Reach & Serve Busy People Using Audio with Lindsay Padilla

H: So my special guest today is Lindsay Padilla, co owner of Hello Audio. Now, there are many, many reasons why Lindsay is here today, I am a customer of Hello Audio. Hello Audio produces my private podcast, Show Up Like a Boss, but also because Lindsay has an interesting backstory. Like me, she is a highly educated professional who had a fully developed career doing something completely different before she became an entrepreneur. So before we start talking about audio in general, the future of audio, why audio and how you might be able to introduce audio into your business, tell us how you got here, because it's an interesting story.

G: The long and winding road following bread comes the huge yeah, so my previous life, I was a college professor and yeah, spent what, 30 plus years in the education system. Got to a point where I had the full time tenure track job, even married into academia. Both my husband and I went through grad school together and so we were very set. We bought a house, I mean, we did all the things and then I kind of one day was like, wait, is this it? In true high achieving fashion, I was like, wait, this can't be the top. And what was going on at that time was I had just defended my dissertation and the emptiness of, oh my gosh, the thing I've been working towards my whole entire life is now quote unquote, achieved. And I started getting into working out in fitness and I basically was an MLM. What is it called, Shakeology. I'm like mixing in my I taught sociology.

I sold Shakeology and so that was my introduction to working online. And it was that extra $1,000 a month that I started to get on top of my teaching career, where I was like, oh, this is interesting and that now gave me something to focus on. And so then I went down the rabbit hole of online social media marketing and like, Chalene Johnson was this really interesting overlap, and so stumble into like, Pat Flyn and Amy Porterfield. And then I'm like, why am I selling someone else's product right? So that was when I decided, basically I'm going to build my own business where I'm not selling someone else's product and I still stuck with teaching. It still was very clear that there were a lot of people in the online space who had created courses and were selling courses but didn't know how to teach online.

And so that background in my college teaching career was just like front and center and it was like, oh, I could help entrepreneurs teach better. And so that's what I've spent the last three, four years doing was I had a consulting business. I had a podcast called Academics Mean Business, it was about academics who left academia or had side hustles. And then it was kind of we just had this AHA moment. So I go from college professor to MLM marketer to running an online consulting business and then I found a problem in courses and it was why people hired me. They hired me because their students they wanted their students to finish their course. And yes, lesson plans can help, but I can't make a student log in and so I had this moment in someone else's course that I bought a program that was hosted on, like, a WordPress site, unfortunately.

urse was, I think, was like, $: 1800

H: Can I just say, I knew you had ADHD okay? I've known this for a while. I knew this before I invited you to this interview but because you represent the type of people that I work with who are women, who have ADHD but are also highly educated, high functioning, and had already checked all the boxes and achieved success in their chosen career, and what do they do?

G: This can't be it.

H: Well, because we're very goal oriented and once we've achieved the goal, it's like falling off a cliff, now, what. But to go from a shiny new PhD and I come from academia, I know how rigorous that is, I know how long it takes, I know all the things about it. You then go into selling for an MLM, it's like, now that is a hairpin turn that I don't even think I have been able to pull off. But it does speak to the fact that you need to have a problem to solve for your brain and once you found a problem that you could solve, you were off to the races. You're still married to the man that you put through this, and you now have a kid together so he's, like, buckled up and along for the ride.

G: Even in the early days of that business, he left with me, we both were just like, okay, we're done. He was a semester away from tenure, I was a year and a half away from tenure. We left in the middle of an academic year, I mean, so many things, yeah.

H: But it was probably one of the best decisions you've made.

G: Yeah, it's crazy how that feels farther away than, I think I literally just realized this, I made a Facebook post probably, I don't know, about a month ago, and I was like, oh, I've been an entrepreneur longer than I was a professor. That wake up was like because that was such a huge identity piece for me and there was definitely a transition of not really knowing what I was going to do. Am I good at this, I was never taught any of these things that I'm trying to figure out, and I didn't love that. As somebody who likes to gain a lot of credentials and knowledge, and so to just kind of take this risk of running a business and it all relying on you to produce is very different than a salaried position and all the things. So, yeah, the identity shift was huge, and now I'm like, oh, I'm actually an entrepreneur, I'm not a professor anymore. And so I think that was a big realization that was recent so that took a long time. I've been in business about six, seven years, six and a half years, something like that.

H: I do think the identity piece is huge. I'm glad you brought it up because I find that you're very entrepreneurial, it's very clear. And in a couple more years, you're going to think, I can't believe I was ever a college.

G: And I was entrepreneurial in the classroom to be honest, I was using course with my students and when it came out, and other professors were like, why would you get on video with your online students. I'm like, why wouldn't you? What are you talking about and then, of course, now the world we're in now, that sounds silly, but I was always experimenting, always using the latest things, and always being very, how could I make this better or more fun or more interesting, that was the kind of professor I was so it's definitely always been there.

H: And not knowing that that actually means that you are an entrepreneur and that that is probably who happened to be a professor. But I think I think it's important to reflect on that because so many people feel like, I put so much time, so much energy, so much effort, so much attention, so much sacrifice, so much money into this path. How can I just burn that down and do something that I have no experience doing? I don't even know if it's going to work and I think the identity piece is really crucial because if you can't imagine yourself being successful at something you've never done before, you might not be ready to do it, but you took the leap. You and Derek took the leap, and you now have a very successful company doing something that you are uniquely known for so this is the backstory to Hello Audio. But why do you think audio in particular captivated you apart from the fact that you have ADHD and you don't like to sit still and when you're listening you could do that wherever you want.

G: Exactly, yeah, there's layers to it right and I love how you said that too. That was always a thing that I was realizing with software is like we had to build it because of our background. There was something about what we've experienced and what we know about the world that's very unique. And so, yes, I spent over one hundred k on my college degree or my graduate degree so people ask me all the time was that a waste of money. And it's not a waste because it brought me exactly to where I am and that is part of what made me in the position to be able to do this. So I always think that's important to bring up because there's no regret in any of this. But yeah, why audio, I think part of it was being so entrenched in the academic world and being like, man, wouldn't that been great to be able to listen to a lecture if you needed to or I put my videos on YouTube when I was teaching online.

That was great and it was PowerPoint, whatever, but it allowed my students to watch, listen to the lecture whenever they wanted and that wasn't very common back then, it's obviously a lot more now. But I think there is something to be said about that audio is special that is very different than video and the video makes you have to sit your butt in a chair, right? So we're recording this, there's video happening, there's also audio happening but I can't be walking around and just chatting with you because I need to be in front of this camera. And so when you're watching a video to learn something, it's the same and I think the computer screen is a very dangerous place, as is our mobile phone, to be fair. But it's dangerous in that like, you know, I'm not going to lie, Slack is like it has a little red button am I looking at it? Like, who's messaging me during this talk right but I'm engaged in this, I'm involved and so that's a lot easier than if I'm doing work in a course.

I could easily just be like oh, let me pause the video or most of us don't pause the video and pretend we're actually getting the information and then we go and get distracted. The cool thing about audio is it actually allows you to do the other thing but the audio is still being processed because you're not having to watch the thing. And there's a lot to be said around the monotonous, possibly physical tasks that you could be doing like walking or washing the dishes or folding laundry or something and listening and how peaceful that actually sounds. I've had many people say sacred audio time that probably people listening to this.

Like they put on their headphones, they're waiting for this episode to come out, and it's anchored to something in their life. It's anchored to the laundry, it's anchored to the walk, it's anchored to the getting ready in the morning. And that means I'm investing my time with Diann and putting on these noise canceling headphones. That is so different than saying, like, I'm watching a course because most people don't get to it and so, yeah, audio is really powerful from a tool in learning that I think we forgot about for a while. When I first came up with this and was kind of explaining it no joke to my grandmother, she was like, what do you do?

H: You got the six year old kid test and the grandmother test. If you get both of them, yeah, you're done it's good.

G: Exactly and so she was like, yeah, I kind of know what a podcast is. This is, like, three years ago, yeah, I've heard of it. I don't subscribe, I don't listen and I was like, yeah. So we put learning content in podcast form. So maybe you don't know what exactly what a podcast is, but we put that content, learning content in podcast. And she goes, oh, yeah, she's like, just like my books on tape, which taught me how to be a real estate agent and I was like, exactly. And here's my grandma, like, popping in the tapes in her car and learning on the go way before video was a thing. Then it's like, oh, we're kind of returning back to that but it also worked like, a lot of people got educated in that way, and so it is kind of cool to which is why we named it Hello Audio. It's like we're reminding people audio is more than just podcasts. You can do a lot, it's a medium that we should be using more.

H: I'm cracking up, Lindsay because I'm assuming it's hello audio. But you're like hello? Audio. But you are too young to know this, and even I am too young to know this, but once upon a time, there was no television, there was no Internet, and people would literally gather around the radio to listen. And for me, personally, I like to listen because I have ADHD, I can't tolerate boredom. So I can fill my mind with something entertaining, something educational, something just to distract me from whatever mundane task I need to get done. But I remember hearing that podcast is the most intimate form of contact. So when I heard that, I'm like, OOH, tell me more and I realize that a lot of people when they're reading, especially if it's something that has a lot it's dense, they'll get distracted, and then they have to reread it.

And people, when they're watching, tend to get, let's just say in a more passive space where you can almost get a little bit hypnotized. You're just kind of like, staring at the screen, and you're watching and you're listening, but you're in a much more passive role. When you're listening, you are also imagining the person who's speaking to you, which I find engages your creativity because if someone's, they hear my voice, they have a picture in their head about what I look like. But they maybe don't know, they don't know you, they don't know what you look like so their brain starts to imagine and engages their creativity, their imagination, and they form a relationship with that imaginary person.

G: I think it's like there's something about it almost feels like they're in the room with you where somebody's on video, I see the separation that exists between them at a screen. But when I put in headphones, it's like, they could be in the other room talking to me right now, they're not, but they could be. I don't know if you've had this experience, but when I was hosting Academics Mean Business, I lived across the street from a community college, and somebody reached out to me and was like, we should meet up. Like, she was an adjunct at that school, and we met up, and she's like, I feel like I've already had coffee with you and that's very different than we watch Instagram Reels. And it feels like, I know these people's lives, but I'm looking through a looking glass, and I know all this stuff about visually what surrounds them to your point. But if it's just the disembodied voice you almost can create, it's a different part of your brain or something something's happening that is unique, definitely.

H: I absolutely agree. I think you absolutely nailed it, Lindsay, thinking that I know they're not in the room with me, but I am literally talking in their ear. You have heard this from other people who use your product that I've had so many clients say so because I'm so accustomed to your voice and the way you talk and all of my expressions like abso-freakin-lootly and fuck ton, and just the things that I say. Some people say they hired me because I say things like, that awesome, but they say so. I found myself in a situation, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to handle it and then I thought, what would Diann say and I'm like, whoa, that's powerful. That, to me, I don't want to be an influencer, I don't care about the blue check mark, but you have the power through audio to influence people in a way that is intimate and is meaningful, and they are inviting that. It's not like I'm sneaking up on you and trying to manipulate you. It's like, you invited me into your ear holes and you like, hearing me in this way.

G: Go ahead, it's different.

H: No, I think we are speaking to the power of audio as a medium. What are you thinking abou why it's not more widely used. I understand it hasn't been around this long. Why there are so many people who are still saying video is the way to go or you got to have a blog or whatever. You and I are enthusiasts of audio for all the reasons that we're talking about but why do you think there aren't more who are like, yes, please.

G: Yeah. Did you get into, like, Clubhouse when Clubhouse blew up and stuff a couple of years ago?

H: For half a minute.

G: Okay, so I really liked it, and I was very early in it and literally had just built Hello Audio subscriptions turned on. I get my invite into Clubhouse and people are like, oh my gosh, Lindsay, this is going to change everything and so there was this moment of like, oh, my gosh, is audio finally evolving? I think we're stuck in a rut and we're not going to talk about Clubhouse, but there was something special and is something I think it maybe is like, it's going to show up in a different iteration. I don't think that that's gone, there was something really powerful about having conversations with people that did not involve video and making everyone feel equal and being able to share what they wanted to share. There were issues with it too, of course, but yeah, audio hasn't changed for a really long time. And I think podcasting, I mean, it's been around for 20-ish years, 21 years, I think and that's been the way.

And after Clubhouse, everyone's like, we should have social sharing of audio were you in the early days of Anchor when there were, like, you could share these snippets of thoughts did you remember that. I was a professor and just getting into business when anchor was not what it is now, but was this like, social and I was like, this is so cool but it didn't stick. And they pivoted and went to we are going to be free for podcasters, right and then they get bought by Spotify. So people are trying to figure out what the next thing is, I just don't think we know yet and even at Hello Audio, we've always been like, what is the next thing someone's going to come up with it. I don't think it's going away. I think there is something special about audio that the snippets being shareable.

It's just it's not the same as video and I wonder if it's because video, we're down to 15 seconds right, of our attention span and literally videos are made that are that long. Audio, I think it has to do with the state of mind that we've been talking about. When I want to watch TikTok, I'm, like, in a very different state of mind when I'm scrolling Facebook when I'm watching Reels than I am when I flip on a podcast. So there's something there and so maybe it won't ever be shareable like that and we should be okay with that. But what could audio do, right and I think what we're trying to do at Hello Audio with the private stuff and with the intimacy and the connection and the personalization, we're showing people that you don't have to have this polished show.

I think that's where I'm like, what if it was not a fancy show that you had to show up for every week, but it was a series of lectures, right. Going back to the academic metaphor where you literally were sharing in front of a chalkboard, right? I think that when you start to say, like, oh, yeah, audio is cool in the deep, immersive learning space. It's not for a quick dopamine hit, which we ADHD folks know well but it's for something a little deeper and more immersive and that's, I think, what ties what we've been talking about and why audio hasn't been a real social app. It hasn't stuck doesn't mean it's not going to but I think we need to honor it as what the medium is that it's not supposed to be chopped up quick dopamine hits. Like, there's something different about the way we consume it.

H: I agree 100% and I'm thinking, as you're speaking about this, Lindsay, that while we are all being bombarded with this information that the human attention span is now at the same level as the Circus flea. We also know that books with titles like Deep Work by Cal Newport are ridiculously popular, so maybe I'm totally with you on this. Maybe it's not that we have to make things quicker and quicker and quicker and quicker because nobody can pay attention longer. It's what do we need to create so that people willingly, intentionally, and with full knowledge and permission are in a more immersive experience because it's a race to the bottom when we are just assuming that nobody wants to pay attention to anything for longer than 15. I mean, I worry about what that is doing to humanity, to our social skills, to our ability to connect on so many levels but we're not going to go there.

I'm going to dial us back down and talk about for people listening and my audience tends to be people who are self employed, whether they consider themselves freelancers, consultants, coaches, entrepreneurs, independent professionals, service providers. A lot of people when they first work with me say, I want a podcast. I want to have a podcast, I love your podcast. I think I should have a podcast. I think podcasts are awesome. Let me tell you, all the podcasts I listen to, I'm like, okay, hold up, hold all the way up. Maybe you do and maybe you don't. I know that with a private podcast, sort of like the barrier to entry, the commitment level and just testing if it's right for you and for your market is a whole lot lower and makes a whole lot more sense for probably the majority of people who want to get into audio, so let's talk about that specifically.

G: Yeah, so I think let's define what a private podcast is, I think that's really helpful. So public podcast is what you're talking about and what this show is where it's distributed to every single network slash podcast catcher app like iTunes and Spotify and yada yada. And so it's public and it's shareable and someone can go to the link, someone can search the name, search the name of the show. That's the big thing with podcast is like discoverability is tough but what we do know about it is people tend to recommend it by word of mouth. I've listened to this, right and so they're searching for it in the podcast catcher apps. What a private podcast does is say, hold up, this isn't available to everyone. You can't just search it, that's like the first easy layer and so it's not searchable on any of the podcaster apps, that's the first thing.

But then the second thing that takes it a step further is, okay, fine, it's not searchable, but what if the link was tied to a person that is allowed to have access. And so we get into what we do at Hello Audio, because if someone's buying your course that's $2,000, you definitely don't want this private link, even though it's not in Apple to be shared with anyone else. And so the URL for the subscription for that RSS feed is unique to the individual email address. If you attempted to share it, nothing crazy happens, it's just, it won't play, it won't download, it won't show up. It will say, podcast feed not found and so that's like on a basic level, what it is. And so what people can do with a private podcast is, yes, they can put their course content on it and charge for it, but they can also create free experiences that lead people onto some of the next stuff and so with that, you're collecting email addresses. And this is what makes it very different than a public podcast, because now I can know who's listening, who's subscribed, how many downloads to that individual person, many, many things and so that's where we went and ran with it, Hello Audio.

We started inventing new types of RSS feeds, we started saying, what can we do with segmenting and tagging and automations and so that's what we essentially built. The reason why it's very different than a private podcast on a host like Transistor or Captivate or some of the other public podcast hosts is they're really focused on the public podcaster who probably wants to charge $5 a month for extra content around their show. And we're like, we're dealing with people who have a lot of content and different types of content and not everyone wants a subscription. And so we knew that we had to build it because we had to build it for our people, where you would drag and drop your course library videos into Hello Audio and every single video becomes an episode like duh, of course, a public podcast hosting company is not going to do that because you have a weekly show, doesn't everybody?

But that's what's cool here and this is why I think this is special for a test out if you like audio, it's like you can kind of test out not only if you like audio, but like your people like audio, I think that's really important. And so by taking some content that maybe is sitting on the shelf for a while, or a course that you haven't sold in a while, or a really awesome workshop that you did and making that something free that you can give to your audience, you don't have to show up every week for that. It's on evergreen. It's an evergreen podcast show if you want to call it that, people can sign up for it. And so it's a great way to dip your toes or feet, if you will, not only for you as the creator, but to see if your audience is just like, oh my gosh, this is exactly what I needed, right? And now they start converting higher because they're consuming more and that's what we see at Hello Audio. So, yeah, it's definitely been a great intro to podcasting, if you will.

H: But it's also I mean, because I'm part of the Hello Audio community and because you have wonderful classes and coaching calls and I get exposed to how other people are using audio in their business. So, for example, if you are a coach and you're recording all of your coaching calls on Zoom, for example, you can then put for each of your clients, you can have a private podcast feed for them where they get those recordings in their podcast player after each coaching call so that they can go back and relisten to things that happen during the call. If you have a course that is on video or slides, you can give them the audio as well. You can have a pop up private podcast right before each launch of your group program that answers all of the questions that people have about is this the right program for me and that would take the place of you having discovery calls or strategy calls or consultation calls. You are literally anticipating all of the questions that people ask, making those different episodes of your private podcast, having that pop up during your launch cycle and disappear when you close the cart. Let's talk about some other because you have so many creative people in the community who have used private podcast in ways that you're like, wow, I didn't even think about that that's freaking awesome and then other people are doing it too.

G: Yeah, I mean, the newsletter one I think is a cool one where Tarzan Kay was kind of the first person to roll it out and she's an email writer. That's what she teaches people how to do, is write emails. She wrote twice a week, she's super funny, obviously, right like, teaching email and I think she just had a clickable image in every email that said, would you rather listen to this and it's like, duh, right? She actually didn't collect email addresses individually. She just used a general, what we call a universal link at Hello Audio, but a link that is private still, but anyone can use it, so she can't see exactly who's listening but she already had their email addresses. They were on her list and so for her, she was like, easy, I want them to be able to listen wherever. And it was called Tarzan reads her emails and it's such a great and what was cool is it was so much better than reading an email.

I mean, who goes in your inbox and reads his newsletters anymore, right? I can't, I try, but it just never happens but she's funny and she's cracking jokes. You hear her voice again, that immersiveness, it's like when an author reads an audiobook, you're like, oh, cool. I remember the first audiobook I listened to was Bill Clinton's book My Life. I was just like, that felt like he was like, chillin, right with his Alabama accent. I don't know, there's something special about audio in the voice of the person. And so especially if it's a newsletter or something where you're sharing personal stories, why not offer that option for people who want it, who choose it and I think that's what Hello Audio is to a lot of people. And what I'll say, too, is we're not trying to replace video, I don't think any of video should go away.

It's more like there are sometimes things that are better in audio or just make it a little more accessible to people and if 20% of your audience or more is like, oh my gosh, this I look for now in every course, why wouldn't you add it, you know what I mean. And I think if 20% more of your audience is more likely to go through your content by having the audio version, I mean, what conversion tool has numbers like that, nothing, really, that you can add. So I think it's pretty powerful to recognize that some people are just way more likely to be able to listen. So, yeah, the newsletter one is a big one. I know I went off on a tangent on like that's. But yeah, so newsletter is big, I mean, lots of people use it for personal reasons, too.

One of our Hello Audio users created a private feed for her friend's 50th birthday and had people record messages for them. They've been used in funerals, they've been used to document and so that's kind of cool, right? The idea that preserving voice again, very different than video and leaving special messages for somebody. It's like, oh, yeah, there's definitely something there so there's personal stuff. Oh, my favorite use case is I have a feed called Listen Lindsay, and it's my stuff that I want to listen to. I feel like every Hello Audio like, make a feed for yourself where you can put your coaching calls that you hire somebody who maybe doesn't have Hello Audio because they haven't figured out that that makes sense, and you can put your content there. Oh, my gosh, that's my favorite. Yeah so it's a personal feed for myself with my content that I'm allowed to appropriately have access to, but I can put it there and listen to it when I need to, if I need to review something so those are kind of I think.

H: You've talked me into doing a what would Diann do because I've had several people that have worked with me say, what would Diann do and I'm like, isn't that like, what would Jesus do, I think that's maybe kind of sacrilegious. Are you telling me I should start my own religion and of course, I was going off on a weird ass tangent, but you remember the lanyards WWJD like, what would Jesus do and I'm definitely not trying to encroach on anybody's massive following here, but if people say, yeah, I'm sure it's branded but some clients say in between our calls, I just sometimes would like just a little dose of Diann.

G: There you go, that's cute.

H: And I could just riff on that stuff, I could just record it, like, so easy. Just even while I'm out doing a walk, listening to podcasts, and I get an idea, and I just record it, and it gets released to all of my current and maybe even former client. That would be so easy and I could literally test it, too right. That's the other thing I got to just tell you, I circled around Hello, I don't think I've ever told you this yet, I circled around Hello Audio for months, and I thought, I should do this. I don't know if I can do this. They say it's easy. They say it's really easy. But come on, I didn't grow up with technology. How easy can it be? Am I going to put myself on the steep end of another learning curve? But I got to tell you, setting up a private podcast with Hello Audio is the easiest thing I have ever done with technology.

It was so easy that I actually felt hardcore ashamed of myself for doubting that. You said it was easy because it totally is and it's not just easy because it's simple. It's very robust, I mean, you have so many customizations within Hello Audio that you can choose to use or not use and I usually, when it comes to technology, and you would probably agree. I usually think simple means it doesn't have a lot of features. If you want a lot of features, it's going to be complex. But yours is the only platform that I use that is actually user friendly, simple to use, but it's actually quite robust. You have a lot of options and you could just experiment.

G: Totally and I think that's the cool part. It's funny, people are scared they're like, I put an audio somewhere, someone listening it's like, you have to send a link. It's not just like showing up in podcast apps because it was recorded. No, it's true. It is really easy and I think that kind of alluding to what we were talking about of a public show feels very anxiety inducing a little bit. It's like, oh, shoot, this goes out into the public and the thing about getting an audio up quickly, like, you're talking about, I'm on a walk and I have an idea and it's cool that I'm using my air pods. It's going to be fine. It doesn't need to be my fancy mic, people know what they're signing up for. I think in a public show now, we have these episodic kind of dramas that are so well produced and it's hard to compete with like, it's not hard to compete, but it takes effort to have a very well edited, well sounding show.

And so I think that deters people, but when someone's like, I have a private podcast and I've raised my hand that I want to listen to it as an audience listener, it's like, it's cool if it's not, I just want you and the content. I don't need to be wooed into something with crazy advertisers and all the stuff that go into some of the really fancy shows online. So I love that you bring that up because it's true and we've had many people say that they've floated around us for a while and it can't be that easy. And then when they sit down and do it and they're like, why didn't I do this four months ago when I first thought about the idea?

H: I have trust issues, that's why.

G: As an entrepreneur totally it's like, is this one of those ideas that is like a flash in the pan and it's not a thing and then when you go and you're like, oh, this is easier. Oh, I could build a whole like my whole business could be like around this. I think that's definitely very it's very unique what we do with that and we wanted to make it easy. We kind of stripped down the podcast creation experience to like, what do you actually need to have to make a show and we tried to make that as simple as possible. So we were going off of the industry standard and we're like, why do they make this so episode based that's where we got to play with, which is cool. I think whenever a new tool comes into an old I don't want to say old, but like established industry, as an outsider, you could be like, well, why haven't they just done it like this and that's exactly how we built it.

And so I think that comes through in the simplicity because we're just like, these are the things that you care about as a creator and that your audience is going to care about. And so that was always at the forefront as we were building and we knew as we were building too, that it would mimic course platform. So the idea you talked about a pop up podcast, yes, we expire podcasts, so they're only available for a certain length of time. And it's like just like in a course platform or if you want to drip it or only a certain number of people get access because they bought this other thing. Perfect. We have all of that and so we kind of modeled it against other Course or content hosting kind of platforms. And so, yeah, it's always been important to us that it save you time as an entrepreneur and as a creator and make it just as easy as possible to get something out there.

H: I also think that people I'm thinking about, I'm thinking all the way back when I was in my undergrad and a course that I signed up for that was only offered once a year, I really wanted to take it. I actually left after the second lecture because I could not tolerate the professor's voice. I don't know if this is an ADHD thing or not, but it's like if I really want to learn from someone, I have to be able to listen to them and I just went and took someone else's course because I couldn't listen to their voice. So I think that goes to the intimacy of the medium but even though maybe audio hasn't peaked, maybe there are going to be iterations, your company is going to continue to evolve, you continue to improve, you continue to find new ways that people can use Hello Audio. But I think the industry, when we don't know what the next big thing is but do you have any speculations about the future of audio? And also I would like, if you would before you answer that, I realize I have a pre question. I've heard you say both audio first and audio only and I think anyone listening to this likes audio, likes consuming content on audio. Would it be a decision that they would need to make in their business whether they are going to create audio first or audio only and what are some of the considerations and then the follow up question is, where do you think it's going in the future?

G: Yeah, so audio first, audio only. So when I think of audio only, if you have video on a video podcast, which that's making its way right now. Everyone's talking about video and podcasting, which I'm like, everybody interesting that we got here, but essentially it's audio first, I would still argue. And the video people are making so their show becomes findable or discoverable is typically what is happening with that. So I would say podcasting is audio first when you're looking at something like audio only that to me is like there's not any supplementary videos meaning like an audio course. Like you wrote it specifically knowing that it was going to be audio and I think that there's not a ton of things that you need to change. But when you do know that that's the medium that is going to be at the center of it, the way you take someone through that content might be a little different.

One of the big objections that people have at first is like, well, you can't just put my videos and my course videos in audio form, what do they know that they're looking at? I didn't talk about them being video or audio and part of me is like, yeah, but people are already doing that anyways. They're driving and listening even though the video is playing or they're cooking and the video is playing and so they're kind of already doing that. And I'm like, sure, if you're walking through Facebook ads for the first time and you're listening to that content, you're absolutely going to have to go back and look at what the person's doing. But that doesn't mean you can't learn something in the process and actually still move through the material and get some information in your head from that. And so I have a whole rant on learning styles and all of that.

But with audio only, it's like you're intentionally creating that content knowing that it is going to be consumed in audio form only. An audio first is more like your audio first, but there might be some supplementary videos in the course content or something like that. And then you get into audio as a supplement and that's like a lot of the video courses that you really want people to go through the video content at some point. So the audio becomes a supplement or a way to revisit the material or visit the material for the first time there. So then when they go to the video content, they feel very confident as they're going through because they've learned some stuff already and they know where you're taking them on the journey. And so there's definitely value in all three ways but that's typically how I talk about it.

H: And I'm hearing your $100,000 investment in that PhD coming through loud and clear because you really do have an exquisite appreciation for adult learners and learning styles and really wanting to meet people where they're at. So if your parents are still throwing shade on you for changing your mind, you tell them Diann Wingert says it was not a waste, they probably are super proud of you because you've been successful now in two completely different arenas.

G: Thank you, yeah.

H: So where is all this headed?

G: I don't know, man, AI has thrown me for a loop the last two months.

H: No shit.

G: Yeah, ask me that five months ago, I would have said something very different. I think we're in a very interesting time. I don't love AI sounding audio, I'm not going to lie so if we talk about text to audio conversions or whatever, AI tools meh, will it get better, probably, so we're getting to the point where I can't say that for that long so that's interesting. I think we kind of alluded to it earlier, I really think there might be a returning to, like you said, going deep in certain things, that it's a great medium to do that, that we're always going to need a counter for the quick and rapid fire. We're going to also need the slowdown and really take it in so that's why I believe there's always going to be a place for it. There is a world where it becomes the forefront, and this is getting into augmented reality stuff, where we're going to be wearing glasses and we're going to actually be hearing a lot because we're going to be in our world. And the immersiveness of what's happening with audio is really important that so, I mean, that's getting into weird stuff that maybe I'm qualified to talk about, but probably not.

H: Yeah, but I love Sci-Fi and futuristic and dystopian fantasy and yeah, bring it. Because that's the bigger conversation, I mean, AI is the conversation that's happening right now and augmented reality, virtual reality, all of that is coming. It's already here and how people learn and how people connect and how people interact and how people communicate, it's all part of the conversation. I do think that asynchronous conversations, in a way, are the future, but if you think about, like, pen pals and how people conducted courtships when they were separated by war or immigration and they had to write a letter and wait two weeks for it to be delivered and maybe another two weeks to be responded to. So being able to just take something in and not talk back, in a way, it's futuristic, but it's also historical and part of the human experience that I think we can tap into so I'm here for it.

I think it's a super interesting conversation, I think you have a wonderful product, and I appreciate that you are an ADHD entrepreneur who has created something that is very friendly to brains like yours and mine because sitting and watching a video, no matter how much I want to learn, is excruciating and now I don't have to do it. And then I'm probably knitting and checking my phone oh, Lord, thank you so much for being here and for being you and for, I think, a very stimulating conversation. And if anybody is thinking, you know what, it's time for me to really look seriously at creating a private podcast. This is the lady that you want to connect with. I'm going to make sure that you have all the links in the show notes and if you want to talk to somebody about where that might fit into your business, you can talk to me about that.

G: Awesome. Well, thanks for having me, this was super fun. I knew I would enjoy it.

H: Of course. All right, awesome. Thanks so much, Lindsay.