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You're listening to the Radcast, a top 25 worldwide business podcast. If it's radical, we cover it.

00:13
Here's your host Ryan Alford. Hey, guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. Ryan Alford, your host. We're getting radical. We're getting radically meta today. Talk with the founder, the CEO of Glass Box Media. What's up, David Segura? Doing great. How are you?

00:32
I'm great man. Appreciate you coming on. I'm excited to talk podcasts. Hey, anyone that's coming on to tell me that podcasts are exploding, it's the smartest decision anyone can make, it starts to stroke my ego a little. So I appreciate it. Yeah, happy to do it. I'm being sincere, so it works for both of us.

00:52
I know exactly. It's good for you. Good for us. I know we'll get down that road. I know you're in Manhattan there. I both we talked pre-episode. I both miss it and don't miss it a bit. Can't deny the energy, but it grows on me. I'm glad to be back in a little bit of slower South Carolina, but it probably does fuel the energy daily. I'm sure that it does. New York is unrelenting after seven years or so, like still not totally used to it. But I've learned to embrace it.

01:18
You have to, it's the only way. And I loved it. I liked the frenetic nature of it, but as you get older, you want to, and raising kids, it's not the best place to raise a family, not because it's like bad or you'll give it a bad rap about being danger or something. I never felt in that, in, at a danger, but these are more green grass and certain things, so raising the family here in South Carolina, but it's not about me, David. I want to hear, and I know I can't wait to get to talk more about glass box and all the stuff that's going on.

01:48
there but let's set the table for everybody and tell them a little bit about that backstory on you man. Yeah definitely. So I was born in Houston but I grew up in El Paso Texas. Really enjoyed it. Smaller town, moved a lot slower. Nothing like New York. Then I wanted to change a place and I ultimately went to University of Chicago. Loved it out there. Had a great experience, good education but it was too cold.

02:12
for a Hispanic guy from West Texas, I just couldn't hack it. So the first chance I got, I was out of there.

02:18
So I moved to Los Angeles, really enjoyed it, did some consulting, which was not the best fit. Hats off to anybody working at a big company, but for me, I learned early on that that wasn't really like my bag and I wanted to be a little bit more entrepreneurial. So started out as a junior employee at several media companies, had a good experience, and that all eventually led to me starting this company called Giant Media. Giant Media was like this native video exchange, which we play in English. We used to help companies and like entrepreneurial brands

02:48
create videos and tell stories. We would find out essentially the best place to propagate that, whether it was a publisher or alternatively these apps coming from this new social network that people probably have heard of called Facebook early on. Yeah, it's a great outcome for us, but we had no other choice. Like we get some credit sometimes for being innovative and embracing Facebook early, but as a small company, like we just decided to bet the farm on it, ended up being right.

03:16
So we scaled that out with some amazing help. People like Mike Dubin from Dollar Shave Club and others. And as a result of that had amazing clients like Heineken, L'Oreal, you name it. And eventually got acquired by this big holding company called AdMillage. That was itself backed by TBG and JMI. So that was an amazing outcome. We worked our tails off, but it was almost existential. We achieved what we wanted to do. And I was thinking like, what the hell do I do now? And so that was the story of Giant basically.

03:43
That's cool, man. Fascinating bet. When you start talking about the video network platform, it was reminding me, it's kind of like early programmatic in a way. Is that would that be a good way of summarizing it? Very much so. It was all built for scale. Our biggest clients were all the demand side. So they were those huge media agencies, which I know you're familiar with. The OMDs of the world. Oh, yeah. Publicities, all those guys. It was personal and it was strategic, but it was also very transactional. It was for the most part automated self-serve. And then we did do some contextual.

04:13
as well with them. So it's scaled nicely. We learned a ton. And eventually we got bought by this company that had ambitions to scale over the world. An amazing set of people. Really funny. I spent my two years after making sure the integration went through. But then immediately after that, I decided to take some time off. Was mildly burned out and I felt I needed to do that for myself. And I'm glad I did. It's good. You have to recognize it yourself. Too many of us don't get too far on the other end of that and they can go south or further

04:43
So hats off to you. A lot to be learned out there for entrepreneurs, like knowing and understanding how to take care of yourself. So would you classify yourself? I have these discussions with clearly an entrepreneur, clearly a marketer on many levels. Are you a technical marketer or are you a visual marketer? Where's your passion at? You seem like you got a little bit of both. I would say this, I'd probably be more of the technical marketer camp.

05:10
But like everybody, I think I'm a visual person. I'll start by saying I'm not like a true CTO. Like my co-founder, a giant is that guy. He gets it, he's what I consider to be a true technologist. That's not me. I'm more of a dreamer, like a big thinker. I like strategy. I try to fill like the gaps in the market and then obviously assemble a good team and push them really hard. So that's what we did. So our whole vision there was just trying to figure out how do we help people scale video? How do we do something different from pre-roll, something more personal and personalized?

05:40
And we just happened to capture the trends a little bit quicker than a lot of other folks. So we were very fortunate to have our exit in 2014. And obviously, I think the choir did really well too. So that's great also. That's cool. We exit there, we take a little break, we dabble on a few things.

05:58
When did the podcasting start to hit your radar? And you know, what, before we dive hard down the glass box rabbit hole, talk to me about what you've been seeing. What kind of led to the podcast trade for you? Yeah. So I'll say this is a little bit of cliche, but at least in my experience, it ended up being true. I did want to start another business. I know I'm more of an entrepreneur than I am an investor, but it took some time to get there, like this whole break, for example.

06:26
It was like five years. So it was a long time in between of starting this business and kind of getting started. So essentially what I was doing during that time is investing in all sorts of companies from like CPG to media. The audience has probably heard of some of them companies like liquid death, Hawthorne, the clone company, Grove collaborative ease, cannabis company, a whole bunch.

06:47
And while it didn't relate, obviously, directly to podcasts, later on it did. And seeing what people did well, what they didn't do well. I just started to get more passionate about getting back in the game. And then it was almost like having a heart to heart with myself. I have a lot of interest. I'm like literally ADHD. And so at a certain point in time, though, I just thought, you know what? I'm a media nerd. That's what I get to get back to. That's always been my sweet spot. And that's where I can add the most value. Let's do this. So in 2020, we essentially just got the band back together. A lot of folks from the.

07:17
media team were interested in doing something. It took us about six months to figure out exactly what that was, but multiple members of the founding team wanted to focus on podcasting, which I was passionate about, but I'll be the first to say not an expert at the time.

07:32
And the reason why we chose it is just that we thought is a really interesting way to improve the lives of creators, essentially the podcast host and figure out a way to invest in them, sometimes literally to increase the value of their IP. So our whole vision for Glassbox is that we're extremely bullish on the concept of like proving IP really quickly through podcasting. We think it's like a foothold or toe hold into anything. It's great as a standalone product, but adaptation opportunities, whether it's books, live events, or TV.

08:02
we really think it's endless and we're just at the beginning stages of this now. Yeah, you're singing from the playbook. We're in the choir together, or I don't know if you're preaching, I'm preaching, but I'm Amening in the back. Hallelujah! In the good Southern Baptist Church. When anybody was really like vibing with what the pastor was saying, want to make them feel good, they go Amen. So I gave you some digital and real Amens from the pastor in the

08:31
with marketing, everybody is tired of ads. Like everybody's aware more of marketing than they've ever been before, and they don't want, we're interrupting. And so, where podcasting plays for me is in this alternative media world for brands and opportunities for like, how you bring content to life in a way that maybe promotes a person, a brand, a product,

09:01
It's kind of like the notion Pepsi's Pepsi will have a TV station one day like like you're seeing this convergence of media and brands and commercialism and all that stuff. And podcasting to me is like at the forefront of like this alternative media opportunity because it has so many arms and legs, because once you start creating content and doing what we're doing right here, the offshoots of of that are endless. Like you said, books, other adaptations. But there's.

09:29
It is IP, it truly is. It's a unique piece of content that could be used in different ways, manipulated in different ways, and then turned into alternative forms of media things. So it's really fascinating time that we're in. I'd agree. And just to give you another example, I've mostly been a digital guy. Obviously, that's what I'm passionate about, your classic startups. But I've also dabbled in investing in TV catalogs and probably the most well known is

09:56
And don't get me wrong, I'm super biased, but it's a great show. Who doesn't love Cesar Millan? But the fact of the matter is it's been almost 15 years since it's been on TV.

10:06
And even with that, we've been able to license that old catalog to Pluto TV, overseas, Latin America and Europe. And here in North America with at least right now Disney Plus. So the reason I bring that up is that even though it sounds bombastic, impossible, almost borderline wrong, I really do think podcasting is evergreen. And I really think that the staying power is there. So with a straight face, I'll tell you that I think podcast catalogs will eventually rival TV and music catalogs as well.

10:36
So I think that realization is a new one, but people with much bigger checkbooks and bigger brains than I am have started to realize that really recently. So I'm excited to see where this goes from here. I love that. The Radcast started five years ago and I always saw it as a media entity. Maybe I had the cheese sheet being a marketer and kind of writing that, starting that training, but like we've started the Radcast podcast network. We've got three or four new shows coming under our umbrella. And so

11:06
they look at it the same way. It's like that IP and like it's, and the more shows you get under the umbrella, the more opportunities like, the high tide raises all ships, right? And so those synergies with sponsors, with content, with the interplay of guests and hosts and different things, even if they're not exactly down the same line or vertical, there's just so much there. And I think there's...

11:32
You saw this trend with like COVID and things like that where podcasting went high because a lot of people had maybe more time and it started to level off a bit. But I think now we're probably just what we've done is we're just kind of back now on that natural growth plane for the medium. And I like I both like and don't like, but that it's cooled a bit with just new players coming in because it takes a lot to build a show. It's a lot of work.

11:59
That's it's just complex and it's easy to get started. It's hard to have longevity. Yeah, it's all things in life. You got to be consistent. And I will tell you, at the risk of annoying you, I was that guy working with like really star creators, our team and myself, especially just underestimated how many man hours goes into doing it from research to practice.

12:22
production to editing. It's just like mind blowing. So my hats off to anybody who does it like a year over year, much less like five years. That's amazing. Yeah, we just hit three. It's gonna be like episode 350 somewhere in that range. We did two a week for, and look, I started, I worked for others for 17 years and this started Radical, our ad agency. I started the Radcast and started really going heavy with my personal brand. Those three things, all.

12:52
started really about the same time five years ago, almost to the day, like right here, March, April, May of 2018. And if you put them on an axis of time and growth, they all three are almost identical. The revenue of the agency, the growth, popularity, listenership, and sponsor opportunities at the show, and then the popularity of my personal brand, because we've interplayed all three, and leveraged one against the other.

13:22
And so it, but it takes that consistency. I had one client and I was recording two podcasts weeks, which, which in some ways made no sense at all. It wasn't like impacting, but people just thought I was freaking crazy. But five years later, they don't. And so, but people have to, but it's still early. And I think people just need to realize the opportunity that's there. I agree. I agree. And that's a big part of our vision. So just taking a step back. Cause a lot of people do ask us like, what is glass box?

13:50
There's a lot of folks in this space. People even use like the saturated words sometimes, especially those that are involved in media. And I'll just take a step back and just say that we bottle this company essentially almost like a record label.

14:01
Like personal heroes of myself and my co-founder include folks like David Geffen, Boston, folks like that. So the way we see ourselves and the way you see ourselves operating in the world is that for the most part, we're not building a tech platform from scratch, whether it's a Riverside, a megaphone or ads was instead we're trying to sign up star creators across multiple thematic genres, comedy, society and culture, business and finance, you name it. And what we try to do is figure out ways to grow their audience.

14:31
helpful, we'll actually make an investment in them to become a minority partner in the whole franchise. And then of course, we're also executing on large scale brand partnerships, whether it's like people that just are already spreading the gospel of podcasting, like athletic greens and better help, but also our former clients at giant, which to us, surprisingly, even though they like the space, they don't know a lot about it yet. And they need more education than we thought. But the good news is that the Heineken's and the Hondas of the world are not only buying through

15:01
right. There is a lot of data and third party analytics I can gather from podcasting. It should complement my social media and video investment, which is obviously already long since established. So we're getting there. We just think we entered this market as a company maybe more soon than we did with giant and video. We honestly thought we were going to recreate that whole experience, but we found out actually, for the biggest brands in the world, brand awareness, things like that, we're evangelists. And we're happy to put on that hat. We think we're well equipped to do.

15:31
that and we're well on our way towards accomplishing that. It's so interesting. Fascinating. And talking with David Segura, CEO and founder of Glassbox Media, GlassXMedia.com. So a lot to unpack there with the platform. I have a lot of questions. This podcast.

15:51
producer, owner, et cetera, and trying to, with the best interest of the listenership, it's not all selfish here, folks. We're thinking about you. But in all seriousness, David, like, how does, when a show, when you identify a show or you're adding, do you guys own the IP or does the original owner of the show own the IP? Are you just sharing profits or are you taking ownership of the entire IP of the show? Great question.

16:21
And there's no perfect answer in terms of like, how do you structure versus how you don't, but I'll just tell you a high level what we do. Part of the reason we've been able to grow so quickly.

16:29
Like literally January, 2021 is when we really started focusing on podcasting. We've gone from obviously having zero podcasts with zero monthly listeners to having just under 80 under exclusive multi-year contract. And we collectively reached just under 12 million monthly listeners. So it's scaled up pretty nicely. The way we've organized the business is that we're targeting folks that already have a passion, have been doing this maybe for years in most cases and have an audience, not always, but typically have at least 150,000 listeners or downloads

16:59
month. In some cases, much more than that, like almost two million with Chris Fitton and SleepCove. But to get to the point, what we're typically doing is we are actually are offering a revenue share, but the big catch in a positive way is that we're giving you the greater of that revenue share or a minimum guarantee. And the reason we're doing that is we have to put our money where our mouth is. If you're independent, you enjoy that, you're your own boss, you're in control of your editorial

17:29
to justify that, we want to show you that we're gonna be able to accelerate your earnings and at the same time respect and leave you in control of your editorial vision. So that's like the core of the business. The compliment to that and to tackle the IP question, that's literally top concern for every single creator. That what you just jump to immediately is like what they're most concerned about. And...

17:50
It's straightforward, but their biggest anxiety is that they're gonna lose control somehow. So the way we structure our deals is they're twofold. We have our exclusive multi-year agreements that are rev shares with MGs. That doesn't involve any IP participation. But we also offer typically a development deal, which is this entertainment lingo of course for an investment. And we try to structure it so that we give you X dollars. And that basically entitles us to anywhere from five to as much as 30% stake. We try to keep things aligned.

18:20
incentivized. We also don't want to alter the direction of the show, but we want a mutual incentive to work together to develop opportunities, whether it's in book publishing, live events, TV, or all the above. And there's a risk here. So in other words, it's creator friendly, clearly to be in the minority position. But some of our investors have like rightly been critical, at least to some extent. And they've said stuff like when push comes to shove, if you're the minority partner, let's say that you zealously argue that they should do something or not do something.

18:50
ultimately can't make them if you're a minority partner. They're right. But our bet here is that running a portfolio with many podcasters is going to be over the long term financially a lot more valuable than pretending we have the best taste and that we should do everything from the ground up and with less shows. That's our vision and that's why we're comfortable taking the risk and trusting creators and ultimately leaving them in control.

19:14
Really interesting there. And hats off to you for seeing that vision and what would work with ultimately what makes it all run, which is the creators and the shows themselves. Congrats there. Thank you. And I can understand the risk side of it with the investors too. I totally can't see both. But let's explain a little bit, get underneath what Glassbox is and what it isn't. I think you've described what it is, but.

19:41
When people think about distribution of shows now today, and let's just focus on audio just for the sake of simplicity. You've got all the distribution channels, Apple, podcasts being probably number one or number two. You've got Google's, you've got iHeartRadio, you've got all the Spotify, obviously. So this is where shows get distributed, listened to, and depending on the audience, and depending on whatever apps people have on their phone or computers or whatever for listening.

20:10
Glassbox is not, some platforms try to keep all the listens and watches happening on their platform. I'm not hearing that from you. I'm, what I'm hearing from you is, you're fine with it being seen and viewed and getting as much distribution on all those channels as much as possible, it's more everything around it. The ads, the sponsors, the insert.

20:36
service here. Am I understanding that correctly? You're exactly correct. And it's a deliberate choice of the team made, including myself. But also we tried to pattern match with other industries and where we think they're going. But one comment I'll make that I'm sure you know, is that podcast discovery is hella hard.

20:52
That still is a central issue, I think, in the whole industry. And I've met a lot of really talented people, whether they're producers or hosts, that know they're going to produce a kick-ass show. They know they're going to do a good job. And so they rightly assume that they're going to blow it out in terms of audience. But when they find out is that, no, maybe not, actually. It's very difficult. It takes years of work, some luck, momentum, you name it. So we decided that we wanted to be in the content game, but we wanted to basically piggyback off existing distribution. And it's exactly in those places you talked about. It's on iHeart.

21:22
Apple is on Spotify. So we signed someone up, I mean, to give an example, we signed a show called Practical Stoicism with Tanner Campbell. Tanner is great, the show is about philosophy, but the message within the message is essentially that it appeals for a reason mostly to young men, that's 90% of the audience, that want to figure out ways to level up, whether it's their personal life or their career, and apply these lessons of stoicism to that. Obviously, probably generously inspired by Ryan Holiday's like Daily Stoic Show as well. So starting with 200,000, which

21:52
material, we were able to grow that to almost triple that in a period of just three months. So we make a deliberate decision that we're going to get in business with folks that have got some traction, have a relationship with the audience, and then we'll think of ways to make that more scalable, both on the marketing and modernization side. And that's the business decision we've made. We're seeing now, though, that other industries are exploring this as well. As an example, Bob Iger at Disney, now that he's back there, he was the first to admit that look. In a perfect world, all are Disney IP.

22:22
which he argues is the best in the world, would just stay here and use it, we'll use it to grow Disney Plus and maybe the other properties they own. What they figured out now, and he's very tactful, he's very professional, a Fortune 500 CEO about it, but what he's really saying is that if someone wants to overpay for something and license it for Peacock maybe or Paramount Plus, we'll do it. In other words, our content should live wherever we can get the highest return for ourselves and shareholders. And I think it just goes back to that classic marketing conundrum. Do you wanna like use your IP

22:52
grow this and only this, or in some cases, it doesn't make sense to propagate that in multiple places and take in the licensing fees or the additional audience which converts into revenue. We've made our choice and so we very much believe in the fragmented model, the distributed model, and that's why when investors tell us rightly, maybe we should explore building a listening app, etc. I'm like, we could, maybe we can gather some really interesting audience data, but from a consumption standpoint, a revenue driver, it's not the strategy. We want to piggy

23:22
And that's elsewhere. I'm going to be real transparent right here. David, the reason I wanted you on the show once your team had reached out was of what you just said. I think it's smart. I think it's the way to go. I think these walled gardens that seem to make sense, don't make sense for how the audience listens and scattered. And so why not tap into all that audience to build the IP? Cause look, for a show.

23:49
To grow more sponsors, more things, it needs more audience. And if you put it behind a wall garden, it's just limiting the opportunity. Period. I think it's brilliant. And I think it's the smart way to be doing it. You don't need me to tell you that, but as a creator and a podcast host, that's the way it's got to be to get, it just would make no sense to see these guys. Like a couple of like peers and things like that. They go, I'm going to go over here on.

24:16
whatever it is, because they get lured by some of these platforms. I won't name any of them. I'm not trying to badmouth like one person or platform, but I'm just like, dude, why are you going to cut your legs off? You're just going to you're alienating the audience that you've built, whatever it is. You think they're going to follow you. They're not all going to fall. Maybe 10% will. And you have to start all over again. And so it's fascinating to me. I'd agree. And I think this trend won't accelerate.

24:43
Because the thing that's happening behind the scenes is that it's awesome. As podcasting is it's growing week over week, year over year. A big driver is also radio. Radio is still huge. It's almost a $40 billion a year industry. And obviously that's slowly atrophies and it comes to podcasting as it should. But those advertisers, they want performance. They immediate immediately. Hence the promo codes and everything like that.

25:05
We love those advertisers. We're not trying to be disrespectful in any way, but I'll say that increasingly the Johnson and Johnson's, the Heineken's, the Pelotones of the world, those are the folks that are going to dominate. And they're very preoccupied with reach. So even if you have a good incentive, financial, otherwise to regulate your distribution to one simple listening platform, it's going to hurt you in terms of where the world is going, because once they say yes to you, they say yes on everything, they want your back catalog. They want your current episodes and they want to maximize reach.

25:35
have your audience or worse, you've literally just have your revenue opportunity. Bingo, man. And you started to go real close. I'm gonna take you one step further, is what people are realizing is, and it drove me crazy, like we get approached with, we have four title sponsors. I do all live reads. We have no other ads overlaid, all individually negotiated. And I only do...

26:03
brand of ad deals, what I mean by that. I do know, we wanna do your show for two weeks and we wanna run this, we'll put a code if we sell something. And look, they want the podcast to generate something that marketing can't do, which is someone hearing an ad one time and taking an action. Come on, man. If it worked that way, it would be too simple. You gotta build brand and you need reach and frequency.

26:27
And that's where I want to see more of the bigger brands come in to seeing the exposure opportunity.

26:34
And look, we all know impressions aren't all created equal, but I can tell you this, a two minute live read, which is where sometimes I go to, because I just get into whatever we're talking about and I build it into the storyline, the impact of that versus your 30 second pre-recorded whatever, I would put it at 100x the impression level and what it does. And that doesn't mean that my audience goes and buys X product, but it's the...

27:00
level of the authenticity and it's the frequency and there's just not all impressions are created equal. I'd agree with that and the market's evolving like you're obviously in a great position.

27:12
if brands will embrace that. They obviously believe in your show, so they're willing to do it. But the experience for most podcasters is a little different and they're gonna be in that test bucket. In other words, anywhere from 1X to 3X, that's what they're gonna test. And on the basis of that quick test, they're literally gonna get a renewal for the rest of the year or they're not. So it's crazy, but that's usually the model. The one nice thing that we're pushing back on and I think other people are too, to be fair, is that we've come to recognize in most cases, we can't get them to switch off that model, that's fine.

27:42
them is that we're going to serve the spots dynamically. So to clarify, it's not going to be like randomly in mid-settings or anything, but we do pre-record the host-read ads so that when let's say sponsorship is over, whether it's one month or 12 months, we reserve the right then at that point to maybe switch out of Heineken for a Budweiser. And that's one of the ways that we're able to keep things evergreen and keep that revenue potential going. We've had some pushback, but that's because I think to your point about reaching frequency, I think they know that,

28:12
that even if they decide not to move forward with you, if something is baked in or there forever, they're probably gonna get a few more hits on that. And then that might actually serve their needs, but it may not serve the podcast or the audience's needs. So we're trying to balance that. And to be fair, we found that most brands they're willing to play ball media agencies too, they just want to be successful. So if you can convince them, they're willing to try things that scale.

28:34
Yep. And the secret sauce is in the middle, like the big brands, they want that, the dynamic, they want all that. The ones at the bottom probably can't afford it. The middle brands, people, brands that are new, but already successful and have seen the success they can have a podcast, they'll play a little bit of a longer game and understand some of the values of the impressions over just pure volume. And I'm like, we, I think we have 130, 40,000.

29:02
downloads a month or something like that. So we're up there, but it's, you've got, I don't know, mine's a big authenticity thing. I think the next phase for you guys, which is what I've done is I get a lot of leverage because my personal brand, I'm verified on every platform. I have a million followers across all channels. So when you buy the show, you buy me. And so it's leveraging all of those things and getting your creators behind that.

29:26
would be a up shoot, I'm sure. And that's what folks want at the end of the day, whether it's a personal endorsement or not. It is like when you agree to select something and you put it on the show, people do read into that. And so I think the brands are just to be fair, getting a great deal. So that's why we're going after some of these new folks that we haven't not signed yet, but knock on what we do. Con Agra folks like that. I think they get it. They understand that it's a special relationship and it's a great way to promote whatever they're trying to do, whether it's Annie's popcorn or slim

29:56
Yeah, but your platform makes a lot of sense for people that have a good product or they're a good show, but maybe they're not, the marketing acumen is not there and you're willing to invest in it. So again, I read through it and once I understood it, I'm like, this is a no brainer. If you're like a show and you got a little traction, but you just need some ammunition behind you, this just makes a lot of sense for.

30:22
the sweet spot of shows and that. I think that's a good number. It's just a messy world out there and a lot of creators spend a lot of time doing things and they love the art of the craft, but this stuff isn't as natural to them. And so there's a lot of great shows out there that don't get the following that they should. I think that's exactly it. And...

30:42
In my experience, most people have the chops to do it if they needed to. They're just not staffed to like really execute it. So most of the creators we've talked to have been doing sporadic, let's say, host read ads with like shows that they respect and they're thematically relevant.

30:56
But inevitably there's always so much time for that. It falls off and it's not consistent. So one of the things that we do is we make sure to not only continue that for them, but we also record trailers and then we swap those in an automated way. We basically track very carefully what they contribute versus what other people contribute, how much of those listens basically turn into either downloads or subscriptions to the RSS feed. And then the crazy part that blows people's minds is that we literally trade millions of impressions every single month with we jokingly call for enemies.

31:26
Malcolm Gladwell's, Pushkin Media, our cast media in LA. We're doing deals where literally no money is changing hands, but literally we're mutually lifting each other's boat and increasing revenue simply by swapping relevant audience. And I think it works out really well for us.

31:41
So let's give some value out there to our listeners because we do. We have a good number of people that have started or have podcasts. And obviously first selection would be let's get on glass box media, or at least talk to you, see if it's the right fit. But how can podcasters out there promote their show better? How can they get obviously some of the tools and technologies you guys have, but what are the, any like.

32:10
at home tactics for people that have a show, they're trying to get some popularity, any things in your checklist? Sure. What I'd recommend for most people is to like go out and identify like-minded hosts that you think you like and you respect but are relevant. And if you start basically swapping host reads for each other that are sincere and enthusiastic in nature, that'll help.

32:31
The other thing too is to create trailers and what they could do in theory is automate some of these swaps. So if you have, let's say a mid roll with three ad breaks on that, probably not all of them are sold out between host read ads and programmatic instead. What you'll do is just use some of that to basically swap with other people. And if you want to track conversions, what we use internally is chartable, which was recently acquired by Spotify. And we're able to track in real time, like how well, you know, these spots are actually performing. So we treat them like.

33:00
Marketing needs advertising. No money changes hands, but it's really critical to growing the audience. And then not everybody has the capacity or time, but PR. One of the things that we'll do is leverage not only our PR team, but we'll even reach out to Apple, Spotify. And while sometimes we don't get a response, it's the nature of the business, on a very regular basis, we've been able to get some of our podcasts featured as top category, like in philosophy, society and culture, you name it. Independent podcasters, I think, can do that too. It's just difficult.

33:30
because at the end of the day, it's easier for them sometimes to build a relationship with a company that works with multiple podcasts for them to choose from. But ultimately, I will say, I know a lot of Indies get routinely selected for things like that. And if they're just after it, they believe in their show. When it hits, it'll hit. So I think that's another tactical way of creating value for yourself.

33:48
I love that. I love the shared shows. I've dabbled in that and I'm doing a mental check. Like I need to do that more because I know I've met a lot. When you're in the business, you just start to meet the same people. Like they're like about it or doing shows or whatever. It seems to gravitate. You're in the same spaces and all that. And it tends to also bring like the listeners tend to always to somewhat gravitate to the audiences. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That's good. That's good tactical advice. David, what's the process for

34:18
people learning more, interested in the platform, or just in general? Yeah, apart from visiting us at glassboxmedia.com or on social media, LinkedIn or Instagram, you can just send us an email directly, whether it's me at David at Glass Box Media or Matthew at Glass Box Media.

34:37
He's our director at a Nashville, even though we're in Soho, New York. He's at a Nashville former A&R guy, which I think actually is an incredible skillset fit. And he goes out and identifies amazing podcasters with his team. They're constantly like listening, doing their homework, but obviously a lot of people reach out to us too. And what we find is that even if we feel like it may not make sense for us to enter into a relationship and one where we financially guarantee things to you, we could still potentially work with you as a marketer, figuring out swaps and different ways to like promote each other.

35:07
shows, and more importantly, keep the lines open. And if a show does cross into that territory where it goes from a very kind of intriguing, like passion project to, Oh, holy shit overnight, I have a real business here, then we're happy to step in and really help and accelerate that.

35:24
That's awesome, man. I really like your demeanor and personality. I think it makes it, I don't know, you deal with a lot of CEOs, founders have success like you. I don't know. There's a just a really good energy from me and I think it's going to resonate with our listeners. So I really appreciate you coming on, David. I'm just happy to be here and I'm glad they come across because part of the reason I'm entrepreneur, I'm just a curious person and I love learning and I'm continuously learning from literally our team, but also the podcasters themselves. So it just makes for just an awesome experience for everybody.

35:53
That's great. Hey, guys, you're going to find us the Radcast.com search for Glassbox Media. You'll find all the highlight clips from today and the full episode, as well as the 10 minute short episode for all you 80 people out there like me. We got all of it. David Segura, CEO, founder of Glassbox Media. You know where I'm at, Ryan Alford on all the social media platforms. Just Google me. I'll come up and you'll learn about marketing, podcasting, and who knows what else?

36:21
We'll see you next time on Radcast.