Daunted by starting your first podcast? Trust me, it’s much easier than when I entered the scene. The world of podcasting used to be super bro-ey and technical. So-called “gurus” made you feel like you had to build an entire studio in your basement and buy special mixers just to get your message out.
All of that changed with She Podcasts, the now 21,000-member strong online community and live event supporting podcasters from all walks of life on their journey.
Meet my dear friends and the founders — Jessica Kupferman & Elsie Escobar — in this week’s episode.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Elsie and Jessica's entrepreneurial journey from Facebook group to 21,000-member community and live event
- One of the biggest factors behind their Facebook group's 60% leap in growth since 2018
- Jessica and Elsie's secret to building iron-clad trust with their Facebook group and fans
- The magnetic power of “doing the right thing”
- Factors to consider before monetizing your thriving online community
- What you can learn from them about maintaining a healthy business partnership
- Making people feel seen and heard vs taking your podcast to the “next level”
- Finding connection with fellow podcasters with completely different lifestyles, interests, and areas of expertise
- Where the women behind She Podcasts see social media going in the next couple years
- The pressure to constantly “be on” with social media and how Elsie protects her peace
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Memorable Quotes:
- “The female entrepreneur space was well infiltrated. Whereas the female podcaster space was nonexistent. Right. So I sort of started to really focus and dedicate my time to supporting those people.” — Jessica Kupferman
- “There is a profound sense of group ownership with all the things that we do, which I think is really special about those people.” — Jessica Kupferman
- “We don't take ourselves too seriously in the sense that we always come as we are. And I think part of it is that we help people not feel like they're not enough somehow. Like you're perfect. You just come and hang out with us. So it's very inclusive in that respect.” — Elsie Escobar
- “The minute you scale up, you're having to deal with twice as many clients… You really have to think outside the box of how you're going to be able to manage this. Then a team is involved, outsourcing is involved, being able to have different things to pay attention to… You cannot all of a sudden manage all of the things in the same way that they were happening before.” — Elsie Escobar
- “She Podcasts flourished because we needed it as women; we needed it as friends. We were each other's support as human beings to get through our days of having little babies and having to do all the things and having to really be real and sometimes complain and make each other laugh and cry and deal with the everyday life experience that we had.” — Elsie Escobar
- “The speaker page on the website made me feel how Andréa feels now because it was the first time that I saw a hundred women of all different shaped sizes and colors. And they were the only ones speaking. No Ira Glass. No John Lee Dumas. No Cliff Ravenscraft. Just women. And that made my eyes leak.” — Jessica Kupferman
- “By the end of the planning process, Dréa, I was like, you know, the hotel could burn down and I feel like these attendees would just grab a sleeping bag and be like, ‘we're just gonna be out in the parking lot.’” — Jessica Kupferman
- “I have friends who I've met because of this group, like people where we will go to other conferences and just be like, please come to this one. ‘Cause we need this vibe to follow to the other event. That's so powerful.” — Andréa Jones
- “Up until that point, I felt in safe hands whenever I was on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn… I felt like I knew all the people. I trusted all the people. I knew most people had good intentions. And then all of a sudden it was like underlying trickery in corners.” — Jessica Kupferman
- “Social media's changed a lot since 2008, and I wanna leave it better than I found it.” — Jessica Kupferman
- “I don't have to be talking on social to be relevant, which is not something I really strive to be. I am. And I always will be without me having to go tweet about it.” — Elsie Escobar
About the Guests:
Jessica Kupferman started her podcast to see if she could grow her online business. Someone invited her on a podcast and instantly she was hooked. She wanted to be a guest on more, but when she took a look at business shows, she found that they were a lot of “young, white dudes interviewing other young, white dudes.” Exasperated, she started her first podcast and instantly gravitated to other women who were also podcasting then.
After attending a conference, she started a Facebook group called “Women Who Podcast” and added the other amazing women podcasters she spent time with, including Elsie Escobar. Little did she know that Elsie was a podcasting veteran who knew TONS of women who wanted to join the group, and she had been thinking about starting a women's podcasting group.
To make a long story short, Elsie had some amazing ideas, Jess was great at helping them come to life. Together they are dedicated to helping women overcome whatever obstacles stand in their way in order to be able to express themselves, specifically through the medium of podcasting.
Resources Mentioned:
Join the She Podcasts Facebook group
In this essay, you make a few points that are worth considering. If I hadn’t stumbled across this, I never would have taken the time to review any of this. You can play: fireboy and watergirl to relax, or pass the time!