At Podcast Movement 2018 in Philadelphia, we unveiled the Poductivity brand and pre-launch teaser to the world. We had hundreds and hundreds of sign-ups for a beta invitation.
As we get closer to that beta, it’s time to start lifting the lid on Poductivity.
As a bootstrapped startup, a business that has had no financial injection and that hasn’t raised any angel or VC funding, the core business at Podcast Websites (our first and most well-known product in the podcasting space, to date) has been funding R&D, the team and the development of Poductivity.
And that’s rather challenging.
We’ve toyed with the idea of seeking funding and I have a really strong network for doing so both here in the UK and in the U.S., but so far we’ve decided against it.
Funding buys you speed. But it also buys you hassle, at times.
Plus, there are so many amazing companies springing up so quickly in the podcasting space and many of them have had a LOT of funding which at times makes the industry really struggle to “trust” their overall goals.
I’ve built my personal reputation and the reputation of my businesses, both past and present, on talking to people and getting to know them.
I believe that people matter more than anything in a business and to help as many people as we can, we have to know people well and really understand their lives, how podcasting fits into that life and what they really want & need from the industry.
That’s why I’ve invested so much of my personal money into travelling the globe getting to know people from all walks of the podcasting world.
Poductivity is something that we believe passionately in but that requires certain pieces to be in place before we finally bring you, the ever-appreciated and ever-present podcast aficionado into the mix.
Building something that requires these pieces to be in place as well as self-financing the product development is a challenge that we’re enjoying and one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle here is the potential protection of certain bits of technological intellectual property.
And that is something that we’ll have answers on, soon.
The podcasting industry is in a very exciting place right now and as we ramp up via Podcast Websites for some big announcements for that brand, I think it’s time to put to rest some of the theories about what Poductivity actually is as well as tell you the space within which it sits.
So far, we’ve had a range of guesses about what Poductivity is, but by far the most popular guesses have been:
- A podcast hosting platform
- A podcast productivity tool, process or workflow
- A guest booking system
- Something in the “all-in-one” solution space
Whilst these are all great guesses, Poductivity isn’t any of them.
Not even close, actually.
So why did we pre-launch at Podcast Movement 2018?
Simple: to test the brand out and to get feedback on certain elements of Poductivity without people really realising that they were helping.
Often, during my conversations with people at the Poductivity booth, I’d be asking them subtle questions about some of their podcasting issues and the results were clear:
Poductivity has a place in the market and really can shake things up.
But like I said earlier, the nature of Poductivity means that we need certain pieces in place and certain things to be lined up prior to giving you the full skinny on what Poductivity is.
But now you know: Poductivity is a technology.
And it’s a technology that I think you’ll be excited about because it’s built to help podcasters transform how they think about their audience.