The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source - Castro leans into indie (Interview)

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

This week we're joined by Dustin Bluck to discuss his acquisition of the well known (and beloved) Castro podcast app to take it indie-focused once again. As previous users of Castro, we were excited to dig into the details behind this popular podcast client to see what's next, how the deal was done, a peek into the code, and where exactly this indie and creator focused podcast app can go.

So right at the tail end of my day, I kind of lost my voice. Don't know what happened, but that's what's going on. So if I sound different, that's why. What's up? Welcome back. This is The Change Law. Jared and I are joined by Dustin Block to discuss his acquisition of the well-known and beloved Castro Podcast app to take it indie-focused once again.

As previous users of Castro, Jared and I were excited to dig into the details behind this popular podcast client to see what's next, how the deal was done, a peek into the code, and see exactly where this indie podcast app can go. A massive thank you to our friends at Fly for getting our back, being the home of changelog.com. Launch your app, your database, and your AI near your users. Learn more at fly.io. What's up, friends?

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Sentry dot I-O. well we are here with dustin block the new owner of the castro podcast player dustin welcome to the show thanks for having me on. Excited to have you. Castro fans, not just saying that, right? Adam, you're a user or was a user for a while. Prior user. I have it on my phone. You know, what made me initially try it

was the fact that Tiny had bought it, you know? And I'm a fan. So you're not the second owner, Dustin. You're the third owner? How does this work? Tell us a little bit of the history. Well, I can tell you what I know. I don't know as much.

I'm sure there's some users that know a lot more than I do, to be honest. Okay. No, there were two founders. They sold the app to Tiny or... Andrew Wilkinson. Yeah. Tiny has a very confusing corporate structure, which I could never really wrap my head around.

But they worked there for a while. I think one of them went to Apple. And yeah, they ended up selling it. Officially, I did not buy it from Tiny. I bought it from Andrew Wilkinson personally. They want me to say that I did not buy it from Tiny. So you're saying that. I will say that.

Okay, well, you two obviously know what Tiny is and who Andrew Wilkinson is. That name rings a bell. And I think I've heard Adam talk about Tiny before, but I'm not familiar. So will one of you tell us more? I will try my best to describe Tiny in regards to what I know about Tiny. I'm going to say Tiny at least three more times.

I believe it is tiny.com. And so Andrew Wilkinson, Andrew was one of the co-founders. I believe he and his brother created the company Metalab, which was pretty prominent. I would say, I'm not sure they're not prominent now, but I know that they were the early days of Slack. So Slack, I think, hired them because they were phenomenal graphic designers, phenomenal interface designers, brand designers, etc. And so Andrew goes back to the day of Metalab. They were the original folks who made the initial design for Slack. And Slack was groundbreaking when it first kind of came about.

And somehow, Andrew got really interested in Warren Buffett and some of the investors out there. And I think he took a couple of playbooks from Warren Buffett and began to invest because he became successful. He had free cash flow. So when you have free cash flow, you make it flow into things that create assets, then obviously gain cash, et cetera, to become an investor. So I think tiny was this thing that got born out of his way to buy tiny companies that have certain profitability ratios. And he kind of looked at these different investments like Warren Buffett might,

but he kind of stuck into the tech sphere. And I think he's originally from Victoria, BC. Tiny was his investment company slash acquisition company. I think he had some partners. I'm not sure of the full details, but they have acquired several businesses. Dribbble being one of them. They're the owners of Dribbble

and also the owners of Designer News. Okay. So those things are definitely ringing bells. Yeah. So they bought Castro from the original founders. Right. Castro, an iOS podcast app. Is it iOS only, Dustin, or is there an Android?

It's iOS only. I mean, I have a separate Android app. You have an Android app as well, which kind of ties these stories together, why you're interested in that. We'll get to your story as well, which kind of ties these stories together of why you're interested in that. We'll get to your story as well, but on Castro's side, do you know why Tiny sold it? Or Andrew Wilkinson, sorry, sorry, sorry. Andrew Wilkinson personally sold it to you. Was it not working? Were they bored? I mean,

I know that it went into some sort of state of quasi disrepair. I mean, the users were kind of mad. They were leaving. Tell us that side, like what you walked into. One more layer, though, for you, Jared, before he inches us, is there are also the investors behind Supercast, which you know of. I do. So they kind of got into this podcast movement.

Okay. I remember talking about that with the Supercast folks. Okay, cool. All right, Dustin, go ahead. I mean, i can only speculate exactly what what the deal was i mean i know they resigned the app in uh i think it was january of 2023 um so they were they were definitely working i think that castro has never really been able to decide what it is is it like more indie or is it like an actual company with

like real employees and like is it like a larger thing or like very small. Right. And I think it's like, I don't, I don't think like they did it. They had a larger operation. They had expanded, they had employees, they had like a whole thing.

It's actually like pretty niche. It's like a very specific thing. Um, the app is like, uh, it's boutique. It's like people who are really into podcasts and like, like really see it as like a productivity thing.

Like there's all these things I want to listen to. I got to get through them. Right. It's like, it really appeals to a certain type of people. And like, I've read all their emails, like this app works the way my brain works in terms of like just powering

through this stuff. But it's not like, it doesn't really have a path to be like this billion dollar company. Right. It's like not that kind of thing. It's very much like a creator friendly, like a thousand true fans type thing. So I think it just didn't really make sense

because I think what they wanted to do was make it bigger. And at a certain point it's like, well, it's pretty big. It was decently big at one point, but it's kind of like, I don't think there's necessarily a path to a billion more people on the app. I think they just weren't sure what to do with it at the end of the day. So the tagline is, the player for heavy listeners. So that plays into what you're saying, very much a power users thing.

Known for having great design, Castro. In the iOS indie podcast scene, it's very much the yin to overcast yang. People will say, there's Overcast and there's Castro. And they kind of even went back and forth feature for feature for a while. I'm a longtime Overcast user, so I know, used to listen to Marco Arman's podcast. So I know some of that history as well. And then here comes Dustin Bluck and Bluck Apps. You know, where are you coming from?

Why are you the buyer of this thing what's right why are you why are you buying this thing well i mean a lot of it's all about timing right so castro is known to people like you because it was a big app in what like some of the code is like 2013 even older than that i don't know how many podcast apps have come out on ios in the past 10 years but you probably don't know the names of many of them. Right. Right. So where do I come in? Buying Castro is not like a great financial decision for me. Already.

You already know that. Compared to alternatives. Well, it's like, so I worked for Instagram for a long time and I've been self-employed the last few years. So one thing I could do is just go back to Instagram that would pay a lot more money than Castro will pay me. Right. So why did I buy it?

I was working on a podcast app on the side, sort of just for my listing. I used it for a year before I released it. And then I do like mobile consulting, like for e-commerce companies, which like pays the bills, but isn't the most exciting thing in the world. Working on the podcast app was a lot more rewarding.

I saw some posts about it that, you know, it was not doing so well. And then I think they actually posted it was going to be for sale. So yeah, I, uh, it just sort of fell into my lap. I think I caught the guy at the right time and, uh, it just did it. I'm, uh, it makes a lot of sense for me to run an app. It makes a lot more sense than like, you know, opening a restaurant or doing, you know, whatever, going to a farm, whatever the alternative to like going back to big tech would be. It makes a lot more sense for me to run an app. So yeah, I'm able to do it. It's interesting to me. It's a space I really like. Yeah. So, you know, it just kind of made sense. Take us to the right time, right moment, exact moment. Did you email Andrew? Did you DM him on X slash Twitter?

I know he's prolific on X quite a bit. So how did this happen? I've actually never spoken to Andrew. Okay. I emailed some like public facing emails on Castro. People that it would make sense to. And I had an initial like short conversation. I guess he acted like a broker on the transaction,

but someone who works for Andrew in some capacity. Very nice guy. I think people imagining this stuff is a little more interesting than it is, but he was not an expert on Castro. He didn't know that much about the app. It's like, I just have to sell it. So it was very business-like. More like real estate than someone's business.

And so far, as the person selling it, it's like a real estate. What do you call it? Like an agent, a real estate agent. And they're just like, well, it's a house. Here's the thing about it. Here's what I know. I don't know anything else. You better do an audit.

Well, did you buy the asset? Did you buy the LLC? I think it was a Canadian company. Can you kind of reveal a bit more of the particulars, even if it's not that interesting? Yeah, how does it work? Yeah, it's an asset sale. I bought their source code, their domain names.

All the pertinent things. Brand. AWS account. Yeah. Yeah. You assumed accounts. Outstanding debts. How about you?

Did you assume the email assets as well? Like archives? Yeah, Google doesn't really, they don't want you to take over and read everyone's email. It's not designed to work that way. But you could if you wanted to. You could change passwords and stuff.

Yeah, yeah. So I took over the G Suite account. I took over AWS, the Linode stuff. I just started running the business. Right. I took over AWS, doing all that stuff. I just started running the business. How do you value something like Castro? How does the negotiation work? Who names the first number? Because I think the rest of it's kind of boring

in terms of, yeah, you transfer accounts and there's DNS and there's this and that and it's like a checklist, right? And we all know how to do that. But for me, if I was going to buy a business like this, I wouldn't know if I should offer $100 or $100 million, right? Like, how do you get into a range?

Was there a price tag on it when you emailed or did you have to come up with a price? How'd that work? So the first time we spoke, he gave me a higher price, but he said he had another buyer. And then we talked about a week later and he said he didn't have another buyer and he gave me a price that was about said he had another briar and then we talked about a week later and he said he didn't have another briar and he gave me a price that was about half of that

so I mean you have a hard bargain I'll wait a week and get a half off you should wait another week see what it costs yeah good point they wanted to move on it and I made it clear that I was very serious

and I would just do it so I made it like as painless as possible for the other party and he he had another they have another app they've actually released it now like called like atomic habits i think okay i've heard of that as a book but not as an app isn't there a book yes i think it's like the app for the book or i don't know if it's an app it's might be like a desktop app or something i don't know what it is but so they wanted to get that out and not deal with castro anymore so i if it's an app. It might be like a desktop app or something. I don't know what it is. Sure. So they wanted to get that out and not deal with Castro anymore. So I guess it's more just timing. In terms of how you would actually value it, I mean, Castro makes money. So you could do like a three to five revenue or however business people value companies.

Right. But it's very much, for me, it was like, this is an app that people know. And that's worth something, right? And the price tag is not so high. So it kind of just seemed like that obviously makes sense, even though, even if it never makes that much money, right? How many digits in this price tag? Can you reveal like six figures, seven figures, five figures? I mean, it was six, but you know, it's more of a restaurant size than like, you know, big tech company sized. Dang, it was six, but it's more of a restaurant size than a big tech company size.

Dang. It could have been a steal then, basically. Especially if you do it right. Well, it's 50% off. Yeah, that's right. That was price perception, really. That was like Walmart. Right.

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Let's focus on just simply the business mechanics, the business model. What is your hopes and dreams in the next year? And then I would say long term well i i do think i think the brand is very related to that but i'll tell you how i think about it like i think the internet is moving i think i'm sure you guys talk about this a lot a lot towards like more like creator peer-to-peer all this stuff has a lot of momentum and like you know paying people directly for things that you use and a lot of people would rather do that than be on the big ad supported platforms. Right. And I think the way Castro works is like very much geared.

Not only is it like a connection between creators in terms of podcasters and their audience, but it's very much like people who use it, like see that as an extension of, you know, it's a very important place this like intermediary between like podcasts that you really like and this sort of intimate thing in your ears and like people listening and people also having a real affinity for the app um even though a lot of them are angry over the past year or so it's like this is the app that i use to get all the people that i really love it's very important to me it It's unique, even though we don't do a lot of things as well as a lot of other apps. We do some unique things really well. And I think that's really valuable to people. And just that brand and that

people know that and people really care about that does have a lot of value, I think. And I think it is, despite the fact that it's been around a long time and I've seen lots of ups and downs, it's still really well positioned to do really well in a world where you know a lot of people are paying a couple bucks a month for the podcast that they love and they want to use it in the app that they love and you know you're paying two bucks a month for that probably less than you pay for some of your shows i don't know if i answered your question i mean you didn't say exact numbers but you did i think so so you want to go you want to lean into subscriptions, right? So Castro has Castro Plus.

That's a subscription, correct? That's like premium style? Yes, sir. Is that pro features or what does that get you? That gets you no ads in the app and then speeding up playback, some like artwork. But yeah, it's premium features around your playing. I think skipping silence or heightening voices. Do you paywall chapters?

I feel like there's an app that paywalls chapters. I don't think we paywall chapters, but I could be wrong about that. I would take that out of the paywall if I were you. I would suggest that you do, but I understand. You've got to put a wall somewhere and you've got to make some money somewhere. I think chapters should be a regular feature. I think there's a couple of things we could take out of the paywall. I think you might actually, because I'm on chapters in our thing,

and it says pre-select chapters as a heading. Okay. And it says subscribe to Castro Plus to pre-select which chapters to play and have Castro skip the others automatically. Oh, you can skip chapters automatically. Yeah, yeah. You do like a choose up front thing. Yeah.

I've never seen another app do that. Yeah, but when I click the X, the chapters all go away. So like it seems like it's hidden behind something is that based on a regular expression that you write or how do you actually

pick which chapters not you Dustin but you the power user like do I say I'm just thinking like you could skip all of our sponsorships with the right title

regular expression if you wanted to is that how it works because that's a cool feature yeah you could definitely skip your ads the way yours work I you can't like you gotta mix them then jared we're gonna start putting hidden characters

in there cat and mouse with our with our listeners that's right are you arguably you should not put the ads in the chapters right that's just inviting people to skip them it is but you know what we are our ads are so good that people don't skip them it's true you laugh but only for now until you hear them then you're like dang this guy's got a real extreme confidence here I love it I think you know if you don't want to hear our ads we aren't going to fight you on that we're going to make it

you're going to make your listening experience as best as we possibly can and a chapter for a sponsorship just makes sense so Castro wants to do the same thing cool I'm still stuck on the acquisition. Can we go back there for a moment? Because here's what I'm thinking.

I'm acquiring assets. How much knowledge of the assets do you have going into it? Specifically, do you get to see the source code before you make the purchase? Because gosh, you could really buy

a dumpster fire of code, right? If you're getting the assets and it's unmanageable, that's going to drop the price quite a bit. Did you get to see the source code? Yeah, so we did like a pay half, check everything, and then sort of pay the other half. If it had been a total disaster, I could have backed out at that point.

So I did get to verify the source code. But prior to that, I didn't see the source code until I'd paid. But prior to that, I'd seen all the numbers all the numbers all the accounts i sort of poured through everything i don't know i probably still would have done if the source code was completely unmaintained well i think you could just start from scratch right yeah really ambitious wow that would have been a whole different thing but uh i would have thought about it is it objective c is it swift it's going back a decade yeah uh it's a little bit of everything. There's still maybe 40% Objective-C or something

which is a lot more than I'd like. So you're rewriting page by page or what are you doing? Are you personally coding this up? Yeah, so I've done more back end. I've definitely done some of the iOS. I also have another developer helping me out with that. Yeah, we're definitely going to have to rewrite a lot of stuff, but it's okay. A lot of things need to be improved. As we improve it, we'll redo a little bit.

Some of the views are still in storyboards, which I think would surprise a lot of iOS developers. It definitely surprised me. I didn't expect that. A lot of that stuff needs to be done. How old is this announcement, this purchase? Is it 2024? Is it January? Late 2023? So I announced this on January 31st, I think.

A couple months. I imagine it's probably at least a couple months. So maybe October, November last year as a process to acquire? No, not that long. I think it was around Christmas, so less than a month. So you inquired and acquired within 30 days? I think about 30 days, yeah. That's quick, man. Wow. He's all business. I like it. I mean, that's good stuff. I mean, sometimes lawyers can get in the way. They can go back and forth. They can delay things. Did you have a lawyer? Did you navigate this solo?

I had a lawyer work on the contract. Yeah, it was just, I was looking for something. I was looking for the right thing and it kind of fell into my lap. And then it was just like, okay, we'll do it. And I think that's part of the reason they were happy to go with me is I was just like, okay, let's do it. Yeah. Well, everybody likes speed, you know, especially do you have cash? Can you do it now? Yes. Yes. Okay, let's do it. I mean, that everybody likes speed, you know, especially do you have cash? Can you do it now?

Yes. Yes. Okay, let's do it. I mean, that's the best world. That is nice. Okay. So where do you go from here? I mean, you started with the servers.

I try to think of like, what would a takeover look like? I would definitely get into the source code. I would make my announcements. You did that because you're bleeding users in the meantime. Like people are angry at Castro because they love Castro and Castro is falling by the way by the wayside and so it's not i mean like literally podcasts aren't being downloaded i mean i'm seeing some of the twitter threads from back at the turn of the year it wasn't great now it's you know i'm sure that was your priority number one is like we got to get it functional yeah that's mostly server-side stuff it's uh the app is really server-driven to an

extent that um really surprised me. It's like, if the server's not, like you really can't do anything if the server's not functioning well and it wasn't functioning hardly at all when I took over. So, and I don't really, I don't have a huge background

like server-side, especially like Ruby on Rails. It's like, I've never written any Ruby code before. So the first two weeks was like very stressful. So it was just like, like the app, I've worked in apps for a very stressful. So it was just like, like the,

the app I've worked in apps for a long time. Like I know I can figure it out, but like the server, like if the server goes down, like the app doesn't function and like, there's nobody to call. It's just me, you know?

So that was a very stressful period. A lot of learning how things worked. I was just like, I had to understand it. Well, do you have any regret? Are you regretting this decision? Are you still excited?

Be honest. No. I have less regret now than I did like a month ago. Now we just turned on some ads. I've been talking to some podcasters. I've been doing some calls with companies. So it's like, it's gotten a little more fun like the past couple of weeks.

I've definitely had moments where it's like, I don't know if I can do this. No, I think it was sort of an obvious decision, and I'm very happy about it. Yeah, I don't have any regret. Would you like some unsolicited, I suppose, feedback? Sure. Adam's good at this. Here it comes.

Well, I just think about story, right? We folks, like even Jared and I, the reason you're on this call is because you had a conversation with jared he took a liking to you i'm a fan of castro a prior user and i think we all buy the why not the what and if i go to the cash or website right now there is no why happening here it's the same old castro there's no announcement of your story there's no mention of really you. Even if you go back to the blog post that was what Jared just asked about,

which was this bleeding user scenario, the future of Castro podcast, December 2023, like you could have gone back and updated this blog post to say, there's new ownership here. See this new post. We're so excited. That's why I asked you if you had regrets, because it seems like you're not telling your story.

You need to tell your story. Yeah, someone else emailed that to me. I've been very corporate in the post. I don't know. I didn't really see it as about me. The way I thought about it was... I think there is a story here, though, right? There's block apps.

There's a reason why you got it. You're on this show sharing your story. There is a story. Well, yeah. Okay, fair enough. We found it story. Well, yeah. Okay. We found it interesting. I mean, I think, are you leading into the indie side or are you going to lead

into the corporate side? Because it seems like you're going small. Right? It's you and a dev. Yeah, I hope to bring on at least one more dev. But yeah,

it's definitely going to be small. I mean, we're not going to hire a big team or anything. No, I think that Castro only makes sense right now if it leans into the indie side, right? So then, therefore, it should be about

Dustin and his ragtag group of devs who took over this thing. It was dying. They saved it. Here's why we care about it. Now you also get to cross-promote your Android app, which is great. I'm not saying the app is great. I haven't used it. I'm saying the fact that you have two apps is awesome because they both

will feed each other. The Android app is great, just so you know. There you go. Yeah, well, I assume so. But I haven't used Android, so I couldn't vouch for it. And I think that, yeah, I mean, people like people, right? And they like software written by people. And if you're not going to be a corporate Borg and you're going to be small indie, Dustin and his team, then you have to actually embody that.

And I mean, this podcast is a good step in that direction, right? Like you're telling your story. We're getting, I like caster now more than I did when we first started this call just because like now I know Dustin, I know what he's up to. I got it. I understand his plans, even though the app doesn't quite get to where I want it to be right now.

I know he's working on it, and I can send an email to support, and they'll reply right away. That kind of stuff goes a mile on Goodwill and on subscriptions and all the things. That's what Adam's getting at, right? Yeah, fair enough. I mean, I think you got the post that was not from you. Then you've got the post that says a fresh start for Castro, which is great. So I would say go back to the future of Castro podcast, which is from the prior administration. Let's just use political terms.

Prior administration. And points that say this is not true anymore. We have a brand new beginning here. Here's the first of many that will illustrate where we're trying to go. And you have one that's called pricing updates. So I would just say lean into the love. Wrap your arms around the entire indie podcast community. Creators and listeners, squeeze up.

And just show them some love. I see you're doing a Reddit AMA. That's a good step. I am, yes. It was funny because I came across that by happenstance. And I thought, he set up this Reddit AMA, and he didn't answer any of the stinking questions and then i realized it hasn't hasn't happened yet the questions are just queuing up i'm like who doesn't ama and doesn't answer any of the questions i was like oh it's friday okay that was funny so that's

a good start you know like uh show your face to the people, be a human and absolutely be indie, you know, because unless you're going to try to go big and corporate, then you might as well be who you are. And I think people like that. I like indie podcast apps always have and probably always will. And I think a lot of people do, especially power users, right? People who want to have a connection to what they're doing. Not just, like you said, not just to the podcasters, but to the app that gets them to the podcasters. So I guess if you're focusing to some degree or fully on the indie realm, let's just say, whether it's a listener, a creator, what are some of the ways that you think you can improve that relationship between a listener or a creator to the, I mean, let's face it, a podcast app, a client like yours is the distribution. Jared and I, our businesses, our livelihood can flourish further if you put the

right features in place that attracts users to listen to podcasts more regularly. And I think chapters is a big deal. We pour so much effort into chapters, titling. We pour a lot of effort into even our ad production. Not just crappy ads, but ads that actually tell a story and connect. So I'm full on about story and connection. What are some of the things y'all have planned in terms of a roadmap or just whatever it might be to lean into the indie? Well, I'm talking to podcasters, so if you guys have ideas, I'm definitely all ears. I'm open to it.

I mean, the first thing for casters to do is to come up to feature parity with some basics. You should be able to search episodes. You should be able to sync across your devices. It's like the roadmap kind of writes itself because there's like you know the app just needs to be better and more reliable so those are the big things we've been focused on but i mean i really do i've tried very hard in my other app like just not to get in the way of and to show as much as you can of the actual whatever you put in the feed you know that's what matters and And I think the user should see as much of that as possible. And like, we should not get in the way of that. And I think

what you're going to see with a lot of other apps is a lot of getting in the way. You're already seeing this with some of the app, the AI stuff and like things that are generated, generated artwork and transcripts and things like that. And like, we definitely want to go the opposite direction. It's like, if you put transcripts in your feed, I want to show that to the user. But if you don't, I'm not necessarily sure I want to do that. I mean, that's a tricky one because that is an accessibility thing. But it's like, I think we want to be the opposite.

We want to be the yin of the current trending yang in a lot of ways. That's something we're definitely going to focus on. But things Castro could do a lot of ways. That's something we're definitely going to focus on. But things like, things Castro could do a lot better. Things like, you know, season and episode and trailers and bonuses. These are basic things that are in the feed. Castro cut show notes off at 500 characters, I think, which is really not enough. I mean, I want to do a lot better job of like really showing the user what the owner of the feed has put into it, you know? So it's 2024 and we're living in an era of information overload. We have more knowledge than we ever have before. But what do you do with all that knowledge?

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Notion.com slash changelog. How much do you know about the new podcast namespace and a lot of the podcasting 2.0 features that people are building? These are indie apps. I mean, Apple just adopted their first tag from podcasting namespace, which was podcast colon transcript, I think. But Spotify supports none of it. Apple supports none of it. And then a lot of the indie people support a lot of these features.

There's things like the social interact where it's trying to get cross-app comments. There's a lot of stuff that people are trying and they have some support from certain indie apps but not other ones. And I'm just curious, are you plugged into that with your Android app or what are your thoughts on

the new podcasting features via the feed? Yeah, I've talked to James Criddle and I follow that stuff pretty closely. I've been in the GitHub repos a little bit. But some of that makes sense for us and some of it doesn't. But yeah, I think that leaning more into that

is definitely a route Castro would like to go. I mean, it makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, things like the transcript tag, I think it's like a no-brainer, and we should be supporting that yesterday. Podcast colon person, I think, is another one that's great, where you can actually have person objects in your feed versus just a name.

And so you can provide rich information about the people on the show, whether they're a host, whether they're a guest. And then your user can say, oh, this is an interesting person. They click on the guest, right? And it takes them to probably some sort of search customized where now all of a sudden they're seeing all the shows this person has been on. I long wanted, and I think some podcasts do this, a way to subscribe to a person.

Because there's a lot of people who don't have podcasts, but they're on a lot of podcasts, and I don't want to track around to know what podcasts are on this week. But when they're on a show, I'd like to know about it. I may listen to it. And so being able to follow a person across different podcasts is kind of a cool thing. around to know what podcasts are on this week. But when they're on a show, I like to know about it. I may listen to it. So being able to follow a person across different podcasts is kind of a cool thing. Does Castro do that?

Castro does not do that. Okay. I just don't want to be telling you about a thing that you already do. It's a great idea, though. Do you guys use those features in your feed? We do them all. Okay. Yeah, our feed is very rich.

If you want a feed to use as an example of like people adopting new technologies, we're not like a hundred percent in on them. Like we use the podcast funding one, but we don't use like all the value for value stuff. And we use the social interact, but it's just a Macedon URL. But our feed is like,

we're just trying to take advantage of everything that's out there in order to make our feeds as best as we can in order to make our podcasts look and work as best as they can everywhere right and so yeah we support all that kind of stuff it's easy for us because we have our own platform like we just author all of our own stuff and so we've been just incrementally adopting all that stuff and so yeah we have it so as a user i would definitely like to see all that too um i guess the only thing i would say is like nobody's ever emailed me and asked me for that. I don't think those features are really out in the ether very much. Yeah, people don't know about them. It takes the app developers to really get these things out there.

Because a lot of times people don't even know they want a feature until it's sitting there and like, oh, that's cool. I didn't know I could subscribe to Gary Vaynerchuk, for instance. He probably has his own show. Or somebody who's a thought leader that doesn't have a podcast, I can just subscribe to this person inside of Castro. And whenever they're on whatever show I'll know about it, people don't know they want that until someone tells them they want that.

And a lot of times it's just what their app offers. And so that's why it's tough. Like you have the, you have so many parties involved. You have the listener, you have the podcaster, you have the platform, you have the apps and who is going to get the word out. Well, we all kind of have to get the word out about the things that we think are cool or interesting. And so being the podcast app, you have a lot of power and a lot of influence in that way. Being the measly podcasters, we just, we just try to get ahold of the app owners and say hey this is cool you should try it and most of them ignore us so pocket cast has been very receptive it's awesome

now that we know you marco arment at overcast he's takes feedback and feature requests he says no to lots of stuff but you know then there's the big apps that we just have no we're just we have a public email address that we can use and so we don't really have any chance influencing them but i think as an app owner now you you know you got a lot of cool power you can wield for the better you are literally a web browser for podcasts yeah exactly that's what I tell people. an opportunity to innovate and maybe even like really gain critical mass whenever if you can do that there's lots of things like for example we as podcasters compete with the likes of tiktok instagram and youtube while we're not directly competing we also put our shorts there our clips there whatever there could be an option where inside of your actual podcast client castro could could feature shorts we can have a separate url of just clips that kind of

thing where people can subscribe to it and you can have different interface based upon length of the show you know there's lots of stuff you could do for discoverability you know not just oh you listen to this you like that and do basics but like a lot of what I like about YouTube and its algorithm for me as a user is that it helps me discover once I like get into let's say my new kick Jared you love these things is the Mediterranean diet I'm just loving all things Mediterranean so easy to cook with the Mediterranean diet and now I have my feed litter with like various things I was into picanha for a bit there which is a particular cut of the beef on a cow. Very popular in Brazilian restaurants. It's basically a sirloin roast tip. It's got a big old fat cap on it, but I love all the recipes

around picanha. Well, YouTube didn't just say, well, here, can you use or go and find all the people? No, it helped me find the interest because of me sharing with it, I suppose, with, you know, my awareness and my activity. Hey, Adam is searching for picanha. He wants to cook some picanha, you know, service some stuff up. You are one of the only people that continually praises the YouTube algorithm. I mean, I hate that thing. I hate love it. I mean, I love it.

I mean, I love it in the fact that it doesn't, as a user, I don't have to go and find all the things. It helps surface things to me based upon my interests, and I kind of like that. I do one search. I'm trying to fix a dishwasher, so I search for Bosch dishwasher. Now it's like, oh, you're a dishwasher aficionado. You love dishwashers. Let me play you all these. No, I don't care about dishwashers.

You can tell it no. I do tell it no, and it keeps coming back. And then all of a sudden, I'll get a'll get a recommendation i'll be like this is great and then i'll remember oh 18 months ago i subscribed to this person and this is the first video of theirs i've seen i would love to see all their videos but no i don't want to hit the subscribe bell i agree with that too like it's it's weird that uh well there's a lot of folks i'm like wow i haven't subscribed to this person yet and i like watch it frequently you know it's a strange conundrum it's a weird deal the point i'm trying to make is not that it is the best there are certain things that can be borrowed don't turn castro into youtube

it's not gonna happen yes there are things you can do though right you can do it the cool way i totally get it yeah i totally get there's there's a lot coming down and there's a lot that's not happening and there are a lot of things things that Spotify and Apple are never going to do, right? So that's our opportunity. Yes, yes. For sure. Yeah. And it just, I mean, you can thrive through it.

Obviously as Castro gets better, you know, more subscribers, then you get this cool new feature. It can go premium, et cetera. And so it's not just us that benefits, but everybody who does. Do you have a roadmap, not feature roadmap, but do you have like a path,

you know, on some whiteboard somewhere to zero or to profitability? Break even? Do you know what that looks like in years and months? What are you thinking? We have a product roadmap. Financial projections, not so much.

I have a rough idea. When we turn on ads today, so that'll help. That's basically going to be another developer, right? So that helps. So that helps. So that's one thing. So you got ads and then you got plus. Are those your two revenue streams?

Are there other ways that it makes money? No, that's it. Open to other ideas though. Selling t-shirts? We used to do sell merch, but it's not going it's not gonna put food on the table unless you get up to

MKBHD size okay so are you continuing to consult like in the meantime how do you make a living yeah I work

two days a week now that's been a lot I'm probably gonna stop doing that but yeah I I'm gonna take a little time get Castro into shape

and then kind of figure out what that looks like there's a lot of stuff that I do now that I not necessarily the person I don't have to answer every email I'm going to take a little time, get Castro into shape, and then kind of figure out what that looks like. There's a lot of stuff that I do now that I don't have to answer every email long term. So taking a lot of that off my plate at some point would be good, but right now I want to see what the people are saying. What about the Android side? Are there plans to unify the brand and just have Castro for Android and Castro for iOS? Or do you like to have the other app? Is it successful?

Does it have its own thing going? How does that work? The Android app is called Aurelian. A lot of people don't seem to like that name, but I like it. What's that mean? Where did it come from? It's like a Roman emperor. I think one of Mark Zuckerberg's kids is named Aurelius. So it's an homage to Zach. I didn't know that actually when I named it. You bought Instagram.

I love you. He put a lot of food on your table. Yeah, that's right. No, so I think we will just call it Castro. Personally, I think my name is better than Castro, but Castro has the brand. But I can't do that right now because Castro is so specifically the inbox and the queue and Castro is really server driven and really it's like very client driven. They have in,

in some ways, like they have similar ideas, but they're very, they work technically opposite ways. And I wouldn't want to call it Castro if we don't have that core inbox queue. That flow is what people think of as Castro. So I think that is probably what we'll do, but it's just not as important right now as making sure Castro is good. Well, to be continued. I mean, I love it. I think this is exciting.

It's cool that it didn't die. I mean, when indie apps die, it's a sad day. Somebody, probably many people out there love Castro to death and they were probably just worried that their favorite thing was going away.

And now it doesn't have to go away. Assuming that you succeed at all of your plans. So we're rooting for you. Adam, do you have any other thoughts or questions

for Dustin? Nothing that's coming to mind right off the top. When's the open source version coming out? I mean, I'm not like that opposed to doing that. I just don't know what that would benefit me the top. When's the open source version coming out? I mean, I'm not that opposed to doing that. I just don't know what that would benefit me.

I think Pocket Cast is open source, and it's like, who's looking at that source code? I don't know. Goodwill. Goodwill is probably what they're getting out of that. I do know that some of the people who are implementing things like Podcast Index, they go look at the Pocket Cast's source code

from time to time in order to implement things or know how things work. And just to get an idea of like, okay, here's how at least how one client is treating this particular thing. So it's all the developers, you know, it's people that are pushing things. Not so much the users or the podcast creators, maybe some users, it depends. I mean, a podcast app can be a pretty complicated beast, especially one that's stratified across client and server. And so it's like, if I could add my own pet feature to Castro, maybe I would participate. But if that's prohibitively complicated,

it's like, it's not going to happen. And so I don't know if it would benefit you much, but I think it might benefit the world a little more than it is closed source, and I don't think it's going to be a drawback on you whatsoever, but that's just my two cents. No concrete plans at this time. I mean, it makes a lot more sense to me to open source

some of maybe podcast parsing or some libraries. There are a lot of things that we do that would be more usable. Where exactly is the money at? Like literally, is it in your pocket? I'm just kidding. You had to rob him. Where's the money at? Like when you look at this business,

like there's some businesses that I would never do B2C. You're kind of like in a B2C world in a way, right? You're a business to a consumer. And then you have some business to business opportunity, which could be the promotion, the ads, which is kind of like back to the consumer and then you have some business to business opportunity which could be the promotion the ads which is kind of like back to the consumer in a way because most podcasters tend to be indie so it's kind of like you're really just getting money from the people who produce which probably make okay money and then i gotta imagine there's an opportunity to maybe become an ad marketplace

to some degree to attract you know the larger the ones that are like Casper and Factor and Squarespace, the ones that are really well known to do that, to connect them with the right kind of audiences and that kind of thing. Where is the money at for this? If it's beyond just simply a client, the long-term ambition of the money, where's the money at when it comes to this business? Well, peak Castro, I think, from the records, was about half ads and half subscribers.

But I think the money right now is with the users who really care about Castro. There are some people who have been using Castro for six years, even through periods where it didn't function at all. For now, our focus is on making sure that they have a good experience and they keep paying for it so we can keep making it. I mean, we have an ads product and it's going to make money,

but for it to make very much money, we would have to have a lot more users, right? And to have a lot more users, we're just going to have to have a very good app. So, I don't know. Yeah, those are going to happen in tandem. You've got to keep improving the in tandem like you got to keep improving the app and you got to keep improving the ad experience and those are going to grow together

and they may grow incrementally as one leapfrogs the other vice versa they're going to have to that's an iterative process you're gonna have to iterate to to greatness on that front yeah so when we're five times the size like maybe that question looks a little bit different but for now it's very focused like making the the core users like as happy as possible and growing did you describe in detail your ads platform like what your hypothesis is at least in the initial while you are in the iterative state is it simply like an overcast not so much copy paste but is it a version of what overcast does, which is primarily, hey, if you want to promote the changelog

to the technology audience, pay us $3.50 for a couple days or whatever, and we'll guarantee you X kind of thing. That's, I think, for the most part what Overcast ad product is. How did yours compare? Yeah, so you guys are on our Discover page right now as

an ad. I saw the Practical AI show is doing a little better than the Change Log, so I guess AI is higher. That's actually pretty typical right now. Those guys are showing us up. AI. Yeah, exactly. No, I mean, you have banner ads and you have sort of an ad on the

now playing screen, but Castro's really tilted towards premium music. I think it's like 25% premium, and they can hide those whereas the discover ads they can hide those too but they're not hidden by default but yeah it's you pay for a week you get on those screens it's pretty basic Castro's explore section is just not very smart right now it's like very naive so there's a ton that we can do sort of very low hanging fruit just to make that smarter and better. 25% premium is high. Yes.

Yes. So I do think that that's where your money is going to be. The kind of user that you draw in. Yeah. It's very, it's a diehard driven. I have people who email me every couple of days. Just saying, hey, Dustin, how you doing? Really like the app.

Here are all of my issues with it. Right. That's good good that's a good problem to have yeah yeah i was really surprised when i went through because i was i got access to the support account i could read all the emails and like the when the app was like not functioning in november like so many people emailed and so much of it was like you know just saying how much they love the app and they were were sad. So I was really surprised, like, just like how strongly people felt. So you're obviously talking to two podcasters here and also two podcast listeners because

we are not, you know, we're two sides of a coin, basically. But we're also talking into microphones and people are listening to this. Those are the listeners, if you didn't know, Dustin. Now, let's give you a chance to like if you haven't already sold our listenership on the opportunity to become their potential podcast client of choice what would you you know why should they even care give me the sizzle not just the steak i mean there's a certain type of person who's really attracted to like mac productivity apps who really like you know the brain works a certain way of person who's really attracted to like Mac productivity apps who really like, you know, the brain works a certain way.

They want to get through things. And this really appeals like Castro really appeals to a certain type of person. The biggest shows on Castro are like very Apple or like tech driven. The Change Log is pretty big, but like Daring Fireball. If you read Daring Fireball, you probably like Castro. I doubt that's one of the top shows on Apple Podcasts. I'm sure it's up there, but it's top 10 for Castro. But if you're in that demographic and you haven't tried it, it's like you know who you are. The techie,

tinker. It's very dad-driven, I think. But if you're that type of person, you should probably try it. It has a very specific appeal. You should try it. Castro.fm like i said before i was a user i was like wow andrew bought this thing maybe there's some some reason i should check it out overcast at the time was not uh giving me the kind of love i wanted and so i felt free to install something else. Now, I did not uninstall Overcast. I just simply moved it off my home screen. Bye. But then Castro went away and Overcast is back.

And I think the thing I love most about Overcast is how unhidden the chapters are. Like I said before, Jared and I changed all proper all of our shows. We put a lot of attention to detail into our chapters. I think, you know, they're the way of the future, honestly, to help a listener find their way through a show. They're not just there as like bolt-ons, like they to us are like first-class citizens in our workflows. And we put a lot of work into naming our podcasts. So I would say the more you can feature those kind of things, we better. But I'm a big fan of Castro.

Again, I have a higher outlook given our conversation here. I think there's a lot of opportunity. A lot of opportunity. I just would encourage you to just dig into what your story truly is as you do shows like this or you do your AMAs on Reddit or other podcasts. And just dig into your story truly is as you do shows like this or you do your AMAs on Reddit or other

podcasts and just dig into your story and like do whatever you can to to be a little vulnerable with the community and invite them into your into your world and help them be a part of that world and help them enjoy it and create it with you because I think that's that's what the dividends are in the indie market I appreciate it all right i got nothing else to say thanks for coming on the show dustin we appreciate uh your time and sharing with us yeah thank you for having me on i'm pretty nervous you guys have a very big show it's uh it's uh up there on castro nothing to be nervous about man everyone's gonna nothing to be nervous about, man. Everyone's kind of like. Nothing to be nervous about. Yeah. Glad to have you here. I think really it's just about, it's just about being present with the community.

And I think this is one of those many steps you can take. And, you know, we'll have you back on the show six months from now, a year from now. There you go. Beautiful. When things are different and the nerves are going, you're like, yes, I conquered this thing. I've climbed the mountain and here's all the people with me. Because that's what you're going to do. Thank you. Appreciate it. Hope so.

All right. Thanks, Dustin. Thanks, guys. Well, I'm using Castro once again, but I have to say that they have to have default good support for chapters before I can officially make the switch away from Overcast. I'm just being honest. good support for chapters before I can officially make the switch away from overcast. I'm just being honest to me. Chapter support is paramount for a good podcast listening experience. That's exactly why we put so much love and attention into our chapters,

but I do think Castro deserves your attention once again. And Dustin is certainly putting in the effort to get revert back to Indy. So head over to Castro. FM and give it one one more look if you haven't done so already. For our Plus Plus subscribers, there is a nice little bonus conversation to enjoy. So stick around. Once again, big thanks to our sponsors for this episode. Sentry, Cloudflare, Notion, Fly. We love all them.

Sentry has a coupon code ChangeLog to get you $100 off the team plan, Cloudflare is awesome, we love them love Notion, and of course Fly.io is the home of ChangeLog.com so check them out, Fly.io

of course BMC those banging beats, so awesome love Breakmaster Cylinder. That's it. The show's done. We'll see you on Friday. Thank you. Game on.