The ThoughtLeaders Podcast

We sat down with Pavel Bains, the co-founder of Bluzelle - the decentralized database for the new internet. The world of crypto combined everything he was interested in - economics, finance, science fiction, distributed computing - causing him to dive headfirst down the rabbit hole and create Bluzelle. Bains explained the crypto ecosystem, touched on the wild west of NFT’s (for those who are still trying to grasp the basics), and revealed how the world of gaming will completely transform people’s understanding of cryptocurrency. It’s safe to say that Pavel Bains pulled us down the crypto rabbit hole...

In early May, HubSpot announced that it was launching its very own podcast network which would include six shows that “represent a wide range of business topics and backgrounds.” We sat down with Alanah Joseph, the Senior Marketing Manager at HubSpot who is responsible for marketing and operations of the HubSpot podcast network. She gave us insight into why HubSpot decided to go down the podcast route, what it means to be a part of the network, what does success look like for podcasts, and what’s Joseph’s personal goal with HubSpot’s podcast network.

We sat down with Check My Ads co-founders, Claire Atkin and Nandini Jammi, who noticed a huge increase in brands' digital advertisements appearing on websites that they didn’t intend their marketing efforts to support. They were also alarmed with the role digital advertising played in spreading disinformation. Check My Ads is on a mission to expose where ads are really ending up usually without the marketer even knowing and how brands can regain control in the digital wild west, otherwise known as the ad industry.

We sat down with Darren Heitner, founder of HEITNERLEGAL - a sports and contract law firm, and author of How to Play the Game: What Every Sports Attorney Needs to Know. As one of the most respected sports law professionals, Darren Heitner has great, first-hand insight into the recent change in NCAA rules regarding athletes’ ability to earn money for their name, image, and likeness. Heitner breaks down NCAA’s past NIL regulations, the current state of student-athletes ability to profit off their NIL, and how college athletes and brands should take advantage of this new opportunity.

We sat down with Dan Weinsten to get the inside scoop about the future of the creator economy. Weinstein is the co-founder of Underscore Talent, a next-generation talent management company that focuses on helping today’s content creators leverage their talent and influence. He takes a deep dive into what led him, and his partners Michael Green and Reza Izad, to found the newly formed management company, where he sees the creator economy heading, how creators can utilize their social influence to catapult into more opportunities and why brands should continue leaning into the world of influencer marketing.

We sat down with ChefPK, who has 274K subscribers, and he shared with us what it’s really like to be a content creator on YouTube, touching on how he continues to weave his hotel chef manager experiences into the wild west of YouTube, sharing major YouTube secrets and insider tips, and giving aspiring creators tools for success.

We sat down with Craig Hewitt who took a deep dive into what it really means to be a podcast hosting platform, how to succeed with private podcasting, why monetizing podcasts with ads is “garbage” and the value of community within the podcast sphere.

We sat down with John Lee Dumas who gave us a quick look at what he did (and continues to do!) to dominate the podcasting realm. From nailing time management (he literally works a total of 6 days a month) to current trends that can catapult you in the industry, you’ll definitely want to take some notes.

Get the inside scoop about being a futurist in the bleeding edge tech realm, Wormhole Labs’ pivot from B2C to B2B due to COVID-19, the metaverse future, what brands should do today to get prepared and much much more.

It has been a big year for podcast advertising - US podcast ad spending is set to increase by 38.7% YoY and, in just two years, US podcast ad spending has increased from $701 million to $1.33 billion in 2021.  We sat down with Bryan Barletta to get the inside scoop about the current state of podcast adtech, everything from the golden metric to the biggest problems in the industry.