streams going.

[00:17:30] But they don't have time. And on this side, we've had a lot of mostly CEOs, business owners, that have come to us and they've said, okay, I know I need a podcast. I just don't have time. And so they want us to use our software and they record the episodes and then we do everything else for them.

[00:17:46] So we have a team of about 40 people, and people give us their episodes every week, and we book their guests, and we edit their videos, and write their blog posts, and create their social content, and do their short videos, and publish everything, syndicate everything. We do their marketing, we book them on shows, run their ads, do their SEO, turnkey production.

[00:18:08] It's a total turnkey solution. And, you know, that might cost three to $5,000 a month, but for people that have that money, like it, it's almost guaranteed success. Like on our marketing, we guarantee how much traffic you're gonna get from your blog. We've gotten so good at marketing these podcasts, we guarantee how much traffic you're gonna get from that podcast.

[00:18:27] And so like our middle package, we guarantee you'll get at least 15,000 engagements, video views, podcast listens, blog views, per month with that middle package. 

[00:18:38] Tim: That's a lot for a podcast. Yeah,

[00:18:39] Nathan: And that's included in our fee. Like we pay for all the ads within what you pay us, you don't even have to pay anything extra for that. So you get a team that guarantees you have revenue streams, that guarantees you have monetization. You're not there trying to do it all yourself. So those are the two spectrums.

[00:18:55] And then sometimes people fall in the middle and they're like, okay, I, I know I can't do it all myself. And then we have this coaching program called POD Mentors and they can reach out to us, they can get help, they can have monthly accountability. We give them education and courses. And support them through that whole process, and give them the workbook pages, and the monthly challenges and things like that, or somewhere in between or, or we do pieces of it. Maybe they need their website launched, but then they wanna maintain it themselves and we can do that too. 

[00:19:24] Tim: That was one of the questions I was gonna have is like, if, you have all these tools, you probably need some mentorship to use some of 'em, especially if you're branching out into new areas. So it's great to know that that's, available there too. 

[00:19:35] Nathan: Yeah. The Pod Mentors program is not currently on the website. Within the next month the pod mentors program will be there

[00:19:43] Tim: So what is working well right now and and what do you wish you could change with your business?

[00:19:48] Nathan: What is working really well is the done for you services. We actually got to cashflow positive in May for the first time selling just almost exclusively the done for you podcast marketing growth and monetization services.

[00:20:02] Tim: Congratulations. 

[00:20:03] Nathan: They're just, there's just nobody doing what we're doing with the software we have that can deliver 40 different services for podcasters, so that seems to be working really well for us. And then the software, we opened it up for our Black Friday sale to the end users, the DIY version of our software, and that's gone really well. That exceeded our expectations. So I guess we've proven there's these two audiences out there. 

[00:20:27] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:20:28] Nathan: What do I wish I could change? I wish I just had a lot more money. I could have like 20 more developers and we have all these great ideas of things we wanna do and we're doing 'em, we're launching 'em quickly, but I wish I could launch 'em a lot faster than we're doing.

[00:20:40] Tim: That's great. Well, and, and it's, it's amazing to hear about the revenue growth with the done for you service. I could certainly see why there's a market for that. Like, just as we were talking about the beginning, the amount of effort time that goes into podcasting, having something that can help.

[00:20:55] I think that's really what, to kind of bring it full circle, that's really where the key is, is that you have to find a way to add those resources in order to scale it up. You can go so far with automation as a individual podcaster, but there is a ceiling to where you can get, 'cause you still need the human interface to make the automations work. And that's where those, kind of services come in so handy. Yeah. Well, where can people find out more about Pod Up? 

[00:21:22] Nathan: Yeah. So if they go to PodUp.com, we kind of hit our limit of new clients we could take on. So right now we're in wait, wait list mode, but give us a couple more weeks we should be back up and taking new clients again.

[00:21:35] So, if you go to pod up.com, you can get a free 30 day trial of the software and you can also get a free podcast launch course. So it's a 30 day step-by-step course that helps create and launch your podcast. Everything from your logo to your website, all of those different pieces, the channels and the cover arts and all of that.

[00:21:56] We just take you through and give you video training and homework assignments and downloadables 22 of the days there. So check that out. We also have some cool, downloadables and trainings that we give as well. We have one training about how to make money from a podcast. We have one training about how to as 30 different strategies to grow your podcast.

[00:22:15] A lot of people appreciate those. And so you can get all that for free at PoduUp.com. Then, if you feel like, okay, I know I need a podcast. I wanna grow my business, grow my podcast, make more money with it, but I just don't have time, then go to podallies.com. That's P-O-D-A-L-L-I-E s.com.

[00:22:34] And at Pod Allies, you can schedule a free podcast strategy call with me and we can go one-on-one, even if you never buy our services, never sign up with us, i'll help you figure out your growth strategy and your monetization strategy and, walk you through that. And if you want help, we can help put together a plan for you to help you find the success you're looking for with your podcast. 

[00:22:56] Tim: Amazing offer. Thank you, Nathan. 

[00:22:58] Nathan: Of course. 

[00:23:00] Tim: Great talking with you today. 

[00:23:01] Nathan: Thanks for letting me be on your show, Tim. 

[00:23:03] Tim: Thanks for coming on.

[00:23:04] So here's what I'm taking away from this conversation with Nathan. First, there's real power in building with a mission. Nathan didn't set out to build just another tool to add to the sea of software tools already out there. He honed in on a specific barrier that was keeping creators on the sideline and sought to remove it.

[00:23:23] And it's that kind of clarity of purpose that drives the kind of demand that gets your software service waitlisted. Secondly, podcasting remains one of the best opportunities in the creator economy, partly because of the cost and complexity of the barriers that exist for most creators. So if these are things that have been holding you back, Pod Up is worth investigating as a potential solution.

[00:23:45] Now, full transparency, although I had the opportunity to take a tour of Pod Ups features and I had the chance to use it, I haven't actually adopted it as a tool for podcasting myself right now, and there's a few reasons for that.

[00:23:59] As an experienced podcaster, I've already spent four years building a workflow and tool stack that works for me. And changing to something else is not something I'm willing to do right now, especially when I'm in a heavy build phase working on the back end of my Shopify store. Because you gotta keep in mind that every time you adopt a new tool or system as a content creator, you've gotta account for some time that you're gonna lose and efficiency as you figure the new things out. And it never goes as seamlessly as we think it's gonna go.

[00:24:30] As a tech creator, I also need to be out there testing different tools. So an all-in-one solution doesn't really fit how I operate because a big part of my interest as a creator and my channel content relates to doing product reviews.

[00:24:44] In addition to that, the financial calculation for me is a little different too with adopting pot up because I've already invested in certain software tools where I have lifetime licenses or grandfathered subscription rates because I was an early adopter of certain platforms, especially in the AI space. And then on top of that, there's the affiliate relationships and the sponsorships I'm working on related to things that I'm already involved with.

[00:25:11] However, your situation might be totally different. If you're just starting out, you have no other tools or systems established, or if you're tired of managing five different platforms to get one episode out the door, then Pod Up is worth a serious look.

[00:25:24] It's even got a lot of educational resources there. For those of you who are still new to Podcasting, link is in the description and if you're stuck for time to produce your podcast, maybe also want to check out Pod Allies to help solve that problem. As Nathan was saying, you show up for the recording and they do the rest.

[00:25:41] If you found this helpful, hit that subscribe button. I break down what's working in content creation specifically for creators who are working with a busy, full-time job or business. Thanks for watching. Hope you have a great day, and we'll see you in the next episode.