Hey, look at me!
When I originally built the 42Kites system, I hadn’t yet learned a hard truth: it doesn’t matter how cool your thing is if you can’t get it in front of the people who would buy it.
At the time, my target market was entirely museums. Every graphic, every page, every word was built with them in mind. But museums didn’t know 42Kites existed. I needed a way to reach them, at no cost, and a targeted podcast turned out to be the answer.
For the name, I posted in an online forum of “Museum Pros” and asked what would make an amazing podcast name about museums. Someone suggested “Condition Report”, a term I’d never heard. Apparently it’s a document museums use to record an object’s physical state, damages, and stability. I loved it!
Armed with a paid Zoom account (for recording) and a short list of museums I’d already sent a free 42Kites device to, I started reaching out. Would they want to talk about their museum on a new podcast dedicated entirely to museums?
Everyone said yes.
Here are MOST of those museum episodes in random order:
A better way?
After recording a handful of those episodes, I learned that there are over 35,000 museums in the United States and talking to them one at a time was going to take forever.
I needed a shortcut.
That shortcut was Museum Associations.
Every state has at least one, and most museums are registered with them. Some associations have hundreds of museum members! If I could get a Museum Association on the podcast and they shared it with their membership, I could land in front of hundreds of museums at once.
Better yet, promoting member museums is literally one of their main functions. Going on a podcast to talk about their members? That’s a win for everyone.
Here are MOST of the state Museum Association episodes in random order.
I thought I’d struck gold.
(To find out how this story ends, visit the 42Kites page.)
What I Learned
- People love to talk about themselves, use that. The key to getting anyone to say yes is making sure the offer genuinely benefits both sides. Recording a podcast episode was mutually valuable: museums got free exposure and something to show their boss; I got a new connection and fresh social content.
- The little intro jingle was also one of my first experiences with AI-generated music. After about 75 iterations in Suno, I had something I loved, and an $8 commercial license to legally use it.
What I’d Do Differently
- Hire someone (or automate with AI) to handle outreach and video editing. I spent a lot of time chopping each episode into roughly 50 short clips for social media, sharing them with each museum via Dropbox so they could post on their own accounts. Not one museum ever did.
- I wouldn’t name the show “The Condition Report”. Since the whole point was to get 42Kites in front of my target market, I should have called it “The 42Kites Show” from the start. The indirect name added an unnecessary layer between the content and a potential sale. I’m still not sure why I avoided putting the brand front and center.
- And I wouldn’t give up. More outreach, more connections, keep pushing.