Founder's Story - Inside The Empire: Journey from NFTs to Web3 Marketing and the Thriving Digital Social Hour Podcast, A Founder's Story with Sean Kelly | S2: E4

Episode Date: December 2, 2023

Without a doubt, podcast host Sean Kelly has made his mark as a prominent force with a social media following of over 10 million. Interestingly, Sean’s path to success began with his innovative e-commerce brand, Jersey Champs, and his successful NFT collection, Chibi Dinos, which served as a springboard to build a thriving Web3 marketing empire that quickly gained attention and got acquired. Today, Sean is hosting Digital Social Hour Podcast, one of the most impactful podcasts on the internet. Digital Social Hour podcast is a captivating podcast that invites fascinating individuals from diverse fields and backgrounds to share their knowledge and insights on various topics. The podcast delves into the minds of experts in health, real estate, bedroom coaching, and more. With a unique approach to interviewing, Sean’s questions are thought-provoking and pull back the curtain, making for an engaging and informative listening experience that is sure to leave you wanting more Subscribe to our newsletter so you don't miss out on exclusive interviews and special content: https://foundersstory.beehiiv.com/subscribe For more info on guests and future episodes visit pix11.com/impact and https://fox5sandiego.com/fox-5-partners/impactful/  Our Sponsors:* Check out PrizePicks and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: www.prizepicks.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to Founders Story, the podcast where trailblazing entrepreneurs share their extraordinary journeys, uncover the passion, grit, and vision that drive the world of business and innovation. This is the Founders Story, and I'm Lee O'Brien. Today in the digital world, having an online presence and online ventures go hand in hand. And today's guest has become a specialist in this. Sean Kelly is a serial entrepreneur who boasts an online presence of more than 10 million followers. He's the founder of the Digital Social Hour, a podcast dedicated to e-commerce and NFTs, and which currently receives over 150 million views every single month. And his latest ventures, Chibi Dinos and Jersey Champs,

have utilized Web3 marketing to grow at scale. Hi, Sean. How's it going, man? Thanks for having me. Yeah, great to have you here. Well, first of all, building an online presence of 10 million followers is quite an accomplishment. What are your keys to building such a huge following and how do you keep engaging with such a diverse mix of people? Yeah, so the first thing is

consistency. So I've been posting at least three times a day for the past year straight. And that started to snowball, I'd say around six, seven is when we started getting a lot of views. I think we hit 100 million views one of those months. But secondly, the content has to be super interesting. So like, the type of content I post, you'll never find anywhere. I had on one guy yesterday or last week, he drinks his own pee. So that's how the clip starts. And then that one got like millions of views. I have another guy on that does exorcisms or having a guy coming on tomorrow that says he can cure HIV. So I have on all sorts of interesting guests and the content, you know, speaks for itself. I think at this point, I mean, with a, with a diverse collection of guests and the content you know speaks for itself i think at this point i mean with a with a diverse collection of guests and topics you know how do you go about you know choosing who and who you'll talk about and what you'll talk about and what are what are some of

the criteria you use for that yeah great question because i i have on all sorts of people so people always ask me that um in terms of criteria i actually don't have normal criteria which i'd say most podcasting shows do require which is like a big number of followers or a big number of money or whatever for me it's if the message is is interesting if i think it could be life-changing if it could be impactful to someone i'll have them on so i find guests in a multitude of ways. One way is just on social media. I scroll on my own algorithm, whether it's TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram. If I see a clip that I find very interesting, I'll reach out to that guy or girl

and see if they'll come on the show. I also go to conferences and events. I try to get some of the speakers there on the show. And I also just cold email, you know, cold DM, but yeah, 450 guests in the past year, all sorts of walks of life. It's been very interesting. Yeah. And you know, when, when it came to the point of you starting this podcast with, I mean, with such an eclectic mix and on top of such a, a hearty number of videos that you've created, what, what was your inspiration? What led you to create the podcast? Yeah, so I went through something

where a lot of people go through when they sell a company. Last year, I sold my mark in HC. I felt kind of lost. I would wake up feeling no sense of purpose. This went on for, I'd say, two, three months. On top of this, crypto took a massive hit which i had a lot of holding in so i was getting a little upset financially and i said i had to do something so when january started this year i went all in um just filming two to three times a week

some days 10 episodes a day just non-stop and it's something i failed at five years ago when i tried launching a podcast but this time around I think I had a much bigger network. I knew a lot more, had some success under my belt. And it looks like it's working out pretty well so far. That's great, man. You know, Sean, also one of the constant, not struggles, but intentions of any podcast or bloggers is education versus entertainment. How do you manage to have each episode provide information, but at the same time, keep the attention and entertain your audience? Right. And that's the key, right? Because you

don't want to be too educational because when the guest gets bored, the audience gets bored. So you got to mix in both elements. I always try to keep my guests on their toes. I try not to ask the same questions as they've been asked on other shows. You've done a great job with that today. So I really try to ask questions they've never been asked before, make them think. I try to make them smile, make them laugh, make them feel comfortable, man. Keep it like a conversation. Don't interrogate them. Don't feel like they're under pressure just keep it casual i found that is the best way to open up guests get them to open up a lot of these bigger guests are media trained and they have a shield sometimes so you just got to humanize them humanize yourself and

you know they'll speak for itself and if you were to meet a brand new podcaster today someone just starting out what's your first message for them right off the bat? I'd say consistency. I mean, we've all seen that crazy statistic. I think 80 or 90% of podcasts don't make it to episode 10. And then I believe 99% don't make it to episode 100 or something crazy like that. So that's key. You know, speaking from one of the top podcasts in the world right now i didn't make money my first seven months so don't expect it to be easy i actually lost a ton of money so don't expect this to be a cash cow from year one the real value is going to be the people you meet the information you learn the networking i even made a group chat of all my previous podcast guests

which i've actually never seen a show do this. And we just mastermind in there. We give each other value. We talk all day. It's buzzing. There's like hundreds of messages and we've done some amazing stuff in there. Oh man, that sounds amazing. Well, Sean, I mean, we're just scratching the surface in this interview. So how can people find you? Yeah. Digital social hours, the podcast on Instagram, Sean Mike Kelly. I personally answer every message still. It's taken me hours lately, but I meet some great people in DM. So it'll be me answering. Thanks so much for watching, guys. Hey, Sean, appreciate you taking the time to share your wisdom with us today, man. Of course. Thank you for tuning in to Founders Story.

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