Binge Factor Media

It is very difficult to just wing a podcast, especially when it is a very technical show. You need to research, review information, and double check facts to make sure you got everything right for your listeners. However technical your show is or not, nothing beats detailed and careful preparation to deliver a great episode. In today’s conversation, Tracy Hazzard interviews an expert on this subject area, Wendy O of The Wendy O Show. Producing a high-energy crypto podcast full of data and research, Wendy is no stranger to planning her content. Listen here as she discusses how she preps and produces new episodes. Find out how she vets guests and clients and approaches integrity and disclosure. And learn where she gets the best return on investment from her show. Wendy has a great show for us, so tune in for more nuggets about the crypto podcasting world!

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Watch the episode here

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How Detailed And Careful Preparation Helps You Produce New Episodes With Wendy O Of The Wendy O Show

I’ve got CryptoWendyO on the show. I was on one of her lives, which was streamed to Twitter Spaces and we had a lot of fun with that. I had to invite her back to talk about how she preps her show and how she does this. It’s an interesting show because it’s got this trading series experience, and this idea of trading crypto. It has got a stock show model to it. It’s high-energy, fun, and got a lot of research that needs to go into it or at least a lot of data has to go into it. I’m very curious to hear how she does it, how much she preps, and what she does in advance. It should be interesting to hear what she has to say now that I’ve experienced it from the other side, which seemed extremely prep and professional.

CryptoWendyO became interested in cryptocurrency and blockchain in 2017 and quickly realized that blockchain technology had the potential to revolutionize and improved the quality of life for all classes and transform the traditional finance industry. Since she’s been involved in the summer of 2018, she was also doing this while she was full-time finishing her degree in Business and Marketing. She began to document her own journey and has been fortunate to meet so many great people over the years in person and on the show.

Her network and her team have grown and she has become the largest female voice in the space with millions of views every month across multiple platforms. She’s focused on providing transparent marketing and media solutions for crypto companies globally, as well as hosting face-to-face meetups and educating people and legislators on the benefits of this exciting new industry. I’m so glad to have CryptoWendyO. It’s a topic area where we have a lot of shows on our Podetize platform, but we don’t invite a lot of people on about this. I’m excited to have a chat with Wendy.

Wendy O, thank you for being here. I love the energy of the CryptoWendyO show. I love that the live even translates into the recording. Even though you’re not watching the video stream, you still hear it. This is such a great topic area. I’ve been in this arena a little while and I love that you have focused on making sure people know where to start.

Thank you for having me. I’m excited. Part of why I started YouTube was because I wanted to live stream the meetups that I was hosting. They’ve always been free. I’ve hosted over four dozen free meetups in LA County and in different places too. Part of the reason why is I wanted to learn more about technical analysis. I wanted to teach what I learned and learn from other people. I started putting them on YouTube because I wanted my global audience to be able to see them. I only had 5,000 followers on Twitter at that time, but that’s why I started it.

The YouTube channel forced me to want to become better and to do more and more and do media. I saw that there was a need for people to come into crypto and talk about crypto that had a very normal tone. A lot of the content we have are complicated, scripted, and not by real people. I bring something different to the table as to how I explain different topics because tech is hard. I don’t come from a tech-savvy or STEM household. I came from a household of a legitimate single mom. She wanted me and my sisters to get up and go to school. She did the best that she could. I had to do a lot of self-teaching. I want to create a dope place for people to come and learn about crypto, and not feel stupid because nobody is stupid.

Produce New Episodes: I want to create a really dope place for people to come and learn about crypto and not feel stupid because nobody’s stupid.

That’s so important. I once had someone early on in my exploration of crypto. I hadn’t even played with it yet myself at this point. I was exploring it and trying to understand what people were doing there. I happened to meet in Hollywood this actress who was on one of my brother-in-law’s shows. She said, “I hold crypto.” I was like, “Why did you decide to do that?” That’s what fascinated me, she said, “As I was making money, I was talking to all these investment people and they made me feel stupid, but I figured everybody else was brand new to crypto so we were all going to be stupid together.” I thought that is a brilliant reason.

When I was in the process of quitting my job working in healthcare, I was at the same company for ten years. I worked in their healthcare departments for the last seven years. I’m specializing in HIV/AIDS and coordinating patients’ care. GoPro was going super crazy at the stock at that time. This was years ago. I remember walking in there into TD Ameritrade in a bougie part of Orange County and they’re like, “If you want to trade stocks you need to put $25,000 down.” I was like, “No. That’s for my college because I was quitting my job to focus on school full-time because I was doing it part-time.” They made me feel stupid. I look weird sometimes, and I’m covered in tattoos, which that’s my business. They made me feel stupid and I’m not stupid. I’m not illiterate.

No, you are not.

I know how to do things. I’m working on my speech, speaking, and all that type of stuff. It was crazy the way I felt. I knew about Bitcoin earlier and then I realized I can trade Bitcoin so I taught myself how to trade by Bitcoin and all that stuff. It was cool. The great thing about Bitcoin as another cryptocurrency asset is you can trade these things, buy, sell, and transfer them 24/7, 365. It’s a pretty cool thing because banks go down.

That’s right, they do. I watched GameStop, the documentary. I was like, “I don’t see this happening in crypto.” I don’t see it as possible with the way things work over there. It’s slightly different. I love that you decided to start your show the way that you did and that you do this live. It has a news magazine feel to it. It has a little bit of those stock trading shows conversations. You must put a lot of prep into that. Tell us how you prepare for one of your live streams.

The funny thing about it is I am a person who likes to work on the cuff of things. If I sit and prep for something, I perform a lot worse than when I’m just organic. I do have somebody that helps me in the morning, a staff member who’s my producer. He sends me daily topics like breaking news stories. It is not a script. I do read the notes he sends because he breaks them down well to my audience, but then I put in my own opinion because I want them to get what the news said, and then my own opinion.

I like to do this together with my audience because I like to be organic and raw. I scan for the news too, but it’s easier for me to have everything presented, and then I always add additional topics. Physical activity is a good prep for me. I have a very strict structure at home. That helps me put content out and whatnot. I don’t like to spend too much time going over things because these are quick news stories. They come in and come out. I want to analyze them and use critical thinking.

I want to read the headline and the story, which I do in the notes. I want to read it, get into it, and then spit out my opinion as fast as I can. The reason why is if I am sitting there and I am mulling over something, my opinion can change. I want to be able to give my audience the most transparent and honest opinion possible. That’s generally your first reaction.

Your gut is usually right. There’s scientific proof of that.

If I decide that I changed my mind, I talk about it again the next day or later on in the show after I’ve thought about it a lot more. Some people might think that that’s crazy, but I don’t want to be a scripted person. I don’t want to be one of these personalities or influencers that’s reading from a script. I don’t want to do that. I want it to be me and my opinion. If I’m not doing that, then they can just go watch Fox, CNBC, or whatever news station. They could go to somebody else. They come to me because I give it raw.

That’s the appeal. That’s what is working for you. When I look at shows, I listen to them and I’m analyzing them over time. I think of your particular binge factor and the reason I’m going to go check out shows, even though some of the data might be old. In your case, it’s not as binge-able as others. I might continue once I find your show and go forward and not miss an episode, which is a form of binge-ability.

I’m going to go back and go check out some topics and things because I need to inform myself of what you thought about this, what you did about that, and what you recommended so that I feel like I’m on the same page with you. That mix that you’re bringing in is your absolute binge factor. You’re bringing in this authenticity and realness over what you think, combined with this knowledge and understanding of how the market shifted, what’s movement, and what’s going on over time that you’re bringing to us every single day. It’s that news media analysis structure that you see on a lot of more scripted shows. Adding your realness to it makes me believe in you so much easier. A lot of people are not so believable.

I don’t want people to believe me. I don’t want people to take my word for it. I want you to hear what I say but listen to yourself. The reason why I want you to listen to yourself is because you should hear different perspectives. If you look at red, blue or at the middle and all these other things, it’s going to help you come up with a better understanding. I know that I talk on the cusp, but that’s different because I’m just one source. I want you to hear other people but to listen to yourself because if you’re just listening to me, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

Produce New Episodes: You should hear different perspectives. If you look at red, blue, or at the middle and all these other things, it’s going to help you come up with a better understanding.

I love myself and I think I’m great, but at the same time, if I’m sitting and telling you, “You have to listen and do everything I say and do as I say,” then I’m doing my audience a disservice. I’m doing the general population a disservice. Hear what I say, but listen to yourself. Come up with your own conclusions. If you want to challenge me, challenge me. I would love to do that in a very decent manner.

If you compared to some of the other shows in this niche, they are pontificating. There’s no other way to describe what they’re doing. They’re out there saying, “We’re up here and we’re telling you like it is and you should accept that.” You’re not. You’re down in the trenches. You’re doing it along with most of the people that are along with you. You’re saying, “This is what I think. Now, go analyze and figure this out for yourself,” which is important in this space because you are not them. You don’t have the same risk structure. We all need to evaluate this for ourselves.

I don’t want to be the same as anybody else. I grew up very differently than most people in the space. I want to be me and I want to adorn who I am and be proud of who I am. When I make a mistake, I want to fix it and do better. I want to be held accountable. At the same time, I also am very proud to be who I am. I’m a human. Humans make mistakes. If you’re not making mistakes, then I don’t know what to tell you.

That comes across. One of the things that I love about your show is getting those other viewpoints. It’s one way that you evaluate who you might bring on your show as guests.

There are different ways we do that. I generally like my show to be about me and not in that fashion. Let me explain a little bit. I’m not full of myself, I promise. I’m in my 30s and it has taken me decades to love who I am, accept who I am, and know that I matter. It has taken me a very long time. I’ve been through a lot of stuff. Most people build their shows with other people. I don’t want to do that. I want it to be all me.

I do have a Friday stream. On the Friday stream, any other content creator or anybody who’s in the industry is more than welcome to come on in that time slot. It’s a bunch of random people who want to come together and talk about crypto blockchain. I don’t care if you like me or don’t like me, agree or don’t agree with me or whatever it is. I leave that open for everybody.

As far as other people, we do disclose sponsored content. I do have a team that vets all of that stuff. Also, the people that I am very interested in bringing on are experts. When I talk about experts, I want crypto blockchain attorneys, people that are in politics, minors, coders, and technologists to come on. Those are the experts to me.

You want to get that perspective of what they’re into, what they’re doing, and what they’re looking for because that can broaden your research and your ability to analyze.

That’s what I like to do. If there’s a project that I think is cool, I’ll invite them to come on too.

You mentioned disclosed sponsors. That’s so critically important because we’re filming this right after Kim Kardashian paid her fine to the SEC and decided to accept that and move on. We underestimate how critically examined podcasting, video casting, and live streaming might be as we move into the future and we start to see more and more of this. Kim Kardashian has a giant audience and influence. It was easy for them to go after her. There are millions of dollars at stake. We can’t discount our ethics, integrity and ability to be honest with our audience about what’s real and what’s not, and what’s paid for and what’s not. Doing that is on us to create a better show. Podcasters ought to pay attention to it no matter how small you are.

When I started my YouTube, I disclosed everything. I got a lot of heat for it because people don’t like that in crypto. That’s fine. That’s their business. At the same time, I’m not going to leave money on the table because somebody doesn’t like what I’m doing. I’ve got things done very well. We have an email if anybody wants me to even remotely discuss their project.

There are different tiers. On Sundays, I do a community livestream where I will chart any single cryptocurrency. If you want me to talk about your project, my community can request it. I will talk about it if I think it’s a scam, terrible or great. I’ll talk about it, but I’m going to give my honest opinion. I will also disclose, “I have a partnership with them. I have a bag of this. I’ve invested in this and hold this.” I can be very transparent that way.

If it is a paid sponsorship, I have a team. The company or the person has to fill out a form. There are also disclosures there that indicate, “We’re disclosing. There are things we do and don’t do.” The team gets it. I have a guy on a salary that goes through everything that vets it. Even if it’s events. Sometimes if it’s people that want me to show up as a guest. We do our best to vet everything to the best of our ability and we disclose everything. I’ve got it in a million different places all over the channel and whatnot. We do the best we can always.

Produce New Episodes: If you’re somebody who’s interested in content, just keep making it regardless. The bear market is the time to start.

We turn down probably 90% or 95% of things that come in and that’s fine. If we get a client that looks great, then great. If we get a client that doesn’t look great, we’re going to respectfully pass. I have had some friends of mine that are involved with projects that don’t necessarily meet our criteria, which is fine. They’re allowed to come to the show on Friday and talk about their project either in the beginning or at the end as we discuss the news. I’m not being compensated for that.

They do have a shout-out opportunity which is great.

They can shout themselves out. We do our best that we can and we disclose. I do think that the SEC is a little bit problematic with the Kim Kardashian thing. The reason why they used hers is to set an example, but it wasn’t the proper example. I want your audience to understand this and I’m not saying people deserve to break the law. The thing was I don’t think she knew she was breaking the law because the SEC will pick and choose what’s security and what isn’t security. The most problematic thing about it was they went after her and they didn’t go after the actual company.

She had #ad at the bottom of it. It could have been a better disclosure and I would’ve done a better job and you would have too.

They’re trying to disclose that at the same time. I get it, but we shouldn’t be coming in with pitchforks, especially if when we’re operating a decentralized economy. Would I promote that one? No. Would we talk about it? We talked about it on the show after it happened because it went up. We were like making fun of it. We’re like, “She got in trouble.” It’s going up because everybody is talking about it and it’s her. Why doesn’t Gary Gensler get fined for this? It’s silly.

I don’t care if people want to talk about a project, talk about it. If you get paid for it, then great. Disclose it. Who cares? That’s why it goes back to the whole news thing. I’m not telling you to react to the news that I’m giving you and invest in Bitcoin because of the stock market is crashing. I do say opt-out of Bitcoin because I think Bitcoin should be something that people should consider. When I say opt-out with Bitcoin, it’s not by Bitcoin.

It’s maybe reading Satoshi’s white paper, understanding what digital cash is, understanding what self-sovereignty is, or understanding what’s happening. When you read Bitcoin’s white paper, you start to understand how the monetary system works. When I say opt-out of Bitcoin, it’s not to buy Bitcoin, it is to educate yourself. People can do whatever it is they want with it. I don’t know what to tell people. That’s that.

This would be interesting if you didn’t mind giving us some guidelines as to how you approach your own version of integrity and disclosure in your process. What do you feel is in integrity with who you are?

We go ahead and verbally call it out, “We’ve partnered with so and so.” We use the YouTube little thing which we’re putting on every single video now, no matter if we were paid or not. In the description partner, we have two additional ones. We disclose five times per thing, but one of the reasons why I’m putting promotional content in every single video when we’re talking about cryptocurrency now is because I talk about Ethereum probably every single show. I talk about Bitcoin every single show.

I have my Bitcoin and Ethereum on certain platforms that allow me to generate yield, regardless if it’s small or not small. I’m receiving compensation for some aspects of leaving my Bitcoin and Ethereum on these exchanges. If a regulatory body in the United States decides to say Bitcoin is a security or Ethereum is a security even though I wasn’t paid by Satoshi or paid by Vitalik to talk about that cryptocurrency, because I’m getting those yields, that could be classified as a security.

You’re being extra cautious here because there’s so much uncertainty.

I’m just putting it out there. I have Solana on a platform that gives me a 5% yield or whatever. If it is a partnership, we will say, “We’ve partnered with so and so,” and whatever. Partners for my YouTube channel, I have an exchange that I partnered with them. It’s on the website, in the description, and everywhere. It’s very honest. We look for projects that they have to be docs. I’m not going to accept compensation to talk about price. I would rather talk about fundamentals because that makes sense. We look at the code, their socials, and tokens. There are a lot of things we look towards. We see how their community interacts. A project might be the best project ever, but the community is toxic. Money is great but I would rather not accept compensation for talking about it.

One of the ways we met was through Kristina Bruhahn over at Continuum Market. What I love about what they’re doing is that I don’t have to do all that vetting and other things because there is a lot of documentation and vetting going on there. I can at least rely on that. What we planned to do was whenever there was one of these shows on, if I interview them here on the show and they’re in the Continuum Market. We make sure to disclose that because we do have a partnership with her.

It’s an interesting model of thinking through where your partnerships lie and how you’re going to utilize them and what you’re going to do. You’ve got a nice model that makes it simplified for you to say disclosures. Also, you don’t have to think that hard when you’re recording it like, “Did I mention this? Do I need to then put a disclosure in there?” It’s always there.

We always put it there. I don’t care who it is. I don’t care if it’s a good friend I’ve known forever. I have somebody whose job is to go through this stuff and vet everything that comes in. Also, I have a team that writes a newsletter. We don’t do sponsorships for the newsletter. The newsletter is free. It’s 100% like us. I give my team the freedom to write about whatever they want. The reason why is because we’re teaching about technology and the utility of this project. I like to give my team freedom, but I’ve got somebody that looks at everything. We do a lot of consulting behind the scenes with big brands. We still vet what they are sending.

I’m so glad you do that. That’s important. We don’t realize how big an influence we have as podcasters until somebody’s money is on the line. They’re making choices. Even if we are trying to tell them not to abide by us, they are in some respects. We need to be careful of that.

Even with the media, I always mention risk management and taking profits. “Don’t just go buy this. Please, before you do anything, join the community, read the white paper, and look at the roadmap.” We focus on those things because it’s important. Regardless if it’s paid or not. I don’t think it matters, as long as you’re doing your own research before you invest in something to make sure it’s a good fit. It’s my job to disclose, “I got a partnership with these people,” and that’s okay too.

You do a combination of lives and prerecorded. Are you seeing a difference in engagement or is there any real difference for you in the outcome of the number of listens or downloads?

It depends. The lives do good because I get to interact directly with my audience, which I love. The pre-recorded ones are a little bit harder to get interested in because the length is important, and because of TikTok, people’s average retention has gone down a lot. Sometimes I do YouTube shorts. Those can go well or not. It depends plus the market is down. It depends on the topic and the SEO. YouTube is the hardest platform to break as far as getting views. TikTok is so much easier. On Twitter, I’m just there yelling at the SEC all the time.

It has its own benefit. You feel better afterwards so it works. I love that. I thought it was great the comments that went on when I was on Friday lives. I had so much fun. They’re cheeky. Your audience is fun.

They’re great. I’ve got a great audience and I’ve prepped them too. They know, “You’re going to come with respect or I’m going to yell at you.” That’s the type of person I am because it’s important. You should show people respect. If you don’t like the content, then shut up. No one cares about your opinion.

I love the comments and the way that they do it. They didn’t even remember who some of the guests’ names are but they go, “The blonde is super funny. I love her sarcasm.” They’re commenting on stuff like that which is so great. It’s super fun. What I did find interesting is that although you’re acknowledging in the chat and everything, you’re not doing the periscope effect. It wasn’t until periscope came in that people would go, “There Joe, Bob, and Penny. Welcome to the show and I’m so glad you’re here.” They would interrupt their conversations to do that.

I do that sometimes. I try my best not to, but I do that because I want to make sure everybody is validated. I do care about my audience. I care about them a lot. I want to make sure they’re validated. I do interrupt myself sometimes.

You do that. We had a lot to pack in on that day that you maybe didn’t have a lot of time for that. I was curious as to whether or not you still do that. It makes for more editing after the fact if you’re going to use it for a podcast, but it does make a better dynamic live.

I don’t do any of the editings. Once it’s out, it’s out. If I say something bad, “Oh, well.”

It is what it is. I love that you do that. Let’s talk about return on investments. You’ve got networking going on, research that you’re doing, and marketing services that you provide. Where are you seeing the best return on investment from your show?

It depends. Because of the YouTube show, I get a lot of great opportunities. I get a lot of big brands that reach out to me for consulting behind the scenes, which is awesome. I get to travel to a lot of places because I have a show. It depends per month. I know that sounds crazy but it depends. We do disclose sponsorship that had been vetted, but we also get deals on the back end to do consulting and help brands do different things as well, plus the traveling. Sometimes I get paid to do media at events in some places. It depends on what’s going on.

What’s next for Wendy O?

I’m just going to vibe. I’m going to keep making content. That’s all.

There is so much going on that you have to keep going because we all need your info. We need your mind to help us filter through and make us think about what we need to think about. I noticed that you have a combination of shorts and longs. Are you doing more and more shorts nowadays?

It depends. YouTube’s algorithm is tough to break and they were pushing the YouTube shorts and then they stopped pushing them. I generally would do a short in the afternoon around 1:00 PM PST because I want to make sure that I do the live in the morning and get all the news out, but it depends.

I have to tell you that being on your show inspired me because every year I start a brand-new podcast. I decided that my next one when I start in 2023 is going to be a live show first. It’s going to be structured that way. You inspired me to try to make that work and figure that out because there are more niches and areas of things where live is going to make a lot of sense. I appreciate that. Especially on the marketing side and promoting your show, any advice and tactics that you use that you think are successful that you could share with our audience.

Be on multi-platforms, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, and anywhere you can share content. TikTok is a great place where you can create three-minute videos. Take those and then post them on your YouTube and Twitter. You can even cut those videos down. They’ve got effects, green screens, and all kinds of stuff, but if you’re somebody who’s interested in the content, keep making it, regardless. The bear market is the time to start if that’s something you want to do.

Produce New Episodes: If you’re somebody who’s interested in content, just keep making it regardless. The bear market is the time to start.

Thank you for that advice. CryptoWendyO show is fantastic. That’s great advice. Check out her how-to shorts, the trading series because that’s valuable as well. I love that you have your white paper right on your website. You’ve got blogs going in there and so many links to articles and other things that we might want to check out and read. Your entire website is a fantastic resource.

Thank you. The newsletters are for you. I highly recommend you take a look at it. It’s basic information on how all this stuff works. Check it out. It’s free so sign up. We’ve got events, a charity tab, and all kinds of great things there.

We’re going to check it out. Thank you for bringing all of your energy and your knowledge into the CryptoWendyO show and to the crypto space, in general. You are much needed there and a breath of fresh air.

Thank you so much.

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I found it so interesting that she doesn’t have to do as much prep for it as I thought she would. It’s mainly because she’s got her charts and her things that are going live all the time. She’s just looking at them, and then reacting and responding to them. That’s such an interesting model that she’s been able to create this way where the reactions can be authentic, but what she’s watching is something that she would normally be doing anyway. It’s more part of her daily work. That’s great and exciting.

I’m so grateful to Kristina Bruhahn from the Continuum Market Network, which is solely focused on all things Web3. She has brought me so many fascinating and interesting people like Wendy O to be able to have chats with, explore what’s going on, and think about how Web3 fits into our podcasting future, and I certainly believe that it does.

There are all kinds of interesting things here. You’ll get a kick out of getting a new view on podcasting and checking out the CryptoWendyO show. Thanks, everyone. I will be back next time with even more interesting podcasters who’ve got a different take on how to podcast and grow your business at the same time.

Important Links

• CryptoWendyO
• YouTube – CryptoWendyO
• Continuum Market

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