Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Meet The Man Behind Your Favorite True Crime Podcasts | Glassbox Media

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

Meet The Man Behind Your Favorite True Crime Podcasts | Glassbox Media

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Quiet night in on Friday. It's good to have a routine. And it's good for your eyes, too. Because with regular comprehensive eye exams at Specsavers, you'll know just how healthy they are. Visit Spexavers.cavers.cai to book your next eye exam. Eye exams provided by independent optometrists. They were interviewing a serial killer where literally he had had like a flat tire or something,

pulled over with his victim in the car, got out, fixed the flat tire, went to get in the car, and the door was locked. And he knocked on the window. And his victim, who knew he was going to kill her, opened the door. like in her mind she was still thinking maybe there's a way I can get out of this she opens the door the keys were in the car the car door was was was was locked hey this is Matt Cox and I'm going to be doing a podcast with David Segura he is the CEO of glass box media and they represent a I think like almost is it like like something like 90 podcasters and the bulk of

which are I believe true crime podcasts and so we're going to we're going to kind of talk about that and I appreciate you guys watching so check this out so you know like we we were do you know how we were kind of connected yeah I mean I imagine it's because a lot of our talent has been featured on your show whether it's Lance and Tim who said hello they told me to tell you to say they said hello today um also chris as well from you know off to the witch you know jane as well obviously uh you know literally a serial killer survivor so yeah i know you're immersed actually in the glass box universe yeah yeah there's some some definitely some interesting uh you got some interesting uh people that you represent do you represent uh the human monster

we do yeah we work with gorg as well and as you know that content's pretty intense yeah he was interesting he was an interesting guy very much so i i love his stories i think it's really great it's not everyone's cup and teague that's so graphic but i love it yeah he was he was very you know it's funny because speaking with him he was he was very monotone through the whole thing he never raised his voice in but i got a ton of his people that watch his stuff that came and made comments in the comment section so he's obviously got like a a a loyal fan base because they all were reaching out saying, wow, I can't believe you interviewed this guy. I've been watching his stuff for months now or a year or whatever it is.

I was like, I didn't realize, you know, how popular he was. But anyway, I was going to say, so I was talking to Tyler and he said you kind of, you know, before we get into you starting, he said you have kind of an interesting backstory on how you kind of started this company. Yeah. what what what is that backstory you know you know mind me asking yeah it's it's just funny i mean like it's going to sound very weird but basically i took four years off uh you know working and decided to start this new company and um obviously super excited about it but my background is basically

a long time media nerd um after finishing college and doing a job that was not the right fit for me management consultant i decided to go into startups and immediately you know Now, I just embraced the chaos. I'm like literally and figuratively ADHD. So it was definitely my cup of tea. And my kind of second startup ever worked at was for this amazing guy named Dean Valentine, a crazy name, but he was the former president of Disney Television, the CEO of UPN, did a lot of amazing work.

And that company was called Comedy.com. And, you know, not me, but that team and him were responsible for finding a young Zach Galaphanacus. Al Madrigal, Tom Segura, no relation. And I just learned a ton on the job. But you know how it is. Sometimes in life you don't get lucky. It doesn't work out. And the gist of it is that I saw the writing on the wall,

funny or die and college humor, both kicking our butts. So I decided it was time to move on. And I started this company called Giant Media in Los Angeles. And, you know, simplistically what we were doing there is very basic. We were just developing technology and doing distribution on this,

native video exchange, we called it, called Giant. And the whole goal is to make videos either go viral or at least generate a ton of free earned media. And beginning with my buddy, Mike Dubin, who's more famous for being the CEO of Dollar Shave Club, you know, once we worked with him and that was an incredible success, frankly, we probably got more credit than we deserved. And as a result, I made it easy to get Gillette, Hineken, a lot of other amazing people. And we just grew like a weed. So, you know, what ended up happening there is it wasn't overnight, obviously, but we grew the company and we're very fortunate to be acquired about four years later. And yeah, before starting Glassbox, and I'll get into the story about Glassbox, just took a long

break, did a ton of angel investing and traveling, probably a little too much partying. And, you know, eventually felt those time to get the band back together during the middle of a pandemic. And here we are today, and that's Glassbox. Okay. All right. And how long ago was that? That was, you said, in the middle of like a year or so ago or? Yeah. So the story's funny. Like a lot of startups, you know, it was just a bunch of folks shooting the shit, hanging out of my apartment here in New York and just trying to figure out, you know, what we should be doing. And, you know, simplistically, what we ended up doing is starting the company in June 2020, but really didn't even settle in on podcasting or we were eventually going to focus on until January 2021. So even though we. it's new. The company's been growing quickly. We had some really supportive investors and just

and just a great freaking team. So I'm super pumped about what we're doing. So what what is the goal? Like what what do you offer, you know, the people that sign up with you or, you know, because I genuinely, it's not it's not like I know I understand like I went to the website and kind of, you know, peruse the website, spoken with, with Tyler, who's my booking agent. And you know, he kind of told me a little bit, but, you know, it was, it was, I didn't really get into it. So I'd love to know, like, what is it that you offer like these, the podcasters? And you have like, like, 90 podcasters. Is it 90 or is it just a little under 90? And we're going to cross that threshold very soon. But, you know, you have in the hell in the head. We have some information. Some people know

us. Some people don't. We are updating the website, but putting that aside, I mean, I think the real reason a lot of folks don't know us is that we're more of a B2B company. In other words, our whole goal is to help podcasters and creators, you know, maximize their potential. So not just earnings or revenue, but audience growth, you know, ad ops, just a lot of things that, you know, have to occur in order to be successful in the media space. So we're doing a pretty good job. We think of that, but in a nutshell, what we are is a record label almost. That's the best analogy I can give you.

We're going up and we're signing like star podcasters that might already have significant reach. in most cases, they already have 100,000 listeners every month. In some cases, they might have several million. And we've had a lot of success with this model and really using a lot of the learnings we've had some of our technology to really make sure that we're putting our talent in the best place possible to win. Okay.

So what is the ultimate goal? Other than, I'm just saying, other than helping podcasters, like let's say for true crime for my genre, because I'm a selfish prick and I'm genuinely concerned. concerned about myself mostly um so i'm saying like uh for the the true crime like here's a thing like with the i'll give you an example yeah um i did a podcast with a like the way i kind of got started was i was in the halfway house and i was talking to a guy that ran a podcast company in st petersburg and i was in Tampa and i had a friend who said hey you know he was listening to

one of his podcasts he said you ought to contact this guy you've written a bunch of well he was talking about real estate. He said, you got to talk to him about real estate. And I was like, I just got out of prison for bank fraud. Like, nobody's going to have me on a podcast to talk about real estate. But I did not understand what podcasts were. Sure. I'd never heard one. When I got locked up, I hadn't heard one. I'd listened to a few of them. I wrote a bunch of true crime stories while I was incarcerated, got some books published, wrote about over like 20, 24, I think 20, about 23, 24 synopsies of guys' stories and like six or seven books. And I wanted to start a true crime podcast, but like a heavily edited true crime podcast,

you know, heavily produced. And I didn't, you know, just didn't understand really how to even do it. I contacted this guy. His name was Danny. His name's Danny Jones. He runs concrete. They've got like five or six hundred thousand subscribers. I think at the time you had only like two or three hundred thousand.

So we talked several times and he asked me to come on the podcast to tell my story. And I was like, okay, so I did. You know, and it got like in like the first three months, I think got like a million views. And I think it's like almost two million now. So I wanted to start my own podcast. So the problem was I was on a bunch of podcasts and I missed that wave, that YouTube kind of algorithm wave, where everything I was doing was getting a million, million and a half views. And I'm telling an hour to two-hour story.

And I was on some big podcast, but I didn't start my podcast for another year. By the time I started my podcast, I missed what probably would have been 100,000 subscribers for nothing. Law enforcement often questions him, not because he's suspected of a crime, but because they find him fascinating. He is the most interesting man in the world. I don't typically commit crime, but when I do, it's bank fraud. Stay greedy, my friends. Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon.

Then I started my podcast, I started interviewing guys. Well, several guys that have come on my podcast and told their story have been contacted by producers who've contacted me and said, we'd love to talk to this guy. And then, of course, I say, yeah, no problem. And I put them in contact because I didn't write their story. So I don't have, I don't, you know, it's just a podcast. I don't own the intellectual property as far as their story's concerned.

So I just pass them on if that makes sense. Like I don't agree with them. Like the guys that I wrote stories about in prison, I had them sign over their and their life rights to me. And so that if those books, you know, some of those are turning, are being, have been optioned so anyway they contacted these guys that I've interviewed and next thing I know they're contacting me saying hey this guy's talking about optioning my life rights I don't understand and then I've helped them kind of negotiate that deal where they've optioned it for 18 months or whatever well and you know they don't have anything written in writing if they don't have they

don't have a story in writing they just have their story that they told on my on my podcast so the options aren't great not like they were in Rolling Stone magazine you know So what I'm saying to you is, what I'm thinking wondering is, is part of your true crime representation of these true crime podcasts, is part of your goal to turn those podcasts or the stories into intellectual property that could be turned into series or full-length films? Or I'm wondering if that's a part of the model is I guess what I'm wondering. Yeah, it's a great, it's a great quite question. basically we are we're trying to make sure that the intellectual property is as valuable as possible part of the reason we gravitated towards podcast in particular is that it's episodic you know like you're putting the work in like literally daily certainly over weekly output and that makes

basically really great content so to throw it out there i mean one thing i will say about episodic content we've learned a lot about the traditional media space so they're pretty conservative you know they want to basically figure out ways to limit their risk and i think one way of doing that is to be able to market to an existing audience so to throw it out there in plain english while i can't go into all the details we are you know minority partner in the cross-based media teams podcast and really functionally what we're trying to do there is help them explore new revenue which is not just limited to audio or video podcasting but could include live events it could include book publishing, or like you mentioned, TV, whether it's streaming or terrestrial, adaptations are a big business. And we know that eventually, even though it sounds crazy, we really do think podcast catalogs will eventually equal the value of both music and TV catalogs. Okay. Are you, do you actually, so, well, obviously you have some YouTube. What is the majority of the, um, of the podcast? Are they, the majority of them just, uh, audio or?

So I'd say this. It's funny you say that because of all the podcasts that we control collectively, the number by far we're most obsessed with is our monthly audio downloads. And right now, that's just around $10 million per month. So it's been pretty exciting. And I will be candid, almost all our business focus, monetization, marketing. A lot of it's really skewed towards supporting audio. But by that same token, I mean, Star Wars theory, for example, it's a great.

podcast, you know, does really well within audio. It's almost 600,000 listeners every single month, which is awesome. But on the video or YouTube side, he does over 20 million. So in other words, we actually have more YouTube video views per month than we do audio downloads. We don't know for sure if the right move here is to kind of make our time and investment equal. But we also do recognize that at the end of the day, for some people, podcasting is a video first experience and for a lot of folks i don't i can't speak for you obviously but you do both and so as a consequence of that i think we got to pick up our video game a little bit the good news though is that a lot of the tactics that we use in audio work really well in video whether it's barter cross

marketing and a lot of other tactics for really kind of supercharging growth so do you one of the things that you do is help people get or help the podcasters get sponsors That's a big part of it. And it's been a learning experience for us as well, meaning that we come from a world where we're used to working with some amazing clients like Gillette, L'Oreal, Heinigan, you name it.

And our original assumption was that, well, of course they love podcasting. Who doesn't? And what we found out of is that a lot of those big brands, brand awareness brands, if you will, that are pay a lot and are easy to work with, they're still discovering podcasts, they're still getting used to them.

So instead, we've worked quite a bit with, more adventurous or performance-oriented brands like manscaped, you know, rocket money, people like that, better help, athletic rains. And we like them. But we think one of the things that we can really introduce to really amazing creators that are working hard is a balance between advertisers, meaning that the people that already embraced radio and podcasting will be here, but we want to bring another class of advertisers into the fold as well. So yeah, very much so. Our partners are counting on us for that. Okay. So what, who's, so what are some of the podcasts you represent, some of the true crime ones or, or just in general, the bigger ones or?

Sure. I can talk to a lot of that. And like you mentioned before in the preamble, like you're exactly right. I mean, we are pretty broadly focused. We have a lot of comedy podcasts, what we call for lack of better term, like arts and culture, society and culture podcast. But true crime. I mean, that's been in many ways our bread and butter. It's certainly our biggest category. And on a personal level, I really like it. It's one of my favorite categories, if not my favorite. And I think my Spotify, like listening numbers test to that. True crime's cool to be that, you know, just, you know, just brash business guy. What I like about it, especially on audio, is that 80% of listeners are actually female. Right.

It's kind of crazy when you think about the implications of that and maybe the wise. But because of that, on the business side, it makes it fairly easy to sell. meaning that a lot of beauty and CPG brands, I don't know that they embrace like murder or crime per se, but they do like the audience composition. You know, they're trying to reach, you know, those listeners. So just from a business standpoint, you know, you asked about that before. One of the main advantages we have over any, you know, individual podcaster, no matter how good they are, is that we can sell not just their podcast, like let's say the fall line or Tim and Lances, crawl space and missing podcast. We can cross sell that across relevant shows. Morgan's Human Monsters, you name it.

So as a consequence, it gives us huge advantage. And advertisers love that too. They can just vet it very quickly and do it buy across many as opposed to just one or two. Right. Okay. So who the, I was wondering, like, who are some of the, well, first of all, you mentioned one thing. You know, it's funny because I don't really do, like I don't, I don't really talk to murderers And, you know, like most of my true crime is geared toward, you know, maybe, you know, maybe bank robbers, maybe guys that have run scams, guys that do credit card fraud or counterfeit, you know, they make counterfeit money or that sort of thing.

And so, you know, you mentioned that 80% are women. So, you know, 80% are women that are, and they're basically like violent, or those are like violent, like they're interested in, you know, you know, you know, you know the body was dragged and kept in the basement for three months you know or you know they're they're they're very interested in like serial killers and murders and and my you know i don't really do that so as a result and also probably because it's it's youtube i end up getting i think i've got like 94 or 95 percent male audience audience that's interesting so i would say this the implications of that just at a super high level or that for a true crime bundle it's a little bit of an outlier some people do buy it thematically but in this case like a bluer stall in the package um at least for some brands like let's just say hardcore cbg or female brands it'd be a mismatch

but hearing that it's actually pretty exciting because even though it's probably like the driest takeaway i could ever have i would just say when i hear that 90% plus men i immediately think okay i know exactly who this appeals to whether it's a manscaped or jillette You know, these are folks that we can work with and that they'd understand exactly what they're getting. So when I started, when I started, it was like 98 and 99. It's gone like over the last year and a half. It's finally come down to around 94, 95. Like initially, it was almost 100% men.

I just thought, I thought something's going, what's going on? That was odd. But you were saying, yeah, you could, you just end up going, gearing it toward. a different product line i think so yeah and it'll honestly be some of our product lines are pretty basic when we sell like a bundle we'll do like male interest for lack of a better term and so your show is different because it spans multiple categories i would say that but obviously true crime and if um you know you wanted to slice it further i mean when i think of your show i think of like the classic tv show american greed you know that's something that i enjoy watching i guess not a surprise

you know as a man and it's something that works well and there's no all is not american Greed. Sorry. Did you know I was on American Greed? I did not know that. Yeah. American Greed did a one hour special on me and I was on Dateline did two one hour special on me when I was on the run.

So it's funny that you say American greed. It's great show. I will say that. Oh, it was horrible. Like what they did online, you know, in retrospect, though, it was 99% true. But, you know, watching it, I was, I watched it. You know, when I watched it, I was just like, this is horrible. It's horrible.

But it was pretty much true. They just, you know, it's such a sinister twist on it. But anyway, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I thought it's funny that you say American greed. Yeah, I mean, that's what I mean, though. I think at the end of the day, there's a market for everything, though. And one thing I will say about true crime and like the business of true crime, I think the brands were into it.

They get, they know what they're getting. But I also think behind the scenes, like the streaming companies, the big media companies, their biggest preoccupation is figuring out how to lessen their risk and get product marketed successfully. So even taking a step back, just putting, you know, glass box aside, because I think it's all intertwined with past experience I had a giant and just investing. I'm also, you know, a partner in Dog Whisper Productions. And, you know, the obvious asset, you know, the main asset we have there is 160 plus high definition, hour long TV shows starring season Milan. So the way we monetize that today is Disney Plus, you know, licenses that

here in North America. And then in Europe and Latin America, we licensed to Paramount's Pluto TV. And that's worked out really well. But the big lesson for me is like a typical startup guy, digital person has been how, you know, conservative, frankly, American media companies are. So as a consequence of that, you know, what you bring to the table, what a lot of people in the true crime genre bring to the table is that they can confidently walk in. It doesn't matter who they're talking to, whether it's Penguin Random House or Pluto TV, but they can basically explain that not only are they going to, you know, be open to adapting their program for, for television, but in addition to that, too, they can guarantee significant marketing. So in other

words, you have X number of video viewers per month, but, you know, a company like Glassbox or a future partner has a number that's even larger than that. So what we typically do is we co-bund to that and that's something that is also very incentivizing apart from the story apart from the talent that makes it much more likely the show will get picked up versus someone coming in for the streets just off of pure creativity right okay so who do you who do you represent though a lot of shows so we work with different teams like you know tim and lance over at the crawl space they have a number of shows including crawl space obviously and then missing.

The fall line is another show that's also very amazing. It's a team out of Atlanta that has a unique true crime show. It's basically one where they're covering stories, mainly of people of color, indigenous people. And the takeaway there is that their stories are underrepresented, probably not hard to believe, but the bigger takeaway for someone like me was, and I didn't understand this until I really talked to them,

they basically explained that while a lot of cases have a lot of widespread coverage that you can develop content based off of that very easy to do research. Their cases aren't really covered in the mainstream media market. So they have to do a lot of primary research themselves and kind of like victims interviews. So it makes a show like that pretty special. And we've really enjoyed not only working on that show, but kind of a spinoff called One Strange Thing, which is still overall in the true crime genre, but kind of spins a little bit more into like history and even paranormal. So that's been another really fun show that we work with.

He's been known to cure insecurity just with his laugh. His organ donation card lists his charisma. His smile is so contagious. Vaccines have been created for it. He is the most interesting man in the... Colgate Total is more than just your favorite toothpaste. It's dedicated to advancing oral health. The new Colgate Total Active Prevention System

features a reformulated toothpaste, innovative toothbrush, and a refreshing anti-bacterial mouthwash, all designed to work together to fight the root cause of common oral health issues, such as gingivitis, plaque, and tartar. Use the full routine twice daily and be dentist ready. Shop the Colgate Total Active Prevention System now at walmart.ca. I don't typically commit crime, but when I do, it's bank fraud. Stay greedy, my friends. support the channel join matthew cox's patreon one thing i'm kind of curious about not to turn the tables too much but you know your team yourself obviously have great taste you've had a lot of our you know talent

basically featured on your show you know folks like the crawl space team morgan at human monsters chris from off to the witch and you know like you mentioned before it's a little bit of a different angle what really drew you to like traditional true crime like blood and gore like what what really kind of gets you excited about those types of creators um you mean why did i want to interview them exactly um you know i like i said i typically don't interview but interview okay i mean i don't interview those like subjects but those weren't really subjects you know those guys that they they hadn't committed those crimes like i have a real problem was just violence in general. Like, you know, I'm never going to run into a bank with a

gun. It's just not something I would do, you know. But as far as committing fraud, like, you know, you're making some documents. You're walking in, passing them off. You're walking out with a check. Eh, I got that. I'm okay with that. So I have an aversion toward, you know, harming someone. But, you know, I don't really mind that some of the stories are very interesting. Some of the characters are interesting and and i'm very interested in in the characters uh that just commit crime in general what what sparks someone to commit crime but i don't really want to have an interaction with with uh i've had too much interaction with those guys they're they're frightening and in a and it's funny it's always like the more the choir ones are always the more

dangerous. So, but, you know, my booking agent had mentioned, hey, he had spoken with someone who had, who I guess was a booking agent with, um, on your side. And he suggested I should interview, you know, these guys. And he came back. He's like, yeah, yeah. And when I, when I talk to Tyler, I was like, yeah, but these aren't the actual guys. So that, no, no, these are guys that are done true crime but they have a lot of different stories and I said oh okay I have no problem then I watched one of the episodes um on I think it was Jane is it Jane that yeah on Jane with crawl space and I watched the episode it was actually her and a few other we heard a few other um uh victims of different crimes so I watched that interview and then I

watch jane's uh she was on um uh unsolved mysteries watch her unsolved mysteries and so i had her on and she was you know she was pretty good and then i talked to the guys at crawl space and i obviously i'd seen there so i you know kind of started you know it just it just kind of spun you know off you know from there and you know it's it's interesting to talk to people that have Like the stories that I wrote, I had to investigate while I was incarcerated. So a lot of what I did was, obviously, I had the subject, but you can't really, this guy's in prison. You can't really trust what he's saying. So I had to actually, and all through the mail, I had to order the transcripts.

I order the Freedom of Information Act to get the police reports and the witness statements. Now, luckily, I had plenty of time while I was incarcerated. And I would write letters and get letters back. And sometimes I would actually meet with people in the visitation room. Like I would meet with someone's mother or their, you know, and talk to them, actually be able to sit down with them briefly and have a conversation. And then I would end up writing these stories. And I had plenty of time to do that.

But it's funny because I, you know, you talk with these guys that have done the same thing on the outside. And obviously my level of difficulty was much higher. but they you know it's this whole you're a detective you become a detective and it's so much fun you know you get that that mail in that email and you you start putting the pieces together and before you know it people that maybe thought they didn't have a great story have an amazing story you know or maybe they thought they had this phenomenal story and and they just don't and And I was lucky to be incarcerated with, there were so many people that obviously had great stories, but I was able to pick out the unique stories.

Like if you're an African-American kid raised in the project whose mother was a prostitute, his father's in jail, and you end up selling crack because it's really your only way out, the way you see it. That's a tragedy. And it may be a good story, but it's not, it's not unique. I could throw a rock and skip off of 30 guys like that. Now, if suddenly there was corruption and there was maybe, you know, maybe something happened or maybe, you know, there's something that made it unique. Well, now we're talking about something different. Like, how do you tell that the same story in a unique way, in a different way?

you know if or how do you tell a story that's never been told i i have a story about a guy which is extreme well one i i wrote one story about a credit card counterfeiter and i've optioned the life rights for him and it's actually supposed to be turned into a uh a netflix documentary oh working with a uh actually two production companies that you know they kind of connect and they both make documentaries for netflix so but that's a great story but i have another story where I literally met a guy in prison who got 22 years in prison, he's a rap, he's a lawyer, Desparred lawyer who's a rapid cycling bipolar with features of schizophrenia. And since he was in his early teens, he has believed that God is telling him he's preordained to be emperor of the

world. He actually stole nearly $200 million from the federal government. he i give you some of the highlights like this guy was literally he had his own private militia you know like a private security company right they they they have contracts with the government to um to uh you know guard things in like afghanistan and that sort of thing you know kind of like a little blackwater type thing um and he i have pictures of him with george bush in the white house at meetings. I have, you know, there was a documentary. He actually tried to take over the Congo. He backed a political candidate that was going to win. A bunch of his guys got kidnapped. There's a whole documentary on it. Trying to buy F-15, F-14 and F-15s, I think. Like, you know, you could actually

buy them. So he was trying to buy, like, a fleet of them. He stole, like, you know, he ended up stealing like $200 million from the federal government. You know, he was in the, in the, NATO, the NATO summit in Latvia, Riga, he backed that. He was one of the sponsors of that. Anyway, eventually he ends up getting indicted for tax evasion, and he's sentenced to 22 years. And here's the funny thing is like, everybody knows, everybody that was working with him knows that he thinks he's going to take over the world. Like, he was building a massive company in order to ultimately take over the world. He was a venture capitalist.

Yeah. And it's the story, if you read the story, or listen to the story, I actually have it on Audible. It's so over the top insane. You can't believe that no one's covered this story. And I actually just had a guy. There's a guy. So it's on my website.

I've mentioned it here or there, right? Like I wrote a book about it. I don't, because I'd love to get a documentary made about it in the hopes that it could spin off into something like a series like, um, house of cards or something um what's interesting about that is that there's a guy that went on my website and found the story and then he told the story and it got like six or seven hundred thousand views in like i don't know uh whatever a month it may be up to a million by now i've been checked his name is count he's a scottish guys count ducula or something i don't know

count something he's got he tells true crime stories and he for an hour he basically almost read my my synopsis of frank amadeo's story and he got like six or seven hundred thousand i don't know what is now but um it's it's an amazing story and i've had multiple production companies nibble at it you know it's like they want to do a pot they want to do a documentary but frank can't be interviewed he's not going to be interviewed so that follows a part And so where do you, how do you make that leap to a series unless you do a podcast? And I want to do a podcast, but I want it to be a produced podcast. Right. Me telling the story. What does that do for me? That gets me maybe 100,000 views. So what does that do? That doesn't do anything for me. Like I've

written a book. I've got a synopsis. I've got an, you know, and it does well. I make a little bit of money every month. But my goal for that is something that I'm not really in a position. to do anything about so but yeah i've got a bunch of these really unique stories but you know between let's face it i just got out of prison you know the judge made it very clear i can't commit fraud anymore so you know the things that i'm doing to survive is i do youtube i sell books i do speaking engagements like that's a 60 70 hours a week job and And so my ability to also chase producers and production companies and be able to get to a position where I can get these things turned into documentaries.

I've done well, but that's only because people have seen my podcast and they've come to me. It's not because I've gone out of my way and hunted people down and be able to get meetings and flown out to L.A. Or, you know, these are things that have fallen in my lap. Because I just don't have time to devote a, you know, and then you have to be very specific on who you pick. Yeah. Production companies will tie you down with an 18-month option and then re-option it and re-option it. It's like, look, that's great. I'd love to get 10,000 or 5,000 every 18 months.

But the truth is, that's not my goal. Mm-hmm. You know, my goal is to get this turned into a documentary, a series, you know, a full-length movie, something along those lines. and from my position, I can't do that. So, you know, that's, yeah, that's where I'm at. So I've got some super unique stories. I just don't have the, I don't have the backing to be able to turn them into, to get the production quality that would actually get them the eyes

that would be able to parlay that into an actual full-length documentary or multi-part documentary, whatever, you know. And I actually, it's funny, too, because I actually have a way to do a documentary about Frank without his involvement. That's interesting. Have you ever seen the, did you ever see the story Anna? Why just survive back to school when you can thrive

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It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. And the wolves? I actually haven't, no. Well, there's also a series on a Netflix called Bad Vegan. Bad Vegan. I haven't watched it yet, but I have seen that, the call-out. So one of the characters in Bad Vegan isn't the real person, isn't actually the person.

they have an actor play him and so they do a the interviews with him aren't him now later they reveal it and so the audience is okay with it and anna and the wolves the entire interview with anna which is a multi-parts as several series several other parts in the end you find out that that's not anna either anna died or she wouldn't be interviewed so they got an actor to play her and everything that she says is taken from multiple interviews and multiple transcripts of interviews that she'd done in the past so you have a whole documentary based on this woman and it's actually an actor and everybody was okay with it because at the end they explain it and they're like oh okay that's that's fine like not what they weren't putting words in her mouth so I think

that's a great way to pull off the Frank Amadeo you know that that that the guy that wants to take over the world, that documentary. And there's tons of, you know, there's tons of transcripts. And of course, there's my book. But even if you excluded my book, there's tons of transcripts. And there was a documentary where he was interviewed. And there are multiple interviews with him. You know, and there's transcripts from when he went to court and got on the stand.

He talked for hours and hours and talked about wanting to take over the world and his mental condition and his bipolar condition. And I mean, it's. listen it is filled with gems it is it's funny when i did the when i interviewed him when i interviewed him for the book he was telling me stuff he's saying things you know it's insane we're in prison you know he's telling me things and then of course i'm getting documents in that that are proving what he's saying but some stuff you just can't prove yeah and i remember when he had told me that he had was trying to buy a fleet like whatever a squadron of of of f-14s or f-15s i forget he was trying to buy them and he was going to keep them in um and uh what i want to say

crete or anyways in the mediterranean so he was going to keep them there because basically they're they're declawed like they've taken all the firing mechanisms out of them but you can actually have them move to like the to like crete and they'll put them back in and so you know this is while he's building up this whole force and he's in the process of backing this political candidate well i remember him when i was thinking to myself there's no way that this guy was trying to buy f-15s so when i got out and i interviewed people that that had were working with him when i i remember when i asked One of the guys about the F-15s, I was, I truly expected him to say that, listen,

that didn't happen. That's not what happened. No, no. What he, instead, what he said was, listen, I had nothing to do with that. Okay. Now, I don't even know if he was, I know, I know they were negotiating that he never bought the planes. I mean, he was, I was like, are you telling me he was really trying?

He never bought him. And I was like, that's, that's insane. And then I talked to another guy. He said the same thing. And all of these people knew that Frank's, Frank would joke about wanting to take. They go, well, he joke about it. And I go, so you thought he was joking. And they go, oh, no, he was, we knew he was serious.

But he would joke about it. They said, and he had these episodes. You know, they said it was so bad they actually had a psychiatrist on staff to try and maintain his bipolar condition. And they said, but, you know, he did odd things. I was like, like what? And they told me at one time he went to a board meeting. He walked in the board meeting with a Darth Vader helmet on, sat down and conducted the entire board, the entire hearing in a Darth Vader,

and nobody said anything. That's great. And I go, are you serious? And he goes, he said, yeah, he said, I mean, you know, it was laughable, but you were also scared. He could go, he could become manic. He could fire you. We were all making great money.

You know, he, you know, it's, it's, it's a, it's funny too because he had told me that story. And Frank had said something about having a Darth Vader helmet, but then when I was reading the transcripts of his sentencing, one of the executives got on the stand. And they were asking her about if she knew he had a mental condition. And she was like, well, I mean, there was definitely something wrong. She was, I remember one time he came to a meeting in a Darth Vader. Darth Vader helmet and conducted the entire meeting that she said he did do odd things so understand it yeah I mean listen I can go on and on if you read everybody that reads the book goes is like this is insane and what's great is if you look him up there's all these articles on him

and they talk about how he was trying to take over this he was trying to take over former Soviet countries he he backed this political candidate he had nine he had 32 of his guys were arrested in the Congo and held for nine days. There's a documentary called nine days in the Congo. So, but anyway, you were saying. I mean, it's a bizarre story. And yet I get bites on it. People are super excited. But the moment they're like, yeah, but how do we like, we can't interview this guy. And then I've, this is how you can do it. Yeah. You know what it is? I mean, I don't know. I don't want to talk out of school because I'm definitely not an expert. I'm not a true creative. if I'd kill to be, but I'm not.

But yeah, there's a way of doing things. And, like, people get scared about deviating from tried and true methods. Because without going to too much details, I'll just say, and I think you have some exposure to the story as well. You know, we've done some exploration around, you know, the Green River, you know, Connecticut Killer, things like that. And apparently, at least the orthodoxy from people that know more than us, is that if a murder is solved, it makes it very difficult to, you know,

talk about. And it's not just legal reasons, but it just is. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that, you know, there's ways of doing things that I think really could be rethought. I mean, for me personally, I don't want to be like that guy, but I think part of the reason people love the true crime genre in general is that they like playing, at least in the safety of their home, you know, kind of arm, you know, armchair detective. And the fact that something isn't solved could actually be something that's really exciting. So the fact that this mystery person cannot be, you know, interviewed. He's deep behind bars and they're not going to allow that. there's a lot of creative possibilities there they're just the heart and like don't understand like

why that's a roadblock but it is i know what you mean because i've talked to those like you said they're they're very stuck in there you know it has to fit in this this is a tried and true true method that works for us the problem is every time somebody deviates from that or periodically like there are rules right but periodically someone deviates from the rules and just blows the roof off of the place and they and it makes it ends up making 10 times as much money and it's always some guy that everybody said yeah that's not how it works we can't do that we can't do that we can't do that and then he finally finds somebody who does it and it's insanely profitable and and you know hugely successful and everybody's like wow and then that pushes

the envelope which is the the Anna Anna and the wolves that's what happened that pushed the envelope hey we can do this we can nobody else everybody wants to do the story nobody can do it and somebody said let's get an actress and i'm sure everybody said no no no no and they said no wait a minute now listen that's there's no difference between that and putting a photo of her up and and playing the tapes let's just have a woman you know or doing b-roll there's no difference between that and having an actor and having some b-roll that we don't have footage of that guy running in the bank but we hired an actor to have him run in the bank. Sure.

You know, so there's not a lot, there's not, this is not a hugely, and it's been done and nobody had a problem with it because at the very end, they revealed it. So I agree. There's always workarounds, but I don't know. I will say this, though. People love the genre. There's only going to be more, I think, investment from, you know, companies trying to figure out the streaming game, certainly in the audio space, whether it's heavily produced or not.

So the one comment I will make that, you know, we talk to our talent quite a bit about this as well. They're talented. They know how to tell stories. They know how to produce content. There's always a day in the future, more partners, more money, more time, or production quality can be increased. But I'm a really big believer in just getting the story out there. So one way or another, even if it's like stripped down, if it's something that's more simple, more kind of in your face, at least in the podcast space, whether we're talking about YouTube or audio, people actually like that. We've actually seen like, you know, some of the improvements we thought we were making, or actually probably more harmful than good.

In other words, people have a certain expectation that it'll be raw, even small errors or something kind of add to the authenticity of it. So no matter how good the story is, I would say that, you know, you know it's best. So believe me, you know, you got to stick to what you know. But a limited series of like you covering this over six or nine podcasts could be a hell of a way to build attention and to make it more enticing to get the right production partner that's willing to actually put funds to kind of get it done to actually make sure it turns into what you want yeah i've i've thought about that because i actually did like a 25 part series on my

life all the way from my crimes up to prison and from being in prison onward um and i thought about going back because i did like one 45 minute episode on frank because he was a big part of my story while i was incarcerated because he he was representing inmates in prison on their cases and he represented me on my case and i i know you don't really know anything about my case but i initially got 26 years i got my sentence reduced twice frank represented me on both of those so frank acted as my lawyer from inside of prison he got seven years knocked off my sentence the first time fought the government they didn't want to do it seven and then he went back and fought me

again a year later and got another five years knocked off my initial release date was was 2030 I'm supposed to be in prison right now so if it weren't for this guy like I literally if I really start talking about what I owe him I immediately get choked up you know which is one of the reasons I would love to get the story out there sure it's not just that he's this crazy

guy you know i always joke that he's a he's a james bond villain you know he's building specter to take over the world like you i've never met anybody like that in prison i've met a lot of guys that's insane but a great story and this is also a guy who's in prison representing prisoners and walking people out the door everybody you know every lawyer i talked to on the on the street told me i didn't have a chance do you know how many he filed something called a 2255 okay It says habeas motion. For every 3,500 2255s that are filed in the federal system for an inmate, one gets relief. He filed two for me and got relief on both of them.

He is an amazing individual. So, you know, when I say he's crazy and this and that, like I don't mean it disrespectful because he'll tell you he's crazy. they'll say yeah it's it's not normal you're right i agree it's not normal you know he laughs about it which makes him even better he's so likable like you you know you want you know you want i like you want someone like that to succeed and i didn't even let him do my my work on my stuff didn't even approach him because you know he's talking about people are saying this guy thinks he's going to take over the world like i'm reading articles about him like this guy's insane you know this is why who steals 200 million from the federal government doesn't think it's going to

catch up with him um and thing goes to prison and he's but i over the years i start watching him represent people and they're leaving prison or people would come and say hey you know you know frank just got 10 years knocked off of you know johnny thompson's sentence and i'd be like what yeah or hey he just got five years knocked off this guy hey this guy got immediate release and he's leaving do you see what I'm saying like and so finally I just went up to him I said look Frank here's what's going on and I showed him my paperwork we looked over it and he said I won't let the government do this I will take on this case I'm yeah okay okay okay um when my he will go into a manic mode and he said he did when my legions march on Washington I'm going to burn the constitution and I will have the president kneel at my feet and I you'd sit there and you'd look at him and he'd go, he'd take a deep breath and he go, okay, I'm fine. Listen, just go ahead and get me your indictment. I'm going to need your motions.

I'm going to need this. And he starts tough. I need this and this. And you go, okay, fine. He goes, okay, thanks. Get that to me by Tuesday. I'll take care of it. Okay.

So he'd have these little spikes of insanity. And then he'd come back down. Everybody knew just stop and wait. You wait. He comes back down. He's perfectly fine again. And this is the guy that did my legal work. Wow.

And when all the sane attorneys said, yeah, you don't have a prayer. Jeez. So I can't pay you to represent me. Frank did it for nothing. Wow. So anyway, an amazing guy, truly insane. But, but, you know, just an overall insane, amazing story that you just can't. Like if you, I actually need to get your address.

I'll mail you the book if you want. Oh, I love that. that'd be great it's like 180 pages or something it's but it's a very fun read i'm already looking forward to it i can tell you that right now so that's awesome well i definitely should do the i'll probably take your advice i mean i do need to do the just do a multi-part series and just slowly go through it piece by piece yeah yeah i hear that um i mean i'll put it this way like i i have to admit though my my advice is always going to be pretty similar to what i would do in any given situation but i'm a startup guy so always know that feeling like we're not ready yet we'll be more

ready next year if we have this then we can do it and that just that day never comes so it's always best now you know kind of go with what you have and it also gives people more of a proof of concept positive something like that would work and i think the one thing that you know i'd love to do even if it's just informally with our company with nick who is just on right now our marketing team the way we've actually grown all these podcasts is not through paid media it's a actually through barter. And YouTube and audio are very similar. What we typically do is have our shows that are similar or even third-party shows with so-called rivals. We just basically trade placements and barter spots. And that's one of the main alluvads that Glassbox

brings to the table. And we know it would work for you as well. It's just an exciting thing. It's an easy way to grow the podcast where people ask for a promotion, basically, a shout out from you. And as long as it's being done in an orderly way, you know, we're tracking that literally in real time with technology, and we see what converts better. It's amazing. Yeah, that's a good idea. That's kind of like going on someone else's podcast, and you hope that you kind of convert some of their subscribers or viewers.

And same thing. Well, you're saying you actually do like a, so they give them a shout out. Exactly. So, you know what I noticed? I think I noticed that on crawl space where they mentioned some, but it was very casual and very, it didn't seem like an advertisement at all. all. That's part of it. And the other parts are more explicitly ads. They're trailers. And the feedback, you know, just to be candid there, a lot of hosts like yourself are like, well, look,

it's very personal. You know, I'd rather read it myself. I'm comfortable as long as I like to show and the people. And we get that. But you know what ends up happening. People are busy. They have other things they need to do. It just falls by the wayside eventually. So what we've done to automate this process to make it more scalable, especially in audio, is that we'll work with all of our hosts, come up with the really killer 30-second trailer that they mostly do. Once we have these,

what we do is we run that in inventory that's unsold, and not only will we trade that on Glassbox podcast, but crawl space and even third-party companies like Cast Media or Pushkin Media, which is Malcolm Gladwell's company, we'll trade as many as a million impressions, basically ads a month, no money changes hands,

but we're all measuring in real time, all right, for every 1,000 listens, how many downloads or RSS subscribers do we gain from this? So it's literally people helping each other and all the boats being lifted. It's an amazing way to grow an audience. Yeah, that's a good idea. It works. It works.

So we'd love to continue the conversation there too. Okay. Well, can you think of anything else? I mean, I guess the biggest thing, just taking a step back and even looking at, you know, like Tyler's notes and some of the things that he was curious about, I'll just say that I think you know this better than anyone you're living it but true crime is a genre it's just amazing it's a category that I think connects with a lot of people especially in the states there's a lot of things that you can do whether it's audio or video and then of course the

derivatives business whether we're talking about books TV adaptations live events it's just a really rich genre so we just encourage everyone who's like building out there everyone who's like you know kind of doing that doing what they need to do day to stick with it Because the one comment I will make is that we've seen some amazing stuff on our podcast, whether it's true crime or other genres, people basically just all of a sudden almost overnight go from anywhere from 200,000 downloads a month to over 600,000. In fact, the first ever show we ever signed was called Going West. They're an amazing show, team out of Boise, actually boyfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend team. And they started this like not so many years ago, literally, I think, in their garage. And when we first signed them, they were doing around 300,000 monthly downloads and added tragedy.

But, you know, I think they did a good job of balancing the ethics with pop news. When the Gabby Potato case broke, it really triggered something in the primary host, Daphne. And I didn't even know this. And it's a shame of me for not knowing this. But it turns out that I think, you know, she had an aunt that she never met that went missing. and so she's always had a really strong personal connection to victim advocacy and true crime. But for some reason, this really kind of triggered the family, and they decided to, like, just doggedly go after this, you know, went from being a weekly show to as many as five times a week. Long story short, that show went from around 300,000 monthly listeners to almost 3 million listeners, literally overnight.

So it was an amazing experience for us. they also got signed by some big time talent agents which we welcome we ended up you know basically kind of like negotiating an exit kind of selling the rights of that show to another company and i think everyone won in the end but one thing i find that fascinating about true crime is that unlike other genres tv arts and culture no host really has to straddle the line like you guys do between like how do we build an entertaining show but then also like be ethical be respectful of like victims and i'm always amazed and humbled by the work people are doing in the space yeah yeah i have uh it's i don't know i was going to say it's it's uh interesting because i don't

really have the obviously the you know people uh disappearing and you know that type those types of victims but i always think of i always get somebody who will say you know oh, well, for somebody to fall for a scam, well, they'd have to be stupid. But the truth is that's, that's really not, not true at all. It's, it's very smart people fall for scams all the time, especially if the scam is reasonable, you know, in its pitch, and it makes sense if it worked that way. You know what I'm saying? Like, you can't know everything.

So, you know, if you say, yeah, you show them, I've been investing for this much and they give you money and you do this and that. You show them documents and they feel good. And then you've got three of your buddies that have also invested and you invest. Next thing, you know, you lose $100,000 because you and your friends didn't know as a Ponzi scheme. So, you know, suddenly everybody's like, oh, you must have been an idiot. No, no. I was shown the same documents that any large hedge fund would have shown you.

You know, and I had buddies that had been making money in this for over a year. Why wouldn't I invest? Like these are doctors and lawyers. these aren't stupid people. So I was think, you know, people are always, they'll say that, oh, well, you must be, that guy must be an idiot. That's not true at all. You know, matter of fact, if he was some guy with a low IQ, you know, that, that was super

skeptical because he knew he didn't know any better, he would have been a harder mark. Sure. Because he's not sure. So he's questions a lot. But because you know it makes sense because you're an active investor and your friends of investor, you accept it because you know how the system works. you know that that's how it works the problem is there never was an actual investment it was just a Ponzi scheme i'm just spending the money on my Ferrari and my 10 million dollar house

and my vacations like you see what i'm saying so yeah so that's that that's always a problem with people i'll get people on the show they're like oh they you know that guy's got to be an idiot uh wait a second you'd be shocked so yeah um but yeah i think you do have to be so i think in way you definitely have to be a cognitive of the fact that lots of people can be victims you know and anybody can be a big you know and listen the human psyche is just bizarre like it's you know look at like stockholm syndrome or you know i was watching this thing where the guy the they were interviewing a serial killer where literally he had had like a flat tire or something pulled over with his victim in the car got out fixed the flat tire went to get in the car and the door was locked

and he knocked on the window and his victim who knew he was going to kill her open the door like in her mind she was still thinking maybe there's a way i can get out of this she opens the door the keys were in the car the car door was was uh was locked she opened he said he killed her within about 30 minutes like why because you know you just don't understand you weren't in that situation you don't know you can say oh she's an idiot no she is in terror And she's thinking for some reason that was the right move. It wasn't, but for her, that's what gave her a chance to survive. Yeah, I guess showing compassion for victims. It's a big part of the space and it's something I'm learning. Definitely. Well, you know, hindsight is 2020. Everybody can look back.

So you should have done this. You should have done this. You should have done that. Okay, well, I had about four seconds to react. You weren't with me. Yeah. You know, sorry. Hey, I appreciate you guys watching.

Do me a favor. like the video hit the subscribe button hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this leave me a comment in the comment section if you uh if you if you're interested in content like this please tell me also obviously i have a patreon and i have books for sale i'm on etzy under cox pop art uh for my for paintings and i really appreciate you guys watching and thanks a lot and I will, I'll see you.