How to start a podcast that grows your business

Who is Abby Roberge

Abby Roberge is a stand-up comedian and the co-founder of Melrose Podcasts. Connor Cullip, who hosts the Network of Directors room in Austin, introduced him as a good friend who shows up for everything and gives great advice, with a studio right upstairs at the venue. Abby and his business partner both came up as comedians, and that partner had helped start some of the shows that later blew up. What started as a favor to fellow comedians became a company.

How did Melrose Podcasts start?

The origin is humble. Abby and his partner were, in his words, borderline homeless comedians with no ambition, working out of a makeshift studio in his partner's garage. Abby's idea was to commercialize it: rent a real space so other comedians could come and record at an affordable rate. Their wildest dream was to cover the rent and maybe clear a thousand dollars a month. They opened two months before the pandemic, which wiped the business out for about six months, and then a break landed. A major podcaster moved to Los Angeles and started using their studio, which legitimized them, and higher-profile clients followed. The studio grew to three locations, in Los Angeles, New York, and Austin, and the guest list came to include Matthew McConaughey, Sylvester Stallone, Will Smith, and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

What kind of podcast is actually worth building?

When people come to Abby not knowing where to start, he tells them a podcast is like a small business: you get out what you put in. And he is clear about where the value sits.

A long-form audience is the most valuable audience by far. If you can even have 5,000 consistent long-form audience members following your stuff, you can convert that into anything.

The long-form is also where the relationships form, which he counts as half the point. He pointed out how rarely any of us sit down with someone for a full hour, uninterrupted and off our phones, and how many of his clients have walked out of a recording as genuine friends with the person across the table. You get the networking, you get a library of content, and you get to film somewhere better than a garage.

What separates the shows that grow?

Abby has watched a lot of business owners come through his studios, so Connor asked him the obvious question: what separates the ones who blow up from the ones who record once and ghost. The answer was not talent or gear.

It really is consistency. Some people will do it and it'll work and they'll just quit because they don't have the time or they don't see the way they can monetize it.

His proof is a friend who owns a large apparel brand and podcasted for a year with no monetization at all. Over that year he built real relationships and poured knowledge and trust into an audience of young, up-and-coming entrepreneurs. Then he opened a paid private group, and he is now making millions from that group alone. The show did not sell anything for a year. It built the thing that sells.

Should a business start its own podcast?

For owners in the room, Abby's advice was counterintuitive: do not brand it. People can sense an advertisement and tune out the moment they do.

I always like to convince businesses to start their own podcast that's not branded, because if people can smell something being an advertisement, they're going to turn off.

A supplement brand, he said, should not run a supplement commercial. It should run a health and wellness show, grow it, build as much trust with the audience as possible, and brand only subtly, so the connection to the business flows out naturally over time. As for making it, Melrose is built to take on as much or as little as a client wants, from the creative and filming through editing, posting, strategy, and clipping campaigns. But the part he wanted the room to hear was the mindset, not the service: pick something you can keep doing, and keep doing it.

Quotes are from the recording, trimmed of filler. Nothing is added.