Meet Lauren Popish of The Wave Podcasting

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Popish.

Lauren Popish is the founder of the award winning company, The Wave Podcasting and SWELL. The Wave was founded in 2019 with the goal of helping women share their stories through podcasting. What started as a real estate company providing highly-stylized podcast studio space for women has since become a major online educational hub. The Wave offers free educational resources including over 100 blog posts, YouTube videos, and a weekly newsletter that has amassed a cult following.

In addition to tips and tricks, female podcasters can find support through The Wave’s private Slack-based community. Members ask questions, share experiences, and participate in weekly challenges meant to improve and grow their shows.

The Wave recently announced the launch of SWELL Podcasting, a unique & groundbreaking podcast editing service exclusively for women, founded and run by women. SWELL pairs female audio engineers with female podcasters so they can grow their shows by outsourcing the tedious tasks that prevent many podcast hosts from building their audience. In the past, editing services like this could become quite costly, however, with SWELL’s revolutionary business model, editing packages can be purchased for as little as $99.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?

In 2017, I was struggling with public speaking anxiety. I had been a confident speaker in my youth, but a public speaking blunder during a routine presentation at work sparked a debilitating fear of speaking up. I felt like I was losing influence in my life, in my job, and in personal relationships. Podcasting emerged as a tool for me to practice speaking and build confidence. I couldn’t help but think that if podcasting had helped me, then there were other women who could use podcasting as a safe way to tell their stories. The company was built on a personal struggle that I want to turn into a positive impact.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about The Wave Podcasting?

When I learned that only 5% of all individuals working in audio are women, I knew I needed to challenge the existing production standards and encourage more diversity in the audio industry. That’s why I created an editing service where female podcasters could have confidence their voices are being edited only by other women. As a result, we are also creating job demand that will hopefully increase the number of women who want to become trained and work in audio production.

If this sounds kind of revolutionary, that’s because it is. SWELL is the first editing service of its kind. We also do a lot of other novel things like openly share our hiring practices and pay our editors a thriving wage.

We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?

In February 2020, I launched the first podcast studio exclusively for women. Based on that timing, you can probably guess what happened next. We had one event in the space before having to close down due to COVID-19. It would’ve been easy to close the company, but instead, I shifted to a digital format. The mission of helping women find their voice through podcasting has stayed the same. The way we support that mission is now by providing online-based educational materials and production services. Not only were we able to expand our services, but more women are able to start and grow podcasts without having to live in Los Angeles. We see risk-taking as an important part of the success we’ve been able to have.

Pricing:

• X-Small: $99/mo for up to 80 minutes of raw audio
• Small: $197/mo for up to 160 minutes of raw audio
• Medium: $284/mo for up to 240 minutes of raw audio
• Large: $377/mo for up to 320 minutes of raw audio
• X-Large: $464/mo for up to 400 minutes of raw audio
• XX-Large: $549/mo for up to 480 minutes of raw audio
• Extra 30 Minutes: Can be added to any monthly package for $40.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• The Wave Website: https://thewavepodcasting.com/
• Swell Website: https://www.swellpodcasting.com/ 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewavepodcasting/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVGKIz8106EAQT5J-Il-MPQ

Image Credits:
TartNYC, Mia Nguyen