Podcast
Butternomics the Business of Culture
Hosted by iHeartPodcasts · EN
Butternomics: The Business of Culture takes a deep dive into the intersection of business and culture, showing how brands, entrepreneurs, and tastemakers use culture level up. Join serial entrepreneur, thought leader, and CEO of Butter.ATL, Brandon Butler (@mrsuperbran), as he brings you exclusive interviews, trends, insights, and more. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or a seasoned pro, Butternomics is for you.
44episodes
Episodes
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The Podcast Formula That Turns Your Listeners Into Buyers with David Shands
Jun 1800:44:44Tap to summarizeDavid Shands started a podcast without knowing what a podcast was. He was selling t-shirts out of a kiosk in Cumberland Mall, running a conference where the tickets moved slow, so he interviewed his speakers to sell seats. That hustle turned into the Social Proof Podcast, two studios, a national summit tour, and over 500 episodes. In this one he breaks down the part most people get wrong. A podcast is a marketing arm for a business, not the business itself. Content needs a business model. He walks through how to cultivate an audience of buyers, why a community of 10,000 paying $2 a month beats chasing ad money, and how he uses AI to script topic episodes when the interviews aren't enough. He also gets honest about the climb. It took him 54 episodes before one hit, and the one that finally blew up rerouted traffic to an old episode nobody watched. He talks the dad guilt, losing $250K on a summit in Miami, and why he moved the whole thing to Atlanta, the Mecca for Black stories and Black wealth. If you're sitting at 200 views thinking about quitting, this is the episode you need. Catch David at Podcast Summit, July 2nd and 3rd. Use code BUTTER for a discount.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →How To Raise $30 Million For Communities Everyone Else Ignores Ft Simone Hardiman-Jones
Jun 1600:34:02Tap to summarizeSimone Hardeman-Jones flew into ATL to break down how she's reimagining what philanthropy actually looks like. As executive director of Green Light Fund Twin Cities, she walks into rooms full of wealthy people and convinces them to invest in the communities everybody else overlooks. We get into the Minnesota paradox. It's ranked number one in quality of life and dead last in the income gap between Black and white residents. Same state. Two completely different realities depending on who you are. Simone shares how Green Light Fund finds high-impact programs that don't exist yet in a community, brings them in, and backs them with $600K in seed funding over four years. We talk about the maternal health crisis where 95% of Black maternal deaths were preventable, the food logistics problem hiding behind 9 million food shelf visits, and why she stopped selling her community as a problem to fix. She also gets into what it means to be a Black woman asking for money in rooms that weren't built to welcome her, the difference between deciding for a community versus with it, and the fifth-grade letter-writing campaign that started it all. Learn more about Green Light Fund at greenlightfund.org Subscribe for more conversations on the business of culture.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →How To Build An Atlanta That Works For Everybody With Nathaniel Smith
Jun 900:52:49Tap to summarizeAtlanta calls itself the Black Mecca. But ask who actually owns the city, who gets pushed out when the money moves, and who benefits from all this growth, and the answer gets complicated. Nathaniel Smith has spent his life on that question. He's the Founder and Chief Equity Officer of the Partnership for Southern Equity, and he grew up in Kirkwood watching the Olympics, gentrification, and the crack era reshape the neighborhoods he loved. He started with one $500 check and built a 16-year movement. In this episode, Brandon Butler sits down with Nathaniel to break down what equity really means, why the Beltline put people in position to fund their own displacement, and how Atlanta built its Black wealth in the first place. They get into tax allocation districts, why organized people matter as much as organized money, and why he believes Atlanta is the place that has to get it right. This one is for anybody who loves this city and wants to see it work for everybody in it. So goes Atlanta, so goes the South. So goes the South, so goes the nation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →How Steve Canal Turns Culture Into Brand Deals Most People Can't Get
Jun 300:48:44Tap to summarizeSteve Canal builds the thing most people can't: culture that actually pays. On this episode of Butternomics, Brandon Butler sits down with Steve Canal, co-founder of One Venture Group and part of the team behind ONE Musicfest and TwoGether Land, to talk about how Atlanta actually works. The city moves on relationships, and Steve has spent his whole career proving it. He breaks down how he built by leading with one question: how can I help? He explains why trust compounds when you show up for people before you need anything, why the door in this city opens when somebody vouches for you, and how he turned that into real brand partnerships and real money. The conversation gets into what it takes to align big brands with cultural moments that feel authentic, why reading culture is a skill most people never develop, and how Steve picks the partnerships worth saying yes to. He's a two-time bestselling author who has been recognized by the Ebony Power 100 and the Inc. 5000, and he keeps it direct about the work behind all of it. If you're building something in culture, this one will save you years.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →The Real Podcast Money Blueprint, Owning Your IP, and Why Black Creators Have To Be 10x Better Ft Mandii B
May 2700:29:28Tap to summarizeMandii B pulled up to Butternomics and broke down the real podcast money blueprint. Most creators chase a network deal thinking it means marketing, studio time, production help, and guest booking handled for them. None of that is guaranteed. A network deal is really just you licensing your content so they can sell ads against it. The expenses, the editing, the booking, the studio, all still on you. The real play is diversification. Patreon brings Mandii a quarter million a year by itself because subscriptions hit different when your audience actually believes in the work. Live shows start small but build a real connection with the people who already ride for you. Merch is a slower bag, but it's another lane when the demand is real. The lesson is simple. Stop waiting on somebody else's deal to validate your show. Build the audience, own the income streams, and let the network come to you on your terms.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →Tendernism: The Untold Story Behind the Word That Broke the Internet
May 2100:29:28Tap to summarizeTendernism didn't start on the internet. It started 50 years ago in a kitchen in Robbins, Illinois, with a young Walter Johnson cutting wingtips off chicken wings for his brother's restaurant. 50 years. 50+ states. Casino kitchens, backyard cookouts, and every Southern state he could get to so he could learn what the old folks knew about a pinch of this and a pinch of that. By the time the camera found him, the craft was already there. The world just hadn't caught up yet. In this episode, Brandon Butler sits down with the man who invented Tendernism to tell the full story. How the word actually got named (an oxtail, the sun, and meat that peeled off the bone like an orange). Why he calls oxtails "Black Diamonds." How he ended up on the phone with Snoop and Ron Isley. And the Muhammad Ali line that made him realize this was bigger than food: "Ali shocked the world in '65. I shocked 'em in 2025." Walter is proof that your time is your time. The meat was just the entryway. Tendernism is the movement. ▶ Subscribe: https://youtube.com/@butternomics?sub_confirmation=1 #Butternomics #BusinessOfCulture #Tendernism #WalterJohnson #BlackDiamonds #AtlantaPodcast #BlackEntrepreneurs #SouthernFood #BBQ #AtlantaBusinessSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →Attorney Gerald Griggs on Voting Rights, Private Prisons, and Black Power in Georgia
May 1200:53:07Tap to summarizeIt costs $300,000 to $400,000 a year just to protect voting rights in Georgia. The SAVE Act would charge you $33 to $130 for a new ID just to vote. DEI rollbacks are cutting off SBA loans and grant funding to Black businesses right now. Attorney Gerald Griggs sat down with Butternomics and unpacked the economics of civil rights, how legislation is quietly hitting Black wealth, and why Georgia has the highest rate of people under state control in the entire country. He also dropped a number that should stop every Black professional in Atlanta: 2.2 million registered voters. A governor's race takes 1.9 million.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →The Man Behind "Tendernism" Built a Brand the Internet Didn't See Coming
May 500:29:28Tap to summarizeWalter Johnson cooked for 50 years across 50 states before a single camera found him. He started cutting wingtips off chicken in his brother's restaurant in Robbins, Illinois. He worked casinos, restaurants, and backyard cookouts across the South, collecting seasonings and techniques from every state he passed through. Then a video went viral and the world learned his name. Forbes wrote about him. Snoop Dogg invited him to the compound. Now he's building a seasoning line, planning a national food festival, and turning a lifetime of craft into a brand empire. He calls it Tendernism. The rest of us call it proof that your moment comes when it comes and not a second before.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →$12 Billion in 40 Days: Rev. Jamal Bryant Breaks Silence on the Target Fast and more!
Apr 3000:54:48Tap to summarizeOn this episode of Butternomics, Rev. Dr. Jamal Bryant sits down with host Brandon Butler to break his silence on the Target Fast and reveals exactly how 40 days of strategic economic pressure stripped $12 billion from Target's valuation. From a 9.7% drop in foot traffic to forcing the first-ever HBCU business pipeline, Bryant pulls back the curtain on the full strategy, the demands, the negotiations, and what the Black community actually won. He also shares the vision for New Birth City, a 300-acre development bringing micro homes, senior housing, and Black-owned businesses to one campus, and drops a masterclass on why boycotts without demands are just cancel culture in disguise.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →How to Build an App Without Losing Your Money, Your Mind, or Your Time with Amanda Spann
Apr 2800:44:08Tap to summarizeThe average non-technical founder loses $50,000 and years of their life trying to build an app. Amanda Spann knows because she's coached thousands of them. Her first app cost $40,000 and took 18 months. Her sixth one took weeks. The difference was a framework she built after documenting every mistake, every bottleneck, and every dollar wasted. She sat down with Butternomics and broke down why most app ideas fail before they launch, why AI won't build 100% of your startup no matter what anyone tells you, and why talking to 300 people before writing a single line of code is the move that separates the founders who make money from the ones who lose it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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