How to Niche-Down Your Podcast (and Succeed)

Adam Vazquez 0:06
On this episode, we’re joined by Erik Jacobson, the founder and CEO of both Lemonpie and Hatch Edits. Erik got his start working in the podcast industry by supporting Tim Ferris on the Tim Ferris show which led to him starting his own podcast PR and production agencies.

Erik is one of the people I look up to most in our industry. In this conversation we get into how he’s built millions of dollars of revenue through his podcast, Brands that Podcast, where he sees opportunities for new show concepts, and what he sees working for the brands he partners with such as Hubspot, Freshbooks, ManyChat and others.

I really enjoy each time I get to talk to Erik, and I think you will, too. Let’s get into it with Erik Jacobson.

Intro 0:50
Put that content down. Content. The close is over. What’s your name? Content. That’s my name. You know why, mister? Because you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight. I drove an $80,000 BMW. That’s my name. Content Is for Closers.

Adam Vazquez 1:12
All right. We’re recording. Carlton—

Carlton Riffel 1:15
Welcome back. Welcome back to the show.

Adam Vazquez 1:17
You listened to me do the intro, which is not normal. What was your rating of that?

Carlton Riffel 1:25
It was good. Just had a few slips. I’m gonna give you a seven. Just a few slight delays, but it was pretty good overall.

So people are probably wondering, why do I feel like I have heard Adam and Carlton so much in my life recently? And it’s because we’ve started launching two episodes a week. So we’d love your feedback if you don’t like that. Send it to Adam if you do like it. Send it to me if you don’t.

Adam Vazquez 1:51
Or just unsubscribe. I feel like that’s also an option.

Carlton Riffel 1:54
Yeah, or unsubscribe. It’s funny because there are some people that love listening to podcasts right when they come out. There are some daily ones that I listen to and I can only handle two or three daily ones, but I like the ones that are twice a week. It’s like a good friend: there when you need it but it’s not overwhelming.

Adam Vazquez 2:16
Yeah, same. From a consumption standpoint, I love twice a week because either I will listen to them as they come out, and it’s just like a fun second, the first one is always good because it’s a fresh start. And the second one is like, I kind of get bored midweek and I’m looking for something new, I get to listen to my favorite shows. Or if I’ve missed a couple of weeks, then I go on straight binge mode. Like, you go for a long couple-hour walk and just feels like you’re talking to the same people over and over again. Which is, which is always fun.

Speaking of getting deep into pods, Eric Jacobson— who, by the way, I learned on this show this episode. His middle name is Bison and he has a bunch of bison behind him (if you’re watching the YouTube), which is perfect with our branding as well.

Carlton Riffel 3:03
Yeah, he was just trying to help us out.

Adam Vazquez 3:05
Yeah, it’s a little brand nod. But yeah, Eric’s been in the industry for a long time, like I said. I really have always looked up to him and appreciate his perspective on the history. What did you think of the conversation?

Carlton Riffel 3:17
Yeah, it was great. He’s got a ton of deep knowledge and practical knowledge. He’s been doing this, like you said, for a long time so it’s always good to hear his perspective. They take a little bit different approach at their company, and they do a lot of guest finding. And so it’s interesting. From that perspective, he talks a little bit about how do you leverage that to get some PR get some publicity. And it’s, it’s great when you can actually get on other people show. But sometimes there are other partnerships you can do to even a sponsored ad, is a way to get into people’s ears. Even doing a short segment, there are a few different things that he mentions that are ways to kind of leverage working together with other podcasts to help grow your audience for your show. It’s common knowledge, but this idea of, hey, if this person listens to podcasts, and they’re in your industry, or they’re in your niche, there’s probably a good chance that they’d like your show as well. So he brings a good perspective.

Adam Vazquez 4:17
It’s pretty cool to see how the industry has been maturing over the last several years and what used to be you have a podcast, maybe you go on somebody else’s podcast now has all of these more traditional channels, whether it be programmatic advertising, whether it be creating automatic ad inventory on your show, or doing full-scale PR campaigns and PR tours people have done for decades in other executions that coming to podcast and Eric’s been at the forefront of that. So, definitely learned a lot learn a lot about how to think about revenue when it comes to podcast production and partnerships. And yeah, I don’t really have anything else to say. Do you? Let’s just dive into it.

Carlton Riffel 5:04
Let’s go.

Adam Vazquez 5:15
Alright, we’re back with another episode of Content Is for Closers and bringing back. One of weirdly one of my oldest connections, colleagues, whatever you gonna say in the podcast space. Erik Jacobson. Eric, thanks for joining us.

Erik Jacobson 5:28
Thanks for having me, man. Back for round two. It feels great.

Adam Vazquez 5:31
Yeah, we probably got first connected several years ago. We’ve been doing this five years, you’ve been doing it even longer. I always love getting to talk to you, CEO of Hatch Edits as well as Lemonpie. Maybe real quick, you could give us just the description of what those two companies do and what you do there.

Erik Jacobson 5:51
Yeah, so we’ve been in the podcast game for about six years now, like fairly close. I think we both started our journeys around the same time, which is fascinating. And really hit podcasting when it was early, but not too early that these, these businesses didn’t work. And so over time, the companies have evolved, but Lemonpie is a PR agency that focuses on podcasting. So are 100% of our focus is on getting awareness for executives at Tech interviews, the 30 to 60-minute long-form interviews on podcasts that their target audience is listening to. So sort of like a new modern way of PR. And there are some interesting things to think about with that. And then Hatch is essentially a subscription service where for one flat monthly rate, we handle the technical piece of the audio editing, as well as podcast strategy consultation for one flat monthly rate that brands can use to get their podcast up and running. When they want to create one for their own company.

Adam Vazquez 6:48
And you work with people like— I’ve seen you talk about Dave Gerhart before and other companies. On the Lemonpie side, you talked about Tech Tech executives, is that a new? I don’t know when we talked last. Is that a newer niche? Or was that always the focus?

Erik Jacobson 7:05
Yeah, so positioning is one of the hardest things to do in agency world, and I’ve really been studying that over the years and how important it is. And it’s kind of scary to niche down and feel like you might get to specifics where things won’t work. But what we found is it has been helpful, to more accurate, accurately describe the people we do our best work for and who could get the most value out of it. And over time, we’ve tested that with different types of companies, different types of speakers, things like that. And what we’ve realized is our sweet spot is tightened. And for a lot of reasons, we just understand it very well we understand what they’re trying to do, we can work with a variety of different speakers on their team, each going up their shows that have their area of domain expertise, all of that kind of stuff. And so it’s been easier to talk about what we do and who, who we do it the best for you, which is what positioning is. And then our messaging and all that stuff comes from that. But the tough part is figuring out positioning. And that’s been just an iteration over the years. Sort of like figuring that out in real time.

Adam Vazquez 8:12
You’ve always challenged me from afar. We started off, like you said, at similar times but we were way broader. Like, “Yeah, we do podcasts…also anything you’ll pay us for.” So just trying to try to get going and get that momentum rolling. And when it comes to niching within podcasts, it does start to get scary because you don’t want to isolate yourself. What if the niche you choose ends up going bearish when it comes to podcasts or whatever. But I think that specific target is a great one for what we do.

Erik Jacobson 8:45
Yeah. We could have said “podcast PR for SaaS” or “podcast PR for software” and that would be one level further down on positioning, but we just we decided to keep it broad as tech because there are a lot of companies that aren’t purely a software company that think of themselves as tech. So like, big consumer companies like Personal Capital or Square would think of themselves as a tech company, but they’re not SaaS, so it allowed for more flexibility with some specific positioning.

Adam Vazquez 9:15
Yeah, I love that. And you all have done a really good job telling that story, telling the story of how podcasts can be used within tech— or really just even more broadly through your show Brands That Podcast and I’ve seen you talk a number of times about the pipeline that you’ve been able to generate through that. Obviously, we believe in a similar strategy, but I’ve never really talked about that. And so I was just curious, maybe it’s for good reason, but I was just curious how you think about that and what you’ve seen as you’ve been developing that show.

Erik Jacobson 9:42
100%. So Brands That Podcast is our show at Lemonpie and we’ve had it for I think a couple of years now. We did it in seasons. So we did take a break and then we did season two, which is going on right now. We decided to create a bottom-of-funnel show. I kind of think of these strategies in a variety of ways, but two being: do you want to go top-of-funnel? Or do you want to go bottom-of-funnel? And it’s not always black and white, it can be a mixture of both. When we created our show, if we were to go top-of-funnel, we would have created a marketing podcast because we sell to marketers. And so the goal with that would have been get as many marketers in the world in the country, listening to this podcast on a weekly basis, about all the topics of marketing, not necessarily related to what we do. So the goal being then, at the end of the episode saying, Oh, this is brought to you by lemon guy, or whatever, it’s more so having the sponsor nature of it, we decided, and that’s what most shows do, I find, to be honest, we decided to be okay with a much smaller, total addressable market of potential listeners, but having it more tied to what we do our expertise and bottom-of-funnel. And so we created a show that instead of talking about a variety of different types of marketing, we just talked about podcasting. And it’s still relevant for marketers. But for the most part, the folks that buy from us aren’t listening every single week, they’re listening at moments in time when this is front of mind for them, or when we put it in front of them on offense in our sales process, when they’ve never even heard of the show, right. And so I can describe a bunch of things we do there. But instead of 1,000s or 10s of 1000s of potential listeners that are out there for a more broader show, we were okay with hundreds of listeners. And the goal being seen as the expert or one of the experts in our space, and then having more flexibility with what we can do with the content. So we think like, it’s just the way it’s one of the ways that people are buying today is, or one of the problems with a top of funnel show is you don’t really get to share your perspective that much as the host. And so you’re highlighting the guests as the expert. And so in all of the marketing collateral that you create after that is focused on the guest, for the most part. And so what we wanted to do, we did, basically in a weekly show with an every other episode cadence. So we would have a guest on one week, and then the next week would just be myself and another team member. And we would break down a single topic that we get lots of questions about, I love that oftentimes in the sales process. So it just gives more flexibility on what we could do. So when I would have a sales call, if the person had never heard of brands that podcast, but they talk about what’s the ROI of this type of podcast strategy? Oh, well, we actually did cool, I can answer that for like five minutes here. And then we also have an entire 45-minute episode of myself and another team member, breaking that down that I send to them afterward. And so often, I would hear that was incredibly helpful. I also listened to like eight other episodes of you’re in the feed. And so like during the sales process, they’re spending like eight hours consuming your content, building up that trust. So that was one way. And the other was I found when we have guests on building relationships, collaborations, and partnerships, off of the back of friendships being built as gases is pretty, pretty commonly known as a good use case podcast. What I found though is because we built a bottom-of -unnel show all of our guests exactly what we wanted our prospects to think of us. And when they think podcasting, all of the guests thought that too. And so what, what their perception of us was, was not just this company doing a marketing podcast, or whatever, which was great, and they loved it. But guests are busy. They’re not really doing too much research a lot of times online.

Adam Vazquez 14:02
Especially the level of brands you’re getting.

Erik Jacobson 14:04
Yeah, exactly. So basically, all the questions around the show, and pre-interview in the post-interview, like was all building that credibility with the guests of what we do as well. And then I was able to parlay relationships off of the back of that after the episodes and like, continuing to build a friendship that then led to influential folks with marketing audience is promoting us.

Adam Vazquez 14:27
Yeah, I’ve loved following your journey on that. You’ve even tweeted some specific numbers around and things like that. And like, when you look at it, initially, the temptation can be like, Oh, it’s only hundreds, well, how are you able to like scale that effectively, but then you think about the fact that, as you said, it’s bottom of funnel, and you’re showing instead of telling. That’s so powerful, especially with the types of clients that are in the space marketing, they get pitched marketing concepts all the time, and they’re not sure if they’re effective, but when you show them like here As the answer and also, here’s proof of how we deliver, I just think that has so much power to it. And the let’s say 500, or 300, or whatever number of people that are listening are, like 100% prospective clients for you. So it’s like filling up an entire movie theater of prospects. People overlook that all the time—across industry, not just for podcasting—the powerful potential for that.

Erik Jacobson 15:29
Big time. And the reason is they’re obsessed with vanity metrics. It’s not vanity, I don’t mean to like be so controversial about it necessarily. Because like, obviously, the more eyeballs or ears that are paying attention to you in it, usually the better. And so like, that makes sense. A lot of these companies don’t know how to attribute the success or the ROI of a podcast to anything but downloads.

Adam Vazquez 16:00
Which in fairness, that’s sort of like the standard metric.

Erik Jacobson 16:05
100%, you will go into your hosting account. That’s what it shows, that’s literally the only thing you download. And but there’s so much more that you can look at for the ROI than just that. And so it’s tough if you spend a year doing a show, and you have 150 listeners per episode, that that is seen as a failure in a lot of people’s eyes. And we don’t believe that to be the case. And so we kind of wanted to eat our own dog food and backup our own words by doing a show with that very same metric.

Adam Vazquez 16:37
Yeah, I love that. I wanted to ask one question about how you said you guys made a decision at the beginning to create in seasons. I feel like that’s something that people go back and forth on a lot and have a lot of differing opinions on. What was the strategy that you had going into it? And for context, we’ve toyed with this and in full disclosure, I just don’t know how to do it effectively. I think it needs that forethought in order for it to be used effectively. So I’d be curious how you think about that.

Erik Jacobson 17:06
Exactly. So again, the reason we had more flexibility in this, it is very difficult to stop a show for a decently long period of time, let’s just say months. If it’s weeks, that’s actually pretty trivial. And you can actually do seasons, that way, where you design it, such that you it’s less about taking a break. And it’s more about differentiating the content inside of your feed. Maybe you take a two, three-week break, but you’ve already been working on the content, you’re going to be able to continue that quickly. But it’s more so having a delineation of like new, exciting fresh season, than it is like taking a few months off. So when you take a few months off, though, what you lose is the habit that the listeners have, go into your show, hitting play, and doing that, so they move on. So it is hard to get them back. The reason we were okay with it is because again, it was bottom-of-funnel for us. So like this show has produced results. If we stop producing episodes, forever from here, this show is still producing results from because of the way we designed the episodes and the stuff we cover and how we can use it in sales and marketing collateral like forever, basically. And so that’s why I was okay with maybe we do lose 20% of the listeners we had built that, like we’re never able to get back 20 to 30% of the listeners when we relaunch season two. But I was like, again, that wasn’t like the North Star with our goal. There are so many this is the most important thing I’ve found. There are so many different goals you can have for what you hope a podcast does for your brand. There are literally like five to 10 different things. And the most important thing is designing the show the show’s positioning and the episode formats and content that you cover to meet those goals. So our goal was not to get 10,000 listeners. It was to help actually drive revenue, right, crazy. And yeah. So that’s why it was okay to lose a little bit of that.

Adam Vazquez 19:25
Yeah, that’s great. I wanted to touch on at the beginning, we talked a little bit about the Lemonpie thing—and we did a whole episode a couple of years ago (I’ll make sure we link that) about what Lemonpie is—but for newer listeners, talking about the PR spin of this, so there’s obviously like you can have a branded show that has a bunch of objectives. You can serve, but how do you think about that PR and specifically serving that target of tech folks?

Erik Jacobson 19:51
100% Yeah, definitely different approaches, different pros and cons. So the PR side, the benefit here is the audiences are already built. So when you identify the 50 to 200+ shows that have your target audience listening to them, they already the listenership already exists, so you can reach out to them. And if you provide value, and I know we, we talked in, I think at our last episode about some ways to do that to reach out and try to secure the interview and happy to go into anything here too. But landing as many of those as possible, you already get, I mean, it’s a quicker path to actually having people consume the content. The problem, though, is you’re not building an asset. And you have less flexibility of like, what topics you cover, kind of, and how you can kind of use that in your marketing collateral and engine afterward. So there’s, there’s a little bit of trade-offs with it. But interestingly, they both go hand in hand very well. So for example, what we have found after testing this quite a bit and studying it is that one of the best ways to grow a podcast is podcast to podcast marketing, we have found that to be the single best channel to grow a podcast. So however, you can get in other similar shows that have listeners that you want to be listeners of your show, somehow your shows name is talked about on that show. So either you sponsor it, and they promote it, promote your show with an ad, you could be a guest on it, which is what we’re talking about. And you could promote your show, hey, if you like this, this is what we talked about on our show, every single week, like go check it out, driving conversion from that way. And one of my other favorites is like an episode drop. So trying to get an entire episode of yours dropped inside the feed of other similar shows.

Adam Vazquez 21:46
You see that a lot within podcast networks a lot of times.

Erik Jacobson 21:51
Exactly, exactly. So what’s cool about this is if you’re thinking about doing what should I do one or the other, it doesn’t have to be an either/or thing, because they both actually really help each other. But if you’re unsure if this is a channel, you will like it’s easier to test being a guest on a few episodes first, to see if you like it, I wouldn’t measure it for direct results off like two interviews. But just like if you like it, if you think it’s something you want to spend your time on. And then you could double down on that and then possibly launch your own show. But in an ideal world, your own show has already been created. By the time you go and do interviews on other shows so that you can drive awareness to your podcast.

Adam Vazquez 22:32
Sure. I can totally see the complementary part of that. And it’s almost like what you’re talking about earlier with the branded show all this control these levers you can pull in terms of your objectives and all those things. You’re sacrificing some of those for volume of audience. I would be curious, how do you advise people who go on these tours or you who think of it in that way to think about conversions? Because obviously there’s some lack of control there. How do you all incorporate that into it?

Erik Jacobson 22:34
There are a lot of ways to think about this. The single biggest problem (and also why it’s such a big opportunity) is the lack of attribution, with podcasting as a channel. Why this is a challenge is because it is hard to attribute in any sort of analytics tool that you have, for the most part, and I can go into why. But that also means that companies who only are able to because of their structure rely on what analytics and dashboards, say, of where referral sources are coming from, as the reason to do or not do something. That means they won’t do this. And you have the opportunity, This channel has been proven, there are hundreds of brands that have done ads, guesting and production to their huge benefit so that it’s this channel works. And so, but the question is, how do you think about the goal? And then how do you measure it? So the best way to measure like being a guest on other shows is if you’re thinking about it from like, a driving revenue standpoint. So let’s just take leads, for example, it’s, it’s not the best thing to think of like a pure lead gen channel. But if it’s working, it should generate leads for you. And the best way to know if that’s working, is self reported attribution. So having a it’s pretty shocking how many brands don’t have this, but having something free form fill or pre sign up, or post sign up, that simply asks, Where did you hear about us? Yeah, so simple and, and literally just having Ideally an open textbox and they can write in whatever they want versus like prescribed dropdowns and if this is working, you will see people write in podcast interview, podcast interview, podcast interview, and sometimes they won’t remember which one sure if you’re doing this right you’ve been on dozens and they’ve heard or seeing you on their favorite shows, all across that category multiple times. But that is the single best way. Because what happens is people are walking, they’re in their car, they’re running, they’re doing the dishes, they’re listening to the episode. They if you give them a code or a landing page to go to, they may or may not go to that, because they’re not able to at the moment, but they will remember you in the brand name. And then they go to Google later. And they type in you in the brand name. So in your attribution, it will show up as organic search, or direct. And so then like, this leads some companies to say, oh, man, organic is working like crazy direct is working like crazy. Let’s double down on SEO. But really, these people are coming from podcasting. So the only way to know that is by asking them either directly in the sales process or through like the signup process.

Adam Vazquez 25:52
Really good tip there. I feel like that’s a very practical thing a lot of people probably miss. Just switching gears a little bit, what do you enjoy listening to you when you’re doing the dishes when you’re out at wall paint? I feel like so many of us spend so much time thinking about this stuff that if you’re like me, I go through pretty drastic phases. Like I’m listening to a ton or I’m listening to nothing. Is there anything that you’ve got that’s been good for you?

Erik Jacobson 26:17
Yeah, I don’t know if you can see this, but I use pocket cat. I’ve got so many podcasts. I’ve got like 100 in here, but I bounce around. I’m not listening to like every single one. Yeah, so I’ve got two modes of listening. I have one where I find somebody I want to learn as much as I can from in some topic, typically business related, and then I will go find every single interview they’ve ever done. And usually it will be on like 20 shows I’ve never heard of. And so I’ll subscribe to that show, I’ll download that episode, and then do that 20 times across all the interviews they’ve done. That’s one of my favorite things to do. And interestingly enough, that is a hack to grow your listenership? Because I think a lot of not a lot. But I do think there’s a good portion of people that have their favorite people. And they will do that. And if you after you listen to somebody give an interview 10 times when somebody is giving as a host being a good host, and asking good questions. And you can kind of stand out and possibly get them to convert to a listener to your show just by doing that.

Adam Vazquez 27:27
Yeah, that’s such a good point, just to interject there. I have a friend who is obsessed with Michael Saylor, the CEO of MicroStrategy. He has heard every episode and interview that Michael Saylor does and he will tell me constantly, hey, so and so, you should look like that. He’s a great host. Or she asked really good questions because he’s heard hundreds of Michael Saylor episodes, so he knows which people have a different version. That’s a great point.

Erik Jacobson 27:55
Exactly. I went through a base camp phase a while back and studied everything that Jason and DHH were doing. And so I would listen to all of their interviews and like some hosts would we’ll get them on and ask like, Hey, so what’s your take on like remote work? And like that’s one of their core things that they’ve answered hundreds of times. They wrote a book on it. It needs to be a more pointed question that is unique that’s never been asked is the goal at that point for you to be able to stand out so I like doing that. That’s kind of how I study a lot. But some of my other favorite shows are two types. One or three types of inspiration and ideas is one category so a show like that which I know you love as well as called My First Million just for inspiration and ideas like when I need just creative thinking and in quick succession, the one episode like that’s my go-to information like information and studying would be like a show like called state of demand gen or like literally listening to like hardcore marketing, sales, leadership trying to get trying to pick different categories that I want to get better at and finding the best shows in those categories. So stated demand gen for marketing, exit five for marketing. And then the third category is almost being able to feel like a peer category. So there are some shows that are oftentimes like co-hosts. Every week they get on and just talk about their journey building their business and so it’s typically got small listenership because it’s not meant to be like mass appeal or anything like that. They’re literally talking about minute—and I cannot stress this enough—MINUTE details about their business that like you wouldn’t have to be on their team sometimes the like, really think that yeah, it’d be interesting, but I liked that because it’s real. It’s you get to hear real founders talking about like, what’s on their mind. And the challenges they’re having and how long it takes to make things work. Like some of these shows have been around for six years now that I’ve been following. It’s like, and then you just feel like them and you’re on that journey with them while you’re on your journey. Bootstrapped Web is one of my favorites.

Adam Vazquez 30:15
Say it again, sorry.

Erik Jacobson 30:16
Bootstrapped Web.

Adam Vazquez 30:18
Alright, we’ll have to check that one out.

Erik Jacobson 30:20
Yeah, that’s, that’s one of my favorites in that category. But there are a few.

Adam Vazquez 30:23
That’s awesome. To your first one about My First Million, I am a basic fanboy, for sure. Today we released our episode, while you and I are recording this, we released our episode with the producer of that show, Ben Wilson. And so with all that Sam and Shawn retweeted some stuff and engaged and I was ashamed at how excited I got at just their engagement, but whatever. I’m human. It happens.

Erik Jacobson 30:55
They’ve taken the model that a lot of people in your in eyes profession, almost looked down upon, which is just like two people just like talking versus having a more quote unquote, high production value. And they have taken that and like, far outpaced what, what most people in I think, in our profession would say is possible. And so it was, it’s cool to highlight, I think that there’s no right way to podcast. And as long as it’s something that’s your unique advantage and reaches your goal, and My First Million prove that to me, to that point. All these models work.

Adam Vazquez 31:38
They have. And I think it’s just leaning into what you as the host because I mean, that’s what they admit all the time. They like soap operas for business stuff. And so that’s what they ended up talking about. It’s like junk food, but it feels good. And it’s funny and obviously other people like that, too. And then there’s obviously some hard-hitting, actual advice too, but yeah it’s the both and.

Erik Jacobson 32:01
Well, people forget: listeners are also there for friendship. They’re not just there for education and entertainment. You can have like the most educational a lot of these shows are very highly produced and very educational. But you don’t feel like you’re friends with the hosts necessarily. Right? And that’s what Shawn and Sam and other shows like that have captured really well. It’s like, it’s sometimes it doesn’t matter really what they’re talking about, because it’ll be interesting, but like you just want to be a part of the conversation or like be a part of what they’re learning.

Adam Vazquez 32:33
100% Yeah. So kind of to wrap us up here, just curious, what are you bullish about in podcasting? What has you excited or could even be outside of podcasting, but any trend or theme that you see coming on the horizon here that’s got you amped?

Erik Jacobson 32:50
Yeah, I have more so been even more feverishly tripled down on this thought than I have since day one, which I’ve been saying since day one, which is, all of this is just getting started. Still in 2022 is just getting started. I’m seeing it more and more and more when pod podcasts plus YouTube combo from influential people who didn’t have a means to create media, and a direct relationship with people that will listen to them. So like IAM athlete is an example. I don’t know if you’ve seen that. Exactly. And like shows like that. And so what I am excited about is, I think the primary means of media consumption, going forward is going to be “independent shows” that are niche in who they appeal to, but there are 10s of 1,000s, hundreds of 1,000s of them rather than these dozen or so traditional—

Adam Vazquez 33:57
Sports Center or whatever versus—

Erik Jacobson 34:01
Exactly. So I’m really excited about that because it’s still it because it means it’s still early days. Yeah. And I think we’re still early, I also was excited to see that Joe Rogan. I was very interested to see what happened with Joe Rogan when he went to Spotify. And if it would turn out like Howard Stern, where like, the importance of Howard Stern, in culture is almost non-existent right now. And he used to be the Joe Rogan of that time, and he went to Sirius, and that that gated content over time basically caused that what we’ve now seen after Joe’s been there for a year and a half is that he still is the number one show on earth. And so now what I am excited about is the fact that there’s this beef in our industry to like, Should these tech companies like have these gated walls and things like that, but I think a rising tide in all This lifts all the boats. And so Joe succeeding that Spotify is good for content creators because it’s a means to make money doing something that they love that’s helpful to people. And it’s getting more people into podcasting as a medium that they like to consume content on.

Adam Vazquez 35:19
Yeah, I totally agree. I think it’s good for our industry that people argue about it and it makes for good headlines. People I like seem to be on both sides of it. But at the end of the day, just the fact that we’ve been talking about podcasting is good for me and you. That’s all I really care about.

Erik, thanks so much again for coming in, joining us, spending time with us, sharing some of these thoughts. If people want to keep up with you and what you all are doing it Lemonpie and Hatch, what’s the best way for them to follow you?

Erik Jacobson 35:50
Yeah, if you want to check out Lemonpie, it’s lemonpie.fm. And then Hatch is hatch.fm. I’m real big on the .fm, as you can see. But yeah, hit me up.

Adam Vazquez 36:01
I appreciate you. I appreciate learning from you from afar and the connection that we’ve had over the years and that we’ll have to do this again. Next couple years, we’ll do another one of these episodes.

Erik Jacobson 36:10
Likewise, man. Appreciate you.

Carlton Riffel 36:12
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