How Project Brazen builds huge audiences for its narrative podcasts

The startup operates almost like a movie studio in how it produces shows.

You may have noticed recently that most of the podcasts generating multi-million dollar paydays are chat shows centered around star hosts. Meanwhile, many of the major platforms and media outlets have pulled back their investments in narrative podcasts, mostly because they’re expensive to produce and more difficult to monetize.

But at least one company remains committed to narrative shows: Project Brazen. Founded by two former Wall Street Journal reporters, the startup operates almost like a movie studio in how it produces shows, and it’s launched several narrative series that went on to top the podcast download charts.

In an interview, co-founder Bradley Hope walked through every aspect of its marketing strategy, including Project Brazen’s pre-launch checklist, its approach to public relations, and how it leverages its own growing network to boost a new show.

Check out the interview below:

Transcript

Hey Bradley, thanks for joining us.

Hey Simon, how are you?

I'm doing great. It's great to have you on. So we've had you on before where you talked about Project Brazen and told the story of the founding and everything like that. We don't want to rehash all of that here, but just to bring people up to speed on what Project Brazen is, what year did you launch Project Brazen?

It's been three years now, so I guess, yeah, whatever year that was.

Yeah, and you launched it with a partner. You were a Wall Street Journal reporter and you launched it with another former Wall Street Journal reporter.

Yeah, that's Tom Wright. He's based in Singapore and I'm based in London.

Yeah, and it was kind of like you were building off the momentum of a major investigation that you had done at Wall Street Journal, and then also both of you teamed up to write a book about it.

Yeah, that's right. That was the beginning of our partnership. We worked together at the Wall Street Journal for several years, really extensively every single day. And then we wrote a book called Billion Dollar Whale.

And you launched Project Brazen three years ago. What's kind of the elevator pitch for what Project Brazen is? Because it's not a traditional media outlet as most people think of it.