What is Podcave?

Podcave started as a passion for sharing our knowledge with podcasters.

The founding peeps (There are three of us. Hi!!) have 40+ years of radio broadcast experience. For most of our careers, we were helping radio talent relentlessly. I, for years, had been podcasting solo and working with other podcasters over the years while in radio. I saw how much easier podcasting could be by incorporating some tools & workflow from radio. I teamed up with the other two and we started helping podcasters!

We first set out, like so many others, to coach and consult podcasters. We quickly observed that the largest barriers for new podcasters are the unnecessarily high cost per podcast, the self-doubt that comes with the lack of experience and direction, and the perception that the time commitment needed to put out a podcast consistently was unsustainable. And while we were recommending tools for them to use, we realized it was so expensive to combine all of these necessary elements.

We were also only helping as many people as the hours in the day would allow, but podcasters don’t always work 9-to-5. How can we give all podcasters more tools, more confidence, more structure, more value? How to we shorten or eliminate the learning curve?

Software.

We went to work on what is now called Podcave.

We built a software application with the goal of making our coaching and consulting business obsolete. Podcasters would be able to take our advice, tools, and experience and use it without us getting in their way. They could plan their podcast, then tap into the power of our partnerships to get it out into the world. It wasn’t perfect, but it was helpful to more people than we could spend time with personally.

The mission was to help as many people as possible, so we needed to stay close to our users as they dug into the MVP (minimum viable product) version of Podcave. We recruited a diverse set of podcasters with varying degrees of experience. We learned what they liked and didn’t like. We paid attention to which features they used and didn’t use. How they used the things they did. We listened to all the ideas, compliments, criticisms, frustrations, and reactions to updates.

You (the podcaster) were led to believe a good podcast hosting service was the key. The reality is uploading your audio to the hosting service is like half time. All the work happens before and after that moment.
You are overpaying for multiple services to handle the rest of the process (the planning, and the promotion parts).
Podcasting isn’t as easy as it seems.
The mini-website your hosting service provides is minimal at best and doesn’t reflect the amount of professionalism you’re bringing to the table.
Managing guests on your podcast either requires yet another service or endless emails and communication struggles.
You want to be able to do everything you need to do using one application.
You are getting dinged by YouTube (and others) when you upload your podcast because of the music, and the royalty-free music out there isn’t very good.
Saving time is just as important as saving money.

With this feedback in mind, we re-imagined Podcave as a workflow solution for podcasters that effortlessly guides users through all the phases of podcast creation: planning, publishing, and promoting.

Version two is VERY different visually:
[insert product image here]

We built an all-new Podcave. In the tech space, they may call this a transition from MVP to Beta. We don’t care what it's called. We just really wanted to make a project management software for podcasters, that has soul. Powerful software with a human feel.

Check it out on Product Hunt here: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/podcave-1

Here’s what we put in the “all-new” Podcave (everything below is included in a Podcave subscription):

Powerful, secure, and rock-solid hosting (powered in the background by industry powerhouse sOmnyStudio). This includes IAB certified analytics. In version one, you had to leave Podcave to use this. Now it’s baked in.
A complete episode planning suite including guest management, a rundown planner, a music library (powered by radio imaging powerhouse Benztown), a trending topic/source finder, and the very cool - Record Assist™ focus mode for while you’re recording an episode.
A complete promotion engine including scheduling your social media, notifying guests of their episode release, email marketing, and of course, text/SMS marketing.
You’ll get a stable and completely customizable (including custom domain) website powered by PodcastPage.io.

I can say that, with this new version, I think we achieved the original intent - Complete Project Management for Your Podcast™. Plan, publish and promote all in one place.

More features are planned, and we are excited about those. But if we can help people launch their creative vision - that’s the best.
A Personal Note

Someone (a higher-up at a legacy podcast hosting company) said to me once, “you can have the same thing Joe Rogan has for $5 a month.” The statement upset me. It’s misleading and untrue. Yes - you can have podcast hosting for $5 a month. It doesn’t come with the planning and the promotion of a juggernaut like Joe Rogan. The person who said that is interested in the most amount of money he can make. He isn’t interested in actually making the podcaster’s experience less stressful and more productive. But, that’s ALL I’m interested in. So, have at it. Have the planning infrastructure promotion tools you need. These are the tools I wish I had during my 20 years in the radio industry.

The person mentioned above reminds me of all the radio managers who just cared about the advertisements. The ones who didn’t appreciate great content. I feel the radio industry gave up on talent. That’s why the founders of Podcave and I left that industry (after 40+combined years). We believe in tools that help, encourage, and ease the process of creation. It pisses us off that the established podcast services prioritize volume over making better podcasters. We will always prioritize the podcaster. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.

PS. IH users can use promo code HACKERLIFE to get a $20/mo discount... for life. Tell as many people as you want. This promo code will never expire.