Twila Dang: Empowerment, Resilience, and Success

What does it take to transition from a stay-at-home mom to a successful media mogul? Tune in to our riveting conversation with Twila Dang, the dynamo behind Matriarch Digital Media, who fearlessly forged her own path in the podcasting industry. Her candid tales of resilience, determination, and the power of networking are bound to inspire. Discover how Twila recognized her potential, leveraged her skills, and created a thriving digital media company that doesn't shy away from empowering discussions about women's health and identity.

Twila's journey is not just about personal growth. It's also about creating content that strikes a chord with its audience. Matriarch Digital Media, with its flagship shows Gynacast and Endocast, has become a beacon of empowerment and a safe haven for women to discuss topics often swept under the rug. Twila's third podcast 'Me Before Mom' steps up to remind mothers of their individual identities beyond motherhood. Learn how Twila has mastered the art of understanding her audience's needs and navigated the intricate world of contracts and intellectual property rights.

Venture into the future with Twila as she shares her insights on the evolution of podcasting and its intersection with traditional radio. Her emphasis on the need to protect your intellectual property, create your own resources, and retain control of your content is a call to action for aspiring podcasters. We wrap up our conversation on the importance of a dynamic content library and understanding the metrics behind your podcast downloads. So, plug in your headphones and get ready for a journey that will leave you motivated to chase your dreams, empower others, and leave your unique mark in the world of media!

Twila Dang, founder of Matriarch Digital Media, shares her journey of transitioning from radio to podcasting, why it's important to dream big, and some things you should know before joining a podcast network.

Check out Matriarch Digital Media and follow Twila on Twitter

Subscribe to Buzzsprout Conversations on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Importance of Networking in Media
• 11:50 Starting a Podcast Network Journey
• 24:22 Empowering Women's Health and Identity
• 36:42 Podcasting Networks and Female Empowerment
• 41:41 Building and Joining Podcast Networks
• 48:56 The Intersection of Podcasting and Radio
• 56:09 The Expansion and Future of Podcasting
• 1:07:01 Dynamic Content Library and Tracking

Transcript

Alban: 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome back. I'm super excited today to bring you an interview with Twyla. Dang. Twyla is the founder and CEO of Matriarch digital media. It's a media company and podcast network that understands, promotes and elevates women. She works at Minnesota Public Radio, doing a show with them. And she's also the founder of Women in podcasting, which is a networking group, and podcast, du Nord. And that is a podcast conference that teaches people how to podcast how to start how to grow anything people need. So Twyla, thank you so much for being here.

Twila: 0:37

You're very welcome. Thank you for having me. And thank you for being patient. Because of course, I'm, I'm quite the technologist when it comes to recording things.

Alban: 0:47

Well, you did perfect getting on and then the computer decided to throw a wrench into everything. So I appreciate you working through it. And being here with no problem. I'm

Twila: 0:56

happy to do it.

Alban: 0:57

So can you tell me the story of how you got your first job in radio, because you have a background in radio before podcast

Twila: 1:03

I do. And I have the kind of a story that makes people you know, either go That's wild, or they just want to punch you because it doesn't sound like work. So to be perfectly honest, I was a stay at home mom for 12 years. And my kids were getting old enough to go back out in the world. And I was at you know, like a breakfast get together with a bunch of moms and women friends. And I made a joke at this table. And I said, I'm so glad I know all these professional women, because I mean, the only thing I'm good at is Talking and Nobody pays me to do that. And we laugh. And everybody left. And a couple of weeks later, a very good friend of mine, one of my closest friends who was at the function called me. And she said, you know, you made the joke, you know, at breakfast. And the thing is, she's a radio host. So immediately when she brought up the joke, I thought I had offended her. And I was like, Oh, I'm so sorry. And she was like, No, I don't I don't she cuz she literally said I didn't think it was funny. And I was like, Oh crap, I'm so sorry. And then she goes, No, I mean, I don't think it's funny, because I think you'd be really good at this. I think you should meet my boss. And she introduced me to the program director at a talk radio station. And it happened that the exact time that I was introduced, the station was going through a format change. And they were becoming they were on their way to becoming the first and only pop culture talk radio station in the country. And so the program director said, like we're changing formats, we're just focusing on pop culture. What I mean, what could you possibly add to that conversation? And I happened to be, you know, like a mom, blogger at the time. And I had a blog that was called Pop Culture parent that talked about the annex of parenting a pop culture. And I brought that up, and, and she kind of, you know, kind of asked me a couple more questions. And I would say for the next seven months, we kind of went back and forth, he would bring me in to just kind of sit and talk to people and come bring him in and ask me questions, but nothing came of it. And then quite almost seven months to the day. She brought me in to it for a meeting, there was another woman sitting in the chair next to me. And she sat down. I said, Okay, so the show starts in two weeks, and it doesn't have a title. And if you want to give it a title, here's the format, you're going to get two hours of Saturday mornings. And we looked each other like we were create, like what's happening and she goes I'm sorry, Twyla, this is Olivia, Olivia, this is Twilight, you're going to host a show together. And that was my and that's my first job in radio. Two weeks later, I was on the air, I came up with the show name, we came up with a format. And we were off to the races. And I've been doing media ever since

Alban: 3:42

what was the first show may have pop life.

Twila: 3:45

And it was just that's my job was quite literally to talk on an endless loop about Bieber and the Kardashians and whatever else is going on in pop culture at the time.

Alban: 3:56

That's, like so many people's dream that the thing that you're already doing that you're already your personality, is that you like to talk and you love pop culture, right? And then you throw something out to the world. And all of a sudden, it's like, hey, why don't you do all the things you already doing? Except we pay for it. And we give you a microphone.

Twila: 4:15

Listen, when I tell you, I called my mom to tell her like like this. This is a job and my mom was like, that doesn't sound like a real job. And she said baby, if you go to that interview, and it's like in a warehouse or something, please don't go in there. It's not a real job. I was like, I promise mom if I get there and it's a warehouse. But even I mean until this day, I mean my the friend who introduced me her name is Alexis Thompson. And to this day, she's tries her really hard not to take any credit for any of this and I'm like you have no idea that you change the trajectory of my life. So anytime I get a chance to tell people I wouldn't have any of this. If you hadn't seen something in me I didn't see in myself. So I make a point to say her first and last name whenever I can. And I'm always trying to look For opportunities for her to like to to help boost her and help, you know, help her get where she's trying to go to because this was a gift, it was a it was an absolute gift that she gave me.

Alban: 5:08

So this is actually something I've seen in a lot of your work will need to go and actually talk about each of these pieces individually. But one thing I keep seeing come up for you is networking. And now that maybe that story is kind of answering the question, which is like, why is networking so important to you? Because you're starting community groups, you're starting events, you're doing your own digital media, but it's all about like finding communities and networking in them. Why is that really important to you?

Twila: 5:38

I mean, there's a couple of reasons. One is exactly what I was expressing, I wouldn't have had any of this, if someone hadn't seen something in me, I didn't see myself. And even along the way, I was so fortunate to have people who cared enough that when I said I needed help, or when I couldn't figure something out, they just stepped right in to help me I mean, that generosity of spirit isn't something that I take lightly. And I always feel like the best thing that I can do, to show gratitude is to pay it forward. Yeah, I could buy you a lunch for helping set up my equipment. But it means even more if the energy you put into me, I made sure I put into somebody else. So somebody else can get here too. And the extension of that in terms of like the growth of where the business is going and things like women in podcasting. It's a funny thing, when you start something like this, and you realize there's a moment you realize it's bigger than you. Like I could have easily made this, like, I just want this to be about Thailand, it's gonna be like the toilet network and Twyla show. I mean, it could be really easy to have it centered on you. But I never wanted that I always wanted there to be like, how can more people be doing this, like, the more I found out that I wait, I found something I love to do, I found something I'm good at, I found that I have a talent for it. Other people have to have this to other people need the same kind of opportunity I need to. And so that that kind of converged at the same time that I realized that this is this is not just about me, it's bigger than me. I used to be worried that I was too centered in this, that it was too focused on me. But now I understand I'm not the center of anything. I'm the conduit. And now my job is to get as many people connected as possible, whether that's connected people who want to work together, connecting friends, connecting talent, you know, building out shows building out, you know, learning so that people can go do what we're doing. I don't I just don't believe in scarcity. I don't think there's only room for one of us. I think there's room for everybody. And the way we make room is to make sure everybody has the tools and everybody has what they need to move forward.

Alban: 7:37

Yeah, that's actually a lot of the philosophy we've had with Buzzsprout a lot of our marketing is just educating people on podcasting. Because, you know, when I started in the industry in 2014, I think there's something like 60,000 podcasts, and people were like on, there's already too many shows. Now we have like 2.5 million podcasts that were deaf people are going oh, there's too many shows. Like, I actually think there's not enough good shows yet, I think we have a lot of space to keep growing. And what we need to do is continuously remove the barriers to entry, the you don't have to have a lot of money for equipment, or you don't need to have a specialized editor doing all the work for you. Or you don't have to get lucky and have someone notice your talent, but instead, maybe democratizing opening the, you know, the doors so that anybody who wants to start a show or kind of get their voice or their message out to the world is able to do so.

Twila: 8:34

I agree with that wholeheartedly.

Alban: 8:36

So take me back, you know, you start the first show with Minnesota Public Radio, where do you go from there?

Twila: 8:43

So, okay, so the first so technically the first show that I had my radio show wasn't it was with Hubbard broadcasting. So yeah, so it's the station, it still exists, it's called my talk. And so I was there for like, for almost four years. And I honestly loved all of it. I love learning, I loved getting like the thing about radio, especially the thing about like large scale media is, if they don't really have a role for you, if they don't see you as a part of their vision, you're fine to hang around, they're just not going to invest very much in you. And so it wasn't even personal. It wasn't like oh, they're being discriminatory. It's just they were being you know, they had tunnel vision on this is the kind of person they saw on the host chair. This is the kind of person they saw that saw as a producer. This is the kind of person they saw as, you know, something to build around. And I just wasn't one of those people. But I was there and I was a good you know, utility player. But the beauty of it is you kind of when no one's paying attention to you, you can kind of just roam around and do what you want to do in terms of that. So I always had lots of time to go ask like the old guys at ESPN, you know, 1500 like how does the how does this equipment worker? How did you guys do this back in the day and then I could hang out and ask my producer like Hey, what are those buttons do I won't touch anything but how do you do that? You know and even like I was I was essentially a producer from day one on my show. And I didn't know, like I had, I had an aptitude for it, I just didn't know how to rein it in. So we would have a two hour show every weekend, the max number of stories on a two hour show. Because you have, like, 415 minute, you know, increments, you know, and then over two hours, the max number of shows if you're doing like, three per, you know, three per, you know, opportunities, like 24 shows. So that made 24 stories over the course of two hours, I would come prepared with, like, 75 shows every weekend. I mean, 75, like, talking points every weekend, I'd be like, we could do these 75 stories. And I exhausted everybody, like my co host was like, Girl, no, the producer would be like, we're not gonna do all this, just just choose, just figure this out. And we had gotten assigned an older gentleman who was like a producer. And he was kind of like, you know, like, old people love to, to older people love to tell you what they're good at. And they love to talk about their work. And I was like, I don't want to be bad at this. And he was like, Okay, well, they don't. And I was like, why don't really know how not to be bad at it. And he was like, well, you want to break down the show. So I would do two hours live every Saturday. And then on Sunday, I would call him and break down the show minute by minute. And he would tell me, you took too long to get into the show like 30 seconds in you got to get to content, you can't be talking about the web for two minutes. Or if we did an interview like some sometimes we get an actual interview because we were we didn't know etiquette or rules. So we would just like we wouldn't even DM people we would be on Twitter, like outwardly saying you should come be on our show like ridiculous humans. And it was sometimes it would work. And you know, and then we would get discombobulated. Like I don't know how to handle talking to a famous person. And he'd be like, just act like you've been there before. They're here because they need you not because, you know, it's it's a mutual exchange. You know, and then like even learning simple things, like giving the audience a job, like never open the phone lines on a live radio show until the audience call and tell me what you think. Because everybody's like, it's my time to shine. You got to give them a job, it's red or blue, it's dog or cat? It's yes or no, right? Give them a purpose and let them stick to the purpose. And so as I started to learn that, I was able to apply that to the skill set, I already had this organizational skill set and this ability to kind of tell what is a good story and how to, you know, what's a good angle on a story? And then I just really listened. You know, I would you know, when they sales would have a meeting and they say, you know, anybody when comes to sales meeting, I'll come the sales meeting, you know, does anybody want to, you know, show up? And do you know, like, we're doing a remote recording here. Okay, I'll, my friends are going to be there. I'll go. And I wouldn't just go to support my friends and be I'm happy to be there. But I'd be watching like, how did you set up the equipment? How did you set up the booth? How did you? What are you doing? And I just kept learning. So by the time I hit four years, and I knew I wasn't really going anywhere else, there wasn't anywhere else for me to go. It kind of converged with i It was time for me to leave. And at the same time, they were starting to format change, they were skewing younger and younger, which is what media does. It just wants younger, faster, newer, you know, they think Young Money is always better than older money. And I just knew that wasn't true. The core demo at the time was my demo, middle age women, you know, we we feel good about ourselves. We have we're living a good life, we've got disposable income, but people don't seem to recognize that around us. And I just it just started to really sit and take a hold of my gut like we could something like this should exist for us. We shouldn't just keep getting ignored or pushed aside or told we're not relevant anymore. And probably the last year I was at the station, I was sort of complaining to everybody that you know, like it didn't it didn't start out that way. It was like, let's have a conversation. And now I'm ranting about what women deserve. And finally, I happened to rant one night in front of a gentleman who was who we were working with. And after I finished I was like, I'm sorry. I'll get off the soapbox. And he goes, No, I think that's a fantastic idea. And if you're serious about doing it, I'd invest in it. And you know, and I went seriously. And he's like, Yeah, and I went home that night and tried to prove he does not need to give me a dime. I literally went home and tried to disprove it. I went to Google and I typed in women's Podcast Network. And this was 2016. Nothing came up. Google never comes up blank. It came up blank. And then I went, Oh, crap. Like if I was like, what would I even call it? And I was like, Oh, well, I mean, I like to boss everybody around. I call it matriarch. And I type that in there. And matriarch had a trademark for a restaurant in DC that was closed and like a public relations firm in South Africa. And I was like, okay, it can't, it can't just be matriarch. That doesn't make sense. And it doesn't sound like it's like, it doesn't sound like it's cool enough or whatever. Let me fix it. And so I played around and came up with major digital media. Nothing existed. The domains were available, the socials were available. The trademark was available all it just felt like it was a sign and I went back to him then next day and said, if you're serious, I'm serious, we'll sit down and iron this out. And and he came on as a silent partner, it took, I think about seven months, it took seven months to negotiate that deal. And he's still a silent partner to this day. And he's been instrumental in helping us grow the business in terms of being an advisor, and, you know, a person and emissary who will introduce us to people when we need to on occasion, but but he's been wonderful in the idea of understanding this is my vision, and this is I know how to execute it, and is always just sort of proudly been in the background going, I trust you, just where you know, you keep moving forward, it's going fine. And every once in a while, as a business, as someone who's been in business, he'll pull me aside and go, Okay, so we got to think about like, tax implications, or we got to, you know, like small things that I didn't know, as an entrepreneur, but he was really helpful, you know, and helping me get my sea legs under me. And that gave me the confidence to pursue the business info. Now, I'll be really honest, I didn't even know what to ask for, to start when we started the business, so I didn't even ask for enough to pay myself, I really just asked her enough to buy equipment, which is nutty. But I didn't know any better. I just knew if I could get the equipment, and I could, I had all these people I knew I could, it would be great. If I could just get the the resources around us, we could go make things. And I mean, we did we we shot out the box and started making shows. We secured our first sponsorships within the first six months of the deal. And we've been we've really been rolling ever since.

Alban: 16:28

I love this lesson that now I've seen in both of these stories that it's very easy for us to like water down our vision because we don't want people to hear like, here's what I want to be doing with my life. And a lot of people go Yeah, I don't think that's a good idea. You should do like a boring, normal thing. And twice, you've got stories of you kind of just said like, here's what I'd like to be doing. And a bunch of times we went okay, I don't care. And then you hit two people who lead Oh, you want to be talking and and people to listen to you about pop culture? Yeah, actually, that's a job and I could hook you up with the person who could do it. And somebody else goes, Oh, you have this passion for elevating women? Well, actually, I would invest in that company. So I love like just being unabashedly you and saying what you want, has actually led to both of those kind of coming to fruition? Well, I'll

Twila: 17:21

be honest, it didn't. It's not my default setting it to you know, to just go okay, I'm going to proceed something I say all the time. And I say it with absolutely no apology whatsoever that the only reason I could do any of this is because I became a stay at home mom. And the level of freedom and fearlessness that came from being a parent translates to everything I do now in my life. Like I used to care deeply what other people thought and how I conducted myself in the world and what people thought of status. And when you stay at home with kids, the the X the muscles you exercise and use as a parent, especially in that vacuum of like stay at home mom parenting or stay at home parenting. It's just if you if you embrace it, you're you'll never find another freedom like, and now I'm just refused to let any other part of my life not live at that level. Right? Like I actually like I tell people all the time, you can't say anything to me. I made humans like I made them. I actually created actual humans, and they're and I'm helping them become like the kind of people in the world that I hope can carry the torch for all of us and take care of all of us and the mistakes that we make they're good people. And knowing that and knowing if any part of that, you know, is it just gives you an limited confidence and unlimited. This unlimited ability to look at things to go you know what this, this isn't that hard was I already knew what's the worst that can happen in the radio job, I get fired. You know, how many times I've been fired? Who cares? You know, and even when you know, the money when when we got the investment money, it was, you know, yeah, I think it was afraid to ask for more than that, because I just didn't understand and wasn't comfortable with the, you know, as an entrepreneur with what that meant. I didn't even call myself an entrepreneur at first. But I was brave enough to go. But if you give me something, I'm going to make it work. I'm going to I'm going to use it to the nth degree, I'm going to maximize those resources. I'm going to maximize the people in my life and the people that I know would be great at this and we're going to make something fantastic together. Or we're going to have this amazing story to tell about the time we flamed out when we try to start a business. Like I'm not like I'm just unafraid to pick myself back up if things go wrong now.

Alban: 19:35

So I want to jump into some of the shows you're making with matriarch digital media. Can I kind of just name them and then you tell us what they are? Absolutely. Okay. So you just kind of hinted at this one. So I'm going to jump down to the bottom. So fail.

Twila: 19:51

Oh, so So fail so good is one of the super proud of the show. So it's the idea of it is we don't talk about failure and tough as it is like we just don't talk about failure, we like to skim past it. It's an uncomfortable feeling. It's an uncomfortable experience. But particularly for women, when we don't talk about failure, it's, it's harmful to us, because we will internalize it. And we won't think we failed at something, we'll think we are failures at everything. And we wanted to help do something to take some of that away. So we started to have a conversation. Laura ruse is the host, and she's amazing. And she had a business, and that she started years ago, and it failed, like spectacularly failed. And it took her a long time to get brave enough to try again. But she did get to that point where she wanted to try again, and she wanted to help other women not have that same sort of length of time in between something went wrong, and you pick yourself back up. So we just started to have a conversation, we went around, and we found these amazing women who had done all kinds of things. I mean, when we started this as an idea, we thought, nobody's gonna want to talk to us about how they fail, they're just gonna want to talk to us about, you know, like how they, they're gonna want to talk about it, like it's a footnote in their lives. But instead, every single woman was really willing to get into it with us, like, I failed, it hurt, it felt like this, it was hard to get past it, it was, this was all the stuff that was sort of tied into it. And it brought up other things I didn't think about, and then eventually, I was able to work through it. And now I'm on the other side, I'm working my way to the other side. And I'm so proud of how it turned out. I mean, we had conversations with, you know, with remarkable women, like women who had national syndicated talk shows, and the talk shows, you know, went away, we talked to a woman who was an Emmy winning writer on Mad Men who at one point, her career had her career had derailed so significantly, that she and her husband had to move in with his mom to make ends meet. And this is only a couple years, like before she got, you know, a few years before she got mad men, you know, but hearing their stories, it just reminds you of two things. One, we all fail at something. We all sometimes it's not as bright or spectacular, but it feels like it is it when you fail at something, even the smallest thing it feels like it's everything. But you can actually, it's actually okay. And you actually can learn from it. And you can actually benefit from it. And you can actually move on and find the level of success that you want for yourself through it. But you can't do that unless you actually go through the failure. You can't just pretend like it doesn't exist or just push it off. Because it'll just hold you hostage.

Alban: 22:28

Yeah, that's awesome. I love sometimes people talk about failure is like, you're just discovering something that doesn't work right now. It all day. There's so many things that can work, but we don't know which they will be until we start trying. And then we will go okay, that's one of the things that doesn't work. No big deal. Me being a lawyer was one of the things that didn't work. Me being a teacher, it was one of things that didn't work, I had to keep trying different things until one popped up that went Oh, actually, I'm pretty good. This marketing thing. This is where mistake

Twila: 22:58

Well, my kids, one of my kids favorite teachers that they had used to always tell the kids in class who's an elementary teacher, that failing is okay. Because it's an opportunity to learn what you didn't know before. And I was always like, that's, that's such a good way of putting it because my kids would come home and they would feel bad about something and I just be like, go get them kiddo. Like I wouldn't understand how to like how to give it context and room to you know, to grow. But she did. She just always did that beautifully. So I and I love that we get to do that with our show where we're almost finished with the second season. And a lot of the failure stories we're talking about this time are directly tied to you know, things that happened to people during COVID and how it impacted their businesses or how they had to completely shift gears or how they just lost things. But the women are so beautifully resilient. And so, you know, just they you know, they're not saying they're not Pollyanna about it at all. It's not like, oh, I came on the other side. It's like, this is tough, and sometimes it sucks. But I'm still here. And I think sometimes that's the most important thing is to be able to plant your feet in the ground to go I'm still here, even the middle of it. Yeah, that's

Alban: 24:04

an incredible message. So let's jump into some of these other we've got six more shows, right? Yeah, there's

Twila: 24:09

six. There's six right now there's two there's still two more coming that haven't been released to the public yet. So So endocast. So the endocast to talk about the endocast. We actually need to jump back and talk about the guy No cast. So the guy No casts are certainly gonna It's our flagship show. It was the first show that we made at matriarch. It is a show that focuses on women's emotional and physical health and well being. I'm sort of the voice of the audience, and the voice of like the patient. And Dr. Eric keyguard is a 25 year veteran, OBGYN and pain specialist. And so we talk about anything that had to do with gynecology. We just wanted to demystify two things. We wanted to demystify some of what makes you afraid to go to a doctor and talk candidly and openly with your doctor. But we also really wanted to teach women to be advocates for their own health. Really Understanding that doctors work for you, you're not you know, you're not, you're not there to serve them, they're there to serve you. And if you're, that's customer service, if you have a doctor that makes you feel less than makes you feel bad or guilty for any part of your health and health journey, let them go, they can be fired, you can replace them, you can find someone better to serve your needs. And we talk a lot about that. And in the course of doing that show, Eric has a very particular focus and passion for helping women with endometriosis, which is far oftentimes, under diagnosed. Even more often treated like it takes it takes like eight to 10 average steps of really invasive treatment before you figure out that we were wrong about this. It's actually Endo. I mean, women who would go through multiple surgeries, or years and years and years of pain and being told oh, that's just how periods are. Oh, that's just that's just how it is. And it really isn't. It's endometriosis. Even doctors who practice don't always know how to identify Endo. So we wind up doing spin off podcast based on the work that he does, called the endo cast, and Eric is on it. And we have another host who is an advocate, a tireless advocate, her name is Britt four and she's uh, she has endometriosis herself. And she's not just an advocate for herself. And for women. She's an advocate for people who have periods because not every person who has a period is a woman. And so we really talk about, you know, pain management and understanding how to get treatment and understanding the psychological and the impact on relationships that endo can have on a person. There's a whole life, you live as a person with endometriosis, and we want to make sure that we're helping you address all of those areas. So I'm really, really proud of both of those shows, but I'm incredibly proud of what we've been able to do so far with endocast?

Alban: 26:48

Yeah, that's incredible. I think there's so many shows that we've seen come up, especially shows that center on a specific diagnosis, or a chronic health condition, a lot, we've also seen about specific cancers that are really, really valuable, because sometimes when you're going through something, especially if it's like a rare disease, and I'll send you get this diagnosis, and you go, Okay, well, this is overwhelming, and then you're going well, now, how am I going to deal with it? There's a lot of people who have started podcasts around, hey, this, my child died of this very specific heart condition. And so now I'm talking about this heart condition. So if anybody else is going through it, they kind of have this built in community through a podcast where they could be, meet and connect, you know, digitally with people who are going through something similar. So it's a

Twila: 27:45

really, it's one of the main focuses of why we do what we do with our shows. We know that a lot of what we talk about around women is vulnerable. We don't have free and open spaces, just discuss it. societally. We've been taught not to focus on certain things that we should have shame or embarrassment around it. And the podcast gives you this really unique opportunity to be vulnerable in a safe way, in a way that you feel comfortable engaging, nobody has to know that you're listening to something about this, no one has to know it's not like when used to read a bodice Ripper on the bus and you could see I'm reading a romance. You can go look up something that's deeply personal to you that you need information about that you're afraid. You know, you might be struggling or on your own with it and that you could find a resource and then you can engage in that resource where you feel most safe, most comfortable to do it. We strive to make sure everything that we do helps support women and is an provides ways for women to be actionable with what they're learning. Like if you're listening to Doncaster endocast, I want you to be able to be empowered to go ask your doctor questions, or go find a better doctor, or advocate for yourself in a you know, in terms of pain management, or have that difficult conversation with your family about why you don't always engage at the holidays, because it takes too much energy from you. You should not you shouldn't just be able to have a SCO like solidarity sister, we get it. We also want you to be able to have tools that you can add, you know, to help, you know, support yourself, because everybody deserves that everybody deserves to be able to live the best life that they can.

Alban: 29:16

Yeah, absolutely. You have another show called me before mom.

Twila: 29:20

Yes, I was actually just texting with her a little bit ago. So Bert is a host. She's a very successful blogger. She's been a mom, blogger for like, almost 10 years now. And she has a really specific passion for people wanting people to understand and particularly moms to understand that you there was a person that you were before kids came along. Not everyone has the experience with kids that I had. I had a like my brain just kind of clicked in it was like up, I became the person I was supposed to be when they showed up. A lot of people were fully formed fully baked, felt really good about themselves, and then they added kids and they kind of lost touch with themselves. She wants people to get reconnected to that. And sometimes that's understand Adding how you're doing that actively in your parenting, sometimes that's understanding how to take time away from your kids. Sometimes that's understanding what those transitions look like, because your kids really need you when they're infants in a, you know, it's life or death. But then when they're, you know, six and seven, and they're getting on that bus to school, and they don't want to hug you goodbye anymore, they kind of want to, you know, they need to put some distance, or even when they start to become teenagers, and they really need some, you know, physical and emotional distance from you. It that's a tough transition, all of those transitions are tough. And Burt talks about that she talks about it in the everyday she talks about it in the short term, and in the long term. And ultimately, she just wants you to remember that you were a, there was a person you were before your kids came along, and they you deserve to connect to that and your kids deserve the best version of you. And getting back to that person will help you be that best version.

Alban: 30:48

When I was born 35 years ago, since then, I think my mom has always had at least one of her five children living at home. And so I often think about when you and all five of us were homeschooled for a good portion of our schooling. And so I think, you know, thought about her when I was reading about that podcast quite a bit about all that we all know about her before. We all started coming around, and then how much we have like dominated her personality. Now as she's now going back to reconnecting with a lot of who she was before. All the Brooke kids jumped into the picture.

Twila: 31:27

That's why and that's the thing. That's it's that. I mean, I even say, like the fact that my business started at the point at which it started. And my kids were a little older. I had a friend who's a mom who said, You know what, you you timed that perfectly. And I was like, I don't understand she goes because you're going to build this business and get into the trajectory of it. And it's going to start to hit its stride right as your kids start to leave. And then you're not going to feel unmoored because you're going to have a part of yourself that was invested in something instead of just being invested in them because they deserve the freedom to detach. And you deserve the freedom to have a sense of self away from them. And she's absolutely right. I mean, we're six years into the business, my son leaves for college next week. And I have as emotional as it is, I do have something that I'm more to I do have something that is mine that that is me outside of being his mom of being really proud of him and being really proud of his process. I have a process of my own. And so when we sit we talk about like where we're all going next, I have somewhere to go next to I'm not just sitting here trying to figure out like what's next for me. I know what's next for me. I'm already in it.

Alban: 32:32

So let's run through these other ones good about tons of others questions they ask you I don't want to read through all the time.

Twila: 32:38

I'll give you the logline. The 32nd mess in the kitchen I'm a mess. I'm a mess in the kitchen is a food show for anybody that wants to be more comfortable in the kitchen but are intimidated by the kitchen. We don't want you to be we want you to get in there and try stuff. Our two hosts are longtime associates of Andrew Zimmern. One is his right hand at Food works his company and the other one hosted a podcast with him for years called Go fork yourself. And the Yeah, the message is really simple. Get in the kitchen and try things and if it all goes wrong, that's what frozen pizza is for.

Alban: 33:09

Excellent. Molly may plus.

Twila: 33:11

Okay, so Molly Mae is this wunderkind of human being I met her at a plus size event. We were doing an event for like Instagram influencers who happen to be plus size women. And someone asked Molly, like just an audience questions like I don't how do you? How do you not like, I don't understand how to be confident like this, I don't understand how to not to let the world you know, make me feel bad about being fat. And I didn't even know Molly at this point. I just we were just in the same room. And she said, Hey, let me answer that question. And I'll you if you have to edit feel free because it was a little colorful. But she said, listen, fuck them. You deserve to have the best life possible in whatever body you're in. And don't let anybody else take that away from you. And in that moment, I said, I need to know who she is. And I need to talk to her right now. And a week later, we had coffee. We talked for three hours. And by the end of three hours, I said, Listen, I think you're great. And I think we could make something really exciting together. Let's try. And that's what we do. And she does this wonderful, joyous podcast about her life and about being plus sized and about owning that and living in it. And yes, there are difficulties. And yes, she's really candid about it. But she speaks about her life and her love of clothes and her love of design and her love of everything with a place of pure joy. And we don't allow for people who don't look like the traditional shape or size we think, to have that experience. We always want to shame them for that experience. And Molly refuses to be shamed for it and it makes her better and it makes everybody else around her better for it. Well, that's incredible. And I love her dearly. She's one of my favorite humans.

Alban: 34:45

So last show this at least out now Twyla and Natalie.

Twila: 34:50

Yeah, so that's So Natalie when I told the radio story, Natalie was my second radio partner. We had a show at my talk and we talked about gossip But that was not the fun part. For us. Our favorite part of our show was the hour before the show, where we would actually talk about ourselves in our lives and the messiness. And so when when the network started to come together, I called her and I said, Okay, I got a crazy idea. You know, that like our that we would spend like gossiping before the show? And she goes, Yeah, so what if we turned that into a podcast? And she was like, I'm so in. And so we really just talk about the experience of being a grown woman like all the trials and tribulations we ask a question that, you know, that's kind of bugging us. We talk about our experiences around it. And then we hopefully, hopefully, it'll give you as the as an audience. You know, some solidarity, and maybe even some practical like, you can go out in the world, like, our very first episode was, are we having a midlife crisis? Because we both got, like, 40 year old tattoos, just out of nowhere. And we were both like, everybody around us thinks we're crazy. Let's talk it out. And so and that's what we do every single week. And why do I bring my experience to the table, and Natalie brings her experience to the table, but she even has a unique layer under her experience, and that she grew up in the Church of Scientology, and was managed to get out of the church and bring her whole family with her. And when I tell you that she is the embodiment of somebody who is joy, she says all the time, the church tried to take my joy, they can't have another ounce of it. And she's also like, I would say, arguably, like seven years ahead of her journey as a parent and you know, as a grown woman than I am. And so sometimes I think I'm the wise sage, and I know things and then sometimes I hit a wall on something. And I'm like, Okay, wait, you've got older kids. So does this workout like this is really workout? And you know, and we're just very, we have a great camaraderie. And it translates, I hope it translates really well to the podcast.

Alban: 36:43

Well, do you want to give us a sneak peek at what else you have coming? Because you say you have two more? Yeah,

Twila: 36:47

we do. So we have a show that's going to be starting soon called Blink cuts. And it's really just a blunt conversation about womanhood and being a woman and the experience of it. And the host, Christine is a Christina is just like great in terms of, she's really, she has this uncanny ability to talk about life experience, not just centered on from her perspective, but in a way that makes you go Yeah, I'm I'm going through that too. But sometimes we just don't allow ourselves to cut through the fat and just say, call the thing a thing and talk about it. And Christina does that really, really well. And so I'm excited to she was making the podcast before she brought it to our network. And we're excited to build it out with her. And then we're doing another show. This is kind of our first real foray into like a younger territory. The show's called younger, but wiser, and Ripley writer is a clothing designer out of LA. And she's also the founder of Camp Rocky Road, which is a camp for young women to like, help builds confidence and self esteem. And so we did 10 episodes with young women from around the country. And what we wanted was for them to tell us what they really do understand about being people about being in the world about things that are important to them, because I think we underestimate what teenagers and young people actually understand about the human experience. Every single one of these girls were remarkable and how they shared, you know, they all got to sort of pick that something they want to focus on. And then we talked to him. And when I tell you, I was sitting there taking notes, like how did I not? Like do we, we we have an understanding that we are that confident when we're that young. But somehow we let the world take it away from us, we let it sort of beat it out of us. And they're still in the point where they get it and it's thorough, and it's bone deep. And these younger generations are holding on to that in a way that we weren't able to. We were Gen Xers or even Millennials like these Gen Z kids get it in there. And it's it's exciting to watch. But it's even better to hear because it feels like it, it feels like it opens you back up and you remember you you could be that confident to where you can be that thoughtful or that kind or that purposeful to and hearing it come out of the mouth of a young person makes it all the better because it ultimately feels like The Kids Are All Right.

Alban: 38:58

It always remarkable to me when you read like a really good book or you listen to a really good song. And every once in a while. I have this experience where I go oh, when she wrote that she was like, half my age, right? You know that this isn't a song by a 17 year old. And you go wait. Everyone is like actually really smart and really wise it much younger age than we like want to give people credit for a lot of like, our greatest art is from people from like aged 17 to 23 before like the world was saying like, Oh no, you don't know what love is. You don't know what this is like you don't know anything. Just wait. It's almost like this. The cynicism might set in later. And so there's a lot of emotions and stuff and wisdom that can come out of a much younger person. Well, that's a cool idea for

Twila: 39:56

sure. I'll tell you I'm biased because one of the replies reached out to a lot of girls. And she asked if she could reach out to my daughter, I have a 17 year old daughter. And I was like, you can ask her if she's gonna say no. And she didn't. She did an interview for us. And when I tell you, I was unprepared for how, you know, deeply thorough, she had thought about the things she had thought about. And I'm very close to my kids. But it's different when you when someone else's engaging them. And they're getting to express themselves in a way that is, the way they present the way they present themselves to the world and the way that they want to share information with the world. And I mean, I made the huge mistake of saying I'll do the audio capture, it'll be easier because we're both in the same house. And I literally like cried through the whole audio because I was so proud of her. And I was so surprised at how deeply heartfelt she was about the things she was talking about. And I was like, okay, lesson notes itself. I can't do any interviews around any of my kids Note to self, because she was I mean, she was great. They're all the girls are great. But I'm I'm very, very excited for people to hear it.

Alban: 40:57

So kind of pulling together all these shows that you've done for matriarch digital media, can you help explain to a lot of people are listening to because I think a lot of people are doing solo podcasts. And they probably don't love the feeling of doing this on their own. And I know that it's often enticing to say, I want to be part of a network, I want to connect with other podcasters. Could you kind of give us some of the pros and cons, the ways you think about starting a network or an actual company around a series of podcasts.

Twila: 41:30

So for us, the funny thing is when we started our network, everybody was like this is not a good idea. You know, women isn't an actual vertical. In podcasting. It's true. It's not, it's still not, you can't like go look at women is content, you'll get titles, but it's not a vertical. And so we had to really think like what were we trying to accomplish with this when grouping the shows together. And I knew what we were trying to accomplish, I wanted our shows to do two things. On a very basic surface level, I wanted you to feel like when you show up at brunch with all your best girlfriends, and you don't know what you need, when you get there, you might need a drink, you might need a laugh, you might need some advice you might need, you know, so a referral, something. But when you leave that table, you feel better than when you got there. And I knew if we were making shows and the core of those shows is that we help women every single time with the content we provide that no matter where you find yourself in our shows, there's something for you, and it will help you. So in terms of how you frame out a network, I think I think that it's important to either have an overall connector to those shows that can't be so disparate and disconnected, that it just feels like you know, a hodgepodge. I think a lot of the more recent networks that you're seeing pop up where they kind of talk about maybe one particular type of industry and then have different spins on it. I think those are very smart, because it does allow you to hone in really quickly on who is our core audience? And are we hitting the core audience when we're building the product? If you're doing something, it's all fashion, then yeah, I say all the time, if I show up to for a podcast and you say you're going to talk to me about clothes, don't talk to me about puppies. Talk to me about clothes, right, it makes sense. Our idea was a little bit more high minded. And we knew that we knew we were going to have to teach you how to use our programming. And it's actually a thing I talk about in podcasting a lot. Because we don't teach enough people how to use podcasts, we teach them that they exist, but not how they can use them in their lives. So when you're thinking about a network, really think about, you know, be audience forward. Think about what the audience that use your core audience needs to get from you don't think about what I want to give you or what I want to present to you or what I think should exist. Think about what the audience really needs, what's the hole in the market, what could really be? What could what could be a saw a pain point solver for, you know, for your audience overall, figure that out, and then all of a sudden, it'll be easier to pinpoint, like this show would be great for our network, or this person would be really great fit for our network. At the same time, if you're solo, and you're thinking about joining a network, you need to put your best interests first period and a story. I don't own every show at my network. If you brought your idea to me and your idea was fully formed or you it was a part of your business or you had this idea fully baked and you came to me because you need support on how to make this into a podcast. I don't deserve ownership of it. IP is the most important thing you have. And if anybody is telling you to join a network, and that the only way you can be here or be a part of is if you give up your IP or you give up a significant chunk of your ownership to them. They're not the people to be in business with you can do this on your own. You can even do like podcast collectors where it's not necessarily a network but you've got a group of podcasts all working together and help advance each other you know, sharing best practices, sharing skills, sharing support, putting in resources to be able to rent equipment or rent spaces, whatever that is. You can do whatever you need to do, it's not necessarily the case that joining a network will improve your life necessarily. Because honestly, you'll still be doing the same volume of work. Hopefully, you'll get more marketing support, more, you know, maybe financial underpinnings, support, access to equipment, things like that. But that's not a given with any you know, given network that you join, do your due diligence, make decisions that are best for you, ask real questions. And then make sure anything you sign your name to you have read in triplicate, and had your trusted people read in triplicate, and even have a lawyer if you need one. Try read things in triplicate, make sure you're making the deal that's best for you. But that protects you, you should be able to leave a network with whatever you brought to a network, period. And if that's not the case, on paper, don't sign a deal.

Alban: 45:49

Yeah, we recently saw this kind of in the media play out between gimlet and the nod

Twila: 45:54

very, very much. So.

Alban: 45:57

Yeah, and just the ability, you know, if you do leave a network, or you want to continue to show after the network decides that they're not going to be invested anymore? Are you going to be able to leave? Are you gonna be able to have the same title the same feed, which is all the subscribers? The back episodes that? Well, I mean, if you're not going to continue the show, like what are the back episodes mean to you just to leave them there and no one ever touch them again? Yeah, all that stuff is becoming much more apparent. I mean, when I practice law, one of the things that we kept seeing was, we always were the ones coming in at the very end of a business deal gone bad. And they would always say, especially because we're in the south, well, the way I always did business was with a handshake, right? People kept their word. And we all knew what we all knew, and everyone treated each other well, until they didn't. And people's memories are different. And people's expectations that were unspoken, are different. That is the benefit of like putting things in a contract. It's not to trick anyone, hopefully, you don't have to feel like it's starting on a bad foot. By putting things in a contract, what you're doing is saying, hey, just to be clear, here's what I'm bringing the table, here's what you're bringing to the table, here's the benefits for yours, the benefits for me. And if we have to break up some day, here's how we'll do it in an amicable way. And if everybody can get on board with that, then you're gonna make your life so much easier. For the entire relationship. I

Twila: 47:28

mean, a contract is a is the worst case scenario played out on paper, period. And there's nothing wrong with that there's nothing wrong with bad thinking about when things are good thinking about what's the worst that could happen and how what we get out of it. Because that way, when the worst does happen, and your feelings are involved, you've got a roadmap. And the roadmap is signed and agreed upon by everybody, there is no rocking around it. And it's important. I mean, the thing with podcasting is a lot of us getting into it, don't have business backgrounds, we're not entrepreneurs, we're not even media people initially. And if you happen upon something that starts to do well and gets traction and can gain, you know, revenue or trajectory for you, you deserve to be able to have control over what that looks like. Don't let people convince you that you're not capable of doing things on your own. You are capable. You can most of this is these are choices, do you? am I choosing to do this by myself? am I choosing to gather a team? am I choosing to go to a network, it's still your choice first, nobody else's, it's your choice. And you have to exercise that when you seed and here's the thing, it's a I saw a clip not too long ago, it was Ava DuVernay talking about like permission culture. And she was explaining like, if you know, a lot of us wait for permission to do things, we wait for somebody to show up and tell us how, or give us the money or walk us through it or hold our hand. And that's not going to happen. If you actually want to get you know, from point A to point B, if you actually want the thing that's the vision in your head to exist in the world, you got to go make make it you got to go start, you got to go try, you might make mistakes, you might fail at it, you might need to start over again. That's okay. But when you wait for somebody else and you cede power as soon as you can to somebody else, that's your power, you're saying to them don't do that. You deserve to own your own power, you deserve to own your own voice. And again, in this industry, IP is the strongest part of your voice because that IP means you will keep control of your RSS feed, you will keep control of the ability to monetize and make money off of the digital product you created. Don't give that to anybody else. Nobody else deserves that.

Alban: 49:28

Yeah, we actually just saw this again, I'm thinking of other things in the industry. Call her daddy leaving our school sports and going to Spotify. Had she not set it up that she got to keep the feed. She had to keep the IP that deal never could happen, right? Because the real benefit that you have is like being able to take those subscribers with you to where you're going be able to keep the name so people remember. Oh, this is actually a continuation of the old show. It's very difficult if you get cut off, and you have to rebuild that entire audience from scratch, you have to rebuild, you know, all the subscribers, and especially if for some reason you don't even, you aren't even able to say the name of your old show, which has happened to a pretty big podcaster that I know pretty much got cut off from his own show, remember that he ended up having to rebuild it, and can't even speak the name of the show that he basically created. And

Twila: 50:28

that's, I mean, that's so important. We still see it now. I mean, we still see I still get occasional calls of people saying, Oh, I got a chance. Somebody offered me the chance to be on this network. But they said I had to pay, like 5000 to join the network. And I was like, No, you don't. And they're like, I mean, but they said, I said, Okay, well, I'm telling you don't do that. That's a bad deal. Don't take that deal. Let's get you what you need, you know, what's what's make you think you need to join a network, and they're like, Well, I just can't do this by myself anymore. Okay, well, then let's talk about what you can do. Let's talk about how to get your resources, let's talk about how to maybe use better technology that you didn't realize you had access to. To make it easier to do this. I mean, we did everything here, initially, by hook or by crook. And I still do a lot of business by you know, I still rob Peter to pay Paul and hope Mary shows up with a check. But it's ours. It's not anybody else's, it's ours. Right. And you should be able to have the autonomy to do that. And the one thing about podcasting that I have found to be wonderful, is, you can go find those people who will help you, you can go find those networks of people that will support you, or point you to resources, or free learning, or, you know, or who are sharing massive amounts of information. And like the stuff that you guys do at Buzzsprout is really important. The work that you see come out of air in terms of like, fair pricing is important, the work that POCs and audio is doing to connect more workers, you know, and to the industry is important. But all of these things are here. Sometimes you just need like to meet somebody like me, who can say, oh, did you know this? Or did you try this? Or did you find this? And that's why we do a lot of the work that we do, because I want you to have the resources because I want you to be out here too. I say all the time we all eat. I want all of us to win this. Yeah,

Alban: 52:07

absolutely. There's definitely more than more than enough space, if, you know, we're all working together. And we're seeing this not as like a zero sum game that we can all like this is a growing industry that's been growing rapidly. For 10 years, plus, there is a lot more space, there's a lot more space to grow. And the more that we are educating and teaching each other and elevating each other, we can everybody can have a podcast that wants to have a podcast everybody can have and find their own unique voice. And this industry has enough space for everybody. We don't have to feel like well, my show. If there's another show that's doing really well, then that's probably taking away from me, no, there's probably like six spots for six shows like that. There's a lot more space than

Twila: 52:56

we will and I'm a big advocate now for the industry has enough of a growth cycle that there's room for you to do this, even if a podcast isn't the thing that you want to be doing. Like you might not want to be a host, you might not want to be the person that captures audio, we have an entire side of our industry that is administrative and technical and sales and marketing based. And technology based. You can you can find a really great place to fit in, right, there's there's all kinds of work out here. You just have to figure out what's your niche, what's the thing you want to be doing, and figure out how you can do it in the industry. I have people that work for my company, they don't cut any tape, they don't do any recording. But they're master organizers, and they keep all they keep the trains running at our company. You know, we have people who just love editing and that's all they do is edit, we have increasingly people coming on board who you know, understand, you know, design and optics and things like that. And they're helping us get the company where we need it to be. The industry absolutely is growing. And that means there are more fields opening up within the industry. I mean, it's it's why I love seeing what what Brian Barletta is doing with like sounds profitable, because he's explaining what that back end technical side of the industry looks like and what it means and how to get engaged and how to understand it to be able to get hired in the industry. Those are jobs. They're not just it's not just like when we samma to start a podcast and hopefully monetize these are like jobs waiting in our industry right now that people need to be filling. And now you can go away. I'm good at that. I know how to do that, Oh, I get a job. That's important. That's for an industry to grow and have longevity. It needs to be able to have that kind of dynamism we're starting to see it. Now. We also have to be smart enough to recognize it as it's happening. Am I making sure that more Am I making sure to expose it to more people am I saying hey, you can get involved in this too or hey, I think you'd be great for this you know before I used to be always on the hunt for a good host you like you'd be a great host you'd be a great podcast host you should have podcast and now I'm equally on the hunt for you be great at analytics for podcasting or you be great at you know, you'd be great at the sales and technical side of podcasting. You'd be great at Marketing for podcasting, you know, all you know, wait, you know, SEO? Dude, you should get a job over here, this would be great. That's important. I mean, that's how I'm a big advocate for the industry growing so that there's more opportunities for all of us. But I also want us to have a say in the industry as it grows.

Alban: 55:18

Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of the things you're seeing right now keep kind of tying me back to your background and understanding of radio. And I think podcasting is very easy for us to think we're very different from radio because like, oh, no, this is like, there's something going on an RSS feed is not over like a radio tower. There are a lot of differences. There's a lot of similarities. What can podcasting learn from radio?

Twila: 55:48

Pot, the thing that I'm actually one of those people that fully believes that, that podcasting or radio are like this, they're not these two desperate things. It's, it's just like, when you see the you know, like the, that is like that old drawing of like, you know, modern man is starts out as like, you know, he's on four, you know, he's on four feet, and then he's on two legs, and he's running. That's us. That's exactly what we're just an evolution of the thing that came before it. But one of the strongest things that radio does that podcasting doesn't always know how to do is talk to. It's very, very good at talking to the masses with specificity. Podcasting doesn't really do that yet. We do. We were still in the, okay, like how to best describe this. So you know, when you're a kid, you get a skateboard. And then all your kids, all the kids, and they get a skateboard. And then everybody's just trying to do like, you know, you know, kick flips and stuff. And they're like, look, I'm all everybody keeps trying to do a statin they're following in their head. And then there's like, one person who comes out with a skateboard, but then they're like dad is with them, or their mom is with them. And they used to ride skateboards, and they actually show them how to balance on a skateboard. And they show them how to get momentum on the skateboard. They showed them how to position a body on the skateboard. So instead of just like trying to do something interesting, so you can say it's interesting. They're teaching them fundamental. Radio is very good at fundamental. And they and because they're so good at fundamental, that makes it very easy to replicate product, and structurally replicate product in a way they can be successful. Like I hear a podcast or slag on like morning show host all the time. But morning shows are successful, because they understand the formula of how a morning show feels and how it works within the context of a commute. When you're a podcast, and you make something and you want it to be able to fit within the confines, or be be accessible within the confines of certain things, you can't just decide I'm going to do a bunch of kick flips, and you'll just like it, you got to go back to the fundamental, and you got to figure out how you can sometimes do that cool thing, but within the structure of the fundamental, we were still over here in the corner going like, I'm gonna make this super interesting thing. And I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this. And yeah, sometimes that stuff is great. But sometimes we're trying too hard. Sometimes you should just make something that's just for you. Sometimes you should just make something that's great. Just make something great. It's not that bad.

Alban: 58:14

So we can learn a little bit about the format, we can see how to, you know, actually, this makes sense, because a lot of the early podcasts that really kind of kick started the medium came from public radio, I mean, This American Life, a lot of NPR, podcasts, serial s town, these are all born out of people who are on the radio forever. Terry Gross was probably one of the first podcasters I ever listened to. All these were shows that started on the radio, and they said, Oh, well, we could do this podcasting thing and maybe get more listeners. And they really kind of pioneered the, the industry.

Twila: 58:54

Well, and that's the thing. Like, I think there's that thing of like you understand, like, it's that idea of you don't know your history, you're doomed to repeat it. Right? So the history is we know what radio did and we know what it gave us and we know how we built it. And we know that there are fundamentals of radio that we've learned really beautifully that we're able to translate into podcasting. But being doomed to repeat it is having it still be just as closed off or cut off in terms of access as it was before podcasting doesn't have to do that. It doesn't have to be all, you know, broadcast school trained journalist based, you know, white, middle aged male public media audience focus, I mean, there's a way for us to take the most beautiful parts of this and the most effective, you know, structural practice of this, and then opening it up so that we can get the voices of people of color, different ages, different life experiences, different geographical locations, different you know, areas of focus and interest. That's, that's when I when I want to see us like interesting with it. That's what I want to see. I want us to be able to take the best of the tools, and then take them and spin out into corners and make I mean, I love seeing what's happening with audio drama. I love seeing, you know what's happening with, you know, people I in particular, because I'm a pop culture fan. I really love watching how podcasting is taking subjects that used to be treated with derision and subjects that people didn't treat with a lot of respect, and they're giving them real gravitas. You know, like when you listen to a switched on pop, or dissect, and they're going through music piece by piece, and you're not just learning about why you like a pop song or why it's an earworm. But they're connecting it back to like 15th century. That's, that's it? That's the expansion, right. That's the that is the now we're running full throttle. Right now. We're getting interesting. But I still want there to be room in the growth of podcasting to say, Hey, make something for you can make something for the you know, the masses, it doesn't. Yeah, I believe in Nisha, and I think it's important in terms of growth of a company. But it is actually okay to make, you know, something that feels like the Today Show for, you know, for a podcasting format. Because there are people out here that want that and need it. There are people that are out here that just that want things to keep them company and they're not they don't want to be thinking too hard or be feeling like they don't want to feel like they have to be the most clever person in the room. They don't want to have to listen to, you know, a journalist for 45 minutes talk in real deep detail about you know, a war situation, that's somebody wants that. But not everybody wants that. And part of podcasting has to be we have to open it up and be okay with the idea that we don't have to be all things for all people. But the things for all people ain't bad either.

Alban: 1:01:37

That makes me think about how there's a lot of shows that they're doing very different things for different people in their audience. And I'm reminded, I spoke with Elsie Escobar, who founded she podcasts is that Lipson, she, one of her favorite podcasts is I think, the pen addict, which is all about people who are like, really in depends. She was like, I'm not super in depends. But she got she loves the podcast, because it's like, the comfort food of podcasts for her. It's like, oh, this is comfortable. I listen, everyone on the show seems kind and they're enjoying this. And now I just feel like I'm with friends. And it's relaxing. Exactly. And it's, and I realized, like, oh, but there's also some people out there who are obsessed with pens, like Yes, finally my pen group, we're back together. And, you know, we you often you may not even know exactly what role your podcast is gonna fill in someone's life, you might think you've totally niched down to like, oh, it's only people who are really understand the differences between ballpoint and gel pens. And all this, though, actually may just be somebody who's going, Oh, this is really comfortable. And these hosts I really connect to, and we have similar values. And it's really nice to listen to this at the end of the day.

Twila: 1:02:56

Well, and it's that it's that the thing about is the thing about nation that I always tell people when you're doing it, here's when you do it, that's why you don't do it halfway. If you're niching, really niche, really figure out who that audience is really talk specifically to them. Because here's the beautiful thing that it will do. When you talk very specifically, very point specifically to a very particular group of people, the stories become much more human. And then that humanity wants at making it accessible to more people. So you think I'm only talking to like left handed, you know, coffee drinkers who drink coffee on Tuesdays. But then what happens is the world of coffee drinkers who enjoy the ritual of coffee, or enjoy the descriptiveness, of how you're talking about the, the, the coffee, or the machinery or the or the moment you take for yourself in the day, now you've connected to something bigger, because you took the time to figure out how to talk very specifically to one person. And I know I sound like I'm like playing both sides against the middle. But I mean, that's, that's the that's the beauty of this industry. It doesn't, it has so much room for all of us to do all of these things. And if we do them, well, if you put your best effort and your best energy behind the thing that you care about in this, if you're making something like this, and it's you know, I try to make things that are a love letter to the women that we talk to the women that are our actual demo. Because what I found out is when I talk very specifically to them and tell them that you are wonderful, amazing, amazing just as you are all of the women get it the the 60 plus year old women get it the 30 to 50 year old women get it the teenagers even get it you know, it's now we've started something that feels universal, and that's it's the thing I love absolutely most about podcasting when I was still podcast, yeah, I'm thinking about stuff, but I'm feeling things. Like I'm genuinely feeling things. And if we make things and you feel something, then we're we're accomplishing it.

Alban: 1:04:49

That's a beautiful spot to end. Thank you so much, Twyla, I really appreciate the conversation. If people want to learn more about you and all the work you're doing, where should they go?

Twila: 1:04:59

That's Super easy. Go to our website, it's matriarch de m.com. All the shows are there all the initiatives that we're working on whether it's women podcasting, or the bipoc pot, women in podcasting, study, all that information is there if you're looking just to talk to me, cuz I know sometimes we're trying to find me in the world. I'm Twila Dang, everywhere, every social. So yeah, I own all the socials, my DMs are always open, because I know sometimes people just want to be able to ask questions. And I'm fine with that. I like to be able to help as much as I can, you know, in terms of, you know, helping people get connected. And come join us a woman of podcasting, we meet up second Sunday of every single month. For the next few months, we're going to be on Twitter spaces. So you can join us like Sunday, the second Sunday of every month, usually 10am on spaces, and then I just open the floor, we answer questions, we talk about the industry, we talk about what we know, we don't know, we, you know, we just have a good time together. And it's open to everyone. But it is centered and focused on women because I want more women in our industry, and I want them to feel comfortable working in the industry. So it doesn't mean you're not welcome. It just means it's not centered on you. And you have to be okay with that.

Alban: 1:06:08

Well, that's amazing. Your Twitter spaces always pop up my phone, and they're always epic. So everybody should go and visit and join in and ask questions and learn from Twyla Twyla, thank you so much, again, for being here and sharing all your stories with us. Thank

Twila: 1:06:24

you. Thank you for talking to me,