The Importance of Story with Hyperfixed’s Alex Goldman

Alex Goldman: It's really hard to make a show that doesn't have a character. Like, if I was just like, wouldn't it be fun to have a show where you learned about measurement? I wouldn't be super interested. But there is a woman now in my story who's like, I just want to be able to fucking bake. And suddenly it matters.

Jeff Umbro: This is Podcast Perspectives, a show about the latest news in the podcast industry and the people behind it. I'm your host, Jeff Umbro, founder and CEO of Podglomerate. Today, I'm speaking with Alex Goldman, the second two time guest on Podcast Perspectives. He's the host and creator of Hyperfixed, a brand new podcast distributed by Radiotopia and PRX.

You may know Alex as the former co host of Reply All. You may also recognize him from this show. We had him on last year to discuss the state of the industry. In today's episode, we will hear Alex's latest thoughts on the industry, what it took to get Hyperfixed made, and his plans for the show in the coming year.

Let's get to the episode.

Congratulations Alex. We're talking on the day that you published the first two episodes of Hyperfixed. How's it feel?

Alex Goldman: I'm pretty happy. Like, you know, could, could go a lot worse. There weren't any weird technical problems. We got our mixes done last night before like one in the morning. Like I consider all of that a big success.

Jeff Umbro: I go back to the, I think it was like one of the final episodes of Startup. I don't even remember if it was you or PJ or someone at Gimlet, but there was a conversation had with Alex Bloomberg about how everybody was getting kind of burnt out because they were always up until midnight, like finishing mixes.

And I think about that a lot because I've only really ever had one project where like I was literally up until three, well, two projects where I was up until 3am every night, like finishing the edits. And I feel very lucky about that, but like, it sounds like you guys, you know, historically kind of bring it to the brink often.

Is that right?

Alex Goldman: Yes. And even in this case, we brought it to the brink. Like, I feel like I am a terrible manager of time. And part of that right now specifically is like, we are such a skeleton crew that there was no one being like, Hey, snap it up. You gotta like, you've got a job to do and it has to be done in this period of time. Go faster.

Jeff Umbro: You and I last spoke a little over a year ago on a panel episode of this show. You're our second ever repeat guest. And our first ever repeat guest was also on that episode, which is funny. I wanted to ask just like, how are things going since we last spoke?

Alex Goldman: They're going well, I would say. Like we're doing, I'm making a show, but things still feel pretty touch and go.

Jeff Umbro: In terms of like industry as a whole or like with?

Alex Goldman: In terms of the industry as a whole, in terms of my ability to do this sustainably, like there's, it's, it's all, it feels like a big open question to me. I'm sort of conducting a, an in public experiment that I hope doesn't fail, basically.

Jeff Umbro: From the early signs that I have seen, I don't think it's failing.

I am by no means an expert here, but like, I think you're doing a good job. I've listened to both episodes. I am one of your latest paying subscribers, disclaimer, I pay for Alex's show. We're going to get into all of those details. Cause I want to hear about all of the nitty gritty, but can you introduce like what Hyperfixed is?

Alex Goldman: When I used to make Reply All, we had a segment called Super Tech Support, which was basically like when people had tech problems, or problems that were, you know, glancingly related to tech, I would try and solve them if they couldn't solve them themselves. There are plenty of problems people have that are completely unrelated to tech that I would like to solve.

And being able to sort of put myself in those stories or in those situations where I have to solve those problems can be fun radio. So, for example, the first two episodes are, I am trying to deal with a person who is 30 and lives in New York City and doesn't know how to drive in the city or is not comfortable doing that, so I'm trying to teach her what it takes to be comfortable in the city.

The other one is a woman who is an avid baker and lives in the UK and is trying to bake American recipes but the conversions are always wrong because they measure everything by weight and we measure everything by volume, something I did not know until we started making this episode. So basically I am just out there trying to figure out why things are, why these problems exist and how they should solve them.

And it is very fun and I'm trying, I'm doing my best. So far I'm like kind of my, both of the, the, the problems were solved in as far as I was like, well, you just kind of got to deal with it.

Jeff Umbro: Well, that's kind of the big crux of the show. And I've listened to both episodes and that's my favorite part is just like the kind of, let's look at the, the crux of why this is a thing that we're talking about today. Both of them dive into kind of the history of, of each of the, you know, respective subjects. And I think really, like, highlight the quality of, of you as a host and writer. You tell me, like, how you view it, but I view the problems as just, like, a way into the rest.

Is that, you think that's accurate?

Alex Goldman: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, every problem is just a way into, like, a world, and if you can find those worlds, then, then, like, you're golden. Like, the whole point is to find the, the interesting thing that is going on behind the problem that is causing the problem.

One of the things that I didn't get to do with the cooking episode, for example, there used to be a physical, a physical object that scientists use as a reference for the gram, and then they decided to use instead what's called a universal constant, and the way they figured out how to do that involved a lot of mathematics and quantum physics, and I wrote a whole big section about how it works.

And then my colleagues were like, this is too confusing and too long. I'm reading physics, quantum physics for dummies, and I'm reading this and that, and I'm trying to figure out how this works. And I eventually explain it and they're like, no, this doesn't make any sense. But I still want to, like, I still feel the desire to like go back and explain it.

I mentioned it in the episode and say, maybe in a bonus episode. And I earnestly meant like, I hope I have time to actually make an episode where I explain the universal constant because it is fascinating to me. I mean, I love that stuff. I love being able to understand parts of the world that seem utterly inscrutable to me, you know?

Jeff Umbro: I really, I mean, I loved it. Like the, I forget the French name, but.

Alex Goldman: Oh, Le Grand K. The Grand K.

Jeff Umbro: It's crazy. That, that is how they, you know, figured out scales of measurement up until 2018, which I had no idea. I'd never heard of any of that. So anyway, you launched both of those episodes today as, as we record, September 19th. How long have you been working on this prior to today?

Alex Goldman: I think I started in June and it's funny because I had a very clear idea of what was going to be. I had like a very clear idea in my head of what was going to be the, the first episode, and then I started working on it and it, and a classic problem occurred, which was like this like story creep started to happen where I was like, Oh, this is way too interesting. This can't be one episode.

So that one got put on the back burner because it suddenly felt huge, suddenly felt like a really big story. And then I had to pivot to the, this other, these other stories, like measurement was definitely not going to be a launch, a launch episode. But you know, that's sort of the fun and exhaustion of making a show like this is like, you kind of pivot to whatever is going to work in the moment, you know?

Jeff Umbro: Well, let's talk about that. You, you decided to launch with two episodes. These are your pilots. I imagine this is a way for you to kind of test the waters of like how people are going to engage with the show. Like, from your point of view, what was the, and you're going to pause after this for like six weeks to keep producing and then you're going to start publishing regularly in November. Can you walk us through kind of like the logic of that?

Alex Goldman: The logic of it is that I truly did not have enough money to pay for the pre production phase. So I was like, my options are to make bad, to launch with like episodes that will suffer. Or I can be like, Hey, here's a taste of these. I'm going to go back and make more. If you like these, please consider supporting this.

So far, like the response has been good. I think it'll probably be better once we're, you know, full time. But I was genuinely really surprised and humbled by the enthusiasm around the first couple episodes. So, I mean, that was the logic.

The logic was like, okay, everybody said to me, like, you either have to compromise your ambition, or you have to, like, there are all these compromises you have to make, and I was sort of like, well, why? I don't think I really do. Like, I think I can sort of make the thing I want to make, it's just gonna, it's gonna be harder, and like, and like, maybe I'm gonna have to like, wait. And like, I understand if people, people see that I'm launching and they're like, well, this doesn't make any sense, like, why would I pay for this thing that there's gonna be two episodes on for two months?

I totally get it. So hopefully when the show becomes regular, I retain those people who were initially doubtful.

Jeff Umbro: Well, I think you're like one of the few people in the space that can command an audience that would be willing to wait for those two months. You just have a proven track record. People understand what you're capable of.

People are willing to help support that, I think. I really want to dig into the crux of like kind of what you were just getting at in terms of like how everybody told you there was one way to do it. And a lot of your writing in the past has been about what once was in the podcast industry versus where it is today.

I'm really curious what you would view as like success in this instance. And I'm talking right now about Hyperfixed, but in general, like in the podcast space, like what would make something successful and or sustainable?

Alex Goldman: I have some very back of the envelope numbers as to what would make it successful, and like, I don't, I'm not, the other thing I have to, I hasten to add is like, I'm not a business guy, so I don't know if these numbers are right or wrong, I'm kind of eyeballing it, I'm guessing a little bit. But all of that said, I feel like success to me is enough to pay three producers and an editor and myself.

So it's a five person team. Right now, we're a three person team. I am the only full time person. The other people are part time. I've still got a ways to go, but I feel like my goals are modest enough that it's like not impossible.

Jeff Umbro: And you're gonna fund this through ad sales and through premium subscriptions. Am I missing any part of that equation?

Alex Goldman: I do have a pet hope that at some point I can do live stuff. I don't even know what live stuff would look like, but I always enjoy doing that. So I would love to give it a shot.

Jeff Umbro: I think you can. I think there's an easy avenue to that at some point. But walk me through your partnership with PRX and like what you're anticipating for ad sales and what your hopes are there.

Alex Goldman: The goal with like them is to get away from a thing which I really didn't like when we had to do it for Spotify, which was running ads for things that I don't like or believe in products that I think are bad, and being able to sort of do my own ad reads. I think that that is actually like a value added thing for listeners.

And also I think pays better when you actually manage to find those sponsors. So, but still, like, I mean, the CPMs we were getting at Gimlet when we started 65, 75, it was crazy. Now I think they're like 25 or 35, right? They're around there.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah. I mean, it, it, it still does vary pretty significantly based on the quality of the show and like the rich get richer, but, but the standard CPM and like the average CPM, if you look at like the Lipson numbers, it's around 23 bucks, depending on the category.

So tech shows and business shows can usually command something that's like 50 ish percent higher than that. And there are several shows I'm aware of that can command a CPM that's well over a hundred dollars. But they are the exception and not the rule.

Alex Goldman: Really, I'm focused a lot more on growing. It's not a Patreon, it is through Supporting Cast, but essentially the Supporting Cast, the Patreon for the show. Having a relationship with your audience is more sustainable than relying on ads, which come and go.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah, I think there's like a hybrid approach that most people have found themselves in these days.

And, and like, there, you can see a public list of all the top revenue generating shows on Patreon, and I've chatted with the supporting cast guys, including Eric Barnett on this show or a previous episode, if anyone's interested. But there are a lot of people who are able to make that like a real business, and I'm very jealous of those people.

Have you thought about like how many people you need for this to, for you to be able to hire your five people and get healthcare and everything?

Alex Goldman: I have, I'm not a math guy or a business guy, so I don't know if these numbers are right. But I'm thinking around two hundred thousand people.

Jeff Umbro: Two hundred thousand paying people.

Alex Goldman: No, no, no.

Jeff Umbro: Okay. Yeah, I was gonna say, I think you got to check your math.

Alex Goldman: Uh, no. Two hundred thousand listeners, and if you, if you take sort of what the average is, which is you're converting maybe five percent, That would put me at, you know, 10, 000 subscribers, me, like, that would be more than enough with ads.

Jeff Umbro: That's great. Well, good luck on that.

Alex Goldman: Thank you.

Jeff Umbro: I'm going to be following along and trying to figure out, like, how well you're doing.

Alex Goldman: I am very fortunate to have a pretty devoted audience. What if I just, like, let everybody know every week what my audience is at? And just, like, have them be like, hey guys, you're my street team, if you want to help.

Jeff Umbro: Kind of gamify it a little bit.

Alex Goldman: Yeah.

Jeff Umbro: You should do that. I mean, I think the industry would follow along and I think a lot of people would just be like pay for it just so they could see it. One of my favorite podcasters is Jay Clouse from Creator Science who very publicly and transparently exposes like his revenue every quarter and he will tell you exactly how much money he's making from patronage, from sponsorship, etc, etc. And like, I know that there's a million people who are reading that just because they like the navel-gazey aspect of it. And then there are many more people who probably just like genuinely appreciate having something to compare like their success to.

Alex Goldman: I mean, one of the things that I am like, since we are, since it is such a bootstrappy situation right now, and everybody I'm working with is not working full time, they're all technically contractors, I'm just basically like, hey guys. This is what I want; this is like my goal for you right now. This is how much money I have in the bank. And this is how I'm like, I'm like, what do I gain from being cagey about this? I might as well be open with my team about like how possible this all seems. And like when we should check in again and blah, blah, blah.

Jeff Umbro: It's the beauty of being a startup. There are benefits to being able to kind of like keep that close to the vest, but also you as somebody who's starting fresh and like, presumably, like you need people to buy into the vision here. It's probably very helpful.

I am curious, like, I know we talked a little bit about this. Success for you is basically being able to like hire those five folks. Have you thought beyond just like the monetary value here of like the revenue you're bringing in as to like what success would look like? Do you want to win awards or get critical acclaim? Or do you just want to be able to make the things that you like making?

Alex Goldman: So one of the things that I noticed when we were making Reply All is that people don't like giving me awards and I don't take it personally. I think that I, I think I'm pretty silly on the radio. And like. I think that that is not conducive to award, winning awards, and that is fine with me. I just like making radio, I don't really care about acclaim.

Would it be cool to like, win a Pulitzer? Oh, yeah, it'd be great. Do I think it's a likelihood for me? Abso, like, no. I do think that I have made journalism that has impact and I'm very proud of it. I don't think that I am making journalism that delivers a specific kind of impact that awards people tend to be interested in.

And that is fine. I love all the award winning radio that I hear all the time from my colleagues who make amazing stuff. And I just like to make silly shit that makes me laugh. So it's not, it's not a priority for me. The respect Reply All got was not, you know, obviously not based on awards cause we didn't win any.

It was because, you know, we made a thing that we cared about and people would hear that care come through. And that's all I really want to do, you know?

Jeff Umbro: I'm still gunning for an award for you at some point, but.

Alex Goldman: I appreciate that. We did win an award called the Little Mermaid Award at the Third, Third Coast in 2013.

Jeff Umbro: Oh, that's a big one.

Alex Goldman: Which they renamed the following year. That award doesn't exist anymore.

Jeff Umbro: Well, but that's, I mean, Third Coast is like, you know, the event, or was like the event for production, like for producers and real creatives, not like hobbyists or anything.

Alex Goldman: Right. The award was something that Ira Glass put together, uh, I think they renamed it to the Skylarking Award, and the, and the premise of it was. This was before we even did Reply All, this was when we were doing TLDR at WNYC, we won an award that was basically like, this is the award for shows that do weird shit, and we want to recognize their weird shit.

They did and I was like, awesome, this is great, I could not ask for a better award than the weird shit award. So, I was over the moon about that, I'm very happy about it. That is the only award that we ever won, maybe, in that show, in any iteration, and that's fine with me.

Jeff Umbro: I have one more question about like kind of the business side of it before we dive into like the creative, but, when you are making the show, and I know that it's super early, so you might not have, like, an answer for this right now, but, like, how are you thinking about optimizing the show for those paying subscribers? And then, once somebody becomes a paying subscriber, like, how are you thinking about retaining that person?

Is that something that is, has, you've, you've begun to, like, noodle on?

Alex Goldman: I have, and I don't have the answers yet. One of the things I want to do is to start asking people what they would be interested in. Because I think that they will be a much better gauge of what they enjoy and will keep them there than my dumb opinion of what I like.

I think part of their thing is that people just like having access to, to like people they like. So part of it is just communicating with people and making things that are interesting to them and responding to them. That's like a huge thing. And when, when people that I like do that, I'm like, Oh my God, this is amazing. I can't believe that this person I pay 80 a month, a year also responded to me.

So yeah, I mean, that's, that's kind of like, right now, that is a big, that's the big focus. It's like trying to get a sense of what people want, because I am not so convinced of my own brilliance as a content producer to know.

When it comes to actually making the show, like, that stuff, I'm just like, yeah, this is, that's kind of what I'm good at. I'm gonna go ahead and like, and like, trust my intuition on that. When it comes to bonus content and what will keep people as subscribers, that's much more like, well, what are you guys interested in?

Because I don't know the answer to that.

Jeff Umbro: I'm interested in the physics for dummies thing.

Alex Goldman: Alright, well, listen, I am too. I just have to convince my co workers that it's worth, worth, getting, worth working on.

Jeff Umbro: Let's talk about actually producing the show. In one of your Cool Dude Zone substack articles, you said, "Narrative podcasts and chat podcasts require central conceits and then a lot of scaffolding to fit the topic of the episode within that conceit. And as a result, a lot of narrative podcasts sound the same, and a lot of chat podcasts sound the same. And they are only made distinct by the personalities of the hosts and presenters. So styles evolve over time, but there are still core concepts that are hard to leave behind."

So I wanted to ask, like, what are some of those core, like, scaffolding or conceits that you think of when you're making a show?

Alex Goldman: It's really hard to make a show that doesn't have a character in it, in the middle, which is part of why I chose to do it the way that I'm doing it, like if I was just like, hey, wouldn't it be fun to have a show where you learned about the history of measurement, I wouldn't be super interested because there's no one there making me care, but there is a woman now in my story who's like, I just want to be able to fucking bake. Why is this so hard?

Jeff Umbro: I just want to make peanut butter cookies.

Alex Goldman: And sudden, yes, exactly, and suddenly it matters. This is me personally saying this. I have no interest in learning about how the recycling industry works. Also, in addition to that, my town makes me put out my recycling, my paper recycling, and my can recycling on different days, and it drives me fucking crazy, and I desperately want to know why they do that, and that, in turn, has made me interested in the, in like, the world of recycling.

So, I am In the process of investigating it and calling like the mayor and the city hall and being like, why do I have to put this stuff out? Because my house is full of recycling all the time because I can't just put it all out at once.

Jeff Umbro: I live in a town that is very similar.

Okay. So characters is one of them. Is there another like central scaffolding piece that you always look for in a story?

Alex Goldman: It is a thing that in radio seminars and so on and so forth, I've seen used dozens of times. And it's this conversation. It's a, it's a, not a conversation. It is a lecture by Kurt Vonnegut. The Shape of Stories. You're familiar with it?

Jeff Umbro: I sure am.

Alex Goldman: I've seen it used and have used it a million times. And the idea is that a story should exist sort of like a sine wave. So, on the x axis, the horizontal axis, is the passage of time in a story. The y axis is the emotions of a story. The top of the graph is happy, the bottom of the graph is sad.

And you basically want, like, a story to dip into happiness and sadness a couple times over the course of it. You want sort of the, the stories that make people the most interested are the ones that have unexpected moments of sadness or unexpected moments of silliness in otherwise sad moments. That is a kind of thing that I'm always looking for in stories and, you know, stakes, reasons why people should care.

So those are sort of like the three things that I'm constantly looking for: a character, a reason it should matter to people, and a little bit of surprise here and there.

Jeff Umbro: And now how does that all fit into Hyperfixed?

Alex Goldman: I built the characters right into the DNA of the show. Like, the person, a person has to come to me with a problem, and if they have a problem that they want solved, they care about it enough to have reached out to me.

So that also builds in stakes for the most part. Not always. Sometimes people get in touch and they're just like, I don't know, I just really wanted to say hi. I'm like, that, that's great, I appreciate that, but that's not helping me make the show.

Jeff Umbro: Can't put it on the show.

Alex Goldman: Right. I've built those, those two things into the top of the thing in a way that I feel is, is actually, I've given myself an advantage by doing that.

The next thing I have to figure out is like, which of these stories actually has those surprises and which of these stories, when I dig into them, interests me in ways that I was not expecting. Those are the things that I feel like, at least in narrative stuff, I am always looking for.

Jeff Umbro: Hyperfixed is a show where somebody submits a problem to you and then every episode is you trying to solve that problem.

How many problems have you received so far?

Alex Goldman: I think we've received a couple of thousand.

Jeff Umbro: Wow. Oh, you're going to be just fine.

Alex Goldman: I do have to add a caveat to that, which is that a lot of them are like, you know, legitimate problems, but wouldn't fit the show. And so now that I think a couple episodes are out, I think we're going to get things that are much more suited to the show.

And I do want to like bend what is possible in terms of like what people expect from the show. I want to try and solve problems that are like, I had this thought actually like a month before the show started where I was like, maybe I did this wrong. Maybe I, instead of doing a show that is about problems, I should have done a show where I try and resolve like interpersonal drama between two people.

Like it should have been about beefs instead of being about problems. But I do think that that's still like a totally viable avenue.

Jeff Umbro: That's kind of like heavyweight in in a lot of ways.

Alex Goldman: Yeah, kind of. I think that's right. Heavyweight is more like, how do I repair this thing I fucked up in the past, but we did get a message from a guy, I don't know, a couple months ago that was like, hey, my mom owes me $3, 000, we're not on speaking terms. Do you think you can help?

And I was like, I was like, I responded and was like, hey, I'm happy to look into this. It would require you and your mom to be like very vulnerable and uncomfortable on the radio. Are you willing to do that? And do you think your mom will? And he said, yeah, sure.

So I'm going to give it a shot. We'll see.

Jeff Umbro: I'm glad you brought all this up, cause one of my like questions for you was like, what makes a good question? Whether it's today or what you hope the show will be in a year, like, what is something that's viable?

Alex Goldman: I'm still figuring that out. I have to say that like, we did this episode about measurement.

It was definitely Emma who made that story worth telling. Cause I was, I, I, I did the initial interview and was like, this isn't going to, this one isn't going to go anywhere. And there was a piece of tape we cut out of the final draft. Which is me, in the initial interview, kind of setting the, trying to let the woman down gently, that I'm not, wasn't interested and didn't know how to solve it, is me being like, well, you know, I'll do my best, I don't know.

Like, I don't, I didn't have the vision for that one.

Jeff Umbro: Well, the low stakes ness of it was kind of, like, the best part, because it's just like, I listened to the whole thing about, like, the, the baking episode, and by the end of it, I'm just like, Wow, I really don't care at all if this actually works or not, but like it's fun to listen to.

Alex Goldman: Sometimes low stakes is, is like an incredible advantage because as a listener, I find it very charming when people focus all of their firepower on the least important thing. Like, if people are like, people were trespassing at my house so I decided to drive a tank over there and scare the crap out of them, like that to me is like the perfect, the platonic ideal of a story, is just like a person who is so singularly focused on a thing regardless of how trivial or stupid it is, they're bringing everything they've got.

Jeff Umbro: I'm really enjoying it. I know it's only two episodes and I know that they're pilots, but I'm, I'm digging it so far.

Alex Goldman: Thank you.

Jeff Umbro: So, creatively speaking, outside of the financial dollars and cents part, what are some of your goals? You just touched on a couple of them, like, you know, spreading your wings a little bit in terms of like what's a viable question, but like, I don't know, what, what do you hope to achieve in the next year creatively?

Alex Goldman: I really want to be able to pay other producers to make stories. Like, I really, I find making stories and reporting very fun. But another thing I find equally fun, if not more fun, is listening to other people's stories because A, I don't have to do the reporting, so that's a really painful part that's no longer a problem for me, and B, like, I just, I just find other people's perspectives very fascinating and like they're gonna, they're gonna go for problems that I'd never considered and have solutions I'd never considered. I love that stuff.

So the more I can bring other people in to solve problems and, and make the show, the better. And the more that the producers can, can do that. Part of the reason that it's like, you know, the Alex Goldman show with like a little Alex Goldman caricature on the, on the cover art is because like, I know that that I, that I have an audience that is built in, but I have to hear myself every day. I'm tired of that. I'd love to hear other people.

Jeff Umbro: One day I'm going to pitch myself as that person. I'd love to produce an episode.

Alex Goldman: Anytime you have like a problem that feels interesting to you, that you feel like is solvable and might have some kind of interesting arc, I'm there.

Like I love other people's problems way more than I like my own.

Jeff Umbro: I'm going to think hard and hard about that because I have some good ones.

You were quoted in Slate, last year I think or earlier this year, saying I feel self conscious saying this but if I hosted this massively successful show and can't manage to get something funded, what does that say for everybody else?

Do you think that Hyperfixed is an indicator of a positive trend in the industry?

Alex Goldman: It's certainly an indicator of a trend, which is people kind of doing things on their own. The fact that these options exist is great. And like, I think that it's been a massive help. I do think that like, it's crazy that it took me this long to get, to get this off the ground.

And it's crazy that like it's the degree to which many people I know who are talented and struggling are struggling. And there were people who I initially was like, well, I want to bring this person onto the show. And they were just like, yeah, I've got a full time job, dude. I can't give it up. Like that's rare and valuable. Like I need to hang onto that.

And I was like, you know what? I actually, I absolutely get it. Like, how can I begrudge you that? I don't know if I would call it positive because it's like, I'm no longer just like the host or a host producer. I'm like a host and producer. I do. I'm like an administrator. I am a business owner.

Like that stuff is going to be a lot of work that I didn't used to have to do.

Jeff Umbro: But do you feel good that there's like potentially more upside on the other end of it if you do it well?

Alex Goldman: I do feel like the fact that I am the owner of this show is a big positive and like something that felt completely impossible ten years ago, so that is great, like there was no way anybody could own their own show ten years ago, and now it feels starkly different, so that is awesome and not something I take for granted at all, and I'm seeing that like more and more, the fact that there's so many shows on Radiotopia is a sign that people are finding this to be the way to go. And then there's stuff like Normal gossip, and, I don't know, Chapo Trap House.

There's like a million shows that own their own thing and, and like, understand what their audience wants and are just doing it for themselves and like, that is really cool and exciting. I would love to be able to, if I can manage to figure that out. If I had the option to just get paid and get health insurance and not have to deal with this, I think I probably still would, but that's just because I find the business aspect of stuff, I'm very uncomfortable with it. Maybe six months from now I'll have a different answer.

Jeff Umbro: I don't know. It's, it's as, as a business owner who started a company cause I couldn't get a job doing what I wanted to do, a lot of things get easier and a lot of things get harder, so.

Alex Goldman: Great. I'm glad to hear that.

Jeff Umbro: Well, it's funny, cause it's like the problems that you have today, like six months from now, you're not even going to think about them. They're going to be like such a small thing that they'll be in the past. But you'll have a different set of problems that are going to come up.

Alex Goldman: Right.

Jeff Umbro: So, and you'll never know what they are until it happens, but, so from your point of view, like, what does it mean to make it in podcasting today?

Alex Goldman: Even when we started Reply All, I wasn't like, God, I really want to make it big. Like I want to be a celebrity. The thing I said from the very beginning is like, I just want to make a thing that I like and have enough money to support myself. So I will say that that is, continues to be true. I want to have enough money to support myself and make a thing that I'm proud of. And that is "making it" for me.

Jeff Umbro: Cool. Well, thank you for joining us. This was awesome. Everybody should check out Hyperfixed.

Alex Goldman: Thank you so much. It was my pleasure.

Jeff Umbro: Thank you so much to Alex Goldman for joining us on the show. You can listen to Hyperfixed now wherever you get your podcasts or at Hyperfixedpod.com. 

For more podcast related news, info, and takes, you can follow me on Twitter @JeffUmbro. Podcast Perspectives is a production of The Podglomerate.

If you're looking for help producing, marketing, or monetizing your podcast, you can find us at Podglomerate.com. Shoot us an email at listen@thepodglomerate.com or follow us on all social platforms @podglomerate or @podglomeratepods. This episode was produced by Chris Boniello, and myself, Jeff Umbro.

This episode was edited and mixed by Jose Roman. And thank you to our marketing team, Joni Deutsch, Madison Richards, Morgan Swift, Annabella Pena, and Vanessa Ullman. And a special thank you to Dan Christo and Tiffany Dean. Thank you for listening and I'll catch you all in two weeks.