This week, I sit down with Matt Medeiros, host of many shows including the WP Minute and the Matt Report, where he talks tech, podcasting, WordPress, and more.

Matt's journey from "computer guy" to podcaster is an interesting and varied one, and in this week's episode Matt talks about that, as well as the legacy he's looking to build.

A Podcaster's Podcaster

Matt has a lot of shows under his belt, both personal podcasts and professional podcasts. Starting out in the WordPress world, and utilizing that with his marketing agency, Matt knew he needed something different to win clients. Enter podcasting. Since then, he's built a great reputation as both a podcaster, and someone in the podcasting space.

Why Local Podcasting is So Important to Him

Matt spoke about the legacy he wants to leave (even though he cringes when he hears that word!), and it's not the kind of legacy that you might originally think of when you hear the word.

Like Father, Like Son

While Matt is heavily ensconced in the tech world through his love of WordPress and podcasting, his father was the one that helped get him there. As Matt says, his dad had a beast of a product that would be the equivalent of a laptop today, and that's what stoked his interests and led him on the path he's on today.

The Rise of Podcasting Gurus

As podcasting continues to grow in popularity, so has the amount of podcast experts and gurus that have suddenly appeared to share their wisdom on how to get a ,illion downloads and huge sponsorship deals in the first month of your show. Matt shares how he has a love/hate relationship with these "experts".

The Commodity of Trust

With his background in car sales and agency life, Matt's used to asking people for money, and how to handle rejection. One of the biggest things to avoid that rejection is to build trust - trust in you, trust in your product, and trust (from a podcaster's point of view) in your content. This can help even the smallest podcasters succeed and earn serious revenue.

You have to value yourself first to believe in what you're offering your audience.

Passing on What Podcasting Has Done for Him

Matt's super grateful for what the podcasting industry has done for him, and as part of the legacy that he spoke about earlier in the episode, he wants to pass on that gratitude, and the lessons that have come with that, to his children. This includes the art of storytelling and confidence in who you are and what you stand for.

Giving Voice to the Underrepresented 

Matt's incredibly passionate about bringing more voices to the podcasting space, especially underrepresented and minority voices. He shares an interesting experiment he's running on his WP Minute podcast to help make this happen.

Matt and the Big Orange Heart

In an incredibly raw and emotional moment, Matt talked about his involvement with Big Orange Heart, and why he supports it. It was a sobering reminder that we all need to look out for each other's mental health, and make it normal to speak up when you're suffering.

That's why I give back to that organization. It's extremely important what they're doing, and if I can help... I try. 

Connect with Matt:

• Crafted By Matt
• Matt on Twitter

Contact me: danny@podcasterstories.com

My equipment:

• Electro-Voice RE320
• Motu M2 Audio Interface
• Denon DJ HP-1100 Over Ear Headphones
• Podcast Pro Boom Arm by Accu-Lite and O.C. White

Recommended resources:

• Captivate.fm
• Aweber email marketing
• Accusonus audio plugins
• Boomcaster remote interviewing
• My Podcast Reviews
• Reel.so audiogram creator

Hey, this is Danny here from Podcaster Stories. Thanks so much for listening and I'd love for you to get the latest episodes when they're released. So make sure to follow on your favorite podcast app, or hop on over to podcasterstories.com/listen. If you enjoy the show and want to support it, you can do that at podcasterstories.com/support to join other supporters just like you. Thanks so much for being part of the Podcaster Stories community, and now here's this week's episode.

How much time can you promote? How much time can you dedicate to the, uh, extra marketing stuff you have to do with your podcast? And does that align with the goals and the premise and the audience that you're going after? Maybe you should start a five minute show or a ten minute show because an hour long interview, editing, promoting uploading, transcribing show, note writing really starts to add up to like 8 hours an episode. And then you start to realize, oh my God, I don't have time for this because you still have to go out and promote it.

This week, I'm chatting with Matt Madeiros, host and co host of, well, a lot of shows which we'll talk about in this episode, as well as the legacy Matt is looking to create. So, Matt, welcome to Podcaster Stories. How about you tell us about your shows and yourself.

Hey Danny, thanks for having me here. It's a pleasure and I'm excited to dive in. Yes. So I do a lot of shows both, uh, personally and professionally. I started podcasting ten years ago. I started a podcast called The Map Report. And like a lot of folks today, uh, what I was trying to do back then was just get some awareness in the, uh, agency space that I was building at the time as a WordPress agency. And what I quickly realized back then was as a non developer, somebody who doesn't actually design and develop the websites, I uh, needed to sort of have a leg up to the competition back then, which was just all developers. Now, you got to remember this was 15 years ago. So podcasting, uh, and marketing and YouTube, it was really just starting out those days. But I knew from what I was seeing in the WordPress space, yeah, I have to be something else in order to win these clients. It was a podcast. I, uh, was a huge fan of a podcaster, Andrew Warner from Mixergy. It was the heyday of startups and stuff. And I was listening to his podcast and I said, you know what? I'll just do the Mixer G of WordPress. That's what I'll do. And I just started talking to people in the WordPress space and over time started, uh, making more connections with other developers, other agencies, and the whole build it and they will eventually come thing worked. And then it worked for a podcast back then because I was so early on in the WordPress podcasting space. And I started getting more clients, started getting folks working for us. It was really a flywheel to running the business back then. And over time, just sort of grew that podcast to, uh, help the WordPress community, help others find jobs. I'm not in the agency space anymore, but it's sort of the cornerstone of what got me started behind the mic. And as we chatted before we came on air through email and the Word legacy, I almost sort of like, scrunched down when, um, you say that. I'm not trying to be like this. I don't think I'll ever get in the podcasting hall of Fame, but, uh, I do do a local show, uh, to my local area, the, uh, South Coast of Massachusetts, about an hour south of Boston. And my family growing up, owned a bunch of car dealerships in our local area. That's how I got my business background, and there'll be a connection here, I promise. When I saw my family built over time, the connections in the community, folks that have relied on them, depend on how they help the community. I wanted to be able to do the same thing, or I do want to be able to do the same thing for my children. I have three young boys, so podcasting in the local scene will be something that I am definitely determined to do for at least the next 20 years. So that for whatever comes out of that local show could help my children. Just like the businesses that my family ran helped me, um, because I want that connection. I want to have that connection to the community and something that my children can leverage if they want to be podcasters or if they just want to meet somebody that can, uh, help them throughout life. That's the legacy portion for me. I do a bunch of other shows.

But we can also because that's the two core ones at the moment.

Yeah.

And you still do the matreport, right? I mean, you mentioned it was for sure.

Yeah. Do the Map report that's weekly. I launched, uh, back last year. Mid last year, I launched another podcast called the WP Minute, which is still in the WordPress space for those beautiful website redesigned, by the way.

Yeah.

Thanks. That, uh, is akin to what Pod News is for our space. Um, it's five minute news show about all the big headlines in the WordPress space. And then my professional day job is at Castos as director of podcaster success. You and I have similar roles, I'd imagine.

Yes. And we're going to speak about that later as well. One of the things I want to ask you, actually, because like you mentioned, um, your background is in the Haiti of WordPress right from the start, right through to where it is now. And WordPress is now at the stage where it owns about. And it probably powers about 70% of the CMS market. And the website market online. And I'm curious, what's the news that Spotify just announced about Pod sites and the Chartable acquisition? And they seem, um, to be on a similar path to, say, WordPress did back in the day. Do you see similar lines, um, with WordPress and Blogging, et cetera, was for open source to where podcasting is still open source at the moment, but bigger companies start to own certain parts of that space.

Yeah, I mean, like, Spotify is the square space. Or maybe, uh, even a better analogy would be Shopify to WordPress, because Shopify square space, to a degree, is still a competitor. Wix is still a competitor WordPress. But Shopify, um, certainly has its sites on something, uh, like WooCommerce, which is owned by Automatic, which is the de facto, um, ecommerce solution for WordPress. So, yes, I definitely see Spotify moving in that direction. It's very difficult to, or attempting to move into that direction. It's very difficult to unhinge open source, especially, uh, when you look at WordPress. I mean, that is why it is so powerful and so, uh, loved and hated at the same time. But why so many people use it? Because they can just take it, they can do what they want with it, they can mold it to what they need it to be. In the case of podcast websites, you can virtually do anything if you know what you're doing and if you don't know what you're doing, but you do want to take it seriously. Like everything else, you can hire a professional to do it. Varying degrees of investment, uh, but it's, um, fantastic for owning that platform. I'm sure you do as well. We talk about that a lot in the podcasting space on the platform, because you, uh, don't want the rules changed on you at any minute. You don't want a Facebook page. And then suddenly Facebook says, oh, by the way, now you have to pay us to get access to those fans that you had years ago. You, um, don't want the same thing to happen. And that's why WordPress and building your own site is super powerful.

It'll be interesting to see what happens because I know MCASTER is the, um, same we captivate. We, um, have our podcast sites, offerings for podcasters. You've got like, say, Brandon, it's got Brandon. So it's got the Pod page offering, which is a really good solution. And then you have WordPress. And I'm wondering if, um, they will ever come a time where maybe pull back from offering site solutions and just leave it to external, or if maybe external, lose it to podcasters want to come up with a really quick, easy solution and not to worry about do you have to do this plugin? You have to do this plug in, etc. Etc.

Yeah, I think just, uh, making that as podcast hosting companies, educating, uh, the customer to say, okay, well, it would, uh, be smart for folks like you and I cast, uh, and captivate to not go too deep with the website solution, because there's always, like, the next feature that you could build. And then before you know it, you are building just a whole new CMS and you find yourself a year later going, what the heck did we do? Are we a podcast hosting company or a website hosting company? So it's very important that we address that and understand what we can offer for the right type of podcaster, because there will always be that podcaster who just give me the basic website. Like, I'm selling cupcakes. I'm just talking about cupcakes. I don't, uh, need anything. I just need this nice little landing page so very important that we can make that determination.

Uh, now, you mentioned, obviously growing up your family on a series of, uh, car dealerships. And I know reading your bio and finding out more about you, your dad played a really big part in your life growing up. But it's a bit different from, um, the Daba. I mean, you mentioned car dealerships are going to say it's a bit different from the dad that teaches the kid about, well, this is how you repair an engine or get a car back up and running or being handed around house, etc. For your dad's. Um, also very into the tech industry in the tech space. And I'm curious how that came about and how that led to where you are today.

Yeah, my dad was always into tech ever since I can remember, largely because he was running, uh, a car dealership. And when I think back to as far as I can actually remember, it's tough because I can barely remember what I had for lunch yesterday. But to think back when I was a kid, I do remember my dad had, what was, uh, the equivalent of a laptop. This was like the first computer I had ever seen. It was equivalent to a laptop, but it was literally the size of a suitcase. And it had a handle, like a suitcase. And the whole keyboard came off the side of the device. And there was a little, I don't even remember, four inch CRT green screen with the floppy disk. Five and a half inch floppy or five and a quarter that you put in to the side. That was the first laptop I had or computer that I played with. And then every year he would get a new computer because he had to, because of the dealership and the software. Back then, things were rapidly changing in technology. I, um, remember he had a laptop that had a printer in it, and that was like, amazing. It was a compact, and you had a little ball wheel, had you slide the paper and it would print. And we were like, wow, this is so cool. But that's what really got me into, say, technology. And then his brother, my uncle, one of my, uh, first science projects that I can also remember was he showed me how to make an Am, uh, receiving radio. I don't remember how, uh, to do it, but I just remember it having, like, a toilet paper roll with copper wire around it, and you spread it out on a board and he wired and he sold it in a little headphone. And I could actually tune into Am radio by moving like this copper dial on, uh, this piece of wood. Wow.

Right.

And it was just a weird coincidence when I think back of this mix of technology and radio. And then when I got involved more in the dealership, my dad would go to the radio station all the time to record commercials or be on, uh, the local radio shows that were, uh, happening. So it was weird because I was exposed to it for so long, but I had never thought of it that way. And that's sort of what got me into this mix of technology. And as I progressed into the car dealership, websites and software and all this stuff for buying cars really evolved. And that's what pushed me into eventually us starting an agency and me starting a podcast. It was just this crazy combination of technology, uh, and radio growing up.

How is your dad still involved now with your podcast and stuff? And you mentioned with the local podcast as well, and what you want to achieve with that, is your dad still involved in that side of it?

No, my dad's not in the podcast, uh, side. He still runs the agency day to day. Um, that's what we, uh, started again, I think twelve or 14 years ago. I can't even remember time strange these days. But he still runs the agency. And yes, when I, um, started having kids about five and a half years ago, I was like, this agency life is pretty tough. It's not easy to have kids and run an agency at the same time. It's pretty stressful. So I got, uh, a real job at a, uh, WordPress hosting company, which then led me to cast those. But he still runs the, uh, agency today. And I just do the podcast myself.

And as you mentioned earlier, I'm your Castos, which is a podcast hosting, distribution, analytics company. And, um, beyond your own podcast, you also help other podcasters with your role as director of podcast there. So what does that entail? What's your daily day? And how does, um, that differ from what you used to do?

Yeah. So it's, uh, still education. It's still meeting and greeting with customers. I'm sure maybe you experience this, too. It's hey, how do I get a podcast off the ground? Uh, or I want to be a millionaire as a podcaster, and you have to like, okay, it's amazing you have those ambitions. Let's talk about reality and how you actually get there. So it's a lot of education, uh, creating content, hosting the podcast, uh, there doing the YouTube channel and really just trying to create the content and speak to the types of customers that we service. And again, largely WordPress, we have a lot of folks who come from the WordPress side. So it's a healthy mix where I'm still using the WordPress hat that I've been wearing for forever and showing people, um, the right solutions, the right ways to build a WordPress website, the right plugins to use to build out a website, and just really make that work well for their podcasting efforts. So still largely lots of education, helping the sales team, things like that.

Have, uh, you noticed? I certainly we've noticed in the last maybe twelve to 18 months that's podcast and I guess it's gone through a real Renaissance. And advertisers have come more into the three companies that are spending a lot more dollars and a lot more money. We're now seeing a lot of experts and gurus appearing with awesome advice about making a million dollars and selling your show within the first 30 days, etc. And do you think that makes it harder for your role, for your job, for the, um, people you're trying to help because they're seeing XYZ, who's got 1020, 30, 40,000 followers that they may have bought on social media. Given it as great advice, it must be true compared to what you're trying to educate them with.

Yes, I do have a love hate relationship with that because one, it's good that there's like awareness happening, so that's good. It's just, um, pretty bad when they get to us. And they thought, uh, just by publishing the episodes, uh, they would just get the podcast subscribers that they were hoping for. I just had a meeting last week with great, uh, woman. Uh, she has her own personal brand. It's sort of in the coaching space. And she had a marketing team that, uh, works with her. And they were on the call too, and there's like six people and they were asking, why aren't the downloads going up? Why don't we know how long someone is listening to these episodes? How do we not know all of these things that you can get with a Facebook Pixel, which is what they're used to using? That just doesn't work in the podcasting world. So it's slowing them down, getting them to understand it. But also look for podcasting to really work, especially if, uh, you're just building up your following, you got to roll up your sleeves and you have to have the great call to actions. You have to have the great content. Not saying you have to worry about it, all right out of the gate because everyone will get better. So long as you're on that pursuit to get better. That's the best you can do. Unless you have boatloads of money and you do want to throw it at ads, then fine. That's a way to do it. That's not the way that I advocate for it. And then the same thing on like, um, the Monetization. I think one of the things that's near and dear to my heart because one, I kind of grew up as a car salesperson, so I have no problem asking people for money. I've sort of been rejected so many times that it doesn't even affect me anymore. But I also did a local when we started our, uh, agency. This might be a little bit sidetrack, but we started a local print magazine that was for just tourists. We have a small touristy, uh, attraction place where we live, so we actually made a printed tourist, uh, magazine that we, uh, ran every year. So cold outreach, marketing. Seeing the value in what you are building and asking for advertising dollars is something that I'm also very used to. I think a lot of podcasters can also approach it the same way. Your small audience of 100 to 500 to 1000 downloads a month or per episode. If you can align that with a brand that sees the value in that audience and you as the creator, you have to sell yourself as the creator some integrity, some creativity. And, uh, you're the best fit for that brand. You could knock on somebody's door and sell $200 an episode, $300 an episode, $500 an episode. It doesn't have to be what you see on Podcorn at like $6 CPM, right? You can sell the value of your podcast. I do it with my report in the WP minute because it's a niche audience and it's very trusted. Brands want that trust because they know that there, um, are other influencers who listen to the show and stuff like that. And I do direct ad sales for that. I think a lot of people can do that with their audience. They don't have to be beholden to the big Spotify ad network or insert your favorite ad network here.

I really am glad you brought that up, because I think that's a big misconception. Uh, um, I see in a lot of Facebook groups around the podcasting space where people are saying we need 10,000, 20,000 downloads per episode in the first 30 days if you want to get advertisers. And yes, also that helps if you go in the traditional CPM route. But if you're looking at it to your point, Matt, about sponsors that make sense for you, your show and your audience. There's a Scottish podcast I listen to over just outside Glasgow, and they're a sports podcast. Uh, so the report on the local sports, including the soccer matches, et cetera. And their sponsor is one of the local pie companies, which makes perfect sense because you're a soccer fan, you go into a game, you're going to have a pie have time with your pine. So they do giveaways and the sponsor turns up and they speak on the podcast and match days and stuff like that. And it's a great relationship, and it's really helped buy new equipment and really improve the market for other sponsors that they may partner with. So I think it's to your point, it goes back to the educational area where value what you're doing, even if it is only ten listeners to start with. That's ten people that are taking time out of the day to let you into their very intimate air, so to speak.

Yeah. And it starts with valuing yourself first, right? You have to. And it's tough. It's tough to build well, maybe not for everybody, but it's tough to build the confidence level up in what you're building because it is a vulnerable moment. Number one, it's your voice. I hate my voice. It's just like every time I hear, God, how do people listen to me talk on these podcasts? So there's that. Am I creating the best content? Am I saying the right things? Are the words coming out of my mouth? Right. Are people enjoying the story? Uh, so I understand that there's a lot of stuff that can sort of really weigh on you, but you have to take a deep breath, look at whatever size audience you've built over X amount of months or years, and say, I see value in this myself. I'm confident with what I'm building, and I know that my audience trust me. Now let me go and find a brand that can see the same thing and picture that. Whatever price you're comfortable with, if it's $50 an episode, it's way more than you're going to get if you plug yourself into an ad network. If it's $100 an episode, uh, even better, you're just looking for those small wins along the way. Like you said, pay for your hosting, pay for your new equipment, pay for some lighting, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then build it out over time. And I think it's a, uh, perfect podcast. Perfect opportunity for that kind of thing.

Yeah, I'd be interested to see. I know, speaking. My, um, guest this week actually just dropped this morning, Tony Doe over in Lagos in Nigeria. They've got about 500 local podcasters that, uh, go after this community there, that go after vocal audience. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out as well now that the space seems to be getting harder when you've got the bigger players swallowing other players up, so to speak.

Yeah.

So you spoke earlier about and I know you got a kind of, like, scrunched up and everything about the legacy, um, that you're looking to leave your children and give your children. So with the local podcast that you mentioned in your local area and how you'd love to, um, see how that helps your kids get involved in podcast or business or what they want to do in life, what would be viewed as success for you when it comes to that legacy goal.

So there's a few things when, um, I look at the local podcast. When I look at the lens of it's funny. Every time I say that I hope my podcast helps my children, I do want to laugh because I'm sure for most people they're just like, that's the most foolish thing I've ever heard. But what podcasting has done for me is build up that confidence over time and confidence in myself, uh, and what I'm presenting and hopefully communicating. And it's really just helped me personally as much as it has helped me professionally. And the idea of broadcasting and communicating and storytelling and meeting people, that's what I want, hopefully my kids to see, which I'm sure they'll be laughing at me from the ages of twelve to 18. But hopefully as they get beyond that, they can see, oh, we know my dad was doing that and now we feel more confident in doing whatever it is that we're doing in life. Going to school, starting a business, getting a job, whatever. That's the part of it that I want to resonate with my children. That's what would make it successful there on the WP Minute podcast. And with the Matte Report, I have been trying to bring a lot more voices in the WordPress, uh, community out into the world. So developers, designers, creatives people who don't normally get on a stage and talk about themselves and promote themselves, especially underrepresented folks that are in tech, um, getting their voices out there. Specifically with the WP Minute. It is a bit of an experiment where I do actually take audio clips as, uh, contributors as contributions to the show. So if you have a story that you want to tell and you don't have your platform or you don't have a big platform and you want to broadcast it, then I open up the WP Minute to people in the WordPress community to do that. So I have people that contribute audio clips that are in health and wellness all over the um, world talking about nonprofits that they're building with WordPress. And it just gives, uh, somebody that small opportunity to tell their story to a broader audience that, uh, would take them months or years to build up. And I want to see that project more than anything else that I'm doing with the Mat Report really, uh, evolve so that people can leverage it and turn to it to maybe get ahead a little bit more in the WordPress space. Wordpress space is pretty big. So get them ahead, uh, a little bit more so on the quote unquote professional side with a legacy, that's what I hope I can do. Build that platform for voices for my children. I don't know, maybe they'll start a Fortnite YouTube channel, but that's fine. At least they'll have a gear for it, right?

My kids will be well up for that. An eleven year old boy and a ten year old daughter and they're both heavily at Fortnight at the moment. It's crazy just watching them Scoot through, and I'm looking at a what?

Yeah, that's fine. They can do whatever they want.

Maybe your kids can start a podcast. You know, your dad's a podcast or when. And then all the things that you say, keep it down. I'm going to record.

That is commonly said throughout the household. That's one of the great things. I'm at my studio, but, um, my house, I converted my attic, uh, to my home office. And one of the great things about Amazon Alexa is the announce skill. So I can announce downstairs. Everybody be quiet. I'm trying to record a podcast, and it just broadcast across all the Amazon speakers.

But I do like what you're doing with the WP, uh, Minute about getting more, um, diverse voices highlighted in broadcast. I know. Certainly in the podcast space, there's still a big issue with diversity. It seems like every week there's a list gets produced or shared on Twitter. The top 50 podcast for entrepreneurs. I know Ariel Nissenblatt, who we all know, um, she calls it out regularly, like there's no women or maybe one woman on a list of 50 white men talking about podcasting. How would you feel that we can know your experience from the WordPress, um, industry? How do you think we can address that in the podcasting space as well.

To really do something similar as a bearded white guy? It's difficult, and I don't have an amazing solution for it. But I'll tell you how I've done it is you have to just put in the work and just make the connections. For the WP minute. I spend a lot of time just cold Twitter DMing people that I see because I see a lot of, uh, WordPress chatter happening and with my other friends and colleagues in the space. And I'll see somebody talk about something that is interesting on the WordPress side. And I'll just reach out to them and say, hey, I would love for you to tell this story that you're talking about on the WP Minute or, uh, on the map report. Depends on, uh, where I think it fits. But more specifically, if you have this reoccurring thing, come to the WP minute, and that's the only method that I know and to encourage community. So in the WP Minute, I have a Discord server. So, uh, there's a chance for folks to get together and chat about it. But I spend a lot of time promoting their stories for them, and hopefully that leads to more attention to them where they want, uh, to continue to contribute. And they actually see the value of contributing to this community journalism thing with air quotes. And it just brings in more, um, of those voices. You got to do the work. If you are the bearded white guy like me, you have to roll up your sleeves and knock on the doors of underrepresented folks and, uh, say, please would love to hear your story here and just do it. Just do it. Get other folks involved and be aware that it's not always your show.

And speaking of being involved, I alluded to earlier when you were talking about some of the people that you highlight, some of the things you highlight with the WP minute. I know you're very involved in the discussion around mental health online and WordPress, um, based. So how did that come about? What's your involvement there?

Yeah, it's funny. Growing up in the car industry and having that thick skin is fine in the business sense, but never really in the personal space. All my friends, uh, in high school and College, basketball players going to all the parties, meeting, all the people having a great time, and me, not so much. So there was always like, this thing of like, oh, God, I'm just not good enough. I'm not like them and just really worked on that personally for, uh, a long time. And sort of the outlet was always in the business side, I was fine. But when it was like the personal and friend side or in College, that was always tough. And, um, I go back to legacy. That's why I'm trying to show the stuff to my kids so that they can maybe bust through that ceiling if they have it. But it really started to hit when I was doing the Matt Report and so many over the years, people said, hey, this podcast helped change my life. I got a job. I met this agency. They, um, hired me because you did an interview with me or I was able to sell more products, et cetera, that started to lead into, okay, I'm really helping people here step outside the box. And then I had this gentleman, Clint Warren, uh, who was there's, this thing called WordCamps. Uh, if you're not in the WordPress space, there's things called WordCamps, like little mini conventions for WordPress all over the world and all over the United States before Covet. And here was this guy who was like six one, built tons of energy, just like, dude had everything going for him. And he was on my podcast for a few times. And then I remember we were going to do another podcast. He was launching yet another product. He was doing some amazing stuff. And then he missed the podcast. I was emailing him, never heard back. And then his girlfriend, uh, reached out to me at the time and said that he had passed. Uh, he took, um, his own life. And I was just like, wow. I was just like, wow, how does that. How is a guy like that fall victim to this? And it was, it was pretty tough. Obviously, it's still tough today. But there's an organization in WordPress, uh, called The Big Orange Heart, and they help with a lot of mental, um, health areas like this. They invest in it, and it's a nonprofit, and they struggle, too, to keep the lights on. And over the last few years, I've taken some of the sponsorship money and diverted it to a big Orange chart because I think it's extremely important what they're doing. And I've tried, um, to be as philanthropic, if I could use that word with a small little podcast, uh, that I do to kind of give back, uh, to that organization. So that's how I try anyway.

No, I can only imagine what that must be like to find, um, that I'm a co founder of Mental Health Nonprofit for Youth, um, in Canada, it's always the people you least expect that seem to be struggling. There was a kid at one of the high schools, uh, we went to a big Hulk and Jock in the football team and everybody seemed so outdoor, um, demeanor. And nobody knew he was struggling aside, it was only afterwards that he found to come forward and talk about it that people even knew there was an issue. So I'm sorry for your loss and kudos for trying, um, to keep that memory and that legacy going with what you're doing with the charity and the help resources.

Yeah.

As someone that obviously has a lot of podcasts on the go currently and, um, maybe even be planning, um, podcasts down the road, would you have any advice for new podcasts coming into the space you'd mentioned about don't start running before you've even walked with your first mic or whatever. What would be your advice for the new podcasters? Um.

Oh, boy. So this is a good one because I'm not good at planning and I ran for five years the podcast without a plan and without organization. Uh, and I know it's so cliche to say have the goal, set the plan, all of that stuff. It is also important to at least have some kind of premise for your show thought, uh, out, even if it's just a couple of sentences bullet pointed out into a notion document or something like that, spending just a little bit of time thinking about, uh, what the premise of my show is going to be and who do I really want to reach? And maybe if you're just starting out, can I really reach them? Can I really reach this audience? Do I really want to reach this audience? Everyone loves the first twelve episodes of their podcast and then it's like work after that, right? So it's just like, how do, like, set the plan? This is what I want to go after. Here's who I want to speak to. And will I really enjoy this along the way? If I'm answering yes, and I feel comfortable doing that, then that's the best advice I can give for somebody before they start looking, even at microphones, software, hosting companies, et cetera. And then how much time can you promote? How much time can you dedicate to the extra marketing, uh, stuff you have to do with your podcast? And does that align with the goals and the premise and the audience that you're going after? Maybe you should start a five minute show or a ten minute show Because an hour long interview, editing, promoting uploading, transcribing show note writing really starts to add up to, like, 8 hours an episode. And then you start to realize, oh, my God, I don't have time for this Because you still have to go out and promote it. So have the plan, but also anchor that right up against how much time do I have dedicated to market this and promote this as effectively as I can because that's what's, um, going to make you feel good. We do want to see the downloads going up, but you have to have the marketing effort behind it. So, uh, start with a plan and start to think about how much time do I have to market it?

That's the advice I would give and that's awesome advice. The market, uh, I think to your point is something that a lot of people forget. It never stops. If you do, even if you mentioned, like, a 510 minutes episode, It never stops. You're going to be promoting that for the next day, not just after drop date, but the weeks after and just dropping in old episodes again. So now, excellent advice. I see that a lot where people just say, well, why when I got 10,000 downloads?

Yeah, I haven't told anyone about this podcast. Why isn't it growing?

Exactly. So I really enjoyed our chat today. This is I, um, think the third time we'd mentioned it earlier due to covering all sorts of other stuff that, um, we try to connect. So I really appreciate you taking the time today to chat, and I know people are going to take a lot away from this, um, episode on various points, so I appreciate that for people that are looking to connect with you online, Check out what you do, where you work, listen to your podcast, et cetera. Where's the best place for them to connect with you or how do they connect with you?

Yeah. So on Twitter is where I spend most of my time at Matt Madeiras, and the best website is craftedbymatt.com. I have all of the links of everything I do and mostly have done over time.

And I'll be sure to leave the links to Twitter and the website in the show notes. So you'll listen to this on your favorite podcast app. Always check the show notes as usual, and the links will be there. Go checkout out there's a lot of good stuff there. Regardless of your podcast, WordPress, or even some car dealership information you may not get anywhere else. Special podcast. So again, Matt, I really appreciate your time today. Thanks for joining us.

Thanks, Danny.