Lindsey McPheeters is the co-founder of Ivy Podcast Discovery, a podcast discovery service and player that allows listeners to follow over a million topics the same way they would follow podcasts on other platforms. A native of Austin, Texas, Lindsey is an experienced attorney, teacher, and entrepreneur.
What is Ivy Podcast Discovery all about?
Ivy is a new podcast search engine and player that allows listeners to search for and follow over a million different topics, including people, across podcast episodes. We want people to be able to easily find podcasts about topics they are interested in. For example, last week, we helped people find podcasts about Tibetans, King George III, Heather Mack, PCOS (poly-cystic ovarian syndrome), and Disney parks.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
I have spent the last ten years working as an attorney in New York City and Austin. After graduating from law school, I immediately began working as a juvenile prosecutor in the Bronx, NY. I later moved back to Texas and opened my own law firm focused on criminal defense and divorce. While I enjoyed the work, I knew I wanted to do something different with my life. I decided to stop being a lawyer and become a teacher.
I worked for several years as a teacher, and loved it! However, when an opportunity to transition to a position as an attorney for the school district came up, I took it. I worked as an attorney for a very large school district (50,000 students) for the last four and a half years, most recently acting as General Counsel. In addition to my day jobs, I have also worked on various side projects at night and on weekends over the past ten years. One of those projects eventually became Ivy Podcast Discovery.
Approximately two years ago, my husband and I got the idea for Ivy Podcast Discovery when we grew frustrated with trying to find new podcasts about our favorite topics. Since none of the traditional podcasting apps on the market had good search functionality or allowed you to easily find new podcasts, we decided to build the solution to our problem. I left the practice of law in April 2021 to focus full-time on Ivy.
What would you say are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and why?
I think the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur are:
- The ability to think strategically and effectively manage your time. Entrepreneurs need to constantly be thinking about how to best position themselves within their market and how to most efficiently run their business. Without strategic thinking and good time management skills, most entrepreneurs will fail.
- Tenacity. Being an entrepreneur is really tough. You are constantly faced with challenges and often don’t have anyone else to help you solve your business’s problems. Successful entrepreneurs often have a determination to succeed and tenacity that others don’t.
- Risk-taking. I think that risk-taking is incredibly important for entrepreneurs. Not only does taking risks help you stand out, but it is also usually the best source of learning.
What are your plans for the future, how do you plan to grow this company?
Ivy Podcast Discovery is in aggressive growth mode right now. We are focused on getting the word out and driving new listeners to Ivy. We are doing this using a variety of methods, including networking with industry professionals, direct outreach to podcasters, search engine optimization, and social media. We have found these strategies to be very successful in driving traffic to Ivy and increasing our listenership.
How do you separate yourself from your competitors?
Differentiating from our competitors has been our focus from the beginning. We built Ivy because there was no one else in the industry who could meet our needs as podcast consumers. We wanted to focus on creating a great podcast search. Unfortunately, search is an area where other podcast players have fallen short. Ivy Podcast Discovery now has the largest collection of known-entities in the podcasting space. Our listeners can follow over a million topics across 45 million podcast episodes, which is something that no other podcast player can offer. We also have over 300 million relationships between podcast topics and podcast episodes.
Because we have such a vast amount of data and have our finger on the pulse of what podcasters are talking about, we are also able to surface the trending topics each day. This is another area where we are able to differentiate ourselves from other podcast discovery platforms and players.
What were the top three mistakes you made starting your business, and what did you learn from them?
The biggest mistakes I made in launching my business are:
- I waited to launch Ivy Podcast Discovery until the mobile apps were complete, but I should have launched once the website was complete. The lesson I learned from this mistake is to build a minimum viable product and then put it out in the market. You are then able to iterate and improve the product and roll out new features.
- I underestimated how difficult it is to get the word out about my product. I had a naive belief that it is enough to build a great product and people will use it. This is definitely not the case. I have learned that marketing and networking are as important as having a great product.
- I also underestimated how difficult it is to balance being an entrepreneur and raising a toddler. I have always worked very demanding full-time jobs and found it was never as difficult to be a working parent as it is now that I own my own business. I do not have other people I can lean on to pick up the slack when I need to be out to deal with a personal issue or am sick. Additionally, my work time and family time are no longer as delineated as they were before I started my own business. Without the time and space boundaries that come with being employed by someone else, it can become difficult to make sure I am properly dividing my time between my family and my business. I certainly underestimated these challenges when I was starting out and have had to teach myself new habits and find new strategies to address these issues.
Tell us a little bit about your marketing process, what has been the most successful form of marketing for you?
We are using a number of different tactics to market Ivy Podcast Discovery. We have found direct outreach to podcasters to be very effective. We are also networking with industry professionals to help spread the word. Search engine optimization has been very effective for us and has resulted in massive growth over the last few months. Finally, we are doing some social media marketing and outreach. While this approach has so far been less effective, we are hopeful that our social media efforts will pay off in the future.
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
The biggest challenge has been building such a complicated product in the middle of a pandemic, while raising a toddler. My daughter was born in October 2019, a few months before the pandemic started and everything locked down. It has been incredibly difficult to provide her the attention she needs, while also building and launching this business.
The technical problems associated with designing and building Ivy are incredibly difficult to solve, including how to make sense of such a massive data set. It took a great deal of time, attention, and trouble-shooting to build. Often, the only quiet time we could
find to brainstorm solutions to the problems we encountered was late at night or very early in the morning. My husband and I affectionately refer to this as our “3:00 am time.”
What’s a productivity tip you swear by?
In order to remain productive, I make sure that I have a distraction-free breakfast every morning for at least twenty minutes. Usually, I sit on my front porch with my dog and leave my phone inside my house. I am able to center myself and clear my head. Engaging in this routine every morning helps me stay focused, calm, and productive throughout the day.
What helps you stay driven and motivated to keep going in your business?
As an entrepreneur, I have found that it is incredibly important to find ways to stay motivated and to manage my time as effectively as possible. I block off chunks of the day to work on Ivy and adhere to a to-do list, which includes a “must-do” section each day. I try not to move on to other tasks until those on my “must-do” list have been completed. I find that this really helps me stay focused on moving the work forward and motivated.
I also firmly believe in celebrating the small wins in order to stay motivated and prevent burnout. I try to celebrate at least one small personal win and one small professional win every single day. When my motivation starts to wane, I simply switch to completing a task I want to work on, even if it is not the most important thing to get done that day. I work on whatever I am interested in until my motivation returns.
What is your favorite quote?
I have a few quotes that motivate me and that I return to frequently, but one that really stands out is:
“you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
What valuable advice would you give new entrepreneurs starting out?
The best advice I have for new entrepreneurs is to not be afraid to try. When I decided to quit my job as a successful attorney and focus entirely on my start-up, I encountered a lot of people who were discouraging. Overwhelmingly, people asked me why I would give up a good job for something so uncertain. However, I summoned my strength to block out the naysayers and pursue my passion. It is very difficult to get past a fear of failure, but you cannot achieve success as an entrepreneur until you do.
How do you personally overcome fear?
Overcoming fear is the biggest hurdle to becoming a successful entrepreneur, in my opinion. I have personally overcome my fear by reminding myself of the example I want to set for my daughter. I tell her all the time that she can do whatever she wants with her life and I want to make sure that I am modeling that in the way I live my own life and pursue my own passions.
How can readers get in touch with you?
Your readers can find us at ivy.fm. I can be contacted directly at lindsey@ivy.fm or followed on LinkedIn. If your readers want to follow Ivy Podcast Discovery on Twitter, our handle is @ivypodcasts. We look forward to hearing from you! Please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
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