VibeTrack
VibeTrack (or ConvoCal, name still undecided) is a premium onboarding tool for podcasters.
It lets podcasters onboard their guests in a way that’s optimal for their own schedule and their guest’s.
Let’s say a podcaster prefers to meet in person to record, and their preference is to meet within an thirty minute drive of their home, but they are also open to audio and video chats depending on the time of day. Also, let’s assume the podcaster needs to provide context to their guest or collaborate with them beforehand.
Scheduling tools exist, but they don’t necessarily have location-dependent schedules, since they are intended for business meetings, where video or audio chat is the default and availability is binary (either you’re working and available or you’re not).
Collaboration tools exist, but they are more general purpose, and also (obviously) separate from the scheduling tools.
VibeTrack would make it easier for podcasters who have a more nuanced availability and meeting preference to onboard and collaborate with guests of their show.
Why would podcasters adopt it? By choosing an optimal location for both parties, there is a higher chance of a better podcast. It should also make scheduling easier and reduce back and forth.
Also, a great onboarding experience can help elevate the brand of the podcast in the mind of the guest, since it conveys that the podcaster cares about their guest’s experience. Which should contribute to a better conversation.
VibeTrack would start as an onboarding tool, but eventually there would be more features.
Once the onboarding and scheduling tool works very well, the second phase would be to enable users to “design” their conversations.
Similar to how Canva works, users could select from a database of “elements”. Instead of the elements being images, artwork, and text boxes though, the elements would be ones that make up a podcast conversation (questions, prompts, topics, chapters, etc..). Users could also select a “template” for their conversation and edit from there.
Later on, more features would be added. Ideas include:
- An analytics tool (to analyze stats across platforms in one place)
- AI tool that listens to the conversation and surfaces relevant content from the web and attempts to fact-check statements and statistics
- Request to go on a podcast
- Suggest a person to go on a podcast
- A way to reward and/or pay for guests (e.g. for researchers, speaking arrangements)
- A way to arrange meet and greets (for podcasts with bigger followings)
v1
The first version of VibeTrack will let you create meeting types (e.g. if you have multiple shows that you host), location-based schedules (e.g. Chicago in-person 5pm-7pm & Video Calls 8pm-10pm), and add in questions for their guest to answer.
The v1 will also have an asynchronous feature.
As a host, you will have the option to let your guests choose a specific day and general time of day (e.g. December 12th, Evening), and then confirm a specific time later on, X number of days before the meeting, where X is set by the host (e.g. if X is 3, then a reminder to confirm a time would be sent December 9th). If this feature gets used, then it would be expanded so that a host could allow a guest to choose a week, and then confirm a specific day and/or time before that week begins.
These two features will help set VibeTrack apart from other scheduling tools, and make it more suitable for podcasters who prefer in-person and more asynchronous meetings.
Bigger Picture
In the longer term, VibeTrack can go one of two paths.
The first path is to continue adding features that solve problems for podcasters. The other path is to be more general purpose scheduling tool, and cater to people that have a preference for both in-person and asynchronous meetings.
For now, my preference is to do B2B software, and also build for a specific niche/persona, so building for podcasters and solving their problems will be the current goal. Also, I want to launch my own podcast, and my preference is to meet in person, so I’m sort of building for myself, which I think is much easier than building for a customer you don’t understand.
If VibeTrack goes the way of the general purpose scheduling tool path, then I think ConvoCal will be a better name (and I’ll change the name at that point).
What are your thoughts on VibeTrack? Leave a comment and let me know. Thanks for reading!
