This week, I made a choice. And it has a lot to do with focus and opportunity. And, most of all, money.
To set the stage, let me share this voicemail I received earlier this week:
Hey Arvid, Mahogany here. It’s really interesting how you’re using whisper.cpp and it’s a great idea about like scanning every podcast everywhere and using that potentially as a add-on service or just simply a marketing tool for Podline.fm.
But you asked for feedback on “what do we think?” And I do think it would be a major deviation, like diluting your focus from the feature add-ons on Podline, because it’s a drastically different value proposition and offering, whereas you can funnel all of that energy and then essentialism sort of way towards building out or fixing bugs or whatever for Podline, even though this other idea is great.
So you wanted some feedback. Those are my initial thoughts. And it’s only because of the whole like staying focused on your core product, even though the other product is fun and interesting and even a great value add for podcasters, like that data and having the ability to see what’s going on real time is useful, but it’s very different.
Mahogany, through podline.fm
Experience this article as a podcast, a YouTube show, or as a newsletter:
Yeah, it’s super different. Thanks so much, Mahogany. I really appreciate it, and I love that Podline allows me to receive such feedback. But it has a problem.
And that problem is me.
As much as I love to tinker with technologies of all kinds, I want my SaaS experiments to result in a profitable business. This isn’t just a fun activity: I want my work to ultimately create a long-term asset for me and my family.
Podline, my podcast voicemail product, has the potential to become a business. There are a few competitors and alternatives that people pay money for. But Podscan, my newest project, has shown overwhelming demand. Not only are there tools in the wild that are used by thousands of marketers for similar purposes, but I’ve been bombarded with messages of interest and willingness to pay with this product.
This has not happened for Podline. But sure is happening now. Podscan fits into a budget, because it’s so much like things people already pay for.
And that is what I’m chasing. Evidence of demand. A pull from the market.
I don’t intend to stick with an idea because it was the first one that made sense to me. Readiness to pivot in the face of changing circumstances is a pretty important part of entrepreneurship. And it’s not a very popular position. I got a lot of messages like the one from earlier that focused a lot on a lack of perceived consistency. Particularly if you’re building in public, you’ll occassionally get feedback like that.
And I completely understand it. I’ve been having these thoughts for weeks now, too. This isn’t new, it’s a pretty substantial internal struggle for me.
But I know that I am still relentlessly executing, even when I pivot my efforts a few months in. The sunk cost fallacy is indeed a fallacy and I am allowed to stop sinking effort into a less promising project. That is my founder agency, and I would be limiting myself if I considered myself or my project a failure just because a better opportunity presented itself.
Consistency for consistency’s sake if folly. And I need to be honest with myself here: Podline is a great product, but (not yet) a great business. It’s feature complete, has seen some usage, but so far, no paying customers.
Meanwhile, I am getting strong payment intent signals from my emails and DMs on a daily basis for Podscan.
The path forward is clear to me.
And, so is the path that led me here. I am Marie Kondo’ing Podline at this point: it sparked joy, and now it can rest. It sparked more than joy: Podscan would not exist without Podline. Both technologically —with me getting into the Laravel world— and in terms of market, Podline allwed me to freely explore and experience a space I haven’t operated in: AI and podcasting.
Now that I am picking up the breadcrumbs of visible demand that I see strewn all around me, my game plan with Podscan is much clearer, too. As I’m building a marketing tool, I’ll use it for my own marketing. One of the most validated use-cases for having a podcast observation tool has been “figuring out where my competitors advertise” — which Podscan is predestined for. So, I’ll create alerts for the companies I want to market to, where I track mentions of their competitors. A screenshot of that, or a screencast, should create some interest even in the coldest of outreach.
Besides, most people aren’t podcasters. But in my network, almost everyone has to market. The massive positive feedback from the community coupled with clear use cases that I’ve already seen means that my positioning and my messaging will have much more impact for Podscan.
That’s where I am.
I’m allowed to pivot, I am not trapped — I get to choose what I work on and what signals I listen to. And this is still a very calculated decision. I wondered about switching things up a few times during building Podline, but I said no. At that point, the product was the best option around.
But that has changed.
Now I say yes. And you’ll see me talking about Podscan a lot more quite soon.
