How A 20 Year Old Leveraged A Wildly Successful Podcast Into A Career

Adam Vazquez 00:06
Landon Campbell is the founder and host of the in their 20s podcast where he explores the frameworks and routines used by some of the most influential people while they were in their 20s by interviewing them directly on his show, recent episodes have featured notable guests such as Steve Wozniak and have Williams investors Jason Calacanis and David Sachs and executives like Kathy Besant, to name a few. In addition to his work on in their 20s, Landon hosts and manages the events and experiences put on by inside calm. During this conversation we discussed how content creation has vaulted his career in areas he definitely thought were impossible. His personal key to landing great guests and how it personal tragedy led Landon to where he is today. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation I really think you all will too. Let’s dive into this episode with Len Campbell have in their 20s

Adam Vazquez 01:21
Welcome back into content for closers. I’m your host Anna Vasquez alongside Carlton riffle. This is my fourth take of this intro.

Carlton Riffel 01:28
Great job and great job. I’m thoroughly impressed.

Adam Vazquez 01:31
Man what a brutal start.

Carlton Riffel 01:33
How’s the weather?

Adam Vazquez 01:34
It’s rainy. It’s you got into my head with the grammar police several episodes back on the welcome in versus Welcome back. And so we’re in trouble if I’m the grammar police tell you that I know. But it’s where we’re at. So anyway, Carlton, thank you for thank you for being here with us. I got to tell you, I don’t know I don’t know who you’re paying what you’re doing. But we’re getting a lot of positive feedback about the Carlton referral side of this duo. So

Carlton Riffel 01:59
I just created some bots, some some comment bots that are commenting there and pump my stats. Yeah,

Adam Vazquez 02:05
yeah, it’s been it’s been really, really positive actually. So if you haven’t engaged or seen some of the things that we’re doing on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube, be sure you check that out. But it’s kind of it’s kind of appropriate that we we I stumbled a little bit because our guest today is talking to people in their 20s. And he’s having conversations around mistakes people make lessons learned, and how people in their 20s currently can avoid those. So maybe this this just folds into that this is one of the things that that I could share as a lesson to

Carlton Riffel 02:36
someone. Yeah, I mean, there’s so many people that have underestimated the potential of their 20s. And I feel like there’s a few years right after college where your mindset is that you can take on the world for sure. And I love I love this interview. Because of that he dives into kind of what he’s taken on few years, just a few years after college, and then goes from there into what makes good content. You guys have some great some great discussion around that. What it looks like to book great guests and leverage that for PR purposes and some life lessons in between. I feel like this episode has the the total

Adam Vazquez 03:13
package Yeah, for sure. Before we get to the episode, though, I want to I want to make sure we stick to our stick to our game here. So what is the icebreaker that you have for us this week for before we get to Landon?

Carlton Riffel 03:25
Yeah, so Landon’s episode, we’re talking about our 20s just throwing it back a few years. If you don’t know I actually am no longer in my 20s that might surprise for some people who

Adam Vazquez 03:35
crawled out of high school and many people are just giving you compliments thinking wow, one of the advanced high schooler it’s not the case. Yeah.

Carlton Riffel 03:44
So Adam, what? What’s something an opinion, a thought or an idea that’s changed for you since when you were in your 20s? To now?

Adam Vazquez 03:52
Yeah, that’s a good question. I think probably the most obvious thing is, and this is this is not even, like, early 20s. But I’m 32. Now we Derek and I became partners when I was 27. And at even at that stage of my 20s, I definitely equated the size of something that you build with how successful it is. So coming from the consulting world, and then the advertising agency world, everything was correlated in terms of size, what’s your what’s your, you know, total addressable market? How much? How many 10s of millions of dollars in revenue are you creating? And by all those metrics, we are massive failures. I’ve had to readjust a little bit. And I think that part of that is is real life, just seeing when you have just functional

Carlton Riffel 04:42
quality over quantity. Yeah, well, it’s just different

Adam Vazquez 04:45
objectives. It’s like how much do you need in order to be able to run a business effectively? are you creating value? Are you able to do the things that you want to do with your family, all those sorts of things that I probably just didn’t even really think about in my 20s but what about you

Carlton Riffel 05:00
I guess mine’s not that profound, but it’s still, I think, a good lesson for anybody out there in their 20s. So I used to just look for like the cheapest tool to get the job done. So when it came to like, woodworking tools and go to harbor freight, and pick up the software, 100 bucks, something like that. And now I’ve, I’ve come to learn through frustration and errors, that it’s actually just worth it to pay up front for a quality tool. I feel like I’m 80 years old, telling my younger self just to spend the money on the good quality. Oh, I think she’s pretty good quality shirt, but especially for tools that are going to be used in making something. It’s a it’s always good idea to go with the best.

Adam Vazquez 05:43
Yeah, and it’s a mindset overall to once you decide you’re going to you’re going to commit to quality, it also allows you to have less things overall, a lot of times, so yeah, totally agree. Yeah, those are both good tips. And I totally agree with your assessment earlier. I think in addition to some of the life story that Landon shared, and really some tragic things that happened to him along the journey of building in their 20s. He also provided a lot of really tactical advice for people on like, how to get the caliber of guests that he gets in and he only interviews a list type guests. So I think there’s a lot packed into this very concise episode that people will be able to apply. Alright, we’ve got Landon Campbell here, the founder and creator of in their 20s, Atlanta. And first of all, thank you so much for for joining our show.

Landon Campbell 06:34
Of course, I’m so happy to be here. So Landon

Adam Vazquez 06:36
uh, you and your business partner at the time started a show called in their 20s. And I want to get a little bit into how you all did that, what the what the intention was. And then obviously there’s a bit of a sad component to to your story. And I would love to hear how that’s impacted just where you’re going and what the purpose of your effort is so far. Of course,

Landon Campbell 06:59
yeah. So again, Adam, thank you for having me, created a very popular podcast. And I just always enjoyed talking about the journey because it wasn’t always popular. It wasn’t always this big thing. So I have a long ways to go as well. But it’s been a journey to say the least. We’ve got to go back a little bit though, I’d say March 2020. Back when the world started to go haywire from the pandemic, we saw a trend, we saw a trend where a lot of our friends peers, we were all approaching college graduation, and no one had their shit figured out, including myself, my best friend Michael, and it was just a sad time not just for people in their 20s. But for everybody. I will say though that especially people in their 20s, you’re in this defining decade, you need the answers, you want the answers, you’re comparing yourself to what other people are doing. You have pressure from your family, you just again, it’s a very stressful time. So my best friend Michael and I we had our post grad jobs already lined up. So we said hey, we have this extra time between graduation and when we actually start these roles. What can we do to help people in something that Mike and I had in common? We had a lot of internships in college. I had 10 I’ve worked at places like Vimeo Yeah, I’m kind of crazy but I just really I love learning you know, I love meeting people as well. Two big things that I really enjoy. So I found identity through these internships because I was moving to a new place new nobody so I said let me just get out there and like meet people. So I’ve worked at like cameo, Motorola, the Tribune, some great places, Michael, he, he did the finance route. So he was more valuations. But he had all these amazing internships too. So we had so much advice given to us while we were in college, amazing mentors, great people we worked with, how can we scale that like for other people who maybe didn’t have so many internships, or purely just don’t have access to the best advice because something we believe since day one, in order to become successful, you need to see success. So the best way and most efficient way to do that was through a podcast, we saw trends and audio, I believe 42% of us Americans over 12 consider themselves to be monthly podcast listeners. That number is not gonna we’re not gonna see every decline there. People love podcasts because you’re able to learn, you’re able to teach grow your brand, connect with people network. So we saw the trend with podcasts there. But what we did, we added this amazing idea where How about we just interview the most influential people to share their stories of success, so not like what they’re doing today? Not so much how their stock is performing. what it’s like being a billionaire, but more of the times when they didn’t have their shit figured out. So when they were going through tough times, uncertainty, anxiety, those are the stories we share on the podcast.

Adam Vazquez 09:42
Yeah, that’s that’s I love that story. I mean, I I have a somewhat similar experience. I graduated in 2011. So not right into that recession that you probably heard about, but like I had a lot of friends who graduated to the 2008 recession and had no clue what was happening. I feel like class your peers graduate into a similar environment it didn’t, or hopefully it hasn’t ended up being as much of a economic collapses as what we saw in a way. But it’s still the uncertainty was there, especially for a lot of you who were coming into the job market for the first time, or you’re trying to figure that out. So I think one thing that’s, that’s interesting are curious. It’s like, there’s a lot of people who had the same experience, same uncertainty that you all were facing, but they didn’t necessarily see content as an opportunity or an avenue or whatever for for a change. So what what is it about your experiences or what you and Michael, were thinking about that sort of gave you that idea to say, hey, content isn’t just this thing that like we consume on YouTube or that tick talkers use, but it’s actually something that can help us improve and help others through this platform.

Landon Campbell 10:51
Of course, no, content is key. And when we look at content, we just saw it as a powerful tool for mainly distribution. But even more importantly, control. When I think of 20 somethings, when I think of even beyond that people in the 30s 40s. If you ask anyone what they want to do in life, it’s gonna be different, you know, I want to be a famous music artists kill it in the business world, I want to do XY and Z. But what we all do have in common is we’re really fighting for that control over our life. So I think that the way we use content is just as a way to build the brand, but we have control over the narrative. So that’s something like really magical about our process. And anybody that utilizes content, we’re able to build our own following our own audience. We’re working on building a community, but we have the control over the advice that people get. And that’s not something that we take for granted. But that’s something that really goes into what we’ve created. So that’s a really powerful thing that we’ve thought about since day one. And then I mentioned a distribution as well, the content we put out there, we put those golden nuggets out on our social media platforms, over episodes wherever people stream their podcasts, because we’ve built such a strong audience. Our people, like the people that tune in every single week share, they share our content with their friends, their family, their peers. So for distribution, it’s been very effective as well. But it takes a lot of work to put out a lot of content. And you have to be strategic in my kind of three roles, or thoughts with content or just the content, we put out our consistency, we want people to always understand, like, hey, this isn’t in their 20s posts, this is coming from in their 20s simplicity as well. I think that there’s so much stuff going on the internet, you want to get like three seconds before someone gets distracted. So we really try and put out just simple content and social content. But then also with the questions we asked, yes, we’re asking in depth questions, but they’re questions that anybody can understand, and really learn something from the show. And last thing that’s really probably one of the most important thing is shareability. tied into that distribution. We put out content that people want to share that they are so proud that they’re a part of our audience, and they learned something, and they want to share with their audience. So let’s talk about some tips and tricks that we’ve learned with content, we still have a long ways to go again, improving our content, making it better, making it even more shareable, more consistent, and more simple. But I feel like we’re really on a good path because we acknowledge what needs to be done with that.

Adam Vazquez 13:14
Yeah, that’s good. So okay, let’s recap that. So it was it was consistency, simplicity, and shareability. Are those the three? Yeah, I think that’s great. We just had on a depending on when this gets published, either just head on or about to have on Rachael Braun, who is the producer of Jason Calacanis his podcast who I know you had on right, as well, Jason Yeah. And she talks quite a bit about that, that the idea that you can be as creative as you want. But when it comes to content, when it comes to this, this industry, it’s really less about creativity, as it is consistency, at least in her experience. I totally agree. I think that resonates with what you’re talking about. And especially when you’re talking to like, what I love about what what you all have built is so often, I think business owners especially can get caught in this cycle of trying to transact too quickly when it comes to content creation, as opposed to just creating for the audience’s needs. And what you have done so effectively is you are the audience, right? So you know, what those needs are, you know, what those likes and dislikes are, and have been able to do it from the bottom up, as opposed to trying to talk down or push some messaging on onto a specific community. I love that thing. It’s a beautiful approach to building a brand.

Landon Campbell 14:29
Thank you. And I just just to add to that, too, I just read this awesome tweet a few days ago, I get a lot of inspiration from Twitter. And you know, it was talking about what a listener of a podcast should be feeling when they’re listening to your episode. And what three things is this episode useful to me? Do I find this episode engaging? When can I take actionable steps from these insights to put towards my own business, my own creation, and I think again, that’s really powerful because you hit on the dots here, like I’m a listener, or I’m an audience member for all of my episodes. I kind of get it first before we release it. So I’ve been on advice overload. So it’s really easy for me to say like, I nailed those three things every single time, I listen to one of our episodes. And that just really makes me happy. Because I know our audience also, as listeners can relate to those three things as well.

Adam Vazquez 15:16
Yeah. So I know part of your story. And in reading a little bit, just in preparation for this conversation is that unfortunately, Michael passed away, is that correct? Over the last year or so? And so you’ve talked a little bit about how part of why you’ve continued this is to extend what he wanted to do and his legacy. And I don’t want to be overly morose or or put on a very difficult time, I’m sure for you. But I would just be curious, how is that motivated you to continue on? What you all started together?

Landon Campbell 15:46
Of course, no, thank you for being respectful about that. I talked about my relationship with Michael a lot. I mean, he is in their 20s. So always open to discuss this. Before we started the podcast, we were roommates. We lived together for two years, in a dirty six bedroom apartment next to her college, linkin park location. Before that we were best friends. We met each other freshman year, I was new to Chicago from the Bay Area. He’s from a suburb near Chicago. But we just really, really clicked early and knew we wanted to start something together. And we tried multiple times, I’d say like two to three different business ideas that were just utter garbage. And one of them was pretty cool as a documentary series of Chicago designers, which we had to delay because of the pandemic. So that kind of helped us you take skills from there and put towards the podcast. But yeah, so I mentioned best friend, roommate, and then co host. So he was he was a lot for me. And he did pass away on April 20 of this year. very unexpected, short, short battle with brain cancer. Yeah, six months younger than me, there’s a lot there that I still need to figure out mentally, I just, I really used a lot of this year, just spending time with friends family, because life is so fragile. And just it’s so crazy. Like, you really don’t have a whole lot of words. I’m just like what happened. But But we started this together. And he again will always be in their 20s. And I was just so fortunate to have like such a smart analytical person to begin with, we were very different hosts as well, which just made the dynamic, very powerful. But I finally remember, like, we’d still have our calls while he was in the hospital that updates with the show like this is who was coming on this week. This is what we’re getting on next week, we did pass and we did begin to organize a fundraiser as well, on behalf of him, his family, preserving his legacy, we were able to raise over $20,000, you know, in a few weeks. I mean, it’s just, and that’s something I wish that he was able to understand, I don’t think he really understood the impact that we were having, because we were just grinding for a lot on this. Like during that period, he just don’t listen to the criticism unless it’s you want to, you know what I mean by that, but I just you don’t listen to a lot of what the audience is saying, hey, like, I love this, or my wife was changed by this. But so many people came out after just a difficult time and said, Hey, like I watched this interview with so and so. And they quote, like a specific moment, an interview that I don’t even remember. And they say, hey, like hearing this moment motivated me to move across the country or start a new job or a pivot in my career. So I just wish he was able to see that because he really had a strong impact not just in Chicago, but on a global level. As far as our podcast is reached.

Adam Vazquez 18:25
Yeah, it’s beautiful. And I’m sorry for your loss. I really can’t imagine being in that situation. And especially just the ups and downs of you, you built this thing the other it’s starting to get success, you you lose him. And now you’re sort of at a crossroads of like, do I continue it? Do I change it? So I guess objectively, what is it that you hope to get out of in their 20s? Is this is this your business? And you’ve talked about carrying on Michael’s legacy? But is it something that you hope to, to continue as a as a as an organization in that way? Or how do you how do you see that moving forward?

Landon Campbell 18:59
Yeah, so since day one, the focus has been helping 20 somethings to be the best versions of themselves have access to the best advice and how we’ve done that has evolved over we started as a web series, which shortly transitioned to a podcast, and we have an internship as well. We take in students from across the world and help them break into podcasting because, you know, very cool, they believe in audio and podcasting, I want the students to have their names attached to something, have skills and creating a podcast because it’s something companies are going to be headhunting for. I know you totally agree with that. Yeah, we teach them everything from professional outreach. Like Yeah, how are we connected with all these people? Like we get them to see us they’re like content creation, and establishing partnerships, and ultimately creating their own series. So so

Adam Vazquez 19:43
it’s not all through in their 20s or

Landon Campbell 19:46
it’s a partnership that we have with a Chicago based company, helps provide the students but it’s in their 20s branded internship. But yeah, to answer your question, like it’s just nice because I think the sky’s the limit. We’re just Don’t like focus on that idea of helping 20 somethings and we have an internship now. I really want to continue to build out the audience I want that to turn into a community I feel like there’s opportunity there for 20 somethings to collaborate with each other. So we can help each other grow and work together long term. I mean, I think a fund isn’t the picture I think I saw accelerator incubator or some type of product that helps 20 somethings Of course, we’re not there yet. Really focus on the day to day right now. And the idea of focus has also been a really important factor as well like not rushing it staying focused focus on solving a small problem for a small group of people just taking that day by day Yeah, but I think the sky’s the limit

Adam Vazquez 20:41
Yeah, I mean you’re thinking about exactly the right way and and and even the idea of going to that smallest you know, component that minimum viable, viable person. And what is it that we can provide for them and then scaling out from there you you brought up and I have to ask you about this because it’s insane engaged with or seen in their 20s yet Landon’s show, just go through before even listen, just go through and check out the guest list. It’s It’s wild. It’s crazy. The people that you’ve had on and from Steve was niak to the Twitter F. Williams do I mean, like, every baby name, every one of them is a big name Jason Calacanis, who we mentioned earlier, how did you all like get these people? How did you go about? Yeah, reaching out? Or like, how did that happen?

Landon Campbell 21:26
Yeah, that’s a great question. Um, so we started small, but I want to be very particular, in how to find small because every single person we’ve had on has been influential to me, maybe not known on a global level, sure, they will be influential. The first person I had on was a college professor of mine. Our third guest was a college professor of Michael’s, we had a former boss, and we just kind of build and build from there. I mean, as you grow more successful, people come on, word of mouth has been really helpful, successful people as successful friends that they want to tell about the podcast, they understand the vision of what we’re trying to build here. So they’re willing to recommend, but something that I really urge podcasters to do is roll out the red carpet for every single guest. And I mean, this, candidly, it doesn’t matter if you are Jay Cal, or Steve was or one of my professors. We’ve treated everybody with that utmost respect. And we’ve really dug into their story, taking time to have a wonderful conversation with him as for marketing the interview, as well, making sure that they’re represented in the best way, because this is good for their audiences as well. This is a story that they don’t really touch on. A lot of people want to know how Steve’s doing today, or like what he was doing today, or what Oprah is doing today. But we don’t always hear about the 20. So I think it’s a unique story that people enjoy coming on, because they don’t talk about it all the time. But their fans, our audience, the world of like, people enjoy these stories, because they don’t hear them all the time. But I will say, so important to just roll out that red carpet doesn’t matter who you have on. And I mean that like in the most respectful way, it doesn’t matter, you have mine, everybody should be treated, how you want them to be treated, or how they want to be treated.

Adam Vazquez 23:06
Yeah, no, I totally agree. I think and I mentioned this to you before we started recording, but our first show our first foray into podcasting four and a half years ago now, which is crazy and makes me feel old because you were probably like in high school when I when I we were doing we had a very similar experience. Being able to I think it’s a couple of things. It’s the confidence that you have to be able to say, Hey, hey, Professor, like, This show is worth your time. Because even a professor when you’re first starting as a student, that’s not an easy ask. And then obviously it progresses from there and treating other people consistently again, and the way that you want to be treated is great advice on tactical, like, Did you find more success on Twitter DMS versus email or anything like that? Or is it just kind of like it worked out differently for each guest? That’s a great question.

Landon Campbell 23:55
I’d say that you can send out hundreds of the same email. A few are gonna bite the take the bait and, you know, join on but what we do and sometimes it’s not as productive because it takes more time. But I am a big believer and understand that everybody has a different persona online persona. Some people it’s clear that they’re on their email constantly, because they’re talking about how they’re on the email constantly on Twitter, or some people you know, are open about they don’t use their email. Some people like on Instagram a lot. Some people are on LinkedIn a lot, and it takes some digging to understand that and that’s something that I learned with cameo because I interned with cameo back when they were a small company on the talent acquisition side. For those that don’t know what cameo is cameo is a company it’s a marketplace that connects celebrities with their biggest fans or personalized video shout outs and on day one, the all the celebrities and know what cameo was. So they weren’t just like flocking on a strategy. You know, it took persistence, patience and unconventional methods of reaching out as well. So I just realized two things that everybody has a different online persona and you kind of got to figure that out before reaching out to People in B, there’s a lot of podcasts reaching out to these people, but not just podcasts. There’s a lot of founders trying to these people ideas. There’s a lot of I mean, they just have a lot of inbound, email, DMS, whatever it might be. So you got to look for unconventional methods. And we don’t tell all the secrets how we get people on, but I just think you got it, you got to think out the box, you have to think out the box and also be in their shoes. If I was Jason Calacanis, who is one of the most prolific angel investors like in the world, how would I want to be reached out to though that’s something that we really are intentional about something that we teach our interns and something that maybe we’ll share the lessons to in the future, but it’s it’s really done as right because we’ve been able to get some amazing people on and also can’t undermine luck is like a big piece of it. Yeah. With any like, beyond podcast, like any founder that gets fined, more massive success. I’ll tell you first off that luck is a huge component of that. And we’ve been lucky that O’Rourke to come on while he was running for president against Biden, we got Mike F. Williams, as you mentioned, Jason Calacanis, who’s as busy as he is, was able to come on David Sachs is gonna be coming on soon. Like a great one. We’ve had some great people in some random people that you might even not never think about. We have the one of the cofounders of Photoshop coming on soon, who I’m very excited to hear his story. And it’s just again, you got to know their persona. How do they want to be reached out in search for those unconventional methods?

Adam Vazquez 26:29
Yeah, yeah, I think that’s great advice. And when when someone’s listening to this, sometimes we always try to get super practical, that was very, very practical advice. But what Landon is saying is essentially, go take the extra steps to to be different to create something that’s actually beneficial to the to the guests, and immerse them in a way that is unique to them. I’ll give a quick when we were taught pitching Torrey Smith, who’s a wide receiver for the for the Ravens, and most importantly, for the Eagles. There was lots of people pitching him for his podcast business, but we took the time to make a very short, quick brand video essentially on my phone talking about why we were a better fit. And you know, why we care how much we knew about him as a person. And then I dm that to him, I emailed that to him. And that’s the sort of tactical steps where you can differentiate doesn’t have to be like a secret sauce or whatever it just, it just has to be that effort that you’re taking. That’s exactly what you’re

Landon Campbell 27:25
wonderful for. Yeah, no, I love that. And that’s that’s it. You mentioned being simple and simple, like very important as well. But yeah, just look for unique ways to stand out. But I love your example, because you’re able to, like show the value in a way that I doubt anybody else probably touching him was, you know, just short, simple. A, if you’re on the move, just watch this video, right? This shows how much we know about you and what we want to do for you. Like that’s an example of what we do as well. So Right,

Adam Vazquez 27:51
right. So cool. I would say the other really over index, part of success that you’ve had with the show is obviously your guest list is immaculate, and then earned media, you’ve been able to generate a massive amount of earned media especially for a show which I know it feels like it’s been happening around our existing for a while now. But in reality, you’re what a year old? Or maybe a little little over

Landon Campbell 28:13
a year. Yeah, not agree.

Adam Vazquez 28:15
Yeah. So I mean, over the long term of things like we’re at the first inning, right, so you’ve been able to generate a massive amount of attend, which is great in such a short amount of time any tips or tricks for for marketers, and business owners who are looking to get some of that type, of course, attention as well?

Landon Campbell 28:31
No, that was all intentional. Since day one, as well. We kind of had like three things we wanted to focus on like before launching, recruiting amazing guests, creating powerful content, and then also getting some press and like those were like our day one, I wouldn’t say principles, but goals, objectives that we really wanted, I’d say objectives actually. And then we had some key results breaking down how we were going to get there. But the purpose of that was I kind of relate it to the music industry. And you have an artists like Drake, who is so powerful, and everybody knows Drake and pretty much any song that he’s attached to, from like a new artist, that artist is going to pop up and be really known. We’ve seen it with Migos. We’ve seen it with a little bit every artist pretty much like he touches a song. It’s called Yeah, so it’s the power of the cosign. That’s really what it is. If you have other people talking about yourself, powerful people, big people like that’s going to help you. That’s really going to help build notoriety. We’re fortunate because we speak with amazing people. And a lot of these amazing people are able to share what we’re doing. That’s step one. But step two, we want it to get pressed, we want it to get pressed because we thought we had such a unique mission in brand that we were building as well, that was just short and like could be stated and could like really motivate people to listen and stream our content. So before we launched in June of 2020, from March to June, when we had that few month window, we were stacking up interviews. We were creating content before we went public, but another big thing we were really trying to just understand the mission. We didn’t just want to be Another podcast interview people, you want to get very specific. This is a podcast interviews, influential people to talk about their 20s. I mean, I think anybody can do that. You just need to be specific, you need to know like who you are. Because if you don’t know what your brand is, if you don’t know your values, if you don’t know your mission, then how are you going to expect other people to understand what the hell you’re trying to do? So that was really important. And right when we took off, you know, we would write blog posts on certain interviews, use our media contacts, I was a public relations major in college. So like, I’ve really understood the power like of brand and communication, we’d use those contacts at DePaul, we started small, hey, wait, this is a student run podcast, let’s get some press in there. And with that piece of press material, we were able to flip that to the next one, be able to show others etc, etc. So that’s kind of like how we began with press. And what was more unexpected was the obvious passing of my co host. And with that had a lot of people reaching out and just wanting to learn more about our story. And I was appreciative of like the support and wanted to do everything I could to make sure that my friend’s name was in the paper forever. Part of the internet, people can always just type in Michael Holmes, like even today, you can just type in Michael Holmes on Google. And you can see all this amazing stuff, not just us. But these great articles that really, really cool who he was as an individual. So that was really important to me, too. But yeah, I’d say just mainly, you got to understand the brand, you got to understand what you’re doing, and really compel that or make sure that it’s known to media.

Adam Vazquez 31:35
Yeah, I think I think a lot of times it what you said about one leading to the next is so important, right? Especially when you get to traditional media. For whatever reason, I’m not right or wrong or indifferent. It’s difficult for reporters a lot of times to about a new subject, or about a new topic or a new individual. And so getting past that first barrier to entry and getting some reporter even if it’s like us at a student newspaper, or your local, whatever, for a publication, being able to get something and set 10 then being able to show that as a proof of Listen, we’re worthy of coverage because x talked about talk to us about this and we just being able to show that is so important, so powerful, and then having you have to have something great behind it something worthy of coverage, which you all obviously, obviously did have. So yeah, kudos to you. I love what you all are building. I’m really appreciative of you spending your time and coming on our show. Before I let you go I wanted to ask you, how are you now? You’re what? 2223 23? Alright, so really, I mean, basically mid 20s. Soon you’re gonna be 30 it’s it’s it goes, it’s, it’s insane. So as a 23 year old now, what would you I have to ask you, I mean, this is like your stick, like, what would you advise a 20 year old who’s listening to this, or maybe even a 19 year old if you want to back it up and era who is doing going through a similar process to you is maybe for three or four years behind you. But this is looking to understand how they can get involved in the in the content world? What would your advice be to them as they’re trying to build out their careers?

Landon Campbell 33:06
Yeah, well, there’s a lot there. So thank you for watching, because I’m not I’m not often on the other side. So yeah, let me share some of my best advice. So we’ll start with before getting to the content side of it, because I have a lot there, too. I just want to share this one thing. It’s something that I spoke about with recent guests I had on Dr. Meg j, she wrote a very popular book called the defining decade, which actually like talks about the 20. So it was a guest that we had like wanted, since day one just got a chance to interview her. And that’s coming soon. But very cool, you brought up this great point that I really related heavily to. And because she’s a clinical psychologist, she works with a lot of 20 somethings. And she always has these 20 somethings coming to her saying I’m going through an identity crisis, like I don’t know what the hell I want to do right now. And I’m stressing out and there’s so much pressure from this or that I’m comparing myself to this person. She said people should not be having identity crises in their 20s. Instead, they should be picking up something called identity, capital, identity capital is picking up different skills, trying new things, taking a new job, it doesn’t have to be for something that you’re passionate about, it doesn’t have to be for something that you maybe want to do in 510 years, it’s capital in the sense where you just can have ADD skills, you know, to your backpack of skills, try new things, see what you like, but more importantly, see what you don’t like. And that’s only going to help you guide and understand what you want to do in the future. And I related to that, because I did it. I had 10 internships, as I mentioned in college, not just in public relations. I was interning at ad tech companies finance, just regular business, marketing, PR, etc. At startups, fortune five hundreds. I just was trying to like really understand what I wanted. What I didn’t want, so just pick up new things. So that’s something I would give to my younger self, something I give to any person in their early 20s or even their late teens just go into life trying new things. You don’t To get paid, I took so much free work gladly. And I’m not like saying unpaid internships like are amazing not to do that. But like, I mean, hey, I think you just kind of focus on the work and you don’t need to rush and compare yourself so soon for sure. So that’s a B as for content, I’m online, I share like everything that I’m doing on a personal level, but like will not always personal the business mainly. So if I have like a chat with someone that I was very impactful to my life, like I’m tweeting about it, I five an interview coming soon, like I’m posting a story about it, I really just content fluid for what I’m doing. Because the your personal branch is so important. Yeah, that’s gonna follow you wherever you go. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing right now, it might be completely different from what you’re doing in five years, you might be at a new company get fired. The thing that’s going to remain though, is your reputation and your personal brand. So I’m my own SEO in that aspect of my life as well. And I think anybody can do that. You don’t need to obviously post as much as I do. But you need to build your brand become known for something like be the person that people want to go to, for audio for sports, for gambling, I don’t care what it is, I just make sure people understand that you are that you have that knowledge, but you are that point person for that. And from that, I’ve been able to be headhunted and a lot of people reached out to me for collaboration opportunities, etc. Because they understand this knowledge I have, obviously I’m not the smartest person with podcasting and audio, but I really am just constantly talking about it. So I’ve always happy to help people launch their own podcasts. Just a quick conversation, my thoughts, my advice, I don’t have all the answers again, but I’m just able to provide my input based off of my experiences. So I think, again, like your personal brand is super important. And that’s why I love podcasting. I think podcasting is a great way to do a lot of things to network, to have amazing conversations with cool people. But one of the most important things, it’s a great way to build your personal brand. And people get to hear what’s going on in here. Whenever I’m on a show or wherever I’m hosting my show, I get to hear my voice, that’s something you can always do really through just a post, I mean, it’s nice to be able to have that 30 to an hour window of someone’s undivided attention. So they can really understand your opinions or thoughts or whatever it

Adam Vazquez 37:22
might be such an intimate medium. And I think a lot of people that turn some people off to it as as they like to have a little bit more control. But the consistency factor you’re talking about and the relational capital you can build. I mean, your proof of that is really second to none in my opinion. Obviously I’m biased, but I think you know, I agree. I agree, though. Yeah, totally. Cool lane. And this has been awesome. Thank you so much for sharing your story and your experience and even just the little tactical things on how you’ve grown if people want to keep up with the show or with you and what you’re doing Where should Where should we send them obviously we’ll have all that linked as well on the

Landon Campbell 38:00
show of course ya know, again, Adam, thank you so much though, for like having me It’s such a good time. If people are interested in reaching out or connecting with me, there’s a few ways you could do that. My personal Instagram is Landon Landon Landon, my name three times. short, sweet and simple. I’m black Jew dude on Twitter. And of course in their 20s is everywhere just at in their 20s in their 20s calm in their 20s on Instagram, LinkedIn, Spotify, apple, wherever you want your podcasts, wherever you want your content. We’re there.

Adam Vazquez 38:30
Awesome. We’ll send everyone there and appreciate you coming on.

Landon Campbell 38:34
Awesome. Adam, thank you so much.

Carlton Riffel 38:37
I love what he has done, where he’s taking a lot of a broad category approach. But he’s focusing in a niche by getting people to talk about a very small part of their life. Right. So it’s one of those things where I think topically, they could go everywhere, they can have all sorts of interesting conversations, but he has a part of it that gives you know that gives it the niche that narrows it down into a very specific time that everyone is going through or has gone through. So it’s just a super good application of finding something that’s applicable to a lot of people and it’s very broad even though at the same time he’s he’s found a way to really make it pointed and narrowed in Yeah, it was your top takeaway. Well, just

Adam Vazquez 39:18
to layer on top of that, it’s kind of risky, right? Like, especially at the beginning. I mean, he’s only a year and a half into this or something like that. But that’s a pretty audacious thing like hey, we’re just gonna we’re just going to interview the most famous tech entrepreneurs and investors and have them give us wisdom about their 20s Well, that’s great until you can’t get that first big name to come on and do that for you. So there’s definitely some risk to it and I think the way that they pursued it and the way that they kind of stage whatever want to call it strict or disciplined in we’re only going to have this type of show we’re only going to pursue this type of niche is why they’ve been so successful and the show continues to thrive. So yeah, totally, totally agree with you. Land approach to both creating his his own show. And now since we’ve recorded this, he has announced he’s taking a job with This Week in Startups, Jason Calacanis, and is working with several of their content channels. I think he’s just very authentic in a way that allows him to probably get access to things that maybe he hasn’t earned in the sense, like, earned on putting in quotes by his age, or by his experience or those types of things, because, and he talked about this, but we talked offline a little bit about things like how are you getting some of these guests and he’s doing the extra work of recording himself in videos and sliding into people’s DMS and giving them like an explanation of his story and he and how he and his partner started the show. Using some of the earned media that they’ve generated over the years as a way to be a dragnet for potential guests, all these different things were like, a lot of times, I think people would probably try to fake it or be like, hey, we’ve got this big show. And you should join for XYZ reasons. Landon’s not done none of that he’s just gone the full authentic route, and it’s really served him well.

Carlton Riffel 41:07
So Adam, we’ve got this running segment for Have you heard, aka free shout outs. Yes. AKA free shout outs, free

Adam Vazquez 41:14
shout outs all the above. Yeah.

Carlton Riffel 41:18
So what’s something that you’ve heard recently, or lately that you’d want to share? Yeah, so

Adam Vazquez 41:23
I shared this in a recent issue of our fresh Friday finds email which by the way, if you’re not subscribed to that, each Friday, we send out three ideas on how you can make more money through your content and an email you can go to get her dot substack comm look about plug Carlson Do you like that?

Carlton Riffel 41:40
Let me let me give another plug. Okay. Adam has been giving away something. If you read the Nevada,

Adam Vazquez 41:50
that very few people have paid attention to that, but Carlton has Yeah. So that that in a couple weeks ago, I mentioned a guy named Florian pop, and he’s doing something really interesting. He is a developer by trade, who is transitioning from his job in development, his career as a developer, and only going to make income now through content creation, which is just a super interesting and risky thing to do. He’s developers are paid very well. He’s very good as a developer, so he’s paid very well, and is trying to not only replace that income, but he’s documenting his journey to a million dollars in revenue, and try to do that. Yeah, and he’s trying to do this over over the course of a year. So it’s in the show notes below, but just check it out in his or in his September report, he generated $7,388, which is great. I think if you you know, total that out. It’s around like $80,000 on the year. So definitely has some work to do. But it’s just a very fascinating thing to watch someone make that transition.

Carlton Riffel 42:49
Yeah, that’s cool. What What is his model? Is he just monetizing with ads? or What is he doing on it? Yeah, he

Adam Vazquez 42:56
breaks all of that down. I would encourage people to look at it, but he’s doing things like selling courses. So he’s teaching what he knows as a developer. He’s got an E book that has brought in a few dollars, he just had to get scrappy to some degree. So he’s doing a lot of different things, but he’s streaming on Twitch and gets like I think he had like 80 bucks this month from from sponsors on Twitch so it’s all kind of cobbled together he has some sponsored videos like that, but it’s he’s not a known entity that’s just like going from being a celebrity over here to being a celebrity over here and that’s what we see a lot of times this is kind of a normal more normal person who’s building an audience and and monetizing it as he goes.

Carlton Riffel 43:35
Cool. So my Have you heard is the channel I guess that’s the best way to say it, or the creator of recess therapy. So it’s just Instagram or tik tok? I think he does both because YouTube now as well. And what he does is he just interviews kids, I think it’s in New York City. And just gets some amazing responses. I think he gives them like ice cream so they’re like eating ice cream while they talk to him. And just the the amazing wisdom that kids have is pretty funny. So So is it

Adam Vazquez 44:05
like a Cubans in New York thing? is he asking them about Yeah, okay.

Carlton Riffel 44:08
He just asked him about like, like, what’s the meaning of life or Wow, ask them just like fun questions to you. Like, what’s your favorite animal? And why is it their favorite animal? sometimes ask them like about like, where animals go when they die. So it’s it’s a great, great channel. I love when I see videos pop up from him as always enjoyable.

Adam Vazquez 44:26
I think recess is probably the thing I miss most about being a kid. So yeah,

Carlton Riffel 44:31
I mean, that’s just talking about from in your 20s that’s what we should do. We should just bring back recess for all for all people above 20.

Adam Vazquez 44:41
I like it. Well listen, if you are into recess, or more importantly into making money through your content, hopefully you enjoyed this episode. Big shout out to Landon. We appreciate you joining the show. If you if you haven’t, be sure to go over and subscribe, rate review all those things and we’ll be back next week.