1 | Eric Wulterkens – The Podcast Kingpin

David Kalsow 0:00

PRE-ROLL: This episode of APC presents is brought to you by the Milwaukee mafia podcast. Join author and historian Gavin Schmidt. As he takes you back through the stories of Wisconsin's own mafia history, subscribe in your favorite podcast player or visit Milwaukeemafia.com.

David Kalsow 0:18

I'm David Kalsow. And you're listening to APC presents where I showcase independent podcasters from Northeast Wisconsin. On this very first episode, I've got the podcast kingpin and co founder of the APC, Eric Walterkens. Eric was one of the first podcast fanatics I ran into when I moved here to Northeast Wisconsin. When we sat down for coffee, we soon realized we both had a dream of bringing podcasters together. And thus the Appleton podcast Co Op, and this podcast was born. Funny enough, when we met though he only listened the podcast, had this idea in the back of his head that he wanted to make one. Now he currently produces two podcasts with a few more ideas in the works. One of those podcasts is a mafia podcast, which is why I'm calling him the podcast King. I don't know if I've ever called them that yet, but I guess we'll see how he responds when he listens to this episode. As you'll find with most of these interviews, I like to introduce you to the humans behind the voice. We start talking about Eric's travels life with his wife and his entrepreneurial journey. I'm pleased to present Eric Walterkens.

David Kalsow 1:34

So Eric, when I first met you, we had met through a networking group, and we got matched up to go to a coffee shop and get coffee together. I think, out of all the people I maybe usually kept out for like an hour. We sat there and talked for like two hours talking about podcasts.

Eric Wulterkens 1:51

Was it really that long? I don't remember that. But okay.

David Kalsow 1:54

I distinctly remember it because it was the first time I was like, we met at nine, I think we ended at 11. I was like, holy crap. My boss gonna pay me for this? I was just burning time talking about podcasts with some random guy. And at the end of that we had already put together like a second meetup to then talk about the idea of this Co-op. Correct? What was your initial ideas behind that?

Eric Wulterkens 2:21

I had always envisioned a big passion of mine was, I go to a lot of I've gone to a lot of live podcasts. And we live for anybody that's not from the Appleton area, we live in a rather small community. So we haven't reached the point where a podcast would ever come to Appleton but and I'm also very big into live music. And I enjoy the fact that because of my live music, I feel like my own music plays a huge role in this that if you I mean obviously not in these times, but in a normal time in Appleton, you can always find my music to go see every week, and or what, pretty much whenever you want in many instances. So I always had in the back of my head. First of all, I always wanted to start a podcast, which at the point in time, when we had met that I'd never my head ain't even done that itself. It was always there as something I wanted to do. But I never actually pulled in started doing it. So. So between that and just wanting to be able to like have that dream of well, I like going to live music, but it would be fun, some weekends to have something else. And because I've always been such a big fan of podcasting, I think podcasting is one of the best platform things The internet has ever built. I was like, I want to be able to go see podcasts on weekends. So that was always just a thing in my head. And, and I guess a big, I'm a big person with getting me to do something is a little more challenging. But if somebody if I have somebody there who shares the same passion, and would love to see something I work better with having somebody to push something along.

David Kalsow 4:09

Yeah, so a collaborator that would walk with you kind of through that, whatever it is you want to do.

Eric Wulterkens 4:14

Yeah, so it was I always seen, my whole idea was to get something in Appleton that would start stemming up interest in podcasting, hopefully build a community of people who are podcasting. And once you have that community, I felt like it would be very easy to then go to bars and say, Hey, as an alternative to your life music on weekends. How would you feel about doing a live podcast

David Kalsow 4:45

Instead of having music that hurts your ears have a conversation with some people about maybe a local issue or a comedian or something, something along those lines. And I think that that was like That point, it sort of grew very gradually, was it late fall, I think that it was that we met. And then it was like three months later that the pandemic started. And then it was like, Well, I guess we'll just be a Facebook group for now. We slowly, slowly kept building it. And I think we've got like 40 members in the group as a whole and 10 people that are actively participating in it, which is awesome. For Northeast Wisconsin. That's usually six months behind on technology and everything else.

Eric Wulterkens 5:30

Yeah, I mean, the growth has been great, though, the biggest struggle so far has been just COVID in the fact that I feel the engagement isn't there. But I think that the engagement isn't there. Just because we can't get people together in person. And we can't, it's really easy to ignore a Facebook group Overture, whereas if you start getting people together, start building relationships, people are going to get a much better idea of the power of what you can do as a large group of podcasters together in a community,

David Kalsow 6:01

There's so much knowledge that can be shared for even just the the process of podcasting as itself, or for to share the stories and the passions that people have. But I think we're sort of getting into our second half here. So the we'll move into the another question that I have for you sort of just talking about you as a person, and what you love what your passions are, and that'll hopefully stem into the the podcast in the second half what we got here. But what initially brought you to the Fox Valley area, I born and raised here, born and raised. Yeah, right here in Appleton, no Inca con O'Connor. Cool. And then what? what I've done, I know that something took you away from this area, what was that?

Eric Wulterkens 6:49

I did for four years go into the military. And I moved to Seattle, Washington. And a big part of the reason I did that was because I felt like I needed to get away from this area and, you know, start something new or and once I left. And to be fair, I probably a lot of it had to do with the fact that I went to the military, which was not a good experience for myself. But I felt like what that I learned from that is that this isn't that bad of a place to live. I really started to appreciate what I had here. Yeah. And now that I'm back, I spent four years over in Seattle. And once I came back, I realized there isn't really any place. I would rather live well. I will I would rather live in a much warmer client climate away from the winter. But as fast as cheap there. Yeah, rent isn't cheap there. And as far as just, I like the quaintness of this area. It's a it's a great community. It has a lot of things, but still has a small town vibe. I hate big cities. So

David Kalsow 8:01

Is that what you would say that makes this place special? Because we have like, in my opinion, the the PAC here, which is like huge. The green bay packers are here, but you drive five minutes in other direction. And you're in farm country?

Eric Wulterkens 8:13

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I would. I love that part of it. And I love the fact that it still has a small town feel. But at the same time, it's kind of they're making efforts to progress. You know, there. It's not you. It's not what you think of as a small town. And it's not a big town. It's somewhere in the middle. And that's where I like to be somewhere right in the middle. Yeah,

David Kalsow 8:38

I agree with that. That's one thing that I we also connected on was the food restaurants in general. So what's your favorite restaurant in this area? Because we have some really good restaurants here that I don't think people know about

Eric Wulterkens 8:53

Easily my favorite restaurant in this area is Author's kitchen. I hope I didn't say that name wrong, but I think I got it right.

David Kalsow 9:01

You said it right? Yes. Lindsay always yells at me because I say Arthur's kitchen.

Eric Wulterkens 9:06

I always mix it up too. And I get yelled at all the time too. Ironically.

David Kalsow 9:10

Maybe it's just the guy thing that reads it as it's Arthur's kitchen. No authors. And Lindsay's like, no, the person who writes a book. I'm like, Okay, fair enough. Got it. I haven't been there yet though. So what would be the best thing to order on

Eric Wulterkens 9:25

the empanada? So okay, how I got turned down to this restaurant was about two years ago. I went to Argentina for two weeks. And then we came back in at that point that point in time. author's kitchen was not open yet. Well, it was open, they had burned down and they were in the process of rebuilding it. So the tack which is who I went to Argentina with the text set up a thing so that the head chef would come to the Argentinians Airbnb and cook us dinner. So he came and even The Argentinians which for anybody that doesn't know an empanada is a huge Argentinian food. Oh, is it? Okay. And yeah, I mean, it's all over South America. But yeah, it's very big in Argentina. And they even said themselves that it was the best empanada they had ever had. That is high praise. Yeah. So they're like they never expect they're like I'd never expected we'd come to Appleton, Wisconsin and have the best empanada ever.

I gotta get there. I went to Draft one of our favorite restaurants. It's owned by the same people that are on Sangria and the new urban modern kitchen. Yeah. Just opened up in your next app. They added an empanada to their menu. And it wasn't that good. Yeah, I was that tastes a little bit like fried oil. And I was like, I love everything else the draft does but that was a miss for their menu. And I was like, maybe they're just happening on the the author's kitchen train or empanadas, but they couldn't. couldn't handle the fire there.

You got to kind of watch the seasonality. I know right now that one of their empanadas they have not a big fan of it's a very cheesy empanada. So a lot of Wisconsin people probably love it. Not a big fan. But I think it's a Tuesday they have empanadas specials where they just bring out a whole line of empanadas. Like they make five different empanadas. And it's just awesome. Oh,

Then I'll have to go on Tuesday, then. Hopefully they still have that special going because I would love to just try a flight of empanadas. Yes.

You will not be disappointed. If you are we should probably just stop talking. I'm not going out to eat with you. You can not like empanadas, but you can't not like author's kitchen empanada.

Gotcha. So you also sort of hinted that you've done some world traveling then you've been to Argentina. I've been to Argentina correct. Any other places that you've been to across the world?

So I've been to Colombia? I've been to Japan, Australia, Thailand, Vietnam. Guam. I guess if you consider that world travel, just because it's

a US territory still means its world? Yeah, well, it's a different culture there.

Singapore, England, France.

Okay, you've beaten my list. So just stop right there. What is it that you love about world travel, then what made you actually want to go to all these places?

So the way I got turned on to world travel was because of the military. I traveled a lot while I was in the military. And it really like one of my favorite. One of my favorite places to go is Asia. And that was heavily a place we haven't really visited in the Navy. I guess the the number one thing I like about world travel. And I think it's kind of weird. I don't know that most people get this from World travel when they do it is I love to see the way the different cultures actually live their life. It's more for, you know, when I travel with people, they're like, Oh, we got to see this beautiful Canyon, and this beautiful lake or whatever. And I'm like, that's all really cool. But I just like to sit in the middle of a culture, and just see the difference between the way they live their lives and the way we live our lives. It's a very powerful thing for me. And I've learned things from seeing the way other cultures live to be like, I don't like the way people in the United States do this or do that. You know, it's I like the simplicity of their lives. And just, it's just more of a I don't know, it's very hard thing to describe, or do you have any examples of a great example of it is is so when we're in Bangkok, Thailand, first of all, I went to a street vendor, and I paid $1.50 for Pad Thai. This Pad Thai was the most amazing meal that I ever had in my life. It was it was incredible. And it was just I was walking up the street and there was just a little card on the side of the street. And yes, the US has that. But it's not like you see it in Asia and you're not I don't think anybody can really ever say they've gone to a cart on the side of the street in the US and it's been the best meal they've ever had

All those documentaries and stuff about like those the street food basically are not anywhere in America.

Yes, yes. And another example of it is again in in Bangkok, surprisingly, some of the place I've been in Thailand, Bangkok is probably my least favorite, but it probably has the best food for some reason, probably just because it's the biggest city. But we would walk around the neighborhoods in Thailand and it was they were restaurants but it was almost like the people just opened up their living room and you would go sit down and they would cook you dinner. So you're like walk up their front door and just yeah, I mean it wasn't like that it was kind of like they would have like a swing up garage door in their house. But it literally felt like you were in their living room. And they were just cooking food for you. But try to wrap your head around the thing of like, you knew your neighbor that made the best curry. Yeah. And that's how you got your curry. You just went to your neighbor and said, you know, and what a way to live. Like, and it's so far away from what we're used to here, that it almost seems far fetched, like that can't really happen. But it does, like what we're trying to do with a PC, a sense of community, right? And like a local community.

Don't get me wrong. I love the internet and the online community. I mean, we're in podcasting. Obviously, there's a huge, there's an online community, but we love that you can drive 15 minutes, that means someone else that has similar interests and passions as you exactly. And I think what you were like with with getting your curry from your neighbor is like there's a dependence upon someone else. That you know, actually, huh. What is it about America that you that is sort of lost that? Can you pin that down?

I think these people open up their houses serve foods in these other countries, because I honestly believe it has to do with money. You know, the money, the people there aren't as rich. I mean, in not to say that everybody in the US is rich. But when you can spot when you compare it to somebody in Thailand, the average person had to in person in Thailand has a lot of money here. And so I think our culture has shifted away from that. Whereas people don't want to open their doors to cook food because it's not a necessity. embrace that. Yeah. But it's just not available because nobody wants to do it, I guess I

Anything other countries, or any travel stories that sort of stick out in your mind?

One thing that I was traveling when I was traveling in Vietnam, we if you're familiar with Halong Bay, it's a very famous famous, like, water area, I guess, on the ocean of Vietnam. And it's all fishermen are there and stuff. Well, we rented a boat, basically, that had a captain and then we had a tour guide and a chef, the one night we were on that ship and the guy, the tour guide, they would always come out serve us our dinner. And then they would just kind of disappear into the like captain's room and they would eat their dinner. Yeah, well, apparently they were slamming some a lot of wine. While they were back there drinking in the in the tour guy came out. And he was rather drunk. But he just went on this big rant about how people in Vietnam, he's like, you know, we don't have anything, we don't have money. We don't have things. We don't have items. We don't have anything, really. But he's like, We're so happy. And that really resonated with me. Because when I think when I look at a lot of people in here, I don't look at a lot of people as not having money. An average person does pretty well here. But I would say that a lot of people are not very happy with their lives. And so that really resonated with me like like, maybe there is something to what he's saying where just the simple, basic life is a lot funner than worrying about a lot of the things that I think people are in the United States get worried about. Are you happy with your life here? Very, very, yeah. Yeah, I am very happy. You know, the thing is, is like the other day, I don't know why this popped into my head. But I asked Tracy and I was like, you know, throw it take money out of the equation. And, um, you can have anything you want cost doesn't matter. What would you want more from your life that that you don't have today? We sat there when we both thought about it. My my thing was was if I if money was of no concern, I'd have a Tesla. And the only other thing we could really come up with was like a peloton. Like put a peloton is really bad. And a Tesla is really unnecessary. But, but like, those are the only two things we could actually come up with.

So they're like this would make our life so much better.

Yeah, yeah. Like, like what we see out in the world that we don't have, these are the two things that we could come up with that we actually want. So and I think that just plays into it that Yeah, I'm very happy with what I have and what I do. And because it's, I mean, otherwise I'd have I feel like I'd have a bucket list of things. I want it.

So let's bring it back to the valley here. Besides food. Is there any other places you'd like to visit?

I don't know that I have places I love a lot of the networking, entrepreneur type things that I'm involved in and stuff like that. I think the tech puts on a lot of good stuff. Love My 1 Million Cups,

You're pretty ingrained in the entrepreneurial scene. You Big time. I mean, this is a small community. So what does that entrepreneurial scene look like here?

I've been in entrepreneur for 13 years and three years ago, I didn't think there was an entrepreneurial community. You thought you're the only one here? Well, I didn't think there was a gathering place. How's that? taking those two things into consideration? I feel like it's, it's really strong. Yeah. You know, it can always be improved, like anything. You know, I'm sure that if I go to Chicago, and I find their entrepreneur scene, it's going to be rather larger than the one here, right. But at the same point, it's here, in a way, is it better that it's smaller? Because there's less people so you know, those people more closely, you're more connected to them? You have better relationships with them?

Have you found those three years since you found that entrepreneurial community here to be really encouraging for your own business?

Yeah, the last three years since finding that community, I've grown the most as an entrepreneur in those three years. A lot of that has to do with the community, a lot of it has to do with other things that have happened. But yeah, I mean, it has played a huge role in growing me as an entrepreneur. If I look back three years ago, I feel like the previous 10 years, I just kind of stayed at the same place. And then once that I hit that community, it started, like I started an arc upward with growing as, as a person and as an entrepreneur.

So let's talk about what you do as an entrepreneur then.

Okay, it's really unexciting, though.

I know you told me before, but at least give us the two sentence overview.

So what I do is I work with a network of suppliers of used books in media. I started all for the first 12 years of doing this, I was just selling the that those products on Amazon. And then in the last year, I decided to take a spin away from Amazon. And I've started working with a network of other Amazon sellers, more or less being just their backbone of where they can get more inventory for their stores. So I tap into my suppliers, they come to me and want books, then we fund all the books from my supplier to them instead of funding funneling them into my stores.

So inventory filler,

yes. distributor, wholesaler, whatever you want to call it. There's a lot of things you could go as middleman

for books and media. Anything else you'd like to add about yourself? That's usually a good good question that

I think you really covered a lot of me to be honest with you, world traveler, entrepreneur, etc, etc. I don't have many passions beyond that, you know, you know, other than that, I just

Well, thank you for the great segueway. Speaking of good passion, we'll talk about podcasting in the next segment.

MIDROLL: Welcome to the mid roll. It's that sweet spot ad people might actually listened to so here's my hook for you to keep listening and not skip 30 seconds head. Want to win a sure podcasting microphone and some sweet studio headphones were $400. All you got to do to win them is start your own podcast. Now you're thinking, well, gosh, Dave, that'd be great, but I have no idea where to start. We'll start right here each week. During this middle part, I'll give you a podcasting lesson step by step in 60 seconds for starting a show. Halfway through the season, you'll be ready to launch your very own podcast. We're calling it the podcast fast class. We'll do weekly check ins and virtual office hours over in the APC members Facebook group. So come on over membership is completely free, but it is exclusive for Northeast Wisconsin, folks. To sign up and read the official rules, visit Appleton podcast.com. And click the banner at the top or find the direct link in the show notes below. Now, back to the What's your favorite podcast to listen to?

If I'm not mistaken, it's on a hiatus now because of some issues. But long historically, my favorite podcast has been Reply All for anybody that doesn't know is on gimlet and a lot of gimlet podcast I also I do a lot of podcasts listening for stuff within my industry and things like not so much in my industry but things I'm into personal finance type stuff and stuff like that. Kind of in between podcasts on that though, because I've kind of grown sick of the ones I've been listening to so I'm out searching for new ones. But But gimlet has been a time honored favorite of mine.

What did you like about reply all what made it special to you?

Um, well, I'm a big like I we alluded to earlier I think a little bit is I'm big on the internet night. It's a big thing. For me, and reply all just does a lot of fun. Subjects really focused around the internet and things happening on the internet that it's just a it's a light hearted podcast that really touches to things that I'm interested in, because they're all internet related. And obviously, just a professional quality. And I've always been a big fan. Ever since I believe planet money. I've always been a big fan of Alex Bloomberg. So the minute I found out that he was starting his own podcast network that was immediately I ran, I ran over to it. And I think like, that was kind of when when gimlet started, that was kind of my, my eye opening experience with how big podcasting was becoming. I guess I I'd seen a lot of other networks out there. It always seemed like the other networks, were just the guy creating a network bringing podcast together. And I think listening to startup and seeing Alex go and find all this venture funding to to start this it made me realize like, wow, this is becoming something way more than what even I ever expected it to

become. People are putting funding behind this. Yes. And someone's actually making a business model of podcasting. Right. Do you think that's possible for every person, to what to monetize your podcast?

Um, I think it is. But I, if I, if anybody were to ever come to me and asked me about starting a podcast, I would tell him to never do it for the funding. Like if you want to do this, because it's the same thing with any sort of content creation, and maybe this is short sighted of me. But I would never get into a kind of any sort of content creation business with the intent of making money, I would do it because you're passionate about what you're doing. And hopefully, once you a grows, you'll eventually see the fruits of that labor. But I do feel like and with any sort of content business, it's it's a long haul to get there to getting seen the profits come in. And if you're just doing it to get to that point, you're gonna burn out before you get there.

Yeah, there's a lot of other paths you could take that could be more sustainable for for short term.

Yeah. If you're looking for immediate money, I would say that podcasting is not

Good if you have a better chance of winning. Yeah, exactly. I think some of the stats that recently as like 75,000 episodes of podcasts are being uploaded daily. There's over a million that are on Apple, but only 400,000 are active. But compared to like YouTube, which is like trillions of minutes a day of video content that's being uploaded many of it unwatchable. But people are saying that we're an unsaturated market. Do you still think that with all the podcasts that you've listened to and know all the podcasters everyone in their mother has a podcast nowadays?

So I think that certain segments within podcasting are saturated. So if you want to jump into like a personal finance, I'm trying to think of other good examples. You can probably throw crime. True Crime. Yeah, these there's tons of podcasts out there. But with Milwaukee mafia, I learned when we started that podcast that was that's I don't consider that my podcast. I'm just on it in it's it's Gavin's podcast,

But you get to be the voice of the listener in that podcast, right? Yeah. I don't know anything. Tell me about it.

Yeah, exactly. So when we started that podcast, I had never even bothered to look and see, because this is what Gavin does. And he wasn't going to sway from that subject matter. You know, he was going to do something Milwaukee mafia, there was no discussion about what the right subject matter was for the podcast. And I quickly learned go out on iTunes and look up mafia. There's like literally no mafia podcast which is shocking to me that they don't exist. But accidentally I think he found a wide open market and I think it's a market that obviously people people love the mafia they want to hear about the mafia.

If you just look at the success of mafia movies in general, like Ron father three, I think is still top 10 on IMDB for best movie of all time.

And when we look at our listeners, you've got people from Finland listening to this podcast, and it's about Milwaukee. You know, granted, the majority of listeners are in Wisconsin, but are Finland, Bangladesh for some reason, they just listeners all over the place that are listening to this podcast,

But just stumble across mafia. Yeah, listen.

Yeah. So there are plenty of little corners of podcasting that are wide open for the taking, that are completely unserviced. And they're going to just keep coming in keep, you know, new new markets. Yeah, new markets are going to appear all the time, because people's tastes are constantly changing. From that perspective, is it completely 110%? wide open? No, probably not. What is there plenty of opportunity there. Yes. And is there probably more opportunity than say, going out and starting a YouTube channel? I would think so.

I think professionals would call that knowing your niche niching down to like, being so specific that like, like, can't not search for you if if that's what they're looking for, right? The thing about being a local, and that's why we sort of started the Appleton podcast golf is that like, being locked to a geographical location automatically gives you those people that are interested in that, but like Milwaukee and mafia, that's a specific thing to like Wisconsin, and then mafia is the broader one. I'm sure you can even probably Nisha down even more than that. How did you meet Gavin? And what was that like that has sort of walk him through the podcast creation process?

Well, when I when I first met Gavin, we were in Kinney garden. And we were playing with little little GI Joe of action figures. And we made a movie out of them started here. So yeah, we've I've known Gavin for a very long time. And Gavin, actually, he works with me within my business on a day to day basis basis. So but we've been friends, he's, he's worked with me for probably six years now, at least. And actually, between me and my brother, my brother is also a big podcast listener, and he's a big fan of the dollop. If you're familiar with the dialogue podcast, because you've told me about it. For the listeners who don't know what the dollop is, it's two comedians, one of the comedians takes the time in history, researches, it tells the story, and then the other comedian sits there and makes fun of the story, essentially, to break it down into the simplest form. So my brother always had the conversation back and forth, like Gavin should start a podcast, Gavin should start a podcast about the dollar. And then both a dollop are about like the dollar likes about the mafia. Yeah, about, but about, yeah, about the mafia. So that kind of always hung out there. And then we met and then I started running down the path of actually creating my own podcast. And I told him about it. And he's like, yeah, I totally want to do that. And like I do with a lot of things. The last year has been extremely busy with my business, and the equipment has sat here, and I haven't done anything with it. And finally, one day, Gavin's like, when are we going to start my podcast? And I'm like, you know what, Gavin? We're going to start it now. So that way, Yeah, wow. Wasn't today this week. But I said, two weeks, we're gonna record the first podcast. And that's exactly what we did.

That's probably a very similar story to a bunch of other people. They have this idea in their head of like, I am knowledgeable about this, because Gavin is a historian and an author. He wrote a book on the mafia.

He's actually got nine published books now. Oh, nine. Okay. Yeah, not all of them are on the mafia, though. So but, but it's still like,

He's not just someone pulling smoke or just looking up an article every week, like, No, he's very knowledgeable of like the history. I'm sure other people are thinking of that. Like, I know this a lot about this one thing. I'm not sure what medium I should do it in all, maybe podcasting. What would you say to that person?

I would say to anybody that's nervous about setting up starting a podcast, that I come from a background where I have no audio visual experience whatsoever. I have absolutely zero experience with doing any sort of thing like this. I was always very nervous when about starting that first podcast, because I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. But I was shocked when I actually sat down and did it. How not difficult it was, you're probably gonna tell that it's not done by an expert. But the whole idea of editing a podcast was just totally intimidating. To me. It was like, I don't know what I'm doing. And I talked to a couple people about editing podcasts. Obviously, you told me what equipment to buy, I would have had no clue what equipment to buy. But once I actually sat down and did it, I was shocked at how streamlined and easy the process was to at least get the show up there. I'm not going to tell you it's the best quality but I do feel like it's not offensive to listen to Oh no. So I mean to anybody that's Worried about the technology side of doing a podcast is, I would tell you that if I can do it, you can do it.

There you go. So with a bunch of manufacturers creating stuff specifically for content creators, they're making that process even easier with USB microphones, really simplified audio interfaces. It makes affordable podcasting more accessible to people to be able to share those voices that maybe we don't hear as much or have a really unique knowledge about something in particular, and you don't always need the highest quality, you need good quality. But I think the sincerity and the authenticity of the conversation and you as a person, I think is more important than having the $300 microphone and the $400 preamp with everything. I am an audio file and an editor and a really technical person. So I really get nerdy about that stuff. But I like to get an adequate sound. You don't need all of that.

I would agree with that. Yeah, I would totally agree with that. And I would tell you that the quality of content is way more important than your actual equipment and your your abilities as an editor. If you're telling a good story, which I think Gavin does a very good job of telling a good story, then people are going to be able to listen to it and get over those little hiccups that you have in the learning process of creating the content. Yeah, I would warn against like a Maybe you remember this company. But I remember back when podcasting was first getting started. And I was looking into it, there was a company that created this podcast platform that you would call in, all the people on the podcast would call in on their phones and talk and then the service would record the phone call and that was your podcast. Do not do something like that. We are beyond that kind of quality of recording. But as long as you get a semi decent microphone, you're probably pretty safe as far as the quality goes of the podcast.

So you're saying don't use your internal laptop or phone microphones?

Yes. And when you do it, make sure that your audacity is set to your input. I don't even know what that box it's called. But but you're just before this podcast, we were discussing an issue I had that took me like three weeks to figure out and I'm like, duh. And when we figured it out, I was like, well, it's like 150 times better of sound quality by just clicking this one button.

Revealing your technical knowledge there. But knowing that the equipment is easier to use, and there's tons of people out there online and locally here in the Fox Valley that are willing to sort of share the knowledge that they've learned along the way. does everything have to be perfect?

No. I mean, it depends. I, I'm assuming for you, it has to be perfect, because he said you're quite anal about that kind of thing. But

Yes, I am. I also went to school for it. And it's taken me a little bit to be like, just because it's not recorded on the best microphone in the world doesn't mean that it's not good. I'm trying to get better to express that to other people too. And not like be hoity toity about fancy microphones,

Seeing I'm constantly trying new podcasts. And it isn't very often that I try a podcast where the audio is offensive to me like you listen to it. And it's like, I don't care how good the content is, I get it. I just can't listen to this. And that doesn't exist anymore in it. Well, at least I don't find it. I'm sure it's got to be out there somewhere. But I think that's a sign to everybody that that times are changing. And this isn't as hard as it once was. So for you to get an acceptable audio quality. It's not a far fetched thing to do. It's pretty easy to get a basic understanding, I would equate, you know, my knowledge was 20 minutes of being taught what to do. I sat down and I talked to a guy that does auto audio editing professionally for 20 minutes. We never looked at an odd any audio editing software. He just basically told me what he did. I used what he told me to start editing my stuff. Yeah, it's not a huge curve to get over for me, the biggest curve was just doing it, you know, and once I did, I was like, wow, this is really easy. I don't have other podcasting platforms. But I can say that, like if all of them are as easy as captivate then, like they really nailed down the hosting side of it. Yeah, because captivate is so easy to publish a podcast Do you know and when I launched the first Milwaukee mafia, I looked at it and I'm like, man, how do I get these to all these podcast platforms? I just went in captivate and I'm like, Oh, it's all right here. And I just click buttons. And it was really Yeah,

I just put this link over here. And once you're done with that, anytime you upload an episode, it just goes there.

Yeah, it was strikingly easy.

That's one of the reasons that I switched over to captivate. I've gone through probably three or four. It tried to make the transition from one hosting service to As easy as possible, but I found that they usually insert extra gobbledygook into your show notes. And so you have to go back through every single episode and delete that stuff out. So I try not to switch very often, but captivate does have a bunch of extra valuable tools that are incorporated into it integrations with MailChimp with WordPress. So just spend the $6, the $12, it is not that expensive these days, to not have to think about it. And so you can concentrate on your content.

Exactly. This is something that anybody can do. And the only excuse you have for not doing it is not doing it. Because go to ABC and just post a message on the Facebook group say, hey, I want to start a podcast. Will somebody sit down with me and teach me? And if nobody else would do it? I'll certainly do it. I'm feeling like there's way more qualified people to do it on that group than I am. But But I can at least get you started. You know, do you

Have any tips for beginning podcasters about making your content actually not recording or anything but like coming up with your content?

As of right now I don't create the content. So I don't know that I'm really that I'm really qualified to say that but but with me and my wife Tracy are trying to work on another podcast, the podcast we're creating is more me telling a story and Tracy asking questions to me about that story. So dolloping your life pretty kind of Yeah, but me not hoping because they're funny, and we're not. So it's our curiosity a little bit. Tracy's not funny at all. We're both funny, but not on a microphone. You're not stage comedian? Yeah, no, no stand up comedian. comedy is not in our wheelhouse whatsoever, an artist and a businessman. But I come up with these bullet points of what we're going to talk about what I'll talk about on the subject, and then I give her a list of questions that she can potentially ask me, she might ask me those questions. As we're recording, she might also, on the fly, come up with questions based on things I say. So you're making yourself the guests sort of in that aspect? That's the idea behind the podcast is she it's going to be kind of the flip between what Milwaukee mafia is I'm going to become Gavin, she's going to become me. Interesting. And what do you guys want to talk about? We're gonna walk through the hit by story of being in the military. So we're gonna, we're gonna start from me going into boot camp, and just tell all the stories of the things I experienced the things, you know,

From what you've said, even on this podcast, you don't have the highest praises for the military, but you're not shooting it down. Either you have that sort of middle ground.

It's gonna be it's gonna go both ways. Yeah, I don't regret ever being in the military. But I do have a lot of negative things to say about the military zone.

So we've actually planned in the first episode, we actually have the first episode recorded, but it's just been sitting there. And I think we're gonna probably end up going back and just redoing it. And that's always totally cool. Getting on the mic and practicing. You don't have to post it, you can record it, listen to it, show it to your friends, and then redo something else. Like there's always opportunity to grow and change. And I think that's what they're what you want to do with that podcast. And you're taking everything that you've learned from every other podcast and funneling it into this one. So, Eric, I really appreciate you being on the show any other parting words you want to leave the listeners with?

Just get out there and take steps to do it? If you're really overwhelmed at the concept of it, that's totally understandable. And that's what the Appleton podcast Co-op is there for, you know, reach out to that group. Reach out to somebody within that group, and I'm sure somebody will help you with whatever questions you need answered.

Awesome. Thanks for the plug for our Co Op and for letting me into your house to record this.

No problem. It's been fun.

There it is our first interview in the books. I really hope you enjoyed this conversation with Eric. Next week, we're gonna do something a little different, right? In this feed, you'll hear my favorite episode of Eric and Gavin's podcast blocky mafia. I won't give too much away, but it does involve a counterfeiting ring, and a WWE like encounter with the police. So listen to the Milwaukee mafia and learn more about Eric, you can check the links in the show notes. If you're hesitant about starting a podcast like Eric said, Just do it. Head over to Appleton podcast calm for community support and resources. You don't need fancy gear to get started. But remember, you could win some. If you know someone in Northeast Wisconsin who wants to start a podcast Will you share the show with them. And if you made it this far, please take a second to rate and review this podcast on pod chaser. I'm David Kalsow. Your neighborly podcast nerd. Thank you for listening

It's been a while since I've been a host not gonna lie.

A little nervous?

Yeah, because I don't want to waste your time and be like, Okay, well half and hour in and I have like three questions I still want to ask...

We get an hour and a half and I'm just gonna cut you off. You got enough content man. Figure it out.