EP 266 Revolutionizing Podcasting: Jeff Revilla on Live Audience Engagement

And welcome to another episode of stuck in my mind podcast. I am your host, w I z e. In in the ever evolving world of podcasting, stay staying ahead of the curve is no small feat. But my next guest, who I consider a good friend of mine, he's the mastermind behind Live and has he's done just that by revolutionizing the podcast experience through live audience and interaction. I'm so excited to have him on the show. Welcome, Jeff Ravilla. Hey. Thanks for thanks for having me back. I'd I was like,

hey, Woz. Can I get on the show? And you're like, well, it's gonna be about seven months. But we we've done stuff in the between in that time. We, had did international podcast the weekend, me, you, and Maria Daniels. We had a great time doing that. Then recently, we we appeared on David three thousand's podcast. We didn't even know we were gonna be there Yeah. Together at the same time. So was crazy. Yeah. I know. And And co hosting Go ahead.

We've been co hosting the show together. Me, me, you, and Maria, rise and outshine. It's gonna be coming back hopefully in April. We took a little hiatus here at the beginning of the year. I got really, really sick, and my wife had surgery, and Maria got crazy busy. And I had surgery. Yeah. And I was out for, yeah, some time. So we'll get we'll get back to it. It's coming it's coming soon, soon, very

soon. But let's let's just jump right into it. So what inspired you to create Live, and how did that that idea come to life? Well, I you knew me for five years, and we were going virtual events together. And at at some point, you probably heard me mention, like, this infinite seat theater idea. I I've been thinking about

it for a couple years before we even met. I was like, I think that there's something here where, you know, if you wanted to do events and you didn't wanna have to go rent a a a ballroom at a hotel or, you know, try to get theater space, there's gotta be this middle ground where smaller creators and podcasters can get together and have, like, a club, like a almost like a comedy club. But because we're podcasters, you know, different from comedians, we want the world to hear our material.

So we need a place that we can broadcast like a small TV station, and that that's kinda where it came from. I was like, I think as podcasters, we wanna entertain, but we also wanna be in front of people. We wanna share these ideas with people and and get feedback. But all the while, broadcast that to the world and have a a nice tangible product at the end of the night where you have your podcast recorded already for you. It was done live, like like so many

of those great albums in the eighties. You know, the those heavy metal bands would tour arenas, but then they'd have a live album come out in the middle of the year. That's really what I think this next evolution of podcasting is. It's gonna be these in person interactions, these live interactions, and you're gonna share them with the world. And small spaces and small clubs like what I'm thinking about, what I'm building is the way that we're gonna do that. It's that

stepping stone. It's that next evolution of just having a good time podcasting and with your friends and family and fans. It's it's just a way to it's a way that this thing has to evolve. Oh, no. It it it it makes sense because not everybody wants it's not like us where you I have my home studio. You at first was doing your stuff from home, and now you're doing it from the theater and everything. So not and not everybody

wants to get all this equipment and everything. So you're kinda saving them time, and you're helping them along the way by just having having a place where they can go and record. Yeah. I mean, you're saving time, money. This is really a turnkey experience. If you came to me and said, hey. I have this idea for a podcast. I may not have an audience or a big draw. I say, hey. Why don't you come down on a Monday or Tuesday? It's a slow night. Go up

on stage. Let's work this out. Let's see how it plays on the stage. Let's see. You don't have to have any equip don't bring your own equipment. I got microphones. I got cameras. I got speakers. I'm gonna record it all for you. You can work it. Workshop it. Try different things, different angles, different camera angles. All these little things, you know, you can suss out and figure out before you do any investment, any equipment. And and that's part of the fun part of

the fun is figuring out, like, hey. What actually works on the stage? You know, how do we adapt the show for the stage in in in a live environment? And I'm giving you that opportunity. There's I'm not even charging you for that. My goal is to get you to a point where you wanna perform on stage. Maybe you wanna buy your own podcast equipment. Maybe you wanna go home and and record your own things, but here's an opportunity for you to just try it out. Just see if you even

like it. Definitely. Definitely. So why why do you believe live audience interaction is the future of podcasting?

The main thing that drives that decision is I I looked at the numbers. Right? A lot of podcasters, you know, maybe starts out as a hobby, but they always say, like, oh, if I can make a little bit a couple extra dollars, maybe I could just pay for this. You know, maybe $20.60, a hundred dollars a month would be great. It would cover my expenses for hosting and maybe some small advertising, maybe even some promo gifts to give to my

my audience. And when you look at the numbers, this is from Buzzsprout, ninety five percent of podcasters don't average a thousand downloads per episode. And and why is that significant is because a lot of ad rates are sold on thousand CPMs. And, you know, every 1,000 what's the cost per

1,000 downloads? And if most people, 95% aren't even getting a thousand, and we're saying a cost per down a cost per thousand downloads is about $25, for you to get a thousand downloads and make $25 seems like a lot of work, a lot of time and investment. But when you take that same model and you go to a a stage experience like this, in person, in front of people, in front of your community, and you sell a $10 ticket and you get four people, the way my

business model works is you get 50% of that. So if of the $40 you brought in ticket sales, four people brought you $20, the same amount that you would make with a thousand downloads. So for most podcasters who aren't gonna be giant Joe Rogans or Whitney Cummings or Bert Kreischer, all these big names, the Smartlist podcast, we're not you're not gonna get there the way that you want. You're gonna have fun doing it. You're gonna have fun producing a show, and you're gonna love doing it.

But this if you're looking for a way to monetize, nothing is gonna get you closer to bringing in positive cash flow than doing live performances in front of live people. You you'll you'll think of four or maybe 10 people. 20 people are gonna equal, you know, easily what maybe five to 6,000 downloads of a podcast. In that point, you're in the top 1%. So you get ten, twenty people to

come to your live show. You're gonna get a nice stream of revenue coming in, and you're gonna you're gonna get you get so much more from a live experience than you get from publishing on a Monday and then coming back seven days later and looking at your download numbers. You you get to see people in front of you in the audience and make eye contact. They get to see what you look like because nobody ever knows what you look like from a podcast, and they get to shake your hand. They get to thank

you. Like, man, that was the episode you did a couple weeks ago, that really I was in a bad place, and, man, I cracked up the whole way home from work. Thank you. I really appreciate. You get feedback that you never would get even from social media. You don't get the one on one connections and and those instant feedbacks when you hear laughter or or boo. Sometimes you get you get heckled a little bit. Yeah. So so what what are because I know I

know some of the biggest challenges. But what are the some of the biggest challenges podcast has faced today, and how does Fuduti Live help solve them? Well, for me, I'm I'm doing two thing. I'm building this on two fronts. One, I have to train the public. Like, hey. This is kind of a new form of entertainment. Most of you think about podcasting as, oh, that's something I do on my morning commute or while I'm working out. I just put my earbuds in and and

I'm off. And I it's just this one on one connection. So I'm trying to teach the public that just like you go to a comedy club to see a comedian or a bar to see a band or a venue to see a band, well, there's gonna be places like this that are dedicated for you to go watch podcasting, see it made live, see the interaction with the host and the guests. And so I'm trying to build up the public. So that's a challenge, for a business model like this.

But, also, look at you and I. We're both in our home studios. Yeah. We have a we have a setup that we're comfortable with. We can I can walk in? I I literally got home five minutes before we started recording this. I turned my lights on. I made one little adjustment, and we were ready to record. So as a podcaster, I'm very comfortable in this environment. Coming home in my home studio, I know my settings. I played with them for months, and I I'm always

tinkering with them, but they're ready to go. For a lot of podcasters, getting outside of that environment, go into a an unknown stage, an unknown venue where you don't have any control over, you know, the all all the sound output. You know, you have some control, but, you know, that's a that's an experience, a challenge that I'm trying to overcome too. And also trying to show podcasters there's other ways to record

your show. So I'm building this up on the public side. I'm building it up on the podcaster side, and, hopefully, we get enough on both sides that they come together and meet at the theater. And and I kinda, got to experience it firsthand last year. It was it was my first real stage, and I got to do it at the duty for the live, and and it was a great experience. My wife actually got to see me perform my show ever for the first time ever, and she had a great time.

She's like she she's just like she tells everybody when we talk she she talks about our Pittsburgh trip and everything. Oh, wow. So the great time she had there. And it was her first time actually being on a show, which was your show. She was a guest on your show, so we had a good time. Yeah. And it's and you know, and you got to see the technology all work, and and it worked pretty seamlessly,

luckily, for you know, you don't always get The most part. Yes. We had no we we didn't have no technical difficulties and nothing like that. And we we just had a great time. Me, you, Maria, we we got to work on our prey on on our stage presence because that's something that being on stage is something that

I've I had never done before. So that was for me a learning experience, and it was my first time being in a public space like that and being able to step out of my comfort zone, which is my studio Yeah. And going on stage and doing and hosting the event the whole weekend.

Yeah. And and when you, you know, you you're on stage, I say, you know, think of the stage like a portal, really, because you, Maria and I, we were sitting there on stage, and we might pull a guest in from New York or California or Utah. And now we're talking to each other, but we're talking to this guest. People are

leaving comments from all over the place. So there's this there's this other area of interaction that starts to happen when you're broadcasting, you know, not just to an audience in you, but to an audience in the world. And you're all connected. We're all connected through this one common experience, and it's really cool to see, like, all of a sudden you just pop up a surprise guest, and they're from it's Phil Better from Canada.

Like, where did he come from? And you get to see, like, we're all interacting all at one time on one stage with different people, and it just the seeing it when you get to see it firsthand, it's so much different than just talking about it. It's it's a it's a much more the feeling is much more different from, like, when I record here at

home. The energy is so much great. It's to me, it was so much greater because having you around and having Maria and then having the guests that we have and then, the kids being around and doing their thing, and then, of course, the engineer in her spot doing what she does. And then my wife's in there. It was just like, oh, this is this is

different. This is different. You could see this this is different, and you could see that be I could imagine people sitting down and being able to interact with people sitting at the sitting down in in this in the stage area, and I could I could envision just what they would questions that they would have and stuff like that. So it was it was a a wonderful experience.

Yeah. One of the cool things too, every ticket includes the livestream. So whether you're virtual, watching at home, or in the theater, you can actually pull up the show in real time on your phone in the audience, and there's a bar or restaurant. If we take a break or, you know, it's May you know, maybe a a show comes on, maybe you're not too crazy about it. You wanna go next door, get a, you know, some fried mushrooms and a beer. You can walk next

door watching the show. It's completely portable. You can go next door, grab a snack, grab a drink, come on back in and not miss, you know, a single moment of the show. So, you know, that that connectivity, that portability, that transfers to the audience too. They they get to be immersed in the situation. They could even be in the audience leaving comments for us, or we could even pass the mic to them, and they could get on camera and ask a question as well. Definitely.

So for me, I know what what was the benefit for me of integrating live elements into into my show. Like, going live like, we're live right now. And when I first started, I wasn't live. What how can the podcast is benefit from integrating live elements into the show? Because I know how it benefited me. It was it was more of the interaction. I I love the fact when people come and they leave comments and and they can ask questions of my guests. To me, that was a a big key into why I started

going live. Yeah. I mean, one of the great things you learned from hosting, and I you've done hundreds of shows at this point Yeah. Is hosting is a muscle that you strengthen through repetition just like bodybuilders, you know, lay lift weights to to get definition. Well, when you podcast host and you do it over and over again, you learn to talk and just speak and continue talking without thinking about what you're saying because you've practiced

this so many times. The repetition just keeps going on and on and on, and you can do this because of that practicing. So, you know, learning and adding livestream, that's a skill you can take anywhere because you learn a couple things. One, if you're editing your own podcast, which 90% of you are at at at the start beginning. Yeah. You're you're sick and tired by episode 10

of hearing your uhs and umms and, what, and then you're interrupting the you start to hear all these things happening that are that annoy you when you edit the show because you have to when you edit, you hear yourself, you know, thirty, forty times, you know, before you get through the episode. And those little things that you learn from editing that you're sick of taking out and clipping out,

you start to not say those on stage. So getting on stage makes you a better speaker, a better performer. You clean up your act a lot. You you you tend to slow down when you, you know, need wanna emphasize things. You speed up a little bit if it's getting important. And you learn, like, what what works on camera, what doesn't, and what will make my editing job

a lot easier. So I I don't wanna take out umms and uhs and or, you know, sometimes you some people like to click their pen the whole time while they're on the show. And those are just those are things that you'll learn that you don't wanna you don't wanna clean up and edit. But you also learn how to entertain too, but you'll learn how to keep a show moving. You'll learn that, okay. This is lagging. We need to get to the next segment as soon

as possible. And you'll make those transitions and those segues, and you you'll keep the you'll keep the everything going. What what are some of the unexpected lessons you've learned building a a live podcast venue? Yeah. I mean, like, when we do a a virtual show, Wise and I, like, we just did that one in September you're talking about. We announced that, and we we filled it up in about three days. We had enough podcasters reaching out that wanted to do we need 24 podcasters.

We found them in, like, three days. It was so easy. In the real world, when you're not pulling from a talent from around the globe, I'm just pulling from people in Pittsburgh, It is a struggle. Like, you know, you find a couple people here and there, but a a big struggle is, you know, finding and developing the local talent for the stage. Now we've been working at this for nine, ten months now, and we're getting to the point where we have local talent coming up now. We have

people who are comfortable getting on the stage. But that was one of the biggest challenges of of opening a thing like this is I grotesquely underestimated the local podcasting audience, and and the podcast audience who was ready to go to a live stage. Yeah. Oh, it it was when when I went to visit you. You you you were teaching a class when I arrived, and you had two students still there. One was was your aunt. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And and another gentleman there.

And and but they were older. And and to see them interested in podcasting just shows you, like, where podcasting is right now, where where people much older than us, and then our age generation, and then all younger generation now doing what they're doing. It it it's it's a big it's big I don't know. Big I I don't know how to say it, but just the the impact it has from one age group to another and how many people are listening to podcasts and actually interested in doing

podcasts is just amazing. Yeah. You you see that. Any anything from professional, people who have, you know, master degrees and doctorates and real estate agents or those, you see people who wanna share their expertise, you know, maybe in the older generation. Then you see me, I'm just doing, like, nonsense and having fun with trivia shows and star search like shows and and and just having I'm having fun. Like, I'm in the middle of my life, like, middle age, and then we're

just I'm just screwing around. I got some free time. The kids are growing up, And, you know, I wanna have fun and and produce things to give to the world, like, so that other people can watch them and smile and laugh. And and then you have, like, the younger kids who are I think it they're more towards entertainment, and they're a lot towards development too. So you see,

like, okay. Maybe I don't have the skill sets yet, but I'm I wanna learn, and I wanna take on new challenges and and learn new things and experience the world. So all these things work together. Like, you know, all three of those age groups can still get together on a podcast and and share ideas and concepts and laughter and and just have a good time, but it does. It spans almost every age you'll find people podcasting. Yep. So so how does live podcasting change the relationships

in host and the audience? Yeah. I touched on this a little bit. The things you get from a live performance, you just don't get looking at your download numbers because Yeah. No. Most podcasters, you know, I got my seven day downloads. Are they

going up or down? Like, I got 500 in the first seven days. Am I gonna get five fifty in the next week, or am I gonna get four fifty? And that's kind of all you know is who's downloading how many are downloading the

show. But when you invite people to come to the audience and and sit in front of you, you know, one, I always joke, like, you in all the podcast you've ever listened to, if you don't know what they look like and you tried to guess what they look like from the sound of your voice their voice, I guarantee you, you are zero out of a hundred. You've never been able to tell what somebody looks like from their voice. So when they sit in front of you, now that thing that

they've been listening to comes to life. Now they can see how the words come out of your mouth. They can see how you interact with people. They see you as a person. That changes that relationship instantly. And then as the host, you're watching them. They're gonna clap or laugh or and and give you feedback, ask questions. They're gonna at the end, they stick around for a q and a or a meet and greet, and that thank you. And, man, I

really enjoyed the show. I'm so glad you put this together. That was a great interview. That your guest was amazing. Thank you for sharing that. You never get that from a download number. You'll you'll never know how you're impacting people or or, you know, if you're have if if people just enjoying your content, you have no clue. They just know that these numbers come in every every seven days.

And and and you you were talking about download rates and stuff like that, But this gives you a different opportunity, like you said, to get different sponsorships, like, especially within low a local community and stuff like that where if you build it enough, you can go to local businesses and and help promote and and, hey. Listen. You have you have run ads here

on we we're running a show every Tuesday and Wednesday. You run your ads during the show or whatever it is, and and you'd be like, it's different way of you of you of you getting monetized. Yeah. I mean, we don't even talk about all the different opportunities. Yeah. You you could sell sponsorships. You know, I even do stage naming rights if anybody's ever interested in that. I'll sell you the name of the stage like you do with,

arenas and ballparks. Yeah. Ballparks. Yeah. The the Live Subway sandwich, stage at Downtown Toronto. But there's a I have a merchandise area that I've let podcasters if they have hats and shirts and buttons and stickers, I have a no merch fee zone. So, like, they can set up. They have a place behind the counter. They can hang up their T shirts and hats. And if they wanna sell some extra product, that's great. Like, that's another way to monetize your show.

We do b o BYOB tickets sometimes too. So if you wanna, you know, let your guests bring in some, adult beverages of choice, they can do that, and that that just slowly teases up that ticket price. You can do ads on the tickets. You can do little, brochures, little pamphlets that go with it. You can there's different ways of teasing up. You can do limited edition T shirts. So maybe your ticket price includes only one of 20 T shirts that I'm making. You get one of these T

shirts as part of your ticket price. So there's all kinds of different ways you can start doing it. You can do your pre, mid, and post roll ads if you want. You know, sell advertising in in the show for the live and even sell a different package for the the audio version that you released as your m p three file. Yeah. There's so many different ways to to really not not just relying on being monetized through

ads on your on your shows. There's other ways to do it. There's and I I've learned that because of the skills I've been able to develop from podcasting, from having to edit, learning how to edit video, audio, logo design, different things, I've been able to hey. I'll edit someone's show here, or I'll do someone's show here, or help someone produce a show, and and make money that way.

Yeah. Yeah. The the amount of skills that you don't even realize, you know, you're going from this you you have some sort of idea, and then you gotta you get it into some sort of form, then you create you create it and make it a real thing, then you gotta edit it. Right? There's the images that goes with it. Like, you have a nice background that you design. You you're starting to crop the you're getting you're gonna download each of our videos as a as a separate. Now you can do, you

know, content. You could stack these videos and do vertical content. You you create these assets that are reusable over and over again, and you learn these skills to produce these assets. Because you the first time you do it, you're like, there's a lot of stuff to do here, but you're gonna learn you're gonna develop systems. Yeah. You're gonna develop skills. Your skill set's gonna get better over time. And all these things that

you're doing, you're thinking, I gotta do all these things. They become easier and easier, and you become more and more streamlined. And a year from now, you look back at where you started, and you're like, oh my goodness. I recorded an hour episode. I edited it. I made four shorts from it. I got some clips that I'm using for screenshots. I put some quotes on it. I got, like, 15 pieces of content for,

like, you know, three to four hours of work. You never would have done that on episode one, but by the time you've done it for a a year and you got 50 episodes under your belt, these skills become, you know, easier to to manage, and your time becomes better managed. And your skill you get faster at the skills that you're developing. Yeah. That's for sure. Because I've I've you you've helped me in the process of how I do my show because of the fact that you introduced me to ChatGPT. You're the

I still remember it's the day when you sent me oh, listen. You gotta check this out, and you did the tribe quote questing and everything. And then I'm like We never did that. We should do those shows. We didn't. We didn't. Yeah. We should. We should. But it that helped me change my show. It it really helped me with how I I really build the system and structure it, and it's helped

me generate questions. It helped me it's helped me with not spending so much time on on creating titles and and creating in descriptions and all these different things. And now I have a system in place. Like, this is what I do with this. This is how I do this. And now because of adding that that part of of the show, it's helped me really streamline, like, where

I can prepare a show in half an hour. Like, have a show ready built, ready to go with title, everything, topic, everything within a half an hour.

Yeah. The AI tools really make they're like your superpower. Right? Like, you rely on AI, not not for the ideas or the creation, but here's the ideas that I have. Mhmm. You know, how can I augment this a little bit, or what else can I squeeze out of this? What angle am I missing? And and AI might give you 10 more angles that you could approach this or or 10 different ways to approach it. Tools like ChatGPT, obviously, CastMagic

is another great one that just spits out. And and the summaries that you can generate from CastMagic are even incredible from the m p three file. Not not only summaries, it helps create blogs. Yeah. So now I've added a blog aspect to my website for my podcast, and and so it it helps with the blog. It helps me with time stamps. It helps me with with so many different things that now I don't have to spend this time cutting it up and and getting the time stamp. It does it

automatically for me. So I'm able to just upload it. When I upload my audio, I'm just able to just upload the time and a a title for that for that section. And and now things that would take me two, three hours, four hours sometimes, like I said, I'm I'm done in half an hour. Yeah. Yeah. I I love it. I I cheat. I use it for my show notes. I like So so do I. Yeah. That's my favorite part to use, like, AI

tools for, like, hey. Here's all the stuff I recorded. You know, pretend you're a news reporter, and and you're gonna publish a a story on this show. Give me a a rundown of what happened. And it boom. Bang, bang, bang, bang. You have real nice show notes that's presented to you like a newspaper or magazine style format, and you're good to go. And those those little tools that you learn that you plug into your system, you know, they make you look like

you have a team of 10 people working behind you. Mhmm. It does. And in all reality, man, it's just you. Yeah. What's what's been the most rewarding part of of launching Podoli Live? Well, it's I I tell you, I grew

up I grew up in the eighties and nineties, skateboarding, punk rock, early hip hop. Like, to me, like, community was such a part of that culture. Like, your value was you know, your word is important. Like, what you say and what you did was important. But, like, in skateboarding, it was you couldn't I couldn't say, like, I'm a great skateboarder. But I could go out to the streets or to the park and skate, and then people would recognize the talent that I had, and that was also

adding value to the the skateboard community. And and that's kinda like how your credibility grew, and and this has given me the same type of feeling. People are coming in and like, what do you mean you you don't charge? I'm like, well, I don't I don't charge you upfront, but, you know, you and I will work together. We'll produce a show that the public likes, and we'll sell tickets, and we'll split the tickets. So I'm I'm able to give them this experience, let them produce it

and run with it and create something on the stage. And at the end of it, you know, we've given something to the public, given something back to the world, and then we both share in, like, what we created. So that, like, that feeling of being young and skateboarding again, like, I'm I'm turning 50 in a year. So I don't I and I just bought a skateboard last weekend. Don't don't tell my wife.

I'm gonna be I'm gonna be riding again. But that feeling of creating and giving back and and the community is is appreciating the value that you're bringing, that's kinda what I'm getting out. That's kinda been the most rewarding thing that I really didn't expect. I kinda walked into this as a business. I'm a do events and production and but I I've also applied all those years of other things that I've done with through

the skateboarding and punk rock and hip hop. And those all are coming out now and the public seeing it and and enjoying you know, I think people like what I do and they like me. I'm a I'm a bubbly guy, and they like hanging out and they're seeing, like, what a business could be like. A business doesn't have to be this cutthroat penny pension. I'm gonna lay off a hundred people so I can make a profit and get a bonus. A a business can be something that everybody

shares in the rewards. And that's and that's why the the connections we've made, the relationships we build it because you just you start surrounding yourself with like minded people. Like, me and you believe in a lot of the same stuff. We we believe in helping each boost each other up and and celebrate each other and and always support and and, like, you're always supporting me. I'm always supporting you. And when

Maria is always supporting what we do, we support what Maria do. And just we've been able to build a a little community of of podcasters that that are very supportive of each other and help help boost each other up. Yeah. Yeah. That is that's like the added the gift that you don't expect. They're like, we all just like doing this too. Like Mhmm. I I I take more calls where I'm just talking to people for half an hour about starting a podcast,

and we're not even talking about, like, getting them to the stage. I would be doing that anyway whether or not I have this theater. I just you know, sharing this ability for somebody to be their their in charge of their own thing, their own production, to be able their own media mogul. That's that's so important that that you have that kind of power even in, like, some of the environment that you might think we live in or or some of the apps that are starting to control our lives through our

phone or some of these walled gardens. You still have this little pocket of the Internet that nobody can take away your RSS feed. Nobody can take away the podcast you're producing. It's all you. You own it, control it, and you're sharing it with the world. Yeah. I I've I love this space. Like, being able to, just the the relationships and and the and the friendships. Like, I tell people that I've I've made lifelong friends

with people that I haven't really even gotten to hang out with. Like, we that was the first September was the first time we got to meet face to face in five years. Yeah. It was still crazy. Yeah.

And we went out, me, my wife, you you, your two daughters, and your wife, and we went out to eat. And and and we just had to spend time and and and got to know each other, and it was just so much fun being able to to finally get together and and hang out because we like, they we've done so many events together virtually. To actually finally get to do it live was just like, oh, man. This

is this is wonderful. Being able to experience this and and go and travel to Pittsburgh and and visit somewhere I've never been before. It it was it was so much it was so such a great experience, and I and I'm grateful for the these relationships and these friendships. Yeah. It was it was a lot of fun. The only thing the only complaint I had about that weekend is, you guys told my girls that there were, like, purple glitter skulls over at Target,

and I had to go over after dinner. It's cost me, like, $80 in glitter skulls for Halloween. Oh, yeah. Yes. Because I I think my wife bought one. Yeah. She sent them out. Like, check these out. Like, oh, man. Don't tell them this.

Oh, we had a great time. And it was it even though, like, we've seen each other on camera for five years, we've done different events in IndiePods United and Women of IndiePods and stuff with Sarah Bradford and Maria. Like, the when you turn the corner into the theater, it was so surreal seeing you. Like, I'm like, why is this actually here? It was the craziest, like, weird feeling. Like like, it's in real life now. Like, it's something that's not just a virtual event, you know, talking torso

from here up. I now I can now see Wyze, like, you know, tip to toe. Like, it was you were standing right there in the theater. Oh, well, this well, next time you see me, it'll be a a different Wyze. I've I've lost quite a few pounds. Congratulations. Thank you. Yes. Yes. And I'll so when, when I went to see you, I was probably three hundred and sixty six pounds around there. As of today, I am two hundred and eighty eight pounds. Dang. You're gonna

be passing me. I'm, like, two seventy. Oh, boy. Alright. Now alright. We're gonna have a little competition. So yeah. No. No. It it is, I feel so much better not have not carrying that extra body on top of me. Yeah. I mean, you almost lost like a like a teenager. Yeah. A hopeful person. Yeah. Well, Well, congratulations. That's really good. Oh, thank you. Thank you. But yeah. So it's, it's been so it's, like, when when you when you say, like, when you ask him to be a guest, I'm like, why are

you asking to be a guest? You know, you can always be be a guest. It's not a it's not a problem. And then you went and signed up. I was gonna give you a link so we could record sooner, but he's like, oh, okay. You wanna wait like everyone. Okay. I know. But what else would we have talk we we you know, that was a fun little joke we had for a couple months there. Yeah. It it was. I can't I can't even get booked on Wiser's show. So when do you see podcasting evolving over the next five years?

Do do you do you see more theaters popping up in the next five years? Yeah. I I want people to copy this business model. I want to go from you know, we're in Pittsburgh. Maybe one of these pops up in Cleveland or Baltimore or Cincinnati. And, you know, as a small podcaster, maybe you make a couple hundred bucks in Pittsburgh, a couple hundred bucks in Cleveland and Cincinnati and Baltimore.

Now all of a sudden, you can start doing this as a tour, like bands do, like comedians do, and go around meet different people, meet new fans, do new new types of entertainment in front of people, and and just have a good time. I I do think this is gonna be something that you're gonna see The plug in. Circuit. That would be awesome. Yeah. Get you plug in. Like, once you once you do a good show in Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh guy is gonna tell the Cleveland guy and the Cincinnati girl, and we know

it'll be Maria. So and, and they'll they'll start to plug in their shows into the network and, you know, you can do a weekend tour, Friday, Saturday, Sunday in three cities and, you know, go back on Monday to work and, you know, pow a little bit because you had such a great weekend. Yeah. No. That definitely is something that, I could see us open over here in the on this side of the of the state because I'm on completely other side of the state from you.

We're we're both in the same state of Pennsylvania, but I'm on the, the Northeast Side Of Pennsylvania. But only your side of the state has pretzel cones at their ice cream shops. Yes. Yes. And I forgot where I forgot where you said it was at. But Somebody wrote in and, like, they researched it and found it for us. Yes. They oh, they did. Yeah. Someone did find it. Go back through the historical record.

Okay. So, what what are some of the what are some of the biggest misconceptions people have about podcasting in general? Because I know when I first started, what was some of my misconceptions? Yeah. I think people think that you you publish a show and the money starts rolling in. You that you have to start shoveling ones under your mattress because there's just so much money in podcast. Again, when you look at the stats, you know, 95% of people aren't gonna get a thousand downloads

and episodes. So you gotta be able to do this for some other reason other than money. Yes. You can get a show that clicks. Yes. You can build an audience. Yes. You can get

into advertising and and put together bundles and packages of, you know, ads on your website and newsletters and you know? You can do all those things, but the misconception is you're just gonna turn this on and thousands and thousands of people are gonna flock to your podcast. It takes work. It takes repetition. It takes consistency. It takes being able to perform on camera and in front of a

microphone. It just takes time, and you don't just turn it on and you know, it's not it's not like a Rompo Peel, Showtime rotisserie grill Showtime rotisserie oven where you set it and forget it. Anybody gets This this this year this year, I'll probably surpass over I'll go over 40,000 downloads. But it's it's taking me work to to even build it, like, even within the last two years, three years. When I first started my first year, if I had if I had

500 downloads, that that was a lot. It's taken me building up my audience to the point where I I'm almost at 40,000 downloads, And that's a big accomplishment for me. Me being where I'm from, this wasn't like, this wasn't my lane. Like, podcasting wasn't supposed to be my lane, and here I am. Yeah. You think about it. Is there 40,000 people near you that, you know, that you're reaching an an audience that you couldn't reach just in your hometown? You're you're

getting outside of that area. And it's not you know, when your show gets 500, a thousand downloads for an episode, you're like, okay. Wait a second. That's like that's like a school auditorium. Like, could I fill a school auditorium? No. But the but I I am, you know, virtually with through these digital downloads. That's that's pretty impressive. Every time I do a show, my my show is getting the same amount of downloads that would fill my high school auditorium. That's pretty awesome.

Like, I'm way into that. Oh, yeah. Definitely. Well, what are, what are some creative ways podcast podcasters can make their live show interactive. Like, with you, you you have the the the game show, and we have I am a six time champ six time champ. Am I six time? Is it five time or six times? I don't know. I've won 20 times. Yeah. Almost as many as Brady that we know about that. Yeah. Almost. Yes. I'm almost as yes. I'm almost with tie with Brady.

Yes. I you know, there are different ways. Obviously, you know, you're using a great platform here with StreamYard. The the chats are interactive. Right? People can click like. They can do they can do different things. I use a product called Mentimeter. Mentimeter? Yes. It's fully interactive. There's no software to download for your

guests, and you give them a quick code. They can pull it up on their phone. Like, I I did a slide presentation over the weekend, and some of the slides had interactive questions. And then they could see the slides right on their phone. So they're watching me present. They're, you know, going through my questions, like, how are you know, why did you start podcasting? How long how far along are you on your journey? And while they're answering on their phone, it's showing the answers up on the

stage. So the audience is seeing how the rest of the audience answer. They're seeing their answers, and it just you can see and all this stuff becomes part of the show. So, you know, there's different ways to engage people, and Menti is a great tool. They sell an annual version of it. It comes down to, like, $30 a month, but every show could have some level of interactivity. It's pretty incredible. Yeah. It

definitely is. And and it's this this just the VO aspect of it has grown in the last two, three years to to where now we have home studios like this because of StreamYard and because of Restream and because of Riverside and all these other platforms where you can produce your own shows like how we're doing right now from the comfort of your own home. It it it just goes to show you the the advancement of technology and where even with fear with StreamYard, I'm able to host my own

webinars. Yeah. I mean, the the price has come down. If you think about what we're really doing is no different than, like, a television studio. Mhmm. Right? You have a newscaster at a desk. You have somebody, with a camera recording. You you your camera my camera just mounted on top of my monitor, and I'm able to you and you too are able to just broadcast to the world, which is that's what would've cost millions and millions of dollars 20,

30 years ago to to start a a television station. Now you can do that in your home. I got a green screen. I can show you my here's kinda what the studio looks like. Like. Yep. And then, you know, all these things just you can do in your house. You you really have a television studio in your house when you have the right tools that, you know, StreamYard and a camera. You're not much different than your local news station. Yeah. That's that's definitely true.

We kind of we touched on how podcasting enhances the the storytelling aspect of everything for both the listeners and the host. It really is amazing being able to like, that interaction. Even now, we're here live. Like like I said, the reason I decided to go live was the interaction because when people interact now, it's also their show. They they've become a part of the show, so now it's their show as well. So being able to have that

aspect of it to me was like, that's what I want. I want them to feel like, yes. It's way up here talking, but if they wanna interact and they wanna be a part of the show, they can. Yeah. That interactivity, that sends all those signals, you know, to Facebook. Hey. There's a show happening right now. There's some people interacting. They're they're they're hitting the like. They're leaving comments. They're engaging with each other. Like, those are signals that say, hey.

This this is a valuable show. This show offers some entertainment to our users. Let's share that a little bit more. Let's bump that up a little bit more in the algorithm and and show people who watch live shows. Here's a live show that you might like as well. So all that engagement, you know, encourage everybody to leave comments, encourage everybody to share. Those things make a big difference during a a live show with that you're streaming. Yeah. Definitely.

How how because we haven't touched on your on your background, but how has your background in in digital marketing influenced the way you approach podcasting? You know, I I I used to joke around that, you know you know, I say, what do chefs eat? You know, maybe they work at a two or three star Michelin restaurant. And what do they eat when they get off work? You you think they're eating the food from the restaurant? No. They're tired,

and they get, like, a Big Mac and some fries. They they don't they don't usually make fine dining food at home or or nurses whenever they, you know, take a break or, you know, go out on lunch. They're you typically see them outside smoking. Like, even though they're preaching healthy things, they need a break from the stress, and they they tend to to smoke. For me, I started I got heavily involved in digital marketing in the early two

thousands. I I did a online retail shop for skateboarding. I've I had a skateboard mail order company. We ship boards all over the world. And during that time, I learned all these skills about buying AdWords and running a a social network. And, back then, we had message boards. We had video. I did some of my first videos on YouTube in 02/2007, and and all these little skills kinda, like, just became part of me. Like, I you kinda get addicted to digital

marketing. You get addicted to the testing and and making changes and publishing them and then seeing how those changes, you know, affect the performance. And all those little things this, you know,

get not in you, but they're part of you. And digital marketing is as much a part of me as I would say I was a skateboarder twenty years ago. It it becomes what I wanna create, and I wanna be able to do something and be in control of it and con and have the power to manipulate and control and change and twist and pivot if I have to. And that it's for me, it's a great career because I get that freedom to maybe be wrong. You know, sometimes we test things out in

marketing. Sometimes they don't work at all, and you're like, okay. What went wrong on this? And then you you retool it, put it back up, and see if that's the the fix to make it. And so kinda like this idea of, you know, solving problems and and, you know, and then trying to get the the most amount of performance out of something, that becomes my hobby, you know, too. So, like, while I'm doing digital marketing all day, I still wanna create and and and produce something at night.

Is it the same type of thing? No. I'm not I'm not buying as many AdWords for the theater and, and, but I'm doing it at I'm having a different creative outlook or, you know, different creative outlet than I would have just working a a nine to five or being a consultant all the time for somebody. I don't know if that was even a great answer. Yeah. I, what advice would you give someone who who is hesitant about starting a podcast? Just do it. I mean,

I the best advice I always give podcasters is it comes from Bon Jovi. So if you are gonna start a podcast, Bon Jovi always said, don't bore us. Get to the chorus. And he would refer to his most popular songs always started with the chorus. So he knew that there was something to giving the people what they wanted. If if you say you're gonna do a podcast, maybe it's a sports podcast, and you spend the first twenty minutes talking about your grocery store trip,

there's a disconnect between what you're telling the audience. Yeah. The audience and what you're delivering. So give the audience what they came for. They they read your description. They read your title. They looked at your thumbnail, and they decide to listen to one of your episodes. And then you talked about eggs and cereal and oatmeal when they came there to hear obviously, hear about the Pittsburgh Pirates, 2025.

Jeff. It's come sort of to that time where you get the solo screen and you get the plug away and let them know where you can find Live, everything. Well, super easy. Just go to poduty.com, p 0 d u t y, Com. You can connect directly with me. You can email me, jeff@padutty.com, p o d u t y. We have our events coming up. A lot of events on that calendar. So check out we have magicians and ghost stories and trivia and a bunch of other shows coming up. Check it out. Poduty.com, p 0 d u t y

Com. Awesome. Awesome. But don't leave just yet. Let me close out the show, and, we're gonna chat. I gotta chat with you after after the show, obviously. But, don't leave just yet. Sounds good. Thanks for having me. Pleasure's on my mind, brother. You know, it's you're always welcome. Alright, everybody. This this episode with Jeff Revilla is a must listen for all you podcasters and content creators and all you digital entrepreneurs out there who wanna stay

ahead of the game because Jeff is definitely ahead of the game. He's really helped even with something he showed me yesterday that I that I that I used today. So Jeff is definitely ahead of his time, and, check out all all of his great content. He he's got so much stuff. So definitely go to ..com. It it's you're really gonna get so much content and so much amazing stuff from Jeff, so definitely check him out. So don't miss this conversation. Tune in later

on. If you if you have if you don't catch the live stream, catch the replay, subscribe, hit the notification bell. As always, big shout out to my RealWise fam, Papi j, Brandy j. Love you guys. Shout out to the boss lady as a love you. And and to all the essential workers out there, have a great rest of your day, and, peace out.

Out.