Why Beehiiv is Betting on Podcasts with Ainsley Rossitto

[00:00:00] Jeff: This week on Podcast Perspectives

[00:00:02] Ainsley: The routineness and the ability to kind of get time, whether it's in someone's inbox or in their headphones. Newsletter creators have a tried and true way of doing that, and podcasters can learn from it.

[00:00:14] Jeff: There's never been a shortage of podcast hosting platforms, so why would another company enter the space now? Beehiiv began primarily as a newsletter platform, but increasingly it's positioned itself as something broader. And in May, the company hired Ainsley Rossitto as its first ever head of podcasts.

[00:00:29] Jeff: Today, we'll talk about why she left Paramount for Beehiiv, what exactly a head of podcasts does at a newsletter company, and what Beehiiv believes it can bring to podcasting that creators aren't getting elsewhere. So you spent five years at Paramount before joining Beehiiv. Paramount was also a company that decided to kick off a podcast department while you were there.

[00:00:48] Jeff: How did your experience working at Paramount shape how you view the medium today?

[00:00:52] Ainsley: I mean, at Paramount, it was, it was kind of the dream. You're starting from scratch in terms of the podcast business around all of these tried and true brands and IP that have these just rabid fan bases that want to spend more time with the content. So it's, it's so ideal for podcasting, right? You're building that parasocial relationship.

[00:01:12] Ainsley: You're giving fans that peek behind the scenes in companion pods or after show pods and, and all those sorts of things. And so during my time at Paramount, we worked with, you know, all the brands, CBS News, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures, et cetera, on their various slates. And as you can imagine, they all took shape in very different ways, not just, like, audio and video, but also the format of the shows, the consistency of the shows, and, you know, where and how audiences discovered them or, or engaged with them.

[00:01:43] Ainsley: So I felt like from that slate, just on the growth side, um, and the distribution side, I learned so much about, you know, all the different ways you can kind of package a podcast and engage with audiences. And I think it really set me up for, for what I'm doing today because I've seen the struggles of, of all of that.

[00:02:01] Ainsley: It's, it's not always as easy as you pick one hosting platform, and that's the solution. You know, especially as, uh, over the past two years, our industry's gotten more, um, into video and, and prioritizing different surfaces that your podcast should live on, like gated content and, and all of those sorts of things.

[00:02:20] Ainsley: Um, at the end of my time at Paramount, we were working with probably two different hosting platforms, a gated hosting service, a different CMS to host websites, newsletter platforms, you know, community was a whole other thing and, and social. And so when I started at Beehiiv, I was so excited by the mission here because they essentially heard from newsletter creators, like, "We're doing a lot of podcasting too."

[00:02:44] Ainsley: And Beehiiv, you know, in its way, was like, "Okay. Well, we can build a podcast hosting solution, and let's make it, you know, all under one roof." And just the, the adoption that they saw from the release of, of that product was so exciting to me because it's a no-brainer. Like, we wanna give creators more time to spend on creating the actual content.

[00:03:04] Ainsley: So Putting a podcast, a newsletter, a website in one platform where they all speak to each other, it's, it's kind of a no-brainer to, to give that time back to the creator and, and help them better just understand what their audience is, rather than going to six different platforms to kind of then need to synthesize all the data, hit publish in seven different places and, and all those sorts of things.

[00:03:26] Ainsley: So I feel like seeing kind of the, the dirty work that had to go into just getting content out into the world in, in so many different ways for, you know, a couple dozen shows really set me up for success here. And, and just the business part of it all. I worked on kind of the 360 of ad ops, of licensing deals, and, and all these various situations that people deal with in terms of their sales operations, if they're relying on direct sales, if they're relying on, you know, programmatic fill and, and wanting to kind of cater for those solutions too in, in what we're building here at Beehive.

[00:04:00] Jeff: So we're gonna get into the platform piece in a little bit, but your new job, which you've had for a few months as of this recording, is head of podcasts at Beehive. What does that actually mean?

[00:04:10] Ainsley: It essentially means that we're, I'll say 50% of it is right now focused on building the products. We're, you know, we have a hosting solution out there for ad-supported and, and gated podcast content, so you can come to us, you can host your content. For premium pods, we also take 0% of your revenue, which I think is a unique thing, and, you know, again, part of the, the whole Beehiiv ecosystem, so.

[00:04:36] Ainsley: But in terms of 50% of the job being product development is we know there are a lot of features that our users need to kind of get up to, to par with some of the other hosting solutions they're working with, including monetization and, and video hosting and, and distribution, two, two very big things. So we're, we're heads down on, on building all of those.

[00:04:57] Ainsley: And then I would say the other 50% of my job is really kind of the go-to-market strategy of how we're positioning our product in the marketplace, and also a lot of that is education. Like, Beehiiv was a newsletter-first company, and so there are, yes, a lot of folks that host their newsletters on the, the platform that have podcasts, and they're, they understand the medium and things like that.

[00:05:19] Ainsley: But there are equally a number of newsletter, you know, creators that could be amazing podcasters, and it's educating them on, on how to do this. And, you know, it's a little bit different than getting behind a keyboard and kind of cranking out a newsletter. When you have a podcast, there's, you know, equipment, production.

[00:05:37] Ainsley: There's, there's a whole nother kind of workflow you have to learn there. And so I'd say that's, that's about the split of my job these days.

[00:05:45] Jeff: And how much of that is like bringing in net new people to the Beehive ecosystem or like reengaging on the podcast front for people that already exist on the Beehive ecosystem?

[00:05:55] Ainsley: Yeah. I'm so glad you asked that question because, you know, a- as soon as I got to Beehiiv, I was digging in on the data of, like, what does our, you know, customer profile look like on the podcast side? And it's almost a 50/50 split in terms of people who have imported their podcasts from another platform that were existing users and people who are net new creating podcasts on Beehiiv.

[00:06:16] Ainsley: And so we really do have, like, a full gamut of, of customers and different profiles. And so as we continue to build the product, you know, we're really considering that first-time podcaster and that experienced podcaster and making sure, you know, our tool set matches those, those two different experiences.

[00:06:34] Ainsley: Like, someone might come in and to our monetization tools and have no idea what a pre-roll and a mid-roll is. And so we wanna bake that education in and make it as easy as possible for them to ramp up monetization should they choose. And on the same time, you know, if someone is an enterprise customer, we wanna make sure they can come in and pixelate their campaigns and do all those advanced things, you know, where they're tracking data and running custom campaigns with various creative and, and all those sorts of things.

[00:07:01] Ainsley: So we're seeing traction from both sides, which is really exciting too.

[00:07:05] Jeff: So if you had to describe in one sentence, like, I know what Beehiiv as a newsletter company, you're trying to describe it as a platform company. In one sentence, what would you say?

[00:07:14] Ainsley: A creator operating system. It's not just a newsletter company, right? It's, it's, we have digital products, we have community, we have podcasts. We have these kind of core product pillars and, you know, creators can come in, they can choose what they wanna work with, and most importantly, it's all integrated, right?

[00:07:32] Ainsley: You publish a podcast episode, it automatically creates a landing page on your website if you host with Beehiiv. If you have a newsletter with us, you can set up an automation to email everybody when that episode comes out. So yeah, the creator operating system is, is what we are

[00:07:46] Jeff: You kind of touched on this, but like why does, why does podcasting make sense as part of that ecosystem?

[00:07:51] Ainsley: Yeah. I mean, I think newsletter creators, they have a very similar, you know, way of operating. They have a perspective on a, a subject or a topic, and they, you know, are, are kind of doing the newsletter edi- uh, the podcast editorial, excuse me, in their newsletter. And so I think a lot of that, you know, whether they're a podcaster going into newsletters or a newsletter creator going into podcasters, they kinda ha- work the same muscles editorially.

[00:08:19] Ainsley: It's just a different medium. And I think when people think about their favorite brands or talent, they're, they're not necessarily like, "Oh, I'm gonna go find just the podcast this person does, or just the newsletter this person does." They're looking for all the content that they're putting out there on social, on streaming, every surface.

[00:08:37] Ainsley: And so, you know, we want our content to kind of reflect the creator ability to, to be everywhere and anywhere they wanna be.

[00:08:44] Jeff: And I'm sure you have a lot of people who are, like, running an interview show to supplement what they're writing about, but I'm sure you also have a lot of people who are just, like, reading what they've written and publishing that as a podcast.

[00:08:55] Ainsley: Sure. We do have a tool, you know, where folks who have a newsletter can actually create an audio version of it and distribute that as an RSS feed. So it, it is a good kind of entry point to see what engagement is gonna look like. It's also a great accessibility tool if people wanna take your newsletter on the, the road and go from there.

[00:09:15] Ainsley: But yeah, I mean, people think about it in the sense of like, what hit the cutting room floor on my newsletter that I can also bring to my podcast? Or am I recording the interviews I'm talking about in my newsletter, and then it's an easy lift for me to also publish the audio? And it goes the other way around, too.

[00:09:30] Ainsley: Like, people who are recording podcasts and they're stuffing the cutting room floor, they talk about that BTS in their, in their newsletter or, or other things like that

[00:09:39] Jeff: Beehive CEO Tyler Denk has described a vision where Beehive largely operates behind the scenes rather than becoming like a social network or a destination, specifically like a Substack competitor. So how does podcasting fit into that philosophy?

[00:09:53] Ainsley: Yeah. I mean, I think when you go to a Substack or, you know, a social platform even, you're, you're going to that platform to find the creators, to engage with that content. We are largely like a duck, you know, we're, who are working there behind the scenes, but you see the brand, you know, above in the forefront and, and all of that.

[00:10:12] Ainsley: And it's not admittedly, like, right for everybody. Some people love kind of the ecosystems of being recommended and being in an algorithm and all that. Beehiiv has recommendation tools. They're much more targeted where you're curating who and how you're recommended against people versus, like, an algorithm doing it for you.

[00:10:30] Ainsley: So people do enjoy that more kind of targeted piece. But yeah, we talked about it a little bit related to kind of expanding and contracting to be the solution that creators need, um, with what they're doing. And so if you have a newsletter and a podcast, you can pair those things together, and you'd never know that they're both hosted on Beehiiv, but they're very integrated.

[00:10:52] Ainsley: And so the user experience is that much more, you know, positive and, and unified. And so that's, I think, what we're, we're trying to do behind the scenes is, is let you stitch together all the things that you can in the most seamless way, so that way, like, the audience engagement, you know, feels really, uh, universal with the tools.

[00:11:10] Jeff: A- and not to keep, you know, harping on this, but the idea of, of kind of merging your newsletter audience with your podcast audience with, I'm sure, like, your video and social and creator audience in general, most people historically have thought of those as, like, different silos of their own audience. But it seems to me that you all are coming at this with the idea that, like, your audience is your audience, however they choose to consume what you're doing.

[00:11:35] Jeff: Is that right?

[00:11:36] Ainsley: That's right. And I would say on the podcast side, I mean, it is, and we're seeing a lot of this happen right now, is we're kind of bound to third-party platforms that are pushing our content out and, and their engagement points, whether it be Apple, Spotify, YouTube, uh, et cetera. And, you know, you publish your content on your RSS feed or your videos, and then you get a number back.

[00:11:58] Ainsley: This many people viewed it, this, this many downloads happened, but you don't actually own that audience in any way, and a platform change can happen, as, you know, we're seeing now, and that can largely impact, like, the number of people seeing your content or the number of people, like, you're reaching with your episodes if they're not following or that behavior is, is changed.

[00:12:17] Ainsley: And so why not pair it with a newsletter so that way, you know, you can get your most loyal listeners or viewers to subscribe, and you actually are starting to own your audience. It creates another revenue surface, too. It, it does all those things. So I, I think it's, it's kind of why not have a, a newsletter for every podcast?

[00:12:36] Ainsley: You know, change, change my mind on that.

[00:12:39] Jeff: No, I, I think it-- The one answer I'll give you is just, like, resource constraint. But, like, I think anybody should if they can. You're listening to Podcast Perspectives, and this week's episode features Aynsley Rizzito of Beehive. If you're really interested in this kind of content, I recommend that you check out Eric Barnett's episode from Supporting Cast or Stephanie Smellie from Patreon.

[00:13:00] Jeff: We also have YouTube playlists at youtube.com/@podglomeratepods that feature networks and publishers, hosting platforms and advertisers, and memberships and communities. Let us know what you think in the comments, and let's get back to the episode. So what, what does the podcast product currently offer to somebody who wants to go set up a feed today?

[00:13:19] Ainsley: If you have an existing podcast feed, we certainly support imports and can migrate your content over seamlessly. You just drop in your RSS feed and implement that 301 redirect and, and you're good to go. If you're new to setting up a podcast, you can go ahead and, and create your RSS feed just giving us your core info, you know, show title, key art, et cetera, and get loaded in.

[00:13:41] Ainsley: One of the things that we did in the platform was actually bake in one-click distribution to make it a little bit easier to get your podcast on Spotify, Apple, et cetera. Those of us, you know, in the industry know that it's, it's a lot of different forms and a lot of different places to submit your RSS feed, so we've set that up there.

[00:14:00] Ainsley: And we also support a gated podcast, so if you have a subscription, you can set that up with us. We don't take any of your revenue share, so you retain 100% of that. And you can also bundle a newsletter in with your subscription and, and have some more, you know, dynamic premium products there

[00:14:18] Jeff: And, and just to be clear, you guys, you guys do charge based on like the size of that audience that you're reaching out to, right?

[00:14:24] Ainsley: We're a SaaS platform, so in terms of unlocking, you know, the, the premium capability for your podcast, a lot of our pricing is still based on your audience size of your newsletter. So the podcasts right now are kind of a added value if you're a newsletter customer for us in terms of how that works. But some of the really cool things is we're, we're making sure as we build podcasting, it feels really integrated and not just newsletters are here and podcasts are here.

[00:14:53] Ainsley: So if, if you host your podcast, your newsletter, and your website with us, for example, every time you publish a podcast episode, we'll automatically generate a landing page for you that has your latest episodes on the right-hand side. If you have a YouTube version of your episode, it will pull that in. All the deep links to the major listening platforms and interactive transcripts.

[00:15:16] Ainsley: It's, it's making sure that you have, you know, some sort of web footprint. And, and to your point, Jeff, like we know creators are, are strapped for time, but also wanna be everywhere. So we're trying to make these tools feel, you know, more automated and, and easier for you to kind of have that digital footprint across

[00:15:33] Jeff: No, that's, that's super helpful. I mean, like anybody who has a pod page knows, like, you have to go and update all of these things once, and you have to wait until the episode publishes. And it's very easy to just decide not to do it, and then you're just missing out on some low-hanging fruit. How are you approaching analytics on the platform?

[00:15:51] Ainsley: Yeah, so we just got IAB certified. Kudos to our, yeah, our engineering team who did a fantastic job there. I think we, we also pull back analytics very fast in terms of some of the other industry hosting platforms. So we're approaching in that sense. Right now we have all the, the standard network show episode-level analytics that you could, could hope for.

[00:16:13] Ainsley: You know, it's fully... There's an ability to export the data. You can also plug into our MCP, which is really cool, and kind of do some analyses because it will have all of your data and can kind of custom tell you, like, "This is the over-performing podcast episode," and you can kind of iterate with it in, in those kinds of senses

[00:16:32] Jeff: And when you say all of the standard, like, things, metrics, are you talking about, you know, downloads per show, per episode, geolocation, like all the, all the fun stuff?

[00:16:41] Ainsley: Exactly, yeah. Downloads. Uh, we, we do have a listener, a unique listeners metric as well. I think that's important to surface, especially for, for folks coming from the newsletter side who are used to knowing that actual, like, person engaged. So we have downloads, we have a unique listener, we have geolocation data, we have episode data.

[00:17:01] Ainsley: We're breaking that down in a way that also makes it easier to compare. So you can see first week engagements, first 30-day engagements as a standard, you know, benchmark a- across all your episode data, platform level engagement, and, and percentage of downloads happening across those. And yeah, some, some different breakdowns of, of each of those at the show and episode level

[00:17:24] Jeff: And you support all the prefixes and pixels. Do, do you guys have dynamic ad insertion?

[00:17:29] Ainsley: So that is coming next, but we do support, um, show prefixes third party. Um, and we, we also make that as easy as possible where you can kind of-- We're, we're in partnership with some of the third parties, so you can even just toggle it on in some cases. And if

[00:17:43] Jeff: Oh, great

[00:17:44] Ainsley: it will flow in, so that way you don't have to deal with the copy and the paste of prefixes where there leaves so much room for, for error.

[00:17:51] Ainsley: But monetization is coming next and, and prefixes will be a, a component of that. And we'll have, you know, to your point on data, we'll have a full suite of, you know, campaign-based data. Um, if you're running direct campaigns, we will have a programmatic solution that you can opt into as well, um, and, and all that good stuff

[00:18:10] Jeff: Cool. I love it. And, and I don't wanna make light of, like, all of those features because as, as many people listening to this will know, uh, there have recently been platform changes with some of the bigger players that have kind of turned that into a chaotic nightmare in terms of, like, how you actually can set these things up and track everything.

[00:18:28] Jeff: So sometimes, like, what most people consider table stakes are actually, like, very, very important to get right. So you mentioned that you wanna-- you're, you're working on monetization and video on the roadmap. What are your plans for both, if you can spend like 30 seconds on each in terms of, like, in a perfect world, what it would look like?

[00:18:48] Ainsley: Essentially, we're, we're gonna have a, on the monetization front first, you'll have the ability to kind of set up bulk settings at the show level. You know, if you want a pre-roll load that is standard across your show, post-roll load, et cetera. The ability to control your ad categories to opt in and out of programmatic monetization.

[00:19:08] Ainsley: At the episode level, we'll have an ad locator where you can, you know, customize where your placements are for mid-rolls throughout your episode and the load of ad spots that go into that. We will have a, a campaign manager where you can flight your own direct sold advertising and kind of prioritize and pace out those campaigns and the targeting associated with them, and then all the analytics that, that goes with all of that.

[00:19:34] Ainsley: On the video side, we've heard a, a lot of different use cases from our, our current customer base and, and a couple p- prospective customers who some of them use everything, Spotify, Apple, YouTube. Some of them just use Spotify. Some of them just use YouTube. And so our goal there is to really make the product as flexible as possible.

[00:19:55] Ainsley: So think about a ecosystem where you can kind of come in, upload audio and/or video, and then decide where it's gonna get pushed out, and all of those accounts are kind of linked up to your back end. So you're not going to six different platforms to push out video. You're doing it in one place. You're managing that metadata, and then you're getting analytics back, um, in, in some way, shape, or form to, to look at video performance next to your audio performance.

[00:20:23] Ainsley: And in some ways we hope to, to kind of integrate those two things as well. Um, who wouldn't love to be able to see, like, "Here's the total reach of my episode," you know, audio and video in one place?

[00:20:34] Jeff: Well, so it's funny, how are you guys thinking about that? Because, uh, on the previous episode, we had Glenn Rubenstein from Adopter Media, and we talked about the AMPA Chords and how one of the big issues in the industry right now is that each of these platforms are measuring differently. So, like, how are you thinking about that as you're, like, adding those measurements into your own system?

[00:20:54] Ainsley: Sure. I mean, I think this is video or not, like, I, I think this has always been a problem that plagues the podcast industry. Like, if you look at a play in Spotify for creators versus a play in Apple or, or otherwise, they all look different, and we spend a lot of time kind of educating our customers on why that is.

[00:21:14] Ainsley: And I think our ... the way we're approaching this is we'll use the most reliable set of metrics we can get from each platform, but we just wanna make sure we're communicating any differences or inconsistencies there so people understand. I think that's our, our core thing, is we want them, A, to be reliable metrics that are, are not full of bot traffic or, or otherwise inflated things.

[00:21:38] Ainsley: And, and B, people should understand what an aggregate metric is and where and how to build that metrics themselves, 'cause first and foremost, creators are gonna have access to this individual data. We're just kind of doing the job of pulling it together for them and helping them make sense of it.

[00:21:54] Jeff: Honestly, I'm kind of jealous that you get to build that from scratch right now because, like, it's-- everyone else has made such a mess of it. But, uh, I wanted to spend a minute talking about monetization, which I do think dovetails really nicely into, like, the video conversation too. But what a lot of people don't...

[00:22:09] Jeff: I-in my experience, what a lot of people don't quite realize is that i- in lieu of taking a fee from the, like, memberships on Beehive, Beehive actually has a dynamic ad platform for newsletters, and you all take commission on any sales that you've made there. Podglomerate has been a purchaser of several of these newsletters in the past, and it's a really cool system that I, I have not seen frequently elsewhere.

[00:22:32] Jeff: So I'm really curious, um, like how you're all thinking about how you want to integrate the audio into the existing ecosystem. A-and specifically, like, do you intend on going to your, uh, your existing advertisers on the newsletter front and letting them know about this new property? Are you going to reach out to all the hold cos to try and bring them into the Beehive ecosystem?

[00:22:54] Jeff: Is it gonna be a little bit of all of that?

[00:22:56] Ainsley: Yeah. It's such a great question, and I think it's a little bit of a, a crawl, walk, run in terms of we need to get up to parity with just the basic ad solutions and serve our customers that have direct sales arms and, and things like that. I think with everything in Beehiiv, we want it all to feel integrated, so if you host or buy newsletter inventory from us, like, the goal is you could also buy podcast inventory from us at one point or, or bundle that.

[00:23:25] Ainsley: And so yeah, our hope is our, our ad sales team is, is also veering into podcasts and, and that, you know. For, for creators too, they're able to, like, monetize their inventory in a way where it's not like, "I'm selling my newsletter here. I'm selling my podcast here." But they can say, "I'm selling my audience across these surfaces," because we, we know, like, on the publisher side, that's, that's really how it works and how you get the most premium for your content is, "I'm gonna sell you inventory, and this is where and how users are gonna see it and how they're gonna engage with it," not just, "I'm giving you a mid-roll spot in a podcast."

[00:24:01] Ainsley: But if you're getting web inventory, newsletter inventory, and podcast inventory, those packages are, are that much stronger, and, you know, the, the sales ... But yeah, the sales motion is, is definitely different for selling audio. You know, our team is, is managing the newsletter side of that right now, and it's, to your point, like, been really successful to see the rollout of, of programmatic ads on that side and how the adoption is working and what, uh, creators are, are making in terms of revenue.

[00:24:29] Ainsley: So we're excited for the ad businesses to eventually come together.

[00:24:32] Jeff: You approach it more uniquely than, than others that I've seen. So I'm, I'm curious to see, like, what kind of fun spin you'll put on it. Can you give us some examples of some podcasters who are, like, successfully using the platform today?

[00:24:46] Ainsley: Some of our shows that are really successful on the, the platform, I wanna exemplify two of them because I think they're doing really fun things in terms of, um, bringing their newsletter and podcast together. They have some free shows, and they have some gated shows. So one of them is "For the Long Run."

[00:25:04] Ainsley: This is a, a show that is for, you know, all these people that I'm not like in terms of they're avid runners. Um, but they have a they, they have this, you know, very active community that kind of surrounds itself around a newsletter, a website. They have a free podcast, and they have a gated podcast. And the way that that team is kind of using their network to facilitate, you know, different levels of engagement and different access points has been very cool.

[00:25:33] Ainsley: I think they're, they're doing one of the best jobs of using, you know, getting the most out of Beehiiv tools, as is Generalist World and, uh, the "505" podcast. There are some other podcasts that are newer to the platform, new podcasts that are, are launching and really doing fun things as well, like "LA World."

[00:25:52] Ainsley: Uh, there's "The LA Material Podcast" that just launched, uh, three weeks ago, so keep an eye out for that one. And there are many more creators kind of talking to us about, like, ways they could potentially use the, the platform. But yeah, there, there's... It's a long list, uh, of creators I've really enjoyed speaking with and, and who are using, uh, our solutions in, in various ways.

[00:26:15] Jeff: What do newsletter creators understand about audience development that podcasters often don't? And conversely, like, what do newsletter publisher-- what can newsletter publishers learn from podcasters?

[00:26:25] Ainsley: Yeah, this might be just rooted in my background as more of a marketer, but I think newsletter creators do a much better job with the CTA. Like, they know what they ultimately, like, in terms of an action they want their readers to take, and they can be very concise with, "Here's the, the hook I'm gonna give you, and here's the ask."

[00:26:46] Ainsley: And they, you know, obviously there's a direct ability to put a link and, and kind of visuals and things to, to get people to convert. But they ask, and they do it in a great way that kind of inspires action. On the newsletter side, I think creators love to kind of talk around the things that they want you to do.

[00:27:04] Ainsley: Um, and,

[00:27:05] Jeff: or they're too direct

[00:27:06] Ainsley: Yeah, aside from the please like, subscribe, follow, rate, and review. But even to that point, it's like ask people one thing. Like, focus on that one thing while you have their attention, so they're not, you know, fast-forwarding through and, and some of those things. And so it's a, it's a little thing, but I think in terms of in-inspiring action and getting people to, you know, engage deeper with your content or, you know, do things, uh, the CTAs are something newsletter creators have down.

[00:27:33] Jeff: Yeah, I love that. It's, uh, it's funny. It's like I, I heard somebody recently saying, like, if somebody's listening to your podcast on Apple, do not ask them to go to YouTube because they're already listening to you and they're not gonna just switch platforms. On the flip side, if you incentivize them to go to YouTube, then...

[00:27:49] Jeff: Anyway, different conversation. Five years from now, what do you think the podcast hosting landscape is gonna look like? A- and I say that specifically because had you told me that Behive was gonna launch podcast hosting this year, I would've laughed because, like, it's such a saturated market. But you're doing it well.

[00:28:04] Jeff: Uh, and it makes sense because you have a lot of people who want that, that asset that already exists on the platform. So, so what does that landscape look like in five years?

[00:28:13] Ainsley: Yeah. I mean, I think everyone's gonna have their podcast on Beehiiv. No, I'm just kidding. but in, in all seriousness, I mean, I think that people are ... The, the hosting platforms out there are spending a lot more time really thinking about, like, what's coming next, and actually building more reliable and integrated solutions for creators.

[00:28:34] Ainsley: I think we're gonna continue to see the major players, like, evolve and get, you know, on Beehiiv, right, we know the newsletter integration, the website integration, that kind of full stack of things is our differentiator. I think other hosting platforms, they have those elements, and whether it be their sales operation or, you know, the way that they handle integrations with video or, or other things, I think there's room for, for, you know, many hosting platforms to be out there.

[00:29:04] Ainsley: And I think there are obviously sales organizations and major networks that own their own hosting solution, and that's economical, and I don't see that changing in, in any way, shape, or form. So I think we'll just continue to see the hosting platforms get better at, you know, providing one-click solutions and consolidating data in a way that is, you know, more meaningful, more user-friendly, and things like that

[00:29:30] Jeff: So I think what Beehive does really well is, is, uh, kind of anticipating what a podcast will look like in the future. Um, do you see other platforms like, you know, YouTube, Megaphone, uh, R19, et cetera, kind of like taking a page from your playbook and integrating other platforms? Podstock is, is one example of somebody who's trying to like kind of consolidate all the analytics from a lot of different places.

[00:29:56] Jeff: Will we see more of that?

[00:29:58] Ainsley: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I, I-- First off, I think the world of the Podstock product, I, I think it's so great and, and love what Michael has built over there. I think that in terms of the Beehiiv playbook, I think it's always gonna be a little bit unique in the sense of a lot of other hosting platforms are adding things on to make sure they have a solution, whereas we're really building things.

[00:30:23] Ainsley: And yeah, some people may say, like, "You're late to the market. Why build this now?" But I think now is actually the perfect time. You know, we've seen so many different duct tape solutions pop up, especially in regards to video and, and monetization, and why not take everything we've learned and do that in a really intentional way where it feels integrated?

[00:30:43] Ainsley: And, and also, you know, we, you know, at Beehiiv are really focusing in on the user experience, and I can't tell you how many times a user asks for something on a Monday and it's built by a Friday. And in a way where we're just really nimble and, and kind of intentional and, you know, with our focus on, on the user always.

[00:31:03] Ainsley: And so I can't say that everyone's gonna do that, but I think that's really what differentiates us is our user-first mentality and, and also just making sure everything we build is intentional and doesn't feel like an add-on.

[00:31:15] Jeff: Yeah, and it's interesting you say that 'cause like, you know, the Amazons, the SiriusXMs, the, like Spotifys of the world, they're just not built in a way that they can be that nimble. Every decision they make has to go through shareholders and months of decision-making. And so I, I guess as a final question, like what would have to happen for you to look back in a few years and say, you know, Beehive's move into podcasting was a success?

[00:31:38] Ainsley: In terms of, of success, I would say what we want to, to be able to have here are people coming into the Beehiiv ecosystem and thinking about us as their podcast hosting solution first. Um, a- at that point, I would say this is, this has been a success. And I think right now, you know, we- we're seeing 50% of people import their podcast, but they also have a newsletter.

[00:32:03] Ainsley: And we're seeing people who have newsletters, you know, start their podcast. But I don't think people are still thinking about us quite yet as like, "I have a podcast, I have a podcast network, and I need a home for it." And w- we want Beehiiv to be one of the first places they think of. And I think once we roll out monetization and, and video, we'll, we'll be there, and we'll be one of the, you know, bigger competitors at the table.

[00:32:28] Jeff: Well, thank you, Ainslie, so much for joining us. This was awesome. I'm, I'm really glad that we got to catch up and chat about this

[00:32:34] Ainsley: Thank you for having me, Jeff

[00:32:41] Jeff: You can find Aynsley Rossitto on LinkedIn or at beehiv.com, B-E-E-H-I-I-V.com. For more podcast-related news, info, and takes, you can follow me on LinkedIn at Jeff Umbro. 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.

[00:33:02] Jeff: Shoot us an email at listen@thepodglomerate.com, or follow us on all socials at Podglomeratepods. This episode was produced by myself, Jeff Umbro, and our production team, Chris Boniello, Jose Roman, and Nicholas Abouhamad. Thank you to our marketing team, and a special thank you to Dan Christo