Show HN: Dial-a-Podcast

It's a very interesting idea.

That stock photo is terrible though.

Looks interesting! I'll be honest took me a little longer than you'd want to work out what the product was.

I know now that it is in the name! However I'm used to ignoring names to understand what a product does. Replacing the "connecting organisations with ears" tag line with something like "Access your podcast via the phone, and get more listeners" would be more clearer even if it's not as clever.

Hmm...interesting. Yea, I've been fumbling a bit with the pricing structure. I thought a subscription model would be easiest for users to understand, and would give them some assurance that they're not opening themselves up to large costs that could come from per-a-minute billing.

The idea is that you use the free trial to show The Approver of Funds this works, then convert to whatever tier you think you need. Upgrade and downgrade as needed based on how many minutes you need.

I'm new to using Stripe with subscriptions and was following the basic framework from a tutorial. I plan to revisit how I do subscriptions, but I'm not sure what that will look like yet. Thought?

It was important to me to make this an MVP and ship it and then iterate on it.

Oh interesting, I hadn't come across them in my research. I did find zenoradio.com (which used to be http://www.audionow.com/) and they have a Call-to-listen feature with a fixed number for each podcast. However, can't get a number right away, you have to complete a certain number of sessions before they'll assign you a number (https://intercom.help/zenotools/en/articles/1843279-how-can-...).

I've also seen a few church have their own "Dial a Podcast" feature for their own sermons (which is what this originally started out as, although that was done through our self-hosted FreePBX box).

My primary target audience is smaller churches with existing podcasts who want help to reach members who don't have internet access, or are less technology inclined (not a judgement, it's just what they're comfortable with). This generally tends to be older members, so that's who I designed it in mind for.

I think having a fixed phone number and code (versus Bullhorn's rotating number) is key because you can write it on a post-it note, give it to them, and then they can call it any time. I mean, it doesn't get much simpler than, "Grandma, call this number and when the person starts talking press x-x-x-x-x-x".

Also having it be simple for churches to setup and administer is important. I've gotten several calls from other churches this year about how we do our online streaming services. Having this be a low-cost fire-and-forget was important.