He Built a Startup That Books 5% of All Podcast Interviews—With No Code. | Ep. 275 with Parker Olson Co-Founder of Podpitch

0:04Parker, man, it's good to have you today because you and I had a really fun conversation last time. This time we started off with dreams and how you're taking magnesium now and your dreams have just been crazy off the wall. You gave me one. It sounded like a movie. But I think something that I'm really interested to talk with you is I've always dreamt about creating an app, creating software, but it always failed. And at the same time, I use your app and software PodPitch on a daily basis. so I wanted to see from you the whole entire process as if somebody like myself, I want to solve a problem.

0:44I know a software I want to build, but I don't know the zero to 100. I'm confused. I don't know what to do. So I'd love to go through with you this whole process. So can you go back to the beginning stage of how did you come up with the problem to solve? Absolutely, yeah. So the first place that I think is worthwhile starting is like a lot of people want to start with the end in mind, right? How can I get to a hundred million dollars? The reality is I think upfront, like being, being curious is sort of stage number one. Um, so rewind right two, three years ago, um, was working with a VA at the time and she was doing influencer outreach for us.

1:25And all of a sudden she was, she was able to, to, to reach like custom messaging to influencers on TikTok at like three or 400, like an hour. And I was like, what are you doing? And she's like, oh, I found this cool new tool. It's called Bardeen. It's a web scraping tool allows me to like, basically like code it without actually coding, right? It's a code free tool, where it scrapes all the data off of TikTok off of search results, and it pulls into the spreadsheet, and I can super quickly automate the outreach. And I'm like, damn, that's super cool. And around that same time, I had been invited on some podcasts and had sort of it had sort of brought some interesting traction to my old company that I used to run is called Forage.

2:05And, you know, some people had listened to it and reached out and wanted to carry it was a food product in their grocery stores. And so in my mind, right, my problem statement was like, Okay, cool, I want to go on more podcasts. And how can I do that? And, you know, I was sort of going the traditional route that a lot of people still do today, which is I I was sort of like manually looking up podcasts. I was trying to find them, trying to find their contact information, listen to a bit of an episode and like send an email. And, you know, I'm like, damn, this sucks. I'm not going to be, I'm not going to do this for a long time.

2:34I can guarantee that. And then I was just kind of hanging out and this other tool that I was loving. I was just like, I want to like dig into this other tool. It feels like there's something really powerful here. Like, how could I use it to sort of perform like a fun project that would be meaningful for our business? And what I thought about was, you know, why can't I use this to help pull in a bunch of information about relevant podcasts and then sort of help me scale out like the research identification and outreach process to these podcasts. So I think like early on, it was just like this sort of natural, curious intuition that like, whoa, this tool could be really powerful.

3:11Like, what's the current problem I have today that like this could help solve? And part of it was just playing around. I would just get on there and play around and like mess around in this tool. it's called it was called Bardeen still still around so so works really well and so I always think like step number one is like figure out and like go out and play with some of these code-free tools right another great tool that I think is a lovely example is clay clay is just like you there's so much power there you can pull in data sources you can transform data sources with llms really easily and you can create output and it's all code-free so does that does that sort of help sort of like set the scene in terms of like, like I'm thinking day one, if you want to build a software, like get onto some of these tools that are code free and can help sort of transform data and create an output that can potentially solve a problem.

3:59Yeah. You know, when I built some softwares before, I think the problem looking back was I was trying to solve a problem that I didn't really have. So I didn't necessarily, I wasn't so bought into it because I wouldn't use it myself. and I was more replicating what I knew was on the market. Like I worked with something and I knew, okay, I'm gonna replicate this because it came out first. I'm gonna be second to market, but I never would even use it. And then a lot of issues came about because it was first, I didn't anticipate. And so I love your idea of you build something that you use and then if you use it, then you know other people will definitely have the same problem and use it too.

4:43So now, okay, so you built it. I love what you're saying around, you can create an MVP now without any knowledge, which is insane, like it's insanity, how the times we're living in. So you build this app, you get this data, you put it together. And then how do you actually get traction? Because I think that's the other piece that people are like, okay, I build something, but it's not easy to get significant traction. Totally, yeah, yeah. Just one last point on that, and then we'll go to traction. I also think a lot of people who are non-technical get caught up and like to spend time on like the visual component or like the user interface or the like front end component.

5:22And it's like, oh, I'm going to like build wireframes and clawed. And like, that's all great. Like, like that can be helpful. But like, I would say really focus on getting like, like a concrete, like something that's actually being created or happening. Right. My general mental framework is like transforming data to create an output that has value to some audience. Now, to your point, you know, actually gaining traction way harder than everybody thinks. Everybody thinks, oh, I'm going to build a great product and then I'm just going to sell it and then I'm going to be a millionaire. And like the reality is great companies die every single day because they can't find customers and or communicate to potential customers in a really effective way and put together a good offer or a good price.

6:05That makes it easy for a customer to say yes. And growth and demand generation is really challenging. This took us about, man, six months to like even crack. And what I'll say is, and I come back to this, like if I was going to start another company tomorrow, like I would start here, honestly, is like find the person who's willing to actually give you money for whatever you're building. And of course that sounds somewhat intuitive, but the important part here is give you money, like actually exchange dollars, right? It's very easy for somebody to say, oh, this tool is really cool. Great job. Wow.

6:41Yeah. Yeah. This would solve a lot of our problems. Wow. Yes, this is so great. But if they're not giving you money, then it's really not great. And so what I used to do, and I think this is a super easy playbook. I actually, I met a woman who's working on a software here locally in Brooklyn at a party and she's running this playbook right now, which I'm pretending is awesome, is, okay, let's say you think you've built something that creates value or solves a problem, but you don't know how to find people. you don't know how to sell it. If I were to go back again, I would kind of run the same playbook.

7:12I would first theorize, okay, who has this problem? Who has this, like, where does this problem exist? And then I would go on to LinkedIn and I would spend, you know, 50 to 80 bucks a month to create like a LinkedIn outreach automation to this audience and say, hey, you know, I like think I solved this problem. You know, I have no experience. Like, do you have 10 minutes for feedback? Like, and I like to play the card of being like, I'm helpless. I don't know, but I think I can solve your problem. Like people like to help other people. And we ran that. And I was, you know, I was getting on the phone with people in public relations who we thought was maybe our primary use case of our tool.

7:47I'd maybe get on the phone with like five to 10 people in PR a week. And I was really kind of not there to sell, but of course you're there to sell, right? It's a fine line. And what I would show them is I would show them the product and what we're building and how it looks and what it does. And they're like, yeah, wow, that solves a lot of, that solves a big problem for us, right? Like doing media outreach is really time consuming and challenging and finding podcasts is hard. And I'm like, okay, cool. Like, awesome. And what we realized is over time for like three months, everybody was giving great feedback, but nobody was like, I want to pay for this right now.

8:21And so we sort of changed our strategy where what we would do is I would tell people, I'd be like, look, at the end of this call, I'm going to ask you an uncomfortable conversation. and I would lead with that. And they're kind of like, Oh, ha ha. Like, okay. And we go through it and they'd be like, wow, this is so cool. And I'd be like, okay. So like, I have to ask like, like for the sake of, of our company, like, why will you not pay for this right now? Like$10, like, like, you know, like, why wouldn't you give me$10 for this right now? Like I could accept your money over this phone and tell me why.

8:52And that's where people they're like, Oh, um, and that's where they give you like the real feedback you know they're like oh well like i can't spend money on anything that's my boss's decision or they're like oh well like we actually have this other tool it kind of already does the same thing but your tool could be better but like you know teaching my team the tool would be really painful and like you know like there's we're really busy and you're like okay so it's not that relevant right or in our case which which i think is a natural progression it finally got to the point where the woman was like i would give you money right now if it could do this one additional other thing.

9:26And in my mind, we had already built that. We just weren't showing it because all the positive feedback we were getting wasn't about that little small other thing. And when we finally added that small little thing in and literally what happened, I said, okay, I'm going to come back on the phone with you in three hours. Give me three hours. Went back, put it together, came back on the phone, showed her that it worked. And she goes, here, pulls out her credit card. And she paid us on the spot. And that was the product that ended up scaling. And that's where that was like the first unlock where we're like, this is actually something that this type of customer is willing to give us money for.

10:02But I think that subtlety of like, oh, let me get feedback. Everybody says it's great, which means it's going to sell is not the reality. Everybody's nice. Everybody gives good feedback. Once you can find people who are really actually willing to give you a dollar or $2 or real money, that's how you know you're sort of onto something. That's kind of how we got started. You think you and I, because I was like, hey, I got this email and it says this one thing. And you're like, oh, wow. Okay, let me fix that. And you're like, okay, fixed. But you bring up something really interesting, many things.

10:39Something I want to go back to, because this happened to me too, is originally I thought I was going to be serving more of a certain B2C customer. but when I found out that I can actually help businesses who are serving those people, it actually allowed me to lead gen at basically almost a free rate because they were referring me to other people, referring to me to other people. Also, I barely had to do any sales because I knew they needed it, where if I had to sell direct to B2C, I have to do a lot of the selling and it, it, the process is longer, even though our margin would be higher, but still in the end, they knock and they're going to churn faster.

11:21So I'm like, so I, when I found, okay, I can actually help agencies. That was an unlock for us in terms of a significant growth trajectory. While at the same time, you know, the slower the B2C style. So I can totally see that. And the The other part of, like you're saying, is somebody willing to give you money? Because people are very positive on their phone. Like you said, people never want to tell you the truth. I don't know if they want to hurt your feelings or what, but I like the digging. That reminds me of old school sales training tactics right there, where it's like the overcoming objections.

11:58If they say this, what is it? Zig Ziglar, it was like, everyone says no. It was like, this no means this. This no means that. I forget the quote. I butchered it. But I think that I can totally relate to those things. And I would imagine most apps or software, they die because of that. Because they're not really focused on getting the money, which if you don't have any money or you just do it for free, how long? Unless you're raising hundreds of millions and eventually you'll run out of money. So it sounds like you unlocked it, you started getting revenue, you figured out what the what the people really want.

12:40And then what? Yes. So then it's sort of like, it's like pricing and like scale, you know, how do you attract this audience at scale? And like, you know, pricing is really challenging. Pricing is still something we we mess around with and think about all the time, because it's one of those things where it's a lot of trial and error. You know, you could think about cost plus pricing. You could think about competitor-based pricing. You could think about value creation-based pricing. There's pros and cons to all of them. We've sort of gone down a bit of a value-based pricing ethos. And the reality is, is you kind of just have to try things.

13:16It's going to be super messy early, but the important thing is getting money in the door. And so what we used to do is we'd be like, okay, cool. We're going to sell it. Well, Well, initially off the bat, we knew that, okay, we want to build a business model that is reoccurring. By design, reoccurring business models are more valuable than transactional business models. And so that was like a non-negotiable. The other non-negotiable is like we wanted it to be a really fast sales cycle. Because again, it's like, look, if this is a 10-week sales cycle, we're not getting feedback until 10 weeks from now.

13:48And so how do we sell something where somebody could make a decision really quickly? Again, part of it was like we need to eat and like live. But the other part of it is like you get a lot of feedback data really fast. So we are like, okay, we need to craft an offer that is reoccurring. And so, you know, we did subscription-based pricing. And we started with like, okay, we'll do like maybe an intro price. And then we tested different price points. And on calls, we would literally like somebody be sold. They'd be like, cool, like how much is this, right? And that's after you've sold it, like you kind of know this type of person is willing to buy.

14:21This is a real problem they have. and it's just like, cool, it's$2.99 a month, it's$3.99 a month, it's$5.99 a month, it's$6.99 a month, right? And you start to get a sense of like where you start to get a gauge, right? Of sort of like where most people are landing. And that I think is a really good initial step. I think the step two of that, which like, I don't think we've done an excellent job at, and it's something we're working on right now, is thinking about tiered pricing for like the different type of customer. You know, our kind of pricing sort of pops out certain smaller types of customers because it's too expensive for them.

14:53And then really big customers, they're like, oh, this is nothing, right? And so in reality, paying attention to that over time and setting up tiers where it's like, okay, you can kind of get more coverage on your customer base while providing specifically to their needs, I think is sort of that next step. But it's super trial and error off the bat and understanding, okay, what's scalable? What actually builds a good business model? So that's pricing. It's a huge challenge for everyone. There is no magic bullet. The second component is how do you actually grow? How do you actually reach the audience?

15:24And for us, you know, it's just like, okay, where does our audience hang out? Like, and a lot of it, again, is trial and error. But what we found early on is like, we tried kind of advertising, we tried doing different outreach methods. And then we partnered with a Substack newsletter that, that like, you know, was to PR agencies, it was pretty small, they have like, 900 followers, maybe not even like 500 followers and we placed one advertisement in there and we booked like 75 demos in three days and we were like holy shit like okay like clearly the messaging is hitting on like a real pain point right and like the audience is clearly right here and like that was sort of the start for us but we had to do a lot of discovery and trying different things to find that type of like intro or like that type of sort of spark so how many people do you have using it now i think we have over like 5 ,000 active users.

16:18Over 5 ,000 active users were responsible for about anywhere from like 4 % to 5 % of all English-speaking podcast interviews that get booked every week. Those are some of the high level stats. Where do you want to be? And where do you want to take this? Like you said in the beginning, many people are like, I want to build this app because I want to be a billionaire. And we already know it's probably not going to happen. But where do you see the future of this? And how do you want to be 35 % of all podcasts? Yeah, I mean, look, I don't know. I think, yeah, it's like podcasts. We'd love to continue to be focused.

16:49Like, you know, at this point, it's like, cool, we know who our customers, we'd love to continue solving problems for them, right? And building solutions. And like, that also looks outside of the podcast realm, right? It looks sort of like the media realm as a whole. So I think really building more into this, like, alternative media worlds, but broad media worlds, as a whole, because our problem that we're solving for podcasts, right, that this sort of media outreach process exists in other channels as well. And we've built a lot of infrastructure to support that. So, you know, why not solve that problem in adjacent categories as well, where our exact same customer has that exact same problem.

17:24I like it's like this. You solve one problem and you be damn good at solving that one problem. And then once you get those people, you realize the other problems that they have that are kind of aligned with what you're doing. And then you bring one in, you bring one in. I think sometimes I've seen people do like 10 things at one time. And it's like, how do you sell all that? And it's complicated. Confused minds don't buy. The other thing that my wife always told me, my wife always told me was be the medicine, not the supplement. And I always, Oh, I love that. Yeah. Vitamin, pain pill, not vitamin.

18:01There's, there's, there's a few frameworks that I like hold very dearly. That was one early on. I was like, look, like we cannot build a vitamin because, and, and, and maybe to break it down for people, like another framework I really like, and this is from an entrepreneurship class at an undergrad is like most businesses operate in, successful businesses operate in three realms. They either solve jobs, right? Solve or like remedy pain or create a gain, right? And when we think across all three of those, solving a job that somebody has to complete is inherently valuable for them because they have to do it no matter what, right?

18:40Like at the end of the day, like that has to get ticked. And if you can solve that job really well for them, it's really valuable. Remedying a pain, right? Somebody is in a lot of pain, like, you know, they have a horrible backache. Well, if you give them a pill and you say, wow, you take this pill, you're going to have no pain, super valuable. People hate pain. They'll do anything to get rid of pain. And then you have gains, right? Creating a gain can be valuable, right? Oh, I want to be hydrated right now, right? Okay. I could go buy some electrolyte salts, but that is inherently a supplement.

19:10And that is not something where if I have a pain or a job to do is going to be a priority. It's sort of is like the, the like de-prioritize quadrant. Now, if you can do all three of those things, it's like fucking magic. Right. But when thinking about the framing of like what type of solution does our product provide, is it a supplement, which is sort of the gain or, or is, is it a, is it a pain pill, right? Which is sort of this job and pain concept. It's, it's definitely, you definitely do not want to build a company around a vitamin. You do not want to do that. It reminds me of those old school copy people are like, move people away from pain.

19:45Don't move people to pleasure. Because if you really want to close, you got to focus on moving people away from pain. Because that's really what everybody wants. What is one of the craziest or standout stories during your whole life of entrepreneurship? Was there a moment where it was like, I'm losing everything? And you know, like the highs, like, I just closed a million dollar deal. And then the next five, I just lost a$2 million deal. You know, like what are those moments like the standout moment in your life? Yeah, I mean, man, I feel like I blacked them out. But so I probably probably had a company.

20:23Yeah, yeah, probably at a company. OK, I have a few ones. So early on, I built a Twitter account to like 750 ,000 followers. And one day it got hacked and I lost access to it for like two months and then was able to regain access through this like complicated Twitter process. But I remember waking up that morning and being like, oh, my God, like somebody hacked. And I thought like that was going to like make my life, you know, I thought my life was like made. So that was maybe one. And then the other one is for my last business, Forage, which was like a health food startup. You know, again, it was it was a vitamin concepts, big learnings.

20:58CPG is really hard. I moved into so I lived out of a tent for two years in my backyard in Seattle. and I threw up my bed and we used the bedroom as like our office, which was, I think just awesome. But probably more notably after that stint, I moved into a pop-up camper van and I drove around the country for about a year and I would stop at grocery headquarters and try and sell our product in. And I remember one day, like I was carrying a lot of product in the van, but it was really hot, like in the South. And like one day I like dropped off a ton of samples to like 60 locations of stores and they were all spoiled like like had gone like literally bad and were like like like smelt like throw up and i remember like my heart sinking and then a week later i uh i was i like i was at a thrift store i bought something and i got bed bugs in the van from this thing i thrifted and then i got wrongfully arrested for a felony like three weeks later and and i was i was really low, you could say.

22:01I was really a dark place. That's why I say entrepreneurship is for the 1%. And it's not because everyone can do it. And I hope everyone can do it or does do it because I want them to have the freedom. I want them to be able to do something meaningful without just being fired from your corporate job. But at the same time, it's a mental game that is like... Like, like every time I hear a story of like this person was successful, I want to ask them like, what, what percentage of time were you just like scared, depressed, like versus, you know, you got the exit or you got that whatever success. But, you know, what cost?

22:42How many relationships did you give up? But I've we've had so many billionaires on this show and they're like all divorced and they always tell us the same thing. It always was at the cost of every relationship they ever had, whether it was their kids, their wife or husband, their spouse. So it's great that you shared. I think it's always good for people to hear this. At the same time, we're going through an interesting era where AI is, for sure, AI is going to replace so many jobs. Amazon just laid 14 ,000 people up and even said it was partially, probably 90 % due to AI. I'm just guessing. And so these people, what are they going to do?

23:24These are people most likely making decent salaries that probably can't find the same thing very quickly at another job that's going to replace them. So I think people are going to listen to this, Parker. Parker Olson from PodPitch, co-founder. People are going to listen to this. and they're going to be like, holy crap, I'm going to solve that problem because it's never been a better time to do it. And then I'm going to tell Parker about the problem solving. And then I'm going to go and get pod pitch because I need to, I need to get on podcasts and talk about it. Well, just, just actually circling it back to the beginning, right?

24:01I, I, there, I kind of heard this take that I really liked, which is like, yeah, like there's sort of this like degrading of jobs and people who are who are smart and there there's a hypothesis that like they're like the explosion in solopreneurs is good is like happening right now and like people are going to be building these like hyper niche like super specific softwares or or companies that solve a very specific problem and like live an excellent lifestyle you know like you don't have to build a hundred million dollar company to like win and like and like be flexible and like have a good income, like you could build a$500 ,000 a year company and be the only employee and, you know, take home a salary of 300k and make your own hours and not work a ton.

24:45Like that, I think, is like going to be a really interesting reality for a lot of people. And, you know, people who are willing and open minded to kind of like, continue to work with these tools and really see the value of them. I think times have changed. Like you said, it's a used to be the only success was to do the big exit. And in the US, other countries is not always the same. I know, you know, Asia, it's really about legacy. Like I know people that have been a part of their family business for 100 years. Like, I don't even know anyone in the US that's been a part of a company for I don't even know anyone's kids that want to take over a business, right?