Making Podcasts Interactive: Dennis and Alena Beliauskaya Unpacks How TwinBox AI Turns Superfans into Buyers
Episode 1320th August 2024 • Podcasting Tech • Mathew Passy
00:00:00 00:20:11

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Have you ever wanted to turn your podcast superfans into loyal customers? We are sharing with you a smart solution revolutionizing podcaster-listener interaction.

TwinBox AI, a cutting-edge platform, is designed to enhance podcaster-listener interactions and boost monetization. Dennis Beliauski and Alena Beliauskaya are the ingenious founders of TwinBox.ai.

In this podcast episode, Mathew has a lively chat with Dennis and Alena to unpack TwinBox AI. With their passion for podcasts and technological innovation, they share insights on how their platform leverages AI to turn podcasts into a dynamic, interactive experience while increasing your revenue like never before.

Dennis and Alena walk us through how TwinBox supports podcasters by turning superfans into buyers through AI-driven conversations. Additionally, Alena shares how the platform creates a seamless 2-way communication channel that turns passive listeners into engaged participants.

Tune in to learn how players in different niches—from wellness coaches to legal and health experts—can use TwinBox to connect with their audience at a deeper level and intelligently upsell premium services through non-intrusive, contextual dialogues.

In This Episode: 

  • Discover how Dennis and Alena identified a gap in the market and created TwinBox to help podcasters turn passive listeners into engaged fans and loyal customers using AI-driven conversations
  • Contextual AI Conversations: How TwinBox’s AI interacts in your tone and voice, delivering personalized answers to listeners.
  • Dennis addresses how TwinBox remains compliant with privacy regulations, ensuring secure interactions.
  • Alena discusses how TwinBox’s analytics can guide podcasters on popular topics and streamline future content creation.
  • Real-World Applications of TwinBox

Links and resources mentioned in this episode:

- TwinBox AI - twinbox.ai

- Follow TwinBox on LinkedIn

- Contact Dennis - denis@twinbox.ai

You can follow Denis and Alena on social media

Don’t miss this insightful conversation on revolutionizing your podcast with the power of AI. Dive into how TwinBox can help you grow your podcast today!

**As an Amazon Associate, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases of podcasting gear from Amazon.com. We also participate in affiliate programs with many of the software services mentioned on our website. If you purchase something through the links we provide, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The team at Podcasting Tech only recommends products and services that we would use ourselves and that we believe will provide value to our viewers and readers.**

For additional resources and insights visit podcastingtech.com or follow us on social media:

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Transcripts

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Alright. Today, we are doing a company spotlight, and we are taking you to a

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very interesting piece of software that was brought to my attention by an old friend

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of mine, Joseph Berman, of our pod to pod days. We are chatting with the

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founders of TwinBox dotai, Dennis

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Belovsky and his wife, Elena Bolivskaya. Dennis and

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Elena, thank you so much for joining me today. Nice to be here.

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Yeah. Thanks, Matthew. So start us off with I

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just a quick overview. What does TwinBox

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do exactly? And and who really is your target

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podcaster that would most benefit from this

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platform? So, about a year ago,

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we started with an issue. We heard from our friends who is

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podcaster experts, that's, like, for most

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brands and businesses, like, podcast is a marketing funnel. Right?

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So, like, people put tons of efforts into growing their audience,

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but it's very tough to monetize their fan base. So

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ad's supposed to be a solution, but it rarely works for niche

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podcasts with, you know, less than, 50, 000

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listeners. So small and mid tier podcasts,

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made their revenue through their Superfans. That's about, like, 5 to

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10% of their fan base. And we, at

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TwinBox, we help podcasters to turn their Superfence

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into buyers of their premium services and programs

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through contextual AI conversations. That's like What does that mean? What

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does contextual AI conversations really mean?

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Tech. Like, so, basically, we automatically

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aggregate any content produced by a podcaster. Right? Like, we then connect

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it to a dedicated knowledge base and then with

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AI. So now AI can talk to your listeners

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in your tone, language, and voice, answer any questions.

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Like, that means contextual. So, like, they are

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able to ask any questions about any piece of content you ever

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produced and get an answer in your tone, language, and voice.

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So, like, they are able to communicate with AI like they're

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communicating with Digital You. And that would come up as, like, a chat box on

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their website? They would just install that like they would any other kind of third

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party software? Right. It's, it's a turnkey solution,

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and, there is a snippet of the code. You inject it into,

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your platform or website, and it pops up, on on

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your website like a web widgets, like a chatbot. So how

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did you think this up? I mean, this is I've never heard of anything

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like this, something that you know, we have lots of AI solutions right now in

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the podcasting world that will listen to your audio, watch your video,

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create show notes, right, help you with creating other sorts of topics.

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But what was it that made you wanna take this to the next step to

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create an actual, you know, bot, let's say, based on

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that AI information? Yeah. That's a good question. So,

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like, how how we started, we did tons of interviews, like, hundreds

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of interviews with both podcasters and listeners, and

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we noticed a pattern. Right? So, like, listeners

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want, Podcasting to be more interactive,

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and they want personalized content. While

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podcasters, they, in their turn, want to know exactly when it

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is the best time to upsell their premium to them. So we thought that's

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okay. Seems that there is a need on both sides,

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and that's how we, decide to let

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podcasters talk to any number of their fans instantly,

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without putting, any efforts into that. Right? Like, you do not have

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to spend your time on talking to each and every fans while they

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still get, this feeling of personalized answers and,

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context. Yeah. And podcasting is still largely a 1 way

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street. And by integrating Twinbox, we are trying to make

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podcast more dynamic and responsive to listener needs.

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And this interaction, it makes podcast feel like 2 way

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communication, which, in its turn

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enhances listener engagement, especially for educational

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and business content. And we help podcasters

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understand their audience's interests through these interactions

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and guide them on what topics to focus on in future

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episodes. Oh, I definitely wanna come back to that that it's

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not just working on your past episodes, but also kinda helping you

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guide the future episodes. I I'm curious when you were

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talking to listeners and they said they wanted Podcasting

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know, you know, have more of a back and forth versus just be

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listeners to shows? Yeah. The thing is that, for for

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listeners, there's just few ways to, contact

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podcaster directly. Right? Like, I mean, whether it is an email or

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maybe comments on social media or whatever. And it doesn't

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seem like a dialogue, especially when the experts are, you know,

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very busy with producing new content. They do not have enough time to answering

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repetitive questions to the listeners. So, listeners want to feel

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that there is a way to contact you directly. So, like, they

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value it a lot, and we wanted to help them to to,

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obtain this connection. So, Elena, going back to what you

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were saying, the software not only helps you take your

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existing content and turn it into something that your target

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audience, your potential clients, customers, whatever can interact with, but

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it can also help you shape future episodes. How does that

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work? Yes. So we are actually analyzing all the

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conversations that happen, within Twinbox for specific podcaster,

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and we are creating the list of topics which are,

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the most popular, within these conversations. And

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based on this analytics, podcaster is able

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to understand what exactly

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help of analytics, basically. Okay. So what does it done with the help of analytics,

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basically. Okay. So what does it look like? Right? Take me through a a

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real world scenario of sorts if you can. Right? What would be

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you know, what's a I ideal client for this? And then what would those kind

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of interactions look like with their target audience? Right? What would

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be the the big CTAs, you know, call to actions that the

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audience would get that would benefit the Podcasting at the end of the day?

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So, yeah, probably. I'll try to answer this 1. Let's

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say you are a wellness coach. Right? And you,

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just started your podcast. You have, let's say, several

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100 or maybe 1, 000 of listeners, and you have your 1 on

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1 coaching sessions. You are going to sell through these podcasts.

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So, like, how it works, you like, through TwinBox,

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now listeners can ask any questions about, for example, how to sleep better.

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Right? And they get an answer, based, on on on their

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question, obviously. So we scan, the whole content produced by

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you as a wellness coach. It might include your podcast. It might include your

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newsletters and blog posts and whatever other content you produced.

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And we combine it into, an answer in your tone and language,

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Mathew back into your, fan who is talking to you,

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at this moment. So now, if that listener would

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like to continue this conversation, we, keep all the,

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history of conversation, like, that Fan currently

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has with you. And, basically,

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they are able to continue this dialogue asking, you know,

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providing more information about them, like, personalizing their request. I'm,

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you know, 33 years old, and I have, like, these type

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of issues. And now we, get more and more information from

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your knowledge base. And, like, it it feels like, you know,

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almost a personal consultation with that fan.

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Then, at some point, when we see that, that fan is

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interested in a specific topic, we are suggesting a contextual

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upsell to them. So, for example, if you would like to sell your 1 on

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1 coaching session, that's a really good time to offer this

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consultation to them since you and, like, we at

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TwinBox, we understand that now that fan, is,

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very inclined to buy from you since, like, the conversation

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continues. There are more questions from their sites. And, we

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analyze all your premium, content and all your premium

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services you would like to offer. And if there is a match, we generate an

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upsell to that user, intelligent upsell, and offer it to them.

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Yeah. And the the upsell that feels very natural and

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nonintrusive. And this really increases conversion rates.

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Yeah. The the nonintrusive part, that is gonna

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be, I imagine a big pushback from a lot of people

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who are concerned about their privacy, who are concerned about,

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you know, their data being stored. How do you address those types of

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concerns that are, you know, very common these

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days in the in the digital, you know, world? Right. Like, we

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have, several clients, who are, you know, in

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specific industries, like legal, for example, rights or or health.

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And we are working with them, you

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know, Podcasting TwinBox according to their

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specific needs. So if they want, the tool to have some

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specific compliances, we are thinking how to obtain them so that to

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make sure that it completely follows all the guidelines they have

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to follow. So, like, all our processes

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are secure. We are using only, the

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software that's, you know, that

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works works for our clients. And, did

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I answer your question or maybe yep. I am not a privacy expert,

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so I don't. But I know anytime I talk about something like this,

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I know it's the first thing that people always come back to is, you know,

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is this going to be compliant with, like, you know, EU GDPR

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regulations? You know, why would I wanna, you know, talk to

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AI and tell them all my problems? Right? Like, it's just it's just something that

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always seems to come up now in the digital world. And so I figured this

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is 1 thing that you had to have thought about, and just the fact that

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you have will probably, you know, calm a lot of those fears. Yeah. Like, and,

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I completely agree with that. And with the help of our clients who are kind

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of also our design partners. Right? Like, we design our

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solutions to match their, specific needs and demands. So, like,

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as as you mentioned, like, the whole world, tries to

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adjust to, you know, this new reality

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with AI, and so we're doing the same, with the help of our clients.

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Okay. What else should people know about TwinBox, if they're interested in, you

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know, signing up and checking Tech out and and wanna take it for a spin?

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We're happy to talk with, anyone who is interested

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to learn more about our tool. We're happy to do the demo.

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We are doing all the hard work,

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ourselves. Like, you basically don't have to do anything. We pull all

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the data. We aggregate it. We optimize it before we

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use it in your dedicated knowledge base.

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We like, basically, nothing is expected from you.

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So just, you know, come to our website, learn more

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about our products. We are happy to,

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talk, with, each interested person

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directly, since the feedback and, the

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conversation is what matters to us most at this moment. And so once again,

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folks, that is twinbox dotai. Of course, we'll have a link to that platform right

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here in the show notes so, you could check it out for yourself. I'm

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curious before I get to our, you know, typical questions that we ask everybody, what

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was your involvement in the world of podcasting before

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TwinBox? Was it, you know, you were big into podcasting and this is a solution,

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or you kinda have this idea for a solution and realized podcasting was the right

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place to apply it? Yeah. I don't know. Do you want us to jump in?

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Or Sure. So we are active

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listeners of Podcasting. I think that podcast has podcasting has become

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a major source of educating oneself. So we were

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doing that all the time, and we are full time travelers, so

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we drive a lot. And podcasting is, the

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most popular thing that we do while we're driving, listening to

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podcasts. So we also have a mentor,

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as Dennis mentioned, Brian, who is, he's a business

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mentor, but at the same time, he's a very successful podcaster. And

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we have been communicating with him a lot, and, we were

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working on a separate solution. But he was

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mentioning a lot of problems that he comes across while doing

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podcasting. That's why we started just investigating this

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area because of him, probably. Okay. Very cool.

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And like I said, I I had a previous relationship with, just Berman. We worked

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together on the, on the old news website pod to pod.

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And, you know, unfortunately, there are just much better products that

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came out to do that, but, working in was certainly a joy and a pleasure.

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I'm glad to hear that, he's also found some more good folks to work with

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like yourself. So the question I like to ask everybody that comes

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on the show that are related to it is, is there

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another place in the world of podcasting, whether as a listener

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or, you know, maybe someone who is a guest on podcast software, where you'd like

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to see some sort of improvement, take place? Yeah.

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Like, if we're talking about those things that are not yet invented

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in, like, for me as a listener, I always

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want to dive deeper into some specific topic that

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was, you know, like, mentioned, during an episode but not

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covered enough for me. And I think that with AI and

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with access to the whole, like, wealth of

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knowledge through AI and tech, it should be now possible

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to continue this conversation with

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your favorite Podcasting, about this topic even after the episode

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is over. Like, for me, and I guess for lots of other listeners, it's

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really critical to keep this personal

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connection, with your favorite creators. And, I

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guess it would be extremely powerful, as soon as,

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such tool, will become available.

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Like, being able to access any creator

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anytime you want instantly, that would be powerful.

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Oh, I think that's a huge thing is accessibility.

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And this is actually the area which is, for some reason, not paid

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much attention to in podcasting world and

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specifically making Podcasting accessible for deaf and hard of hearing

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people. And, within the podcast industry,

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it's, very hard, almost impossible to,

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find and, like, authentically accessible podcast

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that is engineered, designed, and

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creative, created with accessibility in mind for

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100 of millions of, deaf and how hard of hearing

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people globally. And I'm I think that technology should be able

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to ensure that Podcasting accessible for all. So,

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yeah, I think that's a huge 1. Yeah. I mean, that that is definitely

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1 that a lot of people have been talking about for a while, and starting

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to definitely improve, especially with the, you know, introduction of

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automated transcripts by Apple. And, you know, I

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think other platforms are quickly taking note of it. And truthfully, even more of the

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hosting platforms are incorporating hosting as an option to

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deliver to end users. So I think you, I think

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you're right. We're we haven't done enough, although we are moving in

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the right direction, which is nice. What about physical

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tech? Is there, you know, for a lot of the folks that we talked to

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on the show, it's really about recording and cameras and microphones and

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mixes and things like that. Is there any kinda actual hardware that

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you've been dreaming of getting to, you know, work within podcasting

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or, something that, you know, is on your your wish list?

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Yeah. That's a painful topic to me. I mean, like, I'm constantly

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encountering tons of issues with my headset, like, whether it is AirPods

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or, you know, any other producer. Now I'm using Sony. And, like, I

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I have constant, issues with, like, Bluetooth

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connection. So probably something that never has,

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never have these issues would be I mean, I would pay a lot for for

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such a thing that is, you know, proof of of,

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of work, of working all the time when I needed

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to to be on. What about you, Elena? Yeah. I think that this thing

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is both for Dennis and for me. Just the

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connection with, the Bluetooth. Always suffering

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with that. Can't think of anything else right now, to

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be honest. That's hard to say. I also think that,

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this probably is the most crucial problem for us because, as Elena

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mentioned, we're traveling a lot, and we are working from different places all the

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time. So, like, it is really important for us to have something

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that is very reliable, in terms of, you know, noise cancellation and

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all this stuff. And, you know,

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it's it's painful. I understand. I totally understand.

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And, hopefully, we're working on a few solutions that we can, send your way

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and you can you can try out and and tell us whether or not we're

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on the right track for you. Lastly, is there a

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podcast that you listen to that, you know, every time it comes out,

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it's, you know, whatever you're doing, you're stopping and you're going ahead and listening to

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that? Yeah. There are a few actually.

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And as we mentioned several times already, been

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traveling, doing traveling a lot.

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We well, our listening preference

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really depends upon the, situation and

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different things that we are doing at the moment. Like, we are working a lot,

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on TwinBox right now. So we have 2 podcasts that we

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mostly listen to. This is Lenny's podcast, which

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has tons of insights about the product with the focus on,

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technology. And, also, it is the podcast, by

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our mentor, Brian Scordata, which is ideas to to start

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up. And it helps

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founders in the area of marketing and customer relations.

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Besides that, wellness topics are always on

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top of our mind since our we have very

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extreme, extremely tense schedule, and we have,

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to come down sometimes a bit. And

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listening to mental health podcast helps here a lot.

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1 that comes to mind is heal with grace, which is a mental

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health podcast. So, yeah, these are probably the 3

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major ones we can remember. What about you, Dennis? Yeah. With Tech, Savannah,

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like, for me, podcasts are always, you know, like, they

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should be educational. I'm not really huge fan of, like,

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your entertainment through Podcasting. So, like, when I have a

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problem, I'm, looking, you know, for a podcast that

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might help me to solve this problem. So that's why all of them are educational.

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Lenny is amazing. We, you know, went through

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his whole, you know, Podcasting.

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And, yeah, there are a few others. But the idea here is that,

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like, they are their niche. I mean, I usually, you

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know, not trying to, listen just to

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1 or 2 favorite creators, but to roam around,

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the whole podcasting industry trying to figure, like, what works for me at

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these moments. Good to have some, variety and to, you know,

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expand your horizons in every direction that you can. So I like that.

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Once again, we've been chatting with Dennis Belovsky and Elena

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Belovskaya. They are the founders of Twinmox. You can learn more about their

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platform at Twinbox dotai. And if you are a podcaster

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who really wants your audience to engage with you,

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buy from you, work with you, you know, there's really follow-up

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to it more than just being an entertaining podcast. This is definitely a platform that

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I think is worth checking out and possibly trying out. Dennis and

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Elena, thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks, Matthew, for having us.

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It was great. Thanks a lot, Matthew.

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