7 ms·

I work for a company that's very much like Patreon for podcasters (Supercast). The people who will pay $1K a year to support a creator absolutely exist, but the

I work for a company that's very much like Patreon for podcasters (Supercast). The people who will pay $1K a year to support a creator absolutely exist, but they are a small subset of the people who will pay $100 / year, which is itself a very small subset of the people who will listen to your podcast. Some rough numbers: - A podcast with an engaged fan base can usually get about 5% of their listeners to support them monthly / yearly - Of the paid supporters, 1-2% are going to be the big spenders who spend in $1K a year territory. So sure, you can be self-sufficient on 100 $1K a year fans, but to get there, you need 5,000 $100 / year fans (which needs 100,000 listeners), and not doing anything for them is leaving money on the table.

cushychicken 4y ago
That's encouraging if you think of it as a funnel optimization problem. What can I do for the $100 per year set? T shirts or other swag? Signed merch? What can I do for the $10 per year set? Stickers?
- mcv 4y ago
  Interestingly, I think most creators are already doing this intuitively without any analysis telling them to.
- ryanbrunner 4y ago
  Surprisingly we don't have a ton of creators offering swag stuff, I'd have assumed that it would have been a bigger draw (Some of that might have to do with us not really offering any support on our platform, but it's not a common request either). If there's a "product" to sell, it's usually either the content itself, or access through things like community. But like I said in another comment, how much people spend isn't very correlated with what they get out of it at all.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - CosmicShadow 4y ago
    This is pretty interesting! I've been thinking about a platform for unique swag for podcasters, streamers, youtubers, etc. as I think there's definitely an opportunity to engage with fans there, but I imagine it's pretty overwhelming and expensive to figure out how to do it effectively if you are busy producing content. I sell an item that'd be perfect for those folks to giveaway/sell and I know how hard it is to figure out shipping and logistics.
    - lozenge 4y ago
      This is what MCNs do. They're basically talent agencies for YouTubers, and they handle stuff like ad placement, sponsored content, and merch.
  - yojo 4y ago
    Maybe it’s just early days? I remember in early internet times webcomics were one of the few niches where creators were trying to make a living on the internet. At first it was “easy” - ad rates were super inflated in the dot com boom, and people were making rent with “punch the monkey and win” banner ads. Then came the crash and the bottom fell out of the ad market. A lot of creators just went away, but the ones who held on generally monetized via merch. Granted, these were people that were both funny and had graphic design chops, so novelty t-shirts were a natural fit. Presumably the buyer demand was always there, but no one discovered it until they were forced to do the hard thing of flailing for cash. Possibly as the market matures and people test more monetization methods we’ll see more podcast shwag.
- rr808 4y ago
  I'm not sure about creators, but I get swag and invites from charities and it annoys me. I'm donating to give them resources, if I want a T Shirt I'll buy one myself thanks, I dont need them spending money on me.
  - ep103 4y ago
    Two things: 1 - Them sending you a teeshirt is a form of advertising. They're hoping you will wear it and be an advocate for them in your social circle. This is a reasonable thing to spend money on. 2 - Engagement. They're trying to keep you engaged in what they're doing, this is valuable too. Of course, you don't want them spending all their resources on this, but a certain percentage is absolutely a good idea. This is why you should care about non-profits statements about % of funds that go towards the charity vs overhead.
    - rchaud 4y ago
      I disagree that Tshirts are a reasonable marketing expense. For one thing, they're relatively expensive to produce and ship on a per unit basis, and you will need to order in multiple sizes. Second, most 'brand' t-shirts are low effort logo templates made from BigCartel.com that look fugly. They're clearly an afterthought. And because of that, those tshirts will end up in a landfill somewhere, just like the majority of soulless corporate swag that you'd accumulate visiting a trade show.
      - mauvehaus 4y ago
        I bought 2 dozen mixed T-shirts and hoodies (mostly T-shirts) with the logo for my business on them front and back in two sizes (the logo, not the shirts). Because I wear these things daily, I bought good T-shirts and good hoodies: tagless 100% cotton (mixed polyester increases pilling). I think I was in for about $15 a T-shirt. More for the hoodie, obviously. I'm not getting any kind of volume rate on these for a 2 dozen shirt order of mixed sizes (for friends and family as well). I can't imagine anybody ordering in real quantity is paying more than $10 a shirt, even for good ones. If you go through somebody whose business is making and shipping t-shirts, you get the benefit of their lower shipping rates and their bulk purchasing power for the shirts). If you're handing them out at a trade show, your unit cost to ship a couple hundred shirts is negligible. For me, my T-shirts for my business are effectively free: they replace other t-shirts I'd have to buy (or would, once I got through all the company and trade show swag from when I worked software). Plus they promote my business. And when they're too beat up to wear, they become shop rags before they hit the trash. I think you make some valid points (sizes are a nuisance), but I don't think T-shirts are the clear stinker for the folks giving them away that you think they are.
gwd 4y ago
> So sure, you can be self-sufficient on 100 $1K a year fans, but to get there, you need 5,000 $100 / year fans (which needs 100,000 listeners), and not doing anything for them is leaving money on the table. And probably more importantly, losing people out of the funnel: after all, most people don't go from 0 to $1k/year fan in an instant; they'll try out the free service, upgrade to being a $100/year fan, and from there upgrade to being a $1k/year fan. The pitch of this article, it seemed to me, isn't to get rid of the lower tiers, but to add an extra tier on the top.
- burnished 4y ago
  >most people don't go from 0 to $1k/year fan in an instant; they'll try out the free service, upgrade to being a $100/year fan, and from there upgrade to being a $1k/year fan How do you know this? I'm mentally contrasting with monetization in games which I don't think follows that model, I think it is more like; if you are spending over 100$ its by repeating some smaller behavior (microtransactions), as opposed to deepening your investment thoughtfully as a function of time. Or, you're going to kickstart a game, and from the outset you're probably going to fall loosely into one bin of 20$-200$-2000$. I don't have anything to back up what I'm suggesting (purely anecdotal) and I'm asking you because I'm interested in sturdier arguments than my own (or other experiences leading to different perspectives!).
  - meheleventyone 4y ago
    For games it can be frequency of transaction as well as amount that increases over time. I don't think either case is about being particularly thoughtful though. More a sign of that thing becoming more important in your life.
    - burnished 4y ago
      hmmm. Ok, then I think I can more clearly restate my root question as: "do people upgrade pledge or commitment amounts as a consistent part of becoming one of the top contributers?" I suspect they don't. I suspect you may increase rate/intensity of microtransactions as a natural part of interaction, but if the financial transaction part isn't an active part of the interaction cycle then the contribution amount probably stays pretty static. I wonder where I could get data to sketch this out.
mcv 4y ago
Makes sense. You can't focus on just the true fans, because at first, you don't have any. First you focus on just getting listeners, then on fans who are willing to pay something, and only once that group gets big enough, does it make sense to focus on the $1000/y "true" fans. And if your numbers are correct, you're already making $500k/y from $100 fans by the time you can make $100k/y from the $1000 fans. So the middle is still more lucrative, even if the top is growing.
rapind 4y ago
Podcast pricing is in it’s wildly crazy phase. As an example, Sam Harris is charging $15 / month. Good for him that he’s able to pull it off, but man, that’s more than most streaming services. Your supercast is charging $0.59 / month per sub going through your platform on top of stripe fees. So if you had a niche but interesting podcast you can’t just charge $1.00 / month and generate any revenue. These fees are a massive friction. Just the Stripe fees without additional markup is a lot of friction on small transactions.
- ryanbrunner 4y ago
  Yeah, $5 a month is really the minimum where it starts to make sense with Supercast. I haven't run the numbers, but my gut tells me that supporters really aren't as price sensitive as you think. The conversion rates on a $5 / month podcast and a $10 / month one aren't all that different. Again, for a lot of podcasts, it's less about purchasing a product and more about supporting a creator. Supporting super niche podcasts that want to sell for $1.00 a month unfortunately doesn't make much sense for us since our costs are fairly fixed per subscriber.
  - rapind 4y ago
    > The conversion rates on a $5 / month podcast and a $10 / month one aren't all that different. IMO $5.00 is still beyond the price anchoring in most people's minds. You're getting close to the range of Apple TV premium, Youtube premium, Disney plus, Prime, and other bundled content services. Competing as a single content producer is going to be tough. It's natural you get mostly consumers that want to support you, instead of just people who are selfishly interested in the content, of which there are likely a lot more.
    - ryanbrunner 4y ago
      The thing is, for most creators, there's not really much content to sell. The bulk of creators are going to distribute the vast majority of their content for free (they wouldn't be able to get the audience to monetize in the first place if they didn't), so if you're looking at it from the perspective of the value you get for your subscription fee, frankly for most podcasts you're not coming out ahead even at a dollar or two.
localhost 4y ago
I just started a podcast a few weeks ago [1] where I interview other folks who work at Microsoft to answer the question that I often had back when we had company meetings: what do all of these people do? I was surprised that I hadn't heard of Supercast before. At what point does it make sense for me to start thinking about services like Supercast? Is there a threshold of # subscribers, downloads, some other metric that makes sense? [1] https://john-lam-podcast.simplecast.com/ https://john-lam-podcast.simplecast.com/
- ryanbrunner 4y ago
  If you have engaged listeners, over time you should be able to convert about 5% of them (generally for $5-10 a month). When that becomes worth it is up to you, but we generally don't see super successful launches for podcasts with less than 10,000 downloads per episode.
  - localhost 4y ago
    Thanks! That gives me a concrete goal to strive for.
tomrod 4y ago
Your assessment has a name: power law! This is one reason why medians are used with income/wealth. Some people skew the average.

cushychicken 4y ago

That's encouraging if you think of it as a funnel optimization problem. What can I do for the $100 per year set? T shirts or other swag? Signed merch? What can I do for the $10 per year set? Stickers?

mcv 4y ago
Interestingly, I think most creators are already doing this intuitively without any analysis telling them to.
ryanbrunner 4y ago
Surprisingly we don't have a ton of creators offering swag stuff, I'd have assumed that it would have been a bigger draw (Some of that might have to do with us not really offering any support on our platform, but it's not a common request either). If there's a "product" to sell, it's usually either the content itself, or access through things like community. But like I said in another comment, how much people spend isn't very correlated with what they get out of it at all.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- CosmicShadow 4y ago
  This is pretty interesting! I've been thinking about a platform for unique swag for podcasters, streamers, youtubers, etc. as I think there's definitely an opportunity to engage with fans there, but I imagine it's pretty overwhelming and expensive to figure out how to do it effectively if you are busy producing content. I sell an item that'd be perfect for those folks to giveaway/sell and I know how hard it is to figure out shipping and logistics.
  - lozenge 4y ago
    This is what MCNs do. They're basically talent agencies for YouTubers, and they handle stuff like ad placement, sponsored content, and merch.
- yojo 4y ago
  Maybe it’s just early days? I remember in early internet times webcomics were one of the few niches where creators were trying to make a living on the internet. At first it was “easy” - ad rates were super inflated in the dot com boom, and people were making rent with “punch the monkey and win” banner ads. Then came the crash and the bottom fell out of the ad market. A lot of creators just went away, but the ones who held on generally monetized via merch. Granted, these were people that were both funny and had graphic design chops, so novelty t-shirts were a natural fit. Presumably the buyer demand was always there, but no one discovered it until they were forced to do the hard thing of flailing for cash. Possibly as the market matures and people test more monetization methods we’ll see more podcast shwag.
rr808 4y ago
I'm not sure about creators, but I get swag and invites from charities and it annoys me. I'm donating to give them resources, if I want a T Shirt I'll buy one myself thanks, I dont need them spending money on me.
- ep103 4y ago
  Two things: 1 - Them sending you a teeshirt is a form of advertising. They're hoping you will wear it and be an advocate for them in your social circle. This is a reasonable thing to spend money on. 2 - Engagement. They're trying to keep you engaged in what they're doing, this is valuable too. Of course, you don't want them spending all their resources on this, but a certain percentage is absolutely a good idea. This is why you should care about non-profits statements about % of funds that go towards the charity vs overhead.
  - rchaud 4y ago
    I disagree that Tshirts are a reasonable marketing expense. For one thing, they're relatively expensive to produce and ship on a per unit basis, and you will need to order in multiple sizes. Second, most 'brand' t-shirts are low effort logo templates made from BigCartel.com that look fugly. They're clearly an afterthought. And because of that, those tshirts will end up in a landfill somewhere, just like the majority of soulless corporate swag that you'd accumulate visiting a trade show.
    - mauvehaus 4y ago
      I bought 2 dozen mixed T-shirts and hoodies (mostly T-shirts) with the logo for my business on them front and back in two sizes (the logo, not the shirts). Because I wear these things daily, I bought good T-shirts and good hoodies: tagless 100% cotton (mixed polyester increases pilling). I think I was in for about $15 a T-shirt. More for the hoodie, obviously. I'm not getting any kind of volume rate on these for a 2 dozen shirt order of mixed sizes (for friends and family as well). I can't imagine anybody ordering in real quantity is paying more than $10 a shirt, even for good ones. If you go through somebody whose business is making and shipping t-shirts, you get the benefit of their lower shipping rates and their bulk purchasing power for the shirts). If you're handing them out at a trade show, your unit cost to ship a couple hundred shirts is negligible. For me, my T-shirts for my business are effectively free: they replace other t-shirts I'd have to buy (or would, once I got through all the company and trade show swag from when I worked software). Plus they promote my business. And when they're too beat up to wear, they become shop rags before they hit the trash. I think you make some valid points (sizes are a nuisance), but I don't think T-shirts are the clear stinker for the folks giving them away that you think they are.

gwd 4y ago

> So sure, you can be self-sufficient on 100 $1K a year fans, but to get there, you need 5,000 $100 / year fans (which needs 100,000 listeners), and not doing anything for them is leaving money on the table. And probably more importantly, losing people out of the funnel: after all, most people don't go from 0 to $1k/year fan in an instant; they'll try out the free service, upgrade to being a $100/year fan, and from there upgrade to being a $1k/year fan. The pitch of this article, it seemed to me, isn't to get rid of the lower tiers, but to add an extra tier on the top.

burnished 4y ago
>most people don't go from 0 to $1k/year fan in an instant; they'll try out the free service, upgrade to being a $100/year fan, and from there upgrade to being a $1k/year fan How do you know this? I'm mentally contrasting with monetization in games which I don't think follows that model, I think it is more like; if you are spending over 100$ its by repeating some smaller behavior (microtransactions), as opposed to deepening your investment thoughtfully as a function of time. Or, you're going to kickstart a game, and from the outset you're probably going to fall loosely into one bin of 20$-200$-2000$. I don't have anything to back up what I'm suggesting (purely anecdotal) and I'm asking you because I'm interested in sturdier arguments than my own (or other experiences leading to different perspectives!).
- meheleventyone 4y ago
  For games it can be frequency of transaction as well as amount that increases over time. I don't think either case is about being particularly thoughtful though. More a sign of that thing becoming more important in your life.
  - burnished 4y ago
    hmmm. Ok, then I think I can more clearly restate my root question as: "do people upgrade pledge or commitment amounts as a consistent part of becoming one of the top contributers?" I suspect they don't. I suspect you may increase rate/intensity of microtransactions as a natural part of interaction, but if the financial transaction part isn't an active part of the interaction cycle then the contribution amount probably stays pretty static. I wonder where I could get data to sketch this out.

mcv 4y ago

Makes sense. You can't focus on just the true fans, because at first, you don't have any. First you focus on just getting listeners, then on fans who are willing to pay something, and only once that group gets big enough, does it make sense to focus on the $1000/y "true" fans. And if your numbers are correct, you're already making $500k/y from $100 fans by the time you can make $100k/y from the $1000 fans. So the middle is still more lucrative, even if the top is growing.

rapind 4y ago

Podcast pricing is in it’s wildly crazy phase. As an example, Sam Harris is charging $15 / month. Good for him that he’s able to pull it off, but man, that’s more than most streaming services. Your supercast is charging $0.59 / month per sub going through your platform on top of stripe fees. So if you had a niche but interesting podcast you can’t just charge $1.00 / month and generate any revenue. These fees are a massive friction. Just the Stripe fees without additional markup is a lot of friction on small transactions.

ryanbrunner 4y ago
Yeah, $5 a month is really the minimum where it starts to make sense with Supercast. I haven't run the numbers, but my gut tells me that supporters really aren't as price sensitive as you think. The conversion rates on a $5 / month podcast and a $10 / month one aren't all that different. Again, for a lot of podcasts, it's less about purchasing a product and more about supporting a creator. Supporting super niche podcasts that want to sell for $1.00 a month unfortunately doesn't make much sense for us since our costs are fairly fixed per subscriber.
- rapind 4y ago
  > The conversion rates on a $5 / month podcast and a $10 / month one aren't all that different. IMO $5.00 is still beyond the price anchoring in most people's minds. You're getting close to the range of Apple TV premium, Youtube premium, Disney plus, Prime, and other bundled content services. Competing as a single content producer is going to be tough. It's natural you get mostly consumers that want to support you, instead of just people who are selfishly interested in the content, of which there are likely a lot more.
  - ryanbrunner 4y ago
    The thing is, for most creators, there's not really much content to sell. The bulk of creators are going to distribute the vast majority of their content for free (they wouldn't be able to get the audience to monetize in the first place if they didn't), so if you're looking at it from the perspective of the value you get for your subscription fee, frankly for most podcasts you're not coming out ahead even at a dollar or two.

localhost 4y ago

I just started a podcast a few weeks ago [1] where I interview other folks who work at Microsoft to answer the question that I often had back when we had company meetings: what do all of these people do? I was surprised that I hadn't heard of Supercast before. At what point does it make sense for me to start thinking about services like Supercast? Is there a threshold of # subscribers, downloads, some other metric that makes sense? [1] https://john-lam-podcast.simplecast.com/ https://john-lam-podcast.simplecast.com/

ryanbrunner 4y ago
If you have engaged listeners, over time you should be able to convert about 5% of them (generally for $5-10 a month). When that becomes worth it is up to you, but we generally don't see super successful launches for podcasts with less than 10,000 downloads per episode.
- localhost 4y ago
  Thanks! That gives me a concrete goal to strive for.

tomrod 4y ago

Your assessment has a name: power law! This is one reason why medians are used with income/wealth. Some people skew the average.