National podcast studio opens Main Street location
by John Benson
If podcasting had an ambassador, Brian Howie would gladly fill the role.
An award-winning writer, director and producer, Howie is also the author of “How to Find Love in 60 Seconds,” which more than five years ago he parlayed into the world’s top-rated dating and relationship podcast “The Great Love Debate with Brian Howie.”
When he’s not touring the world as part of the live interactive comedy show “The Great Love Debate,” the passionate podcaster is busy promoting the medium.
This includes recently starting his new company, PodPopuli, which last month opened its first Northeast Ohio location at 238 N. Main St.
“I’m pretty passionate about podcasting,” said Howie, calling from Fort Lauderdale. “I host four podcasts myself. We’ve produced and launched more than 100 podcasts for people around the world. We wanted to open in some communities where we felt that people could really benefit having one of the locations, because we believe everybody has a podcast in them.
“We wanted to sort of take the barrier to entry and the difficulty behind hosting and producing a podcast away from moms, kids, small business owners, dads and people with passion projects. We sort of give them a one-stop shop to create, launch, distribute and have fun hosting a podcast.”
The newly opened location and highly visible storefront was formerly home to Main Street Cupcakes.
“We had our eye on Northeast Ohio for quite some time,” Howie said. “For about a year, I always thought there’s a good sense of community. There’s a really good sense of civic pride. There are a lot of good personalities there. … I thought it was a good representation of a lot of places around the country I really like.”
As to the space in Hudson, “I just fell in love with it,” he said. “It’s a perfect small town with a great sense of community and a wonderful Main Street.”
Howie plans to have 20 stores nationwide before the end of the year. Each PodPopuli is a full-service retail podcast production hub that provides top-quality recording, producing, consulting, creative, distribution and marketing services.
The nearly 1,000-square-foot space features two studios where for an initiation fee a patron can learn the podcasting operation – from concept to monetization – before recording, which starts at $50 per episode.
“It’s really sort of podcasting A to Z,” Howie said. “Anything anybody needs related to podcasting, we handle it for them.”
For folks who have considered creating their own podcast but never went through with it, Howie once felt the same way. That’s when he talked to popular podcaster Adam Carolla, who eased his mind about the logistics: editing, distribution, etc.
“He said don’t worry about that, just focus on saying what you want to say,” Howie said. “That made things easier for me; I wanted to pass that experience on to as many people as possible, especially young kids. They all want to be YouTube stars, which their parents don’t really want.
“Podcasting is sort of a halfway point for kids to get their confidence and find their voice. Even for adults, it’s a place to discover the podcast that’s inside all of us.”
Feature image photo caption: PodPopuli customers try out the company’s new Northeast Ohio podcasting studio nestled in the former Main Street Cupcakes location. Photo courtesy of PodPopuli