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- [00:00]
A
You probably already know that Airbnb can help you earn some extra cash when you're not using your home. Maybe you're traveling for work, you're taking an extended vacation, or you're just snowboarding someplace warmer. But here's where it gets interesting. You don't have to do all the work yourself. You can tap into Airbnb's co host network. This is a team of local pros who handle the nitty gritty so you can focus on what matters most. Think of it like outsourcing for your side hustle. These professional co hosts help with everything from creating a killer listing that stands out to guest communication and even on the ground support. You provide the space, they handle the details, and you get paid. Personally, I'm a fan of income streams that don't require constant oversight. When I'm traveling for work, I'm at a conference or a mastermind, or if I'm on vacation, I'm trying to be present with my family. Here's a way to add an extra income stream without having to be glued to my phone the whole time. When you're ready to get started, see how much your space could be worth and get connected with an awesome co host@airbnb.com host.
- [01:04]
B
160 grand. Talking about Australian fantasy football now, you know, nothing warms my heart more than listener success stories. And for some odd reason, the more obscure the niche, the better, right? So today's guest started a podcast on the side from his teaching job. Not about football, not about even fantasy football, but about a very specific flavor of fantasy football. For a very specific flavor of football. That being Australian Rules Football. That's a niche within a niche within a niche if I've ever heard of one. It's a really fun illustration of how you can monetize just about any area of interest from the Keeper League podcast and keeper league pod.comau hef gerlock. Welcome to the Side Hustle Show.
- [01:44]
C
Thanks, Nick, for having me. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. I've been listening to this show for probably five years now and got plenty of good ideas. So it's pretty exciting to come on here and be able to kind of, you know, maybe help some other people get some ideas and doing similar sorts of things with their side hustles.
- [01:56]
B
I'm excited to learn as well. Stick around to hear how Hef built his audience from the ground up and the different ways he's monetized this online business over the years. Now, if you're interested in Starting a podcast of your own. Make sure to download my podcast starter kit with resources on choosing the right software and equipment, my production process, marketing your show, and of course, all the different ways that podcasts can make Money. That's@sidehustlenation.com Hef H E F F or just follow the show notes, link in the episode description, and it'll get you right over there. But take me back to the beginning, the side hustle days of like, hey, I know, why don't we start a podcast about this keep league flavor of fantasy football.
- [02:38]
C
So, yeah, it, it dates back to 2018, just after I had my, my son. At the time I was teaching full time. I'd been about probably, I don't know, five, six years into my teaching career, and I wasn't really sure if that's what I wanted to do full time, if that's the. The thing that kind of, you know, filled my desires. I guess I thought it was when I started. But, you know, once you kind of hit that sixth or seventh year, it starts to become a bit of a grind, I guess. So I was listening to a lot of podcasts at the time. It was probably my favorite thing to do. Go home, go for a. For a walk and listen to a podcast. And because I was listening to so many podcasts, it's basically just I wanted to start my own. I've always been a fan of audio and technology. I guess my, my job was teaching music tech, music and technology really. And a lot of that was around kind of studio recording, teaching kids how to use microphones, record bands and things like that. And I've always had a bit of a studio set up at home, so I thought might as well put it to good use, start a podcast. And here we are about six years later.
- [03:35]
B
Here we go. Time flies here. So was anybody else covering this topic or were there multiple different topics that you considered before saying, no, this is the Keeper League is going to be the one?
- [03:46]
C
No, we never actually really went elsewhere. We've had our fantasy league and our Keeper league, what we'll call it. We've had that going since about 2013. So like five years before we started the podcast. And it's something that we just Talked about on WhatsApp groups and group chats every day anyway. And it's kind of the one thing that we felt like we just knew the most about. We could talk about it like, you know, we could talk about it for hours, type things. So your listeners in, in the USA are probably very familiar with draft fantasy Like NFL draft, NBA draft, and that sort of thing. Where we go, like, different, I guess, is like we play what we call a keeper league, and I think it's sometimes known as a dynasty league over in the USA as well, is like where you keep players from year to year. So instead of picking a new team each year, it's kind of built like you're actually like a, A team coach or a team manager, and you've got to think about at the end of the year who you're cutting, who you're delisting, who you're trading to other players in your leagues. And then you, yeah, you do a draft and you pick up the new players and stuff like that. So we found that there was no one else talking about that version. And we figured, like, if we're the. We're not the only ones in the country that are playing this format because, you know, I got the idea from another person and we figured there must be more people out there doing what we do. And it's been pretty interesting to kind of hear the way different listeners were doing it, like on spreadsheets and stuff like that. Just totally different ways people have been doing it. But, yeah, we figured that no one else was doing it that way. And, you know, I wanted to start a podcast that was like a niche topic that no one else was really doing. And yeah, so we thought we'd run one with it and give it a go.
- [05:12]
B
I like this niche selection of, well, what do you never get tired of talking about? Hey, we were, you know, we had this group chat going for years and it was just something that you enjoyed doing and kind of finding this white space in the market where nobody else is really covering it in the way that we would want to cover it. And, you know, is kind of an up and coming trend towards this Keeper League format or this dynasty type of format. And, you know, those two things kind of combined, you know, with maybe the combination of, well, I already have some level of, you know, audio production knowledge or interest or experience and like, okay, we can kind of find the. At the center of all of those concentric circles is, you know, this Keeper League podcast. So what happens next? You record an episode, you launch it to the world instantly. Internet famous. What. What's going on in the early days of the show?
- [06:02]
C
Not quite. Not quite Internet famous. I don't think we've actually reached Internet famous yet, to be honest, but maybe one day that's in the pipeline. But no, we recorded it at my friend's house, around his dining Room table at the time, with my audio background, like I had decent microphones, I kind of understand acoustics in spaces and stuff like that. So how to make things sound good even in the, in the worst areas. We recorded our first episode just kind of introducing ourselves. I think we gave five players each that we think because the whole, the whole premise of the podcast is not talking about the superstars that everyone already knows about and that everyone always talks about. We talk about the next up and coming guys in the fantasy world type thing, or guys that haven't even played yet, they've just been drafted, haven't played a game, or they've been playing in the reserve leagues to try to get into the main team, into the A team type thing and kind of following those type of guys. So we picked five guys each and we just kind of talked about players that weren't really well known in fantasy, in AFL fantasy. And so that was the kind of premise of the first podcast. And I think because the audio quality was so good, like quite often you hear like new podcasts come up and the audio quality is not good and it can be sometimes a bit jarring to actually listen to and stuff like that. But I think that was probably the main thing, like the fantasy world kind of, oh, what's this new podcast? We'll have a listen to it and it's like, oh, it actually sounds professional. And so what actually happened was the guy who runs the official AFL fantasy podcast for that salary capped version, he actually retweeted it and said, hey, great new podcast, good to see the fantasy community growing. And he did a, did a retweet and then he actually DMed the page, our Twitter page, and said like, great work, love the podcast, let me know if there's anything I can do to help promote it. And this is a guy like I've been listening to for warning. His name is. I'll mention his name on the podcast because he's actually become a really good friend of mine since doing it. But this is a guy I was listening to since I was in high school. You know, I'm just following the YouTube content or whatever.
- [07:46]
B
Wow. Okay.
- [07:46]
C
So I was actually like a bit of a. I was kind of starstruck at the time when he kind of got in contact, supported the show. Yeah. So, yeah, that was probably the first bit of traction. And then, you know, from there we're probably getting a few hundred listeners per week just on the back for our first kind of season. Just on the back of, yeah, the, the main AFL Fantasy guys kind of supporting us and retweeting our stuff and kind promoting us to the wider world, I guess.
- [08:09]
B
Okay, so did you see some download growth as a result of this retweet or was that. I don't know. Sometimes you feel like, hey, we'll throw you a boat on social media, but it doesn't really move the needle.
- [08:19]
C
No, I think it actually did because. But I'm talking, like, we probably went from like 100 listeners to maybe 400 listeners, you know, like, not a huge.
- [08:26]
B
Amount you can find. First hundred people to listen to the show is not nothing.
- [08:31]
C
Correct. Well, that was the assumption that there was enough people out there playing this format and the kind of. At the time, and I think it still is. Like the Twitter, I guess the Twitter sphere, the X Fear now, whatever you want to call it, it was where these people were hanging out, I guess, talking about. Because it's the information, you know, like people are going to training and they're seeing who's, like, playing in different positions and stuff like that, and they'll tweet that to the world, and that's kind of where the community was hanging out. So I think, you know, having that there was pretty. Pretty handy. But like, on the back of that, though, then the following year, the AFL fantasy platform, the official one, because it's, like, kind of hard to explain, but, like, before when we were doing this, there was no, like, real official platform we could play this kind of fantasy on. People were either running it on spreadsheets or we were hacking other platforms, kind of doing half on a spreadsheet and then inputting our teams to these other platforms to kind of play it in a certain way. So there was no real way to play it. So the big kind of move, I guess happened at the end of that season where AFL actually moved to put keepers into their platform. And so they wanted some content around that. What is a keeper league? How do you play them? What are some strategies? What are we looking for? All that sort of stuff. And they actually came to us to write some content for the official league website. So if you're thinking of like, you know, NBA.com, nFL.com in America, it's like the equivalent in Australia.
- [09:44]
B
Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So by. By virtue of being, you know, one of the only voices in the space. Well, we need. We want to add this. There's a growing interest or demand people want to play this, but we don't know the first thing about it. We need some qualified people to come and write for it or write about it for us.
- [09:59]
C
Correct. That's. So that's how it kind of started. So they, I think, end up writing four or five articles over five weeks that went on the official AFL website, which probably I wouldn't know the numbers, but I'd say millions of people view that in Australia, so that got some decent traction there. And yeah, since then, like, you know, we've done live shows with the official AFL fantasy people. Even though we're not part of the official AFL world or signed to a contract with them or anything, they've brought us on to kind of open for their. Their live shows that they do and stuff like that and just do like a 10, 15 minutes and stuff. So we've actually moved into, like doing live shows and things like that. Yeah, so they're probably like the main things that have kind of built traction over the years, I guess.
- [10:38]
B
No, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, it's marketing 101. It's like go where the, you know, go where the cash is already flowing, go where the customers already are. And in this case, you know, the official fantasy podcast, the official fantasy platforms, if you can get on their radar and kind of, you know, get exposure to that audience in an organic way, obviously that's going to be a huge growth driver. And I like your point about, well, you know, the audio quality had to be respectable, had to be good enough that people wouldn't immediately just dismiss the show as two dudes sitting around their kitchen table. And I think that's probably one of the things that has changed over the last 10, 12 years of podcasting, where early on, especially in my case, people were willing to forgive less than stellar audio. And I will take ownership of that and have made some steps to try and improve that over the years, but it's become a more competitive landscape in people's earbuds. So trying to step up the production quality a little bit.
- [11:34]
C
Yeah, absolutely. And the fact that we'd known each other like the main guy I started with, K is his name is. We'd known each other since we were little kids as well. So everything was very natural. The chemistry, that sort of stuff. Yeah, all those few bits and pieces, as well as, like, just doing something that no one else was doing, I think is what probably set it apart the most.
- [11:50]
B
Yeah, it's helpful to find some blue space, but also helpful to, you know, make it entertaining for people tuning in. I think that makes sense since you're in studio or you're doing YouTube syndication with it. As well or primarily audio.
- [12:04]
C
Initially it was primarily audio and I think it was about when TikTok came around. So it was a pretty similar time. I kind of realized the importance of video as well. Mainly more so just for like Instagram Reels or TikTok videos essentially is where we kind of started just even taking clips from the podcast or just doing to camera kind of pieces and things like that. Talking about certain players. Initially yeah, it was audio only and then the more I kind of looked at what the big people were doing in the in the space, it was very much leaning towards video, so spent a lot more time investing in video. I think we started with GoPros just mounted to our mic stand. So not the worst video quality but not the best either. But it was a bit of a pain to sync up all the high quality audio with the GoPro footage and all that sort of stuff. So we did kind of move toward buying some decent cameras, camera switches, monitors, just looking around at all the stuff. I've got lights in here and that's kind of where the money that we generated from. We'll talk about, I guess the way we drive money and monetization and stuff in a second. But that's kind of what all that money went to is to go buying all the equipment and stuff like that to kind of just keep producing quality content and keep improving in that space, I guess.
- [13:10]
B
More with Hef in just a moment, including how he monetized the show after just a few episodes and everything that comes with a Keeper League podcast membership today.
- [13:19]
A
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- [15:21]
B
Shopify.com Sidehustle all right, how many episodes or years? Or let's talk about the monetization side before you start to say like, well, this is something I love talking about, but now I've got equipment expenses, you know, how do I justify continuing to do this? So talk to me about what you did to monetize the show.
- [15:43]
C
It kind of happened by accident. So we're doing all this talk on players that not many people know about. And I guess the key thing with a lot of fantasy and anyone who plays it in any format agrees, is like having data and statistics is very key. Like you can watch them as many games you want, but sometimes you don't see the whole picture and don't see everything unless you're seeing kind of all the stats and everything. So because we're talking about guys that aren't even playing in the main leagues yet or that haven't even played a senior game, they're only playing high school football or it's a bit different over here. They've kind of got like underage kind of talent academies and stuff like that that they go play in, I guess. But like you're not seeing them on TV or anything like that. It was very hard to actually kind of understand who was good and who was who wasn't good and all that Sort of stuff and who was suited for fantasy and that sort of stuff. So I kind of began scouring the Internet and looking for stats and data and stuff like that on players. And I found a few sources online that kind of had individual games for players and stuff like the stats there, but it wasn't kind of collated into a nice, easy to use format where you could kind of track these players and have a look. So what I essentially did was found a way to kind of bring them all into a spreadsheet using power Query, like a Microsoft Excel program. And that way then I could work out, like, what players average, what their high scores were, what their low scores were, what their trends were, which players tracking right directions, which kind of players play certain roles that tend to fantasy scoring, all that sort of stuff. So essentially just built this kind of big data warehouse of underage stats, okay, Kind of what we call reserve stats. So the guys who aren't playing in the main leagues, they play in the reserves leagues, reserve stats. So we could actually just like look at it and go, this guy averaged this kind of number at this level. And if he was playing afl, that might indicate he would be averaging similar type thing at that level. Type thing. And no one else really had that kind of data at the time. So our podcast was quite like, renowned for having this data that no one else had, I guess. So what kind of happened was I was like, well, why don't. People wanted to release it and we're looking at Patreon and stuff at the time. So I thought that might be a good way to kind of give people something without having to do a heap of extra work, was just put the data on the Patreon. So I was literally uploading the spreadsheet as an attachment to Patreon kind of, you know, weekly or whenever I had some new data or whatever, I would chuck it up there and the user would download it. Started at $2 a month, but I think in the first month we had about 100 people sign up at $2 a month. So that kind of is how we started, I guess, funding the podcast and started to, you know, build on our equipment there, I guess.
- [18:05]
B
Okay. And this is almost, you know, right out of the gate, or this is several months down the road. When, when does this.
- [18:12]
C
Probably a couple months, two or three months in, I reckon we started at the end of the year, once the pre season got to full swings. Yeah, probably about two or three months in, we started doing that. And that's kind of how we kind of generated or monetized for the first year or so. And I think we had a. We built it up to a $5 tier, and I don't think there was anything else added in other than you just wanted to support the show more. And quite a few people signed up to that as well. So kind of generating, you know, not heaps, but enough to kind of pay for our. Pay for our hosting platform. And then I think by the end of the year, we maybe bought a couple GoPros to kind of sit on the. Sit on the mic stands and record us while we did it.
- [18:44]
B
Yeah. Do you think you were still around that, like 400 listeners an episode audience size at that time?
- [18:50]
C
Yeah, probably for that first year. The funny thing with our podcast is, so it's a. It's kind of difficult to kind of keep relevance because in the preseason, everyone's getting ready to draft. Everyone wants to know about the new players, whatever. But once you hit the draft, there's not a lot you can do with your teams in this format. You kind of draft a big squad of players and then it's locked for the rest of the year type thing. So, yeah, we have like a huge influx of listeners in the preseason. So, like, when I say 400 listeners, it probably averages out through that over the year, but we could be getting a few more in the. We do get a lot more in the preseason than we do after the kind of season starts, because that's when everyone starts playing and there's not a lot you can do with your teams.
- [19:27]
B
Got it. No, I was just gonna say I was really impressed with. Okay, we got 100 signups after we put this offer out into the world, and if we only have 400 people listening, we had a 25% offer to conversion rate. I mean, I get that it's a low ask, like two bucks a month for this early, early Patreon level, but that's still. That's great that you had a listener base that was willing to support you and take action.
- [19:48]
C
Well, you say that 25% because it's actually like it's remained pretty consistent about that 25%, I think, if not even more conversion rate when you compare it to podcast listeners throughout. I guess I'll build on how expand we expanded from there. So with the Patreon thing, I guess it was like, they do take a bit of a cut. Like, in another life, I should have been like a computer programmer or a software developer, but I've always had this passion for technology and learning coding languages, and I've always wanted to build websites. So it was a bit of a project for me to kind of build our website with and build in a payment gateway and you know, essentially it's just WordPress with a plugin on it that kind of, you know, builds a membership site. So I kind of went away from the Patreon and moved over to our own website, which is what you mentioned at the start, keeperleaguepod.com and from there we kind of felt like we found we could host a whole heap of different things, not just spreadsheets. Like we started doing our own rankings in kind of user friendly tables and stuff like that. And people could adjust things and stuff from there. Started hosting bonus podcasts from there as well. So you could do extra episodes. I know you could, you could do this with Patreon. But I guess it was more just like a project to kind of help me build a website and stuff like that. Instead of charging monthly, we just charge a yearly subscription type thing. So I guess that kind of helped because instead of people signing up for one or two months at the start, just to kind of scrape all your resources and stuff like that, they sign up for a full year. And I guess that helped kind of build the conversion rates a little bit higher as well from there, especially for.
- [21:18]
B
Stuff that's so seasonal, where it's like, okay, I got it for my draft period and now, well, why am I still paying this every month? But yeah, lock it in for the year. Don't have to think about it. They don't see that on their statement until the following year or say, hey, your renewal is coming up. Yeah, I want to keep playing. Yeah, I want the latest update. So yeah, it makes sense.
- [21:34]
C
Yeah, because we're finding like people could literally sign up a few days before their draft to the Patreon, grab everything off there that we've done for the whole preseason and then, yeah, cancel again. So we moved to the website, made it a yearly subscription instead. I think worked better for everyone and it did work out cheaper for those who were committed and were staying long time because we'd actually charge less per month, but more in full, if that makes sense. And then from there, like really, like I've kind of just gone way deeper on the, I guess software development kind of developed a few apps, like a mock draft simulator that is specific for Keeper League. So a lot of people have mock draft simulators, but in Australia especially up until recently, we were the only one that had one that you could remove players from specific to your league. So you could just kind of mimic how your league looks, which players are already kept and then you can practice drafting with only the players that are left in the, in the draft pool. And we've also built this, I've also built this new tool called Community Rankings where it's like, it's almost like a game where you get presented like three options, three players and you've got to choose which player you would prefer in a keeper league and the kind of responses from that. Kind of build a full list of rankings for users to use just basically on the community sentiment type thing. And so the members kind of, you know, the free version, you get the top 100 players but then the paid version, the members get the full version of every player in the league and how the community ranks them type thing. And then of course we've got our own rankings and stuff on top of that too.
- [22:55]
B
So yeah, this might be a little more of a technical challenge to build out but like is there a way to claw out the, the keeper league from afl? Like if people wanted to like just run their leagues on your platform, is there, is there an opportunity to build something like that and really be the central hub for this?
- [23:14]
C
Well, there was I guess because like even the AFL fantasy platform, once they brought keeper leagues in, it probably wasn't to the standard that people wanted I guess. And just this year actually there is a new platform that's just come out called Keeper Fantasy which is basically built to do for what Keeper, it's called Keeper, you know, it's for, it's for keeper leagues I guess and it has caused a bit of confusion because I get a lot of their emails directed at me or social media questions coming to me instead of them. But there's a new platform called Keeper which I've been involved in I guess was since the inception in a bit of like a consulting kind of way and doing a bit of marketing for them and you know, helping promote them as well. So there would have been. But probably, I'm probably not quite at the level to build something of that scale. I'm very much a self taught hacker I guess, not a guy who's studied it or anything like that to the scale of this. But there is a new platform now that's come out which I am involved in, which I'm pretty happy to be because I think it's going to kind of elevate this format a lot as well.
- [24:08]
B
Okay, so we've switched to an annual billing. We switched to hosting this membership on our own platform inside the membership it's this, you know, collection of curated data on these up and coming reserve league or like high school type of league players that are, are new, you know, not a lot of information out there on them. So it's kind of this uniquely sourced to go a little bit broader for a second. I think this business model of selling curated or interesting data is one that has been proven out over and over again. From trends to industry reports to anything. Like there's definitely value in selling data and it's cool because it's one of these things where you can sell the same data to a bunch of different customers. Once you have a kind of automated way to collect that, it's something that could be really, really valuable.
- [24:57]
C
I think on the, on the back of that too as well. It's not just the, it's not just the data, it is one part of it, the self, but it's also the analysis we've been able to do on that data and put out the findings of that as well. I think has been a big part of it as well. Just kind of not just like this is the numbers. It's like these, what the numbers mean. Players playing in this position or getting this many stats in this kind of spot indicates they're playing in this position. And different positions can be valuable. Some positions are more fruitful for fantasy, that sort of stuff as well. So kind of goes a step further as well.
- [25:26]
B
Right. And then you have some members only content. It sounds like you've got the mock draft simulator and then you've got this community rankings component. So just try to build up that value stack for people who are going to sign up for this annual membership. Is there anything else behind the paywall?
- [25:42]
C
There's certain stats. Like this thing's called like CBA analysis. So like what that really means is like every time someone kicks a goal, there's a center bounce. So the ball's bounced in the middle and the game starts again. And the players that are generally a 10, the center bounce, are generally the best players. So if you see some of the lesser known players start going to the center bounces, maybe it might be one, might be two. It's always a good indicator that they might be on an upward trend pretty soon. So we kind of do a bit of analysis on that as well. Like look at those CBA numbers and go, hey, this guy's never been to a center bounce before and he's suddenly starting to go. Are they planning on using him more in this position? Because that's where you kind of get the most points. And he might be a different position that doesn't score very well, but because he's kind of moving into another position, he might start being one of the better players.
- [26:22]
B
Yeah, he might be undervalued in the marketplace. Is like the Moneyball analogy.
- [26:26]
C
Yeah, yeah, correct. So a few things like that as well that are on the website, too.
- [26:30]
B
Very cool. And what do you charge for it these days?
- [26:31]
C
The gold membership is $59 Australian, and then the silver membership is $49. Then we have a bronze membership that's $39, which is base level. Not a lot of people tend to sign up for that one. It's usually the silver and the gold that people go for.
- [26:45]
B
Okay. And then just like, parsing out. Well, at this tier, at the silver tier, you only get this, this, and this. At the gold tier, you get everything. Plus just kind of parsing out features based on those different tiers.
- [26:55]
C
Yeah, yeah, correct. Like, the gold members do get slightly more like, silver is definitely probably the best value one that we give away. And then the gold membership, you get access to the mock draft simulator, plus you get your name read out in the podcast as well. So it's not a huge difference. And we kind of did that intentionally just because, like, it's more for people that. Because this whole thing's built around support, I find it's more so than just like, having these. These, you know, amazing resources to kind of sell. Like, a lot of the time, if I look at the numbers, like, throughout the year, I don't know how often some people, Some members are actually using them. Like, I do think there is a high number of, like, members out there that just sign up to support the podcast as well, to make sure it keeps going. Because I do kind of say on the podcast, and it's. It's so true. Like, I can't actually, like, being. Being able to collect the membership money has been basically allowed me to kind of take a day off work and, you know, now two days and now more days off work to actually do all the stuff that I'm doing. And it wouldn't be the product it was if I didn't have the time to actually put into it. So I think the members really understand that they kind of allow this podcast to thrive and all the bonus resources and all that sort of stuff to actually thrive, because if they weren't there, like, I wouldn't be able to do it at the same time. So a lot of the members, because I'm pretty much in constant interaction with my Membership group, especially my gold members as well. I've got a discord group and they've got like a members. Gold members only chat as well, which I'm pretty active in there. And they kind of really understand that, I think. And a lot of people are just also, they do get use out of the resources, don't get me wrong. But they're also there just to kind of ensure the podcast survival and ensure it keeps going, because there's not a lot out there doing the same type of thing.
- [28:26]
B
That's really cool that you've got the people who want to support, like, they found enough value in this. Like, we love what you're doing. We want to support the show and support all the community around it. And so what's like. If you're comfortable sharing like the size of the annual membership at this point.
- [28:41]
C
Yeah. So right now we've got around 1,200 members, kind of ranging. About half of them are gold, half of them about silver. I think from there as well. Yeah.
- [28:51]
B
Okay. So doing the math, that would be. I've sworn off trying to do public math on. On the Internet. Call it like a 60,000, $65,000 a year side hustle.
- [29:02]
C
Slightly less. Yeah. But then on the back of that, like, I pay all my guests that come on the show, pay all my riders, then there's obviously hosting fees and all that sort of stuff as well.
- [29:12]
B
Sure.
- [29:12]
C
It does take like a fair chunk out of it when you add up at the end of the year, but at the same time, you know, you can kind of claim a lot of stuff that you would probably be buying anyway, like for microphones and stuff like that, that I've always had an interest in. Or, you know, I can claim my football tickets on tax and stuff like that as well, so.
- [29:30]
B
Yeah, that's right. It's a business expense.
- [29:32]
C
Exactly. So, like, you can kind of. Can kind of. Yeah, like it's. The number does sound nice. But then also there's a lot of expenses that go with it, but then you kind of get some of it back in stuff you would be spending on anyway, which is kind of good as well.
- [29:44]
B
Yeah. And it's interesting because it's like not a huge audience and you know, percentage wise, like, you've been able to convert a really. In my mind, like what seems like a really high percentage of listeners into customers, which I think is cool.
- [29:59]
C
I think on the back of that, like, the. Some of the resources that are on the website kind of transcend the three different kind of formats. Like, you've got the, the classic format, which is the salary capped one, the single season draft where you're picking a new team each year and then you've got the keeper league. Like a lot of the stats actually kind of go beyond our kind of realm of keeper leagues, I guess. And so that probably drives a few extra membership sales because I do advertise a little bit on, through the meta ad platform and stuff like that. So. And I just basically for every, for every resource I have a, have an ad for it. And so I think kind of target Australian Rules football fans, AFL fantasy fans, all that sort of stuff, target those kind of demographics. And so I think you do get a few extras, which is probably why the, the listener rate to membership conversions look so good, I guess.
- [30:45]
B
Got it, got it.
- [30:45]
C
Yeah. So if it was just the podcast itself, and this is what people always ask me, like, how do you make money off of a podcast? And if it was a podcast itself, it probably wouldn't make any money. You know, it's just having the website there that kind of, you can direct your listeners to, to see more or understand what you're talking about in greater detail. Plus you get kind of the other people from the other communities coming towards it because there's some value there for them as well in some of the bits and pieces of stats also.
- [31:10]
B
Yeah, it took me a long time to realize that like a podcast is not a business make it is, you know, the idea of making a full time living just from sponsorship, especially in the early days of the show where the listenership was not anywhere near where it is today. It's like, oh, this is going to be a long, a long slog.
- [31:25]
C
Yeah. Correct. Yeah. And that's if you have a big audience, there are ways to monetize it. We had to think of other ways to kind of do it and kind of convert from there.
- [31:33]
B
More with Hef in just a moment, including his meta ads strategy and plans.
- [31:37]
A
For the future of the business right after this. Years ago I was sitting in a conference in Santa Barbara and the presenter asked this question, are you working on your business or are you working in your business? And at that point I'd already quit my job. I saw myself as a full time entrepreneur. But it was this moment of clarity that, no, I'm still very much working in the business. So when I got back home, that's when I made my first full time hire. It was the first in a long series of steps of learning to truly take control by being okay, of letting go of certain tasks. Now, when you find yourself in that position of needing to hire like yesterday, you need Indeed. With a sponsored job on Indeed, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can stand out and reach the right people faster. Plus, there's no monthly subscriptions, no long term contracts, and you only pay for results. That's why for my next hire there, I'm using Indeed. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed side Hustle show listeners get a $75 sponsored job credit. To get your jobs more visibility@inn Indeed.com Sidehustleshow just go to indeed.com Sidehustleshow right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com Sidehustleshow terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed need is all you need. Look, payday is awesome, but when you're the one running payroll, calculating taxes and deductions, staying compliant, it's not as simple as it was when you're just on the receiving end. That is, unless of course, you have our sponsor, Gusto. Gusto is a simple online payroll and benefits tool built specifically for small businesses like yours. Gusto gets your team paid while automatically filing your payroll taxes. Plus you can offer other benefits like 401k health insurance, workers comp, and immortal works for both W2 and 1099 workers. Gusto's gotten a lot of love from side Hustle show guests over the years, and some friends of mine have even mentioned using it to pay their own salary. On top of that, they've got great customer service and certified HR experts are standing by to help. If you have any question, it's no wonder why more than 300,000 small businesses already trust Gusto to help run their payroll, and 99% of them say the value they get from Gusto is worth the price. Side Hustle show listeners get three months free when you go to Gusto.com Sidehustle again, that's Gusto.com SidehustLe to try three months free.
- [33:59]
B
Yeah, do you see like outside of these meta ads, other ways of growing the audience, growing the customer base?
- [34:06]
C
Like, we're doing a lot more, doing a lot more work with that new fantasy platform that's coming up. And our kind of ads are all over that now as a bit of an exchange for the help that we've done. But we've done like lots of different things really. Like we have had some very good and generous sponsors in the past. Another fantasy platform that that opened up for A while jumped on for a couple years, but we do live shows and things like that. And I guess in the way that kind of I've been starting to generate, I guess more revenue streams with this is like, because I've actually just left my job teaching this year to kind of focus on this a bit more. And that's not to say I'm anywhere near a level to kind of live off it full time, but who knows what I could do if I put more time into it. But I've started actually like doing a bit of consulting for other podcasts, producing other podcasts, recording other podcasts, helping other businesses and companies with their social media in terms of TikTok Reels and Instagram reels and stuff like that. I've been doing a few, running a few ad campaigns through the meta platform, which is second nature for me now to kind of build their websites as well. So it's kind of like all the skills I've learned through doing this, I've now been able to kind of apply to other bits and pieces to kind of help me get to that point where I can live off doing this sort of stuff full time and move away from the kind of high stress environment that is teaching, I guess.
- [35:19]
B
Okay, so, yeah, starting well, could I do my day job one less day a week or could I do it two days less a week? Or, you know, now could I piece together an income from these side sources, whether it's directly from the podcast business or is it, you know, the skills I picked up along the way? I think that makes sense.
- [35:37]
C
Yeah. And that's been, it's, it's been good fun. Like it's something I've always genuinely loved doing and not. That's not to say there wasn't a point where I did love teaching. It just kind of, I think it's like any kind of career, you do it for, for long enough and you kind of want to move on to something new or try something else. But no, this is sort of stuff that I've, you know, I get to look at fantasy stats and talk about fantasy and analyze it and stuff that I've always kind of lived and breathed myself anyway and now I can kind of do that for a living. Plus combining my love for technology and learning new things, I guess, and kind of helping other people, you know, thrive as well. It's been really rewarding, I think on.
- [36:09]
B
Facebook, on Meta, you know, are you, you're, you're driving traffic directly to like a membership sales page, you're driving traffic to Like a, you know, a free, you know, opt in sampler of what the membership has looked like, what is, what's the visitor flow.
- [36:22]
C
So for every page I've got, for every, like what we call premium resources, bonus content on our website, I do have like a landing page that kind of gives you a sample. And even those like landing pages are pretty useful to people. Like, so you have the top 100 players to target. And if you're starting a league, it's a really good idea to know what the top 100 players are. So it can be helpful in that respect. And then if you want to get the full version, then it sign up as a member. So with my meta ads, I generally target to. I'll do a video ad, essentially me using the resource, talking about it, what you can find in it, and then it directs them to a landing page where they kind of get a sample of it. And then the next part is if they want to sign up, they can continue on and sign up from there. And then I use the pixel and stuff like that to track conversions and stuff like that. Through that and then you can kind of see what the marketing value is actually worth. And you know, you can see which ads are actually converting and which aren't, which resources are or not, and that sort of stuff too. And then you can work out whether to put more money into advertising or, you know, bring it back because it's not working so well. There's lots of ways you can kind of look at it from there.
- [37:21]
B
Is there a target cost of acquisition where you like to be at? Yeah, as close to zero as possible. Sure.
- [37:26]
C
But yes, right now if I can spend a dollar and get two back, which is kind of where my ads are almost at. Yeah, it's not too bad. So I don't know, like, it's at a bit of a sweet point. I'm not sure if it'll convert in the same way if I did ramp it up too much more. But yeah, I do try to be a bit conservative with it as well. Like not try to spend too much. But yeah, kind of that's where I, Where I like to be.
- [37:45]
B
No, that's. And if I had a money machine where I could trade a dollar for two, do it all day long.
- [37:49]
C
Correct. I'm not sure how much further I could push it than that. I've tried a few times, but at the kind of level I'm spending, I seem to get that kind of money back. So.
- [37:56]
B
Because you kind of run into the ceiling of, well, how many people are actually interested in this, this type of fantasy league. And so maybe the audience, the total addressable market is only so big. And so once you kind of saturate that, it's like, well, well, now what?
- [38:09]
C
Yeah, correct. And I think playing the classic flat platform, you can kind of see on the back end there's a few. A few numbers there and like ownership percentages and stuff like that. So I think there's around 150,000 people playing one format which is there for fantasy. There's also another version called super Coach, which I think has about 300,000 people playing. But then most of those people are also the type that will do a draft and maybe do a keeper league as well. Like if. Then very few people, I think are just playing keeper leagues, they've kind of got to keep leagues from playing these other formats and going a bit deeper, but they kind of keep going on the other one there. So the number would probably be significantly less. And yeah, that's the thing. I might hit a point where there are no new, more players, but we are actually kind of pushing younger generations to actually start as well. That's the whole idea behind the TikTok growth was to actually kind of target, not target, but just put out, put it out on a platform. That way there is a younger generation with the keeper platform that I'm involved in, which is like the new AFL fantasy platform that we've put together. We've actually made it free for students as well. So if you're a high school student or a university student, you get access to this new platform for free. And it is, in my opinion and many other people opinion, the best platform out there to do this on because it's been custom built for it.
- [39:17]
B
Get them hooked while they're young. Yeah. Do you see a future where you build out a podcast network of different shows targeting different fantasy formats or where do you want to go with it?
- [39:27]
C
I feel like the space is quite saturated anyway, especially not in the keeper league space, I guess. But in the main kind of other fantasy formats, there's already kind of a lot of people doing it in Australia and I don't think I really need to add a voice to those kind of areas. And obviously it's. Honestly, it's probably not something I'm as passionate about as well. Like I, I genuinely love doing this, you know, and if I had to do it to some of the other formats, which I'm not as kind of into, I'm not sure if I'd kind of bring the same kind of enthusiasm and make it as good as it would be, I think more so, like, perhaps I would like to expand out into kind of just producing more podcasts that aren't maybe even related to this kind of topic as well, but just kind of getting on the production side of things and maybe consulting and helping other people build up their podcasts and stuff like that, as opposed to kind of starting the network myself.
- [40:16]
B
Got it. I mean that's the risk of expanding. It's like, well, maybe the lightning doesn't strike twice or the magic sauce isn't the same because you're not as interested or excited about it. And like, yeah, there's. There's a risk and expansion there. I was gonna ask mentioned, hey, the membership is now hosted on WordPress. What was the membership plugin that you're using for that?
- [40:32]
C
MemberPress, which I think is a pretty popular one out there.
- [40:35]
B
Cool. Anything else on the tools and tech side?
- [40:38]
C
No, that's about it in terms of the tech lights, the microphones, got a TV behind me that now that I'm doing more podcasts with other people and stuff like that, I can change the branding behind me, which is. It was a bit hard doing it before when I had posters on the wall that were all football stuff and if I'm doing something about, I don't know, fashion or something like that, I. It's a bit weird to have football stuff behind me.
- [40:56]
B
So yeah, you're fancy. I need to figure out how to change the. Change the background on the closet doors back here.
- [41:01]
C
Correct? Yeah. So yeah, chuck the TV behind me to do that. So just a few little bits and pieces in terms of the tech.
- [41:08]
B
How often do you publish a new episode? What's the release cadence?
- [41:13]
C
From pretty much the start of January all the way up until the end of the season, which is the start of September. We'll put out one episode a week, one one hour episode. And it's essentially just a deep dive. Who the undervalued players performed well and what their outlooks are for the. For the rest of the season, that sort of stuff from that week in the preseason. It's very much just like trying to unearth all the players that could be breaking out in the season or undervalued and stuff like that. And we also do. I also do a bonus waiver wire podcast on Monday mornings for some leagues play waivers where you can pick up excess players. So I kind of just do a 10 minute thing of the players I think that are the valuable that are under owned in a lot of leagues, you can see the kind of ownership percentages. So any player that's under 40 owned, I'll go through and just talk up a few that I think are worth picking up. And then yeah, that's generally the frequency once a week and then one bonus.
- [42:01]
B
Episode and then kind of take. Take the off season off or, or slow it down a little bit.
- [42:05]
C
The off season's a bit funny. Like yeah, I like I should slow down, but I always find ways to kind of fill it up, I guess. Something else that I haven't didn't mention on the revenue stream, I guess as well, is I built like a. I built a game related to AFL football as well that went kind of viral last year and it was called footy numbers. And essentially all you did, you get a team and you get a number and you have to guess the player that wears that number. And the whole idea is to get the best streaks of how many players in a row you can get. Right. And it was just something I built to kind of learn how to use JavaScript and set up applications and stuff like that. And I just tweeted out on Twitter and by the end of the day we had all the commentators playing it in their studios and putting out social media videos and stuff. We had AFL players doing it with people playing on the radio as like a segment on the radio and that sort of stuff. So within a day that kind of went viral as well. So I just put some ads on that, some Google Ads on that as well. And that kind of. It was just ended up earning like an extra couple hundred dollars a month as well on the back of that.
- [43:04]
B
Okay, okay.
- [43:04]
C
But that's kind of what I spend my off season doing is kind of learning ways like building things that I can use in the either on my website for the next season or learning kind of new skills and learning new languages or learning new programs and stuff like that to actually kind of enhance the podcast. I also in the off season where all the draft happens and also the trades, the trade period and all that sort of stuff where players switch teams. So that's also pretty relevant for, for our format as well, because that might mean some player leaves a team is usually a star or whatever, but that means there's an up and comer that might take their spot in that team who could be a good fantasy player as a result. So we have to kind of talk about that. So we do a bit of content around that. In the off season we also have the draft where the all the young players get picked up out of high school. So we kind of need to know, be on top of all them and know which players are going to be the ones that are going to make their mark pretty, pretty quickly and the ones that are going to take a while. So the offseason is kind of spent. Yeah, if it feels like I should take it off, but it doesn't feel like I ever get an off season, you know what I mean? Like, it feels like it just keeps going because there's always something I can do to kind of improve or make it better or learn something new, I guess.
- [44:09]
B
And I think that's probably what your listeners and members have come to appreciate is like, you're one of them. You're in the space, you're analyzing all this stuff. And it's just from the outside looking in, it seems like very, very underpriced type of thing. And I get that it's a hobby niche. Like, nobody is really like, you know, learning to make extra money. Maybe they win their fantasy pool or something when they win their league as a result of, you know, your information. But it does seem like maybe I'm leaving some money on the table by charging as little as I do.
- [44:38]
C
That could be the case. And like, well, there's something to think about now that I'm probably not working full time at the moment, and that might not be the case. Like, I might have to look for a job again in the near future, but we'll wait and see what happens there. That might be something that we can look at. But I want to keep it accessible. And I don't know, like, I'm always kind of fearful. I guess as well that if you start charging more, maybe some of the people that you have do drop off as well. And the fact that I guess I haven't gone backwards any year, in fact, every year I've kind of made big inroads in terms of growth, usually, you know, upwards 25, 30% each year type thing. So I guess at the, at the time, I'm just. At this time, I'm just going to keep writing that until it stops, really, and then kind of make a decision what to do from there. Whether I start charging more or whether I start just kind of building more products to get people on board or, or spread the revenue streams out in other ways. We'll kind of get to that when we come to it. But at the moment, yeah, I think my listeners appreciate the kind of how accessible it is in the way it is. And so I'm going to keep it at that. For now anyway.
- [45:40]
B
Yeah. You're five, six years into it. What's surprised you the most along the way?
- [45:44]
C
Probably like personal stuff really, like how much you kind of need to not worry what other people think as much more so like if you, if you stuff up the website, like you stuff up a page or something like that, or you break one of your apps and it doesn't work and you kind of realize it a few hours later, you kind of realize that. I used to stress so much and worry about it and obsess over it and think like, if something's broken, I had to rush to my computer and fix it. If I woke up in the middle of the night and realized I did something wrong, I'd have to rush to my computer and go fix it type thing before anyone noticed it happened. And I guess what surprised me as much is that no one actually notices. Like no one really cares that much or that, that. I guess I'm surprised by how lenient the community is. Like, oh yeah, that app didn't work for two days and you didn't realize, but that's okay. Like we understand type thing. Like I've never really had any backlash.
- [46:30]
B
You got a little bit of a different audience. Yeah. You said send an email out with a typo and your people are quick to let you know.
- [46:36]
C
Yeah, I think like, and another thing, I guess that surprised me was like I used to do this with another, another guy and he had to leave because of family reasons essentially. And I was left on my own to kind of do this. And that was a pretty kind of of. I guess I was really worried if I could still do it on my own and keep going with it. And you know, and what surprised me really was like how much it's grown since then. And it's not really because like I've changed the host or anything like that. It's because I've been able to get more voices on the podcast as well. Like my old co host still comes on once a month, but it's just surprising how much the community is just on board the kind of the whole brand. And I guess it kind of reaffirmed that it's more the content and the quality of content that comes out and not just the kind of people that are on it, if that makes sense as well.
- [47:19]
B
That's great. Well, you're doing this full time now, even though, like you said, the income may not be at the full time level just yet. But what are some of the top projects or priorities for this year? What are you excited about?
- [47:31]
C
Yeah, basically just want to try to scale as much as possible. So I'm coming into like the, the busiest month, I guess, of the podcast in terms of membership signups, because the season starts in about, about a month from now it starts. So, yeah, it's probably the, the busiest time for signups. So basically I'm just excited to put out as much content as I can. Now I've got, at the moment, I've got five days a week to actually put into this. I can put out as much content, as much useful kind of resources that kind of help, I guess, scale and drive members as much as possible.
- [47:59]
B
Well, fair enough, Hef. This has been great. Thank you so much for joining me. And again, keeperleaguepod.com or keeper league podcast, go check them out. If you are an Australian fantasy football fan, let's wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side Hustle Nation.
- [48:14]
C
It's never too late to learn something new. I think. I look back at all the stuff, like, I didn't know when I started this, like, and now fast forward five, six years, you know, semi literate, I guess, in three or four coding languages, can build websites I never knew I'd be able to do, build games that go viral, build new apps to help users, all that sort of stuff. None of that stuff I knew how to do before I started this podcast. It was more about the necessity to learn it, to kind of move forward. And I guess that's probably the key thing for anyone out there, is if you think you don't know something or you think it's too challenging, it's not that hard. Like, if there's enough resources out there and you can follow instructions well and read, you know, different articles, or even now with, you know, ChatGPT and AI and stuff like that, can really break down things and help you learn even better. Like, it's just never too late to learn something new, I reckon. And I guess the other the saying that I've always loved is if you can't figure something out, figure out how to figure it out has always been a big one for me as well. So, like, if you can't, can't get to the end goal, break it down into smaller steps and try to gradually learn that way. So I think that's probably my tip for the side Hustle Nation.
- [49:16]
B
Absolutely. No, those are great. If you don't know how to figure it out, we'll figure out how to figure it out. That's great. And it's never too Late to learn something new. That's something that hits me. It's like if you knew how to do it, you probably would have done it already. And so it's like, well, you got to figure out, you got to learn how to do it. And so I know that definitely resonates a couple takeaways for me. Number one, you can really see how Hef like lives and breathes this stuff. He's like a part of the community. The audience detects that. It's not like some private equity firm coming in with some puppet co host trying to speak the language. He's been in it. He's been in it for years. On the marketing side, it's going where the audience already is. It's like these other fantasy platforms, these other shows, trying to bring some of those listeners and players into your ecosystem and try and be that. That a helpful resource. And guesting on podcasts, another way to pick up more podcast listeners. Really like the idea of selling data and to Hef's point about selling it alongside some analysis, numbers are one thing with like, well, what you know, in our quote unquote expert opinion, what does that, what do the numbers mean? So I like that idea of selling data. I like the idea of a smaller show having some kind of membership community where it's like on a, you know, a cost per thousand listener basis, like sponsorships may not make a ton of sense, but if we can bring our community together with some compelling offers behind the membership paywall, I think that makes a lot of sense. Plus recurring revenue in exchange for recurring value. I definitely all like all that. Now, if you're interested in starting a podcast of your own, a challenging medium to grow, but a really powerful one like we both experience, like for relationship building and all that. I want to invite you to download my podcast starter kit. It's got resources on choosing your right software and equipment for recording what my production process looks like after we stop hitting record, how to market your show, how to climb that listener pyramid, so to speak, and all the different ways that podcasts can make money. Again, that's@sidehustlenation.com hef h e f f or you can just follow the show notes, link in the episode description and I'll get you right over there. Big thanks to Hef for sharing his insight. Thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. You can hit up Sidehustlenation.com deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show. And that's it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show, I'd love your help in spreading the word. Easiest way to do it is just fire off a text message to that friend of yours who could benefit from hearing this. Maybe that's your friend who's got an obscure hobby that maybe they should start a podcast about. Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the side Hustle Show. Hustle on.