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Hey everyone, Ashley here with RSS Podcasting.

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In the last episode, I chatted with Alberto Batella and Benjamin Richardson and they shared

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a brief history of how they formed the company.

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If you missed that episode, look for Podcasting 101 on RSS.com.

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In today's episode, we're talking about why now is the best time to start a podcast and

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we're continuing the conversation about why RSS is the best host to launch with.

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Yeah, I can definitely attest to the fact that RSS is very easy to use.

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My podcasting journey began a long time ago and in 2019 is when I first started really

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getting into the thick of it, learning all about how podcasts work and things like that,

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listening to them.

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I tried several platforms.

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I have to tell you guys, I actually tried several platforms.

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The truth is RSS, like you guys have said, it is so easy compared with all the other

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ones that I've tried.

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It is the easiest to get your show up.

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You can start it in less than an hour.

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What I mean by less than an hour is even from recording time, from recording and editing,

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you can have your show up in a matter of minutes.

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It's incredible how something that, yes, like you said, it sounds like there's a lot of

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complex code and a lot of difficulties in the background from people much smarter than

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me.

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Just the fact that within just a couple of minutes, faster than you can order your favorite

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drink at Starbucks, you can get your podcast online with RSS.

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Yeah, perfect.

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It's not sponsored, hashtag not sponsored.

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In your opinion, we've talked a little bit about the fact that Ben, you were a political,

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was it consultant or advisor?

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Strategist.

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Okay, so we kind of touched on the fact that you've had some history in politics, but in

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your opinion, why is now the best time to start a podcast?

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I'd actually like to hear from both of you on this.

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Then we'll start with you.

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Yeah, you've probably heard that saying when's the best time to plant a tree.

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The first answer is 20 years ago.

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The second answer is now.

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Why is now the best time to start a podcast?

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It's not if you don't have anything to say.

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It's not the best time to start a podcast.

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If you feel like everybody has said everything that's needed to be said, every opinion that's

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needed to be shared has been shared.

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But if you do feel like you have something to say, if you do feel like your opinion matters,

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if you do feel like you might be able to impart a little light into the world, a little hope,

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a little reminder, then now is a great time to start a podcast.

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You can affect other people.

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I mean, at the end of the day, a podcast is not for the person speaking, it's for the

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person listening.

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And if you are able to impart something and leave it digitally on your digital mark on

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the world for the remainder of time that there's electricity on the planet, then your time

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to start a podcast is right now.

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So yeah, I mean, I don't think anybody's going to lose opportunities if they start a podcast

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in a week or in a year.

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And certainly people's interior inside voices change just as much as their their their,

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you know, we talk about, I don't know, I don't want to get into psychology, but the ego,

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the super ego, the id, all those have voices that change over time.

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So your third podcast might be your best, your best podcast, your 15th podcast might

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be your best podcast or your first might be your best podcast.

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But you're you aren't going to get there if you have something to say by waiting.

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Just you could, you know, with us, you can get a free episode and upload it.

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And then tomorrow, if you don't like that episode or you feel like you can edit it better

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and more succinctly or write a new script, you can just swap it out.

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There's your first episode again.

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And then once you've really fine tuned what your message is, then go ahead and create

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your second episode.

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And if you're if it's an educational podcast, you'll get a big discount.

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So yeah, that's anyway, that's probably a long winded answer for saying, yeah, right

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now is a great time to start if you have something to say.

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But remember who your listener is going to be and how you can impact them.

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And I think it's a very powerful sort of proposition regarding why now again, it's not necessarily

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now from someone that was, you know, that got acquainted with these with podcasting

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back in 2005, 2006, then was the time to start, you know.

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But I just think that now the two factors, one mentioned by Ben, a lot of people have

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things to say, whether it is, you know, a chat with friends or some powerful message

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from that is very important for from for to to to share.

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But at the same time, podcasting is almost commoditized, meaning it's easy to to to

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to start it.

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It's cheap.

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So now it's a perfect moment just because it's simple.

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And so there's no there's no effort there.

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There's really the friction is small.

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And that's why now everyone is that's it's up in the past two years, we've seen a climax

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in the industry of people that want to create a show and to put their voices out there.

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RSS believes in diversity and podcasting.

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Why do you guys think it is so important for multiple cultures to start a podcast?

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Well, I think the the question kind of comes from a perspective of that there's something

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different about us.

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And I think that is absolutely true.

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There's also so much that is common among us.

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And podcasting is a great way to experience that.

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So we do celebrate diversity.

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We we feel like everybody's voice has meaning and matters at the same time.

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Like I said earlier, podcasting is also about the listener and where it where your message

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resonates with somebody else is where there's true impact.

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So you as a diverse speaker resonating with somebody else on the planet because they have

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a similarity to you, regardless of how diverse that similarity might be, how unique that

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similarity might be is a very, very powerful thing.

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So we celebrate diversity in the fact that it can impact people who feel alone, feel

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marginalized, feel left out because they aren't because everybody feels marginalized.

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Everybody feels left out.

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Everybody feels alone at some point in their life.

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And as you can as you as a podcaster can touch that one person that's listening, it matters

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a lot to that that individual.

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So that for me is what the essence of diversity is.

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It's not it's it's not a function of there being something different.

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It's there being something common and finding that commonality in unexpected places is a

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very powerful thing.

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And I would like to add that it also comes naturally for us because our team is is in

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sparse in two continents, five different countries.

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Eighty percent of our team speaks three languages or more.

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So naturally we are used to to interact with people from other culture, other languages.

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And I think it was a very straightforward and clear next step to us to read for us actually

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to to to focus on language diversity, for example, Spanish speaking podcasting, but

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also broadening broadening the horizon to to to new languages.

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It definitely makes me want to learn some more languages every time I hear you guys

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talk about how many languages you speak.

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I want to learn more.

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You know, you talked about how it brings so many cultures together and how you can have

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an impact.

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And one of my favorite podcasters, Shane Sam's of the Flip Lifestyle podcast, he I'm probably

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going to mess up the exact wording, but he talks about how everything you do is like

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throwing a pebble in the water and the ripple effect that it can have.

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And it's just amazing to me how with podcasting, like you said, you can just when you throw

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that that pebble in the water, the ripple effect that you can have, you don't even know

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what you could possibly cause as your ripple effect, but just the way that you can touch

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people with just with just your voice and the content that you can create from that

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voice.

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It's just it's a wonderful time to be in podcasting and everybody should start one.

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I agree.

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Now, I know we're kind of getting low on time here, but I'm kind of curious, what do you

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guys see for the future of podcasting?

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Wow, there is so much that we have planned, some of it top secret.

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But we are I guess publicly announced intentions and plans are to expand into Latin America

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to help create, foster and grow the podcasting space in Spanish speaking markets, because

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there's there's really a need there.

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It's it's it's not saturated in the United States or in English speaking markets, but

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that's where podcasting basically started.

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And so now it's time to move out to a broader.

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If I spoke Chinese, I would be, you know, pursuing this in China, although I'm sure

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it's fairly well developed there.

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If I spoke Hindi or one of the 26 other languages of India, we'd be we'd be, you know, working

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with the folks there as well.

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But there's some commonality in our in our approaches that makes Mexico and Latin America

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very target rich for us in the sense of growing podcasters, growing our our produced content

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as well and fostering kind of the the economic models that exist down there.

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So we we have some advertising initiatives that we're working on.

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We have some partnerships that are very exciting that we'll be announcing at some point in

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the future.

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And then we've got some technological things that, you know, Alberto and I prior to this

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call, we're discussing a patent that we're filing in a couple of days.

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And we've got some technological opportunities as this medium grows for really kind of taking

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it into new and amazing sort of places.

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So we're working on so many different things.

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It's hard to keep up with all the things we're working on, but it's super exciting.

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Yeah, perhaps just to add to the strategy we are pursuing for the future.

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Also an overview in terms of technology.

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Well, it's very exciting.

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The future is very exciting.

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We have smart speakers.

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We have smart cars, smart watches.

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We have technologies in terms of content distribution, which are cutting edge.

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For example, decentralized distribution with IPFS, interplanetary file system.

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Very interesting topic.

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We have value for value, which is a shift in paradigm in how content creators are going

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to monetize, right?

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Rather than the subscription model, which everyone is pursuing right now, right?

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We have Spotify, we have Apple.

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The idea is that you pay for what you consume.

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So this is a shift that we may see in the broader media industry.

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So what we can tell is that for the next couple of years, we will not get bored.

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We always say that Ben and I, we will not get bored.

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We have so many things and it's going to be very exciting.

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Yeah, agreed.

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That's awesome.

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And since the industry is changing so quickly, I mean, who knows where podcasting is going

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to be in a few years, but we know it'll still be here.

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That's the exciting part is that if you start today, grow your tree.

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Grow your tree already.

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Yeah.

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Well, is there anything that I know, like I said, I know you guys are wrapped on time,

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but is there anything that we didn't actually get to cover that you really want to make

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sure is in this?

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Well, I mean, also, I think it's what you talked about Alberto is so what you talked

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about I think is so important that people understand is that there are technological

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advancements coming down through the hosting providers or through the listening apps that

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are going to help change podcasting for the better.

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They're going to deliver richer content.

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They're going to deliver it in a way that is more interactive.

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They're going to allow for greater flexibility from the hosting, the host's perspective for

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getting their message heard and understood and for monetizing their podcast if that's

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something that's important to them.

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We know that that's important to about 60% of podcasters, a little bit less.

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And so that's a voice that we keep conscious that we need to listen to is how do people

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pursue this hobby or this business or this project in a way that can be self-sustaining.

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And the Podcasting 2.0 RSS feed changes are critical in that for keeping it a free and

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open platform for everybody and not just relegating it to these silos that creep into our life.

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Hey everyone, Ashley here again and I just wanted to thank you for listening to our two-part

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episode on the history of RSS.com.

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We hope you'll consider hosting your show with us.

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You can get started for free at RSS.com.

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Be sure to tune into our next episode where we'll sit down with Kate Erickson of Entrepreneurs

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on Fire to talk about systems and processes.

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Until next time, you can learn more about how to launch and grow your show at RSS.com

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backslash blog.

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Thanks for tuning in.