Matt Hunckler 00:14
Powderkeg fans, this is Episode 127 of powder cake igniting startups, the show for
entrepreneurs, leaders and innovators building remarkable tech companies in areas
decidedly outside of Silicon Valley. I’m your host, Matt Hunckler. And in today’s episode,
we’re testing out a new format to bring you something raw and authentic from the
powder keg community. This is a five minute live startup pitch from our recent Powder Keg
pitch night event that featured some of the most innovative marketing tech companies
scaling in areas right here in the center of America. In today’s episode, you’re gonna get to
hear from Lindsey Tjepkema, who is the CEO and co founder of Casted the first b2b
podcasting platform helping b2b podcasters and content marketers be more effective
Through better measurement and activation of their podcasts. Lindsay has just five
minutes to pitch cast it to a live panel of investors and industry experts. Four experts you’ll
hear from in this episode include Senior Vice President at the Chicago based venture fund
50 South capital, Aaron Gilliam, also private equity technology investor at the New York
based private equity firm. Warburg Pincus that’s Maloney Medan Next up we have
Executive Vice President of technology for Indianapolis based Salesforce Marketing
Cloud. That is Shaam Nair. And finally, President at the National SAS PR firm blast media,
Lindsay graeber. She has been on the powder keg stage a number of times and always
has awesome feedback which she does not fail to deliver on in this episode. Lindsey Jeff
kemah CEO of cast it is an experienced content marketer and brand builder creates well
planned and well executed campaigns. She’s got a ton of great experience. Cassatt
recently announced their $2.35 million round of seed funding, just weeks before she took

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the stage at this powder keg pitch. Here’s Lindsey.

Lindsay Tjepkema 02:17
Alright, so I want to get started with some interaction. Somebody shout out what this is.
Yeah, it’s a toy car. Right specifically, it’s a Hot Wheels, right? So we all played with these
when we were younger, and they’re really fun props for your imagination. But if you were
to go try try to rent when an actual race try to win the Indy 500. Would you I don’t have
the clicker. You would need a clicker. My bad. Would you use one of these? No, of course
not. You would use an actual race car, right? Hopefully a good one. And so it’s not all that
different with marketing. You When you have big goals on behalf of your brand, you need
the right equipment to go and achieve those goals. And, you know, it’s actually not all
that different with podcasting, either. And why would it be? Because podcast listenership
is exploding. An interesting thing happened about a year ago, where more people are
listening to podcasts than those who are not. So if you’re not listening to podcasts, you’re
officially in the minority now, which is crazy, right? which opens up an incredible
opportunity for brands to connect with their audiences. And so there’s this huge
opportunity marketers understand it. They’re flocking to podcasts as part of their content
strategy. But you might be surprised to know, or maybe you’ve experienced it yourself.
That the tools and technologies and software that exists to support podcasts are not
made for marketers. They’re not made for branded podcasts. And I know this firsthand.
Because I’ve been there, spent my whole career in marketing, and most recently was a
marketing leader at a global marketing technology software company here in Indy, where
I had the pleasure and the luxury of being able to launch a podcast. And I noticed really
quickly two things. One, it was an incredible way to connect with my audience, and to the
technology and the software that was available to me, wasn’t made for me. And so we
were not able to get the value out of the show that we wanted. So started casting. We’re
the first and only marketing platform made specifically for branded podcast and to serve
the marketing teams behind them. And so cast it enables marketers to manage, activate
and measure their shows to understand how they’re providing value to their brands, and
how they’re feeling pipeline. But what does it do? Well, we started out by saying What is
the biggest problem that marketers are facing as they tried to have podcasts? Not only
me. But we talked to more than 75 different marketers, not only in the community, but
literally around the world. And we all found that they were struggling with the same issues
that I was having, and that the technology was not made for them. So they were using all
these one off tools and point solutions, these to manage their podcast. So we said, okay,
let’s make a platform where you can manage your show, all in one place. And next,
activate. So once you create your show, how are you bringing it out to get as much value
as possible. So cast that helps you pull that investment that you’ve made into creating
that one episode, and from one thing, create many supplemental pieces of content that
L

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can be used across multiple marketing channels, so you can get maximum value again,
out of your show, and measure. We go beyond vanity metrics, like number of downloads,
to help marketers understand things that are really valid. For their brand, things like
engagement and attribution, to help them again understand the value that their show is
making and how it’s impacting their brand. And that’s why some of today’s most forward
thinking brands, a lot of which are here tonight, but companies like drift and pendo and
logic gate in Terminus, signed on with us really early, and we got some incredible early
momentum with what we’re doing at caston helping companies to understand the value
of their podcasts and to put authentic conversations at the center of their strategies. So
these companies and many more have already graduated from this to the IndyCar, I
would say of podcasting with casting, and thanks to cast it, they are understanding. we’re
empowering marketers to manage activate and measure their shows in a way that they
never have before. So again, cast it first and only marketing platform built around
branded podcasts is Here today. So my call to action for all of you, I would ask that you
would visit casta.us. And you would look for our chat bot which is pod cat. And it’s
mentioned Powder Keg for something really special. And we also have someone in the
back who can give you a live demo today.

07:20
Lindsay, that was awesome.

07:23
Despite me not giving you the clicker. I promised Shawn I was gonna definitely give him
the clicker. I forgive you. Shawn, do you mind kicking us off this time? Sure.

07:33
In the age of modern age, bear email, batch blast marketing is still the king. How do you
see this becoming a power house for marketers to actually move away to much more
modern technologies.

07:49
Right. So I’m glad that you asked that because podcasting right now is kind of this one off
siloed thing over on the side and there’s not a real Great way to integrate it with other
things that do work like email. And so in castin, specifically, again, you can pull out pieces

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of that show that you’ve created. And for example, create a clip that you can embed into
an email to not only promote your show, but to promote your brand and to invite people
in to a conversation that you’ve had and to invite them to engage with other content that
you’ve got.

08:25
Great question. Well, Ronnie,

08:29
first of all, really interesting, trailblazing technology. I definitely haven’t heard of anything
that’s doing what you guys are doing. Thank you. Congrats on that. My question is around
your buyers. How do you think about how they think about the ROI on investing in
Katherine?

08:45
Yeah, great question. So our buyers, our brands, typically marketing directors, VPS of
marketing who are interested in both engagement and understanding how to increase
connection with our audiences, but then also want to be To provide some metrics around
what matters, right? And so right now, we’re all limited to number of downloads, which
What does that even mean? And so what we are doing and cast it is saying, How can we
break that down and provide information about engagement? So when someone comes
into listen to your episode, or listen to a clip, what else are they doing? How are they
engaging with the rest of the content that we’re recommending on that page that may or
may not be a podcast, right? How are they clicking? Where are they coming from? Where
are they going to? And what information can we provide back to those leaders of
marketing to help them understand how those conversations are fueling their pipeline? So
it’s going much, much further than Did someone click and listen, but what else did they
do? Okay,

09:41
question, Ronnie. Aaron,

09:42

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very cool platform. Um, could you discuss a little bit about the competitive landscape and
just kind of how caste it is differentiating itself in the market from other people who might
be trying to do what you’re doing?

09:52
Of course, so I always feel a little bit facetious in those situations, but honestly, I was
shocked that when I tried to start a project So when I started a podcast on my own, that
there that this didn’t already exist, and that we were forced in to these into duct taping
together a solution. And so honestly, there we are the first to market here, which is pretty
great. But we do have competition, always, always, obviously. And right now it is all of
these one off tools and point solutions that people have just accepted as status quo. And
so when we’re going out, as Matt mentioned, is in starting a new conversation and
creating a new category and a new line item that says, hey, you know, you don’t have to
settle for all these different solutions, many of which weren’t even made for podcasting.
This is actually made for you. So our biggest competition is really going against all the
little solutions that are out there and saying, hey, it doesn’t have to be that way.

10:44
And Lizzie, you want to bring us home.

10:47
Hi, Lindsay. Hi, Lindsay.

10:50
Had to sorry.

10:53
Like a special Lindsay thing?

10:55
Yes,

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10:56
we know each other like such an outsider.

10:59
So there’s already A ton of content tools that marketers use and love. Right? I mean,
there’s HubSpot content leads path factories. And do you have plans to or how do you
envision costed working with these technologies to keep people using what they know
and love but also being able to plug cast it into that scenario?

11:19
Yeah. So we are actually already starting to work on integrations right now, with
companies like HubSpot and drift, which is not only their great customer and we use
everybody loves drift, right? To say, hey, like you said, How can you put podcasts and
authentic conversations at the center of your marketing strategy, not only in theory, but
also in practice by putting by using cast and integrating with the other tools that you’re
using. So it’s, it’s a strong part of our strategy right now, especially now that we’ve crossed
series seed to go start investing in those relationships and make it even easier to use gas
it.

11:53
Let’s give it up for Lindsey Jeff kemah I cast it.

Matt Hunckler 11:57
That’s it for today’s episode. Thank you so much for listening. And a huge thank you to
Lindsay chip kemah of casting, as well as, of course our investors, our industry experts and
other advisors who you heard on this episode, and to those who attended our event live at
the Vogue in Indianapolis they were almost 400 people there in attendance. for links to
the social profiles for Lindsay costed are investors and industry experts and the other
people, companies and resources mentioned in this episode, head on over to powder keg
calm. Check out those show notes check out some of the other episodes as well. You know
Cassatt is the latest company to launch from Minneapolis based venture studio hi alpha.
You may recognize that name from Episode One of the powder keg Podcast, where we
interviewed high alpha partner Christian Anderson, I definitely recommend going to
check that episode out over on Powder Keg calm. We also have another half a partner

coming up in an upcoming episode, so stay tuned for that, to be among the first to hear
these stories about entrepreneurs, investors and other tech leaders growing in areas
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