My name is Ed Ryan, content editor of the Podcast Business Journal.
And this is the Podcast Business Journal Report, episode number one.
We're a publication about podcasting, so it wouldn't make much sense if we didn't also have our own podcast.
Our goal with the show, the Podcast Business Journal Report, is to interview successful podcasters and dig the information out of them so they can help you.
How do they launch? How do they avoid pod feeding? How do they grow their audience? And how are they making money?
Today our guest is Jonathan Strickland. Jonathan is the host of two podcasts, How Tech Works and his brand new podcast, which is called The Brink.
Jonathan has been a professional podcaster since way back in 2008.
He's been a writer and a researcher for more than a decade, working for How Stuff Works, which is now owned by I Heart Media.
In our interview, Jonathan not only discusses why he got into podcasting,
but he gives great advice to new podcasters and details to three things he believes the industry needs to improve upon to really take off.
Here's our interview with podcaster, writer, researcher and actor, Jonathan Strickland.
How did you get involved in podcasting? Give us the history.
Well, back in 2008, I was one of a few staff writers at HowStuffWorks.com,
and we were endeavoring to explain the universe one article at a time.
And our head of content, Connell Byrne, who's now the head of podcasting at I Heart Media,
thought maybe we should get into this thing he had heard about called podcasting.
And so he instructed a few different groups to develop podcasts.
And out of that came Stuff You Should Know, Stuff You Missed in History Class, and my show, Tech Stuff.
Originally, this was meant as sort of a brand extension of the website,
and it was sort of an effort to reach new audiences and also drive traffic back to the website.
It would not be for several years down the road before it would become its own sort of revenue generating business.
Got it. So that's quite a few years ago. You were one of the early ones.
Yeah, I'm an OG HowStuffWorks podcaster. And all the ones who started, we were all either writers or editors for the website.
So we all brought the discipline of research and writing to our podcasting.
So if you listen to any of those shows that I mentioned, you're going to hear the work of the actual people on those shows.
We do our own research and our own writing for all of the shows that we do.
And it's sort of been ingrained in us as writers for the website. So that's it's a very personal thing as well.
One of the things I'm most thankful for is that we were always given almost complete freedom to to do our shows the way we wanted to do our shows.
So they are also very personal podcasts in that regard.
Now, back in those days, the earlier days of podcasting, it wasn't as hot as it is right now.
So how did you get the word out? And how were those first few podcasts that you put out?
So there are there are certainly lost episodes of tech stuff that will never be published that were early sort of pilot test episodes.
But the early ones were very short. In fact, originally we were given a time limit of I think the first it might have been 10 minutes, but that ended up just being far too short.
And then that time limit went up to 15 minutes. And then eventually they said, go as long as you need to go to handle whatever the subject matter is.
And that was us discovering the podcasts are sort of their own thing, that they they don't need to adhere to a specific time limit.
They don't have to be 22 minutes like a television show or anything like that.
And in order to get the word out, we were very much reliant upon iTunes. That was I mean, we call them podcasts because we associate it with the Apple iPod,
which no one even really thinks of anymore. But that back then, if you wanted to get a podcast, typically you were downloading a file to a computer and then transferring that over to an MP3 player like an iPod.
It was before the days of the iPod touch and the iPhone where you were downloading directly over Wi Fi to your listening device.
So getting the word out was largely dependent upon getting ranking well in iTunes and sometimes reaching out to other podcasters.
For some of us, I happen to be friends with a lot of technology podcasters and as a rule, podcasters tend to be very generous with their time and their enthusiasm and promoting other shows.
Even if it's not a show on their network, it's something that I've always found very interesting about our community.
And we relied a lot on word of mouth as well. This was before we had really invested a lot in the social media side.
So there wasn't a ton of effort on things like Facebook or Twitter. I ended up promoting my show a lot through my own personal feeds.
But we didn't. We had no really well formed strategy. It was more of a grand experiment in those early days. And it's a miracle that we were able to make more right choices than wrong choices.
Now, at what point, when and how do you feel this evolved? And, you know, people really started to listen and it seemed like this wasn't just going to be a fad.
We knew with stuff you should know pretty quickly because Josh and Chuck are phenomenal at their jobs. They have amazing chemistry.
They pick great subject matter. And the show had a perfect title. It really was a great way to describe just the content.
Like this isn't about any one particular subject. It is stuff you really should know. And that helped a lot. And that was sort of the rising tide that lifted all the ships.
And so that, I think we saw success very early on within that first year. I would say we saw that success for me.
It was really when I started getting a lot of listeners reaching out to me, which was difficult at first because we didn't have dedicated email.
We didn't really have anything for people to say, I have a question or I have a request.
And so it was easy to forget that people were listening to what we were recording.
You know, you'd sit down in a studio and you would speak into a microphone and it would go out onto the RSS feed.
And from your perspective, that was it. It was time for you to focus on the next thing.
And it was easy to forget that people were listening to it. Once we opened up those avenues and listeners could reach back to us,
we really started to become aware of the impact we were having. And keep in mind that for the first several years of podcasting with this company,
we were not monetizing those podcasts at all. So while we were using this as a means of kind of extending the brand,
we weren't generating revenue with our shows. So we weren't super laser focused on paying attention to subscriber numbers.
And when we did start doing that, we started to realize, wow, we were really onto something. People really like this.
So how and when do things turn the corner on the revenue side?
That would probably be, oh gosh, I would say about four or five years ago in earnest.
I mean, some of our shows of our bigger shows like Stuff You Should Know, Stuff You Missed in History Class, Stuff Mom Never Told You,
tech stuff as well, they started getting interest from potential sponsors and advertisers probably around 2012 or so,
maybe a few a little earlier than that. And then over the last few years, it's become much more of an integrated component of our shows
to the point now where we have shows when we have them on a slate before they've launched.
And we're already getting incredible interest because we have a really strong track record as far as our shows performance goes.
And we have a very good reputation for show quality as well, which is something we all take very, very seriously.
So I'd say around 2012 was really when we started to see it kind of creep in.
And that's when you start seeing your typical podcast sponsors, things like Casper mattress, Blue Apron,
the ones where if you listen to a lot of podcasts, you hear these are the brands that recognize the value of that form of media.
These days, we're starting to get some not just those, which we still love.
I mean, we still love all of those companies, but we're getting some some really big names.
For example, my show tech stuff had a three month long sponsorship deal with IBM.
And that's that's certainly when I was approached and asked if I would be happy about that, I thought, well, that's that's that's hitting.
That's hitting a grand slam home run. Sure. Sure. Amazing.
So, Jonathan, why do you like to be a podcaster?
Honestly, I love learning about things.
And then I love sharing my enthusiasm of learning with other people and talking about what I have learned.
Sometimes it means that I get to hear other stuff that I had not yet learned about those subjects from my listeners.
That's always exciting. But frequently, it's my listeners write in and say, I had no idea.
And you explained it in a way that made real sense to me.
I get an enormous sense of satisfaction out of that.
And it's why I took the job being a writer for How Stuff Works in the first place is that I love this process of discovering something that's new to me,
taking the time to really understand it and then formulating the right way to communicate that with an audience so that they too can understand it.
And then we all share in this enthusiasm. And and that's something that drives me.
My show goes I have a new episode going out four times a week and one classic episode on Fridays.
So if I didn't have that love, I would very quickly not want to do this anymore.
So four times a week and the fifth one kind of like a repeat. That's a lot of research.
Are you doing all that research yourself?
I am. Typically, every hour of audio you hear represents about eight hours of research and writing.
And my episodes tend to be in the 45 minute range. So some go a little longer, a few go a little shorter.
I am a verbose person. So frequently my episodes go long.
But about eight hours per hour of audio is is a good metric, I would say.
And so most of my week is spent researching and writing. Very little of it is spent recording.
That's the that's the easiest part of my job. But I also find it very rewarding to go through this process.
So it's it's exciting.
Do you have somebody that edits it after you're done or does it not need editing or how does that work when you're finished with an episode?
Well, in the office, I do have the nickname One Takes Strickland, but that is largely tongue in cheek.
I have a producer named Tari, T-A-R-I, and she is not just my producer.
She's also my editor and my publisher. So we'll record an episode.
It's I'd say 98 percent exactly as how I recorded it. But she takes out any stumbles I might have where I might stutter over a word or I might say, hold on a second.
Let me just make absolutely certain that I am explaining this correctly.
She'll take those parts out. And then she sends me the rough cut of the episode,
which I will then listen to to make certain that there's nothing ridiculously wrong in there or that there was something that I just feel was unnecessary, that we should just cut.
And then from there, she puts it into the template and publishes it. So it's a pretty smooth process.
So are your shows, including cuts from people you talk to, or is it strictly you following through with all the research you've done and your one person show?
Most of my episodes are a one person show, but I do occasionally have people on as guests or as interview subjects.
So I will reach out sometimes to my peers in the technology podcasting community, folks like Tom Merritt, Shannon Morse, people like that.
I will invite to come on and be a guest host about a specific topic.
Occasionally I will do expert interviews and that can run the entire range.
I'm soon going to have someone who worked on the Large Hadron Collider as a guest, and I will be interviewing him about that work.
But I've also interviewed the creators of Home Star Runner, the flash based animated web series that was on the Internet forever.
So it ranges, but I'd say the vast majority of my episodes are solo episodes.
So FW Thinking, what is that?
Forward Thinking was a show that was sponsored by Toyota.
And the specific premise was that we were going to be looking at topics that were future oriented with an optimistic sort of point of view on the future.
So rather than looking at potential existential crises like Josh Clark does with his End of the World podcast,
we were looking at what sort of benefits could humanity see from advances in artificial intelligence or what's the future of space exploration.
So it was really kind of projecting your thoughts out as far out as you could on these various subjects, looking at the bleeding edge science and technology that's available today.
And of course, we all know that it's largely a fool's errand to try and predict the future.
Just predicting future a year out is pretty difficult. But it was a fun exercise.
That series lasted for several years, but that one has concluded. That one we finished a couple of years ago.
But I'm very proud of that work.
So right now you have How Tech Works and the new one you just launched, correct?
Yes, The Brink.
Tell us about The Brink.
The Brink is a show where I sit down with my co-host Ariel Kastin,
and Ariel and I look at some of the biggest moments in the history of business and talk about what it was that were,
what were the defining elements of those moments and how did things turn after those moments.
So it's the brink of success or the brink of failure.
And so we look at some of the more incredible stories in various business histories.
So, for example, one of the episodes that just went up is about the history of the Harley-Davidson company.
Harley-Davidson and the Indian Motorbike Company were the only two motorcycle companies in the United States to survive the Great Depression.
And so our question was, why is that? How did those two companies survive when all these other motorcycle companies that had popped up in the years leading up to World War II had failed?
And it was a really interesting story, largely about how Harley-Davidson was able to secure some very lucrative contracts with the US military,
and that kept them afloat throughout the Great Depression and after, you know, through World War II.
And it also leads into another fascinating discussion about shoppers and bobbers and motorcycle culture that emerged after World War II.
Now, how many of those are you doing a week and how does that kind of cut into all the other research that you're doing for the tech show?
So we're doing one episode of The Brink a week, and fortunately, my co-host Ariel is a research phenomenon.
She's been doing, I'd say, 90% of the research for this show, and she does a great job at writing up notes and putting them in an outline form.
And then I spend a couple of hours sort of tweaking things, adding some elements. We both do as much reading as we can on the subject from as wide a variety of sources.
But because it's only one episode and because I have a co-host, it is a much lighter load. Oh, yes, it's worlds easier.
So what were your thoughts when you heard that iHeartRadio, iHeartMedia, was buying the company?
That was really interesting. Now, I've worked with this company since 2007 was when I started.
So I started before we were doing podcasts at all, and I have been through several transitions.
We were at one point owned by Discovery Communications, for example.
So I've been through eras where we've operated as a small private company and I've been in eras where we've been part of a larger publicly traded company.
Obviously, with every change comes adjustments to your culture, to just the day to day operations.
I am excited to see where things go because podcasting has been one of those forms of media that for far too long has been pointed at and said, this is the next big thing.
I don't think we're the next big thing. I think we are the big thing now and that we're seeing some of that with the way things have been developing over the last year.
And while some networks have run into some issues because of various business problems,
I think that getting involved in a really well established company like iHeartMedia shows that we are really a major part of the future of mass communications.
And that as more and more people start to adopt podcasting as part of their lives, as part of the way they consume entertainment and information, we're right there on the very front of it.
And while there were other companies that were doing it before, I mean, NPR is a true pioneer in podcasting. I think that we are uniquely situated to take leadership in that space.
And I'm really excited to see where it goes.
So what is your advice for young podcasters on how to become successful in this medium today?
The biggest points I would make to anyone considering starting a podcast is one, choose a subject about which you are really enthusiastic.
You don't necessarily need to know everything about it, although that can be fun to listen to someone who's got deep expertise in a subject talk about it.
It can be fun, but you definitely need to be enthusiastic about it because chances are when you first start out, you're going to be doing this mostly for the love of it.
So pick something you love already, whether it's something you really know a lot about or you want to learn more about.
Make that your focus.
The next thing I would say is work very, very hard at setting a regular schedule for publishing because listeners, they like that regularity, whether it's once a month, twice a month, once a week, or if you're a crazy person like I am, five times a week.
And then stick with it as best you can. Listeners can be very loyal to people they feel are reliable.
And that, I think, those are the two biggest secrets.
Everything else, things like the audio quality, editing tricks, supporting it through social media, all of that's important, but not nearly as important as picking that topic that really speaks to you because that's what's going to come through everything else and being as reliable as you can with your publication schedule.
When you first started, Jonathan, it was, you said in the iPod days, and there wasn't hardly any social media, certainly not as used as it is these days to promote everything.
What was it about you that made you not quit?
For me, it was, again, that I just, I loved the experience of learning about these things and then talking about them. When we first started Tech Stuff, I had a co-host. He was my editor, Chris Pellette.
And just sitting down and talking with Chris about technology was a lot of fun. And I come from technology. I am, I'm not a computer scientist. I'm not an engineer.
I went to school and majored in English literature, but that was what gave me the background in research and writing.
And so I was learning about this stuff as an outsider and then expressing my excitement that way. And that was what really kept me going.
And then, as I said, when we started getting feedback from listeners, that feedback was overwhelmingly positive. I always would make jokes about how Chris and I, we were two of the older people at our office.
And so we would make references to technology like VCRs or turntables, things like that. And then we would always make the joke, ask your parents, because we just figured that podcasting, it's a young medium.
Chances are the people listening are much younger than we are. And we would get a flood of messages every time we made that joke from people who said things like, I'm a grandmother and I love your show because I love learning about this technology.
Or I drive trucks for a living. I'm in my 50s. And I just want to say that your show is great, but knock off the jokes about ask your parents, because I remember when that was invented, that sort of stuff.
That's great. And yeah, to me, that was all the encouragement I needed because people were actually listening, they were engaged with what I was doing. They were entertained, they were informed, and they felt like they were part of the conversation.
And that's what I wanted. I want them to be part of that conversation. What three things industry-wide really need to improve in our medium for it to take it to the next level?
Oh, wow. What a great question. Three things that really need to improve. Oh, man. Well, one is from a simple sales and marketing side is really knowing what your inventory is, as in how many ad impressions are you really able to deliver.
And to make sure that you're sticking with that as close as possible so that you can maintain that level of quality. If I were to have my sales team sell more than what we're selling now, I don't know how I would deliver upon that.
I will always promote the show, and I always try and do a great job, but I cannot physically record more than I'm recording now. And not only that, but I couldn't expect an audience to download more shows than what I'm already publishing.
So that's very important from sort of the business side of things is just making sure that you're not over-promising and under-delivering. And fortunately, we've been very good about not doing that. But I think in general, that needs to be something that folks need to pay really close attention to.
Because I think there are a lot of people out there who are suffering from potential burnout because they're trying to record way too much in order to meet very high expectations.
The next is, I would say, while it is important to be regular in your publication schedule, you can't let that sort of sense of obligation affect the quality of your work. So if you find that coming in and recording is becoming a problem,
whether it's through motivation or a time commitment, something needs to change. I've heard some shows where I could tell the people who are working on it were probably under a great deal of stress because it was starting to affect the quality of the show.
And again, as we see shows get more successful and they have these obligations put upon them, I don't want to see shows crumble under that. So that needs to be carefully balanced.
The third, I would say, is don't put all your eggs in one basket. I mentioned at the very beginning how one of the things we were really dependent upon in order to get our shows noticed was on Apple's iTunes.
And the fact that we were featured several times really helped our shows a lot. It's fantastic. But no matter what medium you work in, you don't want to be too dependent upon any one platform because if something were to go wrong, either with that platform or your relationship with them, then you are up the creek.
I like to argue, take the Netflix approach. Make sure you are present everywhere. Form good relationships with multiple platforms because you never know when you're going to see the next MySpace Facebook situation where you've backed one site or one platform and then something else overtakes it and you're left behind.
So those would be the three big ones, I would say. I know that's again, very verbose. No, not at all. It's perfect. Great stuff, Jonathan. And finally, where and how can people listen to you or find you or follow you or reach you?
Well, they can reach me through the, if you go to Twitter, TechStuffHSW is the handle for our show's Twitter feed. We also have the TechStuff Facebook page. We're going to have a Facebook community page before too long, but that's been kind of on the back burner.
The website is TechStuffPodcast.com and you can find the TechStuff Podcast on pretty much every major podcasting app and platform out there. Monday through Thursday, a new episode goes up every day. Fridays we have our classic episodes.
I have more than a thousand episodes recorded. So unless you've been listening since 2008, chances are the classics are still going to be new to you.
Our thanks again to Jonathan Strickland for coming on the show today. Remember to check out our website folks at PodcastBusinessJournal.com and subscribe to our free daily headlines. And we'd love to have you follow us on social media as well. We're on both Facebook and Twitter.
Your feedback about any of our content is always welcome. We get back to everybody personally. Send it along to Ed Ryan, the editor at gmail.com. And thanks again for listening folks. We'll talk to you next time.