Do you dream of launching a podcast? Maybe even starting with a private podcast? You’ve likely seen others do it and wondered if it’s the right move for your business. In today’s episode, Lindsay Padilla, cofounder of Hello Audio, joins us to share the benefits and strategies behind a podcasting, how to determine if a private or public feed is right for you, and some of the latest trends in the podcast industry. Plus, she’s even sharing how she cofounded Hello Audio and the hurdles she faced along the way.
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Guest Bio:
Dr. Lindsay Padilla is an ex-community college professor who accidentally started a business while on the tenure track. Now, as the CEO and co-founder of Hello Audio, which takes your content and creates private audio feeds to make learning on the go much easier for your people, Lindsay challenges online industry norms of unfinished courses and unconsumed content with her product. All of her business ideas were born out of her tenure-track years teaching adults online at a community college, the ridiculous amount of learning she’s done in all things education, and the years spent growing her course creation business online.
Today’s episode is brought to you by my Love Your Leads private audio training! Are you providing an experience for your leads that sets an expectation on when they’ll hear from you, provides them with tools that will help them easily say yes and book you, while also making them feel seen and heard? In my private audio training, you’ll learn how to love your leads and get more booked clients through an automated booking process.
Find it Quickly
00:53 – Transitioning from Academia to Entrepreneurship
01:02 – Identity Shift and Challenges
04:07 – Leaving Academia Behind
06:15 – Starting a Podcast and New Ventures
07:26 – Creating Online Courses
14:59 – Building Hello Audio
22:36 – Challenges and Successes
27:37 – A Challenging Partnership
27:48 – Building Hello Audio from Scratch
28:28 – Reflecting on the Journey
28:56 – Current Market Dynamics
29:11 – The Power of Authenticity
32:51 – Lessons from Adversity
35:40 – The Evolution of Hello Audio
37:44 – The Role of Private Podcasts
41:59 – Public vs. Private Podcasts
45:51 – Discoverability and Future Trends
52:24 – The Impact of Listener Engagement
Mentioned in this Episode
134: Overcoming Money Mindsets to Generate Wealth as an Entrepreneur with Natalie Bullen
Episodes Mentioned from Success Stories with Lindsay
Diane Mayor’s Dual Podcast Approach: Bridging Public and Private Podcasts
Natalie Bullen’s Strategy for Infinite Leads: A Daily, Paid Podcast
How Jordan Gill Unlocked $48,733 with a Reel and a Private Podcast
How Mariah Coz Replaces Zoom Calls with Interactive Q&A Podcasts in her New Program
Connect with Lindsay
Website: helloaudio.fm
Success Stories Podcast: go.helloaudio.fm/success-stories
Launch Your Private Podcast: click.helloaudio.fm/linktolypp
Instagram: instagram.com/helloaudiofm
Facebook: facebook.com/groups/helloaudio
Review the Transcript:
Colie: Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the business first creatives podcast today. I am chatting with Dr. Lindsay Padilla, who has a very similar background to me in terms of coming to entrepreneurship as an educator.
And we were discussing it before we hit record and both of us have actually been entrepreneurs. Just as long as we were professors, which I think is just a cool little tidbit of information to know. Lindsay, welcome to the podcast.
Lindsay: Yeah. I mean, did you have a weird identity thing when you switched? Because I know I did.
Colie: Lindsay, how about we just start with that guys? We have a topic, but Lindsay is just so fascinating to me. Lindsay, let me tell you, I don’t know if you felt like I did, and maybe it’s because of what I was when I came to be an entrepreneur. I was a photographer and I feel like photography is one of those.
things where if you identify as a photographer, no one takes you seriously. Like anybody can pick up a camera. Anybody can take pictures like, but do you really have a business kind of thing? And so I think it was the first four years of running a photography business where if someone asked me, what do you do for a living?
I was like, Oh, I’m a photographer. But my education is as a statistician and as a curriculum instructor, I mean, like I would just, I had this whole spiel that I would tell people and it wasn’t until about four years in that when someone asked me what I did, I said, I’m a photographer. Full stop. There was no, and this is my educational background.
And I promise I know what I’m talking about. Like, I just felt the need to like justify how educated I was for four years of running that business. Now. I was one of those people who took it very seriously as a business. I focused a lot of time and energy on systems, which no one will be surprised about, but, and it was the day, I mean, it was literally like the day after I said for the first time, I’m a photographer.
I told my husband and I said, okay, I think I’m, I think I’m ready to start to stop talking about all my education now. I was like, I am a solopreneur. I am a business owner. And that is what I do. Like, it was awesome.
Lindsay: That’s really powerful. I, it’s funny, and I think it might be because of the photography piece. I don’t remember how, like, feeling to, like, justify my degree, but I did put the doctor in front, and I still do, randomly, because, I, and I had people say like, you have to do that. And I was like, I guess, and it’s true.
It costs me several hundred thousand dollars. So I guess I need to like pay for it. But I think that helped a little bit. And I, my identity, it was like, it was something I worked really hard for. So for me, like the, like education and the background and the teaching, like I, I thought it was it. And I spent.
30 years in education, you know, learning and doing and all the things and then to walk away from it. And I think it was I think I was scared about whether it was the right decision. I also felt the idea of because being a professor does come with a level of prestige that I loved, right? Like, and there is something like people are intrigued by that.
And so I definitely still say that, like, oh, I used to be a professor my past life. People like that, you know, like people are intrigued by that, but there was definitely an identity shift where I, I was also really good at it. I was a good professor. I’m going to say
Colie: I was too.
Lindsay: some that. Yeah.
And so I,
Colie: are some that are not so great.
Lindsay: Yeah, not at all. Um, did you, I felt like I was like leaving my students behind, like I was letting them down all the future students that I would have had the ones I, I like really felt for the ones that semester that I left, I knew my last semester that I was with. I was done at the end of that semester and I left in the middle of a school year.
So started in August out by December. and it felt that also felt weird to leave. Not at the end of a school year, like there was something very like, I’m just like tiptoeing out the back door. Right. I was a recent, you know, tenure track hire and, I was two years away from. Getting tenure and I also felt like I was letting my colleague down who like fought for me to be the one to be hired.
And that’s like a big deal in academia to like. Make it from an adjunct to be hired, and so there was that too. So I was, I was very worried about letting my department down and all of that. And in reality, when I. Told my department head and I told my, you know, colleague, they were very excited for me and they said I was brave and they said that, you’re doing what a lot of us want to do.
And I was just like, this is not what I was expecting. And they’re like, you know, good luck. Right? And I was like, Oh, shit. Like, there’s also something here around being a professor and like, not, I don’t know, making the full impact that you can make potentially. And so, um, yeah, leaving was scary, but I also felt like, you know, A lot of my professor friends were like, good for you, like, good for you doing this and leaving because it is very It’s a very good job to have not pre pre pandemic.
I would say it’s a very like, safe job. You know, you got tenure, you get, you get, uh, health, you know, health and all the things like, it was just a very, it felt like a very secure job. It felt like I made it to the top of some mountain and I achieved something. So walking away from that felt like, I don’t know, am I ungrateful?
Like all the things that I’ve done on this way? I don’t know. So, yeah, I think my. My head was very like what the profession has done for me and the people involved in that profession, I guess. and so some of my journey in entrepreneurship reflected that it took a little while. It took a few years, but I, I started a podcast called academics mean business because I felt so like, Hey, I bet there’s a lot more of us out here.
Right. Yeah. And so, there was. You know, there was a, what’s the word? What’s that, show that just came out? The, like, Dark Matter, right? The book. There’s, there’s definitely, like, a line, a pathway, another universe, if you will, where Lindsay went on and made, you know, Where I’m still teaching. No, but even there’s a universe where I’m helping academics with businesses like that was a cool like line and I hope there are people out there doing that work because I think it is really important.
I’m, I’m in a lot of the Facebook groups where professors don’t know what they want to do. They want to leave. It’s definitely not as much as I said, like, I enjoyed the profession. Yeah. It’s, it’s, you know, it’s rife with like racism and sexism and like all the things it’s not, it’s not a perfect, uh, place to be at all.
So there are a lot of people who, are overworked and underpaid and all the things and they want to leave. And so, yeah, just looking at that, that was a, that was a thread that I could have taken a path I could have followed. Um, but no, I ended up a Sass, you know, CEO. Yeah.
Colie: Before we go there, I will say the one little bit about me, though, is that I only lasted one. Actually, it wasn’t even a full year, Lindsey. I officially opened my business in October of 2012. And by July of 2013, I had already made my first online course as an entrepreneur.
Now I used to build online courses and math and statistics and education and all that things. That’s what I did when I still taught, but that was the first course that I built. And mostly it was, I missed helping people have those aha moments. And I in no way, shape or form wanted to return to a classroom.
My path to leave was very different. We came here after James finished his Ph. D. at Michigan State, and I was on a Ph. D. path as well. I’m a BD. I’m a dropout. But we got here in November of 2009.
Lindsay: you figured it out. It was a sham.
Colie: I’m Well, we moved here. Well, actually, I never wanted a PhD before we went to Michigan. I was actually applying for just community college jobs.
So my master’s was enough for me to be able to teach math, applied to a bunch of positions in Houston, was about to take like my dream job. And James was like, well, I don’t want to stay in Texas. And I was like, what do you want to do? So we ended up going to Michigan and it really wasn’t what I wanted. I will say I spent seven great years there.
It was great. But at the end of my time, which was. The summer before, I mean, like my life changed. We bought a house here. We started doing fertility treatments. like I was just taking a completely different path that had nothing to do with being an academic anymore. I was already in the process of, like, shedding that, um, part of me.
And then you and I talked about my pregnancy before we hit record. But when I ended up hospitalized, that’s when I quit every single job that I was currently still teaching at. And then I just So I mean, I, I left in some ways. I also tiptoed out the door and then I pretty much slammed it when I ended up on bedrest for my child and my mother in law, oddly enough, is the one that kept asking, well, when are you going to return to the classroom?
I was like, I’m not, I don’t know what I’m going to do when Chloe is a few years old and I’m ready to put her in preschool, but going back to a classroom is not what I intend to do. I mean, I like the autonomy that comes from being a professor. I loved, as you said, it is definitely an identity and I really did love that identity for a long time.
But as I have discovered educating other entrepreneurs, there is a way for me to get that. feeling that I get when I help someone find an aha moment that does not require me to be in a college classroom, that does not require me to be in that kind of environment. And I was teaching math and statistics.
Hello, no one wants to take math and statistics. It’s one of those requirements to graduate. So I didn’t really have people who were in my classroom because they wanted to learn my subject. Now, they were always appreciative that I taught it in a way that made it understandable. But like no one willingly took my class.
Let’s be honest. It’s not a class that anyone wanted, but I mean, now that I teach other entrepreneurs, I mean, they take my classes because they want the subject matter. They want the actual thing that I am teaching them to do, which I think is very nice and very awesome. And also I can do all that shit on my terms.
Now that I am an entrepreneur,
Lindsay: Yeah. You don’t have to donate extra hours. Right? Like be a volunteer for committees and all of that stuff. There’s a whole other world that’s outside of the classroom, the grading, the correspondence with just everybody and anybody. Yeah, totally.
Colie: mean, and my husband, He’s not an academia, which is the funny part. Like, we both were very focused on being academics. And by the time he finished his, his, uh, Ph. D. and we came here for his postdoc, I would say that it was in that first year of his first 2 years of being a postdoc.
He was like, uh, yeah, Nicole, I’m not, I don’t, I don’t want to run a lab on
Lindsay: out too.
Colie: okay.
Lindsay: what does he
Colie: what is it that you want to do? So he’s a biochemist
Lindsay: Okay.
Colie: this is me.
Lindsay: Yeah,
Colie: Like, what do you want to do? Like.
Lindsay: Yeah, totally. My husband’s a physicist also PhD. So I don’t know if we knew this level of of our lives are very similar. So my husband also is an academic was, um, and a PhD in physics, which. Whenever we introduced ourselves, like, that was the cool 1, like, whoa, right?
So I felt I’m like. Cool. Sociology is like really helpful, by the way, if you can like understand how the world works, but okay, physics. And when I left, he left with me. He was, he was a semester away from tenure. So he could have stayed until May and actually had tenure. So we had both been hired.
He did not. So both of us taught at the community college. He did not want to teach at the university level, in any sort of like research one level institution at all. Both of us like teaching a lot, so we knew we wanted to, to go to the community college level. And so I think for both of us, yeah, he was just like, I just want to support you.
And again, the freedom and, and all of that, it was like, Oh, we could travel the world and do this. Right. And so he joined me in my business right away. That’s how, that’s what we did with the two person academic situation.
Colie: you, Lindsay. My husband will never join me as part of my business.
Lindsay: And some,
Colie: I’m just saying, I love my husband. When he first said, I, you know, I, I don’t want to, I don’t want to tend your position. I was just like, okay, well, what are you going to do with your degree? Like, I mean, we’ve spent all this time and energy.
And I also always make a joke when people say, well, how do you feel about not getting a PhD? I’m like, no, it’s all good. We’re Dr. And Mrs. Johnson. I feel like we could just share the PhD and we’re good. So, I mean, I constantly make that joke and I’m mostly being serious when I make it, but he was like, I think I just want to go into industry.
And I was like, okay. And then when he was done with his four year postdoc, he found an industry job here in Boulder and he was with that company for nine years and he has now, you know, moved on to a different job. But I was just like, I don’t know what you do besides being academic. My mom was a professor.
Lindsay: Mm.
Colie: All of my adult life, most of my like formative years. And my stepfather was also, I mean, he still teaches. So he teaches at a community college in Dallas. So being an academic was very ingrained in me and they were college professors and my husband’s parents were both K through 12 teachers. So, I mean, education, education, education.
And I was just like, okay, it felt a little bit like both of us failed since neither one of us ended up, you know, doing that for our long term career. But I mean, entrepreneurship definitely has its advantages in terms of being in control, but it also has a lot of downfalls. You’ve already said a few things about like healthcare and having the security of tenure.
I mean, There is a lot to be said for any nine to five job where you have, you know, a steady paycheck and all of your health care benefits are taken care of and these kinds of things. But being a professor, a tenured professor has that extra layer of you have to do some deep, dark shit to lose your job.
And so it puts you in a position
Lindsay: usually.
Colie: security. I mean, So, you came, you left, and you started your first business, and that’s not the business that you currently have. So what was your first business? Yes.
Lindsay: courses just like you. I enjoyed that piece and I just saw such a need because I was like, people are really bad at this. I don’t know if you felt the same way, but I was like, this is bad. People need help. And I actually, like part of my degree, my dissertation was actually on like curriculum and teaching, you know, with a lean towards like, Multicultural education, human rights education, that kind of thing.
And so I was like very into the study of pedagogy and like the study of teaching. And, that was like, yeah, my dissertation work. So, a lot of that was like, Hey, I bet a lot of these people would love to be a teacher of how I see it. You don’t need the title. You don’t need the degree. You don’t need the curriculum, like, you know, um, Whatever it’s called like the hours put in, but that like feeling of what it feels to be a teacher.
Like, I think that anyone is can be that. Like, I don’t think they have to go through this, like, you know, curriculum. And so I just wanted to pass that on to people, like, what I learned about myself, teaching how I saw my students, what I thought about the learning process, and that just felt very inspiring to me.
And, so that’s. the beginning. I, I did that for a few years. I built courses for people. So I did the service side first and then finally launched my own course called Build a Better Beta, which was super fun. It was just all about launching a course without pre creating anything. And that was where I got to really tap into that idea of like what it means to be a teacher and that identity and that confidence that comes from being a teacher.
Being an expert and also being open to like changing and evolving at the same time. And so, yeah, so that was, that was the course that I had launched and I ran that for a while. And, it was kind of in that journey that I realized. There was like a couple of things that that came into play where, you know, because I had built courses, I always told people to put an MP3 under their video and like, that means you’re taking care of the auditory learners, but then in practice, like, literally the most clunky thing ever, like, No one downloads an MP3 file under a module.
And even if you do, like, do you even know where it ends up on your phone? Do you even know how it’s going to play? Like you don’t. And so that really bothered me and I saw some stuff happening in the space. There was someone who had a membership, I think it was Kate Northrup actually had a membership and her, she had her husband code, a way to turn it into a podcast that people weren’t.
able to like download because they were paying members. And I was like, Oh, that’s interesting. And I had said to my husband, cause I was podcasting at this time. I said to my husband, who’s, who’s a little techie to be dangerous, but not like really techie. He can’t actually code, but he like knows what, yeah.
Anyways. So he kind of like did the research and was like, and, and I was at this point where I was like, cool, I have this business where I’m building courses for people, or I, at that point I was selling courses on building courses. And I was like, Oh, do we just code something and give that to my course people and sell it as a whatever, whatever offer?
And so that was one path. And the other path was like, do we build it? Like, does it exist out in the wild in the way that we want it to? And as we were having that conversation, this is in 2019. And again, totally related to learning, totally related to like, We want people to actually do the courses. I saw Transistor was, was announcing adding private podcasts.
This is in October of 2019. I was like, okay, it is possible. And we had started to see it and Libsyn had it, but it was very hidden and it was their like top tier plan. And it was just kind of like, okay, the technology exists. Do we trust that transistor is going to build it for our use cases that we see it for in this space?
And it was like, with a resounding, like, Oh, they’re not like, they don’t let you upload 50 videos at once and make a feed. They don’t let you, tag episodes or tag users or collect email addresses and have hundreds of them, thousands of them. They charge you per listener in kind of, like I say that with, they, they have caps, right?
And I was like, they’re never going to listen to us because they built it for podcasters and podcasters can be course creators, right? But not all course creators are podcasters. And so what I knew is I wanted to give that medium to people because I knew it was going to be powerful. And when I had my first course ever that I listened to, I remember saying, as we were literally thinking through this, I was taking a course.
And she had it like in YouTube private, like in a WordPress site. And I’m like scrolling. And she was literally just sitting in front of her couch talking. And it was great, great content. But I’m like, Why do I need to watch this? Like, there’s no reason that I need to watch this. And it took me like an hour to find the login and to get to this page.
I’m probably not going to do it tomorrow when I want to listen to the next, you know, module and that it was that. And I said, can you turn this into a private podcast? I said to my husband and he says, I can. So we had this private podcast of this person’s course. I’m not going to name it because I mean, I was allowed to download stuff.
I think that’s like part of it. Like, You know, if you’re allowed to download the stuff, I’m not reselling it. I’ll say that it was for my own convenience to listen to it. I knew we were onto something because I blew through that course and it was kind of one of the first ones that I actually listened to all of it and like, you know, did the work and all the things.
And so there was something really powerful there. And I was like, yeah, at that, that junction of like, do we build it or not? Is that question of, If I know that I can’t go into Transistor and make it easy, like, sure, I could teach people how to use private podcasts for courses, but if it’s going to be annoying, like, no one’s going to do it.
Right? And so that was, that was it. And so I sold. I pre sold like 30, 000 worth of lifetime licenses, um, that October from
Colie: I wish I had gotten one.
Lindsay: I know! Those like coveted, I think there was a couple hundred, well there was like a hundred that first time. We sold them again the following summer, but there was a total of like 250 lifetime licenses out there floating around from that, that era.
And that funded, that funded. We’re like, I guess we’re gonna find a developer? Is, is pretty much how it went from there. So yeah, crazy.
Colie: I mean, but I’m so jealous. It’s like you saw this missing part and then you and your husband just created it. I have to admit, I feel that way. Now I’m not, listen, for anyone listening, that’s like, Oh my God, is Colie going to create her own CRM? I am not. But. I’m I wish that I had the skills that you guys have.
I wish that I was brave enough to go build a CRM that does all the things that I think it should do. Because as someone who helps other people put CRMs inside of their businesses, It is always, well, you can’t get everything that you want. So which option are we going to go with? Even though I know that there’s this one piece that’s missing.
It is, it is hard on my heart. Like I constantly think, you know, if I could just build one, it would just be so much better. Or the people could just listen to me when I tell them what to do. But like you said, like you couldn’t depend on transistor doing that. And no CRM has really listened to when I highlight all the things that, I think it would just take simple tweaks, but we all know nothing’s
Lindsay: Oh, that’s me. My husband hates that when I come back and I’ll be like, what? You just have to do this. He’s like, it’s never just,
Colie: It’s never
Lindsay: this long. Yeah, no, never.
Colie: I mean, but so we’ve got Hello Audio and it comes out and what happened to your course business? Like, did it just dissipate? Was there some overlap? Did you go all in on Hello Audio like you did on building courses for other people? Like, what’s the story there?
Lindsay: Yeah. For those savvy listeners, you heard when I dropped this, it was an end of 2019. So we all know what’s coming. That was a big, that was a big one. Yeah, there were a couple things happening. So I had a low ticket funnel that was crushing. People might remember it. God, what was it called? Why can’t I think of what it was called?
It was a calendar that built launches automatically and you plugged in dates and it built out like a social calendar, whatever. So it was doing really well. It was when low ticket funnels had their moment and I happened to be on it at that time. As a result, I was making some decent cash on the backend.
Also, the pandemic helped with that because Facebook ads, people were on their phones. So that was a very. Interesting moment, I think in online course, in online marketing kind of history for sure. So I was able to actually not build any courses, not even sell, build a better beta. I didn’t have to focus on that.
I just had a funnel going and I was only seven selling this like $27 thing with a couple of upsells. And we made like. I mean, I want to say we took home like five or 600 K that year alone, making just off of that, which is bananas. What? I shouldn’t say take home. Sorry. Ads were paid into that. So like, it was, it was definitely like, I don’t know.
Profit was not, it was like, maybe like 300 or something like
Colie: mean, that’s still good profit, Lindsay. Come on. I wish you guys could see my face. If you’re not watching the YouTube video, you should probably go see how big my eyes got. I mean, that’s great. Off of a low ticket funnel? Are you fucking kidding me? Continue, Lindsay.
Lindsay: Continue. I mean, it was again, and I always say this as somebody who probably could go teach that and show the back end, but recognize that that was a very specific
Colie: Unique time.
Lindsay: It was very unique. So I would never say like, go rinse and repeat, um, but either way, um, that was happening.
So that was something that, you know, fed us, I guess, for a while, where we were able to focus on this. And as, the early that year, like, there’s a part of this story where, you know, We actually, I was consulting with some friends who were in the podcasting space, like Harry Duran and some other friends, and they’re like, you know, You don’t have to build it.
Maybe you could partner with one of these companies and like, come on and say, hey, build it for this niche. And while it was never going to be like Transistor, there was a company called Glow FM, which was acquired by Libsyn, where they started. sold subscriptions. Somehow, you know, whatever. And I approached her and she was, VC funded, uh, had a couple million dollars, you know, in funding, but it wasn’t doing like that well, I don’t think.
And I just was like, this is a niche. And I met with her several times. We met for a few months and she had a board to convince. She got it, but at the same time, that, that was a big deal for her to like, maybe switch, like the path that her, you know, early startup was going. And I just was like, guys, this is something big.
And so we decided that like, she was going to talk with her board and this was in like January, February. So we almost, I almost just like, we were like, I don’t know what it was going to end up looking like where I was hired by them, who knows? I was consulting them. I wasn’t going to build it. And then this is where the story gets like on a whole other tangent that there’s many podcast episodes where I talk about this, but I’m going to keep, I’m going to keep it tight here.
Colie: Okay.
Lindsay: Yeah, we had, we had somebody reach out that had purchased our lifetime licenses, one of them. And she was like, are you building this? Like, what’s happening? And so this is now four months in, right? And where I’m like, well, we’re actually not building it. We’re, we’re working with this other company. And she’s like, I could build it with you.
This is what I do. I was like, okay. And so we met and, long story short, this was in February. By May, we had been working together. We’ve been doing everything. We hadn’t officially signed anything as it relates to our company for equity or anything like that. pandemic hits stuff is happening, whatever.
But in all of that, she basically at the end in May, two weeks before we were going to launch says, I’m out. I’m taking the code. It’s all mine. And she built her own company off of that. It was horrible. And this was in May. And so in June, basically I was advised by lawyers, like we built it together.
That’s not how Ownership works when you like jointly build something. That’s
Colie: Just like, no, it’s mine now.
Lindsay: Yeah, like, no,
Colie: claiming the front seat. That is not a thing.
Lindsay: bananas. And so we just had to take that narrative back and be like, it is not yours. We built this together. However, we didn’t want to spend money fighting it. And so because it was so early stage, and because she even said to me, ironically, in a message, I could just go build this myself.
But, like, clearly, like, your audience and the bit, like, so she saw me as the avenue to the growth because I had the connections and I had more of the, like, I don’t know, notoriety in the space as the educator and all the things. And so she like admitted that and was like, I think we’d be a great team. And, and here’s, what’s funny.
So she takes it, it’s horrible. It’s like the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I have to build it from scratch and let her fucking go do her thing and not talk about it publicly. It was terrible. But that summer I just remember saying like we actually were a really good team because we struggled building some of it early on we had to switch developers again one other time and it was like.
Yeah, we were a good team. And I’m grateful for what she did because it built Hello Audio to like what it actually became and like not, she encouraged me to build it. Like I would have possibly just kept pursuing a partnership with Glow. Like who knows what would have happened if we ever would have had
Colie: that dark matter, the other door,
Lindsay: the other door, right? And so, yeah, so, um, you know, I was very, I, I came to peace for the most part with it of, of the fact that she pushed me to do something that I was really scared to do. I wish she didn’t act the way that she did, but then even still, like I’m glad I didn’t become partners with somebody that would do something like that.
So we were, we were this close to becoming partners. I mean, we were literally signing paperwork, incorporating the name and everything. And, Yeah. And so, you know, fast forward now, I mean, she’s still out there slaying in this, this product. That’s a
Colie: I know Lindsay, I almost bought it. That’s a
Lindsay: I know that’s a whole other,
Colie: still lives. So that, and someone that I know almost bought it recently, and I
Lindsay: I know.
Colie: absolutely not. And I didn’t hold my tongue either. Cause you know, I’m not a person to hold my tongue, but
Lindsay: I think that’s the power of brand and like people know, like people can see in business in this space when something feels off, like we had multiple people. So she’s selling a lifetime deal right now, which, I mean, that’s hard to compete with no matter what.
Right. And so there’s a lot of people that know this story and are just like, I don’t care. I don’t feel like paying monthly. Right. And that’s fine. If you’re offering a lifetime deal for something that cost as I know much as it costs, I don’t know what is going to happen, but go let her be go do that.
It’s not sustainable. I’m not lying. She has something else. She’s trying to do on the back end, but we had multiple people message us. That first year, two years, like they’re like, I knew something was off. Like I was on a call, like, because she had to literally fabricate a story. Like if you go to the about page about how she came up with the company, we’re nowhere to be found.
There’s this whole story that she probably is partially true, but like, she just happens to say, I built it and here it is. And I’m like, there’s no story about how she bought our product and was using it. She pretended she came up with the idea, which is like. bonkers to me. But yeah, when you have to like keep up a story publicly, like in, you know, in webinars, in masterclasses, in email, in DMs, in, you know, on AppSumo, yeah, like people know a vibe is off, right?
And so I think for me, my like, while I bit my tongue for a whole year, I wrote a whole post on what happened. And my lawyer said I was allowed to because I was, I actually didn’t even drag her name in any, I wasn’t like, You were allowed to draw your own conclusions about the decision she made basically and at the end I also said what I said earlier like I was grateful she like pushed me to do something that I would don’t know that I would have been able to do by myself and so I look back on that, you know, the, that I was able to create that text that set that lives on, then that Yes, it becomes the story of Hello Audio.
It’s actually a lot more common than many people think when it comes to tech startups. That’s sadly, at least according to my lawyer and some other people. And so it’s just kind of like, I just need to build a better product. And that is always what we then decided to do. And I need to show up as myself and and because we came up with it and because we knew and had the vision and that was never hers.
She’s gone off in these like very interesting spin off, you know, decisions and stuff because. You know that and let her go do that. Right. And I think that’s the, the message I would say to people. It’s like, this is not going to happen to everybody. But if you stay true to like, yeah, if you stay true to your vision, you know what I mean?
Like people. can feel your authenticity online. If you’re doing and showing up and like building the thing that you’re excited to build about, that you’re excited to talk about, you know, that kind of thing. I think that lives on like bigger than us and reputation and the way you do business follows you.
And I think that that is another piece too, like that I would say, like you might not be building tech, but you might have engagements with certain people that. That, becomes bigger than you. It becomes part of your business and your ability to attract new customers and clients and stuff like that.
Colie: I mean, I will say I feel like even if I, I’ve never tried to start a tech company. I have not having, I have not had something stolen from me like that in such a, you know, in such a way, but I will say that most of us have like this moment Where this really shitty fucking thing happened to us. And on the other side of it, we’re like, okay, that was really hard.
I might’ve cried a bit. I might’ve thought the world was ending, but now everything is good. And that was really like a lesson learned. And here I am on the other side of it, bigger, better than ever. And so that’s what I think of when I think of you and Hello Audio. I think of this idea that you had mostly because You know, you have these ideas.
I feel like all of us. That have been classically trained and like curriculum instruction have these feelings of how people learn best and that there’s not one way to teach everyone and that we want as many people as possible to be successful, to learn the material that we put in front of them and like all of these things.
I mean, I’m getting warm and fuzzy talking about it and I haven’t been in a classroom for like 13 years, but I feel like we all have this. And the fact that you were like, this is something that the world needs. And now you’ve created a whole software company. And I would go as far to say that you guys are like the industry standard for private podcasts and audio, you know, content.
For course instructors, if not broader, implications or applications rather. But I just, I love hearing your story because it’s like, I feel like people should listen. The next shitty thing that, that happens to you, it could just be that, something bigger and better is just right around the corner.
And that might be the thing to go back to dark matter. I’m so glad you like dark matter. I love that show. I mean, that might be the thing that gets you to open the other door. And get something different, which is better.
Lindsay: Yeah, I, yeah, I, yeah, when you’re like in it, what’s the, who’s the author to that book of like the the path is through kind of logic? I don’t know. The like obstacle is the way the obstacle is the way when you’re looking at something that’s like, ending like, and, you know, thankful, I’m so grateful to my business friends that I had at the time as well.
And like mentors, my, you know, all the people that were around us to support us because we needed to cry and we needed to be sad and we needed to like be angry and like, how did this happen and all the things. And then, you know, now looking back, it’s funny because that pain is still there, but like, It’s very far away.
I’m like, I feel like we feel really great. And like, I, I hate saying it happened for a reason because there’s something around that that doesn’t sit right with me. But the, that I went through that, that lesson that I was able to learn, I think made me. I didn’t have a choice, but to build it like I was looking at because, because I felt like it needed to be in the world and she was not supposed to be at the helm and there was that inner drive.
Like, I have to figure this out. There’s no other way. And like I mentioned, we had another developer who built hello audio. It cost us like 30 grand in that summer and it wasn’t right. And we had to scrap it and start over. That was another moment where I was just like, I can’t believe we can’t get this out.
And it always felt like she was just behind me. And I, I had this fear and it was totally unwarranted, but like, Oh my gosh, she’s going to launch and blow up and leave us in the dust because I felt like it was such an innovative idea. And so I was just waiting for the right, you know, guru to pick it up and it would blow up.
And you know what? It never happened because she wasn’t. The carrier for it. And so that’s what kept me going. Even when we’re running out of money, and we have to find the next person, and we’re hiring somebody that’s way out of our budget, but we know it can be built quickly. All those very tough decisions at that time, you know, made it, made it what it is.
And it’s so powerful when someone says like the why you’re doing it, like when you know, like, that’s when you know, deep inside, like, you’re the person that’s supposed to build it and you like are unwavering on that, like, nobody taking anything from you can stop that, right? No matter what obstacle you hit, even on that path.
And, you know, it’s definitely not something that, you know, You can generate within yourself if it’s not real and I think this was a moment in my business history where I had some pivots that felt awesome and I think if I had followed that breadcrumb it would have turned out awesome but this was a moment like I just knew and I had to like fight for it and it was almost like the universe was like do you really want to do this and it’s funny because if you look yeah how badly because at the beginning I was very I don’t know, maybe someone else should build it, right?
Like, oh, we’ll figure it out. And this was like, you are you doing this? And we’re gonna make it like to where you have to like drop everything to figure it out. And that’s, I think, pretty powerful from a like, yeah. A like, am I on the right path kind of feeling? And, um, that’s just what I followed. I just followed those breadcrumbs.
Colie: Well I will say I feel like in terms of other people in your audience, I took to like this audio platform, very slowly. And I think that that’s all about what I teach because when I was still in a classroom, I was teaching math and statistics and I don’t know what I would tell you in an audio form about math and statistics.
Like you have to see me work the problems in order to get your aha moment. So. Audio is definitely not the medium that I would use in my former teaching life. And then there was like that whole period of time where I was teaching photographers how to do like documentary and lifestyle family sessions.
That was my thing. But you didn’t exist then. So by the time like this whole audio platform came out, I was then teaching people how to set up the back ends of their business in Dubsado. And the Dubsado part is not important really as any CRM, but like, again. Most of my course is me showing you step by step what to click and what to enter, which has absolutely no benefit in an audio format.
But then there’s this mindset piece, and I think that this is like where I finally started to recognize how audio can be powerful in that space. I talk a lot about running a profitable business, running a sustainable business, all these things. And clearly I have this public podcast, so I have things to talk about.
Might not be the same as the course that I actually have, but then it gave me ideas for lead magnets and other things where people would want to hear what I said that had nothing to do with the actual product that I’m trying to sell you. which is how to step by step do this inside of a piece of software, because that is never going to be able to be done in an audio only format.
Let’s talk about your podcast. Cause you have an amazing podcast. So talk about the creation of your public podcast and why you chose to make it public instead of private, which probably would have been a little bit more meta. I
Lindsay: Like our co founder meetings we have weekly and we talk about, you know, whatever we’re working on and, and all the things. And, um, we’re recently, yeah, we recently did quarterly planning and every time we’re like, Oh, this should probably be a podcast.
We should probably turn this into an asset. And I had built for our affiliate, something called, private podcasting, the ultimate digital asset. And it’s like a 15 minute presentation that I gave you the slides for. I gave you the MP3. I even gave you a universal link for a private podcast that you can share with your audience in order to convert them into customers of Hello Audio.
And you get the affiliate money. We’re like, yeah, it’s so good. And then Nora’s like, Why isn’t that an asset that we use? Like we gave it to them and we’re like, this is the best. And so it’s just really funny. Like the amount of times, cause we interview people on launch your private podcast, we interview users about how they use the product.
And I walk away going like, how do we not have this in our business? Like, I feel like we’re supposed to have. every private podcast possible. But that’s a testament to what it’s like to actually run a business. You can’t do every single thing that you see out there when it relates to marketing or asset creation or offers or whatever.
And so you have to decide what makes the most sense for your business. But we always laugh at like, we’re building something, we’re creating an asset for ourselves. And like, the amount of times that we’re like, Oh, this should probably be a private podcast is kind of bananas. So I think, yeah. That’s all to be said.
Like, we have a lot of private podcasts. The reason why we wanted Launch Your Private Podcast to be public, is, you know, a couple of reasons. I think public podcasts are great as a, a tool that is really shareable, because the way that podcasts are found are usually word of mouth. And I think that it’s not, sadly, it’s not discoverability or searching or anything.
I wish it would. And maybe you got some new stuff at podcast movement, but, you know, we’ve been kind of doing the same thing for a while with podcasts, but we wanted it to be public. So it could be really shareable. Because I think the thing with private podcast, it’s great and it still can be shareable as a lead magnet is shareable.
There’s something about, yeah, putting that thought leadership out. And what we always advise our customers who might be deciding between which one they want to do first. If you’re talking about which one you want to do first, we highly recommend doing a private podcast first. If you want to create a public podcast, that’s great, but that is a lead generation really early on in your business.
It’s probably the amount of effort that goes in and the amount of, you know, return you get to grow your business is not. Is not enough. And so the public version of our podcast, we had an audience. We have an email list. We have name recognition. So us launching our public podcast meant we would have downloads when we launched it, and it would be valuable.
And so we knew that that’s the route we wanted to go. And we like talking. That is something we do really well at Hello Audio. We talk a lot about how. Our users are using it and how we are using it and the decisions that we make behind that, because, you know, we’re marketers too, right? And so the, the fact that we can kind of peek, you know, show you behind like the thought process of here’s why we made this a universal link and not an email signup, here’s why this is a public podcast.
That’s all important. And it’s all strategic, I guess. Um, and decisions made on your own personal. You know, based on your own business, I guess.
Colie: mean, I will admit, I think that your public podcast is the most strategic piece of marketing I have ever seen in my life. I listened to every single episode and once I’m done listening, I’m like, Oh, let’s put that on the list of
Lindsay: Let’s build that.
Colie: tool. I mean, so literally you’re, you’re interviewing your users.
Which means you’re giving them visibility. You’re giving them authority in the space that they have, but they’re also selling your product as they’re describing all the ways that they use it. And all of the income that they make from it. I mean, my favorite thing that you ask every single guest is, well, how many private podcast feeds do you have?
And like the answer to that sometimes, I mean, Jordan was like 53, I think, I don’t know, it’s been a long time since I listened to her episode, but yeah, she has, and I have several of them. On my phone, but I will say getting the private podcast feeds from Jordan never really made me want to run out and make my own private podcast feed.
It wasn’t until I heard her on your podcast and not just her, I mean, many others, but I love Jordan on your podcast, talking about how they’re using it, what the gains were, how they used it to build their business that I was like, okay, no, this is really something. And so. I mean, I don’t necessarily think that everyone needs to create their own public podcast in the same way that you have, but certainly, if you have something where you could do a case study podcast, which is what I consider yours to be in a public way, where you have people just talking about your services or your.
Product rather and how they’ve used it. I mean, I literally cannot think of a better marketing tool than that. I don’t think there’s any lead magnet that you could ever create in life that is going to top people listening to this public podcast. And I will say, because you mentioned I was at podcast movement.
I mean, that’s the thing. Discoverability for podcasts is very difficult, and it’s one of the things that they talked about a lot at Podcast Movement. And I don’t know if this is going to surprise you, but like the big idea this year and last year, both years, is no one will stop talking about YouTube. And the idea that if you put your audio podcast on YouTube, that that is the best way to get discovered just blows my mind.
It is a video, it’s a video platform. And they’re not even saying like put the video up of you and I, they’re saying if you put it on there just as an audio,
Lindsay: feed. Yeah.
Colie: yes, that you will have a higher chance of discoverability. And I think I just saw a Bloomberg article yesterday that said YouTube has now. Oh, has now surpassed Apple in terms of, I mean, I was just like, are you kidding me?
I mean, it doesn’t even make any sense. I personally do not know anyone who turns on YouTube in order to just listen to a podcast as their normal way of doing it. It’s mind blowing, but I mean, they keep saying it over and over again. So clearly there is someone
Lindsay: There are people.
Colie: doing this.
Lindsay: There are people. So we don’t have a video podcast, but we record it. And so we might turn it into a video podcast. But we are doing the RSS auto upload. We get some views. It’s, I don’t know if it’s discoverability and I could go back and look. We took a break this summer, so our data is going to be a little messed up.
But, I, it’s, yeah, I think this is a wait and see moment. Yes, YouTube is very searchable. I mean, right. Gen Z is using TikTok to search. So we’re in this, we’re definitely in this, like, where to put our effort moment. And SEO is like dying because of AI. So we’re like, what’s happening? Because the way we’ve run business for the last 10 years is like shifting.
And I think it’s going to be interesting to see what podcasts do in this, because we have always said to podcasting hasn’t changed. It’s been around for 20 years and it has not changed much at all. And you’ll hear podcast movement. People talk about podcast 2. 0 and I’m just like, Hmm, you wish it
Colie: what that is.
Lindsay: It’s like using Bitcoin to like donate to the host. I’m like, no one cares. Right. And I think, I think rethinking that what, what podcast can be, I think is, is powerful, but what has made podcasting so important for 20 years and continuing to be important is like, people will always. have space in their day to put on headphones and do something else.
And so great. True crime. Great. Business first creatives, right? Great. Like I can listen to this thing cause it inspires me. I have time to do that. I don’t have time to find my Thinkific login and click some buttons and download some workbooks and like pretend I’m going to do work.
So that to us is. I think podcasting is going more niche, like a lot of, they probably talked a lot about that, right? Like the niche podcast. It’s not about having a generic podcast anymore. And I think private podcast is like, as niche as you can get, because you get access to that email list and those people are like raising their hands and saying of all the things I could listen to at this moment, I pick that and
I’m going to give you my email address. So, you know, who I am, right? Like that’s different than launching a public podcast on, I don’t know, like crocheting while, you know, water skiing or something. Right? So, like, I, I think that’s where the power is. And so, um. It’s not that it takes away from the public. I think they work really well together.
We’ve had, um, Diane Mayer talked a lot about that in her episode on Launch Your Private Podcast, which is how she uses her public, podcast to like drive private podcast consumption. And she has some really interesting strategies there. So, yeah, it’s definitely like a new world. And. I think sharing what other people are doing by the end of an episode, either me and Nora are coaching the person we’re like, you should have this speed.
And they’re like, yeah, or we’re like, shit, Nora, we got to make the speed. Like, what are we doing? You know, so there’s a lot of that happening. A lot of ahas about the innovation and the way you can use it. And that we just do that publicly because I think that’s just a great way to demonstrate. Great. The type of users we want people to be like, Oh, yeah, like, I’m like, Jordan, like, you know, or Oh, yeah, I’m like, you’re right.
Because I think that our type of user is an experimenter, an innovator. They’re out there just, you know, doing the thing and, and trying stuff. And that’s how we also look at this because no one knows exactly how, you know, You know, private podcasts, you know, should be done because it’s so new. And so that we wanted to like give to everyone publicly and we have a private podcast called success stories.
So it is an offshoot we, and this is a great idea for a feed for lots of listeners is a case study based podcast. And we ran it completely async over Voxer and that’s been our most popular lead magnet. And we’re. Looking to now change it since we have a public podcast that does that more. But it’s funny because we, we interviewed those folks and then we wanted to go deeper and catch up with them.
And that’s where the public podcast kind of went.
Colie: So I will say one of the things that I find most fascinating, because at Podcast Movement, I was looking, I, my public podcast, so this podcast, Business First Creatives, I have a hello audio membership, but it is not for my public. I ran it off of Buzzsprout and I was kind of interested in like looking at the other public options.
You can put a public podcast on Hello Audio. I will say that out loud, but I was looking at the other options and some of them have private podcast options and there was someone else who was interested in a private podcast. you should just, you know, go with Hello Audio and they were like, what, you know, this one, they were specifically talking about Captivate, which is now where this public podcast is hosted.
They were like, no, they have it. And it’s unlimited. Podcasts. And I said, not for private. And they said something. I said, no, you have to go three pages deep unless something has changed. You don’t know that it’s not unlimited until you go. Plus every single podcast host at podcast movement that claimed to have a a private option was limited in the number of listeners, which I just, I don’t understand, but.
I
Lindsay: This is why we built it, by the
Colie: Yes, I know.
Lindsay: is why we built it. Because I’m like a marketer wants to be able to reach as many people as possible and
Colie: people. No,
Lindsay: for it. No. Like that’s not enough.
Colie: It’s not enough. So the one thing that I found absolutely fascinating about one of your episodes and it was your episode with Nat Bullen. And I’m going to say, guys, if you guys didn’t listen to her episode on this podcast, it was number 134. It was amazing, but
Lindsay: think it’s the most downloaded episode also,
Colie: Is it for you? Oh my God. So the thing that I loved from her episode was she really, you guys really talked about the listener score and. What we all talk about when it comes to a lead magnet is that that’s the person raising their hand to say that they’re interested in learning more about whatever it is that you’re offering, but we don’t know anything about their damn consumption.
Like, especially if it’s a PDF, like we can see if they clicked it, that doesn’t mean they read it. If it’s a video, we can see that it’s been watched, but we don’t know if a particular person watched it. Like there’s nothing that gives us. Consumption, except the listener score in Hello Audio. And so one of the biggest takeaways that I got, and I would say, I would venture to say it was actually from any episode that you’ve ever had.
But when she said that she paid attention to that listener score, so that if someone had a particular listener score, she was reaching out to them personally. I was like, okay, that is something that I can get behind because from my perspective, in terms of seeing what people do. I have come to the realization that if someone gets one freebie from me, there’s not really a correlation as to if they end up becoming a client, but I will tell you what has a correlation.
And I haven’t actually done full statistical analysis on it, but I swear it’s going to come eventually if someone downloads more than 1 of my freebies. And also I have begun to see patterns in the order in which they do it. I can tell that if this was the third one, Oh, they are going to buy the course.
Like they are on this particular path and this is the last thing. And this is going to be the thing that pushes them to finally buy the course and like, you know, up level their entire CRM. And so I just found it really fascinating when Nat said, Oh, I pay attention to the listener score and when they get to this, and I mean, it can even be automated.
I mean, that’s the thing she was doing it. Okay. She was doing it manually and in my mind, I’m screaming at her. Yeah, but you could do that as a zap. Like
Lindsay: Yeah, your, your, your system’s brain was going.
Colie: And so, I mean, again, it was just absolutely fascinating to me to listen to this, to, as a listener. As a user of hello audio to basically start writing down all the things that I want and if I hadn’t already converted that definitely would have converted me into the power of private podcast just by hearing people’s success stories and the decisions behind them on your public podcast.
So, I mean, that’s just my little spiel. If you have not listened to this podcast, y’all, it is going to be listed inside of the show notes, along with a few of my favorite episodes. I mean, I already mentioned Jordan’s episode. I already mentioned Nat Bullins. There’s like two or three more that I’m
Lindsay: Mariah cause, can I recommend with, can I recommend what Mariah causes episode on getting rid of Q and a calls
Colie: All together.
Lindsay: Woo! I was like, this is, this is, this is it guys. This is, this is gold. That’s a good episode.
Colie: I mean, guys, I don’t necessarily know that this conversation went where I thought it was going to go with Lindsey, but I hope that between us reminiscing about our old college days and the commonalities that we have between leaving academia and coming to be entrepreneurs and kind of finding ourselves in the place that we were meant to be, and also the power of private podcasts and how it can help you grow your business.
I hope that you have walked away from this conversation with something. Lindsay, is there anything that you want to add in closing?
Lindsay: No, I just want to say I love chatting with you. I knew this was going to be fun, but I don’t think I knew it was going to be like this fun. And, I, yeah, if you have any questions about private podcasting or you are just want to jam, if you were a professor too, like hit me up on IG. Yeah. Like I love talking about that.
And, um, yeah, it was really great. Thanks for making that fun and engaging.
Colie: I mean, listening audience, if I can find a reason to have Lindsay back, I will bring her back. If for no other reason than you guys can just listen to the 2. 0 version of this call. Maybe we’ll talk about our kids next time. Who knows?
Lindsay: Yeah.
Colie: Oh, I know. right, y’all. That’s it for this episode. See you next time.
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