Welcome to Podcasting Tech, a podcast that equips busy entrepreneurs engaged in podcasting with proven and cost effective solutions for achieving a professional sound and appearance. I'm Matthew Passi, your host and a 15 year veteran in the podcasting space. We'll help you cut through the noise and offer guidance on software and hardware that can elevate the quality of your show. Tune in weekly for insightful interviews with tech creators, behind the scenes studio tours, and
strategies for podcasting success. Head to podcastingtech.com to subscribe to this show on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform, and join us on this exciting journey to unlock the full potential of your podcast. This would not be the first time I am chatting with our guest today. He's a great person, a good friend, and someone who I truly, truly admire in the podcasting space. He's been around for a while, and he has done some really incredible things that I'm excited for
all of you to learn from. He is Harry Durand. He's the founder of Fullcast, a full service done for you podcast production and marketing consultancy. He is a host of the ever famous podcast junkies podcast. That's the yellow icon that I'm sure you've seen around if you've been anywhere in the podcasting space. He is also, the host of several shows including the number one ranked vertical farming podcast. Harry, it is great to see you, great to
chat with you, and thank you for joining me. Thank you so much for inviting me. I love the opportunity as podcasters that we get to catch up with friends, and sometimes it has to be through a podcast because when we try in person or at conferences, there never seems to be enough time. Yeah. You know, it's it's the conferences you go to, you get stuck shaking hands, and then you're like, oh, I'll catch a lid, and then you never get
to see that person again. It's a it's a shame, but, that's only because those events are so full of value and people and great stuff. But, it is good to see you and and good to catch up with you. You have you've been around the podcasting for quite some time, and I think for just for folks who don't know you, maybe aren't familiar with your full story, just a a quick synopsis. How did you first get interested and started
in podcasting? Probably, if I'm being honest, my my original passion and my first passion is house music and DJing. So I still have my turntables here in the office here and I get to jam out every now and then. But back in 2012, it's 12 ish, 13 ish, I was working on mobile app called Know Your DJ with a friend of mine. The app was published, and we're trying to get people to to it. It was for electronic music fans. And so I said, I wanna start a podcast and to interview DJs, so I'm
gonna go figure out how to podcast. And I ended up at the New Media Expo in, in Vegas in 2014 in January. And I saw but I was attending all the podcast sessions. Amy Porterfield was presenting, Pat Flynn. Obviously took the, the the selfies with them as one does when one's fanboying out. But I quickly realized how hard it's gonna be to interview all those DJs, globetrotting DJs. I was like, look at all these podcasters. Maybe
I should interview them instead. And someone mentioned, I think Chris Murphy was hosting a Cliff Ravenscraft talk, and he mentioned the term podcast junkies. And I raised my hand. I'm like, I'm a podcast junkie. I had, like, 30 on my phone. I was learning all about mobile apps, at the time. And so I came back home, signed up for podcasters paradise with our our friend, John Lee Dumas, and dove into the world of podcasting, and I was off to the races. I just, you know, I was inspired by that show
inside the actor's studio. I started a little bit of acting when I lived in New York, and I always appreciated how you could hear an in-depth conversation with someone who you just would see on screen for a little bit and you wouldn't know anything about them. But in the interview, you can get a feel for what they're like and that's what I
wanted to capture. I said, all these podcasters sound great. They're subject matter experts in their shows, but I wanna learn what's happening behind the mic, and that's sort of where Podcast Junkies was born. And since then, I, been have interviewed over 350 folks on the show. This year, I celebrated 10 years. I got to speak at podcast movement this year about the the 10 things I learned from 10 years of Podcast Junkies.
I started an agency in 2015 as a result of everything I was learning about podcasting, and I launched the 2nd show in 2020 called the vertical farming podcast, which I'm sure we'll get into as well. Oh, we'll absolutely get into that because I've I've always been an admirer of what you did there and how you get started and, you know, you were successful with
it before you even launched, which is just incredible and noteworthy. But one thing you mentioned there that I I wanna bring up is that this idea of you weren't all about having a successful podcast. You weren't about the podcast itself. You really were about getting to know people. Right? You really wanted to ask questions, and I think that outlines and highlights something that a lot of folks miss in podcasting, which is you have to bring your passion to the subject before your passion to
the podcast. Yeah. Absolutely. I think what was interesting is I just had a real desire to connect with these folks in the podcasting space, and I just realized, I don't know what it was, but I just realized, you know what? I need to to speak to these people and I want video from day 1. So back then in 2014, we had to cobble together, I think it was, I forgot what the tools was. We had Skype with call recorder. I think that's
what it was. And and, the beauty of that combination is I could see the person, we would talk, have the conversation, but it still wasn't at the point where we could record the video, so I would just use the audio from there. But from day 1, I had the video. I was looking at the body language. I was developing that relationship. And I think what was important is when I would start going to podcast conferences, people would see me. You know, you naturally have a conversation with an for an
hour with someone face to face and they're like, hey, Harry. How are you? It's good to see you. Like, thanks for that conversation. And I was like, oh, look at this. I'm building these relationships because I said, look, I'm gonna have an hour of time with this person. And back then, everyone was just doing audio, and I was like, you know, if I really wanna develop these relationships, and if I really wanna have these connections with these people, then I think video
is gonna be important for me. And I carried that into my my subsequent shows as well. But I I realized that I wanted to have that interaction, and and I felt like it made me more present because as you know, as we all know now, once video is on, you know, you can you can see whether people are paying attention or not. And I think the body language, and developing that relationship has been helpful as well.
Yeah. I I do enjoy doing video for those exact reasons because there's people are telling you so much more with their eyes and their facial expressions and their body language in general, but I am so guilty of losing focus and drifting and starting to type something on the side. So, I'm doing my best. My hands are tied to the desk, so I cannot do that exact thing during this call because I wanna make sure, I am paying
attention. I think also about that that's interesting is now because people are doing those those TikTok style video clips, you can see, like, the 2 people on the screen at the same time in, like, those 32nd clips. And I've been guilty of it myself. I'll publish something for one of my episodes, and you'll see me looking away or you'll see me, like, not looking while my guest is talking
in, which is really embarrassing. So to your point, like, yeah, sort of makes you, like, stand point and then and be focused on your guest. Well, and the worst is if you're, like, changing tabs and all of a sudden the light on your face is adjusting because this tab is dark and this one's
light. Like, it's it's so obvious when you're not when you're not fully present. I I think the other thing you did that was really smart, and I don't know how intentional this was, was you chose that bright yellow color. And every time you would go to conferences, you were wearing that yellow shirt with the podcast junkies on it, which so for someone who might not have seen your face or or, you know, you see somebody in a podcast when you see them in person, sometimes takes you a minute to
be like, is it what? But you had that branding on you. Was that intentional or just You read you read those tips in the beginning, and they're like, use high contrast colors, use simple sans serif fonts or, you know, bold fonts. And I thought immediately, I don't know what it was, but I thought about a traffic sign. If you look at a traffic sign, and yellow
and black are 2 of the highest contrasting colors. And there's a reason they put those on traffic signs because, you know, it catches people attention. And I was like, well, if it works for traffic signs, it'll work for my show. And I just picked like a typewriter font that was super bold, against the high contrast, yellow or orange, depending who you ask, but
it's more yellowish. But, and then at the time I was like, from a marketing perspective, I got the matching shirts and, you know, I think in 15 16 of, podcast movement, I'd ordered the shirts. So I'd be the one with, like, 50 shirts, and you have to figure out, like, what sizes to get and and all the ranges and all this tricky stuff that I had to figure out. So I'd get these boxes shipped to the converts, and then just inevitably, I'm like, I gotta get
rid of these. So I would ask people like, do you want the free version or do you want the $10 version of the shirt? And they're like, want the free one? And I was like, well, pull out your phone, subscribe to the show, show me that you subscribed. We'll take a selfie together, and then here's your shirt. And so that's how, that was born. And truthfully, even if they then turned around and hit unsubscribe when you walked away,
which I mean, I can't imagine they would because they they want your shirt. Right? Like, nobody wants to wear a shirt of a podcast they don't like or listen to. But the fact that you would take that selfie with them and then, you know, either you or they would post it and then tag each other, right, just like another way to raise awareness, grow the brand, also grow that sense of community engagement. Right? It showed that you weren't just
talking at people, but you wanted to interact with them. Sure. And it was really, really helpful because you would see that people as people were leaving the podcast conference, they'd be like, Hey, Harry, I've got my shirt on. And then, you know, I know it's difficult with podcasters at a podcasting conference. It's like herding cats, but I would inevitably try to like pull together as I started
to have more people on the show, like past guests. And I did pull off a couple with, you know, with like a good 10 to 15 of my guests wearing the shirt, taking the group shot, but that gets harder and harder to do as you have more and more guests. But it was a really fun experience, and I think it really sort of, like, made a name for me early on with our our fellow podcasters.
And I feel like maybe Jesse Cole of, Savannah Bananas fame, you know, probably was following your lead as he, you know, walked around the conferences in the big yellow tux and continues to do so today when he takes his, you know, team to to Major League Baseball stadiums and the like. So going now to the this idea of vertical farming. Right? Just before we got on, right, you you didn't know anything about vertical farming. You
were just curious about it. You decided you were gonna launch a podcast, but before you even dropped an episode, you had basically already paid for it. How did that work? What was what's the secret sauce to inserting yourself into an industry where you have no basis or no, you know, starting point and, you know, becoming successful? So if if I think at all all the pieces that had to come together for that to happen, I came from a corporate marketing
background. So I worked at JPMorgan Chase, and E*TRADE especially was very instrumental for me just kinda seeing. This was about the time, around the time of like the E*TRADE baby. And so, like, you could see, like, there was a lot of creative minds in that space. And while I wasn't directly involved in that, in the marketing team, it was nice to be like watching from the side what was working. And I think a lot of those ideas were ingrained in me. So, in 2019, late 2019, one of my
podcast clients gave me a book called Abundance by Peter Diamandis. And it's about, he's like a future technologist, talks about all things future related, and there's a whole chapter about food. And one of the the in that chapter about food, he talked about vertical farming. I was like, this is interesting. So I started to look into it, and I started to see that there was investment coming into the
space, VC money coming in, a lot of money coming in. And I said, you know, I wanna create a show, but also from a I'm thinking about it from a business perspective. Like, I want the show to be profitable, so I want it to be sponsorship driven from day 1. If I wanted it to be sponsorship driven, it needs to be in a in a industry where people have marketing
dollars. Again, I'm thinking about, like, in E Trade, the the finance people would come down and they'd say, hey, you've got a 100 k in your in your budget. If you don't use it by the end of this year, we're we're taking it away. Like, and so they'd scramble to figure out a way, like, where they could use those marketing dollars. So all those pieces were coming in into play for me. And I said, I want it to be in the most obvious name possible, vertical farming podcast. Okay? It's pretty
clear. It says what it does on the label. The domain was available, vertical farming podcast.com. And then I grabbed all the socials, vertical farm pod, because I wanted to have what I called many stages available because I knew I wanted to promote it everywhere without feeling like I was spanning people. Like, if you're following those socials, it's because you're interested in the show.
And then I said that I wanted to be high visibility. So I just I'm gonna interview CEOs and founders because when people look at the guest list of people who've been on this show, they're like, oh, I know that person, I know that person, they're visible in the industry. And so, I had all these pieces together and now we're getting into 2020. I start reaching out and I'm looking at for the biggest names in the space, but I'm
also looking at people that are talking about the space. So there's a site called AgFunder News. A lot of people that were doing, there was a guy who did a YouTube series on on vertical farming. So I started with them and then I sort of worked my way up and I started to schedule these interviews. And one of my first was with the CEO, named David Farquhar. He, he was at the time the CEO of a company called IGS based in Scotland. COVID hits. I'm like, shit. I'm like,
uh-oh. I'm like, are we gonna still be able to do this? And he I I text I mean, I think I sent him an email. He said, do you still wanna do this? He's like, yeah, let's go. Let's go. You know, people and at that time, people were just, like, feeling a bit more friendly and open and, you know, desiring human connection. So I think he was like in his attic in Scotland. I was in my, office,
in in Minneapolis, and we had a great conversation. And and just to set some context, that experience I had with Podcast Junkies at the time, I was over 250 plus interviews. I was comfortable with long form interviews. I I know what it's like to have an hour long conversation with someone. And even though these are CEOs in an industry where I was new, I was focused on them. I was I was saying, hey, Matthew, tell me your origin story. Tell me, like, tell me a bit of
your background. How did you get into vertical farming? These are universal questions that you can ask as you're learning because I, in my mind, I wanted to my listeners to learn at the same time I was learning. We had a fantastic conversation. I said, we're looking for sponsors for the show. He said, why don't you speak to my marketing team in, in Chicago? So he he connected me, another great conversation with the marketing
guy. And I said, hey, how much were you spending at these conferences that you can't go to anymore, you know, for these booths? And he's like, oh, we spend about $20,000 for a booth. And now in my mind, I did just simple math. I was like, what's half of that? 10. My single digits, 9. I said, for $9,000, you could be the, platinum sponsor for this show. And I outlined what we were doing. We're gonna interview the who is who of this industry. It's
specifically dedicated to this industry. You can see by the name, all we're doing is focused on vertical farming. He thought about it for a few minutes, Matthew, and he said, yeah, let's do it. Mind you, I hadn't even released an episode. And I was in that the light bulb went off, I was like, woah, like, you know, my thesis was proved correct. I was like, you know, if you create something super niche in an industry that's growing, that has marketing dollars, you know, to all
put all the pieces together. And then since then, you know, the show has generated now over a $100,000 in sponsorship revenue. I've spoken at podcasts, moving about this experience. And, earlier this year, I merged the the podcast with another site called Igrow News to create the AgTech Media Group. And as of this recording, we're in the process of raising, like, a seed round, to grow that that website. This is one of those amazing Dave Jackson always said, because of my
podcast stories. And this is just one of those really incredible ones where you go from, you know, podcast fan to podcaster to podcast consultant to, you know, now industry leading podcast to, right, adviser, CEO, right, this kind of person who, you know, just now is probably enveloped in the space and probably someone who other people in AgTech recognize and look up to, all just from a podcast and just from, you know, sheer curiosity, which I just find to be absolutely
incredible. I mean, like you said, a lot of things have to to kinda line up for that to happen. Do you still think that's possible today in the market that we're in, especially with all the talk of, you know, podcasting is in a bubble or it's overhyped or this and that? Like, do you still think people can pull this off if they do it right and and things line up? Yeah.
I think they can, and it's interesting what's happening. We're seeing I've I've had conversations with people who are coming to me and who wanna, you know, have have a podcast that's super niche, where I'm speaking to someone now who's who's in the CO 2 space, you know, that's very niche in terms of clean energy. And I said, look, this is what I did, and if you want help with this, let's let's figure this out. So he
went, you know, back, did his homework. He's pulled out this incredible spreadsheet of like 30 to 50 people, I think, that he wants to contact. He knows the space obviously better than I do and I'm like, look, just if you have a passion for this, you know, let's see if this model works. So it's just an example of something that we're testing out right now. But, you know, he knows the industry, he has a passion for doing it, he can learn
how to be a better podcaster. And those are things that can be taught, but if you if you have a passion, you know, the listener can feel that. And that's the early feedback that I got. 1st, people were saying, hey, I was looking for a podcast about vertical farming, I found yours, no surprise there. But the other thing was like, I love how you're humanizing these CEOs and you're just like having a casual conversation. It feels just like I'm eavesdropping on a conversation
with you. And I always tell people in a podcast conversation, there's 3 people, the host, the guest, and the listener, singular, one person listening at a time to us even having this conversation. And I never try to lose sight
of that. And as we, I'm speaking to people who are looking for this same type of opportunity or anyone who's watching or listening now that's thinking about this, just have that passion and be laser focused on, you know, being excited to share what you're learning about this industry with your audience. And I I definitely think there's opportunities that's that that are still available. As a reminder, we are chatting with Harry Duran, the founder of Fullcast, host of Podcast Junkies, host
of Vertical Farming podcast. And, if I went through all of his credentials, we'd probably be here for about an hour. He does have a book, though, also you should check out around the podcast, Campfire, and we'll have links to all those in the show notes so you can check it out. And, I mean, truly, if you're listening to the show, you probably already know who Harry is. But if not, I I cannot stress enough. You should absolutely check out his work and follow him. He is full of insight, full of
wisdom, and, truly just a a nice person. So you you can't go wrong following and and, you know, meeting up with Harry if you get to see him at, one of the conferences. So before we let you go, we we ask everybody sort of the same set of questions, and I'll be
very curious to get your answers on these. So one is, is there a place within podcasting where you would like to see improvement, whether it's from, you know, distribution, production, listening, you know, like marketing, like, what's one thing that would make podcasting better and easier for you? I think, anything that helps around discoverability.
It's one of those words we've tossed around so much and so many people have tried to create tools and services to do it a lot of times with the an eye towards monetization first. And so they're just trying to get as many people to sign up to their product. But, I know our our mutual friend Ariel Niesblatt is is big on this as well. But, you know, I think there's something to be said about genuine discovery, and I know there's groups
where you can do listening and share each other's shows. But I think, I've yet to see anything that's really intuitive and easy and lets you focus on, you know, a core group of shows first and then see if you can, you know, rising tide lifts all boats, you know, get those shows visibility and maybe it's within specific niches, but I think, sometimes I feel like we're sort of trapped in in a pen by, like, the Apple categories, and we have to, like, work within those
spaces to to create categories or to have opportunities to find shows. So I think, I saw Ariel posted something about the the bubbles that appear, like, when you're on different categories. Hey, what do
you wanna listen to? And I thought that was pretty interesting. But I think there's opportunities for folks who are creative, to think about how we can make shows discoverable for the people that want to find them because there's no shortage of people looking for content about specific topics and a lot of times there's there's tons of podcasts available and I think people are hard pressed to really find what they want, and just cut through the noise and
really get to the shows that that really provide value. Yeah. I mean, you know, like, you you said it earlier. You started a show in in vertical farming, and I imagine that, you know, part of the success of the show is that somebody looking for a show, looking for content was typing vertical farming. And, obviously, you know, right, having that name, that would
pop up. And, you know, the problem is if you would call the, like, the tall stalk or, right, like, something something cute and punny and, you know, whatever, it would not have come up in a search on most of these podcast directories because they just don't work that way. So I I couldn't agree with you more that we need to really expand our mind, expand
our thinking about how we can discover new shows. But also but also to your point, and it's something we talk about when we work with our clients on the agency side, and, you know, don't try to be too cute. You know, people are not searching for the tall stock. You know, there are people are going into Apple, people are going to Spotify,
and they're looking for a pain point to solve, quite honestly. And I tell this to clients, not only in the name of the show, like make it the most obvious name possible so that when you see it in combination with the artwork, in combination with scanning those first few episode titles, like, it should really clearly speak to, like, you know, what what you're trying to solve for the listener. And, obviously, we know that the title along with the podcast,
episodes are SEO friendly. So, again, it's one of the first exercises we do, like name your first 12 episodes, without this this involves no tech at all, just a pen and a paper. If you're just getting started, like, title your first 12 episodes in a way that that people will see that and feel like, oh, yeah. I know exactly what's gonna happen. I know what pain point will be solved. I know what I can expect to hear when I click play on this episode.
Oh, such a great answer. Alright. What about tech? Is there anything on your wish list as far as maybe there's a microphone or a camera, something out there you've been wanting to buy and just haven't, or is there a piece of equipment that or software, that hasn't been made yet that you're like, oh, man. I really wish I had this. I think from a tech perspective, I think, so far, the the the tried and true
basics have have have survived the test of time. You know, I'm, I'm I'm on my my Shure here here that I've been using for years. The the recent baby brother to the Shure SM 7 B, the, MV 7, I've seen it all the place. It's it's been made things so much easier, and there's a reason why because it's now it's just USB directly into to the the laptop. From a gear perspective,
I'm I'm on using something called the Opel C1. It's a camera that I upgraded to, and it's made of metal completely, so it's it's not like one of these plastic cameras. It's got 10 80. I think it does up to 4 ks as well. It just got little clip that sits on top of the monitor and I've been using it. You can change like the focus,
and the distance on it. And so they've got the Opel C1 that I'm using right now, but they've just launched a new one and it's a, I think a $79 version that's for people that are just on their laptops or very mobile, and you've just literally just clip it to the top of your laptop screen. And so from a quality and a build perspective, I think that's been something that I've been talking about a lot. And then if people are just getting started, I still recommend the Samson, Q2U,
which is a great starter mic, a great dynamic microphone. But, again, I think once people can get through the basics, you know, a lot of people like to to, play with toys all the time when it comes to podcasts and tech and, you know, people have got their gear and their and and their, you know, I'm using a BookMaster 2 at this at this point, so shout out, to the folks at Focusrite. But I know people, using the RODE and they like to have a lot of knobs
to push. But I think sometimes it gets to a point where it gets, like, too distracting because the the gear gets in the way, and then you got all the shiny lights working. You feel like you have to have like a studio manager managing everything. And then there's people that start working with different
camera angles too, and just like, oh, that starts to be a lot. So for the solo podcaster, like, my my advice is always, like, find something that works for you and, you know, for your first 100 episodes, just keep it really simple. Love it. And, last question is, are there any other podcasts that you subscribe to, you listen to that when they drop a new episode, you were gonna stop what
you were doing and check them out? No if, ands, or buts. I think the only one that's been falling into that category is our our mutual friend, James Cridland and Sam Sethi with Podnews. You know, because in terms of, like, keeping track of what's happening in the industry, it's just that that that that just quick bite of the relevant information. You know, I wanna stay on
top of what's happening because it's important for me and my clients. There's and then obviously, there's there's favorites that I like, and I listen to to the the I pick and choose a Joe Rogan episode, depending on the content. But it's a bit of a, investment in time as you know now. So as much as I can get good with, like, my one and a half x and maybe my 2 x depending on the guest, I'm really looking for either specific guests that I wanna learn more about. And, you know, if it if
it's a host that I recognize, even better. But, it's hard now to just commit to a show fully, and that's something I've been thinking about. Once again, Harry Duran, full founder of Fullcast, host of Podcast Junkies, host of vertical farming podcast, author of the podcast, what what was it called? Around the podcast, Campfire, and so many more things. Please check out his bio. Please check out all the cool things that he is doing. You will not regret it. Harry, great to see you.
Great to chat with you. Thanks for joining me today. I appreciate the invite. Thanks, man. It is fun. Thanks for joining us today on Podcasting Tech. There are links to all the hardware and software that help power our guest content and podcasting tech available in the show notes and on our website at podcastingtech.com. You can also subscribe to the show on your favorite platform, connect with us on
social media, and even leave a rating and review while you're there. Thanks, and we'll see you next time on Podcasting Tech.