Radio Talk Show Hosts – The wrong market

In the early days of TalkShoe, as with many companies, we knew we had developed a unique and different product (live interactive voice communications using the Internet). What we didn’t know was exactly which application(s) would be the most effective targets. Whenever we talked to people about the service, we got an earful of suggestions for possible applications: book clubs, fan clubs, voice bulletin boards, voice chatting, podcasting, conference calls, talk shows, training, seminars, and a host of others. One thing we did know what that going after all these applications at once would be impossible and illadvised.

Among the list, Radio Talkshows stood out in our minds as one of the logical choices. It made sense. Radio hosts know how to create a show, they understand audio, they want to communicate with the outside world, radio is losing market share to the Internet, and basically, they like to talk. A couple of local Pittsburgh hosts got interested, and we began working with a local independent radio talkshow host, who had contacts outside the region and believed he could sell others like himself. Made sense, right?

Wrong. The first thing we found was that stations employed the hosts and they were under contract. The “talent” as the stations refer to them, was generally controled by the station. Furthermore, most stations were very leary of the Internet, especially as it related to content rights. It became clear that we would first have to convince the stations to use TalkShoe, and then move to the talent. This proved to be a losing proposition as most stations weren’t interested in podcasting, and new Internet technologies.

We did convince a few hosts to produce a separate podcast/talkcast using TalkShoe outside of their radio show. Great! So we’ll get their audience to listen to them online, right? Wrong again. The key was that because of their contracts with the stations, they couldn’t mention their podcast on their regular radio show. This seemed like a natural, but it wasn’t going to happen.

Determined, we next moved onto the independent radio hosts. While they also broadcast on the station, they essentially buy air-time and produce their own shows using the stations equipment (in general). We got a much warmer receptions from the independents, but in the end, they were still too focused on their own radio show production, and in general, not willing to adopt new technology.

In the end, we did get about 20-30 independents and a few stations to adopt TalkShoe and several more still regularly find out about us, but it proved to be a difficult sales cycle at the beginning of the company, and we didn’t have the sales staff to pursue these types of customers en-masse. In addition, radio hosts in general were NOT Internet savvy and technical, which is important for early adopters.

There are lessons far beyond just dealing with the radio business which apply to all startup companies:

- Focus on a few customer segments

- Go after the “low hanging fruit” of customers that want and need your product  (for us, this proved to be podcasters — more on this in future posts)

- Go after early adopters who understand your technology

- Applications and uses for products always “sound” good, until you pull up the covers to reveal the realities

- The general adage in sales is: You can either give the people what they want, or sell them what they need. It’s just that one’s easier.  And convincing radio talkshow hosts that they needed to move into the Internet was a difficult sale.