Hello and welcome back to Pod News Weekly. I'm
enjoying this week by a wonderful CEO that I
met out in LA at podcast moving evolutions. She
became my evolutions buddy for the whole week.
Actually, when we found out she knew everyone
I knew, which is very strange and we'd never
met before I knew. Hello. How are you? I'm great.
Thank you, Sam. How are you? Great to see you.
Very well. Very well indeed. Good to see you
again. Now you are the CEO and founder of Chiconomy.
What is Chiconomy? Chiconomy is the world's first
and only podcast listening app that's now on
Android, iOS, KaiOS, and a new operating system
called Geo, which you've probably already heard
of with Geo7. and Pod LP, we've now entered into
the low -cost mobile market. And we just announced
that we entered into the televisions, Geo STBs
in India and on their $100 laptops, the GeoBooks,
already present on the Geo Next phones, the Android
phones, which we created during COVID. So what
type of content is on Chiconomy? What's in there?
Yes. Great question. So it's the world's first
and only podcast listening app focused on women's
content primarily. And this would be anything
from women's health to entrepreneurship, investing
leadership, technology, wellness, healing, different
kinds of meta tags, including climate women,
climate warriors, as well as topic specific language
specific. So let's say. content around spanish
it's all latina podcasters we've got bengali
hindi telugu marathi arabic so we went really
specific not just on the devices multi device
we went multilingual as well as multi -platform
correct me if i'm wrong is this india only or
is this available globally chicana me was actually
built first on ios then we built on android and
then we saw a surge of downloads, about 300 ,000
downloads in 195 countries. So we're now all
over Africa. We're on island nations. We're in
the far corners of Latin America, Asia. So at
the moment, India is the newest market for us,
the newest focus as of this past March. We announced
it on March 8th with Jio, but until then we were
global. Awesome. Now, how Do people on your platform
monetize? What's the form of monetization? So
at the moment we have listeners and we have creators
and the way it works is you can listen, learn
and earn. Anyone from anywhere can earn Sheik
tokens and these are reward tokens and the way
we built Sheikonomy was that we wanted to incentivize
people to engage. from inception. And everyone
had the same access and everyone had the same
ability once they were able to listen. And it
should be equal. At the end of the day, we thought,
you know, let's start building this on low cost
devices, get this to work. And then with more
listenership, because at the moment, let's be
honest, the democratization of podcasting hasn't
reached its full potential. because we're leaving
30 % of the world out of the equation. And so
we wanted to start by addressing that digital
divide, that audio gap, that educational gap.
Let's start there and incentivize people to listen.
The more that people listen, you've got consumer
brands that are trying to engage this population
because guess what? They're consumers too. So
at the end of the day, the monetization will
be podcasters who want to get a bigger audience,
a greater audience, reach more people with their
content. They get more downloads and ultimately
they can start charging brands more for their
ads, whether it's host read ads or a dynamic
ad insertion or whatnot. But we're flipping the
model on its head. We're saying there can be
another way to be both inclusive to get more
diversity of content and spread the wealth with
brands to the people and let's try it and see,
you know, where this goes. So at the moment,
we're testing out a membership model. We just
started. It's an annual membership of $500 for
anyone that would like to come in or a lifetime
membership of $1 ,000. We've had a community
from before that's now building, but ultimately
this is our community that supports amplifying
the voices of women that have been traditionally
marginalized, underserved or underrepresented.
Okay, let me try and understand that because
slight confusion in my head So if I was female
and I joined she economy I can buy tokens and
I can give those tokens to the content creators
and rewards For listening to their content. Is
that correct? There's no buying tokens. These
are just rewards and It's rewards like airline
points or hotel points Which can be redeemable
at a later stage for the time being since we've
been building in stealth all through COVID. This
was a kitchen table project. I would say our
primary focus was let's get the devices built.
Let's get the integrations completed. Going mobile
was very difficult from the onset. We have a
web directory as well. But the most important
thing was getting the content. And the second
part of the equation was making sure that we
have enough languages that's representative that
people can participate. So inclusivity was a
big thing. So we said for those people that want
to blast their content to the masses and not
pay Mark Zuckerberg $1 ,000 for running ads for
a couple weeks or a couple geographies. We said
there's another option. There's another alternative.
If you'd like to work with us, let's do that
and get you out to as many ears in addition to
as many eyeballs. Cool. Now When did you start
this? You said it was back in COVID, but before
you did that, you were also working on another
project, which who is fundamentally a project
to do with the state of women. You were producing
a report and you're in the fifth anniversary
report. Tell me more about that. Yeah. So the
state of women is a US 501 C3. It's a nonprofit
for the rest of the world. You'd understand this
as an NGO. And what this nonprofit does is it's
focused on amplifying the voices. marginalized,
underserved, underrepresented women and girls
using all forms digital. And we had been working
with events and conferences. And during the pandemic,
we created an event series called Amplifying
Her Voice. So we joined together podcasters,
we joined together people, women that are in
AI, women in blockchain, women focusing on leadership.
And we had all kinds of content. And we had a
Mother's Day event, a Father's Day event. We
had a International Women's Day event. We partnered
with the government of Bermuda for Women's Entrepreneurship
Day. And we had sponsors come in like Deloitte
and Butterfields Bank and Clarion Bank and Bracardi
and all different kinds of companies that came
in to amplify women's voices on different topics.
And what we did is we had about 150 podcasters,
mostly female, that formed the State of Women
Podcast Network. And we also had a collaboration
with the Podcast Academy, which you're probably
familiar with, Rob Brimi and Michelle Cobb. And
so once a month, we'd have a State of Women networking
reception, which was open to women. their members
as well as our members and they would come together
and have a virtual networking event. So really
that organization works hand -in -hand with Shikonomi
because once we build the apps We have these
low -cost phones that we can then donate to foundations
and charities and different women's groups and
organizations. So that's why that organization's
there. We also applied for a number of grants
that we won, the Islamic Development Bank, Al
-Gharan Foundation. We also worked with SDG Impact
Accelerator and also Reliance Geo. So you've
got the report, you've got the platform, you've
got the sheet economy that you're focusing around
to bring brands in. What's next? Where does this
all lead to? Well, the ultimate goal is is using
podcasting as a tool to mitigate the digital
divide. And we can do this with audio. And many
of you have already been doing this. I would
say everyone listening or reading this article
has already played your part because you're using
a medium that's accessible to, I would say, the
majority of people who can't read. And ultimately,
if we can just get this out there, even broader
to reach more people than we've accomplished
our mission. And so what we'd like to do going
forward is partner with organizations like yourself,
work with podcasters like yourselves to basically
get outstanding content to people that want to
listen, learn and earn. And if we can do that
and we can collaborate and move the needle forward
to those people who really want to engage with
your content, that haven't had access before,
then we're winning. And for those people who've
already been accessing amazing content, if you'd
like to share that with more people and get behind
this, maybe offer scholarships to young women
and girls who want to share their voice or share
scholarships to people that want to learn the
craft of podcasting, whether it's editing or
making audiograms or social media or whatnot,
then fantastic. We do this together. And we've
got the platform now that's ready, that's built
for brands to engage, for podcasters to engage,
for industry leaders to engage. I think the way
forward is together. And that's it. That's one
answer. It's the way forward is together. And
that's what we're doing. Cool. Now, where would
anyone go to find out more information then?
So please check out Chiconomy. It's on any platform.
You just have to spell it right. It's S -H -E
-Q. O -N -O -M -I website, Instagram, Facebook,
LinkedIn. We're building an active LinkedIn group.
So please do check us out. S -H -E -Q, if you
forgot one more time, O -N -O -M -I. Thank you.
Amazing. Anu, thank you so much. Thank you for
telling us all about Shikonomi. Again, if you
need to find out more about it, go to the website.
And obviously, if they wanted to contact you,
are you on LinkedIn, Twitter? You're everywhere.
I knew what was your handle. What would they
connect you with? I think the best thing right
now is to go on LinkedIn and type in the name
of the company, follow our page. I'm requesting
you, if you want to have any contact with us,
follow our page and send a message. You will
get to me. The personal LinkedIn is full. The
Facebook is full. Instagram, I'm not very active.
My team manages it for me. I would say go on
LinkedIn and type in S -H -E -Q -O -N -O -M -I
and that's how you would reach me. Thank you
so much. Thank you, Sam. It was a pleasure.