Insight
Hewitt: A $20M exit provides life freedom that $500k cash flow cannot
“I think that, you know, if you look at really kind of changing your life and putting you on a different trajectory, you know, selling a business for twenty million and taking home, you know, whatever, 10 changes your life versus a business that, that cash flow…”
Insight
Podcast Hosting Storage-Based Pricing Is Broken
“And for us, you know, it's kind of a funny business because the storage, you know, doesn't really cost anything. It's the bandwidth for us to send files out. So I think the pricing just in the industry is broken or a little funny.”
Disclosure
Hewitt: Most Castos users stay on $19 plan because podcasts rarely monetize
“Most, most folks are on the beginner plan because a lot of folks, you know, podcast is for a lot of people is not a revenue generating thing. So they have a hard time paying too much for it.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Hewitt: Castos expects an exit or transaction within five years
“You know, there's just a ton of kind of velocity in the podcasting space these days, and so we expect something to happen with our business in the next Five years, say.”
Prediction Partly held up
Google Will Soon Index Audio, Massively Boosting Podcast SEO
“No, but I think if you're a betting man, betting person, you would say Google will start indexing audio very soon, and that's what we think. So the SEO impact of podcasting will get massive, you know, for folks that have hundreds of shows.”
Disclosure
Hewitt: Castos generates 70% of revenue from SaaS and 30% from services
“Like 70, 30... 70 SAS.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Hewitt: Castos reaches 2,000 customers
“We're right at 2000 customers.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Hewitt: Castos reaches $60,000 in monthly recurring revenue
“Yeah, and so with the services, we're right at 60,000 a month.”
Disclosure
Hewitt: Castos raised $120k from TinySeed for marketing and engineering
“A 120. Yeah.
I mean, you know, they had kind of their standard deal. I'm sure I and I talked about that when he was on it and we didn't have kind of too many questions there and, you know, we signed up there and they took a percentage of equity in return for t…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Hewitt: Castos maintains a 2.5% monthly churn rate
“Yeah. I mean, our monthly churn is like two and a half percent.”
Disclosure
Hewitt: Castos relies entirely on SEO with almost zero paid acquisition
“I mean almost all, we don't do any paid acquisition hardly at this point. So all of ours is, is organic, you know, content and SEO. So I don't have a number, but it's very low.”
Assertion Supported
Castos Acquired a WordPress Plugin With 15,000 Active Installs
“So the plugin had about 15,000 active installs in WordPress at the time.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Castos Monthly SaaS Logo Churn Is Below 6%
“We're kind of a B to prosumer B to B to C kind of model and our SAS is below six percent on a monthly basis.”
Disclosure
Hewitt: Castos combines podcast hosting with done-for-you production services
“We're a podcast hosting and analytics provider that also has a built-in production service. So for shows like this, for folks who want to kind of host their podcast distributed to places like, you know, Apple Podcasts and Spotify, that's what we do, provide an…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Hewitt: Castos operates with seven full-time employees and contractors
“So we're seven full time people. And with the services arm, we have some contractors that do, you know, audio editing, writing. We have some folks on the marketing team that help on a contract basis.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Castos Has Just Under 1,000 Paying Customers
“We have just under a thousand paying customers now.”
Disclosure
Castos Operates With a Four-Person Remote Contractor Team
“We're four people. All contractors and, you know, getting up to full time. So that includes myself. Two developers, a support rep and myself.”
Disclosure
Hewitt Focuses Primarily on Castos Despite Podcast Motor Being Larger
“Podcast Motor, does you know, podcast editing and production services for podcasters, and it's still bigger than Castos, but Castos is kind of where I focus most all my time now.”
