Jared Easley Shares the Podcast Movement Origin Story

Hey everyone, Ashley here with RSS.com podcasting. On today's episode, I'm talking with Jared Easley, the co-founder of Podcast Movement. We'll be jamming on all things about the conference, community, and so much more. Enjoy the show. Well, Jared, I'm so excited you could be here on the show with us today. Can you do me a quick favor and tell me a little bit about what you do? Hi, my name is Jared.

And I usually when I tell people my name is Jared in the US, I'll tell them that it's Jared like the jewelry store. I used to say Jared like the subway guy. And for people in the US, they'll get that and it's you don't really tell that joke anymore. And then my last name is Easley and I'll say it's Easley to remember. And then most people will remember my name when I say that. So Jared Easley, I live in South Florida, but I'm originally from Alabama, but I've kind of moved around.

I was a rambling man for a little bit, jumped around and went to different places. I was in the military. I lived in Hawaii and some other spots that were fun and not so fun. And then, yeah, my wife is originally from Fort Lauderdale. So when I moved to Florida in 2003, I was living in Orlando and she was a travel nurse and we met and we started dating, got married. And now I'm ultimately down here in Fort Lauderdale.

I don't think when I was younger, whatever I would have imagined myself in South Florida, but I absolutely love it now. My daughter is happy to be near grandma, grandpa. And yeah, my wife loves it because she's from here and her family's here and her friends are here. There's actually a lot of really awesome people and good things about this community down here and it's very diverse.

And so from coming from Alabama and then some of the experiences I had post Alabama were, you know, military and things like that. It's kind of neat now to be in a place like Fort Lauderdale where it is so different.

That said, podcasting is a passion and absolutely love it. I started my show when I was in 2013 and that was just for fun. Really no delusions of grandeur there. Just wanting to say, Hey, can I create content and what am I going to talk about? I don't know what that is. So I figured, let me just interview other people so you can share their wisdom and their expertise and that would bring value.

So that's the route that I took and fell in love with it, made a lot of really amazing connections, got ideas for businesses. One of which is podcast movement, which is how we have met. And podcast movement is the world's largest conference for podcasting. It's also a media company. We do newsletters and we have professional services and we have several other things that we do, but it's just been an absolute blast.

In the podcast community back in 2013, 2014, you didn't see as much collaboration between niches. So like a comedian wasn't really interacting with the business podcaster, for example. And you see a lot more of that now and not to toot our horn, but I think podcast movement has kind of helped facilitate a lot of those types of collaborations with different niches and different podcasting genres.

And because of that, we learn from each other and we get better ideas on, hey, this person's trying this. Let's see what that's like in our space. And so you get some of that crossover and podcasting is just continuing to grow and it's an exciting thing and anyone can do it. And just because anyone can do it doesn't mean it's going to take off and do amazing. But I love the fact that it's democratized and anyone can do it and anyone can share their voice.

And if they're a little creative and they're kind of niche down, they have some opportunity to get noticed and do some good things. So that's in a nutshell, if that really answered the question like you'd hoped, but that's my answer and I'll stick with it for now. It did answer my question. Now, so podcast movements, it started as a company before it was a conference. Is that right? We, when I say we, I'm talking about Dan Franks, who is the president of the podcast movement,

also my business partner and myself. We were podcasters, lowly podcasters at that. And he had a show that I found that was entrepreneurial is called Entrepreneurial Showdown. And I just liked the show. I thought it was creative the way he did the show and so I reached out to him. I knew he was in Dallas because I'd listened to the podcast and I was going to be at a conference in Dallas and I thought, hey, it'd be fun to try to do a podcast listener meetup. He had a podcast, I had a podcast.

So I reached out to him. He didn't know me at all. And I was like, hey, I'm Jared. I have this show. I listen to your show. I'm going to be in Dallas for this conference. I thought, hey, let's have a podcast meetup. And so we agreed not even meeting each other. Hey, let's have a meetup. So we had a meetup. And we had like 20 people come between his friends and some of my friends that live in Dallas for Earth. And that kind of created a connection and a friendship.

And that later evolved into just being aware and focusing on what were some of the pain points in podcasting, which we realized after a few months that there wasn't a place, a central place or a conference for podcasting. There was other events that had podcasting elements included, but it wasn't just exclusive to podcasting. So we thought, hey, maybe that's something that we could start. And I laugh at that now because we had no experience in events.

We had just been interested in taking action and doing something. We were kind of the day job guys that were dreaming of maybe breaking away at some point, maybe having our own business. And so we decided, hey, let's try to do this conference. Well, we were not connected. We didn't have an email list. We didn't have a number of the things that experts would say you need to start a successful event or successful business. We were just blinded by ambition and, hey, let's do this.

And I think if we knew now what we didn't know then, I don't know that we would have done it because there was a lot of challenges that came up as we started this process. But what we did, given the circumstances, was we reached out to people that we knew were podcasters, specifically in the business niche, people that we weren't friends with and maybe we had guests on our shows and that kind of thing. And told them, hey, we think there's a need for a podcast conference.

We want to try to coordinate one. We're going to do it in Dallas. And we'd love for you to speak or we'd love for you to share it with your network and support it. We're going to do a crowdfunding campaign because we don't have enough money to just chunk into something that's going to fail.

So that was our validation. We did a crowdfunding Kickstarter campaign. We decided, okay, if this campaign is successful, we'll pursue the event. And if it's not, then that's our turn around and run, you know, notice. So we put out a crowdfunding campaign, just messaged a bunch of people that we knew, hey, we support this. We share it. We, I mean, we had no email lists. We had nothing. We weren't even influential at all. Not at all. We were just brand new podcasters, not even a year maybe.

And so we just said, hey, would you like to support this? And surprisingly, there was another people that raised their hands and said, yeah, we would. And I think the minimum amount we needed to, because we envisioned just a small event, maybe, you know, we were like, oh, what if we had 200 podcasters? In our minds at that time, that was like massive. And not that it isn't massive, it is, but that's what we thought was like, wow, this would be just over the top if we were able to get 200 people.

And I think the minimum number we needed for that crowdfunding campaign was $10,000. So we, well, we put the campaign out there. We told our friends, it went live. And then after the first day, we had more than $10,000, which just blew my mind. I was like, I can't believe that because we're not anybody special and we're not connected and we're not influential and we don't have an email list. And, you know, people are supporting this. And it got the attention of a lot of people.

They're like, who are these guys? Like, well, who are they to do this? There was some interesting, I won't call it opposition, just people questioning our motives and our intent. And that was okay, because we weren't worried about that. We were just trying to put together.

So we ended up at the end of that month of that campaign, we raised like over three times what we needed just to get the proof of concept. And from there we sold tickets and sponsorships and just did our best to put together a conference. And we ended up having 600 people that first year. That was in 2014. So again, I thought 200 was a big deal. 600 was what we had. So it was like, whoa, a big epiphany.

But if you do events and you do them in a quality, a high quality way, you realize quickly that you've, a certain amount of money is just needed to produce an event. And so we had enough money to produce it, but we didn't really make anything. And that was deflating slightly because there was a lot of work that went into it. But at the same time, we realized, no, there's proof of concept here. So we didn't get discouraged by that. We just continued to keep at it.

And we were working our day jobs and four years later of working for free, we finally had enough money to say, okay, let's go all in. Let's be full time. And so we got enough money to pay ourselves, I think, for six months. And they're like, if we can't do this in six months, if we can't just be fully focused on it and do this in six months, then it's probably time to hang it up or try something else.

So we, after four years of not making any money and doing the event, they grow in gradually and us putting any money that was made back into the event, we finally went full time. And now there's been no looking back since even with COVID, we never had to lay anyone off, which we're thankful for that. We had to pivot, of course, had to make some adjustments to the business, which was positive and a good thing.

But yeah, now we're in a position, 2022, where Podcast Movement is considered an industry conference. The people from Apple and Spotify and iHeart and just all the big organizations that you would think of when you think of podcasting are typically represented or they're attending.

And so it's really neat to see how something was just an idea. Now it's a thing that's become more of a big deal and just an opportunity for a lot of podcasters, whether they're independent or whether they're people that have been in the industry for a long time or they're veteran podcasters to come together and just learn from each other. And yeah, so we've got two events this year. We got one in LA in March. That one's called Evolutions. And then we have another one in Dallas.

That's in August. That's our big one. And we're really excited. And yeah, COVID was a curve ball for everybody. And we hope that it'll be safe and continue to have some safety protocols in place and just do our best to deliver a really high quality event. And so that's what we're prepping for now and looking forward to.

I think one of the things that you said that kind of struck me is you said that if you had known what you were going to face, the obstacles you were going to face, you might not have actually gone through with it. I think that kind of speaks to the whole ignorance is bliss thing.

But at the same time though, it feels like to me that one of the reasons why you were able to fund it so quickly is at the time, like you said, just a couple of different conferences were kind of having tracks on the idea of podcasting. It was at New Media Expo. It was mentioned at BlogHer, BlogHer conference and things like that. But there wasn't truly a space for people who are sitting at home alone talking to their microphones to come out and get together.

So tell me a little bit about those first conversations, like those first, let's do a conference. What was that like? You and Dan, you're just spit balling with each other. How in the world did you decide it would be an actual conference rather than just another

meetup? Sure. We had attended New Media Expo, which you mentioned, and we had met a lot of people that were interested in podcasting. Podcasting was a very redheaded stepchild, small corner piece of that event. But the number of attendees that were at that event largely were interested in podcasting. And that struck me was, okay, here's people saying, why isn't there a podcast conference? And we hear that multiple times. Like, okay, I thought that too.

That to me was an undeniable sign that there needed to be one, whether it should have been Dan and I to start it, you know, is irrelevant. We neither should be one. We just kind of blindly jumped in and said, okay, let's go for it. That was a learning process to say the least. But we thought through as good as we could. We decided on Dallas for the first year. And one of the reasons we picked that is because that is a one-way flight for most US cities in North America.

And so Dallas seemed to be central. It seemed to be an easy place. There's kind of two major airports there. There's Dallas-Fort Worth and there's Love Field. And so that's what we went with. And then there was connections that we had from the podcast. Like we'd interviewed people that had started other conferences and other niches. And we had conversations with those folks.

We had a rapport with them, a friendship with them where we could say, hey, if you were to start all over, knowing what you know now, what would you do? What would you avoid? So we got some really good advice for people that were just very generous and gracious with their time. They didn't charge us consulting fees. They were just friendly to us, which I look back now and I realized, man, that was a gift. And we've certainly tried to pay that forward over the years.

But it is interesting now that there were several years down the road and there are a number of podcast conferences now. And it's funny because all the people that have gone off and started these podcast conferences are people that have come to Podcast Movement. We just got to laugh at that. They're like, hey, I could do this. And then they go off and do their own version of it. So it's just creating more podcast conference opportunities, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

But Podcast Movement was the first one really to be inserted in that spot. And so I don't necessarily look at these other events as bad or competition or anything like that. We're pretty established at this point. But it is fun to see how Podcast Movement has added impact, not just in podcasting, but also in events for podcasting as well. So yeah, a lot's happened.

It's truly become a movement. Is that why you chose the podcast? Some say that, some don't. Yeah, well, the name movement, I've always loved that name. I remember in high school, there was a band. I grew up in Alabama. I grew up in the South. And there was a band called Far South Movement. I always thought that was a cool name. And then when talking to Dan about names for the event, there were so many names that were just played out. And we're like, we don't like that. That's cheesy.

And we both, this is an interesting fact, not many people know about us, but Dan and I both grew up wrestling fans. And Dan was actually once a professional wrestler, by the way. And we loved wrestling. And at the time, there's a wrestler named Daniel Bryant, who was doing this yes chant. And he would get in the ring and he would just raise his hands and the crowd would just go crazy. They'd say, yes, yes, yes. And I guess WWE coined that, the yes movement.

And we were having a conversation one day and we started talking about that. And then there was like, hey, we should call it podcast movement. And we're like, yeah, that's it. That's the name. So with that, I wish there was a better story of how we came up with it, but that's how we came up with it. So I actually love that story, though. That's the idea. Nobody was using that name in the marketing business space prior.

And it is amazing how since then you see all these different names that popped up that are movement, movement, movements, like, oh, okay. I'm not saying they got that from us, but it is interesting that there was that wasn't out there before. We were like the only ones. And now you see a lot more. Well, I mean, when people see something's actually working, why not go for it? Right now. Oh, yeah. We've copied some stuff, believe me. But always put your own spin on it, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's the key from just blatantly stealing and then attempting to be creative. Okay. You see something that's fun and that's memorable at one event. And you're like, hey, let's try to maybe create our own rendition of that. And yeah, that really is one of the big ways the event has evolved over the years.

Another one is getting feedback from people right after the event. We put out surveys and people share their ideas. And then you take them in and kind of filter the ones that are not helpful and the ones that are. And then you kind of come up with new strategies for the next event. And that's served us well because there are things that people mention or like, hey, I didn't think of that. That's a good one. So, yeah, I like that you asked for the feedback.

The fact that you actually genuinely care what your attendees say, that really speaks to the fact that you guys aren't just in it. I mean, obviously, if you were waiting four years before you actually took on some money, clearly it wasn't the money that was important to you. It was the fact that you actually wanted to provide a service that was of value. And so just the fact that you guys keep showing that you genuinely care.

I mean, you guys actually answer emails, you respond to tweets, you have an amazing Facebook community. Oh, my God. I mean, Grinchy, there are some things that you can tell that people are only joining the group because they're trying to promote themselves. Yeah, we try to filter that, but it's hard. Yeah, but just like the fact that you guys put community above all, it becomes paramount. It actually shows. And it's one of the reasons that it's one of my favorite conferences I've ever attended.

And I want to attend every single one that I possibly can. Now I'm curious, though. Can I stop you for a second?

I'm sorry. Absolutely. You just said something that I think this is really important. I want people to get this. You said that you're talking about community. And that was a big conversation that we had in the beginning was community. How do you really create community? And we had seen a lot of examples in conferences and different things where people were only promoting their own interest or their own ego or their own brand.

And we determined, and I don't say this to brag or to pretend like we're better than anyone else because we certainly don't feel that way. But we decided that, hey, we're not going to be the guys that post our face all over the banners, all over the ads, all over the podcast movement logos. And we're not going to be the guys that take the keynote stage and take up that valuable time slot just for our own ego. We're going to let the community be the stars.

And that's a decision that I have never regretted. I think that has been such a good move for a number of reasons. I think people came in and they saw all these other events where there's a face. And I'm not knocking that, but we realized, hey, that's not going to be best for what we want to accomplish. And what it has accomplished, I think, is a lot of goodwill.

I think there's a lot of trust that was developed because people said, here's these guys that are running this, but they're not trying to promote themselves. Maybe they really are trying to promote genuine community. And because of that, I think that's one of the things that has helped podcast movement to grow and to become what it has is a trust. People just knew, okay, this isn't an event where somebody's just trying to say, look at me, look at me.

This is an event where it really is about the community and it's run by people that actually care for the community. And so I'm really thankful that we made that choice and I'm glad that we've stuck with that over the years. And I know that has served us well. And it's actually created the result that some people would want from the beginning. Hey, I want to be noticed. I want to be seen. I want to look like I have this big following or whatever. That is never our intent or goal.

But it is when you start to have something that works and is taking off and is doing well and flourishing, people will ask that question. Well, who's behind this? Who's doing this? And they ask that question. And then your name does come up right or wrong. People find out about who you are or what you're doing, even though you're not necessarily trying to say, please, please, please notice me. Does that make sense? It actually does. It makes complete sense.

Yeah. That's my encouragement to people listening to this today who are wanting community or wanting to create community is if you can do it in a way that isn't so focused on yourself and really makes other people the hero, I think that just is genuine. I think people really resonate with that. I don't think there's a wrong way to do it, but I think that has been something that we've done that's worked well.

It's definitely what drew me to podcast movement because I remember back when I was first researching about how to start a podcast and I was looking into a lot of things. I came across you. I don't remember how I came across you. But I don't remember how I came across you. But I was like, well, does he actually work with the company? What does he do with the company? And I was trying to ask you and you're like, oh, yeah, I work with the company. And it's like, no, you co-founded it. Come on.

And the way that you and Dan were so humble about it and so not look at me, look at me, it made me love the community that much more. So it definitely everything that you just said, spot on. I love the fact that you guys didn't make it an ego thing where, oh, we're just going to get on the stage and we're going to be the stars. I love the fact that you make the podcasters of your community the star. Although let's be honest, you guys could be the stars as well.

Well, whether that's true or not, I think we've earned a lot of trust because we haven't

taken that path. And I wouldn't do it any other way now. I really believe that was the right call and any relationships that have been gained from it, I think have been gained for a good foundation, a good reason. People just say, okay, I believe that this person's not trying to be sneaky and trying to just sell me something for their own business or vanity or whatever. I really think there's just a trust that people will develop because of that.

We've heard it from a lot of people and the events kind of speak for themselves. If you attend one, you'll see, I mean, the community is really awesome and generous and collaborative, synergistic mindset. You got a few people that may not be that way, but for the most part, that's how it is.

But that's kind of the culture we were hoping to foster and it kind of just has grown, not because we're great people, but just because we threw the party and tried to make sure those were the guests that were coming. Well, speaking of the events, the events themselves, when was it that you started having evolutions and why did it go from just podcast movement, the conference to podcast movement, now having two separate events?

That's a good one. There was a few reasons. One, trying to expand a little bit, but within reason. So from a business standpoint, it makes sense if you can do another event that's good for business. But another reason was at the time, a lot of our events, the major events, the podcast movement events were more central or east coast. And we'd only done one podcast movement on the west coast. That was in Anaheim.

And there's a number of amazing podcasters that are in California and on the west coast. And they're not always able to or willing, especially when COVID wasn't a thing, to be able to travel to the east coast. And we thought, well, it's going to make sense to try to do something that's in California that allows west coast folks, if they want to, to have something a little bit closer to them. And then there's a lot of industry podcast people in the LA area.

And we wanted to have some more content and some more opportunities for those folks. And so Evolutions was developed with all that in mind. And so now it's a smaller event. It's not as large as the big one in the summertime, but it's still a pretty good size event. We've only done one, but I believe we had like over 2000 at that first one. And I'm not sure what we'll end up having at this one, but we're getting registrations and people are excited about coming.

They're coming from other countries even, despite what's going on in the world right now. So we're proud about that and we'll have a number of safety protocols in place and just make sure we're sticking to the rules as much as possible and we'll create a really exciting event. But we were able to do the Nashville event this past summer and despite of the pandemic and things, and it was well attended and it was great and we had a blast. So we're just going to keep doing it as long as we can.

And we're having fun doing it. It's a blast. Anyone that comes to the event, you've been yourself, you come away just encouraged. And even if you don't podcast, you'll be like, I should start a podcast or you'll be like, hey, I got asked to be on podcast. I've had a friend who came that wasn't a podcaster. They just wanted to see what the event was like.

I think they left the event getting asked to be on a couple of podcasts, which would be like a guest on a podcast, which I thought was pretty cool. So it's just a really generous community. It's a fun time. Yeah, it is a very generous community. And whenever I attended my first one in 2019, I didn't have a podcast, but I was hell bent on starting one. As soon as I left that event, I was so ready to start. And then I did actually launch it.

I launched it in the middle of the pandemic on April Fool's Day. And I did that so that if it was awful, I could say it was a joke. That's a true story. Well, I'm glad it didn't stop. Yeah, I'm loving it. I'm absolutely loving it. Now, since you do have two events and you kind of made it sound like the Evolutions is more for industry pros, who should attend your podcast? Not necessarily. Then speak to that. Let's jam on that for a minute.

I think the events themselves are for anyone that podcasts or anyone that's in the industry. And that's regardless of which one you go to. I do think there is some more content focused toward the industry stuff and the Evolutions. That said, we kind of differentiated the two events where podcast movement is kind of choose your own adventure. It's a number of tracks that are on a number of topics.

And you can kind of say, okay, this particular session, I want to go and learn something about marketing. And this next session, I want to learn something about monetization. And, you know, there's just all these different categories. And then the Evolutions event is actually you buy a ticket based on your experience level.

So if you're a new podcast or there's a new content, a new podcast or ticket where all of the sessions in that ticket are specific to where you are in podcasting for that moment. And then there's an industry pass, people that are more the industry folks. And then there's a professional podcast. There's people that are, you know, they're not the rookies. They're the veterans. So it's content more tailored for those people. So that's one of the ways we've differentiated the events.

And you know, and I'm sure we'll continue to adjust and evolve, but that's the way it is set up right now. But anybody that's interested in podcasting, interested or has a podcast or their business is thinking about starting a podcast or I mean, it's a little bit of everybody. So it's the hobbyist, it's the veteran, it's the person that works in the industry space. It's people that are just intrigued. We've had people that show up and they're not podcasters at all.

And then they are authors of a book or something like that. And they're like, I'm just here because I want to meet podcasters, I want to be on podcasts. So we've had people attend the event for that. And that's worked way better than any PR agency that they've hired. They've walked away with like dozens of interviews just for paying for a ticket to go to the event. They just met people and told them what they're up to. And then, hey, I'd love to have you on my show. So much of that.

It really is. The networking is really, really great. And it's not the same old person. Everybody's different.

Everybody's got a different story and a different background and a different... There are people from everywhere and it's beautiful. It's really cool. It's diverse and in a very wonderful way. I've not been to many things where you would see these people that culturally may not get along all of a sudden be excited to talk to each other about something like podcasting. Podcasting does that though. The person who's Jewish will be hanging out with the Arabic person or whatever. It's like...

Not that that's not completely normal, but you know what I mean? These are just examples of people that might... Someone who's a Christian might be talking with the person who's LGBTQ that is really not grown up in the Bible will and all that. You've got these just different types of people that are interacting and it's not a political thing. It's not a... How do I want up you or how do I try to conform you to my mindset? It's nothing like that.

People are just excited about learning about podcasting and sharing what they're doing. For the most part, you walk away from the event and it's really energized and encouraged and almost like, hey, humanity is not completely terrible. There's some really gracious and good people out there and from all different types of backgrounds. I love that about podcasting. Oh, absolutely.

I think one of the big reasons that so many different niches and cultures and all of that can come together is we all want to be heard. We all want our message to be heard. The fact that podcasting... You said at the beginning of our interview that it was very democratized. I think that's so true that what makes it such a movement is that anybody from any background can just get on their microphone and share a message.

One of the things you also said at the beginning of our chat was that it's interesting to see people collaborating from all these different niches. I think it's because at the heart of it, we're all seeing that even if we are having different interests or different businesses or different whatever, there is something we do have in common and there is something that we can share that gives someone our story. I think it's beautiful. I'm with you 100%. Yeah, it's very exciting.

It's our Miss America moment. It's our Miss America moment. One of the things you said that also struck me was that you have non-podcasters coming to try to get podcast guesting opportunities. I think it's really interesting because they're saying the industry experts, if you will, everybody's saying that podcast guesting is the new guest blogging.

It's what you got to do because like you said, why would you want to spend all this money on a PR agency when you can just get on a bunch of podcasts? Well, I'm not saying people shouldn't support PR agencies.

I've seen it firsthand. People that have come to the event and purposely wanted to interact with podcasters and potentially get on shows and they've walked away with just dozens, literally dozens of podcasts that are now scheduled for the next few months. They'd be like, man, this is the best investment I've ever made. It really is. It's wild. Yeah. There was a lady, I won't name her.

She had talked about how coming to our event the next year, she could point back to our event and show how it made her like probably $250,000 in revenue and in her business. It's not a business conference, but people that have businesses because of the networking and the different opportunities that come. She ended up being on a number of shows that promoted her and then she ended up seeing a lot of growth in her business and she attributed that because of the connections she made at the event.

That's not going to happen for everybody. I'm sure everybody's different and everybody's work ethic is different. Just hearing stories like that is like, that's pretty amazing. I would have never anticipated that's something that would be happening from podcast movements. People connecting with someone that they looked up to and then being a guest on their show, we have stories like that. One of my favorite stories, this is good. There's a lady who does birdwatching.

She does a podcast about birdwatching and she's reputable in that space. I'd ask her at one of our events, which session was beneficial to you? I just assumed she'd mentioned a keynote or just something that was obvious. She's like, oh, that's easy, the wrestling guys. I kind of laughed for a minute thinking, here's a birdwatcher lady going to a session that guys, the wrestling podcasts are teaching. That made me laugh. She's like, oh yeah, I love the way they engage with their audience.

I love the way they come up with monetization opportunities and live podcasts and Patreon support and she's rattled off this list. She's like, I'm going to try to borrow a bunch of the things that they're doing to apply to what I'm doing in the birdwatching space. That's what I was talking about, where these different circles overlap and they learn from each other. That to me is hysterical, but it's just a good example of something that maybe you wouldn't expect that happens.

I got to tell one more and it's wrestling related, so it's still kind of in context. I met this guy named Scotty and Scotty, this was actually a couple of years ago. People are at a podcast conference, if they don't have a podcast, they're talking about what they're thinking about doing as a potential podcast. That's Scotty, that's where he was at at that time.

He was telling me, I'm going to start a podcast where I'm going to make up this fake wrestling organization in my head and then I'm just going to, each episode, I'm going to talk about the storylines of these fake wrestlers and then I'm going to use this video game simulation of creating these custom wrestlers and then have them simulate wrestling each other and that's how I'm going to figure out the matches and who wins. I remember him telling me all this stuff. I was just like, that's a lot.

I was like, that's good for you buddy. Good luck with that. And thinking in my head, that may or may not work. Well, I ran into him this last year and I was like, Scotty, how you doing? I was a wrestling podcast. He's like, man, you wouldn't believe it. I've quit my day job. I'm doing it full time now. I was like, wait a minute.

The wrestling one, the made up one, the video game simulations, he's like, yeah, man, I've been doing it for a couple of years and I got enough people supporting me now on Patreon and I've quit my day job. I'm doing this full time. I just cracked up. I was like, I would have never ever given this guy the chance of being a full time professional podcaster based on that idea, but it worked. He was creative. He figured it out.

And I know that won't be true for everybody, but man, if you can do that. I think the sky's the limit. So I love that story. It's one of my favorites. There's several others, but I'll stop there. That is fantastic. I like to hear things like that too, because... The random, right? Yes. And the randomness is what I love about it though. Because I mean, I've seen podcasts on every subject, but that, I mean, like you said, the sky's the limit. That's fantastic.

So I have to ask you though, and you may not even want to speak to this, but I'm just curious. What do you see as the future of podcasting?

Well, I mean, let's just be realistic. I think you're going to see more of the bigger fish get involved, bigger organizations, bigger celebrities. That's, I think it'll be a trend. I don't see it as a bad thing. Those people are going to probably get more attention just because they already have attention because they already have massive platforms and things like that.

But for the people who are creative, for the people who are niche and the people who are willing to take this seriously and run with it, I still think those people have as good a chance as anyone. So podcasting will continue to see new opportunities in technology. We'll see new innovations, new opportunities to engage with audiences live. Live streaming will be even more relevant than it is now. I see a number of ways that podcasting can continue to develop and I think that it will.

The haves will continue to have and the have nots may continue to kind of linger a little bit. But for those that are niche and those that are focused and really creative, I think the sky's the limit. The opportunity is absolutely there. It can happen. It's not too late to start a podcast. The wagon hasn't left. The train hasn't left. You can still start a podcast and still have success. It takes work and it takes creativity.

And I do think being in a very specific ditch is a good thing that will likely help you. So I think that's the future. I think we'll just see more opportunities for these big fish and then we'll see people continue to step up and be creative and have fun ways to do shows and new ideas and innovative ways of presenting themselves. And then they'll get on the radar too. So I think it's open, wide open. Anybody can do it. So why not?

And you don't need a massive audience depending on what your goals are. If you're just trying to help key people, you just start sharing what's on your mind and what's on your heart and you'd be surprised. I've gotten emails from my podcast. My podcast is not a professional podcast. It's one I do for fun that I've been doing for several years. And I've gotten emails from people in other countries.

Like a guy was telling me I was on a, you know, they were on an eight hour road trip listening to my podcast. And I kind of chuckled at that. I was like, sometimes my wife won't even listen to me for eight minutes. I was like, how did you listen to my podcast for eight hours? But you know, those things happen. So I encourage people that are on the fence or thinking about it, you know, it's really not that brutal to start a podcast and there's plenty of tutorials that are free out there.

You don't even need to spend a lot of money on equipment. You can almost do everything from a mobile device if that's what you want. And if you've got something on your mind or something on your heart that you want to talk about, something that you love, you're passionate about, give it a try. You know, you don't have anything to lose. Go ahead and test it out. I'd say if you are going to test it out, maybe consider the Netflix seasonal approach.

Maybe just say, I'm going to do eight episodes or I'm going to do 10 episodes. And then I'm just going to kind of evaluate and we'll see what people say. You see what kind of feedback I get and then test it that way. And then say, hey, I'm going to just do this ongoing show for forever because that can burn you out. So I'd say maybe just start with a few episodes and then try to get some feedback.

And then if you decide to do some more episodes, you'll have an idea of what you need to change and what you need to adjust. Or you may realize, hey, okay, that topic is not the one I want to keep doing. And so you can change it up. You can say April Fools, right? Exactly. Exactly. And then that's exactly how I started is I committed to 10. I committed to 10. Yeah, I like that idea. So, all right. So I got to ask you one last question.

I ask everybody before I let them go, what is one question I didn't ask you really wish I had? Oh, my God. And by the way, you can blame it on me for not being more. Okay.

So what's the question that you didn't ask that you should have? Man, there's so many questions that you could have asked that you didn't. I love random things. I love like right now I'm passionate about being a referee. I did referee for American football for high school and middle school this past fall for the first time ever. And I loved it. It was so much fun. It was something that was way out of my comfort zone. But I got involved. I started doing it. I loved it.

So I'm always kind of looking for random things to kind of to mess with and have fun with. That's one of them. The other one is I help out and volunteer at the animal care shelter here locally and just walk the dogs, you know, the old dogs that nobody wants to take home. So I go and hang out with old dogs and walk them. So I do that. That's fun. Yeah, just into random little things. Vending interests me right now. I'm into vending machines. I'm fascinated.

I actually own a couple of vending machines. Oh, my goodness. I can't believe how many different vending machines there are. Yeah, I bought a couple of vending machines and so I've been playing with those just for fun and an idea that I thought, hey, I want to teach my daughter some business principles. She's young. She's 11 and candy and soda. Yeah, yeah, it's just snacks and soda. I saw one in an airport the other day. They were selling iPhones in a vending machine. I'm like, what's now?

That's a vending machine I should get. I saw one on Instagram, maybe in Japan, where they sell like cake in a can and you drop the can down. It's got a plastic spay and you peel the top off and you're eating cake out of a can. Oh, yeah, they have a whole street dedicated to vending machines. There's a YouTube video on it. I should send it to you. Oh, I love it. Anyway, yeah, so vending interests me. There's so many things that interest me.

So I love really interesting shows on Netflix and streaming channels apps. So if you ever find that show that you just love, tweet me or message me and tell me because I'm always looking for good. Well, speaking of tweeting, where can we find you online? Jared Easley is my personal Twitter. Of course, if you're wanting podcast movement stuff, that's at podcast movement. And that is a much more active channel than my Twitter, my personal Twitter. But yeah, you can always reach out to me.

I'm jared.com via email or we can connect on Twitter, Instagram, any of those places. So yeah, I would be linked in to LinkedIn. But if you're lucky enough to be a Facebook friend, you'll get to see some of Jared's dad. And I might be on Facebook. I'm a little more picky with who I'm friends with on Facebook. And I think it's because I tell really bad dad jokes. I love your dad jokes. They are something that can. Yeah, there are some that can, you know, process them.

And then there's I sent my brother an email. This is true story. I sent him an email this past week with a bunch of probably like 12 really terrible bad jokes, dad jokes, not not bad, but just dad cheesy jokes. And he wrote me back. And he was just like, man, like, don't ever do that again. I was just cracking up. I'm laughing more at his response than anything. But yeah, my friend, unfortunately, John Key is no longer with us. But John was a guest on my show a long time ago.

And John said to me one time, he said, tell bad jokes. And I was like, why are there bad jokes? And he's like, people laugh at bad jokes. They say they hate them. They make Rome, but really deep down, people appreciate bad jokes. So every now and then, there's a lot of challenges in this life. There's the pandemic. There's political challenges. There's all these differences of perspective and opinion.

And it's so nice sometimes to just go on a social media channel and read a bad joke, read a dad joke. So that's, I think the goal there is just try to make somebody laugh and kind of forget about all the craziness for a moment and move on. Well this was definitely an interesting interview. I kind of saw it going one way. I didn't know we were going to end the way we did, but I have loved everything. I feel like we should just start over now. But bless your heart.

Yeah. That's what they say in Kentucky. Bless your heart. Yeah. In a good way. In a good way. Yes. Well, I just, I want to thank you again so much for your time and for all of the awesome stories that you shared. I mean, everything you shared was just, it kind of lights me up and makes me very excited for podcast movement. I will be attending virtually, but we do have the team members from RSS that will be there live. So we're excited about that. Well, I look forward to meeting you then.

Thank you for your time. Absolutely. I'm grateful and I hope people will continue to check out the show. Yes. And I hope people will continue podcasting. What are you waiting for? Yes. As I'll share. Just launch already. Yes. If you got questions, message me or keep listening to this show. You'll figure it out. You'll get there. Well, my fellow podcasters, I hope you enjoyed all the amazing insights that Jared had to share about starting a conference and starting a podcast.

To learn more about starting and growing your own show, visit us at rss.com backslash blog, and you can start for free at rss.com. Get your first episode on us. Thanks for tuning in.