Turning Podcasts Into Live, Monetizable Experiences with Jeff Revilla

Episode Transcript Welcome to Episode 10 Paul Wright: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Link Thru Social Podcast. Well, time flies by. We’re at Episode 10 today. What a day to celebrate! Thank you to all of you who have downloaded, viewed, liked and subscribed. We can’t thank you enough. Paul Wright: Welcome back to the Link Thru Social Podcast. We have another special guest for us today. I’m really excited to talk with Jeff Revilla from Poduty. Poduty.com is his website. Jeff has a podcast theatre in Pennsylvania where creators turn their shows into live, monetizable events. With over 20 years in digital marketing and a decade in podcast and live-streaming experience, he helps podcasters grow audiences and build real revenue through live experiences. He’s also the author of The New Business Model for Podcasting and host of the trivia show Stuff I Never Knew, where learning and entertainment come together. I’m really excited to hear about that, too. Jeff, welcome to the show. Jeff Revilla: Thank you. It could be called Stuff I Never Learned because I’ve been hosting that for 10 years and I haven’t learned anything! Paul Wright: There you go! We’re going to get to your trivia show in a minute, but before we get started, why don’t you briefly give our viewers and listeners a little background about yourself professionally and how you came to this point? Jeff Revilla: Professionally, I’ve been a marketing director for about 15 years and just fell in love with digital marketing early in the 2000s. I got lucky and kind of forged my own career after college. In 2005, I was uploading videos to the internet and building message boards and social networks. So I got this early start and early feel — almost a head start — into the world of digital marketing because I needed to do it for my business back then. That became a very tangible set of skills. Even better than going to college were those early years in the 2000s where I learned all this stuff, and I’m able to apply that in different aspects. Professionally, like I said, I’ve been a marketing director for an auto group. I manage 10 car franchises, and I’ve been doing that for 15 or 16 years now. But I have a passion. I’m a very creative person. I like to do things, and I’m always thinking of ideas. About 10 years ago, I started thinking about expanding the definition of what a podcast could be. Now we hear a lot about Apple adding video and all these video podcasts, but I’m thinking about this in such a bigger way, with such a bigger audience that it can attract smaller podcasters and independent podcasters. You don’t need to have a million downloads to do what I’m doing. It can be a fun hobby with friends, a night out, and we’ll get into some of what all that means. But me personally, I’m a passionate podcaster, and I’ve been that way forever. It resonates. Paul Wright: You can tell. Just in our first few minutes, you can tell that you’re very excited about it and very passionate. Isn’t that so special, Jeff, when you’re doing something that you really enjoy doing? I myself love being a podcaster. I’ve been involved with social media management since 2010. I used to be in the automotive manufacturing business before that — just a totally different industry. I like what I’m doing, and it’s enjoyable and exciting. So it’s great to see that you’re very passionate about this. I have to hear about this live podcasting theatre that you’ve set up. Describe how it works. Do you go out and look for podcasters? Do they find you? How does the system work? Jeff Revilla: It started with me trying to expand that definition of podcasting. I started doing live shows at coffee shops and bars. I did some on a used car lot, just running my show and having a good time. Like you said, I would do this without money involved. This is just something fun for me to do. I really enjoy creating something and putting it out into the world. As that evolved and COVID hit, you really couldn’t perform anywhere. That idea inside of me kept expanding. I kept thinking, where can I do podcasts? How can I do this on a bigger scale? Then I thought, with today’s technology and on a bootstrap budget, what if I could build a little TV studio? Just like Saturday Night Live, it’s not much different. There’s a stage with an audience, and they’re broadcasting to the world. I thought, what if I could do that for podcasters? And do it in a way where, if you ever tried to put on your own live event, you might approach a hotel or banquet room and they want to charge you an arm and a leg — thousands of dollars. You have to sign a contract. You have to use their audio-video technicians. I thought, what if I can make it turnkey where you can just walk off the street, it’s already set up, you go to the stage, perform your show, get the recording and go home? There’s no teardown. There’s no setup. We can just keep flipping this room over and over again. That idea became this infinite-seat theatre. Yes, I’m only in a 1,600-square-foot building with 40 chairs surrounding a stage, but surrounding that stage are cameras that can broadcast to the world. Now my little baby space, my little baby theatre, can really have the same capacity as Madison Square Garden. What I try to do is bring podcasters in. We build an event page, sell the tickets for them, produce the event, record the event and give them back the recording. We don’t take any ownership over the recording. At the end of the night, instead of reviewing the terms of a contract, we have a handshake deal where I show you the dashboard where we sold all the tickets, and we split that total 50/50. No podcaster is ever on the hook for money at the end of the night. They walk out the doors with money in their pocket. Paul Wright: That’s amazing. I know there are a lot of podcasters out there, or people in different types of industries, who want to get into podcasting. But like you said, equipment isn’t cheap. You can bootstrap it a little bit, but if your budget is really tight and you don’t have that type of money to put out, what an opportunity this is to come in, do your podcast and collect some cash on the way out. Jeff Revilla: Yeah, it’s a win-win situation. Paul Wright: It almost reminds me of a comedy club, where different comedians come to a particular town and pass through a comedy club. This is the same type of thing, but for podcasters. Jeff Revilla: While the use case is unique, I certainly didn’t invent the small club, small theatre model. A lot of it borrows from my love of comedy, my love of listening to how comedians put shows together, how they build venues and how they get to perform. Even the layout — the C-shaped design, the darkness of the back of the room compared to the front — all those things really come from comedy clubs. I really want to recreate that feeling. If you’ve listened to a podcast on your morning commute or while you’re walking the dog in the morning, sometimes you feel like you’re in that room with that podcaster. That’s what this space is designed to do. You’re literally in the room, but it’s surreal how much you’re in the room. Now the people you’ve been listening to are right in front of you, and you’re only three rows back at the furthest seat. You’re immersed in this magical moment that’s only happening one time in the history of the world. Podcasts don’t typically repeat the same show next week. It’s a one-shot deal, and you’re there to witness it in that moment. Paul Wright: Incredible. And like you said, the reach is there. There’s a small group within the theatre, but there’s no cap or ceiling to the reach. It could be millions. It could be a few hundred people or a few thousand. That’s the beauty of this. Some of the podcasters I’ve listened to for many years almost seem like friends because you check in with them every week, or two or three times a week depending on the frequency of their podcasts. It becomes like a relationship you develop with the podcaster. This is just an extra, unique extension of that. I’m a huge fan of Shark Tank in the U.S., and Kevin O’Leary is one of the sharks. When some of these business ideas come in front of the sharks, they always talk about franchising. Is there any possibility that this might be a franchisable project? Jeff Revilla: Yeah. Similar to the Improv or Laugh Factory, there are certain models that we can follow in comedy. The one thing we have going for us is that, from start to finish — from the idea to the recorded product — this theatre controls that entire process. You come with the idea. We build the landing page. We have the tech to build the landing page, process the tickets and produce the show. That whole package. I’ve been approached already that there’s a model here. Once I figure out the theatre model a little bit more, the model for reproducing this is giving the franchise owner that full control — that full system setup from start to finish. In the automotive world, you’d always hear about the “secret sauce.” That’s the secret sauce that makes it all work. I’m thinking it’s probably more of a tech-plus investment in a location. That’s the balance that we’ll find with the future business model. I knew two years ago when I opened this place that I was probably two to five years ahead of the market. I needed runway for a couple of years to really figure out what was going on. But I can tell you, in the last three months, and especially with the rise of AI, there is so much chatter online right now about real-world experiences and in-person events. It is buzzing. There is a tsunami coming of people who want to get back out into the community, experience live events, do meetups, have business get-togethers, go to small events and support their local community. It is bubbling up in a way that I hadn’t seen for years. Now it’s really coming in droves. I’m thinking that timeline might be a little bit shorter than five years. It might be in the next year to 18 months where this really becomes a thing — not just here in Pittsburgh, but you might see these types of clubs pop up before I even get a chance to franchise it. Paul Wright: It’s true. I did a radio segment this afternoon that I do every week, and the host has me on to talk about social media and AI. We were talking about a similar subject today. We’re going back to simple. We’re going back to community. We’re getting away from this focus on viral content with millions of followers watching a particular video. We’re going back to the grassroots, local-community feeling. This fits right into it. I think you’re in the right place at the right time for this type of thing. You also mentioned AI. AI is growing at an astronomical rate, and we talk about it every week on this show. Name a couple of things that AI has helped you with in growing this project. Jeff Revilla: I’m a team of one. I run this theatre, front of house and back of house. I can literally run this with just myself. I do have some family members who pop in and help me out when there’s more of a crowd. But I think of AI as a superpower. I don’t use it for creative purposes. I’m not skimming ideas out of it. But if I need to draft a letter or an email, or I need to put something together — even editing — I use some AI in the editing process. I use it to extend my reach. You would think this place was run by a team of 10 people, but it’s mostly me and prompts, getting things done that I couldn’t do by myself. Extending those tasks — that’s where I see the real power and benefit. I’m able to do some pretty crazy things just because I can hand off some of those things. Instead of working on an email for an hour, I can get it done. Just today, I had it design an HTML template. I plugged in all my things, and then boom — send it off, and we’re good to go. Paul Wright: Those are some of the tools that I’ve been using as well. It really helps streamline some of the mundane tasks that you have to do during the day. Then you can focus on the real things — creativity, reaching out to people and that type of thing. That’s what AI should be about, and you definitely should be using it within your business. Now, we’ve talked about your theatre. I need to know about your trivia show, Stuff I Never Knew. Tell me about that. Jeff Revilla: That’s the first iteration. That’s kind of what really kicked off this whole idea of performing podcasts in front of people. It was 2015, and I had just started on a platform called Blab. Blab was the first live-stream platform. You remember Blab? The four in the box, and you could let it snow and give props, and things were flying around. It was chaos! But Blab had this community element to it where you would go live, and within three minutes they would dump 30 people into your stream. I would go live on Blab without any plan other than I had my questions written to do the trivia show, and I needed eight people per night. Imagine right now if I was trying to do a live show and I needed eight contestants that I didn’t have when I hit record. You can’t do that anymore. The power of live isn’t like that on Facebook or anywhere else. But Blab had that social element, and it was great. We did the first shows there. Blab kind of crumbled under its own weight. It didn’t have a business model. It grew so rapidly that it collapsed on itself. But that idea became what you see now as a trivia show. When we got to about Episode 100, around 2020 when the pandemic hit, a local television channel — the Armstrong Channel — picked us up. So the last 75 episodes have all aired on television. We still do a trivia show. Three players from around the world call in and battle it out over three rounds of trivia. Those all air on TV. So now, instead of me recording, editing, releasing and producing, I just show up with my questions and record the show. I hand the show over to the cable company. They do all the editing, they cut me a check, and it’s so much better! Paul Wright: You can’t ask for anything else, Jeff. Absolutely. Jeff Revilla: I’m also branching off of that. There’s a new show coming out that we’ve only announced locally because it’s only going to be an in-person experience at first. It’s called Trivia with Jeff. I’ve got a luchador coming in who’s going to co-host with me. We’re going to do four games in one night. What I’m able to do now is structure a night of trivia where people can come in and play right on their phones. It all gets recorded, but we’re doing four episodes in one night. I’ll sell tickets, I’ll have live contestants, and that will be one month’s worth of content. I’m going to try out this new format. The first episode records on May 29th, depending on when this airs. People may or may not know if it was successful! Paul Wright: Hopefully, you can send it out to the masses, and those of us here in Canada can pick it up as well. That’s wonderful. Jeff, we have to wrap things up, but tell us your website and where we can find you online. If we’re in the Pennsylvania area and want to get connected with you, go to the theatre, or if there are any podcasters out there who want to participate — where can we find you? Jeff Revilla: Go to Poduty.com. We’re in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. If you’re in the local area, just stop by. Give me a call or go out to the website. You can chat with me directly from the website. I’ll meet you down there and give you a tour. Anytime. I love showing off the place. I’m really proud of it. It came together in a way that I couldn’t even have dreamed of. It just works for some reason. All those things I thought about fit into this little space, and I’m just proud of it. We have upcoming events on the website and new things. We sponsor meetups every month for podcasters. We buy pizza and drinks, and you can network with 20 or 30 people. It’s just a great time. It’s a great community that we’re starting to grow here in Pittsburgh. I think you’re going to see some crazy things come out of Pittsburgh. It could be the Hollywood of podcasts in a year or two, I hope. Paul Wright: Wouldn’t that be something? I’m kind of jealous. I might have to make my way down to Pittsburgh to come and check out your theatre. We’ll be circling back and maybe bringing you back on the show later this year, Jeff. I have a feeling that things are going to explode for you. And potentially, you never know, the model of franchising this across the U.S. and maybe here in Canada. Maybe I can get the Canadian rights to this! We’ll have to talk off-air. Jeff Revilla: You can say you knew me when, right? Paul Wright: That’s right! Jeff Revilla, a pleasure. Thanks for coming on the Link Thru Social Podcast, and all the best. Make sure everyone who’s listening and watching out there visits his website. You have a wonderful evening. You take care. Jeff Revilla: You too. Thanks for having me. Paul Wright: All right, everyone. The Link Thru Social Podcast will be back after this short break. Link Thru Social Advertisement: Link Thru Social. We specialize in social media management, podcast production, digital media and AI solutions. We also look after your web design and SEO to enhance your online presentation. Also check out our podcast URL, LinkThruSocialPodcast.com, which links you to our YouTube channel — and don’t forget to subscribe. We have all the links for where you can listen to our podcast on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. Link Thru Social. Link Thru Social on social media. Stay Connected. Closing Paul Wright: Well, that does it for Episode 10. Thank you very much again for all of your support.