Zach is founder at DropOuts University Studios — this interview has been lightly edited for style and readability
Zach Justice: I do Dropouts podcast, because I dropped out - I’m uneducated, so anything you hear today that you take with you is your own concern! I also have another one called The Lunch Table. Two podcasts in a week and for some reason, that’s apparently a job nowadays.
James Cridland: They’re big shows. We’re here because the excellent people at Patreon have brought us together. Why did you get involved with Patreon as a different revenue stream?
ZJ: My mom decided she wanted to go on more vacations! A paywall is a great way to earn more money, and Patreon is the best one in my opinion. So we give them [our Patrons] extra content. We give them 15 to 20 minutes extra of each podcast. Once a month we do a drunk episode. (So again, I dropped out of college and I get paid. It’s a wild west out here.) But no, Patreon’s been great.
We just rented out Mel’s Diner in Hollywood, which is a very famous diner, and we brought a ton of our fans in and they were able to watch us do competitions and film a podcast. Patreon has been a good little partner. I feel like I’m married without the commitment. It’s beautiful.
JC: There are quite a few podcasters who say that adding additional content is a lot of hard work. Is it an important part of why people are signing up?
ZJ: Yeah. I think they also want to feel - we give out so much free content, and we’ve noticed a lot of people say “it feels so nice that I get to help you guys out because you give me so much already”. Definitely a majority is there because we give extra content, and it’s like a little club. You know, we’ve got our community, which understands the quirks and our ins and outs of inside jokes, and we go to them for new concepts and things. So it really feels like an extended family, a place where we can feel safe from the scariness of the full internet.
JC: Advertising sometimes means that you can’t necessarily say some of the things that you want to - how important is Patreon to you as a business when you’re making your shows, are you able to give us any sort of numbers?
ZJ: I’m very rich from Patreon. Thank you. I’m not allowed to give official numbers. But just know, I’m doing so well and I want to specify that I’m not giving any of it to charity. But I would if I found a charity that I liked, but so far I haven’t.
JC: But are we talking about an extra five or 10% in terms of ad revenue, or more?
ZJ: An extra 50%.
JC: 50%?
ZJ: Yeah, if you do it right.
JC: And so in your mind, what is doing it right?
ZJ: Some people just create a Patreon, or really any model of paywall, to just get money - when it should be community building. So if you’re giving them more value than they’re signing up for, I think that’s a beautiful thing and people really enjoy it. So we like to over-deliver.
Our first tier is five bucks a month, so we really wanna make sure they get more than they deserve - not than they deserve, but than we deserve, um, they deserve, but then we deserve. I’m just kidding.
JC: And you talk about community. There are other methods out there where you can earn money from your audience, but you can’t communicate with them one-on-one. Is the community aspect of it an important part?
ZJ: I think that’s the main reason we do it. I mean, obviously it’s a great source of secure revenue, which if the advertisers go away or the algorithm changes, they’re all there: but my favorite part is the community, because I can speak to people one-on-one who are the truest fans, the people that really understand the content the most, so they can usually give the best ideas when it comes to what they want to see. A lot of people they just need a friend, and today a lot of people are lonely, so it’s nice to get that one-on-one time with a lot of individuals.
JC: Zach, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.
ZJ: For the benefit of the tape, I’m giving him a handshake.
JC: Yes, thank you. And if you would like to obviously go and support the Podnews Patreon, which publishes the Podcast Business Journal, then it’s at https://podnews.net/patreon
ZJ: I’ll get two!